BRM Reviews the 12/9/2020 Dynamite (Creative Incompetence)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 12/9/2020 Dynamite (Creative Incompetence)

Post by Big Red Machine » Dec 10th, '20, 00:08

DASHA TRIES TO ASK THE BUCKS ABOUT KENNY OMEGA- They claim no knowledge of his plans and no contact with him. I’m not sure I believe that, as I remember them leaving together after Kenny got angry to start his slow heel turn.

Tony Schiavone told us that he thinks that “what happened last week has rekindled many people’s love for pro wrestling.” Thankfully, Ross nudged him with “you’re talking about Sting, right,” because I was certain that Tony was referring to the Kenny Omega angle, which would be an absolutely ridiculous thing for Tony to say in kayfabe (because if Omega’s supposedly dastardly actions made people like wrestling again, why is everyone in AEW so upset about them? Or, alternatively, that makes wrestling fans out to be a bunch of assholes).

IF TH2 WIN, THEY EARN A SHOT AT THE AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: TH2 vs. the Young Bucks- 6/10
TH2 jumped the bell on the Bucks. This wasn’t so much a tag team match as it was just a team match, because the tags were nowhere to be found. Lots of flips, though.
Matt Jackson landed badly so his knee started acting up again. Angelico locked him in a submission and he’s screaming in pain. Nick was able to dispose of Jack Evans, and we wound up with Nick in the middle of the apron… and instead of just running into the ring and breaking the submission up, he had to run to the corner and climb to the top turnbuckle to do flip to break it up (including having to take the time to make sure he was balanced before jumping). I face-palmed. When people complain about matches with flips, it’s sh*t like that makes them complain, not because all they want to see is chinlocks and arm wringers.
The Bucks wound up winning cleanly (well… assuming you ignore the fact that AEW has a ten-count to get out of the ring after a tag and in this match the illegal partners were in for about a count of three-hundred), so I guess they’re not going to elevate TH2. I’m actually fine with that. It’s nice to have someone fail once in a while to cut down on predictability. It does, however, reinforce that wins on Dark don’t mean sh*t because as soon as you stick the person/team on Dynamite for any length of time, he/she/they start losing again fairly quickly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
The Acclaimed hopped the barricade with the intent of attacking the Bucks, but Kaz and Daniels ran them off.

MJF PROMO- I’m calling this a bad promo because MJF is supposed to be a heel, but he cut what to me sounded like a complete and total babyface promo about why he hates Orange Cassidy’s guts and the intelligence level of people who enjoy Orange Cassidy.

Tony Schiavone tells us that we’re going to see “the macabre, creepy Abadon” in action tonight. I see someone got Tony an early Christmas present in the form of a shiny new thesaurus.
Also tonight, we can see Dustin Rhodes wrestle a dude whose name is a number for reasons that have never been explained. I mean really! Why does Brodie Lee do this? And why do some people still have numbers but everyone refers to them by their names, but others are stuck with the numbers? I want to know these things. And if there is no reason for the numbers, then you shouldn’t be doing them, because all they do is stand in the way of a guy like 5 of 10 getting over, because who the f*ck could possibly care about someone named “5” or “10?”

DARBY ALLIN VIDEO- great
He’s taking a very specific Rorschach test. He also cut a promo on Brian Cage, who he will defend the TNT Title against at some point.

STING INTERRUPTS TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWING CODY RHODES (W/ARN ANDERSON) ABOUT STING- bad
Sting came out before Cody had even said a word, which was kind of douchy of him, because Cody hadn’t said anything for him to react to and Sting already has his own interview with Schiavone scheduled for later tonight, so why interrupt Cody’s?
Arn grabbed a microphone so he could tell us all that this is, indeed, the real Sting, and then told us all that he was leaving. That was all very strange, as it made it feel like the only reason he was out here in the first place was so he could have this moment with Sting, even though he had no idea Sting was going to come out (if his presence was relevant to what Cody had to say, then surely he would have stayed out here, right?).
Sting had a nice little moment with Schiavone, then Tony left, too. Isn’t he supposed to be interviewing Sting? If you wanted to have a face-to-face between Sting and Cody, then just advertise that! Don’t purposely create logic holes in your own damn story!
Cody pays Sting a nice complement, to which Sting says “I’m not here for you.” Well then why did you interrupt him? But then he started to talk to Cody. Are you here to talk to Cody or not, dude? And we still don’t know, because he said he wasn’t going to tell Cody what he was up to, then left. This whole thing felt completely pointless.

TEAM TAZ PROMO- meh
The news is that Taz’s son is training with them now, and they’re always ready to beat people up.

