BRM Reviews the 8/10/2022 Dynamite (Quake by the Lake)

All AEW Related Reviews and Discussions
Post Reply
User avatar
Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

BRM Reviews the 8/10/2022 Dynamite (Quake by the Lake)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 11th, '22, 19:01

Jim Ross is on commentary right from the beginning of the show, with Excalibur and Taz. I got excited that maybe this meant Schiavone wasn’t there, but he was.

COFFIN MATCH: Darby Allin vs. Brody King- 6/10
The announcers insist that Coffin matches are “one of the most dangerous types of match in professional wrestling,” but weapons matches nowadays are so homogenized that it doesn’t feel any more inherently dangerous than the Street Fight we watched on Rampage, or the Dumpster match we saw on last Wednesday’s Dynamite (note the correct use of “last Wednesday,” AEW production crew).
Darby came out of nowhere to attack Black during his entrance… but they made a point of doing this in a way where, while Darby had the advantage of surprise, he didn’t attack from behind, and they even shot it in a way where we were clearly able to see Brody notice and be shocked by Darby’s presence, so it didn’t feel heelish or cowardly at all.
Right after that, Darby stabbed Brody in the face with his thumbtack-filled skateboard, and Brody bled all over. They continued to have a violent bloody match for a while. Then the House of Black used their evil magic to control the lights and teleport to ringside. In this case, the House of Black was Malakai Black and Buddy Matthews. This was the first time we have seen Buddy in quite a while, and his absence had not been commented on previously… and this wasn’t acknowledged as any sort of return, either. Well… at least we know he’s not dead in a ditch somewhere, so that’s good.
Julia Hart was on the other side of the ring, to trip Darby up when he went for his dive. With most other people, the deployment of troops like that would annoy me, but against Darby it doesn’t because “do a dive onto someone” is Darby solution for pretty much everything, so his next move was quite predictable.
The House of Black all ganged up on Darby. The fans chanted “WE WANT STING!” Buddy Matthews to open the coffin… and lo and behold there is Sting inside the coffin.
This was idiotic. And that’s not just me objecting to magical bullsh*t (and it would have to be magic, because it’s even dumber if you assume Sting was just waiting inside the Coffin the whole time). If we grant that Sting has powers of teleportation and at some point teleported himself into the coffin, one has to ask why he would teleport himself into the coffin instead of ANYWHERE ELSE. Inside the coffin, he forfeits whatever advantage of surprise his unexpected appearance would get him with the fact that he has to take the time to stand up, so in the best case scenario- where he opens the lid himself (I guess he’d use his magical powers to know that it’s at a time when Darby needs him)- it’s a waste of the element of surprise. In a worse scenario, it’s Darby opening the lid, and Sting being in the coffin means he is in the way of Darby putting Brody King in it and winning the match.
An even worse scenario than that would be the one we got here, where one of this enemies open the lid, because while Sting is standing up, in addition to forfeiting the element of surprise, he’ll be pretty much defenseless, too, as he is off balance and will have to use his hands to help push himself up.
Fortunately for Sting, instead of seeing him and immediately trying to stomp on him, or punching him in the face while he was trying to get up, Buddy Matthews just stood there and watched Sting get up. So f*cking stupid.
Sting beat up first Buddy and then Brody with the bat. Malakai I just sat in the corner and watched. Sting tossed the bat to Malakai. Malakai picked it up, but then put it down again. Then they stared at each other… and Malakai just left. Sting eventually followed.
