BRM Reviews the 10/30/2019 Dynamite (one POTYC and a whole bunch of sh*t)

[cero2k]

He'll beat him on worldwide PPV. Won't that be enough for him, regardless if what the books say?

No, it obviously isn't. The man has standards. People forget PPVs, some are lost with time, but the books are forever.

[Big Red Machine]

He'll beat him on worldwide PPV. Won't that be enough for him, regardless if what the books say?

No, it obviously isn't. The man has standards. People forget PPVs, some are lost with time, but the books are forever.

Oh really? Then tell me who won the opener on the first race in July in 2007. PPVs are only forgotten if the booking us bad. And surely if Omega is an honest babyface he would he willing to make a notarized statement that Mox defeated him, even if the loss is in am unsanctioned match.

[Big Red Machine]

They dont trust Moxley for that hut they do trust JIMMY HAVIC and JOEY JANELA? Dint be ridiculous.

And that's how you sell a deranged person and make him special, by making the other hardcore guys look more controllable.

And my point us that they haven't done that. These guys did a million crazy things in their matches, too. Ditto Darby Allin.

Other than the librarians he did so AFTER they had had been through a grueling match. That's cowardly and unfair. Heel.

that's just a man that knows when to make an entrance to get the biggest impact. a babyface AND smart. C'mon, you know deep inside that he's a babyface, i know it goes against the strict rules you have for what you consider a babyface, but he's one.

He's a babyface because people want to cheer him, and will cheer him no matter what he does. If he is a babyface then so is Io Shirai right now.
They have started trying to turn him via the Pac thing, but in this Omega feud he has been nothing hut a heel.

How did Jericho know when the ambush was ready, then?

Jericho: Hager, how much time do you need?
Hager: Give me 10 minutes.
Jericho: ok.

or

Jericho: Sammy, txt me when you're ready, i'll have my phone on vibrate on my pocket. I'll get the queue.

Fine. That still doesn't answer any of the other logical problems I presented. It also makes the heel's plan contingent on the baby faces doing things in an idiotic and illogical way.

This is the second time in this feud alone that they have attacked Dustin.
And when I say Dusty, I mean that this comes off as them redoing Zbyszko and the car door (which Dusty booked). It comes off as a "daddy's greatest hits" tribute play.

If the other time your counting is the tag match, then that was already a tag match, they would have attacked whoever was left in the ring anyway. It's not a Dustin thing. But let's pretend it is, it makes perfect sense to beat up Cody's friends and family

I'm not saying g it doesn't make sense to do so. I'm saying the way they are doing it has logic problems, makes it feel like an homage to daddy rather than a story with it's own merits, and they've fine the same thing twice in five weeks.

[cero2k]

Oh really? Then tell me who won the opener on the first race in July in 2007.

Exactly, it needs to be in the books for me to even look for it because I don't even know what race you're talking about.

PPVs are only forgotten if the booking us bad. And surely if Omega is an honest babyface he would he willing to make a notarized statement that Mox defeated him, even if the loss is in am unsanctioned match.

This is non-kayfabe. Moxley wants a kayfabe record. Not the same things.

[cero2k]

And my point us that they haven't done that. These guys did a million crazy things in their matches, too. Ditto Darby Allin.

Then i don't think you understand what makes someone like Moxley different. Havoc/Janela/Darby, they're all sadist and crazy, but the stuff they do is pretty predictable, Moxley is unpredictable.

He's a babyface because people want to cheer him, and will cheer him no matter what he does. If he is a babyface then so is Io Shirai right now.
They have started trying to turn him via the Pac thing, but in this Omega feud he has been nothing hut a heel.

No, just becasue he isn't cookie cutter American Flag in the back babyface, doesn't mean that the he is a heel. He is neutral chaotic, he's not a villain. If anything else, he's had zero alignment since his debut.
I can't say for Io because I don't watch WWE, but from the reviews and recaps of last week, it seems that Shirai was doing babyface things, but i'll cut them some slack because WWE does suck at booking babyfaces/heels.

Fine. That still doesn't answer any of the other logical problems I presented. It also makes the heel's plan contingent on the baby faces doing things in an idiotic and illogical way.

