BRM Reviews AEW Beach Break (terrible)

[Big Red Machine]

WE’VE GOT DUMB SET DECORATIONS, JUST LIKE WWE- Why would you waste money copying this? Just give your show a name that isn’t dumb and save the money.

FTR HAVE BEEN KICKED OUT OF THE #1 CONTENDERSHIP BATTLE ROYALE FOR THEIR ACTIONS LAST WEEK- Really?
I know I’m the guy who is always demanding that management take action when the heels break the rules, but you can’t be selective with it. Or at the very least you need to establish a threshold and this really doesn’t seem worthy of punishment when you look at so many of the other things we’ve seen done. We’ve seen people get STABBED IN THE EYE and there is no punishment. Just last week we had Butcher & Blade attack an old man while their manager helped Eddie Kingston cheat to win a match and then they all beat Lance Archer up after the match and they haven’t gotten punished. How are FTR’s actions worthy of punishment but theirs aren’t?

TAG TEAM #1 CONTENDERSHIP BATTLE ROYALE- 4.75/10
Normally when people make their entrance, they get INTO the ring, but for this match they didn’t. This was done so that the Young Bucks could kick things off by diving off the stage onto a pile of guys who were also on the outside, which seems mostly pointless. After this, just one of the Jacksons got into the ring with just one member of Top Flight, and despite just two of the twenty competitors being in the ring, the referee called for the bell. How does that make any f*cking sense?
The other Jackson got into the ring to take out Dante (who rolled under the bottom rope, so he isn’t eliminated), and then the teams took turns getting into the ring so that they could get superkicked by the Bucks and roll out under the bottom rope.
Finally everyone got into the ring and started their big schmoz (with those Young Bucks dollar bills all over the mat. That doesn’t seem safe). Isaiah Kassidy came off the top rope with some sort of dive… and the f*cking idiot director cut away WHILE A WRESTLER WAS IN MID-AIR. Less than a minute later, Hager was on the apron and grabbed Alex Reynolds for a snapmare off the apron and they cut away from this as well. If this director has a job tomorrow, AEW management is incompetent.
Hager got eliminated by the Dork Order. Jim Ross told me that I should mark this moment down as being a significant for “Hungy.” I have no idea who that is. Hager had to be restrained by the referees.
Matt Jackson and Anthony Bowers were also eliminated quickly. Luchasaurus started running wild on everyone and got a few eliminations, but he was then eliminated by the Dork Order. Moments later, Evil Uno took a big bow to taunt Luchasaurus after eliminating him (or perhaps antagonize the crowd. Either way, it’s a heel thing to do and we’re supposed to accept these guys as babyfaces now)… so MJF just grabbed him from behind and eliminated him. There is a reason I call them the Dork Order.
Darius Martin countering the Silly String into a way to eliminate Marq Quen was the easily the cleverest spot in the match. Jim Ross then booked on it by going out of his way to point out how stupid the name of the move sounds. Why is he still on commentary?
Gallows & Anderson showed up and distracted both Isaiah Kassidy and Nick Jackson, and eventually low-bridged Kassidy to eliminate him. Nick Jackson was unhappy about this and then distracted himself with Gallows & Anderson, allowing MJF to eliminate him. Whose bright idea was it to turn Private Party heel while they’re feuding with the heel Gallows & Anderson?
The final six were Jericho, MJF, Sammy Guevara, Jungle Boy, Darius Martin, and Max Caster (with Jericho & MJF being the only complete team). The Inner Circle allied together, so the other three had to as well. MJF eliminated Jungle Boy, at which point Excalibur declared that “the #2 contenders” had now been eliminated… which only begs the question of why we’re having this #1 contendership match with all of the teams if we already have a top-ranked non-champion team in the division.
We got a spot where Max Caster held MJF so Sammy could superkick him but MJF ducked and Sammy hit Caster. MJF was fine with this at the time, but I suspect he’ll become angry at Sammy later. Caster eliminated MJF soon afterwards, and immediately after that he himself was eliminated by Darius Martin. Jericho & Sammy teamed up on Martin, but we wound up in a situation where Sammy was trying to pull Martin to the floor in a headscissors and Jericho came over and flipped Martin over the top rope, resulting in Sammy getting eliminated but Martin was able to hang on. Jericho eliminated Martin moments later to win the match.
This match was hard for me to enjoy because it shined a spotlight on so many things that I find frustrating about AEW (ignoring logic for the sake of spots, bad booking of teams so no one is likable, guys who are theoretically faces doing heel things for the sake of a spot, terrible directing, inexcusably counter-productive announcing, etc.). That’s not to say that there wasn’t some good stuff in here. I think I would have had Sammy actually had Sammy connect on the superkick with MJF and later claim that he knows good MJF was so he figured MJF would have escaped by the time his foot got there, but other than that, pretty much everything that they did with Sammy, MJF and Jericho was excellent Actually, I probably would have had a second other guy still in the ring so I could give Jericho and Sammy an extended period of working together well before they eliminate that guy, then do the stuff they did in the final three segment, so that’s two things I would change instead of one, but the point is that there absolutely are good ideas and good details and good ground-laying in AEW. But that often just makes it even more frustrating for me in the end because it shows that they know what to do. They’re just not disciplined enough to spend the time to put the pieces in the right order, which is the easiest part.

