BRM Reviews the 11/25/2020 Dynamite

[Big Red Machine]

ADAM PAGE vs. JOHN SILVER (w/the Dark Order)- 6.75/10
Their little fact for Page is that he “lost his phone for six weeks, was too cheap to buy a new one.” Is that supposed to make him likable? Because it doesn’t. It makes him irresponsible. You need a cellphone in the modern world, and going SIX WEEKS without one when you need it for work is ridiculous.
Page suffered this big loss to Kenny Omega. Then we don’t see him for weeks, and when he comes back to TV, we are told that he has been hanging out with the Dark Order on Being The Elite. Really. We got an inset promo from the Dark Order in which we were told that they requested this match. How come they can get matches that they want booked but most others can’t?
Adam Page rejects John Silver’s pre-match fist-bump. Are they friends or not? You don’t even need to be someone’s friend to return a traditional gesture of respect, so this makes it seem like there is animosity there, but the clip of them hanging out together makes it seem like there isn’t. It shouldn’t be hard to get this sort of crap right, and yet AEW constantly seems to fail at it.
Also, as Ross noted, Page did not have a drink in his hand on the way to the ring. Him realizing that he has a problem seems like it should have been a big storyline moment, but it apparently happened off of TV.
This was your typical good AEW opener, but Silver feels like a goofball jobber and Page taking so long to beat is dragging Page down rather than building Silver up (as opposed to, say, if Page was wrestling someone like Jungle Boy or Kip Sabian, who hasn’t been totally clownified yet).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine, I guess
The Dark Order are trying to recruit Page. Evil Uno tells him that “The Elite” wouldn’t let him leave. That might be true, but that never really meant anything because Page kept involving himself with Elite Business the whole time he supposedly wasn’t in the group. Saying that that makes The Elite a cult was a good line, though.
My issue with all of this is that I don’t see why Page would join the Dark Order after everything he knows they have done. They’re clearly evil.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS KENNY OMEGA- good heel stuff
He wants Moxley to “leave the garbage wrestling at home.” To be honest, I’d like to see Moxley do that in a big match as well.

DARBY ALLIN VIDEO- good
This week he set a car on fire.

“POWERHOUSE” HOBBS vs. LEE JOHNSON- squash
Taz was on commentary for this match. I assume the change to “Powerhouse” Hobbs is to stop Ross from calling him “Willie.”
Also, this Lee Johnson guy who we have never seen before is apparently part of the Nightmare Family. Because it’s not enough for Hobbs to beat a jobber. We have to make the jobber Cody’s friend out of nowhere.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Taz putts Hobbs over and then sends him off so he can cut his promo. Taz feels slighted that management won’t recognize the FTW Title as being official, and he demands that they come out and do so. Management doesn’t like this, so they start cutting mics on him. Then Cody came out to talk to him and they turned Taz’s mic back on.
Cody tells Taz’s that he’s wasting time and asks Taz what else he wants other than the match booked for next week (Cody & Darby vs. Starks & Hobbs). Did Cody not listen to a single thing Taz was saying? He wants his made-up title recognized! Taz explained this to Cody, and Cody responded that he would “run it up the flagpole” in the most condescending manner possible. Taz is rightfully annoyed by this, so Cody then asks Taz “if FTW is so great,” why is Taz’s son training with Cody and not Taz.
Taz turns to leave, but then comes back and chokes Cody out. The Gunn Club, who also became Cody’s pals offscreen, came out to make the save, and Taz left with his son.
Oh my Lord, where to start?
1. The stuff with Taz’s son not only comes completely out of nowhere, but it is also completely irrelevant to the point at hand.
2. Cody came off like a complete and total douchebag here. He clearly didn’t even listen to Taz’s complaint when Taz first made it, was extremely condescending in responding to it, and then brought up something that was clearly personal but also irrelevant.
3. That last point becomes an even bigger problem when you remember that people have said A LOT of things on AEW that have been either calling out management or been over the line in some way or another, and I don’t remember anyone’s mic ever being cut, so why are we doing it now? The only answer I can think of is that they want Cody’s angle to feel like a shoot, and that is 1) not a kayfabe reason, and 2) is once again, the company going an extra mile for Cody when they don’t for others.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS EDDIE KINGSTON- excellent
Kingston cut a promo saying he expected Fenix to go with Pac but is “not angry” at Penta, but rather “very disappointed.” Moxley showed up and they had a great little confrontation where Moxley didn’t even have to say anything, and Kingston merely told him that he wasn’t the one who laid him out and “you know who it was.”