I didn't get to answer your other post, but it's not idiotic that Dustin and Cody travel in separate cars, they're adults, they're not gonna necessarily share the same cars and hotels, and by all means, Cody may wanted to travel with Schiavone by himself to talk business. It's not illogical or idiotic.
Jericho's plan doesn't rely on them being on different cars, it only relies on Dustin being backstage somewhere while Cody is out at the ramp signing the contract. And if not Dustin, they could have attacked MJF or DDP, whoever is out there to get in Cody's head.
Your other point was why was Dustin allowed to be late. From the previous weeks we now that if you're not wrestling that night, you don't even need to be at the arena, and surely dustin didn't have a match. He decided to travel to the arena for shits and giggles.
None of this is illogical, it's how humans normally behave.

I'm not saying g it doesn't make sense to do so. I'm saying the way they are doing it has logic problems, makes it feel like an homage to daddy rather than a story with it's own merits, and they've fine the same thing twice in five weeks.

then good, Dusty deserves a homage, I don't think this promotion wouldn't even exist if Cody wasn't a Rhodes, and the story totally has it's own merits. The awesome backstage brawl had NOTHING to do with Dusty, neither have any of Jericho's promos. And 2/5 is nothing, it's only ONE feud so far, they haven't even had their PPV match, it SHOULD work around one or two things and not a million.

[Big Red Machine]

And my point us that they haven't done that. These guys did a million crazy things in their matches, too. Ditto Darby Allin.

Then i don't think you understand what makes someone like Moxley different. Havoc/Janela/Darby, they're all sadist and crazy, but the stuff they do is pretty predictable, Moxley is unpredictable.

Fine. So then why is Moxley's match unsanctioned when he only might to something gross and crazy while the guys who certainly will do something crazy have matches that are sanctioned? Why could Moxley possibly do that is worse than pouring thumbtacks in someone's mouth?

He's a babyface because people want to cheer him, and will cheer him no matter what he does. If he is a babyface then so is Io Shirai right now.
They have started trying to turn him via the Pac thing, but in this Omega feud he has been nothing hut a heel.

No, just becasue he isn't cookie cutter American Flag in the back babyface, doesn't mean that the he is a heel. He is neutral chaotic, he's not a villain. If anything else, he's had zero alignment since his debut.
I can't say for Io because I don't watch WWE, but from the reviews and recaps of last week, it seems that Shirai was doing babyface things, but i'll cut them some slack because WWE does suck at booking babyfaces/heels.

She did babyface moves like the moonsault, but the issue was really the way they booked the opening of the show (she got her entrance theme played live) which puts her in a position to be cheered when there was no need to do it. Other than that, she has definitely been a heel, running in and attacking people from behind, and for petty reasons.

Fine. That still doesn't answer any of the other logical problems I presented. It also makes the heel's plan contingent on the baby faces doing things in an idiotic and illogical way.

I didn't get to answer your other post, but it's not idiotic that Dustin and Cody travel in separate cars, they're adults, they're not gonna necessarily share the same cars and hotels, and by all means, Cody may wanted to travel with Schiavone by himself to talk business. It's not illogical or idiotic.
Jericho's plan doesn't rely on them being on different cars, it only relies on Dustin being backstage somewhere while Cody is out at the ramp signing the contract. And if not Dustin, they could have attacked MJF or DDP, whoever is out there to get in Cody's head.
Your other point was why was Dustin allowed to be late. From the previous weeks we now that if you're not wrestling that night, you don't even need to be at the arena, and surely dustin didn't have a match. He decided to travel to the arena for shits and giggles.
None of this is illogical, it's how humans normally behave.

So Cody and Dustin live in separate states and flew to the show together but didn't drive to the show together?
You want to tell me that Dustin thinks going to Dynamite will be so fun that he'll spend several hours flying from his home in Austin, Texas to Charleston, West Virginia, but not fun enough to make sure he doesn't show up when the show is already half over? Hell... he's a pro wrestler. If you give him a choice between spending a night with his family or flying to show he isn't even booked on, do you really think he's going to fly to the show he isn't booked on? Your logic totally fails Occam's Razor, and actually exposes the whole problem with the execution of the "you don't have to show up if you're not booked" thing.
Could Jericho's plan have involved attacking DDP or MJF instead? Sure. But neither of those guys were booked so they would have had no way of knowing they would show up, and those guys had no reason to show up.
And the message from last week's show wasn't "you don't have to show up if you're not booked. It's that you are forbidden from showing up if you're not booked, unless you have a ticket. Where was Dustin's ticket? Why was he allowed into the private backstage parking lot? And where is everyone else's ticket who does random run-ins like we see half the time? It's inconsistent enforcement of the rules, and even worse than that, it's an inconsistency that was introduced because they thought they were bring clever but weren't.