I despised every moment of this with a fiery passion. First of all, it came off as the sort of thing that was designed purely with the thought of “what can we do to come off like badasses, but without touching each other because Tony doesn’t want that yet?” completely ignoring the fact that in addition to following the booker’s instructions, you also need to make sure that the crap you’re doing MAKES SENSE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MATCH! Malakai cares about Brody winning this match enough to interfere in it, but once Sting shows up, he’ll just leave instead of attacking Sting when Sting gives him a baseball bat? He’s already tried to blind Sting with magical mist! Why would he not be willing to hit Sting with a baseball bat?
Then there is the fact it is so transparent that they were ordered by the booker not to touch each other. What sense did any of this make? What is Malakai Black’s motivation for leaving? Taz claimed it was “mind games,” but I’m sure that if you asked anyone involved in this- the wrestlers, the announcers, or the booker- to explain what this mind game was and how it would actually help the House of Black achieve their goals, they would have no idea.
Wait… no. They didn’t leave. Now they’re standing nose to nose on the ramp, which makes it even worse because in addition to everything above, it not feels like they also left the ring so that they could get out of the way of the next spot that was planned, which was Darby charging across the ring and doing a dive.
Early on in the Sting-Malakai confrontation, the announcers chose to focus on what I thought was just a face-paint design for Sting, but the announcers insisted was some kind of result of Malakai misting Sting, which I have no memory of ever happening. My notes say it happened three weeks ago. Good job following up on that, Tony.
But that’s not even the biggest issue here. The biggest issue here is that this was so clearly just face-paint, to the point where the announcers came off looking silly for assuming it was anything else, given that it was black and white facepaint on a guy known for wearing black and white facepaint!
And, quite frankly, so what if Sting got misted by Malakai? They haven’t established that the mist does any particular thing consistently other than be a temporary eye irritant. With Julia Hart, she was blind for a long time, then turned evil six moths later and lost her capacity to show emotion. Pac was just blinded for a long time. Miro seems to have suffered no lasting effects at all (which, when you look at the angle it kicked off, is a huge missed opportunity, because not only would being blinded explain why he's not wrestling, but with his current soul-searching and trying to determine whether the House of Black are agents of his god who he should join or are the “pagans” he sees them as and thus his god would want him to oppose, the metaphor of him being “blinded” until the point where he can return and make his decision- i.e. finally “see” the right path- is absolutely perfect. It really is a huge indictment on everyone involved that this was missed). What will the results of Sting being misted be? We don’t know, so how can we be worried? Or perhaps the more correct answer, unfortunately, is that we do know what will happen to Sting: whatever it is that the plot needs the mist to do at that moment, and that’s the worse answer a storyteller can provide the audience with.
Darby won soon after that, choking Brody out on the apron like Brody did to him earlier in the feud (Darby had to use a chain). Credit where it’s due, Brody did a good job of making his “unconscious” tumble into the coffin feel natural. This was what should have been a great grudge match that was unfortunately marred by dumb sh*t.

