BRM Reviews the 5/18/2022 Dynamite (the great wrestling can't overcome the issues)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 5/18/2022 Dynamite (the great wrestling can't overcome the issues)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 20th, '22, 16:20

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Johnny Elite- 6/10
It’s John Morrison, doing that stupid gimmick where he changes his last name to whatever promotion he’s in. This is quite underwhelming. He’s talented, but not on the level of many of the wrestlers already on the roster, and he’s yet another wrestler that AEW doesn’t have room for.
Joe won a match that was a perfectly fine undercard match, though it becomes disappointing when it’s a mystery guy debuting and he does nothing to make you think he was worth hiring.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Sonjay Dutt and Jay Lethal attacked Joe. Satnam Singh came out and held Joe so that Lethal could hit him in the arm with a pipe. Best Friends came out with chairs to chase the heels off. This feud needs to start feeling like it’s actually going somewhere. Also, why the hell has Jonathan Gresham not been involved yet? His relationship to Lethal as compared to Lethal’s with Joe is what made the whole thing interesting. Without Gresham, Lethal is just a generic heel here (and especially with Sonjay and Singh added in).

LEXI NAIR’S INTERVIEW WITH THE HARDYS IS INTERRUPTED BY THE YOUNG BUCKS- confusing
The Bucks were heels here, despite having seemed like they were supposed to be babyfaces for the past few months (other than attacking the Briscoes at Supercard of Honor). Is it really that hard to book someone to be either a babyface or a heel and not have it be confusing?
Matt called the Bucks Hardys wanna-be’s, because I guess we’re going to rehash that.

ADAM PAGE vs. KONOSUKE TAKESHITA- 7.75/10
CM PUNK came out to do commentary for this match. He was kind of a heel, calling Page’s finisher the “Punk-Shot Lariat,” but he came off as more likable to me, watching Page use the GTS and just not giving a sh*t when Page thought he delivered some grave insult.
The match was great (other than whatever the tried to do off the top towards the end), but is it really a good idea for Takeshita, with his zero televised wins (and no wins over anyone credible) to be going toe to toe with the world champion for over twelve minutes?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
They got nose-to-nose and had a stare-down. The crowd chanted for Punk. Page walked off. I was going to say that this story feels like it hasn’t moved forward at all, but I realized that there isn’t even really a story here. They just randomly didn’t like each other one week and have now started to do stereotypical pro wrestling things to try to annoy each other.
And that’s TRAGIC. Look at what we have here: The young champion trying to make a name for himself against the veteran who had to step away but is now back and wants to prove that he can still be the top guy. This is the stuff that WrestleMania main events are made of! And AEW has done absolutely nothing with either element of it!

DARK ORDER & FUEGO DEL SOL PROMO ON HOUSE OF BLACK- bad
The House of Order are goofs. Fuego’s promo would have been great if he hadn’t been established as an unworthy loser. They face the House of Black on Rampage.

SHANE “SWERVE” STRICKLAND & KEITH LEE vs. WORK-HORSEMEN- no rating, great squash, but…
Apparently Lee & Strickland are already ranked #5. Drake and Henry did a TREMENDOUS job of being jobbers, coming off like wrestlers who were competent, but completely outclassed. And that frustrates me because these are the guys Tony Khan should be building his new ROH brand around, not guys he should be having come out on TV and get destroyed.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Keith Lee said that this win right here put him and Strickland into the Top Five… which conflicts with both the earlier graphic and Excalibur’s comments. Ricky Starks and Will Hobbs interrupted him. Barbs were exchanged. Jurassic Express and Christian Cage came out so they could exchange barbs as well.
Christian noted that while they were worthy, they weren’t “top-ranked” teams, but then said that Jurassic Express would put the titles up in a three-way. If the long-term idea here is that Christian is trying to protect the titles by having them defended against teams who aren’t the top-ranked challengers (and thus ducking the actual top contenders), why would he put the belts up in a three-way? And if that isn’t the idea, why would you have him point out that the guys he is making the challenge two aren’t the most deserving teams?
Also, he made a challenge for Jungle Boy vs. Ricky Starks vs. Shane Strickland on next week’s show.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS RED VELVET & KRIS STATLANDER- bad
They note that Red Velvet has “changed.” You know what would have been nice to get at some point? Someone sitting down with her for an interview and asking her what brought this change about.
In not so many words, they told us that they’re not friends anymore. Statlander… tries really hard.
Jade Cargill showed up at the end to get it Statlander’s face and tell her that Red Velvet was really never her friend.

