BRM Reviews the 5/27/2020 Dynamite (very bad)

[Big Red Machine]

THE INNER CIRCLE BACKSTAGE- didn’t like it
They bought a whole truck of “Stadium Stampede Champions” shirts with their pictures on them and want to find a way to make their money back. Dude… AEW fans will still buy those.
Also, this made the Inner Circle look too comedic. In a vacuum, I wouldn’t have had a problem with this. The problem is that this isn’t an isolated incident. These guys have been on this trend since the quarantine started, and it’s not good.

MATT HARDY, THE YOUNG BUCKS, KENNY OMEGA, & ADAM PAGE BACKSTAGE- hated it
Page agreeing to do this promo with them, then deciding to leave five seconds in makes him look like even more of a douche. I also really didn’t like him just saying “I’m going to go back to the hotel and drink.” Forgive my sheltered ignorance, but don’t most alcoholics make excuses rather than just say “yeah, I’m going to go back to the hotel and drink?” The only reason for Page to phrase it like this is to get a laugh, and playing someone’s alcoholism for laughs is pretty sh*tty. Hell… even f*cking VINCE RUSSO managed to take drug addiction seriously, and that wasn’t even Christian Vince Russo. That was full-on Attitude Era Vince Russo!
Also, there are three other EVPs of the company here. Blowing off work to go drinking is the kind of thing that should get someone at least suspended and sent to rehab, if not outright fired. How has this not happened yet?
Kenny goes back to the hotel with Page, presumably to try to help him.

Then the Bucks just flat out asked Broken Matt if they could “team with a different version of you tonight.” Broken Matt then walked off screen, and returned, moments later, as Team Xtreme Matt Hardy. Then they decided that this wasn’t what they wanted and so he walked off screen and again returned moments later as what I presume is an OMEGA version of Matt Hardy or something like that.
This is the sort of thing that pisses me off, and it’s not because there is randomly magic. As I’ve said before, if you really want to have a magical world, I’ll go along with it (see: Underground, Lucha). But if you start explaining to me how that magical world works, I’m going to hold you to it. Is the Lake of Reincarnation now in the locker room? And if it is, Matt should still be sopping wet. And if Matt can just change at any time, then it kills whatever “joke” was supposedly present at the PPV of LAX trying to drown Matt but not realizing that they were trying to do so in a pool filled with magical water that changes your gimmick rather than drowning you.
Also, I don’t like Matt changing back and forth so constantly. Broken Matt being Broken Matt is one thing, but if you’re going to have Matt be possessed by this ancient entity called “Damascus,” then there needs to be a reason for it. Matt has been on TV for over two months now, and the fact that Matt is being f*cking POSSESSED hasn’t mattered once. This Damascus fellow just seems to let Matthew Hardy going around having his fun (I supposed it’s possible that Damascus is one of Matt’s delusions, but if you’re going to do that then you really should have some sort of payoff for that, too, or else why are you doing it in the first place?).

MATT HARDY & THE YOUNG BUCKS vs. JOEY JANELA & PRIVATE PARTY- 7/10
One of the Bucks threw a superkick on the outside that accidentally hit The Blade, so The Butcher attacked him, leading to a brawl between the two teams. Props to the director for cutting back to the ring to show me the referee being distracted.
This was a great action match for the time it got. Mark Quen injured his knee.
JR buried the referee for no reason by saying that he assumed the referee had no idea which man was legal when he counted the pin after Matt his a moonsault onto all three of them. It was definitely one of the members of Private Party, and Knox was looking at both of their shoulders so he was definitely counting the legal man, so don’t burying him by saying he wasn’t, Ross!

