BRM Reviews the 11/17/2021 Dyanmite (MJF PROMO OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 11/17/2021 Dyanmite (MJF PROMO OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 19th, '21, 11:40

ELITE PROMO- fine
Kenny is a total babyface about having lost the title to Page. He says there are some things he needs to go fix. He asks the others if they can hold down the fort while he is gone. Adam Cole says that they will, but then Kenny says “I was talking to the Bucks.” Kind of a dickish thing to say, and really for no reason. Aren’t they pals?
Cole is apologetic. Nick Jackson steps in to tell Kenny that they will hold down the fort together.
Then, they decided it was necessary to give us some “comedy” by showing us that Brandon Cutler is too dumb to figure out how to stop recording, which begs the question why the Bucks are using him to film these things if he’s too dumb to know how to cut when they tell him to cut.

ADAM PAGE’S WORLD TITLE CELEBRATION- didn’t like it, but I can’t deny it was pretty riveting
The Dark Order are in the ring, and Chief Clown John Silver cuts a promo to bring Page out. The fans start chanting “YOU DESERVE IT!” but Page gets them to chant “YOU’VE EARNED IT!” instead. That’s much better.
They keep saying that it’s “National Cowboy Sh*t Day.” Can we please not make everything into a joke?
Page started to cut a really great babyface promo, but made the mistake of mentioning his next challenger’s name, and so Danielson came out and interrupted him. That was kind of douchy of Dragon. Then Dragon gets a little more douchy and says that he is “disappointed” and “surprised” that he won’t get to challenge Kenny Omega.
Page fires back that he beat Kenny in less than thirty minutes, which Dragon was unable to do. Bryan says he didn’t come out here to start anything, but then calls Cole out for celebrating by cutting a promo instead of wrestling a match. He points out that he wrestled the night after he won the world title at WrestleMania. I don’t know if it was just the mention of WrestleMania that prompted the boos, but they were well-deserved, because Bryan came off like he was trying to troll Page and the crowd with this.
And then Bryan went for plain-old cheap heat by saying “of course Virginia boos hard work.” They can’t seriously be turning Bryan Danielson heel, can they?
Page offers to have their title match tonight. Bryan says that he normally would, but while he is out here in his gear, Page is dressed up as a cowboy (“with some kind of awful leather jacket”), and he has heard from everyone that Adam Page always makes excuses, so he doesn’t want to win the world title in a match where Page will have the “excuse” that he wasn’t ready.
Page wanted to fight, and shoving started. The Dark Order got between them. Or at least the men did. Anna Jay hopped out of the ring to watch because apparently she’s just a mere girl and a not trained combat athlete. That sort of sh*t drives me nuts. Which idiot decided that we could have a female as part of a big clump of wrestlers holding a male wrestler back?
Anyway, Bryan said that having his “little friends” get between them was an indication that Page didn’t really want to fight right now. The crowd chanted “LET THEM FIGHT!” but Bryan said the Dark Order wouldn’t let Page go because they knew he would get his ass kicked… so the Dark Order let Page go and he speared Bryan and threw some punches. The Dark Order pulled him off and Dragon rolled out of the ring.
The keys to this whole thing were Dragon’s tone and his smirk. He did a wonderful job of making it clear that he was just saying these things to fire Page up (which is why the cheap heat line felt out of place to me, even if Page is from Virginia, because it was a shot at the fans and not at Page). This was all in character for this AEW version of Dragon, but I don’t see that character not ending up as a heel eventually, because he the whole “I want people to be at their best when I beat them” thing feels a tad more egotistical than a babyface should be. It reminds me of Michael Shane in early ROH, who said he loved the Code of Honor because he loved people having to acknowledge that he was better than them when he beat them. Bryan’s positive trait of wanting his competition to be at its best when they face off feels like it is now in service to his ego rather than a sort of more “pure” desire to have one’s hard work pay off with the ultimate prize of being the champion. It’s very subtle, but on a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 is pure babyface and 10 is pure heel, it’s definitely more of a 5.25 than a 4.75, and you can’t move back towards the middle without losing the key element of the character.

EVIL UNO vs. BRYAN DANIELSON- 5.75/10
The very first spot in the match was Dragon getting a Boston Crab, Uno getting to the ropes, and Bryan not breaking the whole until the last moment, then letting the referee know that he has until five. He’s definitely trying to go heel. And, contrary to what I was expecting, the crowd actually booed his heelish tactic. He also didn’t let the Triangle Choke go right away after the finish.
If you like the “firing up” slap-fights, you’ll like this more than I did. Also thought they were on the verge of allowing Uno to get too much offense in against Dragon.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS BRYAN DANIELSON- Bryan says that he did what he did to Uno because of Page’s behavior earlier. He says he’ll do the same to every member of the Dark Order until he gets his title shot, and challenges Colt Cabana to a match next week because they’re in Chicago.
So yeah. He’s definitely going heel now. They’re tacking into the wind here, although I will admit that tonight’s reaction might be an early indicator that it could actually work.
As for the particular storyline… here’s the problem with it: Bryan is the rightful number-one contender, and he wants his title shot. Adam Page is a babyface champion who has said he’s happy to give Bryan that shot. It shouldn’t take Tony Khan more than twenty minutes to get this match booked. There is no logical reason that this match can’t be booked for Rampage, or next week’s Dynamite. Bryan “going through” the Dark Order to get his title shot is the key to turning him heel, but there is no logical reason that he should have to do so, as both parties have already indicated that they want the match, and no one else has a better claim to a title shot. Every week that Tony Khan doesn’t book this match is essentially Tony allowing a member of the Dark Order to suffer because at best Tony is just lazy, and at worst, Tony is greedy and wants to hold off on the match until the PPV to make himself more money off of it.

MJF PROMO FROM AFTER FULL GEAR- PROMO OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE!

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH EDDIE KINGSTON IS INTERRUPTED BY 2.0 & DANIEL GARCIA- As good as anything involving 2.0 can be
2.0 pointed out that Kingston didn’t last as long against CM Punk as Daniel Garcia did… which just reminds me that AEW tried to give Garcia some spotlight over the summer, and then completely squandered it by having him off TV for months.
The interaction between Kingston and Garcia was very good. Hopefully Eddie’s comments about not being able to respect Gacia due to his association with 2.0 (specifically letting them go around and call him their “son”) will lead to Garcia dumping these clowns.

THE BUTCHER & THE BLADE (w/Matt Hardy & The Bunny) vs. CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Orange Cassidy) (w/Rocky Romero, Kris Statlander, Wheeler YUTA, & Chuck Taylor)- 5.25/10
I don’t care for OC’s schtick or for Ishii’s no-selling gimmick, or this go-nowhere, interminable feud, so I probably liked this less than most others. It felt like the whole purpose of this match was to get over the idea that the Goof Troop are now part of CHAOS, which is a fact that 1) I don’t see being relevant often enough to make part of your universe in the first place, and 2) I don’t think 80% of AEW’s fanbase is going to care about, and most of the remaining 20% will realize that it doesn’t mean much because they’re going to be undercard gaijin members of a New Japan stable that currently has FOURTEEN members.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS ADRANDE EL IDOLO, FTR, & TULLY BLANCHARD- snore
Andrade is angry at Jose The Assistant for some reason or another. We’ve got a challenge for an eight-man tag pitting FTR, Andrade, & Malakai Black against Cody, Pac, & the Lucha Bros. I’m sure the match will be good, but this story isn’t going anywhere. The only thing it feels like it is building towards is some sort of Arn Anderson vs. Tully Blanchard physical confrontation… in 2021. I don’t want to see dudes in their sixties fighting (other than maybe the occasional Sting match, and I don’t want to see him fighting anyone else in their sixties).

TAY CONTI PROMO- meh
She tried to paint her loss to Dr. Britt Baker, DMD as a positive because she gained valuable experience, but she came off a little too strong and confident for my tastes, to the point where it felt like she was basically ignoring the fact that she lost. I think she needed to be more subdued.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS DR. BRITT BAKER, DMD, JAMIE HAYTER, & REBEL- very good
She bragged about her win, built up the Jamie Hayter vs. Thunder Rosa TBS Title Tournament match for next week, and reminded us of her own issue with Thunder Rosa. And speaking of Thunder Rosa, they need to get the belt on her sooner rather than later, because I don’t think there is anyone who thinks that Britt is losing the belt to anyone other than Thunder Rosa, so it’s essentially strangling the division at this point.

TBS TITLE TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Nyla Rose (w/Vickie Guerrero) vs. Hikaru Shida- 6.25/10
Remember when they made that big deal about Shida getting her fiftieth win a few weeks ago. Well Nyla Rose was apparently close enough behind her that she has already reached fifty as well, and if she wins tonight she will tie Shida. How was Nyla nipping at Shida’s heels not part of the story they tried to tell about Shida getting her fiftieth win?
Nyla won after interference from Vickie and from Serena Deeb. Shida’s injured knee was worked over. Got the win with a standing Stretch Muffler, which looked cool. Hopefully she keeps using it. I like a wrestler who is larger than everyone else having a big, nasty submission they can go to instead of just telling the “I’m bigger and stronger than you” story in the same way all the time.

ALEISTER BLACK PROMO- excellent… although he seems to be taking it for granted that his eight-man tag has already been made official.

MJF (& SHAWN SPEARS & WARDLOW) PROMO- good… I think?
MJF cuts his big promo saying he is the best and deserves to be the next champion… and is interrupted by CM PUNK! Punk got into the ring. MJF offered him a handshake… and Punk snubbed him and left. This worked… but I’m a little interested in what Punk was going to say if MJF didn’t give him an opening to snub him.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH DARBY ALLIN IS INTERRPTED BY GUNN CLUB- good
Darby insists that MJF didn’t break him. He still wants to face AEW’s biggest and baddest. Cue Billy Gunn & Sons. Billy accepted the challenge, saying that he was AEW’s biggest and baddest. The others made fun of Darby for being a skateboarded. This should be a fine little program to rebuild Darby.

ADAM COLE & YOUNG BUCKS PROMO- bad
The Bucks tried to be angry and came off as over the top and goofy. The Bucks are not cleared due to their injuries from the PPV, so Cole will team with Bobby Fish against Jurassic Express on Rampage. Fish came in and tried to use a WWE catchphrase but the others cut him off because this serious feud where Matt Jackson is claiming that Jungle Boy tried to “end my life” a few days ago has to have comedy in it.

DANTE MARTIN & LIO RUSH vs. THE ACCLAIMED- 6.75/10
Good action. Lio and Dante won clean.
Am I the only one who rolls his eyes when Excalibur is plugging the schedule and Jim Ross jumps in with “I’m really looking forward to that event in *INSERT CITY HERE*?” It just sounds so fake to me. I have a lot of problems with Ross, but one of the biggest recently (since he started in New Japan, really) is that he seems to feel like he needs to tell us things that should be obvious by the very fact that they are happening or by the conventions of the universe. If Jim hadn’t opened his mouth here, would anyone have assumed that the, one of the company’s announcers, wasn’t excited for that show? Or, to give another example, there was a point early on in this match where he said something along the lines of “Tony Khan thinks very highly of the athletic skills of these athletes.” Well duh! If he didn’t he wouldn’t have signed them to contracts and wouldn’t be booking them on his TV show!

TEAM TAZ COME OUT TO TRY TO RECRUIT DANTE MARTIN- decent
This would have been a lot more convincing if Hobbs had actually gone anywhere in the year since joining Team Taz.

CHRISTIAN CAGE, JUNGLE BOY, & LUCHASAURUS PROMO- fine
The important part here is that Jungle Boy has changed and is now tougher. They accepted Adam Cole and Bobby Fish’s challenge.

JADE CARGILL VS. RED VELVET VIDEO PACKAGE- bad
Red Velvet says that everything Jade has done wrong, she will do right. I’m struggling to think of anything Jade Cargill has done wrong. Jade, who is supposed to be the heel, came off like the vengeful babyface (which she really is due to last week’s completely unprovoked attack, which Jade swore revenge for). Red Velvet came off as the delusional jealous heel. Jade isn’t “lucky” she got a bye. She earned that bye via winning enough matches to be in the top four in the rankings (or whatever it was). Is Dustin the only person in the Nightmare Family who understands how to be a babyface? Even Lee Johnson snubbed Q.T. Marshall for absolutely no reason when giving his big speech after his first win.

LUCHA BROS. PROMO- meh
JAY LETHAL PROMO- fine

AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Sammy Guevara(c) vs. Jay Lethal- 7.25/10
Sammy’s ribs were taped up so Lethal worked them over. They had me thinking there was a chance Lethal would actually win the belt. Sammy won clean. The Inner Circle came out after the match and were somewhere between respectful and friendly to Lethal. Not sure if that will mean anything or not, but it felt like it was worth flagging.



This was a very enjoyable show from AEW, despite its faults and a few other things that have me a little worried. Mid-November at this point so I feel like I can say for certain that AEW will finish in my top three of promotions this year and for TV shows as well. The only other two who even feel like they are in the running are wXw (who I am, admittedly, a month or so behind on) and NXT UK (who I am two months behind on, but are probably the front-runner at the moment).
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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