BRM Reviews the 9/23/2020 Dynamite (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

JOEY JANELA & SONNY KISS vs. MIRO & KIP SABIAN (w/Penelope Ford)- 5.5/10
Janela cut an in-set promo where he came across as a goof. He also said that Kip Sabian was making a mistake by marrying Penelope Ford, and then immediately said he wasn’t here to talk about “real-life issues,” which I don’t know if that was intended as a breach of kayfabe for if it just meant “personal life stuff,” but either way, it’s Janela starting off a promo by talking about something and immediately saying “I’m not here to talk about things like that.” At the end, he let out a maniacal laugh that made him seem like a total heel, and also a clown.

There was some babyface in peril stuff here, but mostly it was just spots. Some of those spots were on the outside, and thus, without even an attempt at an explanation, there were no count-outs.
Sabian and Miro won, which was definitely the right call to put Miro over, but if I could see that coming, then there is no reason for the announcers to have not seen it coming (assuming they don’t actually get told the finishes in advance)… which makes it completely baffling that the announcers chose to spend so much time telling me the importance of Janela and Kiss having had the time to work together develop chemistry and thus they had an advantage when it should have been obvious to them that the team with the chemistry was going to get beaten by the team teaming together for the very first time.
Miro seemed to hurt his leg, which is unfortunate if it’s not a work. After the match, he shouted “GAME OVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” which I really hope is a reference to Twitch and not intended to be a Triple H reference, seeing as how Miro recently did an interview where he said that after his first promo in AEW, he wouldn’t be talking about WWE anymore.

EDDIE KINGSTON PROMO- good
Kingston stormed out as the Wedding Party (that’s what I’m calling Miro, Sabian, and Penelope until the wedding happens) was leaving and told them to leave the hard-cam on. He tells us that he is getting a title shot tonight instead of the scheduled Moxley six-man tag. He then cut a promo on Moxley calling him a “sell-out” and a “sports entertainer,” and basically accusing him of no longer being hardcore. He called Moxley out and Moxley came, but referee and road agents got between them before things could get out of hand.
Given the circumstances of having to change the card from what they had been advertising just last night due to Archer’s positive COVID test, I thought this was an effective way to inform fans of the card change and build the main event up at the same time. That being said, I would like to see AEW management acknowledge that “yeah, we screwed up. Kingston didn’t actually get eliminated from the battle royale and therefore we will give him this title shot.” Like with Sami Zayn and the IC Title over on Smackdown (or MVP and the US Title earlier this year on Raw), it’s ridiculous that AEW let this go even a week of Kingston complaining about it and didn’t attempt to deal with it in some way.

ADAM PAGE vs. EVIL UNO (w/the Dark Order)- 6.25/10
Kenny Omega was on commentary again. Like last week, this was a match that was offered to Omega as a tag match but he turned it down. That’s twice this has happened now. If we get something like this again next week, then that’s just AEW management being dicks to Kenny by offering him a match that he won’t take. Kenny also apparently told management to remove him and Page from the rankings, so hopefully they’ll get the message.
Also, isn’t Kenny AEW management? And Page, too? And why haven’t we gotten a single segment where Page TRIES TO TALK TO KENNY?
Jim Ross ragged on Kenny for dressing in a t-shirt and shorts, saying it was unprofessional. Oh really Jim? Well I submit to you that as a wrestler, Kenny knows that he could be attacked from behind at any moment (as happened to Chris Jericho when he was on commentary a few months ago) and thus he wants to have as much mobility as possible, so there is nothing wrong with what he is doing
The Dark Order were at ringside for this match (no Brodie Lee), but disappeared at some point.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS MATT JACKSON- He’s got a fuller beard now so you know he’s a heel (just like Roman Reigns). He was a dick to Tony. I still don’t understand why the Bucks are acting this way. There is ONE person they should be angry at: Adam Page. Or MAYBE you could put FTR in there, to, but Page is a grown adult who made his own choices. And yet Bucks are just being dicks to everyone else while making no move whatsoever to go after Page (or FTR, for that matter).