Listening to Jim Ross fumble around trying to put the House of Black over but only being able to come up with the most generic things to say was amusing, but Tony Khan really should take note of the fact that they’re so f*cking generic that someone who gets the company talking points can’t come up with anything to say about them that isn’t generic.


While hyping up the main event (this was during the Coffin match), Jim Ross said that the difference with Jericho as “Lionheart” this week “is difficult to explain,” and that right there is the problem, both with this and with the “Painmaker.” It’s a different “persona?” What does that mean, in kayfabe? This is not a video game where Moxley has unlocked an alternate Jericho character with different gear and a different move-set. It’s supposed to be real.


JON MOXLEY PROMO- good hype for the main event

CHRIS JERICHO PROMO- also good

Dragon Lee makes what I think is his AEW debut next week when he teams with Andrade and Rush against the Young Bucks and a mystery partner in the first round of the Trios Championship tournament.

TORNADO TAG TEAM MATCH: Lucha Bros. (w/Alex Abrahantes) vs. La Faccion Ingobernable (Andrade el Idolo & Rush) (w/Jose the Assistant)- 7/10
Tony Schiavone, who has been in the wrestling business for about twenty-five years at this point (I’m ignoring the times he wasn’t working in wrestling), doesn’t understand why LFI tried to rip the Lucha Brothers’ masks off. That’s bad enough on its own, but the fact that Excalibur has explained it numerous times over the past few months on AEW TV, and sometimes with Tony sitting right next to him, is a whole different level of bad.
Excalibur pointed out that Penta is back to being Penta el 0M instead of Penta Oscuro. Why? Yeah, he’s not feuding with the House of Black anymore, but this is supposedly a heated feud, too. After all, Excalibur just told me that the heels have shown the babyfaces the “ultimate disrespect” several times by ripping their masks off. Surely, he would want to retain this supposedly more violent or more aggressive persona, or whatever it’s supposed to be. Excalibur claimed this was him “returning to his Lucha Libre roots,” but when did he ever stray from them? He was doing his usual flips and arm-drags and stuff the entire time he was Penta Oscuro.
Anyway, they did their flips and dives and stuff. It was cool. The big spot was the heels tying Penta to the ropes by his mask, which eventually forced Penta to unmask himself to make the save. I’m sure people loved this, but it didn’t work for me at all because of the way it was followed up on. Rush grabbed Penta and tossed him to the outside... and then we just never saw him again. Either winning the match is more important than preserving your identity- which case Penta should have kept fighting instead of lying there protecting his identity (he didn’t even fight when Rush grabbed him to toss him out, but had the wherewithal to keep his hand over his face the whole time), or preserving your identity [is more important than winning the match (as we have seen in pretty much every case that I can think of), in which case he shouldn’t have risked the exposure to break up a pin the first time.
Also, if LFI were going to win, why would you announce the trios tournament match before this match when you could have waited a bit to announce it (like until Rampage… or even until just later in this show) when you could portray the entry into the tournament with a partner of their choice as a reward for winning this match?


THE YOUNG BUCKS MEET WITH ADAM PAGE & THE DARK ORDER BACKSTAGE- This SOOOOOO GREAT… until they had to be AEW and ruin it at the end.
They thanked Page for saving them, and apologized for the way they’ve treated him, and they way they have acted in general at times and it felt like Matt had done some real soul-searching , and they asked him to be their partner for the Trios Championship tournament, in part because “we’re better people when we’re around you”… and Page said no, because the Dark Order were going to be in the tournament and they had his back in ways the Bucks haven’t, so he is going to have their back by being in their corner, and he won’t stand in their way by being in the tournament himself.
And, more importantly to me, he said that the Bucks deserve a partner who didn’t turn his back on them like he did. This was important to me because for way too much of that storyline and its aftermath, AEW has completely ignored that the problems between Page and the Bucks were more a result of bad choices made by Page when he was drunk than anything else, and that is not something that should be ignored, so having Page give a mea culpa here was important (I can forgive the Bucks not saying anything about it here because they’re trying to recruit Page).
Then the Bucks left, and Brandon Cutlet suggested that maybe Page meant that he should be the Bucks’ partner… and how wonderful would that have been? The Bucks just got turned on by their friend Adam. They had their issues with Kenny Omega, but Brandon Cutler has been with them through thick and thin, no matter how badly they have mistreated him, so what better way to show us that they really are changed people than to have Brandon be their partner… and then they ruined it all by being an asshole to him, completely undoing everything that they said to Page, because now it all feels like it was nothing more than a ploy to get Page to team with them. They got turned on by one of their best friends… and they still feel like heels.

LUCHASAURUS vs. ANTHONY HENRY (w/J.D. Drake)- squash
Jungle Boy was on commentary for this match. It’s nice to see that there was absolutely no punishment for him trying to run Christian over with a car and the coming back to the building after having been ejected.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Christian appeared on the Tron. Tony Schiavone asked where he was. He was standing in front of the usual AEW interview set. You know… where Tony spends a lot of his time. Christian said that he wasn’t coming out there because the fans in Minneapolis didn’t deserve to see him in person. Jungle Boy charged backstage to get at Christian but was held back by security, who have arbitrarily decided to break up extracurricular violence in this segment, even though they don’t even show up in most others that they logically should. Luchasaurus showed up to attack the poor security guards who are just doing their jobs.
Some backstage official showed up, but Luchasaurus headbutted him, which I’m sure will lead to a suspension for Luchasarus… which, in a vacuum is a fine way to get him out of the way so that the babyfaces don’t have a numbers advantage in a blood feud, but in the context of everything else we see in AEW (again, like Jungle Boy trying to RUN CHRISTIAN OVER WITH A CAR, and then returning to the building to try to attack Christian later that day after being ejected, or Anna Jay or Chris Jericho randomly assaulting backstage workers) it makes management’s enforcement of discipline feel arbitrary at best, and completely self-interested at worst.

