BRM Reviews the 10/7/2020 Dynamite (bad, other than Cody vs. Brodie)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 10/7/2020 Dynamite (bad, other than Cody vs. Brodie)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 13th, '20, 00:06

JERICHO TRIBUTE VIDEO- fine
Chuck Taylor said “I patterned a lot of my career after what he did.” Yeah… I don’t see that at all.
I liked that they did a good job of keeping this feeling kayfabe (other than that).

Jim Ross claimed that tonight we would see “the first dog collar match of national repute in thirty-seven years.” I guess you can argue that the famous dog-collar matches in ECW and TNA (and certainly in ROH) weren’t as well known when they happened, but I probably would have avoided phrasing it that way. Minimizing the history of other organizations is one of those things that WWE does that people hate and therefore is something I would be very careful to avoid doing if I were AEW.

Also, don’t tell me a match is “thirty years in the making” when half of the competitors haven’t been in the business for that long.


FTW TITLE MATCH: Brian Cage(c) vs. Will Hobbs- 6.5/10
Taz told us that the FTW Title is “anti-establishment” and a “lifestyle.” That may be, but we’ve seen absolutely no evidence that Cage lives such a lifestyle. Ricky Starks was on commentary. He added nothing of value, and came off as extremely boring.
They had a good hoss fight. Cage won clean.
Ross called Will Hobbs “Willie Hobbs” far too often for it to be acceptable. Even if there wasn’t a racial thing here (and I’m not saying that Ross is doing anything consciously), the fact remains that THAT’S NOT THE DUDE’S NAME, and this is not the first person on the roster that Ross has had this problem with (“Jungle Jack” comes immediately to mind, but I’m pretty sure there have been others as well). Look… if you want some sort of old-school credibility, you’ve got Schiavone to do interviews, and Taz can serve as your link to the Attitude Era on commentary. There is no reason for Ross to have not been removed from commentary by now.

Look… I’m not trying to pick on J.R., but take the following exchange. Hobbs hit Cage with a back suplex, which is a pretty basic and low-key move in the US. Cage kicked out. Excalibur calls it like it is. Taz says “yeah, that was a nice counter.” Taz and Excalibur are already moving on, but Ross jumped in and tried to make this kick-out look impressive by saying “I’ve seen lots of guys get beat by that move.” He came off like someone who had to get a line in about this thing even though the others had already moved past it, and his line was the sort of thing that both comes off as pathetically past it’s time in that he’s trying to make every single move seem like a killer when we know it’s not, and kills an announcer’s credibility because when was the last time you remember seeing someone get beaten with a back suplex (not a backdrop driver)?
Compare that with Taz, who swooped in to save J.R.’s sorry ass by doing the thing that J.R. could have done to make his statement feel a lot more credible but completely failed to do: Explained why this rather basic move can put someone down for the count (because the force you come down with on the back of your head can knock someone out).
(And yes, I know that in kayfabe, we’re supposed to view every move as dangerous, but there are certain things that are so ingrained in fans that having an explanation is necessary to make it feel credible.)

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- decent
Starks and Cage were about to beat Hobbs up when Taz called them off. He gave Hobbs the ultimatum to either join Team Taz or get his ass kicked. Darby Allin came out and chased the heels away, so Taz cut a promo on Darby, promising him that he’d be getting what’s coming to him very soon.
Mechanically this was very good and Taz is always great, but I’m pretty damn tired of this Darby Allin vs. Team Taz feud at this point. Part of me wants to see Hobbs turn on Darby and join Team Taz, but I’m not sure that’s the best way to go with this.

JERICHO CONGRATULATIONS VIDEO- fine
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Can we PLEASE kayfabe people’s parents’ last names?
Tanahashi was a good get for this. When I saw Bully Ray, I threw up in my mouth.

