BRM Reviews the 4/20/2022 Dynamite

[Big Red Machine]

DUSTIN RHODES vs. CM PUNK- 7.75/10
This match was great, but booking it was a terrible idea. No matter how poorly Dustin’s story about this being his “last shot” has been told (and it has been told quite poorly, springing into existence out of nowhere, with getting revenge on Lance Archer for something that happened almost two years prior suddenly becoming the most important thing in the world to Dustin), there is no denying that it’s a story that is resonating with people. As a result, you had Punk, who is being built up as a babyface for a world title shot, getting booed, which is not what you want.
Even worse, however was the fact that Dustin losing here to a top contender does irreparable damage to that story. The natural conclusion (pun not intended) for this sort of story is Dustin going on a run and getting a shot at the world title, with the idea of “can he finally do it?” He shouldn’t win, but if you build it up right, you can get to that point where for the key split second between “two” and “three” in a nearfall, people will forget that they know Dustin isn’t getting the belt.
A story like that, however, is the sort of story that you can’t just start and stop with. If Dustin keeps going on good runs and then getting cooled off and then getting hot again and then getting cooled off, it’s not the “one last great run” he has in him. They already started the story with the Lance Archer match, and throughout this match J.R. was pushing the idea that Dustin had been finding ways to win matches that he “shouldn’t.” He needs to be a freight train, and him losing here (especially to a top contender for the world title, in a match where the announcers keep telling us that he is focused on the world title) completely destroys that. Like two months ago when Christopher Daniels returned out of nowhere just so they could have a thematic match after Tony Khan announced that he bought ROH, AEW has completely squandered a potentially memorable story. Whether out of short-sightedness or out of impulsiveness, I don’t know, but either way, it’s not good.

Adam Page came out after the match to have a stare-down with Punk.

EARLIER TODAY, WARDLOW ARRIVES AT THE BUILDING- bad
He was met by Mark Sterling and legions of security. Security will escort Wardlow around at all times, and he’ll have to wear handcuffs. Wardlow is an idiot and doesn’t see an obvious trap coming, so he allows himself to be handcuffed.

BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB vs. BROCK ANDERSON, DANTE MARTIN, & LEE MORIARTY (w/Arn Anderson)- 5.75/10
Does anyone else find it a little weird that they booked this six-man tag in which one of the teams consists of two guys who have a regular tag team partner, and the third guy is neither of their regular tag partners?
Decent action, but it took the Blackpool Combat Club FAR too long to beat three guys who are WAY below them on the card.

YOUNG BUCKS, ADAM COLE, & reDRagon PROMO- bad
This was far too goofy. Cole wants them all to work together, so they care going to make an open challenge for a ten-man tag next week.

SAMOA JOE VS. JAY LETHAL & FRIENDS VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- decent

TONY KHAN MAKES A MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT- bad
Tony brings out the president of New Japan… and then suddenly the camera cuts to Adam Cole. If I’m Tony Khan, the first thing I’m doing when I get backstage is marching into the production truck and firing the producer. I mean really! What kind of idiot has his boss about to make this major announcement that has been hyped up for a week, and then cuts away to someone else in the middle of it?
Cole announces that NJPW and AEW will be putting on a joint show in June called Forbidden Door. Also, on Rampage, Cole will be facing Tomohiro Ishii in an Owen Hart Tournament qualifying match, just in case anyone was wondering what it looks like when someone no-sells superkicks.
He also said that the finals of the Owen Hart Tournament would take place at Double or Nothing 2022, and guaranteed that a member of his stable would win.
He then sends Jay White out, who claims to have singlehandedly sold out MSG the last time NJPW put on such a huge joint show. The fans cheered for what was supposed to be a big heel line (because we all know that it was Matt Taven who singlehandedly sold out MSG).
Whoever came up with the idea of Cole and White doing this is an idiot. It’s 2022. Anyone booking wrestling should know that in this era, fans aren’t going to boo a heel for stealing the thunder of the promoter making a big announcement. They’re just going to cheer the big announcement.
And what end is served by having these guys do this? Are they going to feud with Tony Khan and Tony is going to pull together a crew of babyfaces to represent AEW?