One more note from this match: I noticed that Luchasaurs was still wearing the damaged mask from last week. If you’re going to keep having him wear the damaged mask, you need to have him cut the big promo first where he explains that he is wearing this mask so that he will never forget what FTR did to him and to fuel his desire for revenge on them. You can’t just send him out there on TV with the damaged mask the next week and not mention it.

JADE CARGILL VIDEO PACKAGE- boring
She just lifted weights a lot under a blue light. That’s all that happened. I think there was a Gatorade commercial like this at one point.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS DARBY ALLIN & STING- meh
This happened in the ring, and both men got full entrances. Tony announces that Joey Janela is getting a title shot next week. What the hell has he done to deserve a title shot? Beat a bunch of jobbers on Dark? That doesn’t even mean anything anymore at this point.
Before Darby can even start talking, Team Taz interrupts from the TonyTron. Remember when these guys assaulted a bunch of innocent AEW employees last week and smashed up a merch table? If FTR are getting kicked out of a battle royale for a post-match attack and cutting horns off of a match, shouldn’t these guys at least be suspended?
Taz tells me that they have been fined and that they “are not allowed in the building.” Not allowing them in the building really isn’t much of a punishment if you’re going to five them an official AEW microphone and camera and let them interrupt the show whenever they want. Taz announces that they’re going to attack Darby Allin last week. Ricky Starks cut a promo on Sting saying the he’s not the same guy he used to be. Sting vows to stop them from interfering in next week’s match, and also responds to Ricky Starks.
The promos here were good, but the logic was bad. I will also admit that when they announced that these two would be talking yet again, my response was to roll my eyes in annoyance. At this point I have no faith that they can stall this feud out until the PPV.

