BRM Reviews the 5/4/2022 Dynamite

[Big Red Machine]

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT QUALIFYING MATCH: Bobby Fish (w/Kyle O’Reilly) vs. Jeff Hardy (w/Matt Hardy)- 7/10
Adam Cole did guest commentary for this match. Darby Allin and Sting were shown watching the match from the rafters. Jeff’s knee got worked over, but he overcame it and won. I thought this was very fun.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
The Young Bucks came out to have a stare-down with the Hardys before checking on Bobby Fish. The announcers pushed that match hard.

WILLIAM REGAL/BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- hated it
It made them look sadistic heels for no real reason. They kind of are sadistic heels, but in the physical sense, not the mental one that Regal was describing.

BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB vs. ANDRADE FAMILY OFFICE (Angelico, The Butcher, & The Blade)- 6.25/10
BCC won. They don’t feel like they’re going anywhere.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH RICKY STARKS & WILL HOBBS IS INTERRUPTED BY JURASSIC EXPRESS- bad
Jungle Boy came off like a total tool here. He felt like someone playing an arrogant heel. Last week Jungle Boy was all happy to put the tag titles up against this apparently worthy team, but now he is demanding that before he and Luchasaurus give Team Taz a title shot, he wants Ricky Starks to put up his FTW Title first. Walking things back like that is what a heel would do. And why would he even want the FTW Title in the first place. It’s an unsanctioned championship.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS KEITH LEE & SHANE STRICKLAND- bad
Strickland was good, but this was quite the miss from Lee. That ending “you will swerve in our glory” line was atrocious.

WARDLOW vs. WILLIAM MORRISSEY- 4.75/10
MJF cut a promo on Wardlow and the fans before the match.
There were VERY loud dueling chants of “WE WANT ENZO!”/ “NO WE DON’T!”
They did big-man stuff. Wardlow beat Morrissey with just one powerbomb, which I’m sure will make the folks at Impact happy.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Look… this is one of those segments that I’m sure many people will love, but I find them to be a perfect example the sort of thing that drives me nuts about AEW’s booking. What happened was that instead of going back into the handcuffs, Wardlow beat up all of the security, then cut a promo on MJF saying that he wasn’t going to stop until either MJF released him from his contract or he got his hands on MJF. MJF said he would face Wardlow in a match where Wardlow would be released from his contract if he lost, but there would be some stipulations that MJF would reveal in a contract signing next week.
I won’t deny that everyone played their roles well, but in addition the performances, when I see a segment like this, there is also something else that leaps out at me, which is a question: “Why now?” Why did Warldow play along for two or three weeks before doing this? If getting out of this contract was so important to him, why didn’t he do this the very first week he was put in the handcuffs?
NOTHING has changed between now and then other than the date. And that’s the reason. If Wardlow had done this the first week, Tony Khan wouldn’t have had a logical way to stretch the story out so that the big, climactic match could be at the PPV. And if the actions of a character feel like they are being driven by the needs of the booker rather than anything that is part of the kayfabe storyline, that is a failure of storytelling, no matter how good the performances are. In fact, it makes the performances less believable by driving home the fact that these people are not acting organically.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS RUBY SOHO, TONY STORM, JAMIE HAYTER, & BRITT BAKER… AGAIN- bad
Once again, nothing new or useful was said. Ruby really wanted to just attack the heels now, but can’t because of this “no physicality” agreement that she herself says she has no memory of agreeing to… so why is she holding to it? Or is the storyline that this woman got blackout drunk and in that state was able to be persuaded to sign a contract to not fight whenever she felt like it.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS ADAM PAGE- didn’t like it
I don’t understand why Page is so upset with Punk. Where did this anger come from? Also, I don’t know if Punk not being here because he’s off filming a TV show is a shoot, but if it is, DON’T BRING IT UP! All it will do is make Punk look like something of a hypocrite in people’s eyes.

SOME GUY FROM DDT IS COMING IN- fine

JAY LETHAL, SONJAY DUTT, & SANTHAM SINGH PROMO- great
Lethal is upset that this new guy is getting a “red carpet” rolled out for him, but Lethal hasn’t. He cut a great promo on the guy and on AEW.

SANTANA (w/Ortiz) vs. CHRIS JERICHO (w/the Jericho Appreciation Society)- 6.5/10
Interference happened. Jericho cheated to win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine, I guess
The JAS beat up LAX.

SAMOA JOE PROMO- great
He’s coming for Jay Lethal.

