BRM Reviews the 6/3/2020 Dynamite (meh)
Posted: Jun 4th, '20, 21:29
AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Adam Page & Kenny Omega(c) vs. Jimmy Havoc & Kip Sabian (w/Penelope Ford)- 7/10
This was what I could call the basic minimum acceptable for a television main event (and probably for most televised title matches, too). It was very good or probably even something I would have defined as “great” when I made the mistake of trying to assign adjectives to various ranges on my scale, but it wasn’t enough to elevate Havoc & Sabian in the loss, which seemed to me like it was the entire point of doing this match. The story was the heels cheating and babyfaces overcoming it, but Havoc and Sabian never quite felt like they could really hang with Page & Omega.
TULLY BLANCHARD YELLS AT SHAWN SPEARS ON “EARLIES THIS WEEK ON SOCIAL MEDIA”- “On social media?” So where were there cameras there to film it? Would it have been that hard to frame this as an interview with Spears and have Tully run in and yell at him?
Anyway, Tully promo was about how Spears was wasting his potential and if he ever wants to move up the card and become big player, he needs to stop being a goofball and get serious. I’m pretty sure I’ve cut this exact same promo on AEW several time.
TULLY BLANCHARD GIVES SHAWN SPEARS A BLACK GLOVE- … okay…
Having Tully get into a car with Spears to do this was kind of weird. And why was there a camera in the car? See… this right here is a spot where you can post this originally as a video on Twitter (and then show us during Dynamite) and frame the presentation in such a way that it’s something Tully wanted the world to see that he was giving to Spears.
As for the glove itself, I’m not sure I get it. I will admit that aside from certain isolated angles, my knowledge of anything pre-1987 other than WWF or Crockett is shoddy at best so maybe I’m missing something here, but the connection that I immediately draw to a black glove is Ted Dibiase’s heel run in Mid-South. The problem with this being a reference to that is that Spears is already a cheating heel, so it’s not like using a loaded glove as a weapon would really be new to him. I guess the weapon itself would be new, but the concept as a whole doesn’t really feel like any sort of thing that would make Spears turn a corner.
SHAWN DEAN vs. BRIAN CAGE (w/Taz)- squash
I don’t really like Cage jumping the bell on these jobbers, simply because he shouldn’t need to. You don’t really lose anything by having him wait for the bell before charging at the jobber.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- AWESOME!
Taz cut a F*CKING AWESOME promo on Moxley and about how Cage was going to take the AEW world Title from him at Fyter Fest 2020. Moxley then came out to respond and cut a promo that wasn’t quite in the same league, but was still pretty damn great.
ALEX MARVEZ FINDS LANCE ARCHER BEATING UP A RANDOM LUCHADOR ON THE SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY EARLIER TODAY- This was a great promo by Archer about how losing to Cody wouldn’t affect him because he’s here to be a monster, but why the hell does he always have to be beating up some random dude. Seriously. He doesn’t gain anything by it, and it just makes the company look bad because there are no consequences for assaulting innocent people.
The announcers played up the idea that even Jake Roberts was shocked by how crazy and intense Archer was, but I didn’t get that at all. Jake apologizing to Marvez came off to be like Jake was a heel trying to play a role.
MATT HARDY COMES TO VISIT PRIVATE PARTY AT THEIR LITTLE BAR- didn’t like it
Again… why is there a camera here? And don’t tell me that it doesn’t matter, because it does. Last week we had to watch Adam Page and Kenny Omega from a security camera with no sound because it wouldn’t make sense to have a camera in their hotel room, so why does it make sense to have cameras seeing things like this or the stuff with Tully and Spears earlier?
Anyway, Matt is regular Matt Hardy now. He puts over Private Party and they mark out for him. He offers to give them advice whenever they want it, and they are happy and thankful to this veteran for his offer. Matt then leaves the bar and walks past Sammy Guevara. Matt says that they’re cool now, which effectively kills the Inner Circle vs. Elite feud, I guess. So much for us getting War Games “when the time is right,” huh Cody?
INNER CIRCLE VS. TYSON & PALS BRAWL RECAP- They take a page out of WWE’s playbook and do the pathetic “LOOK AT ALL THIS MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERAGE WE GOT!” bit. Their presentation was better than WWE’s (they paused the video recap every ten seconds or so to put a headline up on the screen) and they made sure not to show anything that talked about wrestling being a work, but the concept is still just as desperate and pathetic. You don’t need to impress us and tell us that we’re not weird for watching pro wrestling by showing off your mainstream media coverage. We’re wrestling fans. Be proud of the fact that you’re pro wrestling and just show us a G-d damn video package, not graphic of your YouTube views going up.
