BRM Reviews the 12/16/2020 Dynamite (dull)

[Big Red Machine]

HARDY PARTY vs. ADAM PAGE & THE DARK ORDER (Alex Reynolds & John Silver)- 5.75/10
Silver and Reynolds are dressed up like goofy cowboys because they’re goofs and think this will curry favor with Page.
Jim Ross, in an effort to remove all of his own credibility as early as possible, tries to tell me that Matt Hardy is a hall of fame-level SINGLES wrestler.
They did basic stuff. Private Party hit Gin & Juice, but Matt Hardy tagged himself in and stole the pin. Quen and Kassidy were understandably unhappy with him.

For what might well be the first time since the tournament happened back in AUGUST, Ivelisse & Diamante winning the women’s tag team tournament was mentioned. They’ve also apparently aligned themselves with Jade Cargill since last week, so this random woman how has three other wrestlers and a manager in her… stable, I guess? Also, she’s a heel but Shaq is a babyface?

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS THE INNER CIRCLE- dumb
MJF claims to have gotten a fake award from the New York Times for that stupid dance routine. Alex Marvez is treating this like it’s real. So is Jericho, who is upset that he didn’t get it even though it was supposedly his idea. Either that, or Jericho is upset that MJF made up a fake award for himself only and not for the two of them. Either way, no one comes out of this looking good. These two are back to their stupid fake friends even though both guys see through it crap. This served no purpose, and felt like things are moving backwards. If this is all these guys have planned up until whoever turns on who, it’s going to be a long slog.

CODY & BRANDI HAVE A SLICKLY-PRODICED, MULTI-CAMERA SHOOT TO ANNOUNCE THAT THEY’RE EXPECTING A BABY- I’m very happy for them. Maybe the time away that they will inevitably need to take will give them time to reconsider whether this was an appropriate use of time on their national television show. (Hint: IT’S NOT. Save this for your social media.)

CODY RHODES (w/Arn Anderson) vs. ANGELICO (w/Jack Evans)- 6/10
Cody’s legs got worked over. He won with the Cody Cutter.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Team Taz came so Taz could mock Cody. Darby was sitting in the upper deck. Team Taz were going to beat Cody up but the lights went off and Sting came out (not by magically teleportation. Turning the lights off is just part of his entrance). Sting pointed at them with the bat. Only Will Hobbs wanted to fight Sting. The others all help him back, even though they’ve got him outnumbered five to one and he’s sixty-one years old.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS MIRO- bad
Are ugly shirts Miro’s gimmick now?
Marvez, with a tone of voice that says “I’m really trying to pretend I care about this,” said that Mir hospitalized three AEW employees last week, so he has been fined $75,000. Hooray for ations having consequences. It’s a shame that it took three innocent people going to the hospital for it to happen. If only AEW had nipped this sort of thing in the bud by fining Lance Archer every time he attacked someone for no reason, which he did for weeks on end with no repercussions.
Miro explains that he hates Orange Cassidy because “he doesn’t care” about ratings or Twitch subscribers. Why should Miro care if OC doesn’t care about these things?
Miro plugged his match on Dark against Sonny Kiss (a rare plug in a promo for a match on Dark) and for Dynamite next week, a big announcement about Kip and Penelope’s wedding. It’s been months, and I still haven’t figured out why we fans are supposed to care about an announcement for a wedding that we’re not going to be invited to. Also, why would AEW agree to waste their TV time on such an announcement?

EDDIE KINGSTON PROMO- bad segment
Eddie Kingston came out to an empty ring for a scheduled promo, prompting Jim Ross to say “this is dangerous.” How? Is Jim Ross afraid of people who look like they’re in gangs?
Kingston notes that he injured Pac’s neck and Pac is home. Oh. So that explains why Pac suddenly disappeared. That’s the sort of thing AEW should probably tell us THE WEEK AFTER IT HAPPENS, so it doesn’t look like the dude who just made his big, hyped-up return has suddenly disappeared again.
Kingston then turns his verbal attention to Lance Archer. He called him a “big goofy bastard,” which brought Archer out to fight. Butcher, Blade, & Bunny followed Archer out and Archer got triple-teamed. Shouldn’t there maybe be some referees or security here to break this unauthorized brawl up? Or does that only happen when the plot requires it?
Instead of referees and/or security, we get Fenix, Penta el 0M, and the returning Pac, who we only learned was injured about two minutes ago, so his return really doesn’t feel particularly important. The one group of heels beat up the other group of heels for a while until Kingston was able to escape because Archer got annoyed that Pac kicked Kingston while Archer was holding him. How could anyone possibly care about any of this.