Things like that are the reason I've gotten more annoyed at AEW or TNA or ROH about certain things than I do for WWE. In choosing the "just pretend the cameras aren't there" style of shooting a wrestling show, WWE essentially builds in an excuse for their own laziness. They're just not going to bother answering the question of why the camera is there. I don't prefer that, but those are there rules and thus I will play by them when I watch WWE.
When a promotion chooses to instead use the "we need to explain why the camera is there" method, that shows thought. It shows a desire to adhere to logic... which is why I get doubly annoyed when a promotion doesn't then answer the next logical question in line, like "why did the director cut to this?" or "how did this get on the Tron?" And if the answer is that the Inner Circle threatened the production crew, then the promotion needs to take kayfabe action against them for that. I get a lot more pissed off at someone who was smart enough and dedicated enough to come up with an answer for question A but then failed to apply the same thought to question B than I do with people don't even try to answer question A in the first place.

The thing with the ticket occurred to create an explanation for why the Inner Circle were in the skybox, which was necessary for the segment so that 1) they could draw out the drama with Cody's arm slowly building 2) Jericho's people could be far enough away from Cody that they couldn't just kick his ass five-on-one when he first came out 3) so Cody could take his shot at WWE, which also served the important point of directly drawing attention to the fact that AEW was about to show you one way that they are different from WWE 4) so that they could start their brawl somewhere where it would be able to naturally spill into the concession stand without the brawl going on for too long and the setting feeling forced. That's A LOT of thought that they put into that segment.
Which is why it so irritates me that they didn't bother to answer the question how Jericho got a live mic and why his mic wasn't cut off when he was being disruptive (even WWE managed to get this one right with Punk and the megaphone), and that they didn't bother to think about what effect this new rule they were setting about wrestlers not being allowed to be backstage if they're not booked would have on their universe going forward.

AEW is choosing to play by smarter standards than WWE, so I am therefore going to hold them to those standards. That doesn't mean that WWE gets a free pass on things. I will criticize them when things happen on their show that don't make sense given the rules they have chosen to play by (for example, there was an episode of Raw where we were seeing Foley talk to Steph on speaker phone to give him instructions for whatever she was going to do to screw the babyfaces that night, but once she got up to the part where she was explaining what was going to happen, they had Foley inexplicably switch from speakerphone to regular mode even though there was no one around, just so that the not there cameras wouldn't give away what was going to happen to the viewer). I take the same stance with every promotion. They tell me what their rules are, and I will hold them to those rules.

And yes, I do think this is AEW failing to consider things, because there are other things they miss that create logical questions and/or require storyline follow-up but don't get them (like the issue with Moxley vs. Omega becoming unsanctioned while the Janela/Darby/Havoc matches aren't, or Brandi assaulting one of her employees not getting any follow-up. They've created an excuse for Cody not to notice because, as they said in the video package, he has tunnel vision when he goes after a title, but there is no reason Omega/the Bucks/and especially Tony Khan haven't confronted her about this).



Getting back to this week's specific segment, the other mistake you're making here is that you're failing to look at this as an artistic whole. The whole reason that Dustin appeared at all in the opening segment is to establish his presence so that he can be attacked later (and all of the hugging and so forth between him Cody serves to evoke pathos in order to increase our sympathy for Cody later when Dustin is attacked). He's a human Chekhov's Gun. Otherwise there is no purpose to his presence in that scene (if he, as you speculate, just decided to show up for fun, he probably would have showed up for the whole show rather than an hour late, and there is no specific need to establish his presence, just like there wasn't for everyone else who appeared on the show but didn't wrestle, like Moxley Private Party, or the Dark Order).

I'm not saying g it doesn't make sense to do so. I'm saying the way they are doing it has logic problems, makes it feel like an homage to daddy rather than a story with it's own merits, and they've fine the same thing twice in five weeks.

then good, Dusty deserves a homage, I don't think this promotion wouldn't even exist if Cody wasn't a Rhodes, and the story totally has it's own merits. The awesome backstage brawl had NOTHING to do with Dusty, neither have any of Jericho's promos. And 2/5 is nothing, it's only ONE feud so far, they haven't even had their PPV match, it SHOULD work around one or two things and not a million.

