BRM Reviews the 2/2/2022 Dynamite

[Big Red Machine]

JON MOXLEY vs. WHEELER YUTA (w/Orange Cassidy & Danhausen)- 6.25/10
The tone in Jim Ross’ voice when he wanted Excalibur to confirm that the story is indeed that Danhausen “put a curse on Adam Cole” was the most wonderful “oh my G-d this is so stupid, but I know I can’t say that right now” tone you’ve ever heard.
The story here was that YUTA did a lot better than last time, when Moxley squashed him. Moxley still won cleanly (well… mostly cleanly, he did a completely unnecessary back-rake, and did it hard enough to leave quite the scrape), this time hitting Danielson’s MMA elbows to set up for the Paradigm shift.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Intriguing
Bryan Danielson comes out and pitches to Jon Moxley that the two of them work together to get the titles off of “someone whose only contribution to society is a vlog,” “the Millennial Cowboy” and “someone dressed up as a dinosaur.” He suggests that do to this, they recruit the likes of Lee Moriarty, Daniel Garcia, and Wheeler YUTA away from the clowns (or in Moriarty’s case, high-flyers) they currently run around with and train them to be (and he didn’t use this term, but it’s what they’re getting at) serious wrestlers. Danielson told him to think about it, and left.
Moxley seemed intrigued by this proposal, and I certainly was, as well, although I assume that people like me are probably the target audience. It seems like the idea here is to create a stable for people like me to root for in a “shades of gray” world. And it can probably work. I know I was utterly disgusted when the thing that Dragon said here that got the most boos wasn’t insulting or saying he wanted to take championships from Adam Page or Sammy Guevara or Luchasaurus but rather calling Orange Cassidy and Out-hausen “jokes,” and I would love to see someone stick it to those clowns.
What I’m not sure of, however, is if swimming upstream by trying to get some of your fanbase to book guys like Dragon and Moxley is the most productive way to try to get people like me to feel like we have “our” guys in AEW who speak for us. Why not just have Dragon and Moxley and Moriarty be the guys who do that sort of thing, and just let them be babyfaces to everyone in the process of doing it?
We’ll see where this goes, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the tease of a pivot away from a certain kind of bullsh*t doesn’t greatly appeal to me. It still doesn’t make me think that AEW will solve the many problems with their storytelling, but it at least gives me hope where there will be a time when the clown-show aspect of AEW will stop.

BRANDI RHODES IS INTERRUPTED BY DAN LAMBERT- entertaining, but bad
Lambert is an out-and-out heel, and Cody SOOOO desperately wants to be a babyface… and yet someone made the decision to start this segment off by having Brandi first invite boos with her tone and then purposely screw up the name of the city, and then say that Cleveland (where she said) and Chicago (where they actually were) were both just “snow, ice… it’s all the same.”
Lambert then said a bunch of things about Brandi that were pretty much true (her job title is fake, she believes her own bullsh*t, and how “even standing next to a rich, Conservative, sexist AEW-hating old man,” Brandi was the one getting booed).
Brandi’s response to this was to tell Ethan Page “the only reason we hired you was to get to Josh Alexander.” So not only did she bury Ethan Page, but she buried AEW by saying that the guy they really wanted turned them down to stay in TNA (his contract is up soon, and we haven’t heard anything about him coming in now, either)… and that doesn’t even make sense in storyline, because Page turned on Alexander and then lost to him in TNA before signing with AEW, so how the hell would signing Page have helped them get Alexander? (And try to tell me that storylines in another promotion don’t count when AEW has a working relationship with that promotion which has included crossover storylines!).
Brandi wound up getting “SHUT THE F*CK UP!” chants, and her response (after “are you done yet?” backfired horribly) was to make a comment that is the sort of thing that you would expect Triple H to say in order to get booed. Brandi tells Lambert to go spend more time working with his MMA fighters because they have been losing lately. Lambert suggests that her whole family “turn heel” and then says that Brandi used to be a prostitute.
Brandi gives him a light-looking slap, which he doesn’t sell much, and then (after a great line or two), brings out Paige VanZant to kill Brandi. Brandi got very lucky that VanZant just picked her up and ran her into the corner instead of coming out throwing strikes. The babyface side of the women’s locker room came out to break it up.
I enjoyed seeing Brandi get verbally throttled by both Lambert and the crowd, but a big part of that is because AEW has been inviting heel reactions for her… so what’s the end-game here? A heel vs. heel feud between Brandi and PVZ?