LANCE ARCHER PROMO- fine

Tony Schiavone told us that he “understands why the Young Bucks are angry” when people bring up FTR. That’s fine. Now can you please explain to me why they are misplacing their anger and attacking referees and interviewers instead of attacking FTR, even when FTR are right in front of them?
This whole storyline is already bad, but AEW managed to make it even worse with Tony’s lines here. Ross and Excalibur were unrelenting in their condemnation of the Bucks’ actions as wrong and unprofessional. Schiavone, meanwhile, is saying “I can’t hold a grudge” and refuses to condemn them or even display any kind of anger. Normally this would be bad, but in AEW it’s even worse because the Bucks are Tony’s bosses, and he comes off as someone afraid to speak out against them, even though there are other bosses (like Tony Khan) who will surely stand up for him. It’s yet another instance of AEW not thinking through the consequences of acknowledging the Elite’s and Brandi’s roles in the company on-screen.
And as bad as that would be on its own, it’s even worse when you look at the entirety of the Tony Schiavone character we’ve seen. He won’t criticize the Bucks when they attack him with no cause, he thinks he’s friends with Britt Baker when all she does is insult him and boss him around. He’s such a poor, pathetic loser that it starts to be hard to feel bad for him.

AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: FTR(c) (w/Tully Blanchard)- vs. the Hybrid 2 (Jack Evans & Angelico)- 5/10
The last time we heard from the Hybrid 2 was MONTHS AGO and their story was that they could never win a match. Now we see them for the first time in months, and they’re on a three-match winning streak? If you’re going to pay a storyline off, why are you not doing it on Dynamite?! And it turns out that that’s not even a recent thing, as this is Jack Evans’ first match in quite a while due to a broken jaw.
There was some fine stuff in here, but my enjoyment of it was greatly diminished by the fact that Jack Evans forgot to sell his leg every time he needed to go on offense.
FTR won with a Superplex into a Frog Splash. Jim Ross thinks that this is directed at the Young Bucks because they’re great high flyers. Okay… but so are two thirds of the teams in the division.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT #1- MORONIC!
The Young Bucks POV-Superkick a cameraman. And they hammed it up, first. There was no rage here. This was not a spur of the moment action in a fit of anger. This was pure and simple douchebaggery.
WWE has been pretty f*cking wretched this year, but I might well vote for the Young Bucks for the worst bookers of the year. They have SOOOO much talent to work with, but they have managed to completely destroy the division, and they’ve made both themselves and FTR, who felt like superstars two months ago, feel like midcarder dorks.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT #2- bad
Best Friends put up a graphic on the TonyTron of FTR dressed as hot dogs. Then they came out wearing t-shirts with that graphic and called them “weenies.” I get that they’re playing into FTR’s criticism of them as “comedy” “backyard” wrestlers, but that doesn’t make them appealing to me in any way. They then announced that Tony Khan has granted them a title shot next week. I thought FTR were booking their own matches. I guess that’s just not happening anymore now?
FTR tried to get Best Friends but Best Friends got the best of them. This was meh build to a title match that I had to sit through dumb crap to get to.

MJF PROMO ON CHRIS JERICHO- dull
This MJF/Jericho is not entertaining me in any way. We know that they’re full of sh*t, so it’s just waiting until something actually happens.

MORE JERICHO TRIBUTES- I was a little disappointed that Don Callis was not in character (either as Cyrus, or the Cyrus-esque troll he was o Killing The Town).


DOG COLLAR MATCH FOR THE AEW TNT TITLE: Brodie Lee(c) (Anna Jay & John Silver) vs. Cody Rhodes (w/Arn Anderson & Brandi Rhodes)- 8.25/10
The idea that f*cking Dr. Luther and Serpentico are main eventing a show with this match on it is ridiculous.
Before the match they showed us a video package of mostly Arn speaking and talking about Cody get his self-respect back. It’s the sort of thing that might have worked well if Cody had framed this match better in his promo last week instead of wasting time with a pointless, self-indulgent swerve.
Ross keeps pushing this Dog Collar match from 1983 between Rodd Piper and Greg Valentine, and while I’m certainly not opposed to celebrating wrestling’s history, you need to do it in a way that doesn’t feel like the old codger doesn’t have anything newer to talk about. ROH had a similar problem a few years ago where the commentators spent too much time talking about things in the 80s and it made the promotion feel old. Ross is talking about something that happened before Black Saturday! Hulk Hogan was still working for Verne Gagne when that match took place!
Okay… the f*cking ringside doctor doesn’t need his own introduction. Greg Valentine would have been a nice touch except that this show already has so many old Crockett/Georgia guys running around on it that one more makes AEW feel old (especially on a night where you’ve got Jericho wrestling Dr. Luther to honor Jericho’s 30th year in wrestling) and that is the opposite of how AEW need to come across.
Why did Brodie not bring his whole crew to ringside with him? And if he could only bring two people, why did he use one of his spots on the guy in his group who seems to annoy him the most? (And not five minutes in we got a spot where Brodie wasted time when he had an advantage to get a chair so he could order Silver to sit in it, which gave Cody enough time to recover and throw a big dropkick. Brodie was able to avoid it Silver got hit instead, which was the second time that had happened in this match, and both times Silver has been placed in an awkward position just to make it happen, so it starts to feel like they’re trying to turn it into a comedy thing in the middle of this match that they’ve built up as extremely dangerous and violent).
Anna Jay then went to check on Silver, and Brodie ordered her to get him out of there, so now Brodie has no one at ringside with him. What an idiot.
The first big spot we got with the chain saw Cody get yanked off the top rope, and the poor guy appeared to land right on his arm instead of on his back. The match went on for an appropriate amount of time and was appropriately bloody and violent. They made very good use of the stipulation as well. Awesome stuff.
That being said, the booking here was a big mistake. Cody absolutely should not have won the belt back here. This was HUGE disservice to Brodie Lee. He got to squash Cody, defend against two midcarders, and then when Cody is ready to come back from hiatus to film a TV show, Cody gets the belt right back. It makes Brodie feel like he was just a placeholder. This felt like something WWE would do, where they’d put the belt on some new person fans like for a month or two, then just go right back to Cena/Orton/Hunter/Batista while the fan-favorite would go right back down to the midcard and they would act like they had elevated the guy when in the long term they hadn’t.
And speaking of WWE, the other issue here is that Brodie Lee now feels like yet another ex-WWE guy who fans wanted to see in AEW because we think this has real potential to be a star, and AEW has failed to utilize him particularly well. I’ve outlined my frustrations about how FTR have been used multiple times recently, and I don’t think anyone will argue that Rusev/Miro has been botched horribly. At this point, AEW has lost all credibility in terms of being able to make something out of guys who WWE was not able to make anything out of, and that’s a big blow to confidence in AEW’s ability to be the mainstream alternative that fans have been craving.
Also, in hindsight, the squash match feels completely bizarre. Brodie was Super Brodie for one night. In all of his other matches since, he has wrestled to his general station (beating guys lower on the card, then putting up a good fight against but ultimately losing to Cody). That sort of thing makes this whole little push feel more forced, and thus not like something to be taken seriously as a vote of confidence in him because it feels like something that was done to make us see Brodie as more of a threat rather than Brodie actually feeling like he had become more of a threat. Lacking a better term, it exposes the invisible hand of the booker, moving the pieces around on the board.

