BRM Reviews the 4/6/2022 Dynamite (FTR VS. BUCKS!)

[Big Red Machine]

ADAM COLE vs. CHRISTIAN CAGE- 7.5/10
With the way the announcers hyped this up, I was pretty disappointed when Cole’s opponent was revealed to be Christian.
Cole won a great opener after a thumb to the eye. He really shouldn’t be needing to cheat to beat Christian.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
The heels wanted there to be a post-match segment, so reDRagon came out and attacked Christian. Jurassic Express came out to make the save, leaving Cole alone. The Adam Page came out and got in Cole’s face, and said that as punishment for stealing the title belt, Page will give Adam Cole the title shot Cole wants… but in a Texas Deathmatch. AEW books an unnecessary gimmick match. Everyone take a drink.

JAY LETHAL HEEL TURN RECAP- They started this with the aftermath of the main event of Supercard of Honor… except that Lethal’s actual turn was at the end of his match, earlier in the night, so if you just watched this video package, when Gresham says “because of your actions earlier tonight,” you have no idea what he’s talking about. This is WCW-level failure.

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT QUALIFYING MATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Max Caster- 4/10
Caster’s pre-match wrap included the line “Tony, why’d you give this guy a chance? When we beat them in the ratings, he was their champ.” I’m fine with the line in theory because even though promotion’s shouldn’t (kayfabe) care about ratings anywhere near as much as they should promoting good competition, it’s a heel saying it, with the theoretical purpose of trying to politic to get rid of a new wrestler he knows he will have trouble with.
In this particular case, though, that was a TERRIBLE line to use because Joe was only the NXT champion for a few weeks. Whatever criticism there is of Joe in that statement is even more true for Keith Lee and Adam Cole, who were champion for a lot longer, and both of whom are people AEW is trying to push right now!
Joe won a short match cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
Sonjay Dutt and Jay Lethal appeared on the TonyTron and Lethal cut a promo. He said that his new outlook is just to do whatever he wants, which I REALLY didn’t like. The basis of Lethal’s heel turn was that he wanted to play by the rules, but too many other people weren’t doing it, so he decided to throw the rules out the window. That’s a lot different from the generic dick that he was here.
Lethal then told us that while he was having those struggles and looking for advice, he tried to call Joe for MONTHS, and Joe never answered the phone, and when Joe was backstage at the same show as Lethal on Friday, he hid his presence from Lethal. That’s pretty sh*tty of Joe. Assuming it’s true, of course, which it might not be, because Lethal is a heel, but considering how such things have been played in the past in AEW, it seems more than likely that it actually is true. That doesn’t make Lethal’s actions acceptable, but it certainly makes Joe less likable.
Next week, they say they’re going to give Joe a present. So basically it’s the same thing they did with Q.T. Marshall and Hook two weeks ago.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS THE BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB- meh
Regal was fine. I didn’t care for Moxley’s promo. I’m also not thrilled that they put the ROH Pure Title on Wheeler YUTA and then are going to immediately have him lose to Moxley.

Apparently Eddie Kingston broke a monitor earlier.