THE VARSITY BLONDS vs. FTR (w/Tully Blanchard)- 6.25/10
Jim Ross claimed that this was Pillman Jr. and Griff Garrison’s debut on Dynamite, which isn’t true. It’s not seen the first time they’ve teamed together on Dynamite. FTR won clean, but the Varsity Blonds got to have a very good showing.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- FTR got in Jurassic Express’ face after the match, seemingly for the sake of having a confrontation.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS ADAM PAGE- bad
In every other instance on this show, they book a whole match, but in this one instance, I guess Tony Khan just got really lazy and booked Page in a six-man tag against Matt hardy and Private Party and then told Page to find his own partners. And it just so happens that the one time this happens, it’s to a guy who is in the middle of an angle where the Dark Order is trying to recruit him. This would have felt a lot less forced if they had simply said that Brodie Lee talked to Tony Khan to set the match up, just like he would do when they were trying to recruit Cabana (and boy, that story sure has gone somewhere, hasn’t it).
And, of course, Reynolds and Silver having been hiding behind the bar this whole time in goofy cowboy hats and are saying things like “howdy partner.” Page apparently has no one willing to team with him, so he’ll let these goofs be his partners.

10 vs. DUSTIN RHODES (w/Lee Johnson)- 2/10
One of the goofball wrestlers in the crowd reached out and grabbed 10 for absolutely no reason, so he got his face kicked in like he deserves. In addition to this interference, Dustin BIT 10 right before hitting his finisher, so really, the heel got screwed by supposed babyfaces cheating him. The reason I’m not very optimistic about this whole big Kenny Omega angle is that AEW often fails to do basic things like this right.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
The Dork Order come out and ask Dustin to join them as number 7. Get it? It’s a WCW reference! I’m sure that was totally worth making everyone wonder why the Dark Order would have an 8, a 9, and a 10 when they don’t yet have a 7. Dustin slapped Uno, and the Dark Order left, with Uno claiming that Dustin would eventually “see the light” and “beg” to join them.

SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH TONY SCHIAVONE, BRANDI RHODES, AND SHAQ- bad
Brandi is immediately upset because Tony ran down a long list of accolades for Shaq and only referred to her as the Chief Brand Officer. Well what the f*ck else have you even done, Brandi? They cannot possibly think that she comes off like a babyface, can they?
Well… actually… when you look at the way the Bucks and Cody come off, they probably do, don’t they?
Shaq wasn’t mic’d well. He said and Jade Cargill go back a long way, but he didn’t appreciate her breaking Brandi’s arm. Brandi tried to excuse her bad behavior a few weeks ago. Shaq eventually said that she could watch Jade and get some pointers while her arm was in a sling, so Brandi got angrier and threw a drink on him. Was that kind of a douchy thing for Shaq to say? Sure. But Brandi had already been acting like such a jerk that I had no interest in seeing her fire back at Shaq. She deserved the mean comment.
Also… whose idea was it to make Shaq a heel? He’s one of the most likable celebrities I have ever seen.

THE INNER CIRCLE DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO BREAK UP FOREVER- mostly good (shockingly)
I love that they’re having this big discussion without Santana.
I was amazed that, despite the ridiculousness of the set-up, this actually got somewhere good. Seeing Sammy stand up for himself like that felt like a big moment for him, like it was the beginning of a real face turn.
Then Hager and Wardlow had to go and ruin it with their goofy complaints about the other one staring. The stuff at the end with MJF and Jericho was also good.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS FTR AND TULLY BLANCHARD- weird
They’re all total babyfaces and accepting responsibility for the loss. Dawson was pretty hard on himself. The idea that Cash made a mistake by trying to beat the Bucks at their own game was brought up, but that doesn’t work for me because they’ve been doing top rope moves in AEW before that.

THE LUCHA BROS. & LANCE ARCHER (w/Jake Roberts) vs. THE BUTCHER & THE BLADE (w/The Bunny)- 4/10
They brawled around ringside before the match. Penta got put through a table, so he was down on the outside the entire match. Probably longer than he would have been in most other matches, really. I’m not complaining about that. I think it’d be great to actually make table-bumps start to mean something again, but you’ve got to be consistent with that to make it work.
This was a bunch of heels fighting. They did stuff. The team with fewer people lost.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Lance Archer attacked Kingston’s team after the match. The Blade got his ass kicked until The Butcher was able to pull him to safety. I don’t care about his feud one but, and neither this match nor this post-match advanced the story in any way.

LOTS OF COMMOTION WITH THE WOMEN BACKSTAGE- bad
Nyla Rose and Jade Cargil are beating up Brandi’s off-screen friend Red Velvet. Considering that we’ve barely seen Red Velvet and no nothing about her and have seen even less of Brandi interacting with her, the pathos really doesn’t work here. Big Swole and Serena Deeb showed up to make the save, but they got shoved from behind by Ivelisse and Diamante… and the whole group was kept apart by two referees.