ANDRADE-HARDY FAMILY OFFICE PROMO- dull
The Andrade part of this equation was missing at the beginning. Matt said he was disappointed in Private Party for not winning the tag titles on Rampage, and declared himself the next challenger for the TNT Title on Rampage, for where Sammy Guevara has apparently made an open challenge.
At this point Andrade showed up… and apparently what Matt actually meant was that Isiah Kassidy was the one getting that title shot. I figured that “I WANT THAT TITLE!” when said by a singles wrestler means that the wrestler wants that title for himself, not for one half of his tag team charge. Marq Quen insists that he can beat Sammy, but Matt tells him that he isn’t getting the title shot because he was the one who got pinned. Kassidy said he would win the title tonight. Isn’t the match on Rampage?
Andrade was also disappointed in them for losing. Matt asked why Darby Allin wasn’t with them. Andrade figures he wants more money. Andrade left, and Matt told Kassidy not to screw up because “this is your chance to be a star.” Even with Andrade, this group still feels painfully unimportant.

KINGS OF THE BLACK THRONE (Malakai Black & Brody King) vs. DEATH TRIANGLE (Pac & Penta el 0M) (w/Alex Abrahantes)- 7/10
Pac wore a blindfold and needed Abrahantes to lead him to the ring, but it turned out that he can see through it and this was all mind games. Fine. Thankfully, he took it off as soon as he had a free moment once the jig was up.
The action here was good, but the finish was frustrating. The heels won with their finisher, but after Penta got hit with the black mist, so I guess that he’ll get to be blind for a while. It feels like this isn’t going anywhere.

ADAM COLE PROMO- good, but…
Yup, Cole is now pretending that he didn’t lose to Orange Cassidy because of the dumb stipulation that that match wouldn’t count in the records.
He says that we will see a new side of him on Rampage. He says he is going to beat and then injure Evil Uno, and then everyone will see exactly what he wants. In other words, Adam Cole is going to hurt a member of the Dark Order in order to let Adam Page know that he wants an AEW World Title shot. Hmm… that seems familiar.

RUBY SOHO vs. NYLA ROSE (w/Vickie Guerrero)- 5.75/10
Ruby threw her jacket at Nyla to distract her, and then jumped the bell on her like a total heel. What the f*ck?
Vickie interfered to stop Nyla from losing. Then they did a finish that undid any protection Vickie’s interference gave Ruby in defeat, as Ruby went for No Future, but Nyla was on the turnbuckle, and not only did Ruby miss because Nyla was too high up, but despite doing this kick a million times and never having a problem with it, this time Ruby managed to land on her head, allowing Nyla to hit a senton bomb, then hit the Beast Bomb and win. This made Ruby look like an idiot.
After the match, Nyla mimed playing a guitar and then smashing it on Ruby. She’s got to be careful or else she’s going to make me want to see her turn babyface.

GUNN CLUB ATTACK JUNGLE BOY BUT ARE RUN OFF BY CHRISTIAN CAGE AND LUCHASAURUS- fine

MJF & PUNK PREPARE FOR THEIR MATCH VIA SPLIT-SCREEN- I LOVED how MJF’s prep was practicing reversing the GTS into Salt of the Earth.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH ADAM PAGE IS INTERRUPTED BY DAN LAMBERT AND JAKE ROBERTS- meh
Page is complaining about how infrequently he has defended his title. Why not put out some open challenges, then? It seems to work well for TNT and TBS Champions.
Page calls Archer out to have their match now, but instead he gets Dan Lambert and Jake Roberts. Lambert started to cut a promo on Page but Page cut him off by yelling over him, but then quieted down when Jake told him to “shut up, little boy.” I’m not going to deny that this did a great job of making Jake feel important and menacing, but I thought it made Page look quite… well… “soft,” as Lambert has been claiming. And then it was made even worse when Jake was interrupted by Archer coming out and telling him to “shut the hell up” and demanding that Page fight him, because they didn’t actually get anything out of what Jake was saying.
So Page and Archer brawled for the fourth week in a row or whatever. Page got an advantage but Lambert distracted him with an attempted chairshot, allowing Archer to take over, slam Page onto the steps, and then give him the Blackout through a table. Archer said he would become the world champion next week.