SHAWN SPEARS vs. SHAWN DEAN- no rating, meh segment
MJF was on commentary for this match. AEW using the announcers’ plug for Rat in the Kitchen to insult MJF is genius.
Have they ever explained why Tully Blanchard isn’t managing Shawn Spears anymore?
Wardlow, of course, picks this moment to force his way into the building. He murders several security guards. I’m actually really not liking that. The situation to compare this to that springs to mind for most people- myself included- is Steve Austin trying to get into a building after Vince has ejected him from it. The difference between those two situations, to me, is that the WWF security guards worked for the evil boss trying to screw the babyface by keeping him out of place he had a right to be (if you want to get really technical about it, you can argue that it’s really a privilege and not a right, but then the issue there is that Vince is revoking Austin’s privilege while letting others who do the same or worse keep theirs). They were willing hands in enforcing an unjust dictate.
In this case, the security guards work for Tony Khan, not MJF, and they are enforcing what seems to be a just dictate. If MJF is Wardlow’s boss, then MJF has the right to tell him “You are not to come here. I am paying you to sit at home,” and Wardlow is brutalizing these poor shmucks just trying to do their job.
“Well then how is Wardlow supposed to get any sort of revenge on MJF?” you ask. The obvious answer to me is that Tony Khan should just hire Wardlow as a wrestler. The contract to MJF is not a wrestling contract, so it shouldn’t block Wardlow from signing with AEW. And this should be obvious to Tony. He’s a wrestling promoter. Signing people to contracts is what he does.
And yet he hasn’t taken this obvious step. And this isn’t the first time, either. Remember when Danielson wanted a title match and Page wanted to give Danielson one, and Danielson vowed to keep injuring members of the Dark Order every week until he got a title shot? You’d think Tony would just book a title match, but instead he waited WEEKS, resulting in Danielson injuring multiple of Tony’s employees.
And speaking of people not doing things that should be obvious to them, why hasn’t MJF threated to sue Wardlow for breach of contract if Wardlow is disobeying his orders by showing up to TV every week when MJF ordered him to stay home?

Oh yeah. The match. Shawn Dean won by roll-up when Wardlow’s presence distracted Spears. Dean, as you might remember, was the guy who Punk got MJF disqualified against. And now Dean has picked up another improbable win over another member of the Pinnacle. The problem with this is that if Dean ONLY shows up on TV when the booking needs to give him an improbable win over a member of a specific stable, it makes the show feel contrived.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS BEST FRIENDS- okay
Chuck Taylor claiming that Wheeler can become the best wrestler he can by training with them instead of with Danielson, Moxley, and Regal is ridiculous. Trent’s antagonism towards Wheeler was much better this week than last week.

EARLIER TONIGHT, EDDIE KINGSTON & LAX FOUGHT WITH THE JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY AND CHASED THEM OUT OF THE BUILDING- good
I like that this didn’t happen during the two hours of TV.

EDDIE KINGSTON & LAX PROMO- AWESOME!

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS JADE CARGILL & MARK STERLING- great, but…
Jade came out and called the fans “slobs” at the beginning of what was otherwise an excellent babyface promo, even though Jade is a heel.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS MJF AND SHAWN SPEARS- great
MJF cut an excellent promo challenging Shawn Dean to a match next week, and vowing that there would be twice as many security guards next week. I guess he’s going to hire some of his ow to supplement the usual crew?

ELIMINATION TABLES MATCH: The Hardy Boyz vs. The Butcher & The Blade- 7.25/10
The Bunny was not at ringside for unexplained reasons. The match was great, although I really didn’t like that it was the already-eliminated Jeff who put The Blade through the table to get the win. Matt is crazy taking some of the bumps he did here, given the shape he is in.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- The rest of the AFO came out to menace the Hardys. Sting showed to make the save. He took out Private Party. The Bunny used herself as a human shield so that Sting wouldn’t hit Andrade with his bat. This felt like a thing that happened because the booker wanted to keep the feud going rather than anything that the characters had any real reason to do. After all, if Andrade and pals wanted to attack the Hardys, why not do it DURING THE MATCH?

JURASSIC EXPRESS PROMO- Christian angrily threw his water bottle and walked off, apparently still angry about his loss earlier. Jurassic Express then offered to put their titles up against reDRagon next week because… um…

NYLA ROSE VS. THUNDER ROSA VIDEO PACKAGE- fine
Nyla will be given her title shot Battle of the Belts.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS TONI STORM & JAMIE HAYTER- didn’t like it
Hayter’s promo was good, but the animosity between them felt so random, to the point it felt like a put-on.

OWEN HART FOUNDATION WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT QUALIFYING MATCH: Hikaru Shida vs. Julia Hart (w/the Varsity Blonds)- 6/10
Julia Hart attacked Shida from behind, before the bell. Tony Schiavone completely supported this highly immoral and cowardly assault. The Varsity Blonds questioned Julia’s tactics, so he told them to go to the back. Tony Schiavone claimed he had never seen anyone send their second to the back before. Why is this clown on the air instead of Taz? Or any random fan out of the audience? Okay, maybe saying any “random” fan is going too far because there is the chance that said random fan could turn out to be Matt Striker, but you get my point.
Julia had a good showing here, but she still lost cleanly. This heel turn is not off to a good start.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT+- meh
Serena Deeb’s music played, but she came out from the other side, so the music tech was in on this attempted dastardly attack. Tony Khan should fire that person. Shida sensed it coming, so we got a chair vs. Kendo stick stand-off, which ended when Deeb left.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS SHANE STRICKLAND- fine
He cut a promo telling us about his trip to the Grammys. When he was done, Team Taz attacked him (and Keith Lee, who was also in the locker room, but the babyfaces won the brawl when Lee shoved Will Hobbs through a suspiciously thin segment of the wall.

ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE & AAA CAMPEONATOS DE PAREJAS MATCH: FTR(c)(c) vs. the Young Bucks (w/Brandon Cutler)- 9.5/10
BOBBY CRUISE on the intros!
So FTR are having a pretty solid week, I’d say. I was surprised to see a clean finish here, as I was expecting the Briscoes to cost the Bucks the match. This was an excellent mix of the two teams’ styles, with FTR’s pacing and intensity working to make some of the Bucks overly-cutesy spots not feel so cutesy and pre-planned.

This was an excellent episode of Dynamite, combining excellent wrestling with storyline advancement that well… while it mostly wasn’t particularly good, it wasn’t the illogical, shoddy crap we usually get (with one or two exceptions in both directions). Definitely the best episode of Dynamite in a long time.

[cero2k]

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT QUALIFYING MATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Max Caster- 4/10
Caster’s pre-match wrap included the line “Tony, why’d you give this guy a chance? When we beat them in the ratings, he was their champ.” I’m fine with the line in theory because even though promotion’s shouldn’t (kayfabe) care about ratings anywhere near as much as they should promoting good competition, it’s a heel saying it, with the theoretical purpose of trying to politic to get rid of a new wrestler he knows he will have trouble with.

I think even in kayfabe, ratings make sense, it should be the same as a wrestler saying "people buy tickets to watch me wrestling" or " I sold out Madison Square Garden". Ratings should imply that people tune in to watch us versus the other programming.

[Big Red Machine]

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT QUALIFYING MATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Max Caster- 4/10
Caster’s pre-match wrap included the line “Tony, why’d you give this guy a chance? When we beat them in the ratings, he was their champ.” I’m fine with the line in theory because even though promotion’s shouldn’t (kayfabe) care about ratings anywhere near as much as they should promoting good competition, it’s a heel saying it, with the theoretical purpose of trying to politic to get rid of a new wrestler he knows he will have trouble with.

I think even in kayfabe, ratings make sense, it should be the same as a wrestler saying "people buy tickets to watch me wrestling" or " I sold out Madison Square Garden". Ratings should imply that people tune in to watch us versus the other programming.

On the individual level, yes, but that's not quite what this was. Max Caster shouldn't care if AEW beats NXT. He should care that his segments beat everyone else's on both shows (and even then, caring about that should be a distant second to caring about whether or not he won his match on a given week).

And either way, saying "this new guy isn't a big star" isn't a particularly smart move (and, remember, Tony is supposedly pre-approving all of Caster's lyrics now).

[cero2k]

On the individual level, yes, but that's not quite what this was. Max Caster shouldn't care if AEW beats NXT. He should care that his segments beat everyone else's on both shows (and even then, caring about that should be a distant second to caring about whether or not he won his match on a given week).

And either way, saying "this new guy isn't a big star" isn't a particularly smart move (and, remember, Tony is supposedly pre-approving all of Caster's lyrics now).

Why shouldn't Caster care that he works for a company that's beating the other well established one? Just because he's a heel doesn't mean he represents AEW and would fight for AEW.

the only thing dumber than "this new guy isn't a big star" are the people who would believe it, I don't see a problem with it, especially when it comes from a heel's mouth, and is immediately beaten up and proven wrong.

[Big Red Machine]

On the individual level, yes, but that's not quite what this was. Max Caster shouldn't care if AEW beats NXT. He should care that his segments beat everyone else's on both shows (and even then, caring about that should be a distant second to caring about whether or not he won his match on a given week).

And either way, saying "this new guy isn't a big star" isn't a particularly smart move (and, remember, Tony is supposedly pre-approving all of Caster's lyrics now).

Why shouldn't Caster care that he works for a company that's beating the other well established one? Just because he's a heel doesn't mean he represents AEW and would fight for AEW.

the only thing dumber than "this new guy isn't a big star" are the people who would believe it, I don't see a problem with it, especially when it comes from a heel's mouth, and is immediately beaten up and proven wrong.

He shouldn't care because it's not a team sport! If UFC and Bellator went head-to-head, the guy who loses a mid-card fight on the UFC show isn't going to care about having out-drawn Bellator.

The problem with your "well, a heel said it, and then got proven wrong when he got his ass kicked" logic is as follows:
If the guy then goes and kicks the heel's ass, that exposes that the ratings are irrelevant to the kayfabe quality of the competition, so him being proud about AEW beating NXT in the ratings is pointless.

[cero2k]

He shouldn't care because it's not a team sport! If UFC and Bellator went head-to-head, the guy who loses a mid-card fight on the UFC show isn't going to care about having out-drawn Bellator.

The problem with your "well, a heel said it, and then got proven wrong when he got his ass kicked" logic is as follows:
If the guy then goes and kicks the heel's ass, that exposes that the ratings are irrelevant to the kayfabe quality of the competition, so him being proud about AEW beating NXT in the ratings is pointless.

but he's not a gun for hire, or even a 'local talent getting bookings', he IS signed wit the promotion and thus represents the company and the company represents him, and of course they're going to want that their promotion is the top watched promotion in the world. You could make the argument for someone like Abadon or MAYBE the House of Black, who are characters kinda outside of this human realm (i think), but if you're a normal fighter, you definitely care that you wrestler/fight for the top promotion, and you should definitely be proud of it. Otherwise, quit.

Ratings SHOULD be irrelevant to the quality of competition. Ratings should not depend on the quality of competition, the last thing I would want is for people to think that WWE has better competitive quality because they have bigger ratings. that applies to both kayfabe and reality.

[Big Red Machine]

He shouldn't care because it's not a team sport! If UFC and Bellator went head-to-head, the guy who loses a mid-card fight on the UFC show isn't going to care about having out-drawn Bellator.

The problem with your "well, a heel said it, and then got proven wrong when he got his ass kicked" logic is as follows:
If the guy then goes and kicks the heel's ass, that exposes that the ratings are irrelevant to the kayfabe quality of the competition, so him being proud about AEW beating NXT in the ratings is pointless.

but he's not a gun for hire, or even a 'local talent getting bookings', he IS signed wit the promotion and thus represents the company and the company represents him, and of course they're going to want that their promotion is the top watched promotion in the world. You could make the argument for someone like Abadon or MAYBE the House of Black, who are characters kinda outside of this human realm (i think), but if you're a normal fighter, you definitely care that you wrestler/fight for the top promotion, and you should definitely be proud of it. Otherwise, quit.

Ratings SHOULD be irrelevant to the quality of competition. Ratings should not depend on the quality of competition, the last thing I would want is for people to think that WWE has better competitive quality because they have bigger ratings. that applies to both kayfabe and reality.

In the first paragraph you are saying that it should be cared about, and in the second one you are saying that it shouldn't. Your positions are contradictory.

[cero2k]

In the first paragraph you are saying that it should be cared about, and in the second one you are saying that it shouldn't. Your positions are contradictory.

no they're not. 1st paragraphs said that wrestlers SHOULD care about the ratings and health of the company they work for. 2nd paragraph said that 'quality of competition' SHOULD NOT care about ratings, one is 100% NOT a reflection of the other whatsoever. Two different things.

[Big Red Machine]

In the first paragraph you are saying that it should be cared about, and in the second one you are saying that it shouldn't. Your positions are contradictory.

no they're not. 1st paragraphs said that wrestlers SHOULD care about the ratings and health of the company they work for. 2nd paragraph said that 'quality of competition' SHOULD NOT care about ratings, one is 100% NOT a reflection of the other whatsoever. Two different things.

But the successes of the company are not, by default, his successes. He's not the one drawing the ratings, so it doesn't mean much of anything for him. Just because AEW is drawing good ratings doesn't mean that Tony Khan won't fire someone if they keep losing and can't cut the mustard. The "health of the company they work for" just mean that Tony might give people a longer leash before he fires them if they lose too much. Then again, looking at Fuego del Sol's story, it might not even mean that much.

[cero2k]

But the successes of the company are not, by default, his successes. He's not the one drawing the ratings, so it doesn't mean much of anything for him. Just because AEW is drawing good ratings doesn't mean that Tony Khan won't fire someone if they keep losing and can't cut the mustard. The "health of the company they work for" just mean that Tony might give people a longer leash before he fires them if they lose too much. Then again, looking at Fuego del Sol's story, it might not even mean that much.

Why wouldn't the success of the company be partially their success? Let's ignore the heel/face dynamic here since it's understandable for a heel to delusion themselves into thinking they're the "demo god". The overall success and prestige of the promotion, even in kayfabe, is because of the talent, it's not just one guy or gal carrying the whole promotion, it's the strength of the rosters. Even if we had someone who is losing the promotion's ratings when they're wrestling, they can surely still care about the damage they're doing to the promotion. I think the idea that someone gets fired for 'losing' is really non-existent in wrestling and has been since the death of the territories, we see more 'losing streaks into redemption' stories than we've seen anyone get fired or threatened for it, it's kinda hard to do when contracts are part of the stories.

Furthermore, if someone is not drawing the ratings or ticket sells, it doesn't mean they won't care about them. I think we could use the world title as an analogy, where just because you don't have it doesn't mean you don't care about it, any wrestler in the promotion should want to be the champion, and the biggest ratings draw, and the biggest ticket seller, and just like you don't want to see the prestige of your top championship damaged, you also probably shouldn't want for your promotion to see your ratings drop. This all fits in either kayfabe or shoot life.

[Big Red Machine]

But the successes of the company are not, by default, his successes. He's not the one drawing the ratings, so it doesn't mean much of anything for him. Just because AEW is drawing good ratings doesn't mean that Tony Khan won't fire someone if they keep losing and can't cut the mustard. The "health of the company they work for" just mean that Tony might give people a longer leash before he fires them if they lose too much. Then again, looking at Fuego del Sol's story, it might not even mean that much.

Why wouldn't the success of the company be partially their success? Let's ignore the heel/face dynamic here since it's understandable for a heel to delusion themselves into thinking they're the "demo god". The overall success and prestige of the promotion, even in kayfabe, is because of the talent, it's not just one guy or gal carrying the whole promotion, it's the strength of the rosters. Even if we had someone who is losing the promotion's ratings when they're wrestling, they can surely still care about the damage they're doing to the promotion. I think the idea that someone gets fired for 'losing' is really non-existent in wrestling and has been since the death of the territories, we see more 'losing streaks into redemption' stories than we've seen anyone get fired or threatened for it, it's kinda hard to do when contracts are part of the stories.

Furthermore, if someone is not drawing the ratings or ticket sells, it doesn't mean they won't care about them. I think we could use the world title as an analogy, where just because you don't have it doesn't mean you don't care about it, any wrestler in the promotion should want to be the champion, and the biggest ratings draw, and the biggest ticket seller, and just like you don't want to see the prestige of your top championship damaged, you also probably shouldn't want for your promotion to see your ratings drop. This all fits in either kayfabe or shoot life.

It wouldn't be their success because ratings are ratings and we know who drew them. It was the people on the TV at the time. It is absolutely not the "strength of the rosters." If it was, they wouldn't put so much into advertising certain matches. If fact, they wouldn't even advertise matches at all because they assumed you'd stay tuned because you'd think that, on average, the odds are that someone awesome is coming out to speak/wrestle next are pretty high.

Also, such things should be extremely minuscule on a wrestler's radar. In your scenario where someone is a ratings drag, that person shouldn't give a sh*t because it's not a team sport about rating. His or her top concern should be winning (fairly), followed by their personal health. Ratings probably wouldn't even crack the top ten. The woman who loses to Serena Williams in the first round at Wimbledon doesn't give a sh*t if the ratings for her match beat the rating for someone else's.

I disagree that a wrestler should necessarily care about being the top ticket seller. Most of them (especially the babyfaces) are there to try to be the best. Selling the most tickets just makes you money on the gate (although even that metric isn't perfect because, at least traditionally, credit for the house was given from the top of the card down, so the main event would get the biggest payoff, even if it was the third match from the top that everyone came to see). Caring about that is similar to caring about being the world champion because you want to make more money rather than to be the best.

Your comparison to the world title fails because the prestige of the world title in kayfabe is derived from what it symbolizes: Being the best. There is only one world title in each division. Only one person can make that claim and be validated. That's why screwy finishes need to be followed up on ASAP, and why the champ getting pinned in a non-title match should ALWAYS result in a title shot.
A title gains prestige in kayfabe because it is defended regularly (i.e. the claim is always re-validated in relatively short order) against worthy challengers (i.e. people who have an argument that they can question the validity of the claim). "Great matches" add to the title's prestige not because of however many snowflakes Dave/the IWC/whoever think it deserves, but because of how much the wrestlers are willing to fight through and what they are willing to put themselves through to validate that claim. Goldberg/Brock squashing a worthy challenger adds just as much prestige to the title because it is an emphatic re-validation of the claim. A belt will only "lose prestige" in kayfabe if it is not being defended often enough, being defended against unworthy challengers, or there are constantly screwy finishes and steps aren't taken to rectify it (in other words, the claim isn't being re-validated).

Ratings are not something the wrestlers are fighting over, and the chance to earn them is determined just as much by the promoter (by choosing who gets to be on TV each week). They are not a scarcity. They are something the wrestler earns by catching a fan's interest over everything else on TV, not over another wrestler.


Several promotions have done a "if you keep losing, we won't use you" thing. EVOLVE did it all the time, ROH did it relatively recently (and used to do it a lot at the beginning). Not as a drawn-out angle, but with the announcers just saying "Wrestler X needs to pick up some wins to justify continuing to get booked."
Furthermore, I feel that the concept is implied in the notion that "wins and losses matter," which Tony Khan told us was how AEW would be handling things. There is a finite amount of money in the world, and if someone keeps losing and thus is clearly not at the level of AEW's other talent, why would Tony Khan keep giving them money instead of using that money to sign someone who might be better?
As for the "contracts" thing, you are summing that such contracts don't have a stipulation in there that the wrestler needs to meet a certain number of wins or else they can be fired. But if you like that idea, then you can just take my previous argument and replace "will be fired" with "won't be re-signed when their contract expires."

On the "we just get losing streak/redemption angles now" argument, what you're forgetting is that that sort of angle only works (and therefore is only done) with people who are already established (or in an environment where records aren't harped on, like with Barry Horowitz and Skip in 1995 WWF)