BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 22nd, '22, 17:00

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Claudio Castagnoli(c) vs. Chris Jericho- 6.75/10
Ian Riccaboni joined the commentary team for this match. Chris Jericho actually complied with the pre-match handshake… right after Tony Schiavone said he wasn’t surprised that Jericho wouldn’t shake hands. Oh, Tony. Never right.
Cary Silkin was watching from ringside, so of course Jericho used him as a hostage. He then hit- or, more importantly, didn’t hit- Claudio with a phantom punch that looked embarrassing. He would later fail to actually kick out of a Ricola Bomb, and had a few other spots that didn’t look good at all.
The story here, such as it was, was that Claudio totally dominated Jericho and Jericho could barely get any offense in without having to cheat first.
Jericho won the title after a low blow and a Judas Effect. Ian Riccaboni told us how terrible and disrespectful and antithetical to ROH this behavior was… and, of course, the fans were all cheering in the background and singing Jericho’s song.
The Jericho Appreciation Society came out to celebrate with Jericho, but Daniel Garcia looked unhappy. This whole thing would work a lot better for me if they had spent time establishing Garcia as having been a fan of ROH. Show him lobbying to get himself on the PPVs and wrestling cleanly on them, and have him show pride in ROH (as opposed to openly mocking the Pure Title like he did in the build to his first match for it, which is also his only ROH appearance), the same way they tried to do (but, again, starting too late) in his story with Bryan Danielson. That way it feels less forced when he’s suddenly upset about Jericho cheating when Garcia himself has spent pretty much his entire AEW career as a cheater.
I also really hope they’re going to be announcing an ROH TV show soon, because this Jericho/Garcia/Danielson story is probably the best thing you could put on it to try to bring in AEW viewers.

Can someone please tell the assholes in front of the hard-cam to put their f*cking belts down so we can see? Why would you even bring a replica nWo-spraypainted belt to an AEW show?

WORLD TITLE MATCH HYPE PACKAGE- fine
Shining a light on the Danielson “redemption” story they’ve been building up under the radar was nice, but it made the world title itself not feel as important to Danielson, and Moxley felt almost dismissive of Dragon.

AEW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Swerve in Our Glory(c) vs. the Acclaimed (w/Billy Gunn)- 7/10
Swerve had another famous hip-hop friend accompany his team to ringside for this how. The Acclaimed countered with one of their own. I laughed at Caster claiming that the Acclaimed “run the city from here to SoHo,” which really isn’t that big of a distance or that big of a slice of the city.
This was great and the crowd was very excited, but I found the title change to feel extremely hollow. This was Tony Khan deciding that he wished he had called an audible at All Out 2022 and changed the titles, so now he’s just going to call a do-over, and so we got a hollow echo of that match but with the opposite finish, except that there was no doubt whatsoever about the outcome because of the horribly clumsy nature of the set-up for it. It feels hollow and forced. It feels fake, because I just can’t not see this as “the booker is putting the titles on them for having such a great match last time.” It doesn’t feel like the characters actually earned this win. If Tony had taken a month or two to rebuild the Acclaimed while having Lee and Strickland feud with someone else, then this wouldn’t have been an issue, but he didn’t.
Also, whoever came up with the idea for Billy Gunn to hit Strickland with his finisher (and I’m pretty certain it was Billy) should be fired. The Acclaimed are supposed to be babyfaces and they’re getting their big title win… and you decide to have their f*cking manager attack one of the champions for no f*cking reason right before the finish?! And the number of time Billy Gunn has done this sort of thing is ridiculous. He’s clearly just in it for himself, and Tony Khan should get rid of him. He’s not worth whatever benefit he’s providing.
Also, I couldn’t help but notice that in this match, the crowd was back to mostly doing scissoring-based cheers for the Acclaimed rather than really cheering for the team. Like with Adam Page, the catchphrase is over a lot more than the act, and that’s not the way it should be (although it is better than neither of them being over).

LEXI NAIR’S INTERVIEW WITH FTR IS INTERRUPTED BY GUNN CLUB- bad
FTR congratulate the Acclaimed on their win. They start to say that they want to get the title shot they have deserved for months (they note that they have been the top-ranked team since EARLY APRIL!), when Gunn Club shows up and tries to make fun of them. And I’m sure that coming out of this segment, Tony Khan will opt to book the guys who have been the top-ranked team for five and a half months against the geeks who never win instead of booking them against the tag champs, then go pat himself on the back for telling such great stories and providing us all with a “sports-like presentation.”