JADE CARGILL & FRIENDS PROMO- bad
Jade’s promo was fine, but I despise the fact that the previously babyface Red Velvet has now turned heel because she’s a mark for another wrestler. I also didn’t like the way Jade came across in her attitude towards them. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would give a sh*t if either of these two losers will be sitting in her fan section or not.

THE BUTCHER vs. WARDLOW- 3.5/10
MJF and Shawn Spears were in a skybox. I laughed a Spears throwing popcorn onto the fans below him.
Wardlow defeated the Butcher with relative ease. That was it. There was no trap. WHY? Why is MJF, the most dastardly heel in the company, deciding to play fair all of a sudden?

EDDIE KINGSTONY PROMO- awesome!
He faces Daniel Garcia on Rampage (apparently they agreed to for everyone to be barred from ringside), and he wants Chris Jericho to know that everything he does to Garcia will be coming to Jericho as well.

MEN’S OWEN HART FOUNDATION QUALIFYING MATCH: Kyle O’Reilly vs. Jungle Boy- 8/10
Kyle won clean. Excellent stuff.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS MJF (& SHAWN SPEARS)- good promo, dumb follow-up
MJF cut a good promo, but then he revealed that the next person he was going to pay off to take out Wardlow would be Jake Roberts and Lance Archer. Jake cut a promo saying that titles weren’t important, only money. Archer then cut a promo saying that he didn’t care about the money either, and only wanted to fight Wardlow, and that anyone who got in his way would do. Why does Archer want to fight Wardlow so badly all of a sudden?

HOOK vs. ANTHONY HERNY- no rating, meh segment
Tony Nese and Mark Sterling were shown watching from the crowd. Am I the only one who thought Hok was wrestling Nese?
There was woman in the front row with a “WE WANT DANHAUSEN” sign. Clearly this woman is a liar, as “we” implies that it’s more than just her who wants Danhausen, and that can’t possibly be true.
Hook won a squash. Danhausen showed up and did his thing. Hook ignored him. Danhausen said he wanted to fight Hook now. I was hoping that Hook would kick Danhausen in the nuts, drag him up to the roof of the building and powerbomb him off of it, but Hook just ignored him again instead. Highly disappointing.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH FRANKIE KAZARIAN IS INTERRUPTED BY SCORPIO SKY- dumb
We haven’t seen Kazarian since January and we haven’t seen him win a match on TV in ALMOST EIGHT MONTHS, but apparently he is 10-1 and has “one of the best records in AEW.”
Apparently Kaz has made it clear that he wants to go after the TNT Title. Scorpio Sky asks him to let to him (meaning Sky) challenge Sammy Guevara first on account of their deep friendship (and Sky will then give Kaz the first title shot when he wins the belt back).
Eleven months ago on this show (the 5/12/2021 Dynamite), Kazarian and Daniels did an interview where they expressed their disappointment at the fact that the Young Bucks- who they said had been their friends for a long time, although such a thing had never been mentioned on screen- were beginning to act like jerks. Meanwhile, Scorpio Sky, who had been their best friend and part of their group ON-SCREEN had turned heel, and they didn’t seem to care about it and weren’t asked about it at all. That friendship was completely irrelevant when the booker needed it to be irrelevant, but now that the booker wants it to be relevant again, it’s relevant all of a sudden. That’s bad storytelling.

THUNDER ROSA VIDEO PACKAGE- good

SAMMY GUEVARA’S PROMO IS INTERRUPTED BY SCORPIO SKY, ETHAN PAGE, & DAN LAMBERT- not good
Sammy’s promo came off like an uninspired version of Nigel McGuinness’ famous promo where he only turned on the fans who didn’t understand him having to take time off due to injuries. Then Lambert and pals came out and Lambert was mostly acting like a heel, threatening to have his guys come kick Sammy’s two-on-one if he didn’t get what he wanted. Sammy said he would give Sky a title shot if Lambert set up a mixed tag, which would be Sammy and Tay getting revenge on Paige VanZant for attacking them, so for the most part Sammy still feels like the babyface here. If they wanted to turn Sammy heel they should have let him beat Sky clean last week, did the PVZ match against Tay, and the found a babyface for Sammy to turn heel against.
Also, they’re doing a Ladder match for the title next week, because G-d forbit we go two whole weeks without a gimmick match on TV.

HOUSE OF BLACK PROMO- snore
The usual boredom. I’m not even sure who they’re taking to anymore.

WOMEN’S OWEN HART FOUNDATION QUALIFYING MATCH: Danielle Kamela vs. Dr. Britt Baker, DMD- 2/10
They got two members of the Pittsburgh Steelers to come out to the ring with Britt. Isn’t she a heel? Also, her usual friends are absent for no explained reason.
Kamela is the former Vanessa Bourne. Britt won a match that it took her way too long to win.

BRITT BAKER PROMO- whatever
After AEW did everything they could to make her look like a babyface, Britt cut a total heel promo. She ran down a bunch of the other women in the division.

HIKARU SHIDA VS. SERENA DEEB VIDEO PACKAGE- good, but
They’re going to blow this feud off next week in a Philadelphia Street Fight. This feud has been going on so long and hasn’t been hot in months, so I don’t care. The pacing in this company is terrible.

COFFIN MATCH: Darby Allin vs. Andrade el Idolo (w/Jose the Assistant & The Blade)- 7.5/10
The Blade interfered right away. Other members of the AFO showed up to interfere over the course of the match. Sting was nowhere to be found… because Sting and Darby’s plan was for Sting to sit in the crowd disguised as a fan disguised as Sting, so that he would be able to help Darby if the brawl just happened to wind up in front of his seat, twenty rows back. Why not just have Sting at ringside and not have this stupid coincidence that makes the babyfaces look like idiots who got lucky?
They brawled in the crowd a lot. Sting jumped off of a high place onto a pile of people. This is like the fifth time we’ve seen this in the past few months. It’s not exciting anymore.
The inside of the lid of the coffin was covered in thumbtacks because thumbtacks. Darby overcame all of the interference and won. This was a main event-feud gimmick match between guys who should be approaching the main event, but it felt like a complete and total mid-card feud because of how random everything in the feud was.
Sting and Darby celebrated together after the match. The Hardys came out onto the ramp to clap for Darby.
This was another meh episode of Dynamite. We’re a month away from the PPV, and aside from Punk vs. Hangman, the only thing they’ve built up are these Owen Hart Foundation Tournaments where they still haven’t told us what’s on the line. I guess there is MJF vs. Wardlow, but with the way AEW has been booking things, it’s entirely possible that they put that off until after the PPV. Tony has pretty much no idea how to pace things and no idea how to give them focus to make them feel important. There is too much going on in AEW, and as a result nothing gets focus and very little feels important.

[Thelone]

DUSTIN RHODES vs. CM PUNK- 7.75/10

It's longterm storytelling in the Dub for you : either Tony will awkwardly stitch together a story with elements that were barely related to each other in the first place, or he'll just move a story at glacial speed with nothing happening between "moments". Look at this """storyline""" with Montcuq Black and Julia Hart : she was misted FOUR MONTHS AGO and the story has barely moved since then. If the idea is for her to turn heel and join Mortimer Black's group, you could have done this in a month because the Varsity Blonds are jobbers and Hart isn't a high-profile get for the Black Family.

The sad thing is that there are dubbalos out there who think this is some Shakespeare-level masterpiece of storytelling.

Adam Page came out after the match to have a stare-down with Punk.

FEEL THE... well, nothing really.

TONY KHAN MAKES A MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT- bad

So that was the HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT huh? Just a joint show (in Chicago for the 50th time in a year) with New Japan that won't bring any new eyeballs to AEW because most of the the Nooj fans also watch le Dub (the others are bots, ok no).

Also could Abrams Jr. at least pretend to be a respectable businessman when he appears on TV? You have whoever the new NJPW president is in a nice suit and all while Tony's wearing the same shitty bootleg Jaguar jacket from the infamous NINE DAYS FROM TONIGHT!!! promo and looking like a lost fan. I guarantee you they did this... skit (?) with Atom and White so he doesn't crack his voice thirty times while stomping uncontrollably and looking like a maniac during this MASSIVE ANNOUNCEMENT.

JADE CARGILL & FRIENDS PROMO- bad

They're trying so hard with Cargill and it just isn't working.

EARLIER TODAY, WARDLOW ARRIVES AT THE BUILDING- bad
He was met by Mark Sterling and legions of security. Security will escort Wardlow around at all times, and he’ll have to wear handcuffs. Wardlow is an idiot and doesn’t see an obvious trap coming, so he allows himself to be handcuffed.

THE BUTCHER vs. WARDLOW- 3.5/10
MJF and Shawn Spears were in a skybox. I laughed a Spears throwing popcorn onto the fans below him.
Wardlow defeated the Butcher with relative ease. That was it. There was no trap. WHY? Why is MJF, the most dastardly heel in the company, deciding to play fair all of a sudden?

Because SWERVE bro!!!

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS MJF (& SHAWN SPEARS)- good promo, dumb follow-up
MJF cut a good promo, but then he revealed that the next person he was going to pay off to take out Wardlow would be Jake Roberts and Lance Archer. Jake cut a promo saying that titles weren’t important, only money. Archer then cut a promo saying that he didn’t care about the money either, and only wanted to fight Wardlow, and that anyone who got in his way would do. Why does Archer want to fight Wardlow so badly all of a sudden?

Because NU YAHWK, rah rah THE STREETS/HOOD, rah rah THE GRIND/PAYING YOUR DUES, rah rah SAPPY REAL STORY/SHOOT COMMENT (you know, for realness), rah rah LET'S FIGHT BISH!!! (*flips the bird*)

No wait, that's every Kingston promo, my bad.

I mean, isn't that obvious why Archer wants to fight Wardlow? He wants to climb up the very real and important rankings so he gets another shot at his archnemesis Adam Page. See? Longterm storytelling at its finest.

Also this is NOT a rehash of Jericho's trials or Bryan fighting the Dark Order to get to Page.

THUNDER ROSA VIDEO PACKAGE- good

WOMEN’S OWEN HART FOUNDATION QUALIFYING MATCH: Danielle Kamela vs. Dr. Britt Baker, DMD- 2/10
They got two members of the Pittsburgh Steelers to come out to the ring with Britt. Isn’t she a heel? Also, her usual friends are absent for no explained reason.
Kamela is the former Vanessa Bourne. Britt won a match that it took her way too long to win.

BRITT BAKER PROMO- whatever
After AEW did everything they could to make her look like a babyface, Britt cut a total heel promo. She ran down a bunch of the other women in the division.

Hey look, the Dentist is back and already getting way more promo time than the champion to bury the roster some more. I'm SHOCKED!

And the show did 930.000 despite the 47th Earth-shattering announcement and yet another gimmick match. Can't wait for tomorrow's 900IQ move from Tiny on Twitter where he'll talk about "those poor aliens from Proxima Centauri who can't watch the Dub for another year and change, so watch Rampage please!!!"

[Big Red Machine]

The sad thing is that there are dubbalos out there who think this is some Shakespeare-level masterpiece of storytelling.

This is the thing that really bothers me.

Because NU YAHWK, rah rah THE STREETS/HOOD, rah rah THE GRIND/PAYING YOUR DUES, rah rah SAPPY REAL STORY/SHOOT COMMENT (you know, for realness), rah rah LET'S FIGHT BISH!!! (*flips the bird*)

No wait, that's every Kingston promo, my bad.

I don't think that's fair to Kingston. Kingston's promos and actions at least have a point. Archer's don't. Kingston feels like a real person. Archer feels like a tool of the booker.

Also this is NOT a rehash of Jericho's trials or Bryan fighting the Dark Order to get to Page.

It's fair to point out that they do the same kind of thing too much, but I don't think it's fair to compare it to the Jericho thing, as that was an agreement between the parties in advance. This will be Wardlow running through people and leaving MJF with no choice but to take him on himself. It's the Danielson/Page/Dark Order thing, but done with a shred of logic as to why it's happening (because MJF is a coward and doesn't want to face Wardlow) rather than because Tony Khan is too kayfabe lazy to book an obvious world title match with a worthy challenger. There are only so many different types of stories under the sun.

[Thelone]

I don't think that's fair to Kingston. Kingston's promos and actions at least have a point. Archer's don't. Kingston feels like a real person. Archer feels like a tool of the booker.

Never cared for Kingston when he was still an indy guy. Maybe his pseudo tough guy act worked in something like CHIKARA where he was mostly around smaller nondescript masked guys, but he comes off to me as a poser and try-hard on Dub TV.

As for your point, Kingston had five different "best buds" already because Khan is also moving him around the board depending on the situation. "Oh PAC caught jobberitis? Well you're the Lucha Brothers' hype man now", "Hey PAC's back (for two seconds), so now you're in a random team with Moxley", "Oh he's in rehab? Let's reform LAX yet again". He can vaguely link those changes together with promos, I'll give him that, but you can still clearly see the puppet master pulling the strings in the background. It's just slightly less obvious than an Archer, Rose, or random challenger X who's been farming wins on Youtube for the last nine months.

It's fair to point out that they do the same kind of thing too much, but I don't think it's fair to compare it to the Jericho thing, as that was an agreement between the parties in advance. This will be Wardlow running through people and leaving MJF with no choice but to take him on himself. It's the Danielson/Page/Dark Order thing, but done with a shred of logic as to why it's happening (because MJF is a coward and doesn't want to face Wardlow) rather than because Tony Khan is too kayfabe lazy to book an obvious world title match with a worthy challenger. There are only so many different types of stories under the sun.

If you strip those to their bare bones, it's the same "go through a bunch of flunkies to get to ME" for the third time in less than a year, and second involving MJF as the final boss. I'm willing to not count Page/Bryan because it was Bryan going "Look Page, if you don't give me that rematch, I'll stretch your Dark Order friends one-by-one until you give me what I want" (and babyface fighting champion Page to go "eh *shrugs*"), but MJF/Jericho and MJF/Wardlow are pretty damn similar. Yes, the premise and execution are a bit different, but we have feuds that have been brewing/going for quite a while (pretty much since day 1 with Wardlow, because LTS of course) and MJF making his desperate/helpless rivals go through hoops for a (re)match against him at the end (technically that's not what MJF is trying to do with Wardlow, but come on).

[Big Red Machine]

I don't think that's fair to Kingston. Kingston's promos and actions at least have a point. Archer's don't. Kingston feels like a real person. Archer feels like a tool of the booker.

Never cared for Kingston when he was still an indy guy. Maybe his pseudo tough guy act worked in something like CHIKARA where he was mostly around smaller nondescript masked guys, but he comes off to me as a poser and try-hard on Dub TV.

We'll have to disagree abut Kingston (and I certainly don't think he's merely a "pseudo tough guy." If he's really a huge wimp and this is all a character he has created, then props to him for doing his job well) in terms of ability and gimmick.

As for your point, Kingston had five different "best buds" already because Khan is also moving him around the board depending on the situation. "Oh PAC caught jobberitis? Well you're the Lucha Brothers' hype man now", "Hey PAC's back (for two seconds), so now you're in a random team with Moxley", "Oh he's in rehab? Let's reform LAX yet again". He can vaguely link those changes together with promos, I'll give him that, but you can still clearly see the puppet master pulling the strings in the background. It's just slightly less obvious than an Archer, Rose, or random challenger X who's been farming wins on Youtube for the last nine months.

Nothing you're saying here is inaccurate, but, to me, that's poor continuity management. Within each of Kingston's angles, his actions always feel genuine and organic to his character.

Archer here feels like a tool of the booker because his need to fight Wardlow with no prior conflict between them to the point where he says he doesn't care if he gets paid to do it or not, is him feeling like a tool of the booker (which is often a result of someone not having any sort of well-defined character).

It's fair to point out that they do the same kind of thing too much, but I don't think it's fair to compare it to the Jericho thing, as that was an agreement between the parties in advance. This will be Wardlow running through people and leaving MJF with no choice but to take him on himself. It's the Danielson/Page/Dark Order thing, but done with a shred of logic as to why it's happening (because MJF is a coward and doesn't want to face Wardlow) rather than because Tony Khan is too kayfabe lazy to book an obvious world title match with a worthy challenger. There are only so many different types of stories under the sun.

If you strip those to their bare bones, it's the same "go through a bunch of flunkies to get to ME" for the third time in less than a year, and second involving MJF as the final boss. I'm willing to not count Page/Bryan because it was Bryan going "Look Page, if you don't give me that rematch, I'll stretch your Dark Order friends one-by-one until you give me what I want" (and babyface fighting champion Page to go "eh *shrugs*"), but MJF/Jericho and MJF/Wardlow are pretty damn similar. Yes, the premise and execution are a bit different, but we have feuds that have been brewing/going for quite a while (pretty much since day 1 with Wardlow, because LTS of course) and MJF making his desperate/helpless rivals go through hoops for a (re)match against him at the end (technically that's not what MJF is trying to do with Wardlow, but come on).

We'll see how it plays out, but I strongly disagree that they're the same. With Jericho, the story was "if you want to get to me, you have to face these guys first." I think the end result here will be MJF getting annoyed that everyone else has failed and agreeing to take Wardlow on because he no longer trusts anyone else to be able beat Wardlow. The first one is the coward eventually being forced to fight even though he doesn't want to. The second is the coward deciding to no longer be a coward because he thinks confronting the problem himself is his best option. If MJF wasn't involved in both scenarios, I don't think anyone would have batted an eyelash at it.

[Thelone]

We'll have to disagree abut Kingston (and I certainly don't think he's merely a "pseudo tough guy." If he's really a huge wimp and this is all a character he has created, then props to him for doing his job well) in terms of ability and gimmick.

Didn't say he was a wimp IRL (I don't know and quite frankly, don't care either), but there are times when I feel like he's trying way too hard to be deep and just comes off like an angsty teenager (on Twitter) or a poser (Dub TV). Someone on Reddit mentioned that "Kingston is what white suburban people think a tough guy from the streets of NYC acts" and I just can't unread it now.

Archer here feels like a tool of the booker because his need to fight Wardlow with no prior conflict between them to the point where he says he doesn't care if he gets paid to do it or not, is him feeling like a tool of the booker (which is often a result of someone not having any sort of well-defined character).

I mean, you're right, but isn't Archer's gimmick that he's a circus freak who wants to fight constantly for no particular reason? It's paper-thin and lazy as usual, but it's been pretty consistant during his run at least.

We'll see how it plays out, but I strongly disagree that they're the same. With Jericho, the story was "if you want to get to me, you have to face these guys first." I think the end result here will be MJF getting annoyed that everyone else has failed and agreeing to take Wardlow on because he no longer trusts anyone else to be able beat Wardlow. The first one is the coward eventually being forced to fight even though he doesn't want to. The second is the coward deciding to no longer be a coward because he thinks confronting the problem himself is his best option. If MJF wasn't involved in both scenarios, I don't think anyone would have batted an eyelash at it.

That's the thing though : it seems like this is the only story Tiny can tell with MJF, because I actually forgot he also did it with Cody and more recently with Punk. Again, I understand that it's not the exact same story each time, but it becomes hard to not point out the similarities between them when you're going back to that well so often, especially with the same guy every single time.

[Big Red Machine]

I mean, you're right, but isn't Archer's gimmick that he's a circus freak who wants to fight constantly for no particular reason? It's paper-thin and lazy as usual, but it's been pretty consistant during his run at least.

Is it? Your description is accurate, but I didn't realize that was what he was even supposed to be.

That's the thing though : it seems like this is the only story Tiny can tell with MJF, because I actually forgot he also did it with Cody and more recently with Punk. Again, I understand that it's not the exact same story each time, but it becomes hard to not point out the similarities between them when you're going back to that well so often, especially with the same guy every single time.

Now that you bring Punk up, I think you're actually right that it's just the only thing Tony knows how t do with MJF in order to put off a match.