We were shown quick aftermath promos from first Tyson and then Jericho. Tyson promised to come back and get Jericho. If he cared that much, you’d think he would come back this week, but apparently not. Jericho claimed he would have knocked Tyson out if not for Colt Cabana getting in his way, so tonight we’re getting…
COLT CABANA vs. CHRIS JERICHO (w/Jake Hager & Sammy Guevara)- 6.25/10
During Jericho’s entrance, they cut to the crowd to show us Allie hanging all over Q.T. Marshall. This REALLY pissed me off for three reasons, all of which could have been easily rectified:
1. There was no logical reason to cut to this, but they did anyway, because they needed to get their story over, and that right there is a creative failing. Again… would it have been so hard to do a backstage interview with Q.T. and have Allie be there and try to seduce him or whatever she’s doing?
2. Once again, we are offered no explanation for why she is back to being non-Bunny Allie, or why she would possibly be interested in Q.T. Marshall. Can someone please tell us what’s going on? Or at least have the announcers acknowledge that this is all very strange and tell us that they’re not sure what’s going on, either?
3. Just standing there in the background of this shot was the masked man who Lance archer was beating up on the side of the road earlier. Could you really have not made sure that no one who got his ass kicked on the side of the road earlier in the day was in the shot because you cut to it (and especially when his presence doesn’t add anything)?
The match itself was fine. I can’t fault them for doing it the way they did because of where Jericho needs to be for his storyline, but I would have loved to see a longer match with the story being Jericho getting more and more frustrated with Cabana’s wily tricks.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Jericho cut a great promo for a feud that I don’t understand how anyone can possibly care about. He then did the classic heel show of false bravado by calling out someone he knows isn’t in the building. He demanded the presence of the Baddest Man on the Planet so he could beat him up, but he got Orange Cassidy. The Inner Circle tried to ambush Orange Cassidy but he managed to avoid all of their offense. Why are they turning their top heel stable into a bunch of buffoons?
BRITT BAKER, DMD REHAB VIDEO PACKAGE- bad
Can we please have someone in this company who isn’t a complete buffoon?
Making this even worse was that announcers then took the time to point out all of the puns on Britt’s gear and wheelchair to us, and then explain them, just in case you didn’t get them. This was worse than ANYTHING WWE has ever done in terms of making sure the audience gets the joke by having the announcers spoon-feed it to us.
BIG SWOLE vs. NYLA ROSE- 6/10
Big Swole’s gear gives me an excuse to plug Kyle Higgins run on Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, which I’ve been reading during quarantine. I’m about fifteen issues in, and so far it’s been very enjoyable.
Swole put up a good fight but lost clean.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Swole started to cut a good promo but Britt Baker interrupted her by being annoying and yelling and having Rebel crash her big giant chariot thing to the barricade. Swole came after her with a chair, but Rebel pulled Britt away. This accomplished its goal well, but was there really a point in doing it? It’s Britt months away from returning? Also, this marks yet another person who they have built up an issue with Britt, making her the Cody of the women’s division… except that unlike Cody, I don’t have any faith that they’ll make an effort to pay most of these angles off.
TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS DARBY ALLIN- Darby gave a fine answer to a very stupid question by Tony. Tony asked if he thought Cage injured him during the ladder match because of the problems Darby had with Taz when Taz was interviewing him. IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A F*CKING LADDER MATCH, TONY! Do you think Cage would have not thrown Darby off of him if Darby and TAz dind’t have issues?
TONY SCHIAVONE’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH FTR- disappointing
The first question I want an answer to is why they’re in Kip Sabian, Penelope Ford, & Jimmy Havoc’s living room.
This was very meh. It just… wasn’t exciting or particularly interesting. They said nothing that you didn’t expect them to say, and their comments on the Young Bucks lacked the animosity that there really should be when the Bucks started attacking them out of nowhere with the whole #FTRR thing.
At the end of the interview, The Butcher & The Blade angrily came down the stairs. Does everyone in AEW live in this house?
Apparently. A bunch of random dudes ran in to stop them from fighting. FTR said that they wanted to handle things in the ring like “businessmen,” then Cash Wheeler was a jerk and threw his water and The Butcher & The Blade for no reason.