THUNDER ROSA vs. DR. BRITT BAKER, DMD (w/Reba)- 6.25/10
This was a good match until the stupid finish. Why would Thunder Rosa release her submission just because Reba/Rebel gets into the ring? If Reba/Rebel touches her, it’s just going to be a DQ. There are a million ways to get the turnbuckle pad off that make more sense than this. Also, doing this the way they did sets up one of those situations where you’ve essentially beaten Britt when you didn’t have to. Britt resorting to cheating to win is in and of itself a signal to fans that Thunder Rosa is enough of a threat that Britt is worried that she can’t beat her fairly, so if you just have Britt cheat without getting her inextricably caught in Thunder Rosa’s submission hold first, you still protect Thunder Rosa without hurting Britt by showing us that she actually would lose if not for the cheating. You can do that later on in the feud if you want, but doing it in the first match is a bad idea.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS ADAM PAGE & MATT HARDY LAST WEEK- terrible
Excalibur framed this by telling us that tonight’s match is happening because last week, Matt Hardy asked Tony Khan for a match against Chaos Project because Chaos Project ruined Negative One’s birthday party, and Tony Khan told Matt that he would only book the match if Adam Page agreed to be Matt’s partner for that match. How does that make ANY f*cking sense?!
1. Shouldn’t the Dork Order be the ones seeking revenge for the ruining of the birthday party of one of their own members? If they don’t give enough of a sh*t to do something about it, why should I care? Or are they just too cowardly? That’s a fine babyface trait, isn’t it?
2. Why would Tony Khan tell Matt that he would only book this match if one specific wrestler agreed to be his tag team partner? What a ridiculous restriction for Tony to put on a match! Why does Tony Khan care so much about Adam Page teaming with Matt Hardy? It’s ridiculous in a vacuum, and even more ridiculous in the context of AEW where it usually takes Tony Khan MONTHS to care about much more pressing things. Really! It feels like it’s at least once a month that I point out that there is some big angle and thus an obvious match to book, but Tony Khan as decided to book one of the involved parties in some totally random match the next week instead. And that’s not even counting things like Nyla Rose having to wait MONTHS for a title shot even though she was the #1 contender, or Allie obviously cheating and not drawing her Deadly Draw team assignment randomly.
And if he does care so much about getting those guys to team together, why didn’t he just book the match on his own? Why did he give Page veto-power?
Anyway, we then get this interview where Page senses an ulterior motive and says he doesn’t want to be in another tag team. Matt already has a tag team in his group. Why would he need Page to team with him?
Matt insists that there is no ulterior motive. He says that he thinks that the two of them teaming together to fight the birthday party crashers will “make things right again” between Page and the Dork Order, so Page agrees. WHAT IS THERE FOR HIM TO “MAKE RIGHT?!” This makes no sense! He said he didn’t want to be in their group. That should be the end of it and he shouldn’t feel bad! This is like a girl turning a guy down and saying that she just wants to be friends, and then the next day someone else comes up to her and says that because she turned down his romantic advances, she ought to go buy him a present to make it up to him. There should be nothing to make up! If the Dark Order can’t accept that Page just wants to be friends with them, then that’s their problem, not his!


ADAM PAGE & MATT HARDY vs. CHAOS PROJECT- 4/10
Stuff happened. Mardy, who has been trying to recruit Page, decides that the best thing to do is to steal Page’s pin. Page just lets this go.

WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE ELIMINATOR TOURNAMENT ANNOUNCEMENT- Matches will happen in both the US and Japan so they can use a bunch of Japanese talent who don’t currently live in the US. I guess that’s a clever way of making the tournament feel bigger than it really is without having to pay more people or spend too much time on half of the bracket. No one on the Japanese side feels like they have a real shot of winning, anyway.

CHRIS JERICHO & MJF CELEBRATE THEIR WIN WITH THE INNER CIRCLE- good
Sammy Guevara rightfully points out that only Jericho and MJF won. Jericho says that they’re all in it together, but Sammy isn’t sure anymore because everyone else is always “collateral damage.” Sammy walks off and Jericho follows him. MJF says that the of the group should have a “talk” and has Wardlow chase the cameraperson off.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS KIP SABIAN & MIRO (& THEIR BUTLER CHUCK TAYLOR)- Whatever
Miro got to be mean to Chuck. Vickie Guerrero came to tell them it was time for the wedding.

THE WEDDING OF PENELOPE FORD & KIP SABIAN- bad segment
James Mitchell is the minister. Vickie Guerrero, who we have never seen interact with Kip before, is apparently close enough to him to be the one to walk him down the aisle. The cake is right there next to the wedding canopy (or at least it would be a canopy if it had a top on it, but it doesn’t. It’s just wooden poles). Jerry Lynn is the one giving the bride away. It’s random sh*t like that and like Vickie that makes this feel like a comedy segment right from the get-go.
So they went full farce with wedding part and it was mildly entertaining. I got a particular kick out of genre-savvy Miro on the lookout for potential surprises. But it’s a wrestling wedding and we all know what’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of getting there. So how did they get there? Well…
F*cking magic. That’s how. Chuck Taylor developed magical powers, and was able to chain Miro’s leg to the ropes without even going near him, and without anyone- including Miro- noticing. These dumb, stupid, lazy f*cks.
Then it got worse, as Chuck Taylor punched Kip Sabian in the face and Kip bumped into Penelope who bumped into the cake… and the geniuses who shoot this show decided the best way to capture this shot was from behind Chuck, so they missed the big shot of Penelope’s face going into the cake.
The heels all start to beat up Chuck Taylor, at which point Orange Cassidy comes out from under the cake and saves Chuck. Then Chuck and Orange beat up Sabian in front of his best friend and new bride… and at this point I realized that these f*cking cowards wouldn’t fight fair. They had to restrain Miro and beat Kip up two on one. And as they’re doing this, they’re strutting around and we’re seeing this crying bride… and these supposed babyfaces look like the biggest heels in the world.

SHAQ’S PROMO ON CODY FROM THE NBA ON TNT SHOW- bad
This was not taken seriously at all, and Shaq had ZERO passion. At least they’re being smart and putting this on Dynamite instead of Cody being arrogant enough to think that himself vs. Shaq is something people would pay to see.

NO DISQUALIFICATIONS LUMBERJACK MATCH: Lance Archer (w/Jake “the Snake” Roberts) vs. Eddie Kingston (w/The Butcher & The Blade & The Bunny)- DUD!
A no DQs Lumberjack match? Whose moronic idea was this? You’re just begging for interference!
Butcher & Blade tripped Archer up and dragged him to the outside so the heels could beat him up… but it’s a no DQs match, so why not just get in the ring and beat him up?
Archer fought back, but was then cut off in a poorly-executed spot where he was charging at Peter Avalon, who was up against the ringpost and Avalon moved and Archer went headfirst into the post… except Avalon moved way too soon and Archer wound up looking like a f*cking idiot charging right into the post when he really should have either been able to stop or at least had time to get his hands up. What moves was he even trying to do that he didn’t have his hands up or get a foot up? A non-jumping corner splash?
Archer was up moments later, diving onto the lumberjacks for no real reason, so I guess we’ve killed the ringpost as an effective spot.
During the commercial I noticed a spot where Kingston was choking Archer with something and the referee started counting so Kingston stopped choking Archer with the foreign object… in a no DQs match.
The Bunny eventually did just run into the ring and attack Archer, but he countered it and got her up for Blackout… but instead of hitting the move, he decided to carry her around in position and roar first (you couldn’t hear the roar because Bunny was screaming so loudly), allowing Kingston to walk up to him and hit him right in the face with a Backfist to the Future. Archer rolled to the outside… and then, for no discernible reason, Jake Roberts punched Angelico in the face. The heels start getting into the ring with a table. Billy Gunn tries to get into the ring to stop them but Bryce Remsburg starts to argue with him, even though it’s a f*cking NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH!
Some dude I have never seen before named “Bear Bronson” speared The Blade through the table. The Butcher took out Bear Bronson, but some other guy who is apparently Bronson’s tag team partner in a team called “Bear Country” took The Butcher out. Meanwhile, Gunn Club- who have been in the company for an entire year and done absolutely nothing other than one nonsensical angle that went nowhere where they were betting on matches- stood at ringside being yelled at by the referee. Why did you hire them if you’re never going to do anything with them? Archer and Kingston hit each other a few times, then Archer hit his moves and won. This match was completely nonsensical. I was having flashbacks to the main event of TNA Destination X 2005

TULLY BLANCHARD & FTR PROMO- bad
There was too much overacting here. Also, they’ve kidnapped Marko Stunt and gagged him. I don’t understand how gagging Marko Stunt is supposed to be a heel move, when he’s probably the single most annoying person on the AEW roster.

JOEY JANELA PROMO- This was a fine promo to build up next week’s title match, but we still haven’t been told how Janela earned this title shot.

Next week, not only will we get to see Lee Johnson wrestle on Dynamite for what I think will be the first time, but Cezar Bononi (formerly of NXT) will also be in the match (it’s a tag match with Johnson & Cody vs. Bononi & Peter Avalon).

THE GOOD BROTHERS & KENNY OMEGA vs. JON MOXLEY & THE DEATH TRIANGLE (Rey Fenix & Pac)- 8/10
Don Callis was on commentary for this match. The match was awesome, but not awesome enough to make up for the ninety minutes of crap that came before it (basically everything but the women’s match, and even that had a finish that wasn’t very good).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Lance Archer runs out to attack Gallows and Anderson because… umm… I guess it’s his turn? He chased them away, leaving Moxley to go after Omega, but KENTA showed up and attacked Moxley. Tony Schiavone’s ignorance of why KENTA would come after Moxley is inexcusable.

This was a very bad show from AEW, even with the strong ending. The idea that Tony Khan is anything resembling the “detail guy” we have been told he is has been exposed as completely false by this point, and none of the other bookers are doing a particularly good job, either (and I’d say the Bucks are doing a downright terrible one).