BRM Reviews the 11/16/2022 Dynamite

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 11/16/2022 Dynamite

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 17th, '22, 20:21

They hype up that we’ll hear promos from both champion Jon Moxley and challenger MJF on tonight’s show. Isn’t that exactly what happened last week? Ditto for Britt and Saraya.


JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY (Chris Jericho vs. Sammy Guevara) vs. BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB (Bryan Danielson & Claudio Castagnoli)- 7/10
Ian Riccaboni claimed that Jericho is “quickly becoming one of the all-time great Ring of Honor Champions.” Oh please. How many title defenses has he had? Three? He’s not even within spitting distance of the middle of the pack.
The announcers also need to shut up about Danielson’s detached retina from fifteen years ago. It was FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, and he hasn’t had any problems since! He took the first four months of 2007 off to heal a separated shoulder. Are you going to bring that up every time someone works over his shoulder?
Schiavone- who always roots hard against MJF- chides Ian for “getting too emotional” because Ian was cheering for Dragon. He said that he knows “a lot of Ring of Honor fans are emotional about this feud… but this is also the same buffoon who is so certain anyone in Sting facepaint is the real deal, even if that person was a three-hundred-pound dwarf with one arm.
The reality is that there are ZERO Ring of Honor fans who are “emotional” about this, because all of the emotion in this feud is so clearly fake. They haven’t even attempted to explain WHY Chris Jericho is doing this. He just woke up one day and decided that he absolutely hated a promotion he had no connection with whatsoever, and started acting like a cartoon heel.
Anyway, they did their stuff. Dragon’s eye got worked over occasionally, including with some knee-strikes. The injury was a detached retina, not an injury to the orbital bone, so that doesn’t even make sense. Claudio made Jericho tap to the Sharpshooter.

MOXLEY VS. MJF VIDEO PACKAGE- meh

DARBY ALLIN & STING VIDEO- snore
Nothing happened.

JEFF JARRETT & PALS PROMO- snore
Jeff Jarrett claims that Full Gear 2022 will be the last time he wrestles Sting. G-d, I hope that’s true.

THE ACCLAIMED’S NEW MUSIC VIDEO PREMIERS- meh
Big Show was there to reprise his role as Captain Insane-o. It kind of irritates me that these two don’t seem to understand that Lee has not done anything to them whatsoever.

SHANE STRICKLAND vs. ANTHONY BOWENS- 6.75/10
Billy Gunn attacked Strickland during his entrance. Because of this, both Billy and Max Caster were ejected from ringside. During the commercial, they spent forever on the outside and were not counted out, despite the fact that the referee had been counting before the big spot where Bowens got dropped on the guardrail.
Strickland won cleanly. They teased that Bowens might have an injury going into the PPV tag title match.

JADE CARGILL VS. NYLA ROSE VIDEO PACKAGE- decent
This was a good video package, but it’s so ridiculous that AEW has taken no action against Nyla that it makes it look like the titles don’t matter because the promotion doesn’t even care if you steal a belt and walk around and claim to be the rightful champion.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH SAMOE JOE IS INTERRUPTED BY WILL HOBBS-
Joe explained his turn as him not being willing to “sit around and become a victim.” Hobbs wanted to come fight Joe, but then Wardlow’s music played. Everyone waited for him to come down the ramp, but he attacked Joe from behind. Yes, Joe did the same thing to Wardlow last week, but Wardlow has been such a douche for the past few months that this just feels like him doing something else heelish rather than justified revenge. To be clear, I’m not holding that against this segment; just noting that because of what had come before, this did not deliver the emotional satisfaction that it was designed to deliver.
Anyway, Hobbs jumped in, then the locker room emptied out to keep them apart, because that’s the visual the booker wanted to have to build up the PPV match (as opposed to 98% of the other brawls in AEW, where no one comes out to break it up).
If this had ended here, I would have been fine with it, but of course it couldn’t. We had to get a spot where Wardlow and Dark Order were alone in the ring. Wardlow wanted to dive onto everyone else… and instead of doing what is apparently their jobs and trying to keep the fight broken up, the pathetic cowards just backed off and let Wardlow dive.

BRITT BAKER PROMO- excellent
This was a total babyface promo, and nothing she said was wrong.

AEW WORLD TRIOS TITLE MATCH: Death Triangle(c) (w/Alex Abrahantes) vs. A.R. Fox & Top Flight- 7.5/10
Three guys who have never teamed together are getting a title shot.
They did many flips. It was very exciting. The champs won cleanly, without Pac trying to cheat even once.

PAC PROMO- good
He called out the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, though not by name. I like that he appears to actually watch the show and acknowledged the videos. A graphic appeared, answering his challenge by announcing a trios title match at Full Gear. I assumed the whole reason we got the preceding title match was to set this up, but I had assumed we would get the Bucks ad Kenny showing up after the match to challenge them.

RICKY STARKS PROMO- fine
This was decent hype for his World Title Eliminator Semifinal against Lance Archer on Rampage.

WORLD TITLE ELIMINATOR SEMIFINAL MATCH: Bandido vs. Ethan Page (w/Stokely Hathway)- 6.75/10
Page cut a good promo on his way to the ring. He won about 95% cleanly. I don’t think I’ve ever been more certain that a top rope move would get countered into a hurriancrana than I was with the Ego’s Edge in this match.

JUNGLE BOY VS. LUCHASAURUS VIDEO PACKAGE-meh
Jungle Boy’s closing line was painfully weak, and we still have been given absolutely no reason for why Luchasaurus sided with Christian, so there was zero emotion coming from that side of the equation.

EARLIER TODAY, RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWED SARAYA- shockingly good
She said she was glad to be able to wrestle again, and was sick of talking back and forth with Britt and wanted to fight. It’s amazing what a babyface you can come off like when you’re not spending your time trying to explain to someone why they’re not a star and you are, and why you have sacrificed more than they have.

EDDIE KINGSTON & ORTIZ VS. JUN AKIYAMA & KONNOSUKE TAKESHITA VIDEO PACKAGE- fine
Kingston was great, but they didn’t do anything to tell us who Akiyama is other than tell us that “he’s a legend.”

AEW INTERIM WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE ELIMINATOR MATCH: AEW Interim Women’s World Champion Toni Storm vs. Anna Jay- 5/10
Toni won cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Snore
Jamie Hayter came out and asked Toni if they could talk, but then shoved her and walked off. This was a segment that was booked just to get a face-to-face on the go-home show.

CLOSING SEGMENT- didn’t like it
Jon Moxley came out to the ring and said mean things about MJF. He pretty much buried him (“a kid playing wrestler”), as well as the booking. MJF pretty much has to win cleanly now.
The Firm attacked Moxley and Regal. None of their Blackpool Combat Club friends came out to help them. MJF did, though, and he beat every member of the Firm up and made them look silly.
MJF then cut a promo on Moxley (which he started off with a Punk/Cena reference). He then cut a big babyface promo about how he needs to win the world title and it doesn’t matter what Moxley puts him through, he’ll keep coming… and then he closed it by referencing Punk’s heel turn promo in ROH, saying “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is making the world think he didn’t exist, and I am the devil himself!” Way to spoil that heel turn, buddy. And if he doesn’t turn heel, how does this comment make any sense?
Moxley snatched the mic away from MJF and got the last word in. He went to talk off, then apparently remembered that he was supposed to bump MJF as he did so, so they had another stare-down, then left again, but this time doing it the way he was booked to.
I thought Moxley buried MJF too much, I thought MJF’s promo was moronic because of the turn it took in the end, and then the ending exposed that all of those emotions they put out there were just thigs they were booked to say.


This was a dull show from AEW. Yes, there was some great wrestling, but as a go-home show, it was a mostly a failure. It added nothing new to any of the pre-existing stories that would change how we kayfabe think an outcome might go, and far too much of the show felt like things that happened just so there could be a final confrontation rather than anything organic.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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