What did you think of AEW Dynamite?
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Despite not being a champion, Rey Fénix is quickly running away with Wrestler of the Year for me. Constantly delivers in single matches and is the shining star in tag matches. Also good on both Mox and Kingston in taking the negative of a dud and trying to spin it to a positive. While I want Fénix to be the single star of the two, I am 100% into a Penta run and I hope this is how they write Cody out with Penta bringing back his arm snapping gimmick. Also I get working live events is hard, but man these audio issues really hurt the show. Hearing NBA audio during Page’s debut man sucks to have your debut match sort of ruined. Why do three Tony interview gets interrupted spots in one show. I get it’s to push new feuds but they need newer ways to introduce these storylines. I guess the next challenger for Omega is Christian. Also show needs more Itoh. So much charisma it’s just infectious. I guess Butcher and Blade weren’t a fan of Kingston’s face turn. I don’t know if it’s because the entire show felt more miss than hit but I was pretty meh on Darby vs Sky but I’m glad we might be getting more character development from Sky moving forward. I guess this babyfaced Inner Circle while MJF’s Four Horsemen has become the new top heel stable. Overall a lot of this show felt like storyline development with small focus on the matches but next weeks episode seems jam packed with strong matches. 7/10
There was a lot to like on the show tonight, including two 4 star plus matches, but for me Pentagon stole the show. I really hope they have bigger plans for him than a one week program with Cody.
I feel terrible for Ethan Page. Just 3 days after his debut, where he was immediately overshadowed by a bigger debut, he has his first TV match ruined by audio issues. The guy feels like he’s already dead in the water.
Finally, while I’m interested to see where they go with the closing angle, I can’t stand the “lights out surprise” anymore. Is there no other way to do a surprise beat down than having the guys in the ring magically control the lights? How many times has AEW done that, just in the last few months?
8 out of 10 show for me.
Andrew from Cape Breton
AEW’s mindset is the same as Bob Ross’s. There are no mistakes, just happy accidents. I thought they did an incredible job tonight trying to explain away the disaster finish on the pay per view and the company are very lucky they have people like Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston to talk for them. What put it over the top for me was Omega and Callis mocking Kingston. Now obviously, they can’t have a mistake like that again on their show, but the company has a lot of creative people and great talkers that can try to make sense out of anything. I really enjoyed the show tonight and it set a lot of new angles in motion. I like MJF’s new stable, Matt Hardy’s new stable and it seems like they have a lot more fresh and new directions. Great show tonight.
Erin from Brampton
Like many people, I tuned in to see how they’d explain the blunder from Revolution. I was impressed with how Don was able to spin it. However, then they leaned into the joke a bit too much.
What I despised about that segment was having to hear Kenny Omega shout “69 me! 69 me!”. My God, was that ever cringe. I’m glad nobody else was in the room to see me watching that. This is where I’m not sold on him as a top guy. His mic skills are not strong. It’s not like he doesn’t have charisma, he just doesn’t sound like someone I’m supposed to take seriously. I get he’s a chickenshit heel, but he shouldn’t sound like a 15 year old.
Can I vote 69 out of 10?
I mean come on. There’s really no other answer than that.
An episode of pivoting out of a bad situation and making it remarkably better.
That was great TV, albeit for the TNT engineer not being able to find a mountain high enough* when he was playing the NBATV audio in the Dynamite feed.
*Marvin Gaye’s song was playing during the Ethan Page vs. Lee Johnson match.
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johnny from saskatoon
great episode of dynamite tonight, it really felt like AEW’s version of the new year’s dash setting up all sorts of new feuds.
now that the elite is on the back burner, the inner circle versus MJF’s new group is the blood and guts match i wanna see.
thanks!
As a rebound from an unfortunate ending on Sunday, this show had plenty of highlights. The Mox/Kingston promo as well as the Callis/Omega “explanation” felt legitimate & in line with the personalities of all four characters. Moments like that stare off are exactly what Christian needs to feel huge in AEW, & could be exactly what Kenny needs in order to get a true statement match out of this heel character.
The NBA audio botch from TNT was super unfortunate & I feel terrible for Ethan Page & Lee Johnson. Hopefully Page gets a spotlight next week to make another impression, but two big production issues in one week from AEW really isn’t great.
Loved MJF’s faction reveal (if they’re going after the Inner Circle, would they be the Outer Square?) & watching Penta/Maki Ito tonight makes me wish WWE hadn’t missed the boat on Nakamura. Natural charisma can transcend any language. A big exploding 6.9 out of 10.
