BRM Reviews the 1/4/2023 Dynamite (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

The show started off with Excalibur saying the following:
“IT’S WEDNESDAY! And you know what that means: It’s the start of a new year, and a new era of AEW Dynamite.”
Neither of those things happens every Wednesday.

They’ve got a new set. It’s a WWE-ish big wall of screens. Like with WWE’s, I don’t hate it, but I don’t particularly like it, either.


RICKY STARKS vs. CHRIS JERICHO (w/Angelo Parker & Matt Menard)- 7/10
Taz still doesn’t understand how to use the term “sacrificial lamb.” It’s kind of ironic, considering that he was supposedly one of the people who was so upset about the crucifixion angle in ECW.
This big match is going on that has been built up for weeks with excellent promos, to the point that I’m a little surprised it’s not the main event… and the fans are chanting for the f*cking referee because she happens to be from this area.
That baseball bat to the face while in the Walls of Jericho spot for a ref stoppage victory was WAY too good a finish to have wasted on a false finish. That’s not a complaint. It’s just an observation. That thought wouldn’t have even entered my mind if I hadn’t bit so hard it as a false finish.
That spot was enable by Parker getting fully inside the ring and Aubrey Edwards having to restrain him to stop him from interfering… and she didn’t even eject him from ringside afterwards. Other than that part, I thought this match was great, although the finish (Starks won with a spear) felt pretty abrupt.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
The rest of the JAS came out and beat Starks up. This set up Action Andretti making his big return and making the save with a chair. This was made easier by the fact that the male heels ran at him one at time like dumb AI, and only once he had gotten his big spots in hitting the dudes with the chair did the female heels run in and try to help, with Anna Jay distracting him so that Tay Melo could hit him in the nuts. The heels beat both guys down, ending it with Hager powerbombing Starks off the apron, through a table.
The idea of Andretti coming back but there being a big heat angle was good in theory, but the lack of attention to detail hurt this for me.
Andretti coming out after the match to stop a beat-down but not coming out to stop the obvious interference during the match (including hitting Starks with a weapon) doesn’t compute to me. It makes the whole thing feel like a segment orchestrated to get the biggest pops rather than real people acting for authentic reasons. The male JAS members all running in one at a time to get hit with the chair, then turning to face the hard-cam (and thus turning his back to his opponents) to do a big roar, and only then, when he has done the thing designed to give the crowd that climaxing pop and also give his moment time to sink in do the female JAS members come in and do their spot to take him down so that the heat-getting angle can begin suffers from the same flaw.
A better way to do this might have been to leave 2.0 in the back (or have them get ejected from ringside after interfering) and have them be the first ones to run out and attack. Have Starks mostly hold is home against them momentarily, leading to Hager coming out and putting Starks down. Then have Sammy and Garcia come out but only have Sammy get int the ring and aid in the beat-down. Now Andretti comes out with his chair to make the save, taking Sammy out when Sammy tries some sort of dive onto him, then working over the other three. It’s only when Jericho gets involved and Andretti starts hitting Jericho with a chair that Garcia gets involved (and he is taken out), but the time it takes Andretti to deal with him allows the women to come out, and he gets hit in the nuts.
The other part of this that bothered me is not so easy to fix, which was the lack of anyone- security, referees, and especially other babyfaces- trying to stop this. In recent weeks we’ve seen Hook and Jungle Boy help each other out, and we’ve seen Wheeler YUTA get upset with Swerve for his group’s assault of Keith Lee, so why is no one outraged about this enough to try to stop it? It was just a few weeks ago that the Blackpool Combat Club were feuding with the JAS, and they’re supposed to be nice, moral folks (especially Dragon, Claudio, and YUTA), so why didn’t they come out here to stop this? I’m not saying babyfaces all have to be best friends and save each other all the time, but if you’re going to have YUTA arbitrarily stick his nose into the Swerve vs. Lee feud, surely he’d be willing to stick his nose in here, where the guys he’d be fighting against are people he actively dislikes, right?

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS ADAM PAGE- intense, but on the whole, probably a wash.
Page announces that he’s not medically cleared yet, but he has a brain scan scheduled soon, and if he passes it, he’ll be good to go next week. He then cut a promo saying he would beat Moxley up next week, saying he doesn’t care if it’s in catering or on the roof. If Page is going to say something like that, they really should book this as the opener on next week’s show.
Jon Moxley didn’t like what Page said, so he came out and grabbed a mic. He came out through the crowd. So was he already in the crowd? Why? And how did they know to play his music? Just because his “entrance” involves him coming through the crowd doesn’t mean he has to come through the crowd every time he comes out, and especially if it makes no sense!
Moxley cut a promo pretty much demolishing Page’s whining over being knocked out, saying it’s ridiculous to be mad at Moxley for knocking him out in a wrestling match. Page explained that he isn’t mad at Mox for that. He’s mad at Mox for making a joke out of Page’s concussion when Page first returned, before Page had even said a single word. Those of you with good memories will remember that I said exactly that (and that Page stomping out there in the first place was reasonable because Moxley had been in the middle of the ring on a pro wrestling show telling us all that he’s the best and no one can compare to him. Someone else coming out and getting in your face in that situation should be expected).
But that was months ago, and my interpretation seemed to be the minority opinion among observers, and everything said afterwards indicated that my interpretation was wrong, to the point where I abandoned it. Moxley’s interpretation of things has seemed like the correct one for weeks now, to the point where it’s crazy that Page didn’t correct Moxley’s (and everyone else’s) interpretation until right now.
They said more mean stuff to each other, and Moxley came across as a total nut. “You have done something relatively normal to me, but I am perceiving it as such a big slight that I am going to try to end your career” is total heel logic. It’s the basis for everything Chris Jericho has done since losing to Action Andretti! Basically, this segment switched which one of them is in the role of “guy who is supposed to be a babyface but is driven by heel logic,” and you shouldn’t have anyone in that position if they’re not about to turn.

The ”where’s Miro?” sign in the front row with Miro dressed as Waldo had me rolling.

SAMOA JOE VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO ONN DARBY ALLIN- AWESOME (other than that stupid “king of television” moniker)

AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Acclaimed(c) (w/Billy Gunn) vs. Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal (w/Sonjay Dutt & Satnam Singh)- 6.75/10
Taz told us that last week’s rap created a lot of “legitimate tension between Jeff Jarrett and the Acclaimed.” You know… as opposed to fake tension, like everything else on the show. Possibly trying to outdo Taz by saying something even stupider, Excalibur wondered if this “could be a ploy” by Jeff Jarrett. A ploy to what? Make Max Castor think Jeff is angrier than he really is? How will that help Jeff Jarett in any way?

So we bring out the army of referees to make sure that Satnam Singh heads to the back so he doesn’t interfere in a title match, but we don’t send them out to stop Ricky Starks and Action Andretti from being assaulted? And even though there were about seven referees coming out to order Singh to the back, the referee of this match left the ring to yell at Satnam, too, like an eighth voice would somehow make a difference.
Soon after that, Jarrett hit a stroke and Lethal pinned Bowens. Bowens got his foot on the rope, but Sonjay Dutt knocked it off before the referee could see so the heels won the titles… or they would have if it hadn’t been for Aubrey Edwards seeing Sonjay interfere and telling Steffon Smith what happened, and it was decided that “THIS MATCH MUST CONTINUE!”
Continue? Shouldn’t the Acclaimed win by disqualification because Sonjay interfered? Apparently not. And not only were the heels not disqualified, but Sonjay wasn’t even ejected from ringside! The referee merely suspects that Satnam Singh interfered but he didn’t actually see it, and that’s enough for him to eject Singh from ringside, but he knows for a fact that Sonjay interfered, and Sonjay is allowed to stay?
The Acclaimed won soon afterwards. This an otherwise passable middle of the card TV tag title match that was turned into an overbooked mess.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS JAMIE HAYTER & DR. BRITT BAKER, DMD- meh
They didn’t say much of anything, although what they did say seemed to be trying to subtly cast themselves as babyfaces as opposed to Saraya, which was odd.

JUNGLE BOY PROMO- fine
He challenges Lee Moriarty and Big Bill to a tag team match against himself and Hook next week.

BRYAN DANIELSON vs. TONY NESE (w/Mark Sterling & Josh Woods)- 4/10
Tony Nese has managed to amass a 2-0 record in 2023, and it’s not even January 5th yet. TONY NESE currently leads AEW in wins.
They packed a lot into a very short match. Danielson won cleanly… and then left the hold in after the bell while smirking like douche. You’re challenging MJF for the world title and trying to avenge your fallen mentor! Is it that hard to not act like an asshole?

BRYAN DANIELSON CALLS OUT MJF- f*cking terrible
Dragon wanted to wrestle. MJF said no and called Dragon a mark and called him boring. He wondered if Dragon looks so much like a goat because his great grandmother conceived his grandfather by f*cking one. Dragon responded by saying that he and all of the other wrestlers say that MJF’s mom is a slut. We’re really doing “your mom is a whole, LOL!” in 2023?
MJF said that the people who think Dragon is great are all fans and dirt-sheet writers who have never actually wrestled before, but the people who think he is great are people who are actually in the business, like Disco Inferno, Eric Bischoff, and Jim Cornette. Bischoff and Cornette are fine names to drop, but when use Disco Inferno it feels like you’re just trying to get heat from the fans for reasons that don’t make any kayfabe sense.
Dragon said that he hated MJF and was going to fight him right now. He started to leave the ring, and MJF told him to stop… so Dragon stopped. Why?
MJF pulled out the tried-and-true old school tactic of telling a lie for heat, and unlike when Chris Jericho does his over the top cartoonish hypocrisy, this actually worked. MJF’s lie: in “this company, wins and losses matter, and if you want a shot at king and the grandest prize of them all, you’ve got to become #1 contender.”
It turns out that MJF has already talked to Tony Khan, and Tony has determined that if Dragon were to wrestle every week from now until February 8th, and win every match, he would be the #1 contender. Really? Well what if someone else also does that, but against higher-quality opponents? Or you going to make that impossible for anyone else to just for Dragon’s benefit? Because that seems unfair. What if someone beats MJF in a non-title match between now and then. Are they really not going to be the #1 contender?
MJF says that if Dragon does so, he will give Dragon a title shot at Revolution 2023 on March 5. Dragon rejects this, saying that he will wrestle whenever he wants and become the #1 contender whenever he wants. This is stupid. You’re the guy who likes wrestling. Why is this offer of MJF’s that much of a problem for you? If your argument is that you’ve already earned the title shot with your previous victories, then say that.
MJF got very upset that Dragon didn’t accept his offer, and threated to have Mark Sterling stall things out that Dragon won’t get a title shot until MJF’s contract is up. What the f*ck does Mark Sterling have to do with anything? The only way this makes any sense is if there is some clause in MJF’s contract that he has to agree to any potential challengers, which would be a completely idiotic thing for Tony Khan to agree to.
Danielson doesn’t believe that this can happen because “Mark Sterling is a horrible lawyer.” I don’t know about that, Dragon. He seems to have gotten some utterly f*ckig ridiculous contracts signed for MJF (including one where if Wardlow won a championship, MJF would get to be the champion).
Danielson says he will agree to MJF’s conditions if MJF lets Dragon pick the stipulation in the title match. MJF agrees, saying that he cheats all the time anyway, so now he can just do it in front of the referee. Dragon tells him he won’t be able to because they will be having a sixty-minute Ironman match. That’s clever in that it is a stipulation that will make all of MJF’s usual heelish tactics less effective in that just one of them getting through won’t be able to be decisive.
Unfortunately, that one bit of cleverness didn’t stop the rest of this segment from being stupid. Their trading of insults at the beginning was bad, and the stuff setting up the title match make me want to scream. Danielson has been in AEW for over fifteen months now and has lost a grand total of six singles matches (only four of them cleanly) and he rarely loses tag matches either, and yet his record is on enough to earn him a title shot… but four more wins will? Really?

KIP SABIAN VS. ORANGE CASSIDY VIDEO PACKAGE- Sabian gets an All-Atlantic Title shot at Battle of the Belts V this Friday
Hopefully that means this feud will finally be over.

A.R. FOX vs. SHANE STRICKLAND (w/Mogul Affiliates)- 8.5/10
The exact insanity you’d expect from these two without plunder.

Lucha Underground is now apparently AEW canon. So is Jake Hager possessed by a G-d? Is Brian Cage a murderer? How has the fact that A.R. Fox spent years as a prisoner of terrorists not been brought up on TV? How did Luchasaurus get un-decapitated? Or are we supposed to believe that there was another wrestler out there of the exact same height and build wearing the same mask?
These are thing that the you have to think about when you decided to integrate a different universe into your own.
The announcers still don’t know the name of the guy covered in tattoos. What reason would Swerve have to not tell them a name? Or did they just not ask because they’re lazy?

RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWS HIKARU SHIDA, TONI STORM, & SARAYA- terrible
Saraya claims that Britt and Hayter are trying to hold the women’s division back while they are “trying to advance it.” How, exactly, are you trying to “advance the division?” What have you people done that will “advance the division?” Have great matches? So have Britt and Hayter. What have else, exactly, have you done? NOTHING. And yet the story is that you’re all nice team-player women while Britt and Hayter are not, and not looking out for everyone makes them bad people, somehow, even though this is an individual sport? It’s the f*cking Divas’/Women’s R/Evolution, but without the annoying catchphrases.
Toni Storm mentioned that she was screwed out of the championship… and Renee just ignores that and asks Saraya about her partner for next week. Saraya starts to put over how great the roster is and how great the matches are, specifically sighting the matches that Toni Storm and Hikaru Shida recently had with Jamie Hayter. So Hayter is having awesome matches with people, and that is somehow keeping people down, but Shida and Toni get credit for doing something positive for the division?
Saraya says that the best woman in the world is sitting next to her, and that’s Toni Storm, and she immediately turns to Tony and starts to talk strategy for the match in this interview broadcast on national TV. Saraya is lucky that she is a talented wrestler, because she’s sure not very smart.
Shida was, understandably, a little miffed by this. I would imagine that this leads to her turning heel, which will come off very badly to turn heel after such a small slight. Yes, I’m sure that’s the idea, but it makes her seem like a cartoon and not a real person. What’s more frustrating to me, though, is the idea that this will only be able to happen because this interview was set up in such a way to guarantee that either Toni or Shida would get offended. Why not just ask her who her partner will be and then do an interview with just the two of them? If want to have one of them get offended and have it be visible to us, a much less contrived way to get to the same place would be to do a six-woman tag and then have Renee come out to interview Saraya right afterwards, so that there is a reason that Saraya is forced to announce a choice at a time when both Toni and Shida are present.

GUNN CLUB HAVE A “FUNERAL” FOR FTR- bad
They’ve got pictures of them in the ring, and the graphics guys have big pictures of them up on the screen, on black backgrounds. So did these guys go up to Tony Khan and Colten said “Hey, Tony! Ca we have some time on Dynamite to hold a mock funeral for FTR?” and Tony responded “sure!”? And then Austin said, “We’d like to do a bit where FTR’s music plays and we act scared to make the fans think that they’re here, but really they won’t be, and the fans will get upset and be disappointed,” and Tony responded “great idea! Just let me know when, and I’ll have the production team play the music?”
Anyway, this was stupid and they yelled a lot.

Wow. This NBA music does not work at all with AEW’s action highlights.

SKYE BLUE & KIERA HOGAN vs. RED VELVET & JADE CARGILL (w/Leila Grey)- 4.25/10
For those of us who have been wondering why Red Velvet would side with Kiera Hoga over Jade Cargill, Tony Schiavone explained that a “bond” and “friendship” developed between those two while they were Baddies. Really? Well I guess it must entirely manifest itself backstage, because I’ve been watching them together in this group for almost nine months, and we’ve seen nothing to suggest that these two were anything more than people who happened to be in the same group. There was nothing to suggest that they were closer with each other than either of them was to Jade.
Anyway, Red Velvet walked out on Jade because Jade was being an asshole to her because that’s what the script required Jade do. Jade won anyway. Kiera Hogan getting pinned in a match where she was teaming with Skye Blue makes her seem like the jobbiest of jobbers.

Booked for Rampage is Moxley & Danielson vs. Top Flight. Moxley and Top Flight have no animosity between them, and Tony Khan keeps booking him to face them, week after week.

RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWS TEAM TNA- bad
Earlier tonight, these guys cheated to win the tag titles, but a referee saw it and overturned the decision, and eventually the Acclaimed retained their titles. Well apparently Tony Khan saw this and decided that he liked the outside interference, because he has gone ahead and given these guys who just lost cleanly another title shot, and now in a No Holds Barred match so that their buddies can interfere at will. What a f*cking moron.
Anyway, having been given this obvious gift, the heels are upset about it.
Oh yeah. The match will take place at Battle of the Belts V. Also on that show will be Jade Cargill defending the TBS Title against Skye Blue. Yes, the same Skye Blue who just lost to Jade’s team in a tag match. And did the same a few weeks ago. And who is 1-8 in the last two months (and that includes being 1-1 on Dark). And who has literally NEVER WON A TELEVISED AEW MATCH.
So yeah. One hour ago they insisted to us that “wins and losses matter” in this company, and the storyline is that Bryan Danielson has to win every week for the next five weeks to earn a title shot, but now Skye Blue, who has lost more matches in the past two months than Danielson has in his entire fifteen-month AEW run is getting a title shot.

The “MJF kicked my dog” sign was great.

AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Samoa Joe(c) vs. Darby Allin- 7.25/10
Nick Wayne was shown at ringside. Darby hugged him. Joe goozled him. Yes, he reached over the barricade and attacked a fan. See what happens when you don’t punish people for attacking referees, Tony? I hope Nick Wayne sues you for everything you have.
This stupid spot was done so that the match could start off with Darby diving onto Joe. Why not just start the match that way but without doing the stupid spot? Darby- the babyface- proceeded to beat Joe up with his skateboard- a weapon. I don’t care if the match didn’t start yet. How is Darby proving himself if he has to cheat?
Darby then got a big ladder and climbed it so that he could dive onto Joe, who was standing on the ramp… and it landed in a way where I was certain he had actually injured himself. Fortunately, he didn’t. Or maybe unfortunately, as it seemed like Darby’s goal here was to get seriously injured. Once the match finally got to the ring, it wet to the outside again, and Darby took an STJoe onto the ring steps. And not the flat top part, either. The actual f*cking steps.
In the middle of the match, Excalibur told us that Tony Khan has informed him that we will stay with this match even if it goes part the top of the hour. Isn’t the whole gimmick of a TV Title that the time-limit on the matches is TIME X OR “TV TIME REMAINING?”
Darby was Darby here and overcame things and got the win. The finishing sequence was great. With Darby’s promo last week, I felt that he needed to win this match, but I wasn’t expecting him to, so good job not ruining Darby there, Tony Khan. It also separates the TV Title belts, which laves Wardlow something to try to take away from Joe to get his revenge.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Some asshole in the crowd put on a Cookie Monster suit in an attempt to draw attention to themselves during Darby’s big moment. F*ck you.
Sting came out to celebrate with Darby, but then gave him a Scorpion Death Drop and said he was coming after the TNT Title. Nah, I’m just kidding. Sting didn’t turn on Darby, and he never should.


Despite some good wrestling, this was a bad show from AEW. We were promised “a new era,” and apparently that meant that they are now going to be paying even les attention to detail and to logic than before. This show makes almost no sense, constantly relied on contrivances, and most of the babyfaces come off like assholes. I don’t care how good the matches are. That’s NOT a good wrestling show.

[Thelone]

I swear MJF has become a parody of a heel at this point, complete with the lowest hanging fruits of "your local sports team sucks" or "you smell bad and your mother's a whore". That's not even talking about the FIFTH "go through a bunch of minions and then you'll face me" """storyline""" involving him in only three years.