2/5 isn't nothing, it's 40%.
I'm not saying Dusty doesn't deserve an homage. I'm saying that if Cody keeps telling me that he's Dusty's kid and then keeps redoing Dusty's old angles, it comes off as Cody Runnels' loving tribute to his father Virgil Runnels rather than a wrestling story because it comes off as a tribute act, with the key word there being act.

[cero2k]

Fine. So then why is Moxley's match unsanctioned when he only might to something gross and crazy while the guys who certainly will do something crazy have matches that are sanctioned? Why could Moxley possibly do that is worse than pouring thumbtacks in someone's mouth?

See it this way. Moxley is Brian Pillman, the rest are Cactus Jack. Havoc, Janela, or Darby, they do wrestling things, sadistic, but things that are in the scope of wrestling. Moxley at any point will bring out a gun. It's not about how sadism, it's about unpredictability.

So Cody and Dustin live in separate states and flew to the show together but didn't drive to the show together?
You want to tell me that Dustin thinks going to Dynamite will be so fun that he'll spend several hours flying from his home in Austin, Texas to Charleston, West Virginia, but not fun enough to make sure he doesn't show up when the show is already half over? Hell... he's a pro wrestler. If you give him a choice between spending a night with his family or flying to show he isn't even booked on, do you really think he's going to fly to the show he isn't booked on? Your logic totally fails Occam's Razor, and actually exposes the whole problem with the execution of the "you don't have to show up if you're not booked" thing.
Could Jericho's plan have involved attacking DDP or MJF instead? Sure. But neither of those guys were booked so they would have had no way of knowing they would show up, and those guys had no reason to show up.
And the message from last week's show wasn't "you don't have to show up if you're not booked. It's that you are forbidden from showing up if you're not booked, unless you have a ticket. Where was Dustin's ticket? Why was he allowed into the private backstage parking lot? And where is everyone else's ticket who does random run-ins like we see half the time? It's inconsistent enforcement of the rules, and even worse than that, it's an inconsistency that was introduced because they thought they were bring clever but weren't.

Things like that are the reason I've gotten more annoyed at AEW or TNA or ROH about certain things than I do for WWE. In choosing the "just pretend the cameras aren't there" style of shooting a wrestling show, WWE essentially builds in an excuse for their own laziness. They're just not going to bother answering the question of why the camera is there. I don't prefer that, but those are there rules and thus I will play by them when I watch WWE.
When a promotion chooses to instead use the "we need to explain why the camera is there" method, that shows thought. It shows a desire to adhere to logic... which is why I get doubly annoyed when a promotion doesn't then answer the next logical question in line, like "why did the director cut to this?" or "how did this get on the Tron?" And if the answer is that the Inner Circle threatened the production crew, then the promotion needs to take kayfabe action against them for that. I get a lot more pissed off at someone who was smart enough and dedicated enough to come up with an answer for question A but then failed to apply the same thought to question B than I do with people don't even try to answer question A in the first place.

The thing with the ticket occurred to create an explanation for why the Inner Circle were in the skybox, which was necessary for the segment so that 1) they could draw out the drama with Cody's arm slowly building 2) Jericho's people could be far enough away from Cody that they couldn't just kick his ass five-on-one when he first came out 3) so Cody could take his shot at WWE, which also served the important point of directly drawing attention to the fact that AEW was about to show you one way that they are different from WWE 4) so that they could start their brawl somewhere where it would be able to naturally spill into the concession stand without the brawl going on for too long and the setting feeling forced. That's A LOT of thought that they put into that segment.
Which is why it so irritates me that they didn't bother to answer the question how Jericho got a live mic and why his mic wasn't cut off when he was being disruptive (even WWE managed to get this one right with Punk and the megaphone), and that they didn't bother to think about what effect this new rule they were setting about wrestlers not being allowed to be backstage if they're not booked would have on their universe going forward.

AEW is choosing to play by smarter standards than WWE, so I am therefore going to hold them to those standards. That doesn't mean that WWE gets a free pass on things. I will criticize them when things happen on their show that don't make sense given the rules they have chosen to play by (for example, there was an episode of Raw where we were seeing Foley talk to Steph on speaker phone to give him instructions for whatever she was going to do to screw the babyfaces that night, but once she got up to the part where she was explaining what was going to happen, they had Foley inexplicably switch from speakerphone to regular mode even though there was no one around, just so that the not there cameras wouldn't give away what was going to happen to the viewer). I take the same stance with every promotion. They tell me what their rules are, and I will hold them to those rules.

