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AEW Dynamite - 4/19/2023


The Natural

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3 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

 How about instead of booking the four way, go with two MJF title matches on TV vs Sammy and JB? There are ways to make this soup seem less thin. 

Having MJF be a special attraction who doesn’t wrestle on free TV is holding a lot of this back. They keep having to go back to the gauntlet/tournament well and its drier than West Texas.

like they keep doing this “MJF is contractually obligated to appear” to warn us he’s going to talk for 20 fucking minutes when what they need to do is say “Defend the title within 30 days or forfeit”. It’s a tried and true gimmick.

Edited by JLowe
Expounded on my rant
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2 minutes ago, JLowe said:

Having MJF be a special attraction who doesn’t wrestle on free TV is holding a lot of this back. They keep having to go back to the gauntlet/tournament well and its drier than West Texas.

like they keep doing this “MJF is contractually obligated to appear” to warn us he’s going to talk for 20 fucking minutes when what they need to do is say “Defend the title within 30 days or forfeit”. It’s a tried and true gimmick.

I've beaten this horse before, but the happy middle is the two TV matches he did in the last PPV cycle with Starks and Takeshita. There's no enough juice for what they're trying here. 

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31 minutes ago, just drew said:

No. No they aren’t. Bloodline is dragging ass. Dom Mysterio is great. I can’t think of anything else that’s even decent on wwe tv. The wwe story is only “cohesive” in that every week is Romanwinslol.

Yes, yes they are.  It's a cohesive story that clearly the audience is still into.  Explain what's great about the Pillars story right now?  Sammy and Jungle Boy look like 17-year old high school kids doing a local stage performance out here. No presence on the microphone at all. They shouldn't be put in a position to carry 15 minutes of air time. 

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2 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

I've beaten this horse before, but the happy middle is the two TV matches he did in the last PPV cycle with Starks and Takeshita. There's no enough juice for what they're trying here. 

Maybe they’ll do some tag with him and Sammy vs. Jack and Darby. They still have a month to the PPV.

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@DEANHope you feel better soon! If there is anything at all we can do for you, say the word! I blame myself for the beef toe comment for describing Serena's work as a wellington earlier today - that's on me everybody

With the well wishes out of the way: The fuck was that opening segment????????????????

17 and a half minutes by my count. And since when do we set up matches at the top of the show? This was some Raw shit; no offense to anyone who liked it, but this thing was so long that I kept expecting Paul E or Austin Theory or whoever to walk out. At least that would've shaken me from my coma 

THAT SAID, I really enjoyed the tag match, and what a great reaction for Britt (and let's be perfectly clear, as a Steeler fan you know I was biased hard - I love the Terrible Towel becoming her thing). Wasn't crazy about the finishing stretch, and that weird trip thing Ruby did on the floor (was that supposed to be a Flatliner and she didn't commit?) but everything else was great. For a lot of their pairing, I've assumed that Britt was going to turn on Jamie at some point, but now I say Jamie ought to turn on her in Pittsburgh, they would go unglued.

I go to myself 'Why is Wardlow talking?' and in walks The Enforcer - fantastic pairing. Can't wait to see where this goes.

I really liked the Elite/BCC segment - Kenny was actually really good in his delivery of 'serious' in a way I didn't expect. I sense this may be divisive as most everything the Elite is involved in is, but personally I loved the contrast of like, the Bucks throwing superkicks and doing flips, and BCC just beating the everliving shit out of them and choking them half to death. I loved the tease of Callis turning only to bring out Takeshita - this is what the opening segment should've been more like. I like where we're heading with this - it's a natural evolution of BCC vs JAS, except instead of wrestlers vs sports entertainers, it's wrestlers vs. 'amateurs!!' 

I loved the use of archival footage of both guys during the walkouts for the TNT title, and the setup for the DDT!!! by Arn!!!! At the time, and I even said it here, I hated the idea of QT being the first guy to get to Arn since Undertaker, but I loved that it had a little mini-payoff here. More of this please. Great hoss battle here, and it looks like we've got another one coming with Kaneasaurus. Not sure if those matches will be as good as the Wardlow/Joe/Hobbs combination has been (and like I said earlier, I was hoping Hobbs would beat Joe/Wardlow in a 3 way to unify the TNT and ROH TV) but I'll give them a fair shot. The Arn/Christian promos will be worth the price of admission, anyway. 

Kommander, man. That dude's footwork is on another level. I kept thinking he was about to blow it and then he would pull out some crazy 2nd rope thing. Forget these long ass promos man, Dynamite needs to be opening with him and Pac and Vikingo and OC and the Bucks just going wild every week for the International title like it's a '97 Nitro. Side note: BC's KhanTron video is pretty awesome. I'm mostly anti- new set/ropes/graphics but that one was very aesthetically pleasing. Jay White was great too, of all his AEW outings this has definitely been one of my favorites. By the way how awesome was Starks making the save in sunglasses? Just tremendous. 

Jericho/Cole segment was once again pretty long, but at least like the Elite/BCC segment, this one was centered around an angle and physicality. I wish someone would've had Cole in a hold instead of doing the handcuff thing because this way we wouldn't have had to hear him display his skills from the Shawn Michaels Drama Academy™ but I thought using the Outcasts as mercenaries was a nice touch (and maybe sets up a potential Anna Jay/Tay Melo issue down the line). 

I liked Acclaimed/JAS as a nice change of pace, but how many times are these guys gonna wrestle? I mean, it was a good match and all (though PiP killed a lot of it for me, I know, get a VPN, yada yada)  I guess the twist on this one was that it was a trios which is a nice excuse to keep both The Acclaimed and 2.0 away from the tag titles, but still. Taz with by far the line of the night during this one as Billy Gunn yells 'suck my dick!' and he quietly goes 'Subtle.' I also have a sneaking suspicion 'Big Ass Daddy's behind ya!' was no accident…

👏E👏NOUGH👏WITH👏SUN👏DAY👏PAY👏PER👏 VIEWS👏

There were some bruuuuutal bumps in the main event. I thought Guevara was tore up for real when they went to the outside, that landing did not look fun, and the Jungle Boy table bump was gross as hell. Unless I'm seeing things I think only Hobbs hit the floor harder tonight (wild thud on that btw, I was worried for his shoulder too). Shout out to Jungle Boy for getting the crowd back a little bit when he showed some fire after that big lariat (and kudos to Sammy for an f'n great inside out bump). The whole stretch with the poison ranas where they went down for a 9 count at the end was freaking great. They went to that gear where I figured that was gonna be the finish, and I liked how they sped it up real quick for a second after the count before slowing down again with the snare trap. Don't mind Guevara going over but I fucking hated that finish. They so rarely do count outs id almost have rather them rolled him in for the pin (but I also get the idea of not visually wanting him to eat a pin)

EDIT: Rather than 'waste' the count out here. I think a pin might've put over the MJF screwing more too

Hit or miss show, but more good than bad for sure, and I don't think there was a match that missed - just the stuff around em. 
 

Edited by Zakk_Sabbath
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5 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Were any of the matches aside from Jay/Kommander worth checking out?

Opening tag with Soho-Storm vs Hayter-Britt and the TNT title match. My opinion is you can skip the Jay/Komander match until about halfway through the PiP.

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Unlike recent shows, I thought tonight's show was pretty below average even for AEW.  There were a couple of things I did like. Pairing Wardlow with Arn Anderson was a good idea. This show needs Double A and I popped for Arn hitting that sweet DDT on QT Marshall. The TNT Title needs a long title holder and hopefully Wardlow can at least hold it past Double or Nothing.

The bit with Jericho and Adam Cole was all right. I thought it was stupid to have Britt come out and them have to rely on The Outcasts to do the dirty work. I know Tony won't allow man on women violence, but with Cole handcuffed a Judas Effect on Baker would have gotten the reaction they were looking for. Jericho becomes an even bigger asshole, Cole's out for revenge. It works out for everyone.

The main event was good. Lot's of head dropping on Jungle Boy's part. I thought Sammy would end up losing but I guess it makes more sense to go with Sammy/Darby next week.

Overall I just thought this show was missing something and it just didn't click right.

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24 minutes ago, Phantom Lord said:

know Tony won't allow man on women violence, but with Cole handcuffed a Judas Effect on Baker would have gotten the reaction they were looking for. Jericho becomes an even bigger asshole, Cole's out for revenge. It works out for everyone.

Funny you say that, I figured when she ran out that we were headed for some 'incidental contact' like a redux on when Jericho gave Nitro Girl Whisper a black eye during the 2nd HBK feud.

Ultimately, this was probably the safer bet - least likely to offend WBD/sponsors or re-traumatize anyone watching, and they did a really smart thing in having Saraya and Jericho hug because this way it's not like 100% of the heat was just transferred to her, it furthers both issues

Edited by Zakk_Sabbath
I also agree with everything else you said btw
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Uh, maybe I was imagining things, but this episode was really bad. For me it was really bad. Bad promos, bad angles, bad wrestling. Like, that opening promo was, oof, just everyone except MJF sounded the same. None of the "pillars" were remotely compelling in making me give a shit about whatever the main event of Double or Nothing is going to be. And the whole, we're going to do a tournament, but with 3 dudes, seemed like some bullshit they came up with 2 minutes before they went out there. 

The women's tag match looked rough to me. Everyone except Hayter looked like they were in slow motion and so many shots weren't being layed in at all. That belt shot in particular was one of the softest things I've seen in forever. Britt is either really rusty or her back is way fucked up and she's not ready to come back.

THEN, later on, they basically use Britt as a prop where a handful of kendo stick shots were the worst thing ever. Britt has been in some of the most hardcore women's matches in AEW history. It looked stupid and silly for her to be flopping around like a fish in that segment even if the point was to make Cole feel helpless.

The Elite and BCC segment was really fucking bad. Just the fighting between them was some of the worst "chaotic" brawling I've seen. Again, the striking was just ultra soft. Some of the fighting between Kenny and Mox they weren't even touching each other. And then trotting out Takeshita was lame.

Wardlow is just dead in the water at this point. And the haircut has made his whole presentation worse somehow. 

They ended on a fucking countout.

At this point, Double or Nothing is going to be the first AEW PPV I don't buy.

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@Craig Hwe'll have to agree to disagree on a handful of things, and I did think there was a lot to like bell to bell on this one, but I gotta unfortunately agree with your overall vibe. Something was off this week 

Edited by Zakk_Sabbath
I want to specifically again mention the count out finish - baffling to the point where I'm wondering if Jungle Boy got concussed
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2 hours ago, Greggulator said:

My favorite “this is stupid” moment was Darby being joyous he got a bye because his name was picked out of the hat. Does not feel like the reaction a never say die daredevil face would have.

"yay, I don't gotta work tonight!"

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1 minute ago, Cobra Commander said:

"yay, I don't gotta work tonight!"

There is a touch of SMW influence. I panicked a little cause I thought MJF picked his name out of a hat so he can wrestle Mike Furnas for the Beat the Champ title. Fuck, now that would have sucked.

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Didn't like this show with the exception of Jay White. Feels like the work Darby Allin/Samoa Joe did rebuilding the TNT Championship has come undone with Powerhouse Hobbs/Wardlow. Both deserved better in their previous runs. Doing a tournament when it feels like we'll get the four Pillars four way regardless. Opening segment with said Pillars dragged. Looks like Rampage will be better than Dynamite this week.

Edited by The Natural
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In a show full of dogshit, Jay White was the best fucking thing tonight. That dude looked like such a big star. You have Darby cheering in the dorkiest way that he got a bye in a THREE. MAN. TOURNAMENT. Jack Perry coming off less likeable than Sammy. Sammy sounding like a typical cunt. And all three paled in comparison to King Switch.

It also made me think, man, how the fuck did WWE miss on King Switch and by the end of the night I thought, man, I think Jay White may have made a mistake.

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1 minute ago, Craig H said:

In a show full of dogshit, Jay White was the best fucking thing tonight. That dude looked like such a big star. You have Darby cheering in the dorkiest way that he got a bye in a THREE. MAN. TOURNAMENT. Jack Perry coming off less likeable than Sammy. Sammy sounding like a typical cunt. And all three paled in comparison to King Switch.

It also made me think, man, how the fuck did WWE miss on King Switch and by the end of the night I thought, man, I think Jay White may have made a mistake.

It'll be interesting to see with the passage of time whether Jay White made the right call or not. White was the only thing from the show I liked.

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Yeah...You know what...Bring on the Punk AEW show.

I think Casey hit the nail on the head, but I couldn't give less of a fuck about an even longer continuation of the "who are and aren't friends with the Elite and why" storyline. Beyond Hangman becoming friends with those guys again, I just don't care and I'm about to not give a fuck about that part of it too because it's going to mean more bullshit with Don until he turns and Takeshita turns and then it will be "WHOSE SIDE IS (X) ON?!?"

At one point that was a draw to me and I thought a lot of it was super well done. It gave us one of the best tag matches ever. And the whole thing should have ended with the first Dynamite after Hangman wins the title where on screen they have the Bucks apologize to Hangman and Hangman also apologize to them and they're all cool with each other. And the ultimate end should have been when Kenny returned so he could have done the same with Hangman. And that's it. No more dragging it out.

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3 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

feels like there's some out of context utility out of Cole saying "Stop doing that" on screen during the Britt beat down (possible I forgot the exact wording, but Cole was very "HBK if he never got into bad habits" in that segment)

Even worse was Britt repeatedly screaming for "Austin" while getting caned.

Just got home so going to keep this rather short but had a good time at the show tonight. 

I'm really worried about Hayter though. I don't know how much of this(if any) that TV caught but she took a boot to the arm outside while sitting back against the ring steps and immediately started screaming. "Ow! Ow! Ow! Fuck!" Definitely did NOT appear to be normal selling. Doc came over after about 30 seconds and spent a few minutes with her on the floor while Britt finished the match. Then he took her to the back right away without Jamie celebrating or even acknowledging the win. Hoping it's nothing serious.

Oh, and I'm 6'2", and I stood about 5 feet away from Satnam. And holy shit I felt like I was about 11 years old. TV doesn't do justice to how big that guy is. 

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10 minutes ago, Peck said:

Even worse was Britt repeatedly screaming for "Austin" while getting caned.

Just got home so going to keep this rather short but had a good time at the show tonight. 

I'm really worried about Hayter though. I don't know how much of this(if any) that TV caught but she took a boot to the arm outside while sitting back against the ring steps and immediately started screaming. "Ow! Ow! Ow! Fuck!" Definitely did NOT appear to be normal selling. Doc came over after about 30 seconds and spent a few minutes with her on the floor while Britt finished the match. Then he took her to the back right away without Jamie celebrating or even acknowledging the win. Hoping it's nothing serious.

Oh, and I'm 6'2", and I stood about 5 feet away from Satnam. And holy shit I felt like I was about 11 years old. TV doesn't do justice to how big that guy is. 

So on TV, they sold it as them attacking Hayter's arm to prevent her from being able to use the Hayterade, but then yeah, when the match ended, Doc and Hayter were almost at the end of the ramp off to the side of it and Britt ran over to them pretty quick so I'm hoping it was just really good selling.

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I was hoping the opening was leading to an actual round robin instead of whatever half tournament we got instead. Lots more talking than usual on this episode.

Noticed Britt was out of there quick without much celebration and could see Jamie being helped to the back along the way. 

Dug Takeshita joining the Elite for the big brawl.  Wardlow/Hobbs was fun chaos, loved the Arn DDT. Crazy how the TNT keeps switching back and forth. I hope Arn sticks with Wardlow and it wasn't just a one off.

Komander/Switchblade ruled. Loved how Jay kept avoiding the rope walk dive until Komander finally hit it on the third attempt. Main event was fun with some wild bumps

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I'm living on West Coast time tonight!  We are starting of very RAW-like but I watch RAW and I like RAW.  I usually get to fast forward over this stuff but I'm glad they aren't doing a fucking Four-Way and are using straight wrestling matches to get us to a one on one championship match- which will obviously be Darby Allin.  And that'll be good.  That would be our main difference between Dynamite and RAW.  Okay, the pigtails on the Outcasts symbolize SOMETHING, I just don't recognize it yet.  They do lots of little symbolic things to remind folks of WWE eras I skipped.  Jamie Hayter is wrestling for two.  RUBY SOHO is so AWESOME as a heel.  Her reckless spirit is catching on to Toni Storm who is beginning to embrace her hatefulness.  I love Saraya the HEAT MACHINE a thousand times more that Saraya the pro wrestler.  This match is good.  Baker gets the crowd behind her comeback as she kicks out of Storm's finisher AND THEN Soho kicks out Baker's boyfriend's finisher!  I love that shit. HOUSE STYLE~! I also love that Toni Storm neutralizes Hayter on the floor.  What a deep match.  Ruby Soho is our new SUPERSTAR!  BCC/Elite was fucking awesome!  I love that AmDrag came out after his underlings beat the crap out of the Elite!  KONOSUKE TAKESHITA and KENNY OMEGA TOGETHER AGAIN!  DDT! DDT! DDT!  That was violent and crazy how I like my wrestling.  It's a TNT title HOSS FIGHT!  Now that the International title is your middle weight title, they really need to break away and make the TNT title your super heavyweight title.  Make Lance Archer, Shane Taylor and Brody King contenders.  They take it to the STREETS!  Wardlow will bump big for his opponent.  He's a good sympathetic babyface.  HE also hits a SWEET Swanton!  Good use of total fat boy Lariats!  Fun nearfall on a Hobbs Spinebuster after all the CHEATING!  MAN!  That crowd was hot for Wardlow and the shenanigans of that match.  I see that Jay White signs on and instantly becomes the new Chris Jericho, in that he has matches that get his opponent signed because he shows how you can wrestle him.  Jay White is fucking GREAT.  White saves Komander's bacon on his Elaborate Rana early!  Shawn Spears has a new merciless onslaught of a PUSH!  Man, what a fun Lucha rollup by Komander!  I'm STILL not tired of Komander's signature spot.  Springboard EVERYTHING!  BLADE RUNNER!  That was good!  Shawn Spears, Ricky Starks and Komander are an odd trio.   AEW FUCKING RULES THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD!

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2 hours ago, Eivion said:

Were any of the matches aside from Jay/Kommander worth checking out?

Almost all of them. Women's tag finally hit the intensity to justify this long ass feud, and Jamie's opening run was great. Hobbs/Wardlow was fun modern hoss match. JB/Sammy may not be good at promos, but they are good wrestlers and they did their thing in the main. Acclaimed/JAS was skippable.

Really, it was a pretty fun show with two bad (and long) promo segments dragging it down. The opening promo was just a mess with everyone blurring the face/heel lines and trying to be cutey-shooty. MJF getting a big pop when he came out should be a big tell that something's off here. The Jericho/Cole segment was some goofy overacted shit. The "handcuffed partner forced to watch other partner beat down" is usually a guaranteed heat-builder, but this was totally flat. I get not wanting to go full Sandman/Dreamer, but Saraya's kendo stick shots were severely lacking. If you're gonna run one of these type of segments to up the heat on a feud, you need to make it a little uncomfortable to watch. Also, I'm begging AEW, for segments like this, please include a cut-in that shows an obvious save candidate (like Jamie Hayter) barricaded into their locker room.

That said, the BCC/Elite segment was awesