BRM Reviews the 12/4/2019 Dynamite (very bad)

[Big Red Machine]

THE YOUNG BUCKS & DUSTIN RHODES vs. THE INNER CIRCLE (Sammy Guevara, Santana, & Ortiz)- 2/10
They have trios records now, too. Cool.
Did anyone else have massive problems with the audio repeatedly cutting in and out and fluctuating in volume?

Dustin Rhodes got the hot tag and starts to run wild and the announcers are telling me about how Dustin wants to get revenge on the Inner Circle and this is his big chance… and then Dustin and Sammy stopped to do a comedy spot where Dustin is so old that he is out of breath, and Sammy courteously waits for him to recover before they start fighting again. And from that point on I ceased giving a sh*t about who won the match or about seeing Dustin get any sort of revenge on anyone because they just told me it was all fake and they’re all working together entertain me.
Dustin did a Canadian Destroyer, because why not just have everyone do the f*cking move. It’s not like it means anything anyway because no one ever wins with it. It’s not even a Piledriver anymore; it’s just another flip.
Then they did a spot where Dustin- RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REFEREE- goes for his patented kick to the nuts. The referee stopped him (which the fans booed because I guess they like DQ finishes) , and while the referee was trying to free the heel from the illegal predicament the babyface had put him in in order to hit him with an even more illegal maneuver, one of the other heels run in and hit said babyface with a weapon. In other words, they want me to by angry at the heels for cheating when the only reason the referee didn’t see the heels cheating was because he was trying to stop one of the babyfaces from doing the exact same thing.
Anyway, after a weapon-shot and Sammy Guevara’s finish, Dustin kicked out. More flips happened, and the babyfaces finally did cheat for no reason, then won with more flips and because one of the heels was paying more attention to trying to get more views on his vlog than to winning the sporting competition he was currently engaged in. F*ck this sh*t. He might say racist things and be out of touch on 90% of things, but Cornette is definitely right about the other 10%.
This match had the thinnest veneer of a babyface in peril story in the first few minutes, but just turned into flips and Dustin getting cheered for doing his signature spots even though the big one is f*cking cheating. The heels were there to also do flips and occasionally cheat, which the fans booed even though they cheered when the babyfaces cheated because they’re marks for the people in charge of the company. If you like flips and spots designed just to get pops then you’ll like this. If you like stories and logic in your wrestling and for the people in the match to not outright tell you its fake and then expect to care, there is a show going on right now on the other channel that is almost certainly a lot better than this crap.

REY FENIX vs. TRENT (w/Chuck Taylor & Orange Cassidy)- 7/10
Pentagon Jr. isn’t out here because he is preparing for his match against Daniels later tonight. They wrestled a solid, athletic match. Rey Fenix got the win, which is absolutely baffling to me, as I can’t imagine what the point of giving Trent his recent win over Pentagon Jr. having him pin Fenix in last week’s tag match was if not to build Trent up as a singles competitor. Fenix was a dick to Trent after the match, leading to a physical confrontation.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS CODY RHODES- TERRIBLE, on multiple levels
Cody had the f*cking audacity to tell me that Dustin is engaged in a “blood feud” against the Inner Circle when I just saw them WORK TOGETHER TO DO A F*CKING COMEDY SPOT!
He is also relatively nonchalant about his wife cutting the hair off of defenseless women, and was obnoxiously “too cool for school” about being jumped from behind and getting the sh*t kicked out of him last week. At that point it hit me: AEW’S TOP BABYFACE IS CUTTING A F*CKING JOHN CENA PROMO! Why must we repeat WWE’s bad decisions?
Cody also said that MJF said he would never wrestle him. I don’t remember hearing that. Cody also said that “doesn’t deal in absolutes.” This would be the same Cody who vowed to “never challenge for the AEW World Title again” if he lost to Jericho at Full Gear, so either he does, in fact, occasionally deal in absolutes, or the promotion is going to screw us over on the first major stipulation in their history.
He then proceeded to cut a promo on MJF full of comedy (who cares if his scarf is fake or not?) and insider BS like ‘I took you in when no one else would because they said you were too short,’ and talking about MJF “botching” the CrossRhodes (if it put Adam Page down for the count then how was it kayfabe ‘botched?’ and making comments about people “botching it on two channels now).
Cody then starts offering MJF sh*t in order to wrestle him. The keys to Cody’s super-fancy, 1-in-300 truck. His super-expensive watch that Tony Khan himself gave to Cody. His fancy red-bottom Louis Viton shoes (do people actually care what color the BOTTOM OF SOMEONE’S SHOES ARE?). A briefcase full of money (of which he started giving some away to the crowd). Okay. We get it, Cody. You’re rich. Good for you. But you being willing to give these things up doesn’t mean anything to us fans because we have not seen you show any emotional attachment to your fancy car or watch or shoes of briefcase full of money!
I have a question: Why can’t Cody just book himself vs. MJF? He’s an executive vice president of the company, isn’t he? Or if Cody feels that would be abuse of power (which, by the way, would prove my point about the flaw in the “can’t ever challenge for the title again” stip), why doesn’t Tony Khan book the match? You’re a wrestling promoter now, Tony, aren’t you? You’ve got a hot match on your hands, so why not book it? If you want to save it until the PPV in March or whenever, that’s fine, but f*cking book it already so that Cody doesn’t have to waste TV time coming out here and offering MJF money for something that you should be ordering MJF to do and compensating him with his regular purse/salary/however AEW contracts kayfabe work.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS JOEY JANELA- terrible
Janela came off as an over the top nutjob, which I guess was what he meant to do. Then Moxley came by and completely eviscerated him with one word, leaving the crowd laughing at Janela. Who that having Moxley come in at the end here was a good idea? That person should have been flogged for suggesting it.