And yes, I do think this is AEW failing to consider things, because there are other things they miss that create logical questions and/or require storyline follow-up but don't get them (like the issue with Moxley vs. Omega becoming unsanctioned while the Janela/Darby/Havoc matches aren't, or Brandi assaulting one of her employees not getting any follow-up. They've created an excuse for Cody not to notice because, as they said in the video package, he has tunnel vision when he goes after a title, but there is no reason Omega/the Bucks/and especially Tony Khan haven't confronted her about this).



Getting back to this week's specific segment, the other mistake you're making here is that you're failing to look at this as an artistic whole. The whole reason that Dustin appeared at all in the opening segment is to establish his presence so that he can be attacked later (and all of the hugging and so forth between him Cody serves to evoke pathos in order to increase our sympathy for Cody later when Dustin is attacked). He's a human Chekhov's Gun. Otherwise there is no purpose to his presence in that scene (if he, as you speculate, just decided to show up for fun, he probably would have showed up for the whole show rather than an hour late, and there is no specific need to establish his presence, just like there wasn't for everyone else who appeared on the show but didn't wrestle, like Moxley Private Party, or the Dark Order).

So what i'm getting from all of this is that you cut slack to mediocrity, but give a hard time to people who are actually trying to do things right, and you nitpick them to oblivion, and in consequence, feed the bad will people have towards them and justify liking the other crap. You're just like Dave!

You're asking things that are really of no concern to anyone or the story itself, we don't need to know why Dustin decided to go to this show, nor why he decided to take another car, nor why people arrive 'later' to the arena. The only thing we need to know is that he got his ass kicked in the parking lot while Jericho distracted Cody in an effort to get back at Cody and gain momentum towards Full Gear. You try to judge wrestling like it if was an office job, and no wonder why wrestlers aren't superstars anymore if people see them as employees of a business.

AEW has had a lot of weird booking decisions since they started, the whole way of how the champions were decided could be questioned, but saying that it's a logical disaster because one person decided to take a different car is just going out of your way to critique them.

2/5 isn't nothing, it's 40%.
I'm not saying Dusty doesn't deserve an homage. I'm saying that if Cody keeps telling me that he's Dusty's kid and then keeps redoing Dusty's old angles, it comes off as Cody Runnels' loving tribute to his father Virgil Runnels rather than a wrestling story because it comes off as a tribute act, with the key word there being act.

It's his first feud in AEW, there is nothing wrong in bringing up stuff like that, specially when a lot of people's complain is that this promotion alienates the older fans. This is really nothing to do about Dusty at all, it's all been about the title with some references to history, that's all.

[Big Red Machine]

Fine. So then why is Moxley's match unsanctioned when he only might to something gross and crazy while the guys who certainly will do something crazy have matches that are sanctioned? Why could Moxley possibly do that is worse than pouring thumbtacks in someone's mouth?

See it this way. Moxley is Brian Pillman, the rest are Cactus Jack. Havoc, Janela, or Darby, they do wrestling things, sadistic, but things that are in the scope of wrestling. Moxley at any point will bring out a gun. It's not about how sadism, it's about unpredictability.

Perhaps, but Moxley appears nowhere NEAR that point. And even with Pillman the "kayfabe" idea was more that he do something gross (like threatening to take a piss in the ring) or attack a fan or say something over the line or "shoot." Moxley comes off as much more like Janela/Jimmy Havoc/pick a deathmatch guy where just wants to be able to be violent if the mood strikes him. He never seemed like someone who would do something that would go over any sort of real line (like bring a gun, say something to get them thrown off the air, or try to saw Omega's arm off with a chainsaw or something) until after this segment. If Tony hadn't made what feels like a completely arbitrary ruling, Moxley wouldn't be any sort of major risk to go crazy. It's bad storytelling. Tony decided to fix a problem that didn't exist, thus creating the problem... which would be a fine story, except that's not the story they are trying to tell.

