BRM Reviews the 5/12/2021 Dynamite

[Big Red Machine]

IWGP UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Jon Moxley(c) (w/Eddie Kingston) vs. Yuji Nagata (w/Ren Narita)- 6.75/10
I understand why they don’t do it, but if Moxley is going to defend the US Title and you want us to think that is important, he really should be wearing it on TV every week. Ditto for Omega and the AAA Megacampeonato if he’s going to be defending it on AEW TV and they want us to think it’s important.
Moxley came out to Wild Thing. That song really doesn’t fit his vibe well. They had a very good brawl which Moxley won cleanly, as he should have. We got a nice post-match show of respect from both guys.

INNER CIRCLE INTERVIEW- meh
It’s just Sammy, Hager, and Ortiz, because Jericho is injured and MJF apparently had Santana arrested for stabbing him with a fork during a no DQs match. These AEW contracts need some work if they allow for that to happen. And couldn’t the Inner Circle just get the charges against Santana dropped by threatening to pre charges against MJF for attempted murder via pushing Jericho off the cage? And that was after the match, so their case is even more solid than MJF’s against Santana.
That issue aside, I thought Ortiz was very good. Sammy and Hager came off a little too cartoonish for me. It was something about their cadence. They said that this would never be over so long as the two groups are in the same company, and threatened to MURDER the Pinnacle tonight if they weren’t granted another match against them.

CODY PROMO- meh
I’ve heard people sh*t all over this, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It certainly wasn’t good, but it wasn’t like it was terrible, either. It was meh, like this whole issue has been. This is, in essence, a PC, “safe” attempt at an American Patriot vs. Foreign Adversary angle, and the reason it isn’t working is because it’s so darn safe. Cody’s speech mostly came off like the sort of thing you’d say if you were trying to be middle of the road politically, saying there are problems, but not hitting on what anyone thinks are the big ones and saying generic crap about Freedom of Speech. He does realize that Ogogo also comes from a country with Freedom of Speech, right?
And on Ogogo’s side, it’s similar. Ogogo himself is from a safe country to make a villain without causing some sort of PC uproar, and his little shots at the US have been similarly safe, not going anywhere near anything that anyone might find controversial or even merely close to home. His comments have been so bland that I just took them for cheat heat rather than an indication that he was supposed to be some kind of anti-American ideologue. It was just some sh*t he was saying. The announcers certainly didn’t focus on it at all. As a result Cody’s promos here feels like an overreaction, much like Ogogo’s burying Cody under the British flag last week felt out of nowhere.
And, perhaps even worse, outside of kayfabe, the impression I have after seeing all of this play out is as follows: Cody had an idea to do an angle where he got to be the American hero like his dad, but once again, he doesn’t seem to understand storytelling well enough to pull it off, instead just relying on mimicking things he saw in wrestling’s past.
Oh yeah. Cody says he’ll wrestle Ogogo at the PPV.

SCU VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- They did the best they could with it.
Kaz and Daniels spoke well, but this one video package is the most attention that either the relationship between these two teams or the fact that SCU has said they will break up if they lose has ever gotten on Dynamite. You can’t just pull relationships out of your ass and expect people to care about them! The Bucks and SCU have been best friends since 2015? Fine. Then have SCU acting as the angels on their shoulders to Don Callis’ devil. Build SCU into the story. The Bucks aren’t just choosing to stay friends with Kenny. That choice is forcing them to then break their friendship with SCU. That took me two minutes to think up. AEW loves to talk about how they “plan in advance.” Well then how about trying to do that in a way that is more complex than “this guy will win a bunch of matches on Dark and then we’ll give him a title shot?”
Also, I love how Daniels and Kaz are upset because their former friends the Young Bucks have suddenly turned into jerks… but have made no comment whatsoever about the fact that a guy who was even closer to them- Scorpio Sky- turned into a jerk at pretty much the same time. Isn’t Tony Khan supposedly a “detail guy?” How’d you miss that one, Tony?

AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH IN WHICH IF SCU LOSE, THEY HAVE VOWED TO DISBAND: The Young Bucks(c) (w/the Good Brothers) vs. SCU (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian)- 7.5/10
Don Callis did commentary for this match. When he got to the desk, Excalibur immediately called him “old.” Don Callis is younger than both of Excalibur’s broadcast partners.
Daniels bled a lot. The mocking Flair/HBK reference didn’t feel gratuitous, and SCU kicked out of a lot. I’m not opposed to the fact that the “SCU must break up” stipulation being self-imposed being used as a loophole for Tony Khan to give them a rematch in a cage to prevent interference, but if that’s not the route we’re going, then there was absolutely no reason for SCU to get a phantom pinfall, and very little reason for the Bucks to not win clean.
They didn’t quite “to the back!” this, but it seemed like the reason for that was more that they wanted to make the backstage thing feel more spontaneous by making a big deal out of having to get a camera there instead of because they have learned from years of TNA not saying with big moments for long enough to let them sink in.