MARK QUEN IS GETTING A TNT TITLE MATCH NEXT WEEK- Fun fact: Mark Quen has the same number of singles victories in AEW as me. How the f*ck is he getting a title shot? Hell… the dude barely has any tag team wins against non-jobber competition. Fun fact: Since their win over the Santana & Ortiz on the 11/20/2019 Dynamite, Private Party are 4-8, with two of their wins coming against jobber teams, and the other two coming against makeshift teams of undercard guys, of whom only Shawn Spears is good enough to occasionally get booked on the A show. So much for this title meaning anything.
Also for next week they plugged The Butcher & The Blade vs. FTR, Sammy Guevara vs. Colt Cabana, and the Goof Patrol vs. the Inner Circle of Jake Hager & LAX. Also AEW world Champion Jon Moxley will wrestle on next week’s episode of Dark.
ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS COLT CABANA- fine
Colt is frustrated by his inability to win bigger matches. Brodie Lee and Grayson stopped by and Brodie told him that losses are part of life, and what matters is how we respond to them. After they left, Colt told Marvez that the Dark Order isn’t something he wants to be a part of, but the announcers thought he still might have been interested.
AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Cody Rhodes(c) (w/Arn Anderson) vs. Jungle Boy- 6.75/10
Now Tony is saying that it’s Rey Fenix who will be challenging for the title next week, and no one either corrected him or acknowledged that this was different from what had been said (and shown in a graphic) just minutes ago.
Cody bled a lot because he headbutted a wall by accident. Why the f*ck would you throw a headbutt at a dude who is standing against a wall?
MJF yelled that he deserved this title shot more than Jungle Boy. He’s wrong about that because Jungle Boy won last week’s #1 contendership match, but he’s got a hell of an argument that he deserves it more than the guy getting it next week, seeing as how that guy has zero singles wins while MJF has many and is also yet to be pinned, made to submit, get counted out, or be disqualified.
Cody dominated most of the match despite being the one who was bleeding all over. He took his weight-belt off like he was going to hit Jungle Boy with it even though Jungle Boy had done nothing wrong. He finally decided not to hit Jungle Boy with it, and then tossed the belt off to the side. Doesn’t he need that weight belt for some reason? And if he doesn’t need it, why does he wear it to the ring at all?
They also went through a table from the top rope. Cody dumped Jungle Boy on his head with the Cross Rhodes. This would be the same thing Cody criticized MJF for doing a few months back.
This was a meh episode of Dynamite, with the exception of the Taz and Moxley segment, which everyone should go out of their was to see.
This was what I could call the basic minimum acceptable for a television main event (and probably for most televised title matches, too). It was very good or probably even something I would have defined as “great” when I made the mistake of trying to assign adjectives to various ranges on my scale, but it wasn’t enough to elevate Havoc & Sabian in the loss, which seemed to me like it was the entire point of doing this match. The story was the heels cheating and babyfaces overcoming it, but Havoc and Sabian never quite felt like they could really hang with Page & Omega.
TULLY BLANCHARD YELLS AT SHAWN SPEARS ON “EARLIES THIS WEEK ON SOCIAL MEDIA”- “On social media?” So where were there cameras there to film it? Would it have been that hard to frame this as an interview with Spears and have Tully run in and yell at him?
Anyway, Tully promo was about how Spears was wasting his potential and if he ever wants to move up the card and become big player, he needs to stop being a goofball and get serious. I’m pretty sure I’ve cut this exact same promo on AEW several time.
TULLY BLANCHARD GIVES SHAWN SPEARS A BLACK GLOVE- … okay…
Having Tully get into a car with Spears to do this was kind of weird. And why was there a camera in the car? See… this right here is a spot where you can post this originally as a video on Twitter (and then show us during Dynamite) and frame the presentation in such a way that it’s something Tully wanted the world to see that he was giving to Spears.
As for the glove itself, I’m not sure I get it. I will admit that aside from certain isolated angles, my knowledge of anything pre-1987 other than WWF or Crockett is shoddy at best so maybe I’m missing something here, but the connection that I immediately draw to a black glove is Ted Dibiase’s heel run in Mid-South. The problem with this being a reference to that is that Spears is already a cheating heel, so it’s not like using a loaded glove as a weapon would really be new to him. I guess the weapon itself would be new, but the concept as a whole doesn’t really feel like any sort of thing that would make Spears turn a corner.
SHAWN DEAN vs. BRIAN CAGE (w/Taz)- squash
I don’t really like Cage jumping the bell on these jobbers, simply because he shouldn’t need to. You don’t really lose anything by having him wait for the bell before charging at the jobber.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- AWESOME!