WARDLOW GETS TEN LASHES- mostly great
Just as MJF was coming out, Jim Ross was telling us that this could be the controversial segment in AEW history… for a gimmick they’re already f*cking done before!
MJF cut a standard MJF promo first. Wardlow isn’t allowed to touch him in any way during this. MJF spit in his face before he started whipping him. Wardlow didn’t sell the first eight, which was good, because it made it different from Cody’s (which was long and boring). MJF eventually kicked Wardlow in the nuts and whipped him, and he and Spears beat Wardlow down. Despite MJF being a horrible person who has wronged so many people over the years, no one came to help Wardlow. Spears pinned Wardlow, and MJF counted it, because we need to do a spot to remind people that MJF will be the special guest referee in the Wardlow vs. Spears cage match next week.

ROPPONGI VICE PROMO- snore
They’re back together “full-time” now. Also, they’ve decided to lay out challenges to a bunch of tag champs. They mention that they want the ROH, IWGP Heavyweight, and AEW tag titles. Way to bury AAA. They figure they’ll get titles shots by just saying “you’re fighting champions, so you should put the titles up against us,” because why should they have to do something silly like prove their worthiness by winning matches. Anyway, they’re going to wind up with an ROH World Tag Team Title shot because Tony Khan apparently hasn’t learned anything from why ROH began to fail.

Jim Ross: I love Draft Kings. Great company. So much fun to participate.”
Way to sell that sponsor, Jim.

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Kyle O’Reilly vs. Rey Fenix (w/Alex Abrahantes)- 8/10
There were one or two spots where someone was clearly standing around waiting to get hit with a move, but otherwise, this was awesome. Kyle won cleanly.

JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY/BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB/EDDIE KINGSTON & LAX CONFRONTATION- meh
Mean things were said. Jericho brought up being in Regal’s tea, so Regal revealed that whenever Jericho would wrestle, he would go to Jericho bag, pull out Jericho’s toothbrush, and shove it up his butt. I wasn’t going to make a joke about how, being British, Regal probably thought that that item was a butt-cleaner instead of a toothbrush, but the fact that he mispronounced the word (“he said “toth-brush,” like his mouth made a typo) compels me to get in my mean, stereotypical joke.
Jericho wants a Stadium Stampede match, but Moxley rejects it as dumb sports entertainment. So that thing we were supposed to think was really cool and awesome and fun is now something we’re supposed to think was dumb clown sh*t. He wants a regular no DQs match front of fans. Jericho and friends agree to the match.
Jericho then tries to create rifts in the babyface team by noting their various negative histories with each other… which would have been good if AEW treated its characters’ relationships as actual relationships and not tools that we are only supposed to remember when the booker wants us to and which we’re supposed to forget about when their existence becomes inconvenient. Why should I buy that Kingston will be unhappy with Danielson for saying something mean to him six months ago when I’m not supposed to think that Kingston has any problem with his supposed bosom-buddy Jon Moxley for not coming to his aid at any point in this feud before last week’s big moment, even though Jericho and friends were beating Kingston and his pals up on a weekly basis?
Jericho and friends go to leave. Kingston goes to give chase, because I guess he wants to fight right now. I’m not sure what changed from three minutes ago to make him decide he needs to go after the heels right now, but apparently something has…
And, of course, Danielson goes to stop him, and suddenly they’re arguing. Once again, a character’s motivations are not driven by any change to the situation, but instead driven by what the booker needs to happen to get to the point he wants to get to at the end of this segment.

DANTE MARTIN & MATT SYDAL BACKSTAGE- terrible
I’m not sure if this was just them playing announcer and explaining the situation to the fans (which makes no sense for wrestlers) or if the idea was that Sydal is trying to tell Dante that the BCC’s desire to fight is bad. The latter makes for sense, but then they went and talked about how they wanted to fight the BCC. Apparently they’re wrestling the BCC on Rampage. Both guys were absolutely awful here.
When this segment mercifully ended, we were told that throughout it, Dragon and Kingston kept arguing, and that the JAS came out to laugh at them. I like them telling us that a heated situation that we had to cut away from kept going on while we weren’t watching, but the idea that the JAS came back to laugh at it was cartoonish.