MIRO’S PROMO IS INTERRUPTED BY JULIA HART WALKING ONTO HIS SET- odd
All of the others of these have been pre-taped, but I guess this one wasn’t. Julia tried to seduce him by touching his chin and suggesting that Miro “embrace the gift; give into it like I did.” Miro immediately rebuked her by saying “there is only one woman who can touch the redeemer, and you aren’t her.” He told Julia to go tell the “pagans” that Miro accepts their gift and will use it to destroy them. Then she just stepped back a few steps while he turned away from her, finished his catchphrase, and walked off the other side.
I like the idea that the thing that would convince Miro not to go with the House of Black is them seemingly sending Julia to seduce him (at least that’s how he interpreted her physical actions), and I appreciate that Miro’s usual promo style (that he does it in his own location, and usually not live, and with no interviewer) means that you can’t have him give an interview one day and be interrupted because that would feel forced, but this didn’t work, either, because the blocking and way it was shot made it feel like this TV wrestling show suddenly transformed into a stage play (and, of course, that happened right after Miro quoted Shakespeare). I think it would have been better to have Miro win a squash, then send Julia out and do this in the ring.

MARK HENRY’S INTERVIEW WITH WILL HOBBS IS INTERRUPTED BY THE FACTORY- bad
Q.T. cut a promo that was somewhere between dull and bad, offering to take Ricky Starks out for Hobbs told him “don’t let your problem become mine.” I’m not totally sure what that means, as Starks is already Hobbs’ problem. I guess it’s some sort of approval to try to injure Starks. I feel like I’m missing a piece of the story here, where Hobbs indicated that he doesn’t want to deal with Starks (think a cowardly heel wanting to escape the consequences of his actions with a sort of “let’s let bygones be bygones”/”it was just business, there is no need to feud” kind of approach), but we haven’t gotten that promo from Hobbs yet, and if that’s what the story is supposed to be, then we really need it, because that sort of cowardice does not fit with the Will Hobbs character we have known in AEW so far.

JAY LETHAL & FRIENDS CALL OUT WARDLOW- bad
Sonjay was a clown. He needs to stop. Wardlow came out and said he’d fight all three of them. FTR came out to back him up because the booker has decided to move Best Friends into a different feud and to move FTR into this one they happened to be passing by the entrance and decided to help.
The heels backed down, but then Lethal attempted to attack on his own and got his ass kicked. If Tony is trying to set up a Lethal vs. Wardlow rematch, this was counterproductive. If he was trying to set up a six-man tag, this was counterproductive. If he was trying to set up Lethal & Sonjay vs. FTR, this was counterproductive. All this did was make Lethal look like a chump. If you wanted to book a six-man tag, just book a six-man tag and don’t waste time doing unnecessary set-up in a segment that does nothing but make Lethal look like a chump.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS THE JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY BLACK & WHITE- terrible
2.0 are loud clowns. Daniel Garcia cut the same promo he cut last week, except this time, he claimed to be a “Dragon-slayer,” which I’m sure doesn’t have anything to do with the new HBO House of Dragons show that I’ve been seeing commercials for all night and which is sponsoring the match involving Dragon Lee next week.
Anna Jay then started shouting and accused a random passer-by of not believing that Daniel Garcia was a Dragon-slayer, and attacked him. Since turning heel, she has become completely unwatchable, with her character turning into a total cartoon, and there was no logical kayfabe reason for this change in behavior. And tell me “Tay Conti said she should make better choices.” That’s why she turned heel. It does not explain why she has suddenly become this loud, hyper, delusional, randomly violent (but seemingly only during interviews) cartoon. Are we supposed to think that the Tay or Jericho or someone else in the group is advising her to act this way?
And don’t give me any meta answer, either, like “she’s being a ‘sports entertainer.’ It’s supposed to annoy you so that you’ll want to see her get beaten up/lose matches,” because that’s even worse. First of all, no matter what the meta reason behind something is, it needs to have a kayfabe explanation as well. But let’s go beyond that basic principle of storytelling and look at the idea behind that answer.
The reason people dislike WWE’s “sports entertainment” is not because we don’t get to see the “sports entertainers” get beaten up or lose at the end. We see that quite often in WWE. The reason people don’t like WWE’s “sports entertainment” is because it’d bad TV, with juvenile humor, phony-sounding scripted interactions, and characters that feel inauthentic, all punctuated by obnoxious BRANDING™ terms that create awkward and stilting language, and which are harped upon until the word “opportunity” sounds like nails on a chalkboard to you. If the idea behind this stable is for them to be “sports entertainers,” then all your doing is taking this thing that you know people hate about your main competitor, and copying it on your own show! And, to top it all off, the idea that these people being the “sports entertainers” will want to make us see them lose is destroyed by the fact that even if they lose, they still geta bunch of TV time every week!