So Cody and Dustin live in separate states and flew to the show together but didn't drive to the show together?
You want to tell me that Dustin thinks going to Dynamite will be so fun that he'll spend several hours flying from his home in Austin, Texas to Charleston, West Virginia, but not fun enough to make sure he doesn't show up when the show is already half over? Hell... he's a pro wrestler. If you give him a choice between spending a night with his family or flying to show he isn't even booked on, do you really think he's going to fly to the show he isn't booked on? Your logic totally fails Occam's Razor, and actually exposes the whole problem with the execution of the "you don't have to show up if you're not booked" thing.
Could Jericho's plan have involved attacking DDP or MJF instead? Sure. But neither of those guys were booked so they would have had no way of knowing they would show up, and those guys had no reason to show up.
And the message from last week's show wasn't "you don't have to show up if you're not booked. It's that you are forbidden from showing up if you're not booked, unless you have a ticket. Where was Dustin's ticket? Why was he allowed into the private backstage parking lot? And where is everyone else's ticket who does random run-ins like we see half the time? It's inconsistent enforcement of the rules, and even worse than that, it's an inconsistency that was introduced because they thought they were bring clever but weren't.

Things like that are the reason I've gotten more annoyed at AEW or TNA or ROH about certain things than I do for WWE. In choosing the "just pretend the cameras aren't there" style of shooting a wrestling show, WWE essentially builds in an excuse for their own laziness. They're just not going to bother answering the question of why the camera is there. I don't prefer that, but those are there rules and thus I will play by them when I watch WWE.
When a promotion chooses to instead use the "we need to explain why the camera is there" method, that shows thought. It shows a desire to adhere to logic... which is why I get doubly annoyed when a promotion doesn't then answer the next logical question in line, like "why did the director cut to this?" or "how did this get on the Tron?" And if the answer is that the Inner Circle threatened the production crew, then the promotion needs to take kayfabe action against them for that. I get a lot more pissed off at someone who was smart enough and dedicated enough to come up with an answer for question A but then failed to apply the same thought to question B than I do with people don't even try to answer question A in the first place.

The thing with the ticket occurred to create an explanation for why the Inner Circle were in the skybox, which was necessary for the segment so that 1) they could draw out the drama with Cody's arm slowly building 2) Jericho's people could be far enough away from Cody that they couldn't just kick his ass five-on-one when he first came out 3) so Cody could take his shot at WWE, which also served the important point of directly drawing attention to the fact that AEW was about to show you one way that they are different from WWE 4) so that they could start their brawl somewhere where it would be able to naturally spill into the concession stand without the brawl going on for too long and the setting feeling forced. That's A LOT of thought that they put into that segment.
Which is why it so irritates me that they didn't bother to answer the question how Jericho got a live mic and why his mic wasn't cut off when he was being disruptive (even WWE managed to get this one right with Punk and the megaphone), and that they didn't bother to think about what effect this new rule they were setting about wrestlers not being allowed to be backstage if they're not booked would have on their universe going forward.

AEW is choosing to play by smarter standards than WWE, so I am therefore going to hold them to those standards. That doesn't mean that WWE gets a free pass on things. I will criticize them when things happen on their show that don't make sense given the rules they have chosen to play by (for example, there was an episode of Raw where we were seeing Foley talk to Steph on speaker phone to give him instructions for whatever she was going to do to screw the babyfaces that night, but once she got up to the part where she was explaining what was going to happen, they had Foley inexplicably switch from speakerphone to regular mode even though there was no one around, just so that the not there cameras wouldn't give away what was going to happen to the viewer). I take the same stance with every promotion. They tell me what their rules are, and I will hold them to those rules.

And yes, I do think this is AEW failing to consider things, because there are other things they miss that create logical questions and/or require storyline follow-up but don't get them (like the issue with Moxley vs. Omega becoming unsanctioned while the Janela/Darby/Havoc matches aren't, or Brandi assaulting one of her employees not getting any follow-up. They've created an excuse for Cody not to notice because, as they said in the video package, he has tunnel vision when he goes after a title, but there is no reason Omega/the Bucks/and especially Tony Khan haven't confronted her about this).



Getting back to this week's specific segment, the other mistake you're making here is that you're failing to look at this as an artistic whole. The whole reason that Dustin appeared at all in the opening segment is to establish his presence so that he can be attacked later (and all of the hugging and so forth between him Cody serves to evoke pathos in order to increase our sympathy for Cody later when Dustin is attacked). He's a human Chekhov's Gun. Otherwise there is no purpose to his presence in that scene (if he, as you speculate, just decided to show up for fun, he probably would have showed up for the whole show rather than an hour late, and there is no specific need to establish his presence, just like there wasn't for everyone else who appeared on the show but didn't wrestle, like Moxley Private Party, or the Dark Order).

