BRM Reviews the 9/28/2022 Dynamite (terrible)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 9/28/2022 Dynamite (terrible)

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 30th, '22, 16:06

CHRIS JERICHO’S ROH WORLD TITLE CELEBRATION (IN WHICH DANIEL GARCIA TURNS BABYFACE)- COMPLETELY F*CKING ATROCIOUS!
Jericho just cheated to win a world title. Can we at least not cut to the fans singing his song. His group comes out and they’re all wearing purple, so at least you know none of them will be bleeding in this segment.
There are a bunch of pizzas in the ring, and Jake Hager seems to have been replaced by cartoon pizza chef spinning dough around. The crowd is even cheering the “AEW Galaxy” schtick now. Hell, it sounded like a 50-50 reaction when Angelo Parker called everyone from Philly a loser. Now even the cartoon pizza clown is getting a pop. The loudest boos came when the pizza guy said he was making “New York City” pizzas.
Menard told the fans that they wouldn’t get pizza, so they booed. Were they actually expecting to get any? What morons. Then Anna Jay had to repeat the line and laugh like an idiot, too. It’s amazing how AEW turned her heel and put her in the top heel group, and she immediately lost any momentum she had.
The fans chanted “WE WANT PIZZA!” Well then go to the f*cking concession stands and buy some.
Jericho cut a promo saying that no one knew about ROH, but he will change that. He announced that he was going to give Bandido an ROH World Title shot tonight, and even explained to us that Bandido deserves this shot because he never got a rematch after losing the belt. Ironically, this makes him the first person to actually deserve a shot at the ROH World Title in AEW… and it’s the heel giving it to him. Everyone who babyface matchmaker Tony Khan gave a title shot to (other than arguably Claudio) clearly didn’t deserve one.
Jericho says that Daniel Garcia is a great “sports entertainer,” and these same fans who were cheering 2.0’s sports entertainment schtick are now chanting “YOU’RE A WRESTLER!” at Daniel Garcia. I just don’t understand how someone can not realize that they are cheering for two contradictory things.
Jericho has a present for Garcia. It’s a purple bucket hat. Garcia doesn’t like it. I don’t really know why. I wouldn’t wear it, but I'm not standing in the ring in purple suit jackets and purple pants like Jericho, Garcia, and pals.
I understand where Garcia is coming from. Clothes are a terrible present. My siblings and I used to dread the night of Chanukah where we would get presents from some of our aunts and uncles who would always buy us clothes, and it wasn’t even fun clothes like sports apparel. It was always some ugly sweater or socks or something like that. But we learned to just smile, say “thank you” and move on. And that was when we were in elementary school.
Daniel Garcia- a grown f*cking adult- reacted to receiving a gift he didn’t like… by ASSAULTING SOMEONE. Even worse, he punched the pizza goof, who was the only person who probably WASN’T involved in getting him the gift.
Garcia tells Jericho he has had it with the goofiness. He says that this wasn’t what he envisioned himself doing when he got into the wrestling business. He says he went along with it for a little bit, but now he has “finally had enough.” Yes, it was getting a gift he didn’t like in the presence of a cartoon pizza chef that was the straw the broke the camel’s back for Daniel Garcia. Not Chris Jericho cheating to win the ROH World Title.
And to put the icing on the cake that has been this horribly forced story, this isn’t the first time the pizza guy has been attacked for being a symbol of problematic goofiness. The first time was two weeks ago on Dynamite… and the person who attacked him and complained about his goofiness was Ethan Page, who is a heel. So I guess the lesson here isn’t that goofiness is bad, but rather that it is only bad when Jericho creates the goofiness, and if Tony Khan creates that same goofiness, the goofiness is good.
Garcia was about to quit the group, but Jericho interrupted him. He promised Garcia great success if he stuck with them, but threaten to take him out if left the group. He then demanded to know Garcia was a “pro wrestler or a sports entertainer.”
