Tonight’s Dynamite was at the Bojangles Coliseum, Charlotte, North Carolina, which in theory had been a traditionally strong spot for NWA wrestling in the 80s and maybe up to the mid 90s through WCW with Flair, etc. And the spot looked fairly packed with people hot for the opening which would start off with a big 5 v 5 match.
Elite vs Hangman Page/Dark Order
The stipulation of this match was similar to a Survivor Series type of match where people could be eliminated by submission, pinfall, count out, etc. The main thing was if the Elite lost then Hangman Page would get a world title shot against Kenny Omega while the Dark Order would receive a tag title shot against The Young Bucks.
Match went fairly long but not surprising because how it had three of the so-called VPs in AEW. In truth, I thought the with the rumors of both CM Punk and Bryan Danielson coming in, there would be zero reason for the Elite to lose. And I was proven right, at least with regards to the results. Of course, this will beg the question whether the underlying reason is to setup a title shot for either Punk or Bryan, but that’s another topic entirely.
Either way, The Good Brothers got eliminated early on as well as Dark Uno and some other Dark Order members. Despite Tony Khan talking recently about not doing count outs, oddly Gallows and one of the Dark Order guys actually got counted out. Not that anyone cared. Just thought that was funny. Eventually, it became a 3-1 situation where just before John Silver got to survive and had his moment since he was returning from an injury. No one really cared. People were more focused on Page hopefully getting the win. He managed to eliminate one of the Bucks but the remaining Buck and Omega ended up using a combination of a belt and Kenny’s finisher for the end result.
JR tried to put over Page as being very likely to be able to beat Kenny Omega on a 1-1 situation without outside interference. But it doesn’t matter because this match killed all his momentum and people already are speculating that any push towards a title for Page will just be shoved aside from the incoming Bryan or Punk. And let’s face it. That’s going to be the theoretically money match that most likely will occur either in Chicago or NY for their big shows. Either way, this match killed the crowd dead.
Pac and Andrade Backstage Segment
Pac is in the building but cannot find his team. Chavo interrupts along with Andrade. Unfortunately, AEW committed the one sin I had been telling: don’t let Andrade speak. We still haven’t seen him wrestle besides that Sydal match. It’s getting really pathetic. They can tease the feud all they want but the momentum is pretty much dying week by week every time Andrade isn’t shown to be wrestling.
Ricky Starks Celebration
This was hideous. AEW is hellbent on keeping Brian Cage as a face but he sucks. Starks can talk but this segment was a heatless disaster which just reinforced my opinion that the 5v5 match killed almost the rest of the show.
Hiroshi Tanahashi Moment
He’s going to challenge Lance Archer in a week in LA. I guess NJPW is paying for that advertisement? Otherwise, who cares? I know whom Tanahashi is. But he’s not being shown on AEW itself so what’s the point? I don’t care what the smarts are saying about this being huge. It isn’t. It’s insider shit that few people follow.
Santana/Ortiz vs FTR
For all the build that this match was given, it just was dead for the most part. Santana/Ortiz remind me of the Uso Brothers light version. Both teams supposedly have super heat against one another but they had a spot trading match. The announcers attempted to play up their rivalry but the first match absolutely decimated the rest of the show. There were a few okay moves but the real highlight unfortunately came from Wheeler injuring his arm. You could even hear the referee loudly telling them to go home and finish it up. That just shows how bad the referees are in AEW as well as the fact that the crowd had died. This is a very bad sign.
Britt Baker Interview
Lucky for Britt Tony Shiavone does all her interviews. She’s still trying to portray herself as a heel and her interview comes off confusing. There seemed to be a very underplayed hint that she’s bringing someone else to help watch her back. But I didn’t see anyone else point that out. Heard a weird rumor too that AEW signed Tessa Blanchard, which would make sense since Tully is there, but her behavior in Impact should caution AEW. Then again Tony Khan has about as much sense about wrestling as ant being able to obtain a physics degree.