KINGSTON & MOXLEY HAVE “COMMANDEERED A CAMERA AND ARE SMASHING UP THE ELITE/BULLET --CLUB/WHATEVER DRESSING ROOM- dumb
This feels like at least the fourth time we’ve seen these guys smash up stuff belonging to Omega and pals.
DASHA GONZALEZ INTERVIEWS CHRISTIAN CAGE- fine
He has an open contract for next week and he challenges Taz to send any of his guys against him. For Double or Nothing, he has decided to enter the Cassino Battle Royale, in which he said the winner gets a world title shot “whenever they want.” PLEASE don’t tell me they’re going MITB!
Excalibur would later say that the Casino Battle Royale is for “the next shot” at the world title, so either he or Christian are wrong.
Matt Sydal interrupted Christian. They had words. Sydal revealed that he signed the open contract, not a member of Team Taz. Oops. Maybe next time Christian will just ask Tony for a match against a member of Team Taz.

WORLD TITLE ELIMINATOR MATCH: Pac (w/Death Triangle) vs. Orange Cassidy (w/Best Friends)- 5.75/10
We started off this big #1 contendership match with… one guy putting his sunglasses on the other. Pac broke the sunglasses. They did some spots, ending in a dive, and after the dive, OC reached into his pocket and pulled out another pair of sunglasses to put on, because I guess bad referee Aubrey Edwards didn’t bother checking the wrestlers for foreign objects before the match.
Once they got serious, it got decent. Pac had OC down and being checked on by medical staff, at which point Callis came out and distracted him, allowing Omega to knock him out with a title belt shot to the back of the head. Aubrey turned around and began counting both men down for a double-TKO.
Believe it or not, I had no problem with this finish. As I’ve said many times (and especially in ROH and WWE reviews), the problem is not doing a dirty finish; the problem is doing them way too often, and thus you need to conserve them for when they are truly necessary for the story you want to tell. AEW has done a good job of conserving their finish, and they wanted to tell the classic story of the heel who thinks he can get out of a title defense by causing there to be no winner in a #1 contendership match but then being hoisted on his own petard when management punishes him by making him defend against both guys. I probably wouldn’t have done this in the featured “top of the hour” spot, and I would have tried to find a way to make it so that OC looks more worthy of being included rather than what we go here, where he was already beaten and Kenny just screwed his opponent, but I don’t have a problem with the overall non-finish.
What I did not like, however, was the way Omega reacted. Tony Schiavone clearly said “Tony Khan told me.” Kenny going after Schiavone and Audrey about this makes him look “deranged,” yes, but not in a productive way. It makes him seem more dangerous in that he might attack a non-wrestler like announcers Tony Schiavone or referee Aubrey Edwards, but it makes him look like someone who is liable to lose his rational thought in the middle of a match, and thus makes him seem less dangerous to the trained wrestlers he will be defending his title again.

YOUNG BUCKS, GALLOWS, & ANDERSON PROMO- bad
This was just WAY too over the top. Gallows in particular came off like a total clown. The news here is that the Bucks want to show that they are fighting champions by defending their titles against the Varsity Blonds next week, because the Blonds are apparently now the #1 contenders. They also want to defend the titles against Moxley and Kingston at the PPV to get revenge for them smashing up some stuff in a locker room.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS ADAM PAGE & THE DARK ORDER- Look… if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. This association with the Dork Order is killing Adam Page. Every time they are near him (and even more so when they open their mouths) they just drip the stain of goofhood all over him.
Page pointed out that Brian Cage didn’t beat him fairly and said that Cage shouldn’t be satisfied with that, so he challenges him to a match at the PPV where he leaves Taz and friends in the back.

THE PINNACLE’S CORONATION- bad
MJF and Tully bragged very loudly. It was the usual blah blah blah. They had escorts, and also Tully bought them fancy watches. Snore.
The Inner Circle drove up in some sort of goofy custom vehicle with a water-cannon attached and advertising Jericho’s Champagne on the side. Also, it had Inner Circle logos all over it. It was one of those things that screams “cartoon bullsh*t” at you. The Inner Circle did some juvenile crap by asking MJF for a rematch and then honking when he tried to answer. Eventually they let him answer. He said no. Then the heels got sprayed with Champagne because they were too stupid to get out of the ring when they saw a vehicle with a water-cannon approaching. This came off like Attitude Era wanna-be bullsh*t.
Anyway, getting wet and having his promo interrupted is enough to change MJF’s mind, so he accepts their challenge for a rematch and wants it to be a Stadium Stampede. Oh goody. Another forty-minute cinematic clown-fest. Also, if the Inner Circle lose, they must break up. Why would they agree to that, especially if they now know that it’s pretty easy to get MJF angry enough to change his mind?
The segment ended with the Inner Circle flipping of the camera. Why would they do that? The people they hate are on the stage right now, not watching at home.