OWEN HART FOUNDATION WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Dr. Britt Baker, DMD vs. Maki Itoh- DUD!
Oh goody. One of the joshi clowns is back. She’s also apparently Britt Baker’s former tag team partner, which we’re supposed to care about despite hearing about it for the first time right now. Wait. It gets worse. Apparently when Excalibur says they are “former tag team partners,” he means that they teamed up TWICE.
Are you kidding me? Serena Deeb couldn’t even get a qualifying match for this tournament (and she just so happens to wind up as the #1 contender at the PPV where the tournament will end), but the only woman Tony Khan gives a guaranteed slot in the tournament to is this clown?
They did stupid comedy. Tony Khan (or Kenny Omega or whoever) has learned absolutely nothing from the early days of this company. I was glad that no one walked into the room while I was watching this.
Tony Storm came out to stare at Dr. Baker from the ramp because she wants to promo their semifinal match.

TONY SCHIAVONE RANDOM PLUGGING OF NOTHING IS INTERRUPTED BY SERENA DEEB- terrible
Deeb is sick of hearing Tony Schiavone talk. So am I. I’m annoyed about Tony being the most third-wheel announcer ever, but Deeb is upset about him not thinking she can beat Thunder Rosa. She’s also upset about Dustin Rhodes saying the same thing.
She called Dustin out so she could say mean things to him. One of those mean things was to call him “the poster-boy of failure,” which it ironically took her about four times to get out, because she failed to say it correctly the few times she tried.
Deeb cut a passionate promo about all of the sacrifices she had to make, and about how difficult it was to be a woman in the wrestling business back then. The crowd gave her the “WHAT?!” treatment.
And it’s almost hard to blame them, because she’s upset about the STUPIDEST F*CKING THING! Dustin didn’t think you can beat Thunder Rosa? GROW UP! I know that she’s the heel, but when a heel is getting upset about something petty it needs to at least be compelling, and this was just bad.
Thunder Rosa came out. Deeb slapped Dustin. Thunder Rosa tried to attack Deeb, but Dustin held her back because… um…
Anyway, in her struggle with Dustin, Thunder Rosa dropped the belt. To get free, she accidentally elbowed Dustin. She went to check on him, but Deeb picked the belt up and hit her with it, then walked off with the belt. If you ignore the silliness of the entire situation (a big ask, I know), this sounds good on paper, but the execution was very bad.
Excalibur called this a “highly orchestrated assault,” as if Deeb had planned all of this out, including knowing that Thunder Rosa would drop the title belt, accidentally elbow Dustin, and go check on Dustin instead of attacking her.

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Adam Cole vs. Jeff Hardy (w/Matt Hardy)- 6/10
Jeff Hardy comes out and the crowd is all cheering for him. Adam Cole ran out and jumped him from behind, and the crowd started to boo… and then Adam Cole did his “ADAM COLE, BAY-BAY!” cheer… and the fans cheered along. Why are modern wrestling fans so dumb?
Anyway, this dastardly attack did pretty much nothing, as Jeff was in control moments later.
Excalibur insisted to us that “going to the finals of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament; so pivotal for both of these men,” but is it? There seems to be absolutely nothing on the line.
The match was not main-event level at all. I get that it was supposed to be short because Jeff was injured, but Jeff didn’t really sell his injured ribs much, so it defeated the purpose.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- decent
The Bucks came out and distracted the Hardys so that Cole could attack them from behind. Sting and Darby came out to make the save, but which I mean Darby charged down to the ring while Sting leisurely strolled. Darby was brawling with the heels before Sting was half way down the ramp. reDRagon came out to help their friends. Sting no-sold way too much stuff. I know that he’s Sting, but it can’t take five guys to take him out. The heels Pillmanized Sting’s ankle, at which point AEW signed off immediately.

For next week’s show, they’re advertising that we will get to see “Adam Page and CM Punk face to face,” as if we haven’t seen that for the past two weeks and nothing has happened.

There was some great wrestling on this show (and also some terrible wrestling), but once again, the storylines in this company are strangling anything the wrestling does. I cannot think of a single storyline in this company that doesn’t feel out of steam other than MJF vs. Wardlow (and the Hardys vs. Bucks story which really started in earnest tonight). I already talked about how repetitive Punk vs. Page has been, the Kingston/Jericho stuff is also in that boat, Deeb vs. Thunder Rosa is just dull, the Owen Hart Tournaments have no consequences of ay kind for any of the competitors, Joe vs. Lethal/Dutt/Singh has gone nowhere, House of Black vs. Death Triangle has been put on hold so that House of Black don’t have to interfere in the Owen Hart Tournament, the tag title stuff is passable but not particularly interesting… there is so much talent in AEW, but the Creative side is constantly letting them down.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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