BRM Reviews the 12/15/2021 Dynamite (Winter is Coming 2021)

[Big Red Machine]

AEW WORLD TITLE MATCH: Adam Page(c) vs. Bryan Danielson- 9/10
Let’s get the negative out of the way first: If the referee shouts “DON’T DO IT! STOP!” and the wrestler then does the thing multiple times, how is that not a DQ? Is running someone into the ringpost even illegal? If it is, it should happen behind the referee’s back or else be a DQ, and if it’s not the ref should shot up and not bother Danielson when he does it.
Other than that, this was excellent. I figured out where they were going the moment they ran down the card and there wasn’t much on it (any time the world title goes on first without any storyline explanation, it’s a good bet you’re getting a draw or a f*ck finish, although AEW does deserve credit for trying to preempt this suspicion but having the tag titles go on first on Rampage last week), but these two kept up a such a perfect pace that it never once felt like they were stalling to get to sixty minutes. When they were down and exhausted, I believed that they actually were down and exhausted. They told a lot of different stories and did a lot of things that I’m sure will be played off of in their next match, but the heel Danielson character in AEW feels so inauthentic that I wasn’t emotionally invested in the outcome of the match. It was an excellent sixty minutes of professional wrestling, but I wasn’t ever jumping out of my seat in excitement about a potential title change or retention or biting my fingernails in worry that my favorite might lose.

ADAM COLE, YOUNG BUCKS, & BOBBY FISH PROMO- whatever
They don’t like Best Friends. They’re having an eight-man tag. Didn’t we do that already in this feud? I’m pretty sure we did.


MATT SYDAL vs. WARDLOW (w/Shawn Spears)- no rating, bad segment
Wardlow obliterated Sydal. Spears grabbed a mic and urged Wardlow to just pin Sydal instead of powerbombing him more. Why would Spears care?
Oh. Because he’s doing a stupid bit where he tells Wardlow that what Wardlow did was excessive, then hits the victim with a chair. This whole thing with Spears feels like a guy playing a character and doing what booker tells him to do rather than feeling in any way organic. Why is Spears antagonizing Wardlow?
Spears then got a call from MJF saying that MJF needed Wardlow to get champagne for him. The announcers harped on the fact that MJF eliminated Wardlow from the battle royale last week, but I’ve been under the impression that the Inner Circle’s plan was for MJF to win, and Wardlow knows that (which makes MJF seem kind of stupid for eliminating an ally). And if that wasn’t a known plan, then Wardlow should feel betrayed, but he doesn’t seem to at all because he isn’t showing any emotion.

PENELOPE FORD VS. TAY CONTI VIDEO PACKAGE- good
They’re having a Submission match on Rampage to supposedly negate Penelope’s ability to use the brass knuckles, but that logic doesn’t really follow. Sure, she can’t knock Tay out and pin her, but she can still do a lot of damage to a limb with them, or even just knock Tay out and put on a submission and then get awarded the victory because the referee will think that Tay has passed out from the pain. Their promos were good, though.

MALAKAI BLACK PROMO- See… this right here is what I want from someone like Malakai Black. The words he was saying actually felt like they meant something. He was explaining a philosophy. Now he needs to take actions that follow that philosophy, and do so in the service of some sort of understandable goal (rather than just whatever the booker him to do at that particular moment).
And yeah, we’re definitely meant to think that that hooded lackey is Brody King, what with all of the talk about the importance of “violence” relative to a “foundation,” and Black’s final “now you’re so much more than a king” line (though he’ll probably get a new name, based off of that concluding line).

HIKARU SHIDA vs. SERENA DEEB- 6.75/10
Shida won an unspectacular match. It was solid, but it was disappointing for what was supposed to feel like a hot feud.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS THE VARSITY BLONDS- both good and terrible
Julia Hart isn’t there. Can we maybe get an explanation of why this mist is keeping her out of action a week later but didn’t have that sort of effect on anyone else who has been hit with it?
Anyway, Garrison cuts a great promo vowing revenge… which Brian Pillman Jr. interrupted to try to tell him to not get worked up because “that’s what he wants.” First of all, I don’t think getting worked up now for a match next week is going to be that much of a problem. Secondly- and more importantly- we have seen ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE that Black wants or has wanted ANYONE to get worked up, so Pillman came off like an ass.

HOOK VIDEO PACKAGE- good

EDDIE KINGSTON PROMO- great
He doesn’t care who Daniel Garcia and 2.0 pick to face him, Proud & Powerful, and the Lucha Bros next week.
Kingston is feuding with Garcia and 2.0, who also attacked Ortiz, who is one half of a tag team, and that tag team are also friends with Kingston. This is a grudge between two groups of three. WHY DID AEW BOOK A TEN-MAN TAG?!
Not only that, but booking the match this way actually favors one side (the babyfaces), because Kingston is friends with both LAX and Lucha Bros., so he will be able to work more smoothly with them while 2.0 and Garcia are forced to go out and find some people to be on their team who they likely have never tagged with before.