ABADON vs. TESHA PRICE- squash

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Abadon kept beating on the jobber until Hikaru Shida came out and knocked her out with one shot from a Kendo stick. Shida helped the jobber for a bit, but Abadon sat up because horror movie. That’s how Abadon comes across. She comes across like a character doing things because of the trope, and that’s never good because it feels fake.

DASHA INTERVIEWS CHRIS JERICHO, ORTIZ, JAKE HAGER, & SAMMY GUEVARA- bad
Dasha noted that we just saw the Inner Circle agree to stay together, then asks “does that mean that you’re all on the same page?” What a stupid f*cking question! You just answered it yourself, Dasha!
Jericho says that they will be at ringside tonight to make sure that MJF beats Orange Cassidy. The heels have just declared their intention to interfere in the main event. Let’s see if management takes any action to stop this. I’m better that they don’t.

KENNY OMEGA ARRIVES VIA HELICOPTER- Wow. That helicopter came down suspiciously fast. Maybe edit this together better next time.
When Kenny got out of the chopper, Alex Marvez tried to interview him. WHY? Isn’t he on his way to the ring to be interviewed by Tony Schiavone?

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS KENNY OMEGA- not so good
Hey, AEW? If you want me to think that everyone is angry at Kenny Omega for doing this terrible thing, maybe don’t have your ring announcer play along with Kenny’s grandiose entrance and put him over in ridiculous ways.
Tony Schiavone tells Kenny that he has “never been more disgusted” by anything he has seen in all of his years in the wrestling business. There is A LOT of WCW footage that would disprove that. Tony didn’t seem anywhere near as angry with Kenny last week as he did with, say, Hulk Hogan joining the n.W.o., just to name the first example that popped into my head.
Don Callis claimed that “they’re calling it the biggest screwjob since Montreal.”
First of all, I have not heard ANYONE make that comparison. Within kayfabe, there are a lot of events that are more comparable to the Montreal finish than this (like, you know… all of the way too many times some promotion has done the Montreal finish over the years).
Secondly, and even more importantly… just… don’t EVER mention Montreal in this sort of situation. There is nothing you can do that comes across as more TNA-esque and desperate to tell everyone “pay attention to us! We’re the new Attitude Era!” than comparing your own screwy finish to the Montreal Screwjob.
Other than that, this was kind of meh. They had the attitude right, but it also came across as extremely “generic heel.” Oh… and which idiot thought it was a good idea to punctuate Kenny’s heel turn by bringing back one of his popular catchphrases?

They announced a bunch of named shows for the holiday season, including Snoop Dogg as a guest on January 6th. I hope they have cards that can deliver.

WINNER GETS THE AEW DYNAMITE DIAMOND RING: Orange Cassidy (w/Best Friends) vs. MJF (w/the Inner Circle)- 8/10
The match was awesome, with MJF working over OC’s hand, and several great nearfalls. It was awesome enough that the run-in finish with Miro (wearing perhaps the single ugliest shirt I have ever seen) didn’t bother me much. OC didn’t do any of his goofy sh*t.
But just because OC wasn’t goofy doesn’t mean that no one was. In this case, that someone was AEW management. As I noted during their interview, the Inner Circle openly declared their intentions to help MJF cheat to win this match… and management didn’t do a damn thing about it! That’s a problem because the whole point of the Kenny Omega angle is that we’re supposed to be upset that he cheated. Cheating can’t only inspire outrage in selective circumstances.
After the Inner Circle’s big interference spot, Best Friends went to the back to get reinforcements. Rather than big babyface names who presumably have strong moral compasses, they could apparently only recruit undercard dorks who have a combined total of zero wins on Dynamite. One of them who I didn’t even recognize appeared to be wearing a really bad Ming The Merciless cosplay outfit. That didn’t help this any, because it is once again all but the most desperate-for-TV-time babyfaces not caring that these heels are trying to screw this guy out of the title, even though the story for Omega- who did the same thing to Moxley- is that everyone and their uncle is angry at Kenny for doing so.


This was another frustrating episode of AEW, despite the awesome main event. This company has so much talent, but the people in charge of the Creative end are just not competent, and it’s tragic.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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Thelone
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Joined: Jul 9th, '19, 16:22

Re: BRM Reviews the 12/9/2020 Dynamite (Creative Incompetence)

Post by Thelone » Dec 11th, '20, 05:32

Another week, another episode of the "Rhodes family rubs shoulders with celebrities and legends". Watch Taz' group flounder into nothingness because they're seemingly done with Daddeh's Boy now, try to awkwardly slot Brandi "I'm not Stephanie McMahon" Rhodes in storylines, and eat TV time like crazy because who needs new stars really.

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