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
The Butcher and Blade attacked the Young Bucks from behind. I guess no one is at Gorilla to alert Matt Hardy to this fact. And Cody just isn’t watching, I guess. What a bad EVP. And none of the babyfaces surrounding the ring feel like being good people and helping out.
We cut away from this beating to show a truck with two dudes inside of it pulling up to the barricade. Unlike douchebag Cody, they manage to not ram into it. They get out of their truck and holy crap is that The Revival!
They just… get in the ring, and no one tries to stop them. They clearly don’t work for AEW, because Excalibur had no idea why they were here, and you’d think the announcers would have been informed of new hires because why wouldn’t you tell them?
Butcher and Blade just stop beating on the Bucks as FTR get into the ring. FTR go over the Bucks and look menacing… but then they Russo-Swerve everyone by attacking the heels instead. They win the fight, but f*ck up a Spike Piledriver on blade. We get another faceoff between FTR and the Bucks, but it’s interrupted by The Butcher trying to attack, but he gets taken out by both teams working together. We get another faceoff, then FTR just leave.
I was not a fan of this. Mostly it was the Russo-Swerve that was the issue, but I’m also not a fan of FTR being babyfaces at all. I’m sympathetic to AEW in that you want to get these guys on TV and want to get them working as quick as possible, and having them be babyfaces lets you put off the match with the Bucks, which is where the money is, but I just can’t conceive of them entering the company any other way than attacking the Bucks from behind and f*cking up one of their knees or something like that. I wouldn’t want to give the fans any sort of excuse to cheer FTR (and for people like me, you need to give us a reason to cheer the Bucks in this feud, because they’re the ones who have been the dicks in this “war of words” with The Revival).

LEE JOHNSON vs. BRIAN CAGE (w/Taz)- squash
Moxley was on commentary for this match. He claimed that his match was Brodie Lee was his “toughest “AEW fight to date,” which is ridiculous when you compare it to his matches against Omega, Janela, Jericho, and even Hager.

TAZ PROMO- good
He addressed Moxley directly and cut a promo on behalf of Brian Cage. The only thing I didn’t like here was Taz applying his old AEW catchphrase to Cage. It’s just the sort of thing that I’d avoid if I were them.

THE RULES OF BRING A ROLE MODEL, WITH DR. BRITT BAKER, DMD- bad
They did this live in the arena, but Rebel was the one pushing Britt around in her wheelchair, so I guess she’s moved from dental assistant to full-time servant.
Britt is in fully crazy mode, claiming that her injury was the result of a three-on-one attack that had been planned for weeks, or even maybe since the beginning of AEW. Even worse, she’s now claiming that Aubrey Edwards is at the center of this supposed conspiracy to put her down because Aubrey refereed some of those matches. Britt says she’ll be back at All Out. I HATE the crazy, conspiratorial heel, so I didn’t like this one bit.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS THE INNER CRICLE- fine
Jericho cuts a promo hyping up their “pep rally” later tonight. Orange Cassidy wanders right through the space where they are clearly cutting a promo. What an inconsiderate douchebag. I’m not going to be too upset if the Inner Circle kick his ass because while a gang-beating is way out of line for the simple crime of wandering into a promo, Orange did show a careless disregard for his coworkers and his employer.

HIKARU SHIDA vs. CHRISTI JAYNES- 4.25/10
Shida won a match that was A LOT more competitive than I was expecting.

WE WATCH ADAM PAGE AND KENNY OMEGA SITTING IN A HOTEL ROOM WITH NO SOUND- pointless
We’re apparently watching this from a security camera in their hotel room. I guess they’re watching Dynamite, and seem to have figured out that this is the camera that is recording them. We spent an entire commercial break watching is. It served NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER, and only opened up the wormhole of 1) why there is a security camera in a hotel room, and 2) how AEW got access to its feed.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS CODY RHODES- meh
They showed us Dustin, Brandi, and Q.T. Marshall standing in the crowd, cheering Cody on… and didn’t make sure to that there was no one next to them who wouldn’t be breaking kayfabe by standing there. IN this case, it was Allie, A.K.A. The Bunny, who manages two dudes who MJF had hired to take Cody out, and who just beat Cody’s friends up earlier on this very show.
I don’t buy for a moment that Cody wasn’t one of the first few calls Tony Kahn made when he was starting AEW.
Maybe it’s just me not growing up at a time when TV Titles were common, but Cody saying that he was the “champion of this great network,” came off as completely ridiculous to me. It just… doesn’t mean anything.
Cody claims that his career hasn’t been about nepotism… but then goes on to tell us that he got called up at age 21, well before he was ready (“I could barely hit the ropes”). Um… Cody? Did it ever occur to you that the reason you got called up when you clearly weren’t ready had something to do with the fact that your dad was a legendary wrestler and an executive in the company at that point in time?
And no, I’m not in any way saying that all of Cody’s success has been due to nepotism. What I’m saying is that there was a way to cut that same promo about how hard he was worked WITHOUT saying something that makes it seem like if there was any nepotism helping you along at any point, you wouldn’t be able to recognize it, thus casting your story into doubt.
Cody says that his title will be an open challenge title. I’m a little split on this. On the one hand, it’s a good way to build up prestige for the new title, but on the other hand, the AEW World Title is so new that the TNT Title will pretty quickly overtake it in terms of title defenses and thus become the more prestigious title (especially with a top guy like Cody as the champion).
He also cut a promo on people who were dissatisfied with his work-rate, and said that we should judge him on what he does next. That seems to be inviting people to hold you to high standards, which is fine… so long as you don’t fail.