JIM ROSS’ SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH DR. BRITT BAKER, DMD- meh
That photo shoot looked like a really goofy thing. I’m sure it’s the sort of thing Forbes likes, but looking at it from a wrestling context, it seemed kind of silly for them all to be posing like that. And I know they do that for company things all the time, but for some reason this looked a little extra goofy to me. Maybe it was poses, or maybe it was the fact that it was being done for Forbes rather than to promote a match. Maybe it was Tony Khan’s presence in the middle of it. I’m honestly not sure.
Britt’s words were good, but Ross was all over the place, and Britt’s energy didn’t feel like it was where it needed to be. Given the point Britt was trying to make, I think this would have worked a lot better if it was just Dr. Baker cutting a promo into the camera.

THUNDER ROSA vs. JAZMIN ALLURE- squash

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS JADE CARGILL EARLIER TODAY- bad
Some geek we’ve never heard of name Mark Sterling offered to manage her on Dark but she turned him down. The she cut the same promo she’s been cutting in video packages for the past few weeks. Excalibur called her “the hottest free agent in pro wrestling,” but how is that true if she’s not even the top unmanaged wrestler in her own division?

DARBY ALLIN VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- very good

AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Darby Allin(c) (w/Sting) vs. Miro- 6/10
Miro jumped the bell on Darby and beat him up on the outside forever while Paul Turner pleaded with him to get in the ring so that they could start the match. Sting, meanwhile, just stood there and watched his friend get assaulted before the match. What a bad friend!
The pre-match attack also kind of felt like too much for me. You’re already telling the story that Darby has taken on a grueling schedule and had him get thrown down the stairs last week. Isn’t that enough to protect him?
Sting got taken out by Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky during a commercial break, but was back up in time to give Darby inspiration in the form of a lame fist bump to set up Darby’s comeback. The match was good, but I thought it would have been better if they had given it more time instead of doing the way-too-long pre-match attack. Miro won by stoppage, so we have a new champion.

POST-MATCH STUFF- meh
Page and Sky came out to attack Sting a second time. The Dark Order chased them off. I don’t even remember why there is heat there. Lance Archer came out to have a stare-down with Miro.


This was a fine show from AEW. The wrestling is strong and many of the video packages and promos are good, but the usual weak points remain.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Jim Ross- “We’ve all heard from Omega. He does not want to deal with Pac in a championship environment on a global pay-per-view.”
We might have all heard from Kenny, but apparently not all of us heard him clearly, because that’s pretty much the opposite of what Kenny Omega said last week.

[Thelone]

CODY PROMO- meh
I’ve heard people sh*t all over this, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It certainly wasn’t good, but it wasn’t like it was terrible, either. It was meh, like this whole issue has been. This is, in essence, a PC, “safe” attempt at an American Patriot vs. Foreign Adversary angle, and the reason it isn’t working is because it’s so darn safe. Cody’s speech mostly came off like the sort of thing you’d say if you were trying to be middle of the road politically, saying there are problems, but not hitting on what anyone thinks are the big ones and saying generic crap about Freedom of Speech. He does realize that Ogogo also comes from a country with Freedom of Speech, right?
And on Ogogo’s side, it’s similar. Ogogo himself is from a safe country to make a villain without causing some sort of PC uproar, and his little shots at the US have been similarly safe, not going anywhere near anything that anyone might find controversial or even merely close to home. His comments have been so bland that I just took them for cheat heat rather than an indication that he was supposed to be some kind of anti-American ideologue. It was just some sh*t he was saying. The announcers certainly didn’t focus on it at all. As a result Cody’s promos here feels like an overreaction, much like Ogogo’s burying Cody under the British flag last week felt out of nowhere.
And, perhaps even worse, outside of kayfabe, the impression I have after seeing all of this play out is as follows: Cody had an idea to do an angle where he got to be the American hero like his dad, but once again, he doesn’t seem to understand storytelling well enough to pull it off, instead just relying on mimicking things he saw in wrestling’s past.
Oh yeah. Cody says he’ll wrestle Ogogo at the PPV.