AEW TNT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH: Brodie Lee(c) (w/the Dark Order) vs. Orange Cassidy- DUD!
It’s Dork Order vs. Goof Patrol. Or just one member of the Goof Patrol. It’s no like it would make sense for Best Friends to be out here counting the Dork Order.
Speaking of goofs and dorks, Jim Ross decides to immediately question Brodie Lee’s listed weight. Brodie being the listed 265lbs looks perfectly plausible to me, as he’s a pretty lean guy. But to Jim Ross, 265lbs is too small for a top heel, I guess, so he’s trying to tell us that Brodie weighs more than that. What incentive would Brodie have to lie about his weight?
We start off with John Silver flipping out on the outside and cartoonishly stomping all over OC’s jacket for WAY too long. Silver’s purpose at this point seems to be to serve as the person Brodie hits when he’s angry, which is often caused by Silver himself being a goof.
Jim Ross compares the Dark Order to the Adams Family- a COMEDY show- and Tony Schiavone laughs and agrees wholeheartedly with that point. Why their headsets were no immediately shut off is beyond me.
OC put his sunglasses on Anna Jay. Brodie took them off of her and dropped them right in front of OC. Paul Turner decided that this was a good time to call for the bell and start the match, even though he had just seen what could easily turn into broken glass dropped onto the canvass right near the wrestlers.
The match then finally started with Orange Cassidy… sticking his hands in his pockets and doing his stupid no-effort, no-impact kicks to the shin. In other words, he’s back to square one. AGAIN. So much for him having “evolved” during the Jericho feud. Or the Pac feud right before that which went the same way and had the same supposed conclusion.
Or, if you want to somehow claim that these past two feuds have taught OC to care about some things, then in that case it is now clear that the TNT Championship is not important enough for OC to care about it, so how important can it really be? Title BURIED.
And no, I don’t buy the “he’s suckering him in” argument, because using the same ruse over and over again is exceedingly stupid. And that doesn’t change just because happens to work. If it works, all it means is that the person your fighting is even dumber than your own dumb ass. OC kept his hands in his pockets even after spring his “surprise” offense on Brodie, so that also kills that theory.
He was eventually caught on a dive by the Dork Order, who held him in place for Brodie to dive onto him. Brodie dominated him for a while. The Dork Order stomped on him on the outside, right in front of Paul Turner, who didn’t disqualify them, or even eject them from ringside. Brodie Lee- the heel- was the one who got them away from OC.
After getting the sh*t kicked out of him for about eight straight minutes, OC finally decided to start caring/decided to spring his trap. Whichever interpretation of this stupidity you like better. He makes a big comeback on Brodie, on suddenly has to be saved from eating the Orange Punch by John Silver running into the ring, and was only able to win because of this distraction, so we’ve made Brodie look weak for almost losing to this idiot joke. This was how decided to build Brodie up for…

CODY RHODES RETURNS- bad
We get a pointless musical intro before Cody’s normal music plays. Cody comes out dressed like a rich person from 1910. If he was coming out here to fight, why didn’t dress for it? At least that horrendous blonde dye-job is gone. The fugly tattoo is still there, though. Maybe that will disappear the next time he returns from some heel obliterating him.
The Dork Order stay true to SSB’s video game roots, attacking Cody one at a time like really bad AI. Cody uses a figure four to injure one of their legs while the other seven members of the group leave. Yes, Cody looked like a badass here, but that’s only because his enemies were using exceedingly poor strategy. But I guess that’s to be excepted from a group that were at their hottest when Brodie Lee obliterated Cody, and have only gone downhill since then due to 95% of them acting like goofs the whole time.

BRODIE LEE PROMO- bad
He cuts this raving promo talking about Cody sending other people to do his work that just came across as so “pro wrestling heel 101, lesson 6: be a hypocrite” that between this and everything else going on with the Dark Order, it makes Brodie come off like a cartoon, too.
In the length of one commercial break, the Dark Order have managed to find a pro wrestling two-ended dog collar. It was necessary for him to have this because he challenged Cody to a dog collar match even though there has been ZERO build to the gimmick. The idea of a dog collar match is that the opponent can’t run away. There as been no segment where Cody or anyone else have come close to getting their hand son Brodie but Brodie has run away (Cody could have gone after Brodie tonight but chose to beat up the goons sent at him instead. He could have chased the Dork Order backstage but chose to stay in the ring and apply the figure four to that other dork instead), but we’re going to have one anyway because… um… because it’s old school and therefore Cody wants to do it, I guess.
Brodie gave Cody one week to answer his challenge. Meanwhile, the announcers are all going “we don’t even know if Cody is cleared to wrestle!” He just beat up three dudes in a row on his own, when they were dressed for a fight and he wasn’t. I think he’ll be fine to wrestle. And if he wasn’t, should AEW security have been running out after him to stop him from trying to fight?