Is it really that hard for Jim Ross to get it through his head to not call the female interviewer “lovely” when pitching to her? Really?

DASHA GONZALEZ INTERVIEWS DUSTIN RHODES- bad… and also baffling
Dasha asks Dustin if he has given the Dark Order’s offer from last week any thought. This would be the same offer that he quickly rejected, and then slapped the person who made the offer in the face. Did Dasha not watch last week’s show? What a stupid question!
Dustin cuts a promo once again rejecting the offer and cutting this big promo challenging Uno to a match and saying he’ll take out the whole Dark Order one by one. Am I missing something here? Why is Dustin acting like this is some sort of blood feud? He feels like he’s overreacting by a ridiculous amount.

THE INNER CIRCLE (Sammy Guevara, MJF, Santana, Ortiz, Chris Jericho, & Jake Hager) vs. BEST FRIENDS, TOP FLIGHT, & THE VARSITY BLONDES- 5/10
Orange Cassidy was on commentary. If he doesn’t care, why did he care enough to come out here at all? Why did he care enough to put a headset on but not to plug it in? This is so f*cking stupid. And there is no answer to this, because the real answer is “we thought it’d be funny, lol.”
Stuff happened. The Inner Circle- all main event acts- had to resort to cheating to beat a team of guys for whom I believe only two of the six have ever won a match on Dynamite. Hager hit the F-10, but tagged MJF in to let MJF make the pin because… um… he decided to be nice? I don’t know.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
The Inner Circle attacked the babyfaces pretty much just to do so. This was done so that we could get a spot where Top Flight would be shined up a bit by being able to send Jericho and MJF into the ropes and hit them with simultaneous dropkicks so they could stand tall. This totally failed for me because of how choreographed the spot looked. It didn’t feel like Top Flight took it to these top stars so much as it felt like they did a spot to make Top Flight look good.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS THUNDER ROSA- mostly good
Thunder Rosa cut a great promo on Britt Baker. Rebel caused a distraction, allowing Britt to jump her from behind and put on the Lockjaw minus the Mandible Claw part. Rebel poured water on Thunder Rosa’s face and Britt used it to mess up her face-paint. Up until this pint, this was good stuff, but then Britt let the hold go and Thunder Rosa acted like Britt running the water around on her face had somehow knocked her out.

THE ACCLAIMED vs. SCU (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian)- 6/10
The Acclaimed came out to the ring rapping insults. Kazarian grabbed the mic and responded. I was thoroughly entertained. The Acclaimed won with a boombox to the head. I like that the acclaimed are more of a rough-and-tumble team heel team than the usual high-flyers stuff we see in AEW, even from the heels.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
The Acclaimed cut a promo on the Bucks, who were sitting in the front row, challenging them to a tag title match next week.

DASHA GONZALEZ INTERVIEWS TOP FLIGHT- good
They cut a promo on Jericho and MJF and challenged them to a match next week. Darius did most of the talking, and that was a good thing because it was pretty clear hear that Dante is not a good talker.
We were soon told that not only was the tag title match official, but Top Flight vs. MJF & Jericho will be as well.

IVELISSE & DIAMANTE vs. BIG SWOLE & SERENA DEEB- 6/10
Big Swole, who hasn’t wrestled on TV in forever, is apparently the #1 contender now. Her new finisher is a cloverleaf. She won with it.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Nyla Rose and Vickie Guerrero attacked the babyfaces after the match. Red Velvet made the save with a chair.

Every time Jim Ross says “restaurant quality,” it makes me want to feed him his headset.

BEST FRIENDS PROMO- snore
They’re going to ruin Miro announcing Kip and Penelope’s wedding date. Whatever. If OC was so annoyed about Miro screwing him out of the Dynamite Diamond Ring, maybe he should actually show it.

JURASSIC EXPRESS VIDEO PACKAGE- fine

FTR INVADE THE COMMENTARY BOOTH TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE VIDEO PACKAGE- Dax cut a very good promo.