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH WHEELER YUTA IS INTERRUPTED BY MJF- bad
And, of course, the fans treat MJF like he’s a huge babyface. Wheeler YUTA tried to cut a promo responding to MJF, and he came off like a jerk, too. As a general rule, just avoid “your significant other is going to leave you! HAH!” unless it’s relevant to the angle. YUTA’s excuse here was that she would “walk out on” MJF “just like you walked out on all of us.” Why should YUTA be upset at the dirty cheating asshole for walking out of the promotion? That just means more opportunities for him to earn TV time. Pro wrestling is not a team sport where everyone in the locker room is on the same side!
MJF finally got something close to a negative reaction by making fun of William Regal’s history of drug addiction. YUTA smacked him, so MJF floored YUTA with a headbutt. Schiavone tried to hold MJF back gently, so MJF went after Tony. That really got him booed, because I guess the fans like incompetent bumbling idiots. MJF pointlessly distracting himself with Tony gave YUTA time to recover, and he got the best of MJF until W. Morrissey showed up.
The announcers were all OUTRAGED about MJF shoving Tony Schiavone, with Excalibur claiming that MJF had “cross a line he can never come back from.” Anna Jay assaults people backstage all the time. Jericho SET SOMEONE’S FACE ON FIRE FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN HE WAS WEARING A T-SHIRT OF A WRESTLER JERICHO DIDN’T LIKE. But this- pushing Tony Schiavone- has the announcers so upset that they’re calling for his head.

EARLIER TODAY, TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEWES INTERVIEW WITH JADE CARGILL & THE BADDIES WAS INTERRUPTED BY DIAMANTE- TERRIBLE!
Jade said nothing of any use. Just her usual pointless profanity-filled catchphrases. Diamante showed up and told Jade “you really don’t want to know who my friend is,” because Diamante, who hasn’t been on AEW TV in about two years, is getting a title shot… and all of the build for that is around her mystery friend.
Then said mystery friend just showed up. It was someone I have never seen or even heard of before named “Trina.” Apparently she is also friends with one of Jade’s hangers-on. Who could possibly care about any of this.


You’ll all be glad to know that Tony Schiavone is completely fine. Quite frankly that’s a miracle. I mean MJF… lightly shoved him down.

AEW ALL-ATLANTIC TITLE MATCH: Pac(c) vs. Orange Cassidy- 5/10
Orange Cassidy took his sunglasses off and threw them at Pac, hitting him in the chest. Shouldn’t that be a DQ?
Some asshole held up a big “it’s my birthday” sign during this match, so the people behind him started chanting “F*CK YOUR BIRHTDAY!” And f*ck that guy’s birthday, indeed. Don’t hold up your big sign in the middle of a match, especially if it’s not related to anything going on in the match. Also, you’re a grown f*cking adult. No one cares that you’re here for your birthday, and you should be well past the point of feeling the need to tell people about it.
They did stuff. It was the usual Orange Cassidy crap that is supposedly “mind games.” Pac, who is supposed to be a babyface, hit OC in the head with the hammer for the ring-bell to get the win. Excalibur praised Pac for having such great “situational awareness,” and the other announcers soon followed with similar bullsh*t. Why is it evil when Jericho does it, but not when Pac does it? Or when Billy Gunn does it on behalf of the Acclaimed?


FOUR-WAY MATCH FOR THE AEW ITERIM WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE: Toni Storm(c) vs. Athena vs. Serena Deeb vs. Britt Baker (w/Rebel)- 6.5/10
Athena has ditched the stupid wins, so that’s good. They did four-way stuff. Dr. Baker got busted open. Toni pinned Britt Baker with a roll-up.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Dr. Baker attacked Toni Storm from behind. Jamie Hayter came out to Russo-Swerve everyone so she and Britt could beat Toni up together. Boy, I sure am glad they’ve been teasing this break-up for ALMOST A YEAR NOW, AND IT HAS GONE ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE!
Once Britt and Hayter had done their segment, Serena Deeb attacked Athena. The other heels joined in on the attack on Athena. Britt got her glove on, but then Paige came out. She’s going by Saraya here, but I figured if I said that Saraya came out, people would assume I meant her mother.
She came down to the ring, and the heels just let her have it instead of beating her up four-on-one. Is it really that hard to have her come out swing a chair or something to chase the heels off?

So AEW now has Paige. Okay. She was very talented and is still young, yes, but she also hasn’t wrestled a match in years. It took Punk time work off some of his ring-rust, so I’m sure it will with her, too (meanwhile, she is nowhere near his level of star to carry things on starpower until she does get the rust off), and she is something of an injury time-bomb as well. Additionally, she’s yet another babyface in a division where so many talented babyfaces are languishing from a combination of lack of TV time for the division as a whole, and a bottleneck of very talented babyfaces at the top. Yes, Toni Storm feels new and fresh, but in addition to Page we have Ruby Riott, Athena, and Hikaru Shida going nowhere fast, Jade Cargill has a lock on the TBS Title and nothing she with it does ever helps to get her opponents over, talented people like Shida (never mind heels like Anna Jay and Nyla Rose) who can’t even get time to wrestle, and that’s ignoring the likes of Leyla Hirsch and Kris Statlander on the injured list. At the moment, Paige feels like she’ll be another Ruby Riott, having her big debut, but then languishing for months on end after her first feud ends.