MATT HARDY PROMO & SEGMENT WITH PRIVATE PARTY & THE INNER CIRICLE- very good
Private Party are out with him. He lists various suspects in his attack last week. I liked that he included people who we didn’t see him interact with on-screen, just because it adds more plausible attackers than the obvious Jericho, even if they do decide to go with Jericho.
Matt then puts Private Party over big and criticizes Jericho for attacking Isaiah after last week’s match.
The Inner Circle minus Sammy Guevara came out. If Jericho wanted to be a real heel, he’d pull a Shane Douglas “CUT THE MUSIC!” and then just start cutting his promo. Jericho teased that Sammy Guevera wasn’t here because he was injured by Matt, but then just brought Sammy out, so what was the point of that?’
Jericho says he didn’t attack Matt last week, but threated to do so this week. Matt welcomed the fight, but Marq Quen told Matt to get himself healed and cleared first. Why did the announcers not know that Matt wasn’t cleared? A wrestler’s medical status seems like something the announcers should be informed about. Quen wanted to wrestle Jericho, but Kassidy insisted on getting his own revenge. He challenged Jericho to a match next week. Between the two members of Private Party, I thought Queen was the much better talker.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS TULLY BLANCHARD & FTR- bad
Apparently Tully and FTR went to AEW management and proposed the following:
1. The time limit on tag title matches on TV is lowered from 60 minutes to 20.
2. If the match goes to a draw, FTR still get paid as if they won.
3. Tully and FTR get to pick the challengers.
In perpetuity.
WHY WOULD AEW MANAGEMENT AGREE TO ANY OF THIS, LET ALONE ALL OF IT?

They say that SCU are getting a title shot next week. For the week after that they tease giving the shot to Best Friends, but then bury them as having had a “glorified backyard wrestling match” last week. Best Friends came out and challenged FTR to fight right now. FTR accepted and go a referee out, but then backed out by saying it wouldn’t be fair because Best Friends were banged up. Chuck Taylor called them cowards. This was very dumb, and even more so with Chuck Taylor finishing it off by having his promo build up to the f*cking hug. It’s so dumb.

IVELISSE & DIAMANTE vs. THUNDER ROSA & HIKARU SHIDA- 6.75/10
Tony Schiavone was apparently such good friends with Road Warrior Animal that he couldn’t even pronounce the man’s last name correctly.
Ivelisse & Diamante attacked the babyfaces from behind. The babyfaces overcame this and won clean, so I guess we’re not setting up any new challengers yes.

DASHA INTERVIEWS CHRIS JERICHO- good
Jericho cut a good promo accepting Isaiah Kassidy’s challenge. MJF came by for a meeting of the mutual admiration society before each had to come up with an excuse for why they weren’t calling the other a loser last week. They are doing way too much of this saying the same thing at the same time bit.

AEW WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jon Moxley(c) vs. Eddie Kingston- 6.5/10
They hit each other a lot and worked over the head. Moxley choked Kingston out with the same “bulldog choke” that he beat Brodie Lee with.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
The Lucha Bros. attacked Moxley after the match. Will Hobbs came out to make the save but got outnumbered and overpowered. Darby Allin came out to make the save, but then got taken out by Ricky Starks. The heels beat the babyfaces down. Apparently we’re getting Darby vs. Starks next week.
One other thing I have to say here: You all know I’m not usually one to bring these sorts of things up, but the fact that Jim Ross called Will Hobbes “Willie” the first two times he said his name is the sort of thing that I think at the very least makes it clear that Ross needs a lot of diversity training. It shouldn’t be that hard to call someone by their preferred name, and the old white Southern guy using the diminutive for the young African American that isn’t a friend of his is something that should be happening on your TV in 2020.


This was another bad episode of AEW. Almost nothing going on in this promotion right now feels interesting or intelligent. Kenny and the Bucks in particular seem to be the most guilty of not thinking about the full ramifications of the things they book on their universe, but Cody and Tony certainly aren't immune, either.