Bryan Danielson and William Regal came out. Dragon gave a big, loud speech telling Garcia that he’s a grown man and can hang out and train with whoever he chooses. Jericho gets angry and of course says the wrong in the most over the top cartoonish way (“DANIEL GARCIA BELONGS TO ME! HE DOES WHAT I TELL HIM TO DO!”) in a way that I just can’t believe that someone as smart as Jericho would have to be to pull off some of the plans we’ve seen him pull off in AEW would say.
Garcia, of course, stepped up to Jericho and gave him the “you don’t own me!” speech. He then decided to tell Jericho he was going to be “entertaining” by throwing the pizza on the floor. The only part of this that was entertaining was people in the crowd booing Garcia in the middle of his big babyface turn because they misheard throwing the pizzas “onto the ground” as “into the crowd.”
Garcia then asked Jericho if it would be funny if he were to “pick up Luigi Primo and start throwing pizza dough with him,” and the same fans who were all cheering when Garcia attacked the pizza guy for doing exactly that because they were tired of this goofy “sports entertainment” now all responded to Garcia’s question if he should not only revive the pizza guy but also join him in this evil, goofy sports entertainment activity… by shouting “YES!”
And then it hit me: that stupidly obedient crowd that will cheer for anything and everything and always just be having a good time that Vince McMahon so desperately wished for is exactly the crowd that Tony Khan has.
Garcia asked the crowd if they thought it would be entertaining if he formed a tag team with ring announcer Justin Roberts, and they all cheered. Then he asked them if they thought it would be entertaining if he formed a tag team with Bryan Danielson. They cheered loudly for that… but then again, we’ve now shown that these people will cheer for anything, so that’s not really much of an indicator, is it?
Garcia asked Jericho for a match: Danielson & Garcia vs. Jericho & Guevara. Matt Menard stepped up and cut a promo on Garcia, saying he was abandoning them. He said he wanted to knock Dragon out right now. Dragon started to milk the crowd for a cheap pop, but that just got me annoyed at him for making this already bad segment take longer.
Dragon said that he was told he could have a match right now with anyone who wanted to fight him… which just makes Tony Khan look like a jerk for booking Jericho and his crew time to celebrate and then incentivizing Dragon to go cause trouble.
This was SOOOOOO bad. THIS is was their big moment for Daniel Garcia’s big babyface turn. He doesn’t leave by stopping Jericho from doing something heinous. He doesn’t even leave the JAS because Jericho has done something heinous that he can’t stomach anymore. He doesn’t turn on them because his hero Bryan Danielson reminded him what he set out to do, or because being in Ring of Honor, that promotion that spoke to him so much in his formative years as a fan has reminded him of the wrestler he wanted to be and something Jericho has done has made him see that being what he wanted to be and being what Jericho wants him to be are incompatible. No. He leaves the JAS because he’s annoyed that there is a comedy geek in the ring and because they gave him a hat he didn’t like, and then because Jericho said something so stupid that it’s inconceivable that someone as smart as Jericho would say it.
And this whole turn took place in two months, and with Garcia cheating all willy-nilly whenever the storyline needed him to in between. His face turn isn’t even about being honorable. He just wants to be serious… so it’s not really even a babyface turn, as he has at no point expressed any issues with anyone cheating at any point, except for the one time when the booker wanted him to be upset about Jericho cheating to beat Danielson. And we no he has no problem assaulting an innocent person because he did it to the pizza clown.
I don’t care how big of an AEW fan you are. At this point there is no denying that Tony Khan is a lot more Vince Russo than he is Gabe Sapolsky, and the vast majority of AEW’s success has been due to the wrestlers getting themselves over through means other than the booking and/or having a lot of cache when they arrived.