The other reason I think this was a very bad move is that I think both the money and the creative interest/better art are in the longer story arc. This should have been the first step to Cody earning his self-respect back by having a good showing but then losing. Then you spend two or three weeks on Cody being upset but having Arn, Dustin, and Brandi convince him that he put up a valiant effort and that he needs to keep going.
Then you move him into a feud with MJF. MJF sees that Cody is down in the dumps, so of course he’s going to take a few pot-shots. He’ll point out that Cody has never beaten him. You do some stuff and you build up to a rematch at Full Gear where Cody finally beats MJF (and MJF needs something to actually do if you’re not going to pull the trigger on this Jericho feud very soon). Now Cody has a little more confidence. Maybe you give him a win on TV over another man who beat him, Chris Jericho (and you can use that as fuel for the MJF/Jericho feud by having Jericho taunt MJF about having lost to Cody, only for Jericho to then lose to Cody as well). THEN you can start moving Cody back towards Brodie Lee and winning the belt back (and, meanwhile, you’ve given Brodie some real credibility with wins over big names like Adam Page and done a story where Cabana has wound up with a title shot but Brodie won’t give it to him, resulting in him leaving the group, etc.).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Cody but a big, emotional promo talking about loving the fans and loving being a pro wrestler and his emotion was really good, but it was completely out of nowhere. The idea of this match was that Cody was- as Arn told us- earning back his self-respect. That idea was completely absent from this promo. Instead we just got Generic Babyface Promo #4.
Cody wants to defend his title on the anniversary show next week. Out came Orange Cassidy, so Cody will defend the belt against him. Fine.

ADAM PAGE, WARDLOW, AND COLT CABANA HAVE ALL BEEN ANNOUNCED FOR THE #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT- fine

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS KENNY OMEGA- fine
He slights Adam Page by calling him a “tag team wrestler.”

SERENA DEEB vs. BIG SWOLE- 4.75/10
Swole won clean.

JON MOXLEY PROMO- great build for next week’s AEW World Title defense against Lance Archer

It was clarified for us that next week’s tag title match will be under regular rules rather than the ones that AEW has been letting FTR use. Why change now? If AEW is okay with the “Brush With Greatness” rules (or whatever it’s called), why are they switching? And yes, there does need to be a reason, because if there isn’t it, it feels like the reason is because the bookers wanted to have this match go more than twenty minutes, which is immersion-breaking.

MORE JERICHO TRIBUTES- I popped for Ultimo Dragon. I also popped for Lance Storm. This show would be ninety times better if they let Lance book it.

THE CHAOS PROJECT (Dr. Luther & Serpentico) vs. THE INNER CIRCLE (Chris Jericho & Jake Hager) (w/the Inner Circle)- 5.25/10
They tried, but there was no reason for this to be a main event.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
MJF interrupts Jericho’s post-match promo to give him a big present, and definitely not to steal his spotlight. MJF said so himself. Goofiness ensued. MJF got Jericho a clown and a picture of himself. Jericho hit the clown with the picture, then hit him with the Judas Effect. Then they did the “gotcha” thing. We all know they don’t like each other, so there is no suspense here. It’s just boring with them acting like clowns and me wondering why Jericho doesn’t just have the Inner Circle kick MJF and Wardlow’s asses five on two.
All the heels came out at the end and they rolled credits where all of the names were Chris Jericho. This was stupid.


Another bad show from AEW other than Cody vs. Brodie, and even that had a huge booking misstep.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Ross criticizes Jack Evans for diving onto FTR when they were holding Angelico because “he took out three guys; one of them was his.”
Yeah, but he took out two from the other team, so his team still comes out ahead.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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NWK2000
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/7/2020 Dynamite (bad, other than Cody vs. Brodie)

Post by NWK2000 » Oct 13th, '20, 14:21

Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 13th, '20, 00:06
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
MJF interrupts Jericho’s post-match promo to give him a big present, and definitely not to steal his spotlight. MJF said so himself. Goofiness ensued. MJF got Jericho a clown and a picture of himself. Jericho hit the clown with the picture, then hit him with the Judas Effect. Then they did the “gotcha” thing. We all know they don’t like each other, so there is no suspense here. It’s just boring with them acting like clowns and me wondering why Jericho doesn’t just have the Inner Circle kick MJF and Wardlow’s asses five on two.
All the heels came out at the end and they rolled credits where all of the names were Chris Jericho. This was stupid.
.
The clown thing was super dumb, but I popped for this in concept so hard. When was the last time you saw the heel locker room, or any heel, get to just... celebrate anything to close a show? And not like in an "Oh no the babyfaces are left laying tune in next week to see what'll happen next," thing. Just....celebrating? Call my kooky, but I think this should happen more often, just for the sake of variety, and the fact that the show doesn't have to end the same two ways ("heels lay out babyfaces" or "babyfaces celebrate/ cut a promo") every time. Also the whole "end to a Saturday Night Live episode" feel was super dumb, but I laughed because that's exactly how Jericho would set up the end of his show.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/7/2020 Dynamite (bad, other than Cody vs. Brodie)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 13th, '20, 17:05