I'll just comment on that this week, because the rest was just the usual and I don't feel like repeating myself yet again.

A few weeks/months ago, I said something about how one day, Cody was going to cut this big time promo trying to rival or even surpass Daddeh's Hard Times (and call it Difficult Era or something). That was it, that was the promo I was talking about.

It was supposed to be this big emotional patriotic speech (and randomly talking about his yet-to-be-born baby who's going to be mixed race, because that makes him special I suppose?), but it's been almost universally panned and feels like Cody jumped the shark with that one. Even Brandi went on Twitter talking about how the promo was so inspirational and "a piece of history". It's one thing to be supportive of your husband, but it was such a tone-deaf statement and equally as ridiculed as the promo.

Anyway, you'd think Ogogo was the reincarnation of Muhammad Hassan who kept cutting promos about "drinking the blood of the infidels and feasting on their flesh" or whatever, then laughed maniacally while lightning bolts struck the arena and images of 9/11 popped up on the tron while also kicking kittens and throwing vials of COVID-19 at the crowd. Except he didn't do any of that, so Cody's promo felt completely over the top and ridiculous, and was most likely a cheap ass reason for him not to get booed when big crowds are back at the PPV.

So yeah, he didn't deliver it badly or anything, but the content was atrocious.

[NWK2000]

I'll just comment on that this week, because the rest was just the usual and I don't feel like repeating myself yet again.

A few weeks/months ago, I said something about how one day, Cody was going to cut this big time promo trying to rival or even surpass Daddeh's Hard Times (and call it Difficult Era or something). That was it, that was the promo I was talking about.

It was supposed to be this big emotional patriotic speech (and randomly talking about his yet-to-be-born baby who's going to be mixed race, because that makes him special I suppose?), but it's been almost universally panned and feels like Cody jumped the shark with that one. Even Brandi went on Twitter talking about how the promo was so inspirational and "a piece of history". It's one thing to be supportive of your husband, but it was such a tone-deaf statement and equally as ridiculed as the promo.

Anyway, you'd think Ogogo was the reincarnation of Muhammad Hassan who kept cutting promos about "drinking the blood of the infidels and feasting on their flesh" or whatever, then laughed maniacally while lightning bolts struck the arena and images of 9/11 popped up on the tron while also kicking kittens and throwing vials of COVID-19 at the crowd. Except he didn't do any of that, so Cody's promo felt completely over the top and ridiculous, and was most likely a cheap ass reason for him not to get booed when big crowds are back at the PPV.

So yeah, he didn't deliver it badly or anything, but the content was atrocious.

I don't think the meat of this promo was all that bad. They hit all the "American vs foreigner" points like BRM said. And you could argue the bit about his unborn baby is cheap, but wrestling is all about cheap pops ya know? But the cut to the guy in the BLM shirt was such a transparent dick thrust about what this was, Cody's attempt to get over with the wokescolds but this never works because it always comes across as tonedeaf

[Thelone]

I don't think the meat of this promo was all that bad. They hit all the "American vs foreigner" points like BRM said. And you could argue the bit about his unborn baby is cheap, but wrestling is all about cheap pops ya know? But the cut to the guy in the BLM shirt was such a transparent dick thrust about what this was, Cody's attempt to get over with the wokescolds but this never works because it always comes across as tonedeaf

And that's exactly why this promo was so awful. This was Cody Rhodes cutting yet another promo about how great he is, how he's such a hard working american, and how woke he is because he has a hot black wife and soon an interracial kid. He tried to be this great american hero (because it's becoming the only way he'll get cheered at this point) and came off like a fucking politician awkwardly stitching ideas from different ideologies together. It came off even worse because Ogogo really hasn't done anything dastardly before putting a flag on Cody last week and even then, it wasn't exactly like Shawn sneezing in/wiping his ass with/humping the canadian flag.

Actually, BRM's last sentence resumes how ineffective at promoting the match this mess was. It did nothing for Ogogo besides turning him into a cliché evil foreigner all of a sudden and nothing for the upcoming match, because the real point was for Cody to cut another self-fellating promo, and then act like it was some kind of inspirational speech at the UN about racial equality or whatever the fuck that was supposed to be.

[Big Red Machine]

Cody to cut another self-fellating promo, and then act like it was some kind of inspirational speech at the UN.

In Cody's defense, giving self-fellating speeches and acting like you're done something important is exactly what happens at the UN, too.

[Thelone]

In Cody's defense, giving self-fellating speeches and acting like you're done something important is exactly what happens at the UN, too.

Well he did master the art of crocodile tears, so that checks out really.