Tony Schiavone for Tony Khan’s Announcement
So this was supposed to be Tony Khan making a special announcement. Instead, Tony Schiavone got the honors. I guess that’s alright because it’s better not to put the owner on TV as much as possible. Either way, the big announcement was the 2nd Rampage coming up in later August in Chicago. Many fans were chanting CM Punk and even the announcers back at the booth alluded to Schiavone holding the “secret” all day. Thus far, no concrete announcement had been made.
Darby Allin Backstage Segment
Really bizarre talking segment from Allin. Apparently, he’s also hyping up Chicago and made a subtle reference to CM Punk with “Come prove that you are the…..best in the world.” Again more CM Punk chants.
Side note, where is Bryan Danielson in all of this?
Hikuleo vs Lance Archer
IWGP US Title on the line. Hikuleo comes out with Haku that woke up the crowd with a nice pop. While most people said that Hikuleo was green here, I actually liked this match. Honestly, I hated that first match a lot. This match was different and mostly clean except Haku getting some gratuitous spots on Lance Archer, which I was fine with just because it was during a commercial break and Haku got a nice pop for it. No one could believe Hikuleo would win but he’s a big kid, has a legend for a father and is getting some screen time. Also, Lance Archer gets to say he’s making a defense even though Tanahashi is on the horizon in a week or so.
Cody Rhodes Segment
Back to stupidity. Cody Rhodes is in the gorilla position (monitoring) and the most deadly and useless announcer in existence, Marvez, is there which means only one thing: yup, a front side attack by Malakai Black. This was horrible in that Cody barely got a word in before Malakai attacked. Worse yet, he was facing Malakai. Doesn’t anyone in that fucking company know to at least have someone attack from behind to give the segment some realism?
Also, what’s the point of Black coming out to attack Rhodes? He’s already done it twice. We get it. Why not get the chance to see him squash someone before Rhodes? They had him kick the head off of Fuego del Sol, which supposedly gave him some heat. Why not just squash the guy and have him murderize him after the match just so we can have a friggin’ match already? This segment did nothing for anyone.
Miro Segment
Miro talks about Lee Johnson getting his shot. It’s stupid. Lee won against Luther on Dark after some ginger neckbeard “selected” Luther as the opponent that would get a shot against Miro as a result of that stupid game contest. Lee Johnson is a jobber over on Dark who barely gets wins unless he’s teamed with Rhodes or someone. So why would anyone believe that he stands a chance against Miro? Why not just have the title match on Dark and give Miro the squash win?
Hardy Family vs Christian/Jungle Boy/Luchasaurus
Poor Christian. Now, he’s stuck with a dinosaur and a midget that should have been Sid Vicious fodder during the early 90s. At least, Jungle Boy is over. JR hints that Christian should be in line for a title shot since Page lost his match. Yeah but wait and see CM Punk or Bryan Danielson go straight to the top.
This match sucked. Blade knocked Christian out with the brass knucks and I really wonder what Christian did to deserve this treatment. So apparently, he’s going to fight this jobber next week. What a waste of his time. This should be a warning to Punk and Bryan that they might eventually get jammed in the mid card since Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks are going to only keep themselves over.
Julia Hart vs Thunder Rosa
Why was this match wasted on Dynamite? Why couldn’t they have relegated this to Dark? Thunder Rosa, I’m fine with being on Dynamite. She’s one of the few women on the roster who can wrestle and is over. Julia Hart sucks. It was a squash match and Julia looked bad again. Heck, even JR pointed out that Julia is still green. That’s pretty telling.
Jon Moxley Segment
They seem to be building him vs Tanahashi for NJPW. Very odd segment. Does that mean Tanahashi will beat Lance Archer?
Nick Gage vs Chris Jericho
The announcers were really hyping up this match being a big unknown with this nut. MJF comes to act as a color commentator. Jericho oddly is the first one out with his make up and being “The Painmaker.” And again I must ask (rhetorically), outside of the fumes of the make up, what does wearing a different Halloween costume do to make one more resilient going into a match like this?
