BRM Reviews the 10/5/2022 Dynamite (bad)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 10/5/2022 Dynamite (bad)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 7th, '22, 01:57

MJF vs. WHEELER YUTA- 8/10
The announcers (in this case, Taz, William Regal, Excalibur, and Tony Schiavone) are talking about what a major line MJF crossed by putting his hands on Tony Schiavone… and we still haven’t heard even a peep about MJF being punished for doing this horrible, terrible thing.
I laughed my ass off at the idea of MJF using the claim that he was fasting for Yom Kippur as an excuse to have in his back pocket if he loses (and having Taz plant it for him). Then Excalibur proceed to wish all of AEW’s Jewish viewers a happy new year. You’d think with all of that time he spent in a JCC, he would at least know which high holiday is which, but apparently not.

These two had a match that build wonderfully, and showed us a side of MJF’s in-ring ability that we don’t usually get to see. MJF won pretty much, cleanly, too.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- dumb
Wheeler YUTA offers MJF a handshake. MJF seems like he is about to do it, but Lee Moriarty flies in from off-screen and attacks YUTA from behind. He starts to attack YUTA, but MJF gets angry at him, shouting “I didn’t tell you to do that!” Stokely Hathaway comes out and hands MJF the Dynamite Diamond Ring, and MJF acts all reluctant about hitting YUTA.
WHY? Because they have “history together?” So what? MJF is a scumbag. When has that ever mattered to him? Why should it matter now? How could anyone- including f*cking YUTA himself- think that a hard-fought match and a nice show of respect would somehow make MJF not be an asshole?
Anyway, none of YUTA’s friends are watching this match, apparently, so it’s up to William Regal to finally get up and put on his brass knuckles and slowly move towards the ring to “put a stop to this,” even MJF could have easily punched the helpless YUTA with the diamond and been out of the ring before Regal even got his knucks on his he had wanted it. Stokely and Moriarty ran away, and then MJF left, too.
And what purpose did any of this serve? To build up to some swerve with MJF that our babyfaces would have to be idiots not to see coming? To start to turn MJF babyface so that you can feud him with the nobodies in the Firm?

MAIN EVENT VIDEO PACKAGE- Excalibur claimed this match was “three years in the making” even though half of the guys in the match weren’t even in the company at the time.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS THE JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY- This would have been very good, if not for two things. The first was the dumb sh*t about the hat. That’s not what’s important here, and it set the tone that this whole thing was a joke.
The second was Tony Schiavone saying that all the help Jericho gave Daniel Garcia to get to where he is was “systematic cheating.”
No, I haven’t been abducted by aliens.
I was happy to hear someone finally call the out. Unfortunately, though, it shines a light on one of those big flaws of Tony Khan’s booking that is the reason why he will never be the great booker that so many (himself included) seem to think he is: He wants to have his cake and eat it, too.
If it was “systematic cheating” now, it was “systematic cheating” when it happened, too. But it was never treated that way by the announcers, or by anyone else, for that matter. For the most obvious example (and the example most relevant to this particular story), let’s look at match where Garcia got his “big win” against Bryan Danielson. That only happened because of interference by the JAS. And yet the announcers didn’t portray it that way at all. The talking about was that this was a HUGE win for Daniel Garcia and an indicator that he was now truly a big-time player. Danielson never acknowledged it, either. He was just interested in getting a rematch with Garcia so that he could get his win back. And Garcia himself, who was so upset that Jericho ruined the moment of his hero Bryan Danielson showing him respect after a match Garcia lost to Danielson that that was what made him start to sour on Jericho didn’t care at all that his first match against Danielson was marred by Jericho’s crew interfering. He even went around bragging about this ill-gotten win. And what was the next step in Garcia souring on Jericho? Garcia was upset that Jericho cheated to beat Danielson at All Out… even though Garcia’s own win over Danielson was a result of cheating, and Garcia hasn’t acknowledged that at all.
If Garcia was benefitting from “systematic cheating,” it diminishes his accomplishments because- by the very definition of cheating- he didn’t accomplish those things fairly. Either Garcia’s win over Danielson and some of his other wins are not that big a deal because there was systematic cheating, or those wins were big deals, and systematic cheating was irrelevant. You cannot celebrate Mark McGwire if you want to talk about the evils of steroid use in baseball.

Someone finally remembered that Jericho assaulted Bobby Cruise at the end of last week’s show. What Jericho did to Cruise was MUCH worse than what MJF did to Schiavone, but no one is acting like Jericho should be burned at the stake.
Excalibur thinks “relentless” is more than one word.

