BRM Reviws the 7/6/2022 Dynamite

[Big Red Machine]

STREET FIGHT FOR THE AEW TNT TITLE: Scorpio Sky(c) (w/Dan Lambert, Ethan Page, and ATT) vs. Wardlow- 5.75/10
Excalibur reminded us that Wardlow had the TNT Title won a few months ago, but MJF interfered. This was the first time MJF’s name has been mentioned.
I don’t care if Brodie Lee was from here. That doesn’t make Western New York some kind of great historical wrestling hotbed, so don’t pretend that it is.
This very good for the time it got, and did a good job of doing what it needed to do and telling the story that it needed to tell. If you can ignore the question of why the heels didn’t all rush the ring with weapons the moment the match started, this was good.
That being said, I do have a booking concern. Wardlow is now the TNT Champion. He’s a monster on a run, and he has momentum. You need to simultaneously keep him away from the world title while also keeping his momentum going (presumably keeping the TNT Title on him)… so how do you do that without making him start to feel like he is in the same kind of Limbo Jade Cargill has felt like she is in?

JON MOXLEY PROMO- This was really great… other than the fact that he came off like a scary, sadistic heel instead of a babyface.

MARK STERLING & TONY NESE ARE CLOWNS- bad
They want Keith Lee to sign a petition to get Swerve Strickland fired because he’s untrustworthy. Why would they think this would work?

MATT HARDY INTERRUPTS CHRISTIAN CAGE’S PROMO- fine
Apparently Matt is good friends with Jungle Boy. Funny how that has never come up before. Maybe Matt could have come out to help Jungle Boy when Christian was assaulting him?
Matt says that it’s terrible that Christian exploited and betrayed an up-and-comer like Jungle Boy, and is exploiting Luchasaurus. It was nice to hear Matt acknowledge that he had done the same thing, and apologize for doing so. Christian said mean things, instigating a fight. Luchasaurus beat Matt up.

BLOOD & GUTS FOLLOW-UP VIDEO PACKAGE- snore
Mostly generic stuff. We’ve now had a big crazy weapon brawl all over the arena and a War Games match, and this feud STILL hasn’t ended.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS JAKE HAGER & CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI- fine
He assures us that they have signed a “waiver” to not be physical during this interview. Wouldn’t that be the opposite of a waiver? What are they waiving? It’s not like they have a right to assault people backstage they are forfeiting.
Hager was okay. Claudio was good. When he insisted that “rankings matter,” I was hoping Schiavone would gently put his hand on Claudio’s shoulder and shake his head.

SWERVE IN OUR GLORY vs. THE BUTCHER & THE BLADE (w/The Bunny)- 6/10
I didn’t comment on it during the battle royale, but Tony Schiavone once again tonight drove home that Butcher & Blade are “mercenaries.” Strangely, at no point was it mentioned who these mercenaries are currently employed by (Andrade).

During this match Excalibur told us that he had just been informed that a match had been added tonight’s card, which would be… the Acclaimed & Gunn Club “in action.” So the match has been signed, but they won’t even tell us who the other team is? Why even make this announcement at all? Don’t we have a world title match with a one-hour time-limit coming up as the main event? Why are you adding more matches to the show?
Yes, you could say that that’s a nit-pick, but to that I have two responses:
1. AEW themselves have brought the concept up in the past, so it’s fair game. If you expect to get credit for adding realism to a show by doing something, you deserve to have credit taken away for doing something that contradicts that idea.
2. Nit-pick or not, it’s an enforced error. What benefit was there to announcing a match with two undercard teams against opponents so unimportant you wouldn’t even name them? All announcing this match in this way did was bother fans like me. It doesn’t matter how few of us there are, because there is alternative group being served by doing it the way they did. Even if there are just five people out there like me (me, Wade Keller, Jason Powell, Jim Cornette, and someone else), if you have the choice between doing something that bothers five viewers and doing something that bothers zero viewers, wouldn’t you pick to bother zero?

There were some good moments in here. Unfortunately, those good moments led to a big nearfall for the heels, and when it was broken up, the fans booed and chanted “BULLSH*T!” because Tony Khan booked this match in one of the heel’s home markets.
Swerve in Our Glory overcame a miscue and got the win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Ricky Starks and Will Hobbs came out, and Starks started shouting wildly. I thought this feud was over. Starks started to just keep shouting “YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT WHO THE BEST TAG TEAM IS?!” which brought out the Young Bucks. They bragged about getting a higher average star rating than the tag title match at Double or Nothing got. They also pointed out that they beat the guys who beat Swerve in Our Glory and Team Taz in that match.
Then they offered to put the tag titles on the line next week in a three-way against them next week because...
I mean really! They insist that Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI have to beat them to earn a title shot, but they’ll willing put their titles on the line in a three-way?

MALAKAI BLACK PROMO ON BEHALF OF BRODY KING- bad
More of their usual crap. He talked a lot about the pain Brody King would cause Moxley and about violence. At no point did he ever acknowledge that there was even a title on the line, never mind the world title.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS EDDIE KINGSTON- meh
Kingston is upset because he didn’t get to make Chris Jericho bleed at Blood & Guts. If that’s what you want to do, then why are you out here instead of tracking him down backstage and attacking him?
Speaking of attacking people backstage, Jericho takes over the TonyTron. Tay Conti slams Ruby Soho’s hand in a car door. This company has been on the air for less than three years, and this is already the second time Jericho’s group has done this angle (the other one was Hager doing it to Dustin back in late 2019, interrupting Cody cutting a promo).
Even if you’re willing to excuse that (and I wouldn’t be opposed to it if AEW didn’t repeat angles so frequently, and with the same people), there is also the issue of escalation. Sure, getting your hand slammed in a car door really hurts, but this is a feud in which we have seen Jericho BURN PEOPLE WITH FIRE just to be a jerk. If they wanted to get to Kingston, why merely (yes, I know… “merely”) slam Ruby’s hand in a car door instead of burning her face off?

DARK ORDER SEGMENT- TERRIBLE!
They showed us a clip of Negative One pulling Q.T. Marshall’s pants down on Dark three months ago. He’s lucky Q.T. didn’t go to H.R.
There is Anna Jay… but her best friend and tag team partner Tay Conti seems to be absent. Oh. Right. It’s because she turned heel. That was months ago… and I guess Anna Jay just doesn’t give a sh*t that her best friend suddenly became a jerk because she has not said anything about it. Earlier tonight Christian accused Matt Hardy of not actually being friends with Jungle Boy and just trying to steal the spotlight. Obviously we’re not supposed to believe that, but it makes it a lot harder to believe that Matt can care about Jungle Boy when we haven’t even had a hint of that on screen when friendships that AEW has spent time trying to get us to emotionally invest in are ignored the moment their existence becomes inconvenient for the booker.
Hell, even if Anna Jay herself didn’t feel compelled to come out and say something, you would think that one of the interviewers would ask her, right? It certainly seems like a more productive use of their time than constantly trying to interview Hook when all he does is ignore them.
Anyway, the Dork Order come out and lie to us by claiming that they have important news. They want to start off their new chapter by having Negative One give a proclamation. Q.T. Marshall interrupted the kid before he had to talk, and said everyone was sick of him. Has there been an issue going on between these groups for three months and no one has said anything on TV until now, or does Q.T. only suddenly now care about being humiliated three months ago because that’s when a segment was booked for? Either way, it’s bad.
Q.T. wants to fight the kid. Adam Page comes out… and he and Uno have to beat Q.T. up two on one. The fans chant “COWBOY SH*T!” completely ignoring the presence of the ten-year-old in the ring. Everyone- other than the kid and Anna Jay beat Q.T. up. The kid got the mic back and told Q.T. that he could pin him now, but he will wait until he’s nineteen. Then they all left, their important announcement and proclamation that they came out here to make completely forgotten.
This was just a complete and total waste of time. If you absolutely must do something like this, do it as a dark segment. There is absolutely no reason for this to be on TV… unless, of course, the purpose of this was to exploit someone’s tragic death by getting yourself sympathy points by putting his kid on TV.

PENTA OSCURO (w/Rey Fenix & Alex Abrahantes) vs. RUSH (w/Jose the Assistant & Andrade el Idolo)- 6.75/10
Apparently these guys stole Penta’s mask on Rampage. He did it again on the finish here, and also used another low blow. Penta actually had things won first, but Andrade snuck Rush’s feet on the ropes. Color me pleasantly surprised that Rush even went along with that.

JAY LETHAL, SONJAY DUTT, & SANTAM SINGH PROMO- meh
They have done a good job of find ways to integrate Singh into the promos so that the feels like he has a personality.
Jay Lethal will challenge Samoa Joe for the ROH TV Title at Death Before Dishonor 2022.

MORE CLOWN SH*T- Goof Patrol, Tony Nese, Mark Sterling, and Danhausen were involved in this. They agreed to a match for Rampage between Orange Cassidy and Tony Nese where if Nese wins, Orange Cassidy must sign his ridiculous petition to get Shane Strickland fired. Excalibur had the f*cking temerity to refer to this as a “big-time match.”

RUFFIN’ IT & FUEGO DEL SOL vs. GUNN CLUB & THE ACCLAIMED (w/Billy Gunn)- 3.5/10
Gunn Club took Max Castor’s microphone away to prevent him from rapping. Stuff happened. Gunn Club stole the pin from the Acclaimed. Props to them for doing it in a way where it actually felt like something worth getting upset over.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
A fight started. Billy seemed to side with the Acclaimed again but in a predictable swerve, he attacked Max Castor. I would have been fine with this, but then someone decided that Anthony Bowens should look like an idiot and offer to scissor Billy as if they might still be friends. Billy gave him a Fame-Asser, and the idiot deserved it.

MIRO PROMO- F*CKING AWESOME!

MARINA SHAFIR & NYLA ROSE vs. THUNDER STORM (Thunder Rosa & Toni Storm)- 6/10
Fine stuff. The babyfaces cleanly beat the heels they have already been recently.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS JADE CARGILL, KIERA HOGAN, & STOKELY HATHAWAY- good
Jade is upset with Stokely for bringing Leyla Grey in without consulting her first. She tells Stokely that Leyla had better deliver, or else Stokely will be fired.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS DANIEL GARCIA- not good
He came across as a fake tough guy while criticizing Wheeler YUTA for the same. He dared YUTA to give him a shot at the ROH Pure Title… which was already announced as happening. Oops.
Also, these guys are in warring factions. It will be hard to make this work with the Pure rules.

FTR PROMO- great
They challenge the Briscoes to the “rematch of the century” at Death Before Dishonor.

AEW INTERIM WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jon Moxley(c) vs. Brody King- 7.5/10
Jim Ross says that this the main event he has looked forward to the most in the history of Dynamite. Really.
They had a great brawl. Moxley won with a choke.


Have we even seen Pac since he won the new title?



This was a decent episode of Dynamite. It had one or two great promos, a few good matches, and a few bad segments.