BRM Reviews the 3/15/2023 Dynamate (mostly bad)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 3/15/2023 Dynamate (mostly bad)

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 17th, '23, 15:19

MJF’S “RE-BAR MITZVAH”- didn’t like it
He looks pretty good for eighty-three years old. And holy sh*t I was not expecting Tony Schiavone to have that particular piece of information, either. Then again, his information is incomplete, as the term is “second Bar Mitzvah.”
Just to get this out of the way, yes, I was uncomfortable watching this, but that wound up being out of a fear of what might have been said or done next rather than because of anything that actually was said or done. Was it sacrilege? Yes. Was it offensive to me? No.
That being said, given MJF’s track record, I do think it was appallingly bad judgement of Tony Khan to let him go out there and do this, especially when you could have gotten to the same place with the cake by just having it be a normal birthday party.

To get to the real business of the segment, the proceedings were interrupted by Jungle Boy, followed by Sammy Guevara and then Darby Allin. They all want shots at the world title. Barbs were exchanged. They fought. Jungle Boy is the only one of them who feels credible. The idea of the “Four Pillars” being in the ring together and being the ones to come out did absolutely nothing for me, as that has always felt like a completely artificial construct that had no real function other than marketing. It’s like when the NHL promotes something as an “Original Six match-up.” No one cares.


ADAM PAGE & THE DARK ORDER (Evil Uno & Stu Grayson) vs. BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, & Wheeler YUTA)- 7.25/10
As you might not know, because they completely ignored it on TV, Grayson left AEW months ago. If you’ve been wondering why he hasn’t been on TV with the others, that’s why. Excalibur made a vague reference to the idea that he wasn’t in the company any more by saying that his appearance was Page “calling in reinforcements,” but why should Page need to call in reinforcements when there are three other members of the group (Alex Reynolds, John Silver, and Colt Cabana)?
Schiavone described Stu Grayson as “one of the great flyers in pro wrestling.” I don’t think that most people would even think of him if you asked them to name their top FIFTY high-flyers.
There was some great action here, but I can’t bring myself to care about this story one iota. I don’t care that the BCC are heels because they’ve been heelish for weeks and not once has anyone tried to find out why via interview, and not once has the BCC offered to explain their motivations to us, so it feels completely artificial. Page got KOed with a ringbell by YUTA and wasn’t seen again. We should probably be (kayfabe) concerned about another concussion, right? Well… the announcers weren’t.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Moxley won’t give up the hold because he’s evil now and that’s what heels do. Uno tries to make the save but gets beaten up… and then the f*cking Beaver Boys run off the Blackpool Combat Club even though the BCC has a numbers advantage.

JUICE ROBINSON PROMO- bad
He’s trying to come off as a dangerous badass, but instead he comes off as a complete and total cartoon character. This is a fine example of trying way too hard.

AEW TBS TITLE MATCH: Jade Cargill(c) (w/Leila Gray) vs. Nicole Matthews- squash
Yes, of all people, they squashed Nicole Matthews.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Renee Paquette came out to ask Jade the idiotic question of “what kind of competition are you looking for next?” Jade went after Renee for heat, then taunted Canada, which brought out Taya Valkyrie. We got a good face-to-face here, and Taya certainly has the muscles to match Jade.
Eventually Jade got out of the ring, but Leila tried to attack Taya, but Taya blocked it and got Leila up for Jaded… and the referee stopped Jade from running in. That last part wouldn’t have bothered me if the first match of the night hadn’t had a long post-match fight with no referees doing anything to try to break it up. If you want Jade to be unable to stop it, either have Taya hit the move faster, or have the fight start with Jade attacking Taya and Taya low-bridging her to take out temporarily.
Mark Sterling ran out at the end because I guess’ he’s still with Jade?

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS RICKY STARKS- great
I really hope that everyone was paying attention to what he said about Bullet Club not having been relevant in FOREVER.

Q.T. TV- terrible
Q.T. and Hobbs admitted to committing the crime of breaking into Wardlow’s car and stealing his stuff on national TV. They are morons. And what did this theft even do for them? Is making Wardlow wrestle a title match in uncomfortable gear really that big a deal when you’re planning to make him fight against two people at once?

AEW INTERNATIONAL TITLE MATCH: Orange Cassidy(c) vs. Jeff Jarrett (w/Sonjay Dutt, Satnam Singh, & Jay Lethal)- 4.5/10
That video package with the build spliced into the footage from the Shazam movie makes the title feel like a prop. And they keep saying that the title is “leveling up” from being the “All-Atlantic Championship” to being the “International Championship.” What does that mean? Was it not “international” before? There were about six countries’ flags on the belt.
As some of you might remember, last week’s Dynamite started off with Jay Lethal challenging Orange Cassidy for the All-Atlantic Title, and before that match even started, AEW decided that Lethal’s pals should be barred from ringside to prevent them from interfering. Here we are one week later, and we have a heel from the same group challenging for the same title… and they let the heels come out to ringside. Not only that, but they don’t even get ejected from ringside when they do try to interfere. And OC’s pals not only don’t come out with him to prevent anything the heels might try, but they don’t even come out after the heels actually do get involved.
And to make this even more annoying the story of the match was Jarrett working over OC’s knee. So I’m supposed to remember that OC’s knee was worked over last week as well, but not supposed to remember that the heels were barred from ringside to stop them from cheating last week.
Stuff happened. We got a ref bump, allowing Team TNA to slide Jeff his guitar, but Best Friends came out to stop him from using it. JUST KIDDING! It was f*cking Aubrey Edwards, because given the choice between some wrestlers getting a pop or opening a can of worms about when a second referee comes out so that we can get a pop for a f*cking referee, Tony Khan chose the latter.
Satnam tries to interfere, but Aubrey sees it and ejects both him and Sonjay from ringside. She left Jay Lethal at ringside, though, because his arm is in a sling, and it’s completely impossible to fake that kind of injury. If it was possible, surely someone would have tried it by now, and no one ever has. Never ever. Certainly not in this company within the past month.
Anyway, it turns out Lethal was faking. He hit OC with the Golden Globe that they stole and have now transported across state lines. Didn’t he have to go through customs on his way in? This theft is of an item important enough to have been presented in a nationally-televised ceremony, and the theft occurred on national television. HOW HAVE THEY NOT BEEN CAUGHT YET! Hell… Tony Khan knows where they will be every week. Why hasn’t he turned them in? If he is paying for their trans, he is technically aiding and abetting fugitives!
Once that spot happened Trent Beretta had “seen enough” (in Excalibur’s words) to come out and take out Lethal. Why wasn’t the first time the heels interfered enough to get him off of his butt to help his friend?
OC won soon after. This is all TV time that could be going to Lee Moriarty and Ethan Page and to helping Hook develop, etc.

VIDEO PACKAGE FOR THE MAIN EVENT- decent

ACCLAIMED MUSIC VIDEO- snore
Nothing useful happened here. Also, I have no love for Mitch McConnell, but maybe don’t make fun of an old man falling down?

OUTCASTS PROMO- They said mean things. Toni Storm became the first person to point out on the air that Jamie Hayter cheated to win the women’s title. Jamie Hayter and Britt Baker charged the ring and got the best of the three heels for a moment before the numbers caught up to them. Finally we got the whole group of babyface who the heels have been tormenting for months coming out to save each other.

2.0 PROMO- annoying
That being said, their promo did make me think that there is a chance they might lose to their opponents on Rampage, who were then revealed to be the Bollywood Boyz.

REY FENIX PROMO- decent
Fenix was good. He’s going to be the person answering Will Hobbs’ open challenge for the TNT Title on Rampage. How about actually building him up first? This should feel like a big match, but it doesn’t.

AEW WORLD TRIOS TITLE MATCH: The House of Black(c) (w/Julia Hart) vs. the Jericho Appreciation Society (Chris Jericho, Daniel Garcia, & Sammy Guevara) vs. the Elite (w/Michael Nakazawa & Brandon Cutler)- 7/10
I’m a huge Rangers fan, and even I will tell you that calling Ted Irvine an “NHL legend” is ludicrous. The 2009 book “100 Ranger Greats” listed him at #74. That’s fourteen years ago, in a list of players on just one team. Stop destroying your credibility for no reason. If Jericho’s ego is such that he needs his father to be billed as a legend, it’s a sign that you should get rid of him before his ego starts to cause real booking problems (remember, he got you into this Action Andretti situation, too).

We cut a picture-in-picture to show us the BCC brawling with the Beaver Boys and Adam Page. We were told that Evil Uno and Stu Grayson weren’t there because Uno was taken to the hospital, and Grayson went with him. So Uno has to go to the hospital, but Adam Page, about whom they just did a months-long storyline about how we wasn’t cleared to wrestle because he had a concussion and earlier tonight was seemingly knocked out by a ringbell to the head, does not have to go to the hospital? Is this a nit-pick? Yes. But it jumps out at me because I know that the reason we are being told that Uno went to the hospital is to establish why he and Grayson aren’t fighting alongside their buddies and thus giving the babyfaces an advantage that the booker doesn’t want them to have. It’s not enough to just come up with an answer for a question and be done with it. You also need to examine the effects of your answer and see if it causes problems anywhere else.

Anyway, the guys in the match did spots. They teased Omega vs. Jericho a few times but it always got cut off relatively quickly, which made this match (and thus the titles) feel a lot less important because they felt like they were just set-up to get to that.
The House of Black retained.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Jake Hager came marching out to start a one-on-three fight for no reason. The BCC vs. Page & Dark Order brawl also spilled out from backstage. Did they not send security to break these guys up? Everyone else helpfully rolled out of the ring so that we could set up a moment where Page looked like he was facing down the BCC alone but then the Elite slid into the ring to back him up. Or at least that’s what I thought it was supposed to be, but Excalibur was shouting about how “Hangman’s stuck in the middle!” of two groups that aren’t feuding with each other, and when there is absolutely no chance he will join one of them (the BCC).
The BCC backed down, and Excalibur shouted about how Page was “confused,” because apparently he’s too dumb to either look at the big video screen that he was facing or to figure out that the fans chanting “THE! ELITE! THE, THE ELITE!” means that the Elite are probably in the ring with him. Maybe he really is concussed. We went off the air with Excalibur shouting “WHAT A MOMENT!” even though said moment of reunion/realization hadn’t really happened because they went off the air before Page fully turned around to see the Elite.
This was all dumb and contrived, and Excalibur’s commentary and going off the air before the big moment made it even worse.


This was another mostly bad episode of AEW. I’m sure I’m in the minority there, but that’s how I feel. When Ruby Soho was talking about the grass seeming greener in AEW early on, I could only nod my head because I have the same feelings. What the promise of AEW as some sort of alterative to the bad booking and embarrassing comedy and too may titles of WWE was, it’s gone now, and I expect the same dumb comedy as WWE, the same crapshoot storylines (with the majority being meh to bad), and the same contrived bullsh*t that so irritated me about Cody and Bullet Club’s storylines in ROH and New Japan that they were clearly booking themselves and had been the reason why I had hoped Tony Khan would be some kind of difference-maker in the first place.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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