JAY LETHAL vs. DARBY ALLIN- 6.75/10
Lethal worked over the knee. He was in firm control of the match, but got distracted when his friends came out, even though he had told them to stay in the back, thus letting Darby recover. Darby won soon afterwards by winning a series of roll-ups.
Darby offered Lethal a handshake, and Lethal took it, despite Sonjay Dutt and Satnam Singh telling him not to. So now, completely out of nowhere, we have a babyface turn that no one has been asking for, created by a completely forced situation (Lethal has shown zero qualms about his guys helping him win, so why would he accept Darby’s challenge for his guys to stay in the back for this match?).
I assume the reasoning for this is either one or both of the following:
A. They want to turn Lethal babyface so that he can be a former ROH World Champion that Jericho runs through.
B. They think Satnam Singh is ready for a match, and Lethal has been helping him, so they think he’d be most comfortable against Lethal.
Either or both of those are decent reasons, but this has come so out of nowhere as to make it all feel forced. If it’s just option B, then they needed to spend a lot more time planting seeds. If either option A or both, I think they made a big mistake by not having a desire to save the ROH World Title from Jericho be the thing that turns him face (and then, once Lethal is established as an ROH guy who wants to do things the right “ROH way,” you can do this sort of angle to split him off from Dutt and Singh.

EMBASSY VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- GREAT!
Nana is usually good, but I was absolutely shocked that Brian Cage cut such a good promo.

While Excalibur was letting the fans know who Prince Nana is, it occurred to me that there is an alternate reality where CHIKARA did a Cibernetico with the stipulation that if Team Kofi Kingston beat the Embassy, Prince Nana must renounce all of his royal titles and authority, and thus will no longer be able to tax the people of Ghana into poverty to help him buy wrestlers’ contracts.


AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Wardlow(c) vs. Brian Cage (w/Prince Nana)- 7/10
And what, exactly, has Brian Cage done to earn this shot?
They did lots of cool power spots and athletic big-man spots. If you want to know how to get back to your feet immediately after taking a big move like a suplex without killing the impact of the move by no-selling it, watch what Brian Cage does here. And I can’t believe I’m tying that sentence about f*cking Brian Cage.
Wardlow won after a Powerbomb Symphony, which always comes off terribly douchy to me.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
One Gate of Agony came out to attack Wardlow, so Samoa Joe came out to make the save. The other Gate attacked Joe. FTR came out to make the save. They had a long stare-down with the Gates of Agony, setting up another title match where the challengers haven’t done sh*t.

BRITT BAKER PROMO- She announces that Saraya isn’t medically cleared to compete in AEW, and then steals Saraya’s catchphrase. Dr. Baker is already getting cheered way too much. Who thought it was a good idea to have her cut this promo?

TONI STORM, WILLOW NIGHTENGALE, & ATHENA (w/Saraya) vs. SERENA DEEB, JAMIE HAYTER, & PENELOPE FORD (w/Kip Sabian, Rebel, & Dr. Britt Baker, DMD)- 5.75/10
Why is Kip Sabian still carrying that stupid box around?
I thought Athena had learned to leave her sh*tty Archangel Cosplay wings at home.
They did stuff. Saraya kept Britt from interfering. Willow pinned Penelope.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- painfully forced
Britt got in Saraya’s face, so they started fighting. Is Saraya cleared or not? Because if she’s not, security should have come out to stop this before she got crippled. Everyone else joined in. Rebel got trapped in the ring with Saraya, because she was too dumb to move right, left, or backwards. Instead, she started begging for mercy, and got the exact amount she deserved (hint: it’s the same amount of title challengers in AEW over the past month who have done enough to reasonable justify their title shots. Double hint: that’d be zero).

EARLIER TODAY, TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWED THE AFO- dull
This existed s that Jose to could accuse Private Party of not being there for the stable. He and Rush insisted that Private Party “do the right thing” tonight in Rush’s match with Adam Page.

THE ACCLAIMED CELEBRATE NATIONAL SCISSORING DAY- F*CKING HORRENDOUS!
They said dumb sh*t. Bowens in particular was bad, doing a political speech parody about “Sneaky Swerve,” and how “the people want to be represented by a real team” instead of two guys who were just thrown together. And it’s a real shame, too, because Caster’s few lines about his father winning the Superbowl in DC and how much his father’s Superbowl ring means to him was the kernel of what could have been a tremendous promo if it wasn’t in the middle of goofball juvenile horsesh*t.
After WAY too much f*cking time, Shane Strickland came out. I was hoping he would come out with a shoulder-launcher Stinger missile and shoot it at the ring and kill Billy Gunn and the Acclaimed, but no such luck. He cut a promo pointing out that the Acclaimed only won the titles because Billy Gunn interfered, and thus challenged Billy to a match next week so that he could take Billy out and ensure that Billy didn’t interfere in a potential rematch. How is Shane Strickland not the babyface in this situation?
Strickland said that “rock beats scissors,” and announced that- as a tie-in with Black Adam, he and Keith Lee would have Dwayne Johnson in their corner to counteract Billy Gunn.
Nah. I’m just kidding. But at least I’m smiling again now, thinking about the Rock’s promo on Billy Gunn where G-d tells Billy Gunn “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!” That Dwayne was a funny guy.
Strickland did actually use the “rock beats scissors” line, though. Then he pulled out an actual rock from his pocket. I was hoping he would at least throw the rock at Billy’s head, but no luck there, either.
Instead, we got Mark Sterling coming out and declaring that “paper covers rock,” and trying to get the Acclaimed to sign with him. Instead of just saying “no” like grown adults, these assholes assaulted Mark Sterling. Why would anyone cheer for them?