NWK2000 wrote: Oct 13th, '20, 14:21
Call my kooky, but I think this should happen more often, just for the sake of variety, and the fact that the show doesn't have to end the same two ways ("heels lay out babyfaces" or "babyfaces celebrate/ cut a promo") every time.
Okay,, you're kooky, and here's why:
Those aren't the only two ways to end a show. Just off the top of my head there is "big stare-down," "setting up a mystery," and "shocking revelation,"and even among just those four archetypes, there is lots of variety. For example, the "shocking revelation" can be a heel turn, it can be some other big revelation in a story (think "I'm your papi!" or "your brother Kane is alive!"), it can be a major announcement by the authority figure, it can a debuting or returning wrestler- and even just within those subcategories there is variety (for example, the debuting/returning wrestler can just be announced, can appear and stand silently on the ramp, he can cut a promo, he can attack someone, etc.).
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/7/2020 Dynamite (bad, other than Cody vs. Brodie)

Post by NWK2000 » Oct 14th, '20, 08:16

Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 13th, '20, 17:05
Okay,, you're kooky, and here's why:
Those aren't the only two ways to end a show. Just off the top of my head there is "big stare-down," "setting up a mystery," and "shocking revelation,"and even among just those four archetypes, there is lots of variety. For example, the "shocking revelation" can be a heel turn, it can be some other big revelation in a story (think "I'm your papi!" or "your brother Kane is alive!"), it can be a major announcement by the authority figure, it can a debuting or returning wrestler- and even just within those subcategories there is variety (for example, the debuting/returning wrestler can just be announced, can appear and stand silently on the ramp, he can cut a promo, he can attack someone, etc.).
Perhaps why I enjoyed this so much is because your examples all took place 10+ years ago, and wrestling has been relying exclusively on my two more pedestrian examples since then.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/7/2020 Dynamite (bad, other than Cody vs. Brodie)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 14th, '20, 08:28

NWK2000 wrote: Oct 14th, '20, 08:16
Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 13th, '20, 17:05
Okay,, you're kooky, and here's why:
Those aren't the only two ways to end a show. Just off the top of my head there is "big stare-down," "setting up a mystery," and "shocking revelation,"and even among just those four archetypes, there is lots of variety. For example, the "shocking revelation" can be a heel turn, it can be some other big revelation in a story (think "I'm your papi!" or "your brother Kane is alive!"), it can be a major announcement by the authority figure, it can a debuting or returning wrestler- and even just within those subcategories there is variety (for example, the debuting/returning wrestler can just be announced, can appear and stand silently on the ramp, he can cut a promo, he can attack someone, etc.).
Perhaps why I enjoyed this so much is because your examples all took place 10+ years ago, and wrestling has been relying exclusively on my two more pedestrian examples since then.
Okay, fine. Eric Young turning on Bobby Roode in TNA's Destination America debut is a "big reveal." "Who attacked Aleister Black?" was a mystery set-up. And I'm sure there are others, but I don't have time to think of them right now.

My general point is that the categories you are using here are far too broad. You're splitting everything into either "good guys stand tall at the end" or "bad guys stand tall at the end," but the reality is that within those broad categories there is a lot of variety. You're looking at a Crayola 256 box and complaining that it only has ten colors because everything is either red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, white, brown, or black.
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