NO DQS MATCH IN WHICH IF JOEY JANELA WINS, HE EARNS A SHOT AT THE AEW WORLD TITLE: Joey Janela(c) (w/Sonny Kiss) vs. Kenny Omega (w/Don Callis)- 6.75/10
Omega and Janela have started to fight… and the director thought it was a good idea to cut away from this several times to show us Don Callis bullying Tony Schiavone out of his seat on commentary. Then Callis got up and just took a mic to ringside and started doing commentary, and Schiavone was back on commentary. Why not just have Don come with a microphone in the first place?
Omega also grabbed a mic and did commentary. They did weapons stuff. Kenny won cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Don Callis cut a promo. The Death Triangle came out and interrupted him. Pac said that Tony Khan said that because Fenix would have faced Omega in the World Title Eliminator Tournament but had to pull out due to injury, he will be getting a title shot in two weeks.


This was a dull episode of Dynamite. The wrestling was well below the usual level and not much of any interest happened, but on the bright side, there was nothing particularly infuriating, either.

[Thelone]

That sure was a way to follow a big show with a bunch of inconsequential tags and the new top guy fighting a jobber in the main event.

For what might well be the first time since the tournament happened back in AUGUST, Ivelisse & Diamante winning the women’s tag team tournament was mentioned. They’ve also apparently aligned themselves with Jade Cargill since last week, so this random woman how has three other wrestlers and a manager in her… stable, I guess? Also, she’s a heel but Shaq is a babyface?

The bigger question is "Now what?". I suppose Shaq was brought in to fight Cody at some point and Carcrash to do the same to Brandi, which obviously isn't a thing anymore and for quite a while. Sure, Cody can still wrestle O'Neal, but will they just slot Brandi's new random friend into this feud or dump the women on the side altogether?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Team Taz came so Taz could mock Cody. Darby was sitting in the upper deck. Team Taz were going to beat Cody up but the lights went off and Sting came out (not by magically teleportation. Turning the lights off is just part of his entrance). Sting pointed at them with the bat. Only Will Hobbs wanted to fight Sting. The others all help him back, even though they’ve got him outnumbered five to one and he’s sixty-one years old.

No one in this company understands the concept of "less is more". Sting has been around for a mere three weeks and on every show so far (and already scheduled to cut a promo next week). Just spread it out, especially if he's not going to do anything other than point and stare menacingly.

EDDIE KINGSTON PROMO- bad segment

At this point, this is yet another meandering "storyline" and a perfect example of something you mentioned a while ago about how they know what needs to be in a storyline, but not how to use them effectively. Here, we have a bunch of heels (problem #1) fighting over... nothing in particular (problem #2), doing an injury angle but not mentioning it until two seconds before the injured guy "comes back" from said injury (problem #3 and #4).

Orange Cassidy was on commentary. If he doesn’t care, why did he care enough to come out here at all? Why did he care enough to put a headset on but not to plug it in? This is so f*cking stupid. And there is no answer to this, because the real answer is “we thought it’d be funny, lol.”

Crazy how a one-note joke gets grating after hearing it a million times over the last year. But he's evolving, we swear!!!

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Nyla Rose and Vickie Guerrero attacked the babyfaces after the match. Red Velvet made the save with a chair.

So yeah, they're definitely slotting Brandi's out-of-thin-air new BFF into this Shaq storyline (or whatever this is really at this point).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Don Callis cut a promo. The Death Triangle came out and interrupted him. Pac said that Tony Khan said that because Fenix would have faced Omega in the World Title Eliminator Tournament but had to pull out due to injury, he will be getting a title shot in two weeks.

More heels fighting each other and frankly, who are the babyfaces on this roster right now?

[Big Red Machine]

More heels fighting each other and frankly, who are the babyfaces on this roster right now?

I've had this thought a lot recently, and the depth chart I've come up with is:
1. Moxley
2. Darby Allin
3. Adam Page (currently in an angle where heels are trying to recruit him)
4. Goof Patrol (and I can argue that OC really isn't a babyface)
5.... SCU?

[Thelone]

I guess you can put Cody in there somewhere depending on his mood, but that seems about right. Clearly, the end goal is for Page to shake off being a drunk loser and proving his old tag partner that he's better than him, but just like Moxley, Omega's reign will be filled with nothing title matches until we get there by the looks of it.

[Big Red Machine]

I guess you can put Cody in there somewhere depending on his mood, but that seems about right.

Cody almost never comes off to be as a babyface, not matter what they do to him. He always has this air of smarminess or self-importance about him, or is kind of being a dick for no reason.

[Thelone]

You're preaching to the choir here, but he's still a babyface in theory, or nothing I suppose since "faces and heels are so last century".