CHRIS JERICHO PROMO- if the idea is that Jericho is going heel, then this was good.
He was just kind of a jerk by “demanding” that Santana and Ortiz show up for an Inner Circle team meeting in the ring next week. He said that not tagging him in last week was “disrespectful,” and wondered what kind of hold Kingston had over them. He said the fact that they “started in the business with” Kingston (which isn’t true, as Kingston was a well-established name by the time Santana and Ortiz started) was irrelevant compared to the loyalty they should have to the Inner Circle, which “started AEW together” (which also isn’t true, as neither LAX nor Hager were around for the first few shows (LAX debuted at All Out and Hager I believe debuted on the first Dynamite).

MJF vs. CM PUNK- 7/10
Okay, we are starting the main event WAY early here. In my mind, that means either we’re getting a MAJOR post-match angle, or their going Broadway… and I’d be fine with either.
I loved the “If MJF wins, we jump him,” sign. That’s the kind of reaction to a heel that we need more of. There is someone in the front row on the hard-cam side with a cardboard box over his head with “underrated” “over it” written on the front. That was nice of Dolph to show up to watch his brother wrestle a four-minute match on Dark: Elevation.

MJF tried to run away from Punk and so Punk chased him into the crowd… and of course Bryce Remsburg made no effort to count them out. MJF worked over Punk’s arm. They went back to the outside, and Punk held MF so than a fan could punch him. This was not a DQ. MJF grabbing the referee and using him as a human shield was also not a DQ. After this, MJF locked in a sleeper but was really choking Punk with wrist tape. The referee didn’t see it, and Punk’s arm dropped three times. If I’m supposed to angry at MJF for cheating to win DON’T HAVE PUNK CHEAT FIRST HAVING HIM SOMEONE ELSE ATTACK MJF ON HIS BEHALF!
MJF accidentally dropped the tape while Bryce was raising his arm and Bryce saw it, so he reversed the decision and disqualified MJF.
JUST KIDDING! That’s what would happen if this made any sense. Instead he ordered the match restarted. Sure, he took the win away from MJF, but it’s not like restarting the match magically makes Punk recovered from the damage caused by the illegal object!
Or maybe Punk does just magically recover, because after that stupid spot where the heel shoves the referee and then the referee shoves the heel back and the heel stumbles into a roll-up, Punk just popped up, seemingly good as new.
Now Punk is doing the turnbuckle mounted punches and Bryce isn’t even bothering to count.
Punk hurt his knee on a dive, so MJF started working that over as well. Punk hit a poisonrana where he landed on his head, but from that point on, MJF stared selling his neck big, which looked funny when Punk’s landing looked much worse than his did.
MJF started blatantly biting Punk, which is a babyface spot when Moxley does it, but when MJF does it we’re supposed to be appalled. Ross flat out said that MJF knows there is no chance he’ll get DQed for doing this, and Excalibur said “we didn’t come this far to end in a disqualification,” which is one of those ideas that needs to disappear from pro wrestling. How is it better to have someone win by pinfall or submission because cheated their ass off and won by gaining unfair advantages from breaking the rules than to have some lose because they because refused to follow the agreed-upon rules of fair play?

Punk hit a Pepsi Plunge, but MJF rolled to the outside. Punk had to go to the outside and roll MJF back in… and then, when Punk got back into the ring, MJF was on his feet. They did some stuff and Punk hit a roundhouse kick and a diving elbow drop, and MJF kicked out, then rolled to the outside again.
Then Wardlow showed up. He had a stare-down with Punk. By the way, everyone is on the outside, and yet again there is no count-out. Wardlow got out of Punk’s way, then distracted him again once Punk got MJF into the ring. This allowed MJF to pull the diamond ring out of… somewhere… and hit Punk with it to get the win. How about we check the wrestlers before the match so MJF can’t hide things?
This whole finish was problematic to me. I am assuming that this distraction was some sort of back-up plan MJF had ready. If so, then why did MJF entrust this role to Wardlow instead of one of his several other more loyal lackeys? They answer, of course, is because AEW is telling a story with MJF and Wardlow… which is not a kayfabe answer to the question.
But even if you want to ignore the big logic hole, this is still problematic. The announcers can talk about all they want about how Wardlow “looks conflicted,” but the fact of the matter is that he is still doing MJF’s dirty work. And, if this was not actually a pre-set plan, then Wardlow looks even worse because he’s coming out to distract Punk of his own volition!