So what i'm getting from all of this is that you cut slack to mediocrity, but give a hard time to people who are actually trying to do things right, and you nitpick them to oblivion, and in consequence, feed the bad will people have towards them and justify liking the other crap. You're just like Dave!

Absolutely not. I am accepting the conventions of the universe as it is presented to me. That's what you have to do, otherwise I'd be writing "why is there a camera back here?" in every single WWE backstage segment. Hell, even with that I've called WWE out for the way they frame things that we see in these segments (GMs f*cking around on their phones until someone walks up to them instead of being in an office doing paperwork, like Regal).
WWE, wXw, CHIKARA and others have chosen a style of presentation that is less ambitious. In CHIKARA's case it is almost required by the nature of the stories they tell, but either way, it is a choice. If you give me the choice between two identical products, one shot with "just pretend the cameras aren't there" and one where they always have an reason for the camera to be there, I'm going to tell you that I like the one where they always have a reason for why the camera is there better. It's not an issue of laziness, as both create constraints. WWE's style of shooting could never give us what we got between Moxley and Tony Khan because us not being able to see the conversation like we do with all other backstage conversations would feel contrived.
Laziness, to me, is not thinking hard enough to come up with that next question. Laziness is thinking "this will be cool enough that we don't need a reason." AEW is doing one of those two, and thus it bothers me.

You're asking things that are really of no concern to anyone or the story itself, we don't need to know why Dustin decided to go to this show, nor why he decided to take another car, nor why people arrive 'later' to the arena. The only thing we need to know is that he got his ass kicked in the parking lot while Jericho distracted Cody in an effort to get back at Cody and gain momentum towards Full Gear. You try to judge wrestling like it if was an office job, and no wonder why wrestlers aren't superstars anymore if people see them as employees of a business.

I am only asking those questions because AEW put them in my head. If we hadn't seen Dustin getting off the plane with Cody and the heels had jumped him in some backstage locker room, I would have had no problem with it. If the only way you can come up with to explain Cody's strategy get in Jericho's head involves Cody broadcasting it to the world where Jericho will be able to see it, then you need to go back to the drawing board. Not doing so is lazy. These are logical issues created by AEW's artistic decisions, which are completely fair game.
If you still want to do the car angle, just have Dustin greet Cody in the parking lot. That took me five seconds to come up with. Just show the airport scene at the top of the show as something that happened earlier that day, have Schiavone on commentary from the beginning of the show and when the time comes for Cody's entrance during the contract signing, have Tony explain Cody's strategy to us. If the only way to do your segment logically means not doing the scene with Tony and Cody in the car, then you don't do the scene in the car.


And I'm not treating the wrestlers like office workers. I'm treating the wrestlers like professional athletes. All of the players on the baseball team have to at the building when the game starts; even yesterday's starter, who will almost never have to play the next day.

AEW has had a lot of weird booking decisions since they started, the whole way of how the champions were decided could be questioned, but saying that it's a logical disaster because one person decided to take a different car is just going out of your way to critique them.

It's not one problem. It's a whole bunch of them. And this is coming from the guy who had absolutely no problem with the way AEW crowned their champions.

2/5 isn't nothing, it's 40%.
I'm not saying Dusty doesn't deserve an homage. I'm saying that if Cody keeps telling me that he's Dusty's kid and then keeps redoing Dusty's old angles, it comes off as Cody Runnels' loving tribute to his father Virgil Runnels rather than a wrestling story because it comes off as a tribute act, with the key word there being act.

It's his first feud in AEW, there is nothing wrong in bringing up stuff like that, specially when a lot of people's complain is that this promotion alienates the older fans. This is really nothing to do about Dusty at all, it's all been about the title with some references to history, that's all.

It's not his first feud, though. There was the Shawn Spears feud, where they had to bring in Dusty's old enemy Tully Blanchard to try to help Spears beat Cody. And then the build to All In, which was all about Cody winning the same title that Dusty held. And this theme song is about how "wrestling has more than one royal family." 85% of the stuff he does is meant to reference Dusty in some way or another.

The idea that throwing in a bunch of references to Dusty will appeal to older fans and assuage their dislike of things like Best Friends is the same sort of logic that WWE uses when they throw Ric Flair on TV and pretend it's important.