TOP FLIGHT vs. TH2- 7.25/10
A great action match. TH2 won clean and attacked after the match, but the Young Bucks made the save.

NYLA ROSE & VICKIE GUERRERO PROMO- bad
Vickie’s delivery was very bad. She accused Brandi Rhodes of “nepotism” because Brandi hired a bunch of people who I don’t think anyone even knew Brandi was friends with. She also said that she definitely didn’t influence Jade Cargill to break Brandi’s arm last week, so that explains why they were there.

FTR PROMO- awesome

SCU (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) vs. THE INNER CIRCLE (Chris Jericho & Jake Hager) (w/the Inner Circle)- 6/10
My brother (a lapsed fan from the 2002-2004 era) watched a chunk of this show with me. Within minutes of the match starting, he asked me why Aubrey Edwards was jumping around so much, and said it was both distracting and made things look faker.
Heat on Daniels. Heels win after a punch with MJF’s ring and a Judas Effect. Kaz punched MJF after the match so the Inner Circle beat the crap out of SCU. Scorpio Sky showed up with a chair and sent the whole Inner Circle running.

MIRO & KIP’S VIDEO GAME EXTRAVAGANZA- bad
Why is AEW airing this? What does he kayfabe company get out of it?
My brother noted that Penelope Ford was holding a controller like she had no idea how it works.
Orange Cassidy wandered into the shot so the heels chased after him and ran into an ambush set by the babyfaces. That’s pretty f*cking backwards. Rusev pushed the cameraman and our final violence took place offscreen.

WORLD TITLE CONTRACT SIGNING- AWESOME!
Moxley jumped Omega during his entrance while he was behind the screen, which looked cool. Moxley hit him with a Paradigm Shift on the belt, then cut an awesome promo.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS THE INNER CIRCLE- good
General heel stuff. MJF is outraged that Kazarian sucker-punched him. Jericho challenges Kaz to a match next week.

AEW WORLD WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Hikaru Shida(c) vs. Anna Jay (w/the Dark Order)- 5.75/10
Tay Conti was at ringside while some of the others were on the stage. Shida overcame some cheating to win clean.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- terrible
Abadon crawled out and licked the title belt. Other people were in the room when this happened. I’m considering suing AEW for damages because others saw me watching this.

MATT HARDY PROMO- meh

PROMO BY THE ACTUAL WRESTLERS ON TEAM TAZ- GREAT!

THE DEATH TRIANGLE (Rey Fenix & Pac) (w/Penta El 0M) vs. THE BUTCHER & THE BLADE (w/The Bunny)- 6.75/10
Out of nowhere, Ross says that he’s not sure if Bryce Remsburg is Bryce’s real name.
1. Why would you bring this up at all?
2. Even if it’s not, WHO CARES?!

Butcher & Blade win after Kingston interferes.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t care
Kingston’s heels beat up Pac’s heels with a chair. This story moved so fast and there are no babyfaces, so this feels like an undercard feud where I have no reason to care who wins. Eventually Lance Archer came out and beat up Kingston’s guys, so now there is another heel involved here, and I’m not really even sure why he’s involved. They were angry at each other for a while, but neither side ever acted on it, so I assumed the issue was dead. Schiavone told us that Archer has “wanted to get his hands on Eddie Kingston since the anniversary show.” That show was six weeks ago. If he’s wanted to get his hands on Eddie Kingston for that long, why has he waited until now to act on it? This is the guy who used to go around attacking random people each week for no reason, but now that he has a particular person he wants to attack, he waits six weeks before doing it? Really?

Another typical episode of AEW. Moxley was awesome and the wrestling was mostly good, but the storylines are pretty darn crappy. This promotion REALLY needs an editor.

[Thelone]

The sad thing is that Tony Khan is most likely the "editor", but isn't doing anything because he actually loves the silly shit himself and doesn't want to upset the boys by overruling them, no matter how self-indulgent/stupid a storyline/angle/whatever can be. This is pretty clear with Cody feuding with ten people at once while having a horde to support/serve him, and Bucks/Omega giving zero shits about the divisions they're "booking".

This whole "let's give wrestlers creative freedom" is all nice and good in theory, but you have to find a balance between "here, this is ten pages of ridiculous dialogue you have to recite verbatim, and your segment is NOW by the way" and "eh, do whatever guys, it's fine".