RICKY STARKS PRE-TAPED PROMO- This was a good promo, but showing this during the Factory’s entrance made them look like such total losers that the match feels pointless.

RICKY STARKS vs. AARON SOLO (w/the Factory)- 0.25/10 (but that’s just a consequence of the time they were given)
Excalibur told us that this match would be “interesting” because these two used to be tag team partners. The problem here is that most of us just learned that fact last week, and have never seen them tag and no absolutely nothing about their time as a team, so any of the nuances that would make this “interesting” are going to be completely lost on us.

That Cole Karter guy who wrestled Starks a few weeks ago has apparently joined the factory. Referee Paul Turner saw him trip Starks up, but merely ejected him instead of calling for the DQ. For some reason, only Karter came to ringside with Solo; the rest of them stayed on the stage. That’s weird.
Starks won a quick match. Why couldn’t this just be the obliteration that Luchasarus vs. Henry was and that match be given the time for Henry to be given a vague veneer of credibility?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Nick Comoroto grabbed a chair and charged at Starks. He was standing at the top of the ramp, though, so Starks had ample time to prepare. He ducked the chairshot, hit Nick with Hobbs’ spinebuster and went for the Rochambeau, but Solo attacked him from behind. No security came out to try to break this up. Solo grabs Starks’ arm so that Comoroto could hit him with the chair, but Starks escaped and threw Solo into the chair. Starks slid out of the ring. The rest of the Factory went to block his way up the ramp, so Starks escaped through the crowd… which is really lame for a babyface to do instead of running through a pair of guys who are basically jobbers.
They briefly cut backstage to Will Hobbs, who was smashing something heavy. Taz said he was upset that Starks used his move.

LEXI NAIR’S INTERVIEW WITH GUNN CLUB IS INTERRUPTED BY STOKELY HATHWAY AND THEN BY DANHAUSEN-
Billy is upset that his kids lost “the only match I made famous.” Stokely interrupted him and told “Grandpa Ass” he should go to bed because “it’s about eight o’clock” and told him to go get some Ensure from catering. In five years, when someone tells their friend about this segment, and their friends wants to see it for themselves and Googles “Grandpa Ass,” they’re probably not going to get the results they want.
Stokely offers to manage Billy and Austin, and tells them to take their careers more seriously. Bully threatened Stokely, so he left. Billy then told his kids he got them a match on Rampage (because Tony Khan apparently gives into Billy Gunn’s politicking, but can’t be bothered to book matches to create credible challengers for Jade Cargill or Wardlow, or really to book any #1 ranked wrestler in a title shot in his/her division) only to be interrupted by Dorkhausen, who will be one of their opponents, who just happened to be walking by.
Danhausen says Gunn Club will face him and “the big bearded fellow.” We all wanted to believe that Tony Khan was different, but deep down I think we all knew that it was just a matter of time until Kevin Nash wormed is way into AEW.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH BEST FRIENDS IS INTERRUPTED BY SOME PEOPLE WE HAVEN’T SEEN ON AEW TV BEFORE-
Their leader is Ariya Daivari, and I’m pretty sure the slim guy is Slim J, so I assume this is that new “Trustbusters” group or whatever that was at the ROH show. Based on the ROH show I had assumed Daivari would be wrestling, but here he was presented as yet another low-level goofball manager trying to recruit people. He only wants Orange Cassidy. OC turns him down, so he threatens him that he will “learn what happens to people who say ‘no’ to Ari Daivari.” I’m guessing that what happens to people who say “no” to Ari Daivari is going to be that they wind up having a match on Rampage where they beat a jobber in a match that goes longer than it really should.