As for the match itself, I thought both guys sold very well and they told their story relatively well, but there was just too much crap (especially in the early-going) that hurt the underlying fabric of the logical world in which the match is taking place. You can’t ask me to watch a referee completely ignore rules for the sake of a performance, and then want me to care who wins the match, and that goes doubly so if you want me to be upset because someone broke a rule in order to win! And what’s worse is that NONE of the sh*t they did that ignored the rules was in any way necessary.
Why was MJF even running away from Punk? What if Punk didn’t follow him? Was he really going to just take a count-out loss? It’s not that hard to have a match where you don’t stay outside for more than a ten-count without the referee breaking it up, and where people don’t grab the referee and use him/her as a shield or let fans hit one of the wrestlers.
So CM Punk has now suffered his first defeat in AEW. Last week, Adam Cole did, too, and even though Punk lost in a match where his opponent did not follow the agreed-upon rules and Cole lost in a match where everyone followed the agreed-upon rules, Punk’s loss counts and Cole’s doesn’t, because Cole wanted a stipulation where the results don’t count. Whatever.


This was an okay show from AEW. We’ll see where the Danielson/Moxley thing goes.

[cero2k]

Brandi’s response to this was to tell Ethan Page “the only reason we hired you was to get to Josh Alexander.” So not only did she bury Ethan Page, but she buried AEW by saying that the guy they really wanted turned them down to stay in TNA (his contract is up soon, and we haven’t heard anything about him coming in now, either)… and that doesn’t even make sense in storyline, because Page turned on Alexander and then lost to him in TNA before signing with AEW, so how the hell would signing Page have helped them get Alexander? (And try to tell me that storylines in another promotion don’t count when AEW has a working relationship with that promotion which has included crossover storylines!).

Got a couple of things off there.
First off, Alexander didn't reject AEW, he came in to Impact way later than Page, his contract hasn't been up, so AEW hasn't offered him anything yet, he hasn't been in a position to reject them. But up until Alexander became the Impact Champion, everyone expected The North to reunite on AEW once Alexander could go, so the idea of luring him by signing Page could be legit, it's common to lure someone by signing their significant others. The only fault in their plan is assuming that Alexander would simply follow Page anywhere.

Second, Page didn't turn on Alexander, nor they wrestled on Impact.. Page lost his mind after losing the titles to the Good Brothers, to the point that it was Alexander that told him to get his shit straight, but instead, Page went and got himself "killed" (?) by his Karate Man crap. They never really turned on each other, they just called it quits until Page recovered.

[Big Red Machine]

Brandi’s response to this was to tell Ethan Page “the only reason we hired you was to get to Josh Alexander.” So not only did she bury Ethan Page, but she buried AEW by saying that the guy they really wanted turned them down to stay in TNA (his contract is up soon, and we haven’t heard anything about him coming in now, either)… and that doesn’t even make sense in storyline, because Page turned on Alexander and then lost to him in TNA before signing with AEW, so how the hell would signing Page have helped them get Alexander? (And try to tell me that storylines in another promotion don’t count when AEW has a working relationship with that promotion which has included crossover storylines!).

Got a couple of things off there.
First off, Alexander didn't reject AEW, he came in to Impact way later than Page, his contract hasn't been up, so AEW hasn't offered him anything yet, he hasn't been in a position to reject them. But up until Alexander became the Impact Champion, everyone expected The North to reunite on AEW once Alexander could go, so the idea of luring him by signing Page could be legit, it's common to lure someone by signing their significant others. The only fault in their plan is assuming that Alexander would simply follow Page anywhere.

He signed a three-year deal three years ago; it should be up now (or at least very soon). That was in February 2019. AEW already existed. Either they didn't go to him at that time or he turned them down.

But either way, that was Brandi burying Ethan Page. That's the sort of thing you don't say about a talent.

Second, Page didn't turn on Alexander, nor they wrestled on Impact.. Page lost his mind after losing the titles to the Good Brothers, to the point that it was Alexander that told him to get his shit straight, but instead, Page went and got himself "killed" (?) by his Karate Man crap. They never really turned on each other, they just called it quits until Page recovered.

That's what I get for skimming Wikipedia.