DARK ORDER PROMO- snore
Apparently some of them are getting an AEW World Trios Championship match next week because… um…
Anyway, this Friday will be a big show for them because of that and 10 putting his mask on the line, and also because it’s the 2nd anniversary of Brodie Lee’s last match… which feels really forced because the first anniversary passed last year without them evening mentioning it. It feels like all of these “big” matches for the Dark Order are happening because the booker got an idea to push this show around this (quite frankly silly) anniversary rather than coming about in any sort of organic way, and that is a failure of storytelling.
Also, John Silver decided it would be a good idea to make fun of a foreigner’s accent. What a great babyface he is.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH MADISON RAYNE & SKYE BLUE IS INTERRUPTED BY TAY CONTI & ANNA JAY- bad
Madison shot any kayfabe credibility she had in the foot by claiming to see a lot of potential in Skye Blue. This came off like a mom insisting that her moderately attractive daughter will be the prettiest girl at the dance. I’m not saying there is nothing there, but the praise feels unearned, especially when you look at the rest of the division. Even compared to someone like Willow Nightengale, who is nowhere close to a first-round pick if you’re drafting for a roster that will be a top-notch division five years from now, Skye Blue feels about four levels below.
They were then interrupted by people who feel like they are much bigger reservoirs of untapped potential than Skye Blue: Anna Jay and Tay Conti. They said that instead of a wrestling coach, Skye needed a “sports entertainment coach” to teach her to have more personality and charisma. As stupid as that line itself sounds being spoken by a human… they’re not wrong.
Skye Blue “retorted” by admitting that they were right that she needed to “work on” her charisma, but said that they should work on their wrestling. Considering the fact that both members of Tay-Jay have actually won matches recently, while Skye Blue has the same number of wins on AEW TV in her career as I do, I’m not really sure that’s a good line of attack for her. That’s like some scrub who plays in the Turkish league and somehow got a PTO to Lakers training camp telling LeBron James to work on his jump-shot.
A tag match was made for Rampage, because why not?


ADAM PAGE vs. RUSH (w/Jose the Assistant)- 6.5/10
Holy f*ck, Rush did a clean job! MJF was shown watching backstage.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Private Party came out to menace Page, but left when Jon Moxley showed up. Moxley and Page got nose-to-nose. Moxley cut a great promo on Page. Page responded by telling Moxley “if you’ve been waiting for this for so long, let’s go right now.” Then Jon Moxley, the guy who loves fighting… just didn’t fight, and kept threatening Page instead, then left. Moxley looked like a coward here. He came out talking a big game, Page called him on it, and Moxley backed down, even though he was fresh and Page wasn’t.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS WILLOW NIGHTENGALE- bad
She wants to challenge Jade Cargill for the TBS Title at Battle of Belts. Jade and her entourage just so happened to be walking by at the time. Words were exchanged. Willow came off like a slightly more credible version of how Skye Blue came off earlier. She has gotten a little bit of build, but basing your promo about “you’ve beaten twice, yes, but sooner or later you’ll lose because you can’t just keep winning forever” is not a promo that inspires us to have confidence in our babyface.

FUEGO DEL SOL vs. LUCHASAURUS (w/Fuego del Sol)- squash

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good promo, questionable booking
Luchasarus goes to attack Fuego some more because he’s mean. Jungle Boy came out to make the save with a chair. Jungle Boy cut a really good fiery promo about how Luchasarus was his “best friend” and “you broke my heart.” Why could he have cut his kind of promo right away instead of coming off like an asshole and saying “you suck, and I had to carry you?”
It also got me thinking… have we even gotten an explanation for why Luchasarus turned on his best friend?
Anyway, Jungle Boy said that Christian could name the time and place; he just wanted a match against Luchasaurus. Chrisitan declared that the match would happen next week in Toronto. Is that really the best idea to book this match in the lead heel’s home town?

Announced for Rampage is Rush & Private Party vs. Moxley, Claudio, and Wheeler YUTA. Also, that ROH World Tag Team Title match they “set up” earlier via stare-down is official for Battle of the Belts. Battle of the Belts is happening right after Rampage… and someone had the bright idea to have the heel Pac have to wrestle twice, defending two titles.

PAC VS. TRENT BARETTA VIDEO PACKAGE- fine

BRYAN DANIELSON & DANIEL GARCIA vs. THE JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY (Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara)- 6.75/10
The heels won a disappointing match via cheating. Ian Riccaboni was on commentary. When Jericho cheated to help Sammy get the pin via baseball bat, Ian insisted that “this isn’t the Ring of Honor I remember.” He and I must have been watching a different ROH for the past seven years, then.


Another bad episode of Dynamite. Once again, good wrestling is not enough to overcome terrible comedy crap and bad storylines.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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