Taz cut a F*CKING AWESOME promo on Moxley and about how Cage was going to take the AEW world Title from him at Fyter Fest 2020. Moxley then came out to respond and cut a promo that wasn’t quite in the same league, but was still pretty damn great.
ALEX MARVEZ FINDS LANCE ARCHER BEATING UP A RANDOM LUCHADOR ON THE SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY EARLIER TODAY- This was a great promo by Archer about how losing to Cody wouldn’t affect him because he’s here to be a monster, but why the hell does he always have to be beating up some random dude. Seriously. He doesn’t gain anything by it, and it just makes the company look bad because there are no consequences for assaulting innocent people.
The announcers played up the idea that even Jake Roberts was shocked by how crazy and intense Archer was, but I didn’t get that at all. Jake apologizing to Marvez came off to be like Jake was a heel trying to play a role.
MATT HARDY COMES TO VISIT PRIVATE PARTY AT THEIR LITTLE BAR- didn’t like it
Again… why is there a camera here? And don’t tell me that it doesn’t matter, because it does. Last week we had to watch Adam Page and Kenny Omega from a security camera with no sound because it wouldn’t make sense to have a camera in their hotel room, so why does it make sense to have cameras seeing things like this or the stuff with Tully and Spears earlier?
Anyway, Matt is regular Matt Hardy now. He puts over Private Party and they mark out for him. He offers to give them advice whenever they want it, and they are happy and thankful to this veteran for his offer. Matt then leaves the bar and walks past Sammy Guevara. Matt says that they’re cool now, which effectively kills the Inner Circle vs. Elite feud, I guess. So much for us getting War Games “when the time is right,” huh Cody?
INNER CIRCLE VS. TYSON & PALS BRAWL RECAP- They take a page out of WWE’s playbook and do the pathetic “LOOK AT ALL THIS MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERAGE WE GOT!” bit. Their presentation was better than WWE’s (they paused the video recap every ten seconds or so to put a headline up on the screen) and they made sure not to show anything that talked about wrestling being a work, but the concept is still just as desperate and pathetic. You don’t need to impress us and tell us that we’re not weird for watching pro wrestling by showing off your mainstream media coverage. We’re wrestling fans. Be proud of the fact that you’re pro wrestling and just show us a G-d damn video package, not graphic of your YouTube views going up.
We were shown quick aftermath promos from first Tyson and then Jericho. Tyson promised to come back and get Jericho. If he cared that much, you’d think he would come back this week, but apparently not. Jericho claimed he would have knocked Tyson out if not for Colt Cabana getting in his way, so tonight we’re getting…
COLT CABANA vs. CHRIS JERICHO (w/Jake Hager & Sammy Guevara)- 6.25/10
During Jericho’s entrance, they cut to the crowd to show us Allie hanging all over Q.T. Marshall. This REALLY pissed me off for three reasons, all of which could have been easily rectified:
1. There was no logical reason to cut to this, but they did anyway, because they needed to get their story over, and that right there is a creative failing. Again… would it have been so hard to do a backstage interview with Q.T. and have Allie be there and try to seduce him or whatever she’s doing?
2. Once again, we are offered no explanation for why she is back to being non-Bunny Allie, or why she would possibly be interested in Q.T. Marshall. Can someone please tell us what’s going on? Or at least have the announcers acknowledge that this is all very strange and tell us that they’re not sure what’s going on, either?
3. Just standing there in the background of this shot was the masked man who Lance archer was beating up on the side of the road earlier. Could you really have not made sure that no one who got his ass kicked on the side of the road earlier in the day was in the shot because you cut to it (and especially when his presence doesn’t add anything)?
The match itself was fine. I can’t fault them for doing it the way they did because of where Jericho needs to be for his storyline, but I would have loved to see a longer match with the story being Jericho getting more and more frustrated with Cabana’s wily tricks.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Jericho cut a great promo for a feud that I don’t understand how anyone can possibly care about. He then did the classic heel show of false bravado by calling out someone he knows isn’t in the building. He demanded the presence of the Baddest Man on the Planet so he could beat him up, but he got Orange Cassidy. The Inner Circle tried to ambush Orange Cassidy but he managed to avoid all of their offense. Why are they turning their top heel stable into a bunch of buffoons?
BRITT BAKER, DMD REHAB VIDEO PACKAGE- bad
Can we please have someone in this company who isn’t a complete buffoon?
Making this even worse was that announcers then took the time to point out all of the puns on Britt’s gear and wheelchair to us, and then explain them, just in case you didn’t get them. This was worse than ANYTHING WWE has ever done in terms of making sure the audience gets the joke by having the announcers spoon-feed it to us.