Nick Gage comes out and they had a few segments introducing this guy. Let me say that this guy makes autistic children look like Noble Peace Prize winners. I don’t watch outlaw mudshow garbage death matches and only am familiar with Nick Gage because of the Dark Side of the Ring. I’m certain that most casual viewers are in the same boat. Apparently, his cult accompanied him to this venue as there was a minor group in the audience that actually chanted for him.
Jericho tried to have a match with this guy. They tried a few wrestling moves and many looked like shit from Gage such as a shitty Falcon Arrow. When they punched each other, I thought my stuffed animals would hit me harder while resting on my couch. The pizza cutter spot was stupid because you could see Gage angle it in a way where he wasn’t really cutting Jericho’s forehead. And all the “glass” looked very suspect.
Jericho did an early blade spot as the match started where he cut his arm. I thought it was stupid because he might catch something like Hepatitis from this meth head. The ending was stupid because Jericho pulled out the Great Muta mist spot before Gage could hit him with the light tubes. Afterward, he gave a pathetic looking Judas Effect to Nick Gage. Thank god this was over.
Afterwards, MJF killed Jericho’s music and announced that he would fight Juventud Guerrera where Jericho would have to use a top rope move to beat Guerrera. The part that was pretty iffy was hearing the announcers put over Juventud as a huge rival to Jericho. What?
Juventud barely was a rival to Jericho. Unfortunately, Mysterio Jr still works for the WWE because that would’ve been the best choice as well as Eddy Guerrero (if he were still alive). So I’m guessing Jericho is trying to relive his Mexico years with this match.
By the way, Juventud barely got a pop. I mean, when was the last time anyone saw this guy in a mainstream situation? I guess Jericho is just trying to get his buddies work. What about Saturn? That’s the guy who needs the job.
As for Nick Gage, let’s hope we never have to see him again here. The match wasn’t as violent as it could have been but the guy can’t work, he barely is coherent and this match did no one any favors. I can’t see AEW hiring Gage full time just because he can’t work a normal match, his brawling sucks and he’s limited in what he can do. But knowing Tony Khan he probably loved this match which makes me lose hope.
Either way, the show felt like there was less chaotic after births. The first match took up way too much time but at least we weren’t subjected to a mindless rant by Kenny Omega. With the Job World Order jobbing (as they should), hopefully they get relegated back into obscurity because no one is going to buy them without Brodie Lee.
If AEW is saving the big title matches with Kenny Omega for Punk or Bryan, then I’m somewhat okay with it. The problem is the week-to-week build (or lack thereof) with the heat killing promos that never end from Omega, Callis, etc. I honestly prefer to have no dream match with them and just send Omega on a Jeff Bezos rocket to the sun (with Bezos accompanying him).
The Julia Hart match absolutely did not belong here. She’s no good and isn’t improving fast enough to deserve to be exposed on national TV. And then it occurred to me with the WWE back in the day in how they just had those massive shows every day. If you think about it, those house shows were great for the wrestlers just to give them experience working in front a crowd, preparing for their big matches for PPVs, etc.
So many on the AEW roster just look awful and I think it’s because they don’t tour enough to get themselves sharp. You hear and see all these injuries. I bet you if they were forced to wrestle almost every night, they would cut down on those stupid spots except for major events and hopefully avoid those injuries.
This week it was Cash Wheeler while Britt showed her injured hand. It seems like every week someone gets injured in AEW. Is that why Tony Khan keeps hiring these people? Because at this rate, these goofs will just circulate due to this injured list.
The other thing is that the crowd just died early on and it wasn’t until the Jericho match that they recovered. That’s because the crowd didn’t care about most of the people involved. Most of these matches were horrible jobber matches that were disguised as PPV-ish level matches because of how they would use the signed names. But the people who are capable don’t wrestle anymore. I think with FTR not having wrestled in months, they lost their ring awareness and caused that accident to happen.
And this is why I get mad with all those stupid talking segments. They lead nowhere, are too long, take up valuable wrestling time and are boring. You could condense those segments so at least these people can get in 2-3 more matches per show. since they desperately need TV experience if they’re being put on national TV.
With Rampage coming up, the only positive I see is another live training ground. I personally don’t think AEW needs more shows but they do need to make these wrestlers perform better somehow.
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