DARK ORDER VIDEO- The vignette was very good for what it was, but I’m not understanding why the Dark Order would want to show this to us. Don’t they want people to join? The idea that if you just want friends and try to join you will have your face clawed off seems like something that would dissuade people from joining.

NYLA ROSE vs. LEVA BATES (w/Peter Avalon)- no rating, meh squash
They showed us footage of Nyla attacking Shanna at a meet-and-greet last week for absolutely no reason… and no one there reacted with any sort of shock or concern or anything like that. It’s fine for Jimmy Havoc to react that way, but for everyone else to also completely not react to this sudden act of violence made this look like a staged event with very poor background actors, rather than as something real, which is what it’s supposed to be.
This squash would have been a lot better if they hadn’t taken a break for Avalon to come in and be a goof with this dumb “SHHHH!” crap.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Nyla kept beating up Leva Bates. Shanna showed up to try to make the save and got some offense in but was eventually taken out by Nyla’s superior size. Up until here I thought this was good. Then it went too far when she got a table and only the referee tried to stop her (WHERE IS SECURITY?), at which point she powerbombed the referee through a table, then powerbombed Shanna onto him. Just to make things worse, they showed us top babyface Britt Baker sitting on her ass at ringside not, lifting one finger to stop any of this. One would assume she will be fined heavily for attacking a referee, but this is also already the second time we’ve done that angle in fewer than ten weeks on the air.

CHRIS JERICHO PROMO & SEGMENT WITH JURASSIC EXPRESS- great!
Jericho comes out with Jake Hager and gets cheered. Then he insults the fans and they boo him… and then he says something else and they start cheering him again. Goldfish. Also, props to Excalibur for pointing out that Jericho is not using the word “lexicon” properly.
Anyway, Jericho is obligated for one more match in 2019, but is allowed to choose his opponent. He had a WCW Jericho-style list of people he won’t wrestle. I popped for the mention of “Allen Jones.” Moxley was the guy he had listed many times.
Eventually the Jurassic Express came out and while Luchasaurus’ promo had too much comedy in it for my tastes, the rest of the segment was great. We’re getting Jericho vs. Jungle Boy in two weeks, they showed us that Jungle Boy has the ability to take Jericho down, and even set up the idea that Jungle Boy will be proving something by just lasting ten minutes with Jericho so he doesn’t even need to twenty minutes without coming out of this feeling elevated.
Nyla Rose has been suspended from in-ring competition for her attack on the referee.

KRIS STATLANDER vs. HIKARU SHIDA- 6.75/10
Statlander is such a great athlete. Can we please not ruin her with a dumb comedy gimmick like pretending she’s an alien?
The match was pretty darn good. Statlander won, which is what should have happened.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- not good
Brandi Rhodes & Awesome Kong came out. The visual of Brandi stepping out from behind Kong (because she is the one pulling Kong’s strings) is probably my favorite little artistic thing in AEW. Brandi says that they are “the Nightmare Collective, an extension of the Nightmare Family.” She says no one asks any questions about what they are doing… which is exactly what I’ve been saying. People should be asking why an EVP of the company is running around attacking people.
Brandi tries to recruit Kris Statlander. She tells her they will take care of her if she pledges herself to them “RIGHT. NOW.” Kong and Statlander have a face-off, but are interrupted by some mark in the crowd who begs to be allowed to pledge to them and have her hair removed, and Brandi is apparently happy getting this random nobody into her group. So now we have a second creepy heel group with nefarious motives looking for pledges to follow their leader. This is quickly hitting Delirious-like levels of repeating the same ideas over and over again.
This was okay until the random woman came out of the crowd, as the Brandi just abandoning Statlander for her both diminishes Statlander by showing her to be replaceable by some dork out of the crowd, and gives the Kong vs. Statlander confrontation that was build up a painfully anticlimactic conclusion.