BIG SWOLE vs. NYLA ROSE- 6/10
Big Swole’s gear gives me an excuse to plug Kyle Higgins run on Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, which I’ve been reading during quarantine. I’m about fifteen issues in, and so far it’s been very enjoyable.
Swole put up a good fight but lost clean.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Swole started to cut a good promo but Britt Baker interrupted her by being annoying and yelling and having Rebel crash her big giant chariot thing to the barricade. Swole came after her with a chair, but Rebel pulled Britt away. This accomplished its goal well, but was there really a point in doing it? It’s Britt months away from returning? Also, this marks yet another person who they have built up an issue with Britt, making her the Cody of the women’s division… except that unlike Cody, I don’t have any faith that they’ll make an effort to pay most of these angles off.
TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS DARBY ALLIN- Darby gave a fine answer to a very stupid question by Tony. Tony asked if he thought Cage injured him during the ladder match because of the problems Darby had with Taz when Taz was interviewing him. IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A F*CKING LADDER MATCH, TONY! Do you think Cage would have not thrown Darby off of him if Darby and TAz dind’t have issues?
TONY SCHIAVONE’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH FTR- disappointing
The first question I want an answer to is why they’re in Kip Sabian, Penelope Ford, & Jimmy Havoc’s living room.
This was very meh. It just… wasn’t exciting or particularly interesting. They said nothing that you didn’t expect them to say, and their comments on the Young Bucks lacked the animosity that there really should be when the Bucks started attacking them out of nowhere with the whole #FTRR thing.
At the end of the interview, The Butcher & The Blade angrily came down the stairs. Does everyone in AEW live in this house?
Apparently. A bunch of random dudes ran in to stop them from fighting. FTR said that they wanted to handle things in the ring like “businessmen,” then Cash Wheeler was a jerk and threw his water and The Butcher & The Blade for no reason.
MARK QUEN IS GETTING A TNT TITLE MATCH NEXT WEEK- Fun fact: Mark Quen has the same number of singles victories in AEW as me. How the f*ck is he getting a title shot? Hell… the dude barely has any tag team wins against non-jobber competition. Fun fact: Since their win over the Santana & Ortiz on the 11/20/2019 Dynamite, Private Party are 4-8, with two of their wins coming against jobber teams, and the other two coming against makeshift teams of undercard guys, of whom only Shawn Spears is good enough to occasionally get booked on the A show. So much for this title meaning anything.
Also for next week they plugged The Butcher & The Blade vs. FTR, Sammy Guevara vs. Colt Cabana, and the Goof Patrol vs. the Inner Circle of Jake Hager & LAX. Also AEW world Champion Jon Moxley will wrestle on next week’s episode of Dark.
ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS COLT CABANA- fine
Colt is frustrated by his inability to win bigger matches. Brodie Lee and Grayson stopped by and Brodie told him that losses are part of life, and what matters is how we respond to them. After they left, Colt told Marvez that the Dark Order isn’t something he wants to be a part of, but the announcers thought he still might have been interested.
AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Cody Rhodes(c) (w/Arn Anderson) vs. Jungle Boy- 6.75/10
Now Tony is saying that it’s Rey Fenix who will be challenging for the title next week, and no one either corrected him or acknowledged that this was different from what had been said (and shown in a graphic) just minutes ago.
Cody bled a lot because he headbutted a wall by accident. Why the f*ck would you throw a headbutt at a dude who is standing against a wall?
MJF yelled that he deserved this title shot more than Jungle Boy. He’s wrong about that because Jungle Boy won last week’s #1 contendership match, but he’s got a hell of an argument that he deserves it more than the guy getting it next week, seeing as how that guy has zero singles wins while MJF has many and is also yet to be pinned, made to submit, get counted out, or be disqualified.
Cody dominated most of the match despite being the one who was bleeding all over. He took his weight-belt off like he was going to hit Jungle Boy with it even though Jungle Boy had done nothing wrong. He finally decided not to hit Jungle Boy with it, and then tossed the belt off to the side. Doesn’t he need that weight belt for some reason? And if he doesn’t need it, why does he wear it to the ring at all?
They also went through a table from the top rope. Cody dumped Jungle Boy on his head with the Cross Rhodes. This would be the same thing Cody criticized MJF for doing a few months back.
This was a meh episode of Dynamite, with the exception of the Taz and Moxley segment, which everyone should go out of their was to see.