MJF PROMO- mostly good
I didn’t like him talking about Punk’s matches being “underwhelming.” It’s too non-kayfabe of a thing to be talking about. Other than that, this was good.

SINGLES MATCH FOR THE DYNAMITE DIAMOND RING: Dante Martin vs. MJF- 6.5/10
Underwhelming, considering that we’re dealing with two pushed young talents in a main event spot. Dante had the match won but Ricky Starks came out and put MJF’s put on the ropes. Starks then distracted Dante, allowing MJF to catch him in Salt of the Earth for the submission.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler came out to celebrate with their buddy Max. The lights went off, and when they came back on, MJF and FTR were confront by PCO, RVD, and EC3. Just kidding. Can you imagine calling that match, though?
The people who were really behind the magical lights going out were Darby Allin and Sting. They attacked their enemies, but got overwhelmed by the numbers. The fans chanted for CM Punk, and Punk eventually came out to make the save armed with a baseball bat. Where CM Punk get a baseball bat? That’s not a normal thing to have in a wrestling arena. Sting has one because he always brings one, but where did Punk get one from? Did Sting accidentally drop it while teleporting?
Anyway, this brought the Punk vs. MJF and Sting vs. Tully feuds together well, plus reignited the Darby vs. MJF feud, which was necessary, as Darby still needs some revenge, and you can’t have the babyface say “I’m going to get some wins before facing you again,” then get the wins and not come back and face the heel.
Punk challenged the heels to a trios match… and they had a graphic ready and told us that Tony Khan had booked the match literally six seconds after the words left Punk’s mouth. Then we went off the air, not having heard the big announcement from Tony Khan about next week’s show that they had been plugging throughout the night.


This was a great show from AEW. Yes, a lot of that was due to the excellent match that took up half of the show, but most of the rest of the show was at least decent, too, and the only truly bad thing was kept short.

[Big Red Machine]

Years of ****3/4 matches in ROH with Nigel, KENTA, Morishima, etc (and countless others at ****1/2 that everyone but Dave has higher)... but put him in AEW for three months and Dave has already given Dragon two ***** ratings (plus a few ****3/4).

With ROH's death, I'm really curious how it changes their business if they had the more generous Dave. How many extra DVDs would some of their shows have sold and how many more people would the buzz have gotten into the product if Dave was giving them ***** every few months (for matches that a lot of others did go that high on)?
And ditto for NOAH. Sure, Misawa's death really hurt the promotion in a lot of ways, but if Dave is giving ***** to KENTA, Marufuji, and Shiozaki every few months instead of ****3/4 do they feel more like guys who can really step in and replace Misawa and Kobashi right away? And if NOAH doesn't have that big down-swing do they wind up getting a rub from all of the attention that NJPW starts to get?

[cero2k]

Years of ****3/4 matches in ROH with Nigel, KENTA, Morishima, etc (and countless others at ****1/2 that everyone but Dave has higher)... but put him in AEW for three months and Dave has already given Dragon two ***** ratings (plus a few ****3/4).

you can't expect a man to keep his same standard for 30 years untouched, then you end up with Cornette that's stuck in the 80's.

[Big Red Machine]

Years of ****3/4 matches in ROH with Nigel, KENTA, Morishima, etc (and countless others at ****1/2 that everyone but Dave has higher)... but put him in AEW for three months and Dave has already given Dragon two ***** ratings (plus a few ****3/4).

you can't expect a man to keep his same standard for 30 years untouched, then you end up with Cornette that's stuck in the 80's.

I agree with that to a degree, although I will say that I haven't really found too much change in my ratings when you get above the 8/10 level when I re-watch things over the years.

With Dave, though, the change was SOOOOO stark, and has such a clear starting date. The moment he decided to give Omega vs.Okada 6, he started giving out 5 like it was Halloween candy. For some of these guys (Dragon, KENTA, Marufuji, Shiozaki, Nigel, Aries) it feels like it damages their legacies a bit to have not gotten that stamp of approval. Even for guys like Triple H and Orton, I think that stamp of approval would change how they are looked at in more workrate-focused circles.

There was a guy on ROHWorld who got made fun of for giving matches 6-7 stars and giving out a bunch of 5+ ratings to things that were pretty much universally agreed to be in the ****1/4-****1/2 range, but that's essentially what Dave has turned into.
I would love to see 2021 Dave watch Angel vs. Benoit from the 03 Rumble, or Dragon vs. KENTA from GBH V (he'd probably hate Dragon vs. Nigel from Unified because of the headbutts and ringpost spot and refuse to rate it like he did the first Ladder War). He should give these guys their due.

Or at least f*cking admit that he has changed.