A pretty good show. I don’t know how others think but they tried to recover from Revolution as well as they could have.
Was actually surprised that Darby retained. I am of the opinion he’s much better chasing a title than being a champion.
The final angle was well done but I don’t like angles at the end of TV unless a match directly led into it. It reminds me too much of bad stuff I saw on Nitro and Raw during the Monday Night Wars.
And while I love MJF and Wardlow, FTR and Shawn Spears just don’t see hot or interesting enough in general to be teaming with them.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this but the two promos about Explosiongate tonight almost made it worth sitting through the original screw-up. Clearly, they couldn’t make everything better but I think the two explanatory segments came as close as anything could. They fixed it enough that we can (and should) move on.
In fact, while I enjoyed the matches we got tonight, I felt like the most memorable elements were the promos and storyline developments. Penta was compelling in two languages, a heel turn helps Scorpio Sky, and the game of one-upmanship between Jericho and MJF leading to the Inner Circle vs parallel universe Inner Circle was well done. I even liked Lance Archer’s brief promo, although it left me confused as to how I’m supposed to be viewing him. I’d just gotten used to him as a babyface and now he seems to be back to his heelish ways.
All in all, though, a very satisfying episode that has me looking forward to next week.
Rafael from North Liberty
69 me Don made the show a 10/10 Christian Cage making his intentions known made this my favorite episode of dynamite ever.
Brody from Vancouver
The very first empty arena show had Tully, Wardlow, MJF & Spears ring side gambling on matches. I have zero expectations but if they explain that was the starting point of the relationship I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Penta looked like a star. Sky/Darby completely exceeded my expectations. Next week looks stacked, AEW is making me love wrestling again. 9.5/10 show
Hi guys! I really enjoyed tonight’s show.
Eddie Kingston is the bravest man in pro wrestling - he threw himself on top of Moxley to protect him from the explosion on Sunday, and then he was tasked with going on the next TV show to explain how to move on from that catastrophe. And he somehow pulled it off! What a guy. And Con Callis’ dive onto Kenny…I can’t believe the fucking Jackyl is a major part of this show and is doing such a great job, on top of it all.
And I loved the Chuck E. Cheese segment. Did you know they call it Charlie Cheese in Australia because down under, to chuck means to throw up? It’s true!
Question for you both - where do you guys think MJF ranks among the top heels in pro wrestling today? I struggle to think of a better one right now, and I’m not sure there’s a better actor in pro wrestling, either.
Louis from Long Beach
I thought this was a really important Dynamite and they did a really great job recovering from what was their worst pay-per-view moment outside of that Matt Hardy/Sammy G match. Having two of your best talkers immediately address the disaster that was the deathmatch finish and pretty much immediately pivot them into a new tag team was great stuff.
The same could be said for Kenny Omega and Don Callis coming out and giving the botch just enough attention that they didn’t ignore it without letting it distract from the storyline. Setting up Christian as the next challenger felt a bit flat to me, but overall the ending of this show made up for any of it’s shortcomings with a fantastic angle that keeps the inner circle together, seemingly turns them babyface and makes the 6 horseman? Not sure what to call MJF’s faction but I was genuinely surprised by the reveal and really enjoyed the show overall.
8/10 show.
I think AEW and NXT should send a strongly worded memo to RAW and SmackDown about giving non-English speaking talent be given on-air time and opportunity. Maki Itoh’s singing and Penta’s promo were just great TV. And then they both end the memo a scorcher of a finisher, like, “Please conduct yourself accordingly.”
OOOOOOOH!
I also really wanted to hear a Christian promo, it would have been nice to hear him with a live Mic and outside of a podcast, contextualizing character tone and motivation in an AEW ring.
I liked Eddie Kingston talking about fainting, Moxley not comparing an explosion to his breakfast sex ejaculations, but instead his grade four volcanic eruptions. He’s a simple guy that Mox.
Do y’all think we’re getting Christian vs. Kenny at Double or Nothing or will AEW do another faux-WCW PPV-themed Dynamite with this match and a tag match of The Good Brothers vs. Mox and the King? Also, someone needs to tell Luke Gallows to slow down on the baby oil, he looks like a lubricated peanut with a bad dye job.
It’s also nice to hear JR not talking about his blue chew dog toy of a penis.
Thanks John and Wai, you’ll always be our baes.
