BRM Reviews the 10/18/2022 Dynamite

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 10/18/2022 Dynamite

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 18th, '22, 21:25

AEW WORLD TRIOS TITLE MATCH: Death Triangle(c) (w/Alex Abrahantes) vs. Orange Cassidy & Best Friends- 5.75/10
There must have been some sort of pre-match agreement for everyone to wear the ugliest gear they had. Yuck. Especially Trent.
Tony Schiavone mentioned “the Elite,” which might be the first time they’ve been mentioned on the air since the…um… incident.
There was a spot here where Pac tried to use the ringbell hammer, but Fenix stopped him. That might have been the only spot in this match that wasn’t a kick, flip, dive or head-drop. Fenix got the win for his team.

VIDEO MATCH TO BUILD UP THE AEW WORLD TITLE MATCH- fine

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS BRITT BAKER & FRIENDS- Britt and Jamie Hayter promise that by the end of the year, one of them will be the women’s champion. They also buried the big title match we were about to see.

AEW INTERIM WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE MATCH: Toni Storm(c) vs. Hikaru Shida- 6.5/10
Someone needs to tell Excalibur that just because the competitors first met ten years ago does not make a match “nearly ten years in the making.” A match is only “X TIME in the making” if you can draw a through-line of a story connecting A to B, and even better if that story has actually been built up on TV, because if it isn’t, it makes it feel like you’re pulling sh*t out of your ass.
Someone also needs to tell Excalibur that you can’t be “one of the most” something “bar none.” Those two terms make no sense together.
Also, remember how AEW was doing a storyline at this time last year where Shida was trying to get her fiftieth win? Well going into this match, she had fifty-three. She has won FOUR MATCHES IN A WHOLE YEAR, and somehow this is her second title shot in just the past two months.
This match has a sixty-minute time-limit… meaning that AEW booked THREE matches with sixty-minute time-limits on a two-hour show… and then booked some other stuff, too.
Storm worked the head and got the win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Dr. Baker’s friends jumped the babyfaces after the match. Britt herself wasn’t with them. While they came through the crowd, she came down the ramp. She seemed to do this specifically so that no one would be in the way of Saraya coming down and fighting with her.
People brawled away into the crowd. Riho came out, all waving and smiling instead of running down to make the save. Eventually she started to job to the ring. She did her dives and so forth. I don’t give a single sh*t about Riho, and the whole segment suffered from feeling like something that happened to 1) give Britt and Saraya a chance to fight and 2) so Riho could have an exciting way to make her return, rather than feeling like something that happened organically.

WAR-JOE VS. KINGDOM VIDEO PACKAGE- snore
Joe and Wardlow are offering these guys title shots now, too. They said things to sound intimidating.

RENEE PAQUETTE’S INTERVIEW FTR IS INTERRUPTED BY SWERVE IN OUR GLROY- meh
As you might remember, FTR have been the #1 contenders to the AEW World Tag Team Titles for about forty-three years now, and haven’t made a single move towards those belts. This week, they just “can’t live” without winning those titles.
Keith Lee & Shane Strickland showed up and Strickland said pretty much what I just said. Keith Lee seemed to think that this was rude. Lee and Harwood were both diplomatic, so a #1 contendership match was agreed to for next week.

ALEX MARVEZ MODERATES A BACKSTAGE SESSION WITH JAY LETHAL ASKING DARBY ALLIN FOR A REMATCH- meh
AEW management has insisted on “no physicality” here. Why don’t they do that every time?
Anyway, there was physicality. Sonjay Dutt poked Darby, so Darby, like an idiot, started shoving in a two-on-one situation, so he got his ass kicked. Lethal and Sonjay closed a loading dock door on Darby and the beat him up.
These two will have a rematch. Also, the heels claimed that a friend of theirs told them Darby’s secret weakness.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S IN-RING INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM REGAL IS INTERRUPTED BY MJF- bad
Regal took out his brass knuckles, but MJF insisted he was just here to talk. Regal did so, but never left a stance where he couldn’t spring into fighting mode if he needed to. I loved that so much!
MJF told a story about his trainers having gotten him WWE “extra-work.” In kayfabe, what does that mean? Also, what’s a “try-out match?” Don’t you get noticed by winning on the indies?
Anyway, MJF told a story about how he impressed at a try-out match and Regal said he was going to get him a job but then couldn’t get one because he was just nineteen. He says that Regal told him to keep sending him a match and a promo every month, and then Regal eventually send him a rude-sounding email saying that the wasn’t good enough. MJF said that this made him want to quit wrestling and maybe kill himself, but he persevered just to prove everyone wrong. Then he said mean things to Regal and bragged about his success.

Regal then cut a promo talking about his own background and saying that MJF had it easy, then clumsily transitioned into lecturing MJF for lightly shoving Tony Schiavone… and I can’t take it seriously, because Chris Jericho did much worse to Bobby Cruise, and no one really seems to care.
Regal then told MJF to be a terrible person “the right way,” and not take shortcuts. What?
Regal’s claim that he never needed to use his brass knuckles to beat people, he just likes to hit people with them does not stand up to kayfabe scrutiny. Regal gave MJF his back so he could have the opportunity to use a “shortcut” to being a bad person. MJF put his ring on and was going to punch Regal but Regal turned around and said that MJF “still had a lot to prove.”
What’s the point of this? Is it supposed to get heat because MJF is spoiled because he’s upset he didn’t get a job he wanted and thought he deserved? That’s how I took, but the crowd didn’t take it that way. They were chanting “YOU F*CKED UP!” at Regal and treating MJF like a babyface. I guess it builds character for MJF- that he essentially survives off of spite and the drive to prove himself. I’m not even sure that’s new information. Or was it just for him to be able to berate Regal in public and get it heat? If that’s the case, it clearly failed, because the fans were 95% with him.
And what is this bullsh*t that Regal is advocating for? I don’t want MJF to be a bad person “the right way.” I want him to stop cheating and being a bad person, or else I want him to lose. What Regal seems to be advocating for here just makes me like Regal less.

RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWS BILLY GUNN & THE ACCLAIMED- snore
They have a “titles vs. trademark” match against Josh Woods and Tony Nese. Oh goody. Another team that hasn’t done anything to earn a title shot. Also, the Acclaimed said flat-out that they would stomp on Mark Sterling’s nuts. That came off as heelish and pointlessly mean.

EARLIER TODAY, RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWED BRYAN DANIELSON AND WHEELER YUTA- Danielson bad; YUTA good (not a typo)
Danielson’s promo felt like it should have come at the beginning of this storyline when he was recruiting Garcia, not after Garcia blatantly screwed and betrayed him. Danielson didn’t even acknowledge that there was anything dirty about his loss.
YUTA pointed out that Dragon should have seen this coming, and was upset that Dragon was still talking Garcia up for being the next great technical wrestler while YUTA was sitting right there. He said that Dragon doesn’t seem to accept him as part of the group the way Mox and Claudio do. Then YUTA walked off. While YUTA’s promo was good, it really felt like the only reason he was so he could react to this thing that no one knew Dragon was going to say.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Chris Jericho(c) (w/Jake Hager) vs. Dalton Castle (w/the Boys)- 6.75/10
Dalton got a big entrance. Can someone tell the idiots in the production truck to stop cutting to the fans singing the heel’s song?!
They did WAY too much goofy crap involving Dalton and the Boys, including Hager firing up when the Boys took his stupid purple hat. Jericho eventually won cleanly with the Judas Effect.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- hated it
Jericho said he was going to desecrate ROH, so his guys went after Ian Riccaboni, who had been on commentary. The only person who came out to save poor Ian was road agent Jerry Lynn, because he’s a former ROH World Champion and this gave Jericho the opportunity to beat him up. He gave Jerry a piledriver on the leather side of the title belt on the stage. It probably would have hurt more to just do the move on the stage.
This didn’t work for me at all, because there is absolutely no reason for Jericho to be doing any of this. He has absolutely no reason to have this hatred for Ring of Honor, so everything he says and does to “desecrate” ROH comes off as “LOOK AT ME! I’M BEING A HEEL!” instead of coming off like something that has real emotion behind it.
And then, of course, we encounter the problem that people only seem to care about Jericho’s “desecration” of ROH one at a time, because if everyone who should theoretically care about this came out to make the save (off the top of my head, Danielson, Samoa Joe, Claudio, YUTA, Adam Page, Christopher Danielson, FTR, and I’m sure there are a bunch of others I’m forgetting) then the angle wouldn’t work because the heels would be vastly outnumbered, and as a result, it all comes off as orchestrated rather than natural (similarly, why was Jerry Lynn not just the first, but also the only person come out to try to save Ian?).

CHRISTIAN CAGE (& LUCHASAURUS) VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- good (although we still haven’t been told why Luchasaurus turned on Jungle Boy)

JADE CARGILL YELLS AT HER LACKEYS FOR NOT HAVING GOTTEN BACK THE TITLE BELT NYLA ROSE STOLE FROM HER-
Here’s an idea: AEW should make the one employee return the stolen property to the other.
Apparently Nyla Rose just doesn’t have to show up for work. But she will be in Jacksonville for Rampage, and Jade says she will demand her belt back. And then she demands that Tony Khan make Nyla return the belt, or else she’ll just hijack the show. At this point, that seems totally reasonable to me.
Jade, who is usually a heel, is wearing both a Cincinnati Reds jersey and necklace. Why? She’s not ever from there.

AEW WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jon Moxley(c) vs. Adam Page- 7/10
Some young Adam Page fan has brought what appears to be a NOOSE to ringside, stapled to a poster. That’s a little disturbing. Where does a child even get such a thing?
Page came to meet Moxley in the crowd so they could start brawling there. This does not at all feel like that kind of feud to me.
Moxley did a lot of biting and raking. Why should we like him when he does these sorts of things?
They showed us MJF in the skybox in the beginning of the match, then cut away in the middle to show us that he isn’t there, thus spoiling the surprise for later.
They brawled. Mox won by referee stoppage after a lariat. The fans booed for some reason. The announcers (including Regal) were all like “I’m sure this wasn’t how Moxley wanted to defend the title.” WHY NOT?! He hurt the guy so bad that the guy couldn’t continue! What’s shameful about that?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
So Page got stretchered off (seems like a shoot, but it sure is convenient that it happened on a show where they needed to do a post-match angle) and Moxley cut a promo to fill time, calling out MJF… and lo and behold MJF is cashing in his stupid MITB poker chip… or not, because Regal shot him a look, so then MJF decided to not cut corners and to cash in on Moxley when Moxley was at 100% instead, which will be at full gear so that “for once in my life, I’m going to earn it.”
All of this secret history between Regal and MJF feels like an ass-pull to me, and all for the sake of either an ill-advised MJF babyface turn (what other top heels do you have, other than Jericho?) or so that MJF can lose to Moxley and then get upset and stay heel, in which case you’ll have made the fans want to see your top heel turn babyface and then not delivered.


Another typical mess of an episode of Dynamite.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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