DARBY ALLIN VIDEO- goofy
Darby dragged a bodybag around the city with him, including on the subway. That’s the fourth-weirdest thing I’ve seen on an NYC subway this week. He eventually got into a taxi and said told the driver “I’m going to a funeral. Arthur Ashe.” That made it sound like it was Arthur Ashe’s funeral, which happened when Darby Allin was just under one month old, and thus adult Darby is very late for. How about instead of something like this, you just give us a video recap of the feud. It’d be more effective, and it’d probably be cheaper, too.

SINGLES MATCH FOR THE VACANT AEW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley- 8.25/10
William Regal was on commentary for this match. They showed us MJF watching from a private box… while holding that big stupid poker chip like it’s a Money in the Bank briefcase. They kept cutting to him about once a minute. It was very annoying, and mad the match itself feel smaller than it should have, like we were just waiting for him to run down and announce that he wanted his title shot right now.
Dragon worked the arm a bit and Mox worked the head a bit, but the match just didn’t feel as epic as it should have, given the circumstances and the talent involved.

Moxley’s win is a good political move by Khan, and not just because he doesn’t seem aligned with either Punk or the Elite. It feels like Tony is answering Moxley’s promo from the other week about being the guy who wants the ball by trusting in Moxley and handing him the ball, and to show that kind of faith in someone in a situation like this seems like a good idea to me.
What Tony now does with Moxley as champ is where it gets tricky. Moxley is getting the title after just having had a reign that makes him look like a clear second choice, and him getting the belt back because the same guy who was unavailable last time is unavailable again just reinforces that. The way to counteract this is to give him a long and strongly-booked reign, felling worthy challenger after worthy challenger. But this is complicated by the fact that MJF is hot as hell and has a title shot he can apparently cash in at any time. How do you give Moxley a reign that will be long enough to not make him look like just a second choice to Punk and then a fill-in for Punk when he loses to MJF, while still keeping MJF hot and adequately explaining why MJF doesn’t just cash in the first time Moxley is very vulnerable after a grueling title defense or after the inevitable beat-down that someone will put on Moxley?
Danielson wouldn’t suffer from the first issue, but I think people would be disappointed if his first reign was a short one, losing to MJF. Also, all of Danielson’s most compelling matches (and storyline-driven) matches are people who are either unavailable (Omega, who Dragon is 0-0-1 against), people who have lost too many title matches and title tournament matches recently (Hangman, Jericho) people who just won a title they shouldn’t job while holding (Garcia, Jericho), or Moxley, whose story with Dragon I think becomes more interesting when their third match is with Dragon 0-2 against Moxley instead of the same 1-1 Dragon will be doing against Jericho, Garcia, and Page, (and, eventually, Omega).


This was a disappointing show from AEW. I know that sounds crazy given the ratings, but other than the title tournament, this show felt like it was trying to pretend it was bigger than it actually was. The fact no one did anything to earn their title shots (other than the guys in the tournament final and Serena Deeb, and Deeb had to challenge in a four-way with two people who did nothing to earn their shots) was a major factor, and that was exacerbated by the fact that they have done nothing to make us care about the All-Atlantic Title and by the issues I discussed about the tag title match. Paige’s debut was also underwhelming for the reasons I explained above, and we didn’t really get any strong character stuff from anyone. Throw in whatever the hell is going on with Pac’s alignment, and it’s hard to have too much faith that there will be much of anything to get excited about in AEW coming out of this show.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

Post by cero2k » Sep 23rd, '22, 02:55

Big Red Machine wrote: Sep 22nd, '22, 17:00 I also really hope they’re going to be announcing an ROH TV show soon, because this Jericho/Garcia/Danielson story is probably the best thing you could put on it to try to bring in AEW viewers.
Dragon winning the title from Jericho of all people, after Jericho tries to turn ROH into Ring of Entertainment, is the best trigger to start whatever ROH tv will look like
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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

Post by XIV » Sep 23rd, '22, 10:54

Moxley winning is the right call for business. I'm no Moxley fan, but he cut a hell of a promo and having a babyface champion who is as over as Moxley is the right call to have made. In these circumstances, it's just right.

Jericho winning the ROH belt only makes sense if like Cero said, it is used somehow to reboot ROH.