What an incredible show. They rebounded really well, tons of great promos and new directions. Great bounce back show, so much to look forward to
In my opinion, this was a top 3 episode of Dynamite and I think it is very close to being the best episode ever.
It was awesome. Fenix/Matt was fantastic. I’m not a big Scorpio Sky fan, but I fucking loved that TNT title match and I enjoyed his heel turn. Penta finally got some solid spotlight. I loved everything regarding the end of Revolution and I’m ok with a Christian/Omega feud, because I’m certain Christian wont win the title. The Inner Circle stuff was a great twist, that I did not see coming. I thought for sure MJF/Sammy were in on everything together, but they’ve made Sammy look really smart in all of this and I’m glad. It should be a great stable war.
My only issue is the stuff with Archer. He just turned babyface. Is he suddenly a heel again?
Having just watched the last two weeks episodes (mainly to see the car crash that was the Shaq match and Tully in action and to see how they tried to recover from their disastrous pay per view) I can only put the praise being lavished on this shambles of an amateur hour production to either:
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You have never seen a well booked professional pro-wrestling show or
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You have, but it was so long ago that you can’t remember what it looks like and the bar is so low these days that your calibration is off.
Even if we ignore that most of the matches make no sense, are illogical and just gymnastic spotfests to stroke the egos of those involved the following points spring to mind immediately:
- Wtf was the point in Tony going to the ambulance to highlight that Shaq, who had just sold going through the table and was taken to the ambulance due to his inability to walk as a result of his injuries, was not in said ambulance? Where was he? If he can walk out himself (which the amateur execution highlighted by the fan footage showing him leaving as if everything that had lead to him being in the ambulance had never happened), why was he carried to the ambulance in the first place? Why was there no explanation?!
- Why are there so many kidnappings in AEW? Every week there is at least one if not more. This is an extremely unsafe working environment.
- Why do referees and security rush out to break up some fights where it is just a minor scrap yet when someone is getting beaten to death nobody gives a damn?
- Why are there so many heel vs heel matches?
- Why are the sound and lighting engineers in cahoots with all the talent? Why does the music always play/lights constantly go out when someone is making a “surprise” run in?
- Why did MJF go through the charade of trying to talk the inner circle into turning on Jericovid when he already assembled his own stable? What if they had turned on Jericho? Would he have added them to his prearranged stable?
- Why have the rest of his stable aligned with him? What in the preceding weeks set this up?
- Why are people baby faces one week and heels the next (Lance Archer, Pheonix, Pac, etc.)?
- Why did everyone pretend that Jericho getting powerbombed onto an obvious inflatable crash mat was in anyway dangerous? It just made everyone look ridiculous.
- Why was an amateur allowed anywhere near tv never mind allowed to ruin whatever credibility your womens champion had left by forcing her to sell painfully obvious phoney microphone shots to her head?
- Why did Eddie Kingston sell like he had died at the end of the ppv match despite nothing having hurt him yet the guy who was in the supposedly brutal match immediately popped up to cut a promo whilst Eddie was still playing dead?
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the illogical, nonsensical and amateur booking decisions by the “booker of the year” yet somehow people rave about how good a show Dynamite is. Utterly baffling.
I would highly recommend you go back and watch some JCP stuff from the mid to late 80’s and WCW from the late 80’s to early 90’s to recalibrate your sense of what a well booked show is.
So what you’re saying is, you don’t enjoy AEW?
Maybe best to avoid watching and typing up 550+ words on everything you didn’t enjoy… Maybe spend that time (plus the 4 hours give or take you spent watching), and do something productive, fulfilling, and / or meaningful with your life.
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Why are the sound and lighting engineers in cahoots with all the talent? Why does the music always play/lights constantly go out when someone is making a “surprise” run in?
This has actually irked me as well. They’ve completely overdone the “Lights out, surprise!” trope. When it happened this time I wasn’t waiting in shock or anticipation i just thought to myself “This shit again already? Really?”.
It doesn’t even make sense for this type of storytelling with MJF or any of the characters involved. A blackout is for dark or mystic characters or those who are in cahoots with an authority figure (or are one themselves), thus literally being able to control the lights. None of that applies here, it was just used as a lazy, cheap way of surprising the audience. In fact not just lazy and cheap, but bad. Those guys should have arrived in a much more entertaining and fitting way for their characters. They’re forming a new Horsemen-esque stable and this is how they arrive?
This is one of those areas where the criticism AEW gets is fully deserved. This is bad pro wrestling.
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