-Warning — the main event segment this week with Samoa Joe and a Tony Schiavone cosplay by Adam Page was not good. Rant incoming a little later.
Fright Night failure
-If you know me, you know I can’t stand holiday themed episodes of pro wrestling shows, so this Fright Night edition of AEW Dynamite had a black mark on it’s record even before the show began.
-As for the opening tag contest between Darby Allin & Orange Cassidy and The Death Riders? Pretty good stuff. It’s great to see Allin and Cassidy get treated like the stars they are. There wasn’t any attempt made to protect Wheeler Yuta or Daniel Garcia in this. The match served Allin and Cassidy and they won definitively. That’s exactly how you book your top babyface stars.
-The little backstage arrival promo that Hook cut was his best promo ever. He had something with the cadence and tone of it. More on him later …
-It seems like Don Callis has been trying to “woo” The Young Bucks for months now. Can’t we get on with this already? Teasing them coming together only to forget about it for a handful of weeks before going back isn’t how you want to introduce fans to this partnership. It’s a good idea, but get there or don’t.
Waning interest
-Tons of action in the Fatal Four-Way tag team match this week. Goodness. That said, it’s still a Young Bucks style tag and that style continues to wane in interest for me. As I always say, if action packed matches are your jam, you will love this one.
-FTR vs. Brodido is a smart title match to put on PPV. They had really good chemistry together in an earlier encounter this year and didn’t have a clean finish either. Hell yeah, Tony Khan.
-Those Don Callis Family paintings looked like AI slop, but they did their job of presenting Don Callis and his group as obnoxious turds. Just tremendous and hilarious.
-Konosuke Takeshita was presented as the clear babyface opposite Kazuchika Okada this week inside of the Don Callis Summit. This is the right move. I love what they’ve done with these two guys. When they clash, it’ll feel epic and it appears that we are going to be getting a multiple match series between the two. Don’t be surprised if Takeshita and Okada are standing on opposite sides of the ring from one another inside the Tokyo Dome on January 4.
Need more Mox
-The story that AEW is looking to tell with Jon Moxley is one that contains a lack of confidence and doubt inside of Jon Moxley. I think. Look, the storyline beats in this have to be clearer. What we’ve seen the last couple weeks is just Jon Moxley going 50/50 with Kyle O’Reilly. This storyline only works if what happening with Moxley is abundantly clear. It isn’t and Moxley just looks less than because he can’t take care of business with someone on the level of O’Reilly.
-As for the Blood and Guts announcement, everyone knew that was coming. Orange Cassidy announcing it like a joke made it feel like one and you don’t want the most dangerous match in your arsenal to generate laughs. A total miss in terms of tone.
-Good to see AEW try and put some heat behind one of the women’s tag title tournament first round matches. There didn’t need to be a lot between Mercedes Mone & Athena and Harley Cameron & Willow Nightingale, but the little they put in along with regular tournament stakes makes it a match with some true and relevant context.
-Speaking of the tag title tournament in the women’s division, Tony Khan made the right call in putting over the Sisters of Sin. Out of all the teams in the tournament, these two women feel most like a tag team rather than two singles stars put together and that should matter.
Addition by subtraction
-You never want to see anyone get hurt and hopefully Penelope Ford gets back soon. That said, Megan Bayne and Marina Shafir in the tournament as partners makes the tournament better.
-Ok, now for the main event insanity. First of all, Samoa Joe is the number one contender to Adam Page and the world championship at Full Gear. No surprise there, which is why doing the fatal four-way match at all was silly. Joe vs. Page was always the match and in this instance, didn’t need Joe having to earn a shot. Especially when his match to do just that was against regular AEW talents like Hook who don’t ever really challenge for the world title.
Nonsensical
-The costume cosplay stuff with Page as Tony Schiavone and Samoa Joe was laughably bad. So many questions. Tony Schiavone was in on this with Page? He must have been, otherwise how did Page know he would be out there and how did he know what he was going to say? Also, when has a contract ever been signed for a title match right after one of the participants are crowned. Also also, didn’t Page have to be out there for the contract signing anyway? Look, on top of it not making any sense, it was poorly executed. The timing seemed off. It felt like nobody was hitting their marks throughout, which made the segment feel awkwardly disjointed. Finally, the better solution here was to just have Page come out and kick Joe’s ass. The crowd popped for the reveal, sure, but they would’ve popped just as much seeing Page destroy Joe. This was too cure even for AEW and in the worst way possible.
What did you think of this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments!
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