Excalibur promised us that we would “learn more about” Bandido before tonight’s main event. That’s good. But I have to ask: If you’ve identified this as a potential problem, why aren’t you doing the same thing for Juice Robinson, who is wrestling Jon Moxley tonight?

BRYAN DANIELSON vs. MATT MENARD (w/Angelo Parker)- 4.75/10
William Regal was on commentary for this match. Everyone other than Parker disappeared from ringside. Danielson is in his gear, but Menard isn’t. Why would you set a match up where the babyface gets to come prepared and the heel doesn’t?
On commentary, Schiavone asked Willam Regal if Danielson had invited Daniel Garcia to join the Blackpool Combat Club, telling Regal that he was “trying to read between the lines.” Read between the lines? HE FLAT-OUT SAID IT IN PLAIN ENGLISH!
Apparently Matt Menard’s match on Rampage last Friday was his return from a torn muscle. Who knew?
Parker interfered three or four times before Claudio Castagnoli came out to remove him from the match. Dragon won moments later.

JON MOXLEY VS. JUICE ROBINSON VIDEO PACKAGE- fine
The stuff about Moxley was decent. Juice’s new heel gimmick comes off way too much like someone trying to play a mean tough guy on TV rather than someone who actually is either of those two things, never mind both.

MJF’S SCHEDULED PROMO IS PREEMPTIVELY INTERRUPTED BY WHEELER YUTA COMING TO THE RING AND CALLING HIM OUT-
Wheeler YUTA is absolutely outraged that last week MJF lightly shoved Tony Schiavone. This is not Memphis Wrestling, where no one ever put their hands on an announcer or production person or whatever. It’s AEW, where a few months ago one of the wrestlers THREW A FIREBALL IN THE FACE OF A BACKSTAGE WORKER FOR NO REASON, AND NO ONE CARED! And the fact it’s WHEELER YUTA who comes out here and rages out this instead of, say, Sting, who has been friends with Tony for well over thirty years is utterly ridiculous.
YUTA says that Tony Schiavone has done for more AEW than MJF ever will. That’s just a laughable statement right there.
YUTA says that he believes that “actions should have consequences.” Well apparently Tony Khan doesn’t, as instead of suspending MJF for this supposedly heinous act, he was going to give him time to cut a promo.
Wheeler thinks that MJF’s punishment for shoving Tony should be that MJF has to wrestle him tonight, which, when combined with the lack of any sort of relationship between him and Tony, makes this whole thing seem more like Wheeler is using Tony as an excuse so he can come out here and act all righteous and to try to get a match he wants for other reasons.
MJF came out and they cut LONG promos on each other. Wheeler wanted to fight MJF SOOO badly that he threatened to assault him in the street if they couldn’t have a match. MJF brought Gunn Club out to help to protect him from YUTA, and said that instead they would be wrestling next week. Excalibur took this as if it were fact, even though MJF has no booking power. MJF left. He had the Gunns do his catchphrase to get heat on himself for letting the fans hear him do his catchphrase. Then the Gunns left, too, and Wheeler was left standing there, looking a little silly, but I guess he got the promise of his match.

JAY LETHAL VS. DARBY ALLIN VIDEO PACKAGE- fine
They’re wrestling next week. Darby challenges Lethal to leave his friends in the back. Lethal says he will. Remember the last time this happened, and then the heels friends showed up anyway and Darby lost because of it?

IF JUICE ROBINSON WINS, HE GETS AN AEW WORLD TITLE SHOT NEXT WEEK ON DYNAMITE: Juice Robinson vs. Jon Moxley- 7/10
Juice jumped Mox on the outside before the bell. They had a great match. Moxley won cleanly.
MJF was shown watching from a skybox. He looks SOOOO stupid carrying that poker chip around.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Adam Page came out and got in Moxley’s face. This felt pointlessly confrontational. MJF then cut a promo spilling that his evil plan was to cash in after they have their match in Cincinnati. Wheeler YUTA then showed up to attack MJF until he was tackled by security. The little brawl between YUTA and MJF was well done, but I didn’t care for the Moxley/Page stuff for the reasons I said earlier in this paragraph.

CHRIS JERICHO VS. BANDIDO VIDEO PACKAGE- okay
This really didn’t tell us anything about Bandido other than that he’s good at wrestling.

SARAYA PROMO-
She said that she was “the revolution,” that she wanted to “bring change to this division,” and that this was her “house.” In other words, she said nothing.
She then made a big show out of telling us all that she was ignoring time cues (because it’s a shoot, brother) and instead she invited out the entire women’s division.
First came the babyfaces, who in this case were Toni Storm, Athena, Willow Nightengale, and two women I didn’t recognize. Saraya talked them up. She started by telling us that Toni Storm “was finally being utilized to her full potential.” What the f*ck does that mean in kayfabe? She also said that Toni was “the best champion AEW has seen” with her grand total of… *checks notes* ONE title defense so far.
Before Saraya could talk about anyone else, Britt Baker showed up with her crew… and also Penelope Ford for some reason. Dr. Baker and FKA Paige exchanged insults, then Baker cut a promo where she was essentially acting as Serena Deeb’s mouthpiece, talking Serena up and telling us why Serena would win the title from Toni Storm. It was very strange.
Britt then called for Serena to come out, at which point Saraya revealed that she talked to Tony Khan earlier, and to prevent anyone from interfering in the title match, they changed it to a Lumberjack match, and decided not to tell anyone until just now, including the announcers or the graphics people, so no one could advertise it as such. Oops.
Anyway, this was bad. Saraya came off like she’s a random authority figure for their division a lot more than like she’s a wrestler, but if that’s what she is, JUST SAY SO.

LUMBERJACK MATCH FOR THE AEW INTERIM WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Toni Storm(c) vs. Serena Deeb- 6.75/10
Wow. It sure is fortunate that Penelope Ford randomly decided to come out with Britt’s faction in the previous segment, or else we’d have had an uneven number of lumberjacks in this Lumberjack match that no one knew we were having.
Saraya was on commentary for this match. Tony Schiavone declared that she had “changed the women’s division” by… changing the stipulation of this one match.
The heel lumberjacks stomp the crap out of Toni Storm right in front of the referee, but this wasn’t a DQ, even though they’re only supposed to throw wrestlers back into the ring.
Toni could have sold her leg better. Toni worked the head and got the win with an Avalanche Strong Zero.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS BILLY GUNN & THE ACCLAIMED- bad
They came off like goofs, talking about scissoring.
Also, they have an open contract for a title match for next week, because at this point the rankings only exist so that Tony Khan can create busywork for some poor employee.
Keith Lee showed up and said he wanted to congratulate the Acclaimed on their win, but also wanted to point out to them that Billy Gunn interfered on their behalf so “you got carried” to the big win. The Acclaimed didn’t seem to care about this fact at all, and they went back to the stupid “scissor me” bullsh*t.

BACKSTAGE WITH TONY SCHIAVONE, PRIVATE PARTY & BUTCHER & BLADE ARE YELLING AT EACH OHER FOR SOME REASON WHILE ANDRADE TRIES TO MAKE PEACE- dull
I’m guessing something happened in last week’s battle royale between them, but I don’t remember. This is what video packages are for.
Andrade’s efforts are for naught. He had Jose yell at Private Party. Private Party looked dejected as they went to leave (after everyone else did). Tony Schiavone tried to talk to them, but Matt Hardy showed up and tried to tell them that they should come back to him. I don’t see how anyone could possibly care about any of this.

RICKY STARKS vs. ELI ISOM- squash

On Rampage, the Acclaimed will be defending their titles against Private Party- whose last televised tag team match was losing tag title match just last month- and The Butcher & The Blade- who have not won a televised tag team match of any kind since being on the winning side of a twelve-man tag EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, and haven’t won a televised two-on-two match since NOVERMBER 19, 2020! (And, of course, this will somehow manage to be their second tag title shot in that time).

Advertised for next week’s big anniversary show is Luchasarus “in action.” Here’s an idea, Tony. How about you book him in action against the guy he’s feuding with?

JUNGLE BOY VS. CHRISTIAN CAGE & LUCHASAURUS VIDEO PACKAGE- fine

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Chris Jericho(c) vs. Bandido- 7.5/10
Ian Riccaboni was on commentary for this match.
Yeah. Just let Jericho leave that baseball bat in the corner of the ring, Aubrey. That’s really good refereeing.
Jericho and Bandido apparently have some goofy clubhouse handshake that they do (and then, of course, Jericho flipped Bandido off). Was that really necessary, from two guys who have never even interacted before?
They did a bunch of big moves. Jericho cheated to win.

CHRIS JERICHO PROMO- snore
He says he is going to “change what Ring of Honor is” and “desecrate its legacy.” I’ve got news for you Chris. You’re about five or six years too late for that. Delirious beat you to it.
He then says he will destroy every single ROH wrestler and champion. He offers Bryan Danielson a title shot in Toronto. Then he says he will destroy every ROH commentator and ring announcer, and attacked Bobby Cruise. And I mean actually attacked him, as opposed to what MJF did to Tony Schiavone last week.
The announcers were all outraged, but it just feels like empty, cheap heat to me… and that’s the problem I have with this whole thing with Jericho. It just feels empty. This isn’t John Zandig or Rob Feinstein or Michael Elgin or Jim Cornette or anyone who has what feels like an actual reason to dislike ROH and want to see it die. It’s not even like this is Chris Hero with some sort of kayfabe grudge against ROH, or someone like Wheeler YUTA or Daniel Garcia, who I can see holding a grudge against ROH for “snubbing” him by not bringing him in. What reason does Chris Jericho have to hate ROH so much?
Everything about this (and the earlier promo claiming to be a bigger star than every ROH World Champion, etc.) feels like it’s Jericho doing and saying things to purposely get heat from smarks, and that falls flat on its face because it feels fake.

The other issue here is that… well… doing this angle at all makes it feel like either Jericho, Tony Khan, or both are out of touch. You all know me, and you all know just how much ink I have spent on the subject of ROH’s bastardization, and how I have railed against it. Go back to my review of War of the Worlds 2016, for example. That was the PPV with the non-finish main event due to Bullet Club running in and superkicking everyone for ten minutes, while no one tried to stop them. Here is just an excerpt of what I wrote there:
BRM wrote:I don’t know what the f*ck I just watched, but it sure as hell wasn’t Ring of Honor.

I’m going to be perfectly blunt with you all: I almost feel like crying right now. I own over 430 ROH DVDs. When you also factor in money spent on live PPVs, VODs, ringside membership, tickets to shows, etc. I have probably spent at least $3,000 on ROH in the past eight years. And right now: I feel like this thing that I love so much that I’ve put so much time and money into it is dead. And in its place is this disgusting, bastardized, over-booked, creatively lazy, f*cking Young Bucks circle-jerk. This must be what it felt like to be an ECW fan in 2006. Everything that ROH used to stand for: good stories, good booking, wrestling presented as serious competition, young and/or underappreciated wrestlers getting the chance to come in and show you what they can really do, and- most of all- CLEAN FINISHES is DEAD!
That was more than six years ago. And that was certainly not the last time that I spent paragraphs upon paragraphs telling you all exactly how much I disapproved of how much the company had changed from the ethos it was built on. And after hearing Jericho’s promo, I am sitting here and saying “really? We’re doing this?” AEW thinks that this is Jerry Lawler coming to ECW in 1997, but it’s actually Eric Bischoff trying to destroy EV2.0 in TNA in 2010.


This was a bad show from AEW. Yes, there were some very good matches, but the results all felt like foregone conclusions, and the angles and promos and the overall direction of the storylines were pretty much all bad, and the bigger the angle, the worse it got.
There was also a lot less wrestling on this show than usual. I like longer matches, but I’m fine with shorter matches if the promos and stories are good, but that’s not what we got here. This felt like an episode of Raw in 2018. The main matches got time and delivered to an adequate level, but the promos and booking was so bad and flailing that it was painful to watch. Add in the new way they were bleeping out bad words (with some staticky sounds that was much lamer and more intrusive than just using the bleep), and you have a show that was absolutely horrendous to sit through.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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