I half expected Orange Cassidy to win the all-Atlantic title and I'm really glad that he didn't.

and finally from me, The Acclaimed, whilst them winning the titles after the event a couple of weeks is totally the right move, for me it's still not quite what it should have been seeing as the spectre of FTR being #1 rated for months now still looms. But doing babyface vs babyface is not going to be your best draw right now. But as it stands, there's no natural team I immediately think that The Acclaimed can go to war with. They've already beaten the Gunns.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 23rd, '22, 15:39

cero2k wrote: Sep 23rd, '22, 02:55
Big Red Machine wrote: Sep 22nd, '22, 17:00 I also really hope they’re going to be announcing an ROH TV show soon, because this Jericho/Garcia/Danielson story is probably the best thing you could put on it to try to bring in AEW viewers.
Dragon winning the title from Jericho of all people, after Jericho tries to turn ROH into Ring of Entertainment, is the best trigger to start whatever ROH tv will look like
I think they need to establish what ROH is supposed to be before they do that sort of thing, though. You have to show that ROH isn't just any other promotion, but a place where interference and DQs are an abomination that will get someone shunned in the locker room and maybe never booked again. You have to establish what ROH is before you ask people to care about someone trying to turn it into something it's not. Bill Alfonso in ECW in 1992 or even early-mid 1993 isn't a heel. he's just a referee trying to do his job.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

Post by cero2k » Sep 26th, '22, 00:50

Big Red Machine wrote: Sep 23rd, '22, 15:39
I think they need to establish what ROH is supposed to be before they do that sort of thing, though. You have to show that ROH isn't just any other promotion, but a place where interference and DQs are an abomination that will get someone shunned in the locker room and maybe never booked again. You have to establish what ROH is before you ask people to care about someone trying to turn it into something it's not. Bill Alfonso in ECW in 1992 or even early-mid 1993 isn't a heel. he's just a referee trying to do his job.
That's why Jericho is the best option and this story with Garcia helps have someone seeing how ' entertainment ' screws honor and wrestling and then the wrestlers fight to bring it back.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 27th, '22, 20:32

cero2k wrote: Sep 26th, '22, 00:50
Big Red Machine wrote: Sep 23rd, '22, 15:39
I think they need to establish what ROH is supposed to be before they do that sort of thing, though. You have to show that ROH isn't just any other promotion, but a place where interference and DQs are an abomination that will get someone shunned in the locker room and maybe never booked again. You have to establish what ROH is before you ask people to care about someone trying to turn it into something it's not. Bill Alfonso in ECW in 1992 or even early-mid 1993 isn't a heel. he's just a referee trying to do his job.
That's why Jericho is the best option and this story with Garcia helps have someone seeing how ' entertainment ' screws honor and wrestling and then the wrestlers fight to bring it back.
Garcia as a viewpoint character is a good idea, but if you want to tel the story in a way that will bring in new people, the baseline of what ROH is supposed to be needs to best established before you introduce the existential threat.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

Post by cero2k » Sep 28th, '22, 15:47

Big Red Machine wrote: Sep 27th, '22, 20:32
Garcia as a viewpoint character is a good idea, but if you want to tel the story in a way that will bring in new people, the baseline of what ROH is supposed to be needs to best established before you introduce the existential threat.
I feel the trick is to present it in a way that the old ROH fans want to come back, and the AEW fans are interested in following the show. Once they have that baseline, you can work on new-er fans. I think this Jericho v Bandido may start to better establish what "Honor" is by showcasing how Garcia/Dragon/former champions respect it, whereas Jericho keeps breaking it.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/21/2022 Dynamite (Grand Slam 2022)

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 28th, '22, 16:42

cero2k wrote: Sep 28th, '22, 15:47
Big Red Machine wrote: Sep 27th, '22, 20:32
Garcia as a viewpoint character is a good idea, but if you want to tel the story in a way that will bring in new people, the baseline of what ROH is supposed to be needs to best established before you introduce the existential threat.
I feel the trick is to present it in a way that the old ROH fans want to come back, and the AEW fans are interested in following the show. Once they have that baseline, you can work on new-er fans. I think this Jericho v Bandido may start to better establish what "Honor" is by showcasing how Garcia/Dragon/former champions respect it, whereas Jericho keeps breaking it.
Nothing you're saying here is wrong, but you're failing to consider how jaded those old ROH fans have become to that particular pitch. Delirious made that promise about once a year every year between 2017 and 2019, and within two months he'd just give up on it, the make the same pitch the next year. Most are going to need you to prove to them that you're legit before they give you the time of day, and Tony Khan's handling of so many other things has done nothing to make anyone think that he'll be any different, and a lot to make people think he'll be almost as bad.
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