There was a commercial for AAPI History Month with Tony Khan talking about how people who “looked like me and my dad and my sister were never featured as good guys” and thus Tony makes an effort to feature AAPI wrestlers… except that the Khans are Pakistani, and ALL of the wrestlers they showed were East Asian, and thus looked almost nothing like Tony. Nothing Tony said was false, but I found the exact choice of words a little weird. Could they really not find one picture of a South Asian wrestler to put up there?

GUNN CLUB BOTHER THE ACCLAIMED WHILE THEY ARE SUPPOSEDLY “WRITING RAPS”- They brought them the gift of scissors,, and they all scissored each other. I assume this is going somewhere.

LAST NIGHT ON DARK, BRIAN PILLMAN JR. CUT A PROMO ON THE HOUSE OF BLACK- dumb
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that earlier on in the show, they advertised this as something that would be happening tonight.
Pillman yelled a lot. He said that his group has almost lost everything, or something like that. I don’t know what he’s talking about because they have barely been on TV. He blames this on Malakai Black misting Julia Hart almost six months ago. He also blamed Julia’s recent heel turn on that. This was a perfect example of why if you’re telling a story, you have to tell it ON TV! I don’t know what he’s talking about, so it feels like he is only now coming out to reignite this barely-a-feud because this is when the booker wanted him to.
Anyway, he wants to fight the House of Black, so out they came… and beat the crap out of the Varsity Blonds while Julia stood uselessly in the corner. Malakai then got Julia to walk over with him and they gave her a chair because I guess the black mist really is long-term mind-control. The fans are all chanting “HOUSE OF BLACK!” Julia raises the chair up to hit Garrison… but she just can’t bring herself to do it, and she lowers the chair… and the fans all boo, as if they were me and Pillman were Dorkhausen. I’m laughing my ass off at this point.
Malakai yells at Julia and rips off her eye-patch. He yells at her some more until Death Triangle came out and chased them off. I have no interest in any of these people.

JADE CARGILL & THE BADDIES PROMO- fine
Red Velvet insists that she is going to win women’s Owen Hart tournament thing. Jade says that this will make two champions in her group.

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT QUALIFYING MATCH: Dante Martin vs. Rey Fenix (w/Alex Abrahantes)- 6.5/10
I must confess my profound disappointment in Excalibur for not coming up with the term “Reverse Spanish Fly).”
They did some high-flying stuff. The fans chanted that they wanted these two to “FIGHT FOREVER!” so I guess they have no interest in seeing tonight’s main event. Can we please stop it with that idiotic chant?

They finally showed us some brackets for the men’s tournament… and apparently there is a “joker.” Seven people had to win qualifiers, and this one eighth person just gets placed into the tournament. This had better be a top-ranked wrestler or some major surprise, or else this will make no sense.

STING & DARBY ALLING PROMO- bad
Their words were good, but there was NO emotion here. They did nothing to make me believe that Jeff Hardy vs. Darby Allin will be the “special night” that they claimed.

THUNDER ROSA PROMO & SEGMENT WITH SERENA DEEB- meh
She said some nice babyface things, then called out Serena Deeb, who is apparently the #1 contender now. This might be the first time that they announced that someone was the top-ranked wrestler, and I said “yeah, that makes sense.”
Thunder Rosa was mostly good here and Deeb’s words were good, but I find Deeb to be rather uncharismatic. She comes off to me like someone reciting her lines rather than a real person.

JOHN SILVER PROMO- annoying
This loud, annoying clown will wrestle CM Punk next week. The match is in said loud annoying clown’s home town… meaning that for absolutely no reason, Tony Khan is booking this guy to lose in his home town.

MATCH TO UNIFY THE ROH WOMEN’S WORLD TITLES: Deonna Purrazzo(ROH Women’s World Title) vs. Mercedes Martinez(Interim ROH Women’s World Title)- 7/10
Fun stuff. Just plain good professional wrestling.
Mercedes won the title, which I kind of figured was coming because otherwise there was no reason to create the interim title (I mean… there still really wasn’t a good reason, but at least with the interim title they had Mercedes looking like a champion from “day one”).


A very meh episode of Dynamite. None of the matches were bad, but there wasn’t nothing that really stood out, either, and the promos were the usual mix of great and terrible.

[cero2k]

WARDLOW vs. WILLIAM MORRISSEY- 4.75/10
MJF cut a promo on Wardlow and the fans before the match.
There were VERY loud dueling chants of “WE WANT ENZO!”/ “NO WE DON’T!”
They did big-man stuff. Wardlow beat Morrissey with just one powerbomb, which I’m sure will make the folks at Impact happy.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Look… this is one of those segments that I’m sure many people will love, but I find them to be a perfect example the sort of thing that drives me nuts about AEW’s booking. What happened was that instead of going back into the handcuffs, Wardlow beat up all of the security, then cut a promo on MJF saying that he wasn’t going to stop until either MJF released him from his contract or he got his hands on MJF. MJF said he would face Wardlow in a match where Wardlow would be released from his contract if he lost, but there would be some stipulations that MJF would reveal in a contract signing next week.
I won’t deny that everyone played their roles well, but in addition the performances, when I see a segment like this, there is also something else that leaps out at me, which is a question: “Why now?” Why did Warldow play along for two or three weeks before doing this? If getting out of this contract was so important to him, why didn’t he do this the very first week he was put in the handcuffs?
NOTHING has changed between now and then other than the date. And that’s the reason. If Wardlow had done this the first week, Tony Khan wouldn’t have had a logical way to stretch the story out so that the big, climactic match could be at the PPV. And if the actions of a character feel like they are being driven by the needs of the booker rather than anything that is part of the kayfabe storyline, that is a failure of storytelling, no matter how good the performances are. In fact, it makes the performances less believable by driving home the fact that these people are not acting organically.

Because that's how humans usually behave, not everyone is a barbarian that just jumps into violence to deal with their problems, why do you think that Roderick Strong and Mustafa Ali haven't fought WWE staff out of their contracts?

Part of the story between these two is that WARLOW has patience for MJF and for the most part tries to play by his rules until he gets fed up, this was just the same, he tried to play by MJF's rules. He's also been beating up staff and security for a while too, he just happened to beat up more this time.

[Big Red Machine]

WARDLOW vs. WILLIAM MORRISSEY- 4.75/10
MJF cut a promo on Wardlow and the fans before the match.
There were VERY loud dueling chants of “WE WANT ENZO!”/ “NO WE DON’T!”
They did big-man stuff. Wardlow beat Morrissey with just one powerbomb, which I’m sure will make the folks at Impact happy.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Look… this is one of those segments that I’m sure many people will love, but I find them to be a perfect example the sort of thing that drives me nuts about AEW’s booking. What happened was that instead of going back into the handcuffs, Wardlow beat up all of the security, then cut a promo on MJF saying that he wasn’t going to stop until either MJF released him from his contract or he got his hands on MJF. MJF said he would face Wardlow in a match where Wardlow would be released from his contract if he lost, but there would be some stipulations that MJF would reveal in a contract signing next week.
I won’t deny that everyone played their roles well, but in addition the performances, when I see a segment like this, there is also something else that leaps out at me, which is a question: “Why now?” Why did Warldow play along for two or three weeks before doing this? If getting out of this contract was so important to him, why didn’t he do this the very first week he was put in the handcuffs?
NOTHING has changed between now and then other than the date. And that’s the reason. If Wardlow had done this the first week, Tony Khan wouldn’t have had a logical way to stretch the story out so that the big, climactic match could be at the PPV. And if the actions of a character feel like they are being driven by the needs of the booker rather than anything that is part of the kayfabe storyline, that is a failure of storytelling, no matter how good the performances are. In fact, it makes the performances less believable by driving home the fact that these people are not acting organically.

Because that's how humans usually behave, not everyone is a barbarian that just jumps into violence to deal with their problems, why do you think that Roderick Strong and Mustafa Ali haven't fought WWE staff out of their contracts?

Part of the story between these two is that WARLOW has patience for MJF and for the most part tries to play by his rules until he gets fed up, this was just the same, he tried to play by MJF's rules. He's also been beating up staff and security for a while too, he just happened to beat up more this time.

The idea that people don't rush to violence holds up only until the point where they start to engage in violence. As you yourself pointed out, that point passed for Wardlow quite a while ago.
The idea that Wardlow "tries to play by MJF's rules" doesn't hold up to logic because at first he didn't, but then he did, and now he randomly isn't again. Look at the timeline:
1. MJF pushes Wardlow too far, so Wardlow breaks off from him, first not helping him against Punk, and then demanding his release.
2. MJF screws Wardlow out of a title match, then orders him sent home so that he can't get revenge.
3. Wardlow ignores MJF's orders to stay home and shows up at the arena, attacking security and trying to get at MJF.
[This right here is the point where Wardlow both becomes violent and also ceases to "be patient" and stops "playing by MJF's rules."
4. MJF sees that ordering Wardlow to stay home isn't stopping him from coming to the arena to try to get him, so he changes tactics and uses his control of Wardlow's contract in order to try to have people take Wardlow out.
In this section of the story, Wardlow makes no effort to resist being handcuffed when he arrives at the building, makes no effort to go after MJF when he is uncuffed for his matches, and no effort to resist being put in the handcuffs or going after MJF after the match is over. In other words, he is all of a sudden not violent anymore, and is playing by MJF's rules, even though he didn't before. What this story is missing is an explanation of what has made Wardlow think that changing his behavior will yield a more desirable outcome for him.
5. This week, Wardlow actually did resist getting put back into the handcuffs and beat up the security, so he is now once again being violent and not playing by MJF's rules. Again, the story lacks an explanation of what changed between this week and last week that makes Wardlow think that changing tactics will yield a better outcome for him.

[Thelone]

833k this week...

I don't feel like repeating myself yet again because it's just the same problems over and over, but I'll say this though : if Khan doesn't start delegating many of his billion tasks to people who know what they're doing, AEW is running straight into a wall at full speed. No, they're not gonna get cancelled or whatever (well Dynamite is safe, Rampage and the """specials""" on the other hand...), but I wouldn't rule out moving to an even lesser network if ratings keep dropping down and I sure don't believe they're gonna get that massive TV fee increase Khan has been banking on, which would be really bad since AEW is 100% running in the deep red.

No, I don't want AEW to die (even just for comedy material), but it will fail if Khan keeps doing almost everything by himself.

[XIV]

I have got to give you a hard disagree on the BCC video package Mr B.R. Machine. I thought it was 3 minutes of excellent William Regal work.

What I especially liked about the video is that Regal, Danielson & Moxley were all beating up on Wheeler Yuta. It showed that he is bottom of the rung in that group and having to earn his way up. Regal is an excellent promo. I think it just put across that this group is going to stretch you, elbow you, dig in to your soft bits and stretch you some more. I'm enjoying the Blackpool Combat Club...BUT...

I will agree with you on something though, unless they make a grab for some kind of titles they are going nowhere (it makes sense for Danielson & Moxley to team up as Yuta has the ROH Pure title already ) either that or the need a feud with a team who try and overcome their type of brutality.

[Thelone]

Having all three together is just overkill, especially if the idea is to push Willy Utah of all people. I think Dub fans were intrigued to see where this Bryan-Moxley pairing was going at first, maybe expecting a Two Man Power Trip storyline with a tag run and putting a new team over before the inevitable bad break-up, but then they added Regal because old backstories between them and Meals-on-Wheels because he's flavor of the month alongside Garcia and Martin to replace the floundering three pillars.

[Big Red Machine]

I have got to give you a hard disagree on the BCC video package Mr B.R. Machine. I thought it was 3 minutes of excellent William Regal work.

What I especially liked about the video is that Regal, Danielson & Moxley were all beating up on Wheeler Yuta. It showed that he is bottom of the rung in that group and having to earn his way up. Regal is an excellent promo. I think it just put across that this group is going to stretch you, elbow you, dig in to your soft bits and stretch you some more. I'm enjoying the Blackpool Combat Club...BUT...

I will agree with you on something though, unless they make a grab for some kind of titles they are going nowhere (it makes sense for Danielson & Moxley to team up as Yuta has the ROH Pure title already ) either that or the need a feud with a team who try and overcome their type of brutality.

I think if there was a more clear direction, I wouldn't have an issue. To me, they feel like babyfaces, and Regal said a crazy heel thing. If there was a direction and they were clearly he's, I would have thought it was great.

[XIV]

I have got to give you a hard disagree on the BCC video package Mr B.R. Machine. I thought it was 3 minutes of excellent William Regal work.

What I especially liked about the video is that Regal, Danielson & Moxley were all beating up on Wheeler Yuta. It showed that he is bottom of the rung in that group and having to earn his way up. Regal is an excellent promo. I think it just put across that this group is going to stretch you, elbow you, dig in to your soft bits and stretch you some more. I'm enjoying the Blackpool Combat Club...BUT...

I will agree with you on something though, unless they make a grab for some kind of titles they are going nowhere (it makes sense for Danielson & Moxley to team up as Yuta has the ROH Pure title already ) either that or the need a feud with a team who try and overcome their type of brutality.

I think if there was a more clear direction, I wouldn't have an issue. To me, they feel like babyfaces, and Regal said a crazy heel thing. If there was a direction and they were clearly he's, I would have thought it was great.

I will agree there. Problem is at this point is that they're almost babyfaces because of Regal. Whilst they're not cheating, they're almost "playing dirty" with some of their tactics and that's a heelish thing to do. Pick a direction and go with it. It's all they lack at this point for me... oh and an opposing team to properly feud with. For me at this point, you want them to pick a trios team of 3 young guys and just spend 3/4 weeks in a small feud, stretching them apart getting sympathy for the young babyfaces and make the BCC out to be complete dicks for being bullies etc.