SCU (Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian) vs. JIMMY HAVOC & KIP SABIAN (w/Penelope Ford)- 6.75/10
The heels win due to interference by Penelope, followed by Aubrey Edwards counting a pin where she could not possibly have seen both of Sky’s shoulders.

MJF PROMO- great!
He makes the same point I did that if he has been undefeated for a whole year, it’s a little crazy that he hasn’t gotten a title shot yet. He speculates that “someone in the office doesn’t like me.” That right there is the ting that AEW has to be careful with in their booking, because this is not the first time that the booking has seemed to favor the EVPs.
MJF says that he is entering both himself and Wardlow into tonight’s battle royale for the first shot at the TNT Title. He says that when they are the only two left “Wardlow knows what to do.” This made Wardlow angry. MJF claimed that he was only joking, but the seeds have now been sown. I just hope they don’t blow it off tonight.

BATTLE ROYALE FOR A SHOT AT THE AEW TNT TITLE NEXT WEEK- 5/10
This appears to be a match you can just enter yourself into, as we saw Billy Gunn do from the crowd.
Orange Cassidy came out late. If he’s supposed to be in this match, why did the bell ring when he wasn’t in the ring yet? He got jumped from behind by Santana & Ortiz.
The Dark Order were at ringside and tried to recruit Colt Cabana after he was eliminated.
When we were down to just MJF Wardlow, and Jungle Boy, Orange Cassidy rolled into the ring. MJF accidentally hit Wardlow with the ring when OC ducked. The babyfaces then eliminated the heels together, so our last two were Jungle Boy… and Orange Cassidy. It’s a part of the match where we need work-rate now, so Orange Cassidy has suddenly decided to care. Jungle Boy won.

INNER CIRCLE PEP RALLY- TERRIBLE!
Vickie Guerrero is now in the Inner Circle, I guess. Hager’s poet was FANTASTIC, but the rest of this was terrible and idiotic.
Jericho is now trying to start an angle with Mike Tyson. Or, more correctly, he’s trying to blow-off an angle from Raw ten years ago.
Sammy tried to give Jericho a cheese platter and some champagne, but it turns out that Tyson and his pals broke into it and already ate it. They didn’t know Jericho had any beef with them, so this was just petty theft for the sake of petty theft, which makes them heels. Tyson’s posse includes a bunch of MMA guys. Oh my G-d, AEW is going full TNA, aren’t they?
A fight breaks out between the two groups. Yes, top AEW stars and brawling with invited guests of the company, and… well… at least they actually did have the locker room empty out to break it up.
I know I called WWE out for doing an angle with an arrest this week on Smackdown, but Ross’ “street warfare” comment didn’t bother me as much. Probably because Ross said it live on Wednesday, whereas WWE had four days to pull their angle and find something else to fill the time with.


This was another mostly bad, frustrating episode of Dynamite. They show continues to become sillier and sillier, and that's not a good thing. That being said, everyone needs to hear Jake Hager read his poem.