Announced for next week is The Butcher & The Blade (w/The Bunny) vs. Cody Rhodes &… Q.T. Marshall. Really.

CHRISTOPHER DANIELS vs. PENTAGON JR.-
The fact that Daniels has not cut a single promo about getting revenge on the man who put him out of action for almost two months by piledriving his head into a steel ramp is inexcusable. And now he’s out here doing his entrance and being a total goof.
They started off well, but then there came a spot where Daniels “messed up” an Arabian Moonsault onto the rampway and “fell on his head” due to the “pinched nerve” he suffered from the piledriver that started this feud off. You’d think this would set up the heat, but less than forty seconds later, Daniels was up and hitting his finisher. Thirty seconds after that, heel shenanigans gave Pentagon Jr. the victory. This was extremely disappointing for a trudge match we had theoretically been waiting to see for months.

Young Bucks vs. Proud & Powerful is happening next week, and it’s a street fight, even though the feud feels like it has de-escalated since their regular tag match at the PPV rather than escalated.

THE BUNNY, THE BUTCHER, & THE BLADE VIDEO PACKAGE- This was very good, but much like with the Dark Order, it feels like Allie has received a complete and total reboot and no one is mentioning that anything is different about her. Basically, they don’t like Cody because he’s got a big ego.

JOEY JANELA vs. JON MOXLEY- 6/10
This match has “a twenty-minute time limit or TV time remaining.” Why does it have to have a “TV time remaining” time limit if we have the technology to just stream it on YouTube. I can buy the idea that they are willing to do that for title matches because they have a required time limit, but announcing “a twenty-minute time limit or TV time remaining” for this match means this match has a required time limit, too, so why would you not treat it the same way? Why not just say “TV time remaining?” And doubly so for a situation like this when there are fewer than twenty minutes left in the damn show?
Anyway, Moxley won a short match that fell well short of the level expected in a main event. After the match, Jericho and the Inner Circle came out through the crowd, like Ambrose did last week.

A very bad show from AEW, with both the big things and the little things mostly going wrong. In past weeks when the segments went poorly we at least had the wrestling to buoy the show up. This week we didn’t even have that.

[Bob-O]

Cody also said that MJF said he would never wrestle him. I don’t remember hearing that. Cody also said that “doesn’t deal in absolutes.” This would be the same Cody who vowed to “never challenge for the AEW World Title again” if he lost to Jericho at Full Gear, so either he does, in fact, occasionally deal in absolutes, or the promotion is going to screw us over on the first major stipulation in their history.
He then proceeded to cut a promo on MJF full of comedy (who cares if his scarf is fake or not?) and insider BS like ‘I took you in when no one else would because they said you were too short,’ and talking about MJF “botching” the CrossRhodes (if it put Adam Page down for the count then how was it kayfabe ‘botched?’ and making comments about people “botching it on two channels now).
Cody then starts offering MJF sh*t in order to wrestle him. The keys to Cody’s super-fancy, 1-in-300 truck. His super-expensive watch that Tony Khan himself gave to Cody. His fancy red-bottom Louis Viton shoes (do people actually care what color the BOTTOM OF SOMEONE’S SHOES ARE?). A briefcase full of money (of which he started giving some away to the crowd). Okay. We get it, Cody. You’re rich. Good for you. But you being willing to give these things up doesn’t mean anything to us fans because we have not seen you show any emotional attachment to your fancy car or watch or shoes of briefcase full of money!
I have a question: Why can’t Cody just book himself vs. MJF? He’s an executive vice president of the company, isn’t he? Or if Cody feels that would be abuse of power (which, by the way, would prove my point about the flaw in the “can’t ever challenge for the title again” stip), why doesn’t Tony Khan book the match? You’re a wrestling promoter now, Tony, aren’t you? You’ve got a hot match on your hands, so why not book it? If you want to save it until the PPV in March or whenever, that’s fine, but f*cking book it already so that Cody doesn’t have to waste TV time coming out here and offering MJF money for something that you should be ordering MJF to do and compensating him with his regular purse/salary/however AEW contracts kayfabe work.

MJF swore he'd never wrestle Cody several times. I promise, I'd love to cite specifics, but he did it so many times that I feel like it's common knowledge. Apparently it's not, but I know MJF stressed it more than once... "I'd NEVER wrestle Cody, I LOVE Cody..."

But, especially after this promo and everything I was already thinking that you pointed out, I feel like Cody turns here and either rejoins MJF or MJF comes out the Babyface. Leaning toward the former, since Cody can't challenge for a title ever again, he could absolutely manipulate MJF into title opportunities. Or, leaning toward the latter, MJF is an asshole that could become a mega-babyface by saying something like "I don't care about your money Cody, I've got that. I've got a car, and I've got more potential than you've ever had. All I care about is kicking your ass."

Just my vibe, but Cody's a better heel than he is a face... he's already touted his power, now he's touting his money...

[Big Red Machine]

Cody also said that MJF said he would never wrestle him. I don’t remember hearing that. Cody also said that “doesn’t deal in absolutes.” This would be the same Cody who vowed to “never challenge for the AEW World Title again” if he lost to Jericho at Full Gear, so either he does, in fact, occasionally deal in absolutes, or the promotion is going to screw us over on the first major stipulation in their history.
He then proceeded to cut a promo on MJF full of comedy (who cares if his scarf is fake or not?) and insider BS like ‘I took you in when no one else would because they said you were too short,’ and talking about MJF “botching” the CrossRhodes (if it put Adam Page down for the count then how was it kayfabe ‘botched?’ and making comments about people “botching it on two channels now).
Cody then starts offering MJF sh*t in order to wrestle him. The keys to Cody’s super-fancy, 1-in-300 truck. His super-expensive watch that Tony Khan himself gave to Cody. His fancy red-bottom Louis Viton shoes (do people actually care what color the BOTTOM OF SOMEONE’S SHOES ARE?). A briefcase full of money (of which he started giving some away to the crowd). Okay. We get it, Cody. You’re rich. Good for you. But you being willing to give these things up doesn’t mean anything to us fans because we have not seen you show any emotional attachment to your fancy car or watch or shoes of briefcase full of money!
I have a question: Why can’t Cody just book himself vs. MJF? He’s an executive vice president of the company, isn’t he? Or if Cody feels that would be abuse of power (which, by the way, would prove my point about the flaw in the “can’t ever challenge for the title again” stip), why doesn’t Tony Khan book the match? You’re a wrestling promoter now, Tony, aren’t you? You’ve got a hot match on your hands, so why not book it? If you want to save it until the PPV in March or whenever, that’s fine, but f*cking book it already so that Cody doesn’t have to waste TV time coming out here and offering MJF money for something that you should be ordering MJF to do and compensating him with his regular purse/salary/however AEW contracts kayfabe work.

MJF swore he'd never wrestle Cody several times. I promise, I'd love to cite specifics, but he did it so many times that I feel like it's common knowledge. Apparently it's not, but I know MJF stressed it more than once... "I'd NEVER wrestle Cody, I LOVE Cody..."

Right, but that was all stuff he said before the turn, to lull Cody into a false sense of security. That stuff was all surely lies (he has certainly told us that he doesn't love Cody anymore), so it has no validity.

[Bob-O]

Right, but that was all stuff he said before the turn, to lull Cody into a false sense of security. That stuff was all surely lies (he has certainly told us that he doesn't love Cody anymore), so it has no validity.

Which subconsciously is why I think I'm screaming 'heel turn'. You are correct, at face value it doesn't make any sense.

[cero2k]

Right, but that was all stuff he said before the turn, to lull Cody into a false sense of security. That stuff was all surely lies (he has certainly told us that he doesn't love Cody anymore), so it has no validity.

he also said in his first promo after the turn, he said he was done with Cody

[Big Red Machine]

Right, but that was all stuff he said before the turn, to lull Cody into a false sense of security. That stuff was all surely lies (he has certainly told us that he doesn't love Cody anymore), so it has no validity.

he also said in his first promo after the turn, he said he was done with Cody

That works, then (though there is probably a lot of heat to be had in claiming he is a man of his word and using his original promise as an argument that he can't wrestle Cody) but it still doesn't explain why they don't just book the match.

[cero2k]

That works, then (though there is probably a lot of heat to be had in claiming he is a man of his word and using his original promise as an argument that he can't wrestle Cody) but it still doesn't explain why they don't just book the match.

I take it Cody wants MJF to agree to it himself and not push his EVP powers over him like that. If the match gets booked, even if not by Cody, it seems like Cody used his EVP power.

[Big Red Machine]

That works, then (though there is probably a lot of heat to be had in claiming he is a man of his word and using his original promise as an argument that he can't wrestle Cody) but it still doesn't explain why they don't just book the match.

I take it Cody wants MJF to agree to it himself and not push his EVP powers over him like that. If the match gets booked, even if not by Cody, it seems like Cody used his EVP power.

If Cody or one of the Elite book it then maybe, but not if Tony Khan books it. It's a natural match to book.