AEW TBS TITLE MATCH: Jade Cargil(c) (w/Stokely Hathaway & Kiera Hogan) vs. Madison Rayne- 4/10
They’re little fact for today for Jade is that she has recently passed five-hundred days “as an undefeated competitor.” That sounds impressive. Being 35-0 also sounds impressive. But when you look at those two things side by side, you realize that she’s only wrestling every two weeks. That still doesn’t sound too bad, but then when you factor in how many of her opponents are essentially tomato cans she and her camp got to hand-pick, well…

During this match, Excalibur told us that the #1-contender spot now belongs to Toni Storm because Kris Statlander was announced as being out with an injury. She already hasn’t wrestled in weeks. How was she even in contention for the top spot? And it would be a lot easier for me to take about this accomplishment of Toni’s if we hadn’t seen about five people get title shots in the women’s division since the last time the #1 contender got one.
Jaade got the win in a match that had some pretty sloppy points, and which it never felt like Madison had a prayer of winning.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- stupid
Athena- you remember her, right?- the big new signing from two and a half months ago who spent two months getting in Jade’s face in a story that went nowhere, then mysteriously disappeared from TV? Well, she’s back. Excalibur tells us that she had come out of the crowd and was “disguised as a Baddie.” WHY?! She works for the company. She could just walk right down the ramp!
Anyway, Athena got in Jade’s face and attacked her. Kiera Hogan pulled Jade to safety, but Athena posed with the belt… and, of course, now is when Excalibur starts talking about this like it’s a title match that’s actually going to happen, saying that Athena has just “made a strong case to be the next woman to challenge Jade Cargil.” Why is winning a post-match fight when Athena is fresh and Jade isn’t a better case than when Athena was on TV winning matches over credible names? Because the PPV is in a month or so. That’s why. Clumsy booking.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS TONI STORM & THUNDER ROSA- bad
This was manufactured tension, and not the best acting. They both felt very scripted.

Advertised for Rampage is Bryan Danielson speaking, Hook speaking, Gunn Club vs. Danhausen & FKA Erick Rowan, Parker Boudreaux vs. Sonny Kiss, and Orange Cassidy vs. Ari Daivari. So Daivari and OC have a confrontation and get booked in a match right away, but when Will Hobbs physically assaults Ricky Starks, Tony goes and books them against other people?
Also, there will be an AAA Mixed Tag Team Title match, with champions Sammy Guevara & Tay Conti defending against Dante Martin & Skye Blue, because you definitely want to spend TV time on a match where an “up-and-comer” who always seems to lose will team with his jobber friend to challenge for titles a chunk of your fanbase hasn’t even heard of, and that an even larger part of your fanbase has no reason to care about.

INTERIM AEW WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jon Moxley(c) vs. “Lionheart” Chris Jericho- 8.5/10
They spent the time/money to get Jericho’s old theme, and to put together a new entrance video for him. I don’t know if I should admire the dedication to put so much effort into something is essentially an “icing on the cake” type of thing and only went on for about a minute, or if I should be annoyed that effort was spent on this instead of making sure sh*t made sense.

Jericho tore the earing out of Moxley’s ear. That’s something I didn’t need to see. I had assumed they gimmicked it, because you’d have to be an idiot to do just do it as a shoot… but then Moxley started to bleed profusely. It also felt relatively incongruous with the rest of the majority of the rest of the match, which was wrestled as a… let’s say “aggressive-technical” and “long world title” style of match, whereas that is the kind of thing that should only happen in a serious grudge match, so having that happen early on and then things just go back to the submissions was very odd.
Other than that and the really ugly Codebreaker as a reversal of a top-rope move, the match was awesome. Jericho eventually started to cheat, and you could tell they were trying as hard as possible to counteract the fact that no one went into this thinking there was a snowball’s chance of the belt changing hands.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Jake Hager and Sammy Guevara ran out to attack Moxley. Moxley’s friends came out to make the save, so the rest of Jericho’s male friends ran in. The women didn’t come and fight despite being trained combat athletes and Anna Jay’s newfound hair-trigger because… um…
Eventually CM Punk came out and made the save for the babyfaces. Moxley and Punk were left alone in the ring. Moxley was a dick to Punk for no reason. Excalibur pointed out to us that Punk was putting all of his weight on his injured foot to show us that it was healed. Meanwhile, J.R. is telling us that he’s not sure Punk is medically cleared. If he wasn’t medically cleared, why didn’t anyone come out and stop him from fighting?
This also felt like one of those post-match attacks that only happens so that some post-match angle can be set up rather than from any real motivation of the heels. That’s the sort of thing that is okay occasionally, but it happens WAY too often in AEW.


This was another frustrating episode of Dynamite, despite some great action. The booking is constantly getting in the way of things, and I am continuously baffled by the things they choose to waste time on when there are much bigger fish to fry. Last week Undisputed Era turned on the Young Bucks, and I don’t think we’ve seen them since. It has been a few weeks since Hook won got his big win and won the FTW Title, the belt his father created… and I don’t think we’ve seen him on TV since. And yet we’re wasting time with a new group of undercard goofs managed by Daivari, and people like the Factory are getting more time than the recently-turned Will Hobbs. Has Lee Moriarty even been on TV since his heel turn? Or Samoa Joe since retaining the ROH TV Title? And both of those guys are- unfortunately- low priority guys... and yet instead of realizing that he was way too much stuff going on, Tony Khan is constantly adding more crap.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

User avatar
Thelone
Posts: 430
Joined: Jul 9th, '19, 16:22

Re: BRM Reviews the 8/10/2022 Dynamite (Quake by the Lake)

Post by Thelone » Aug 13th, '22, 12:13

Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 11th, '22, 19:01This was another frustrating episode of Dynamite, despite some great action. The booking is constantly getting in the way of things, and I am continuously baffled by the things they choose to waste time on when there are much bigger fish to fry. Last week Undisputed Era turned on the Young Bucks, and I don’t think we’ve seen them since. It has been a few weeks since Hook won got his big win and won the FTW Title, the belt his father created… and I don’t think we’ve seen him on TV since. And yet we’re wasting time with a new group of undercard goofs managed by Daivari, and people like the Factory are getting more time than the recently-turned Will Hobbs. Has Lee Moriarty even been on TV since his heel turn? Or Samoa Joe since retaining the ROH TV Title? And both of those guys are- unfortunately- low priority guys... and yet instead of realizing that he was way too much stuff going on, Tony Khan is constantly adding more crap.
I truly believe that Tiny is stuck in this vicious cycle between "bringing countless people in to make it seem like AEW is the land of opportunities" and "needing more screen time/belts to please everyone because releasing people isn't an option". It's becoming painfully obvious with this "ROH" TV deal not happening that this second one is running dry (+ Rampage and the """specials""" don't seem safe either), so he should stop signing the likes of fucking Ariya Daivari, The Least Incarnate Crock Lessnah, 20 Cents, whoever Slim J is and cut the dead weight. He won't though, because it would break this image of the savior of pro wrestling/"good guy Khan" and the idea that AEW is in this endless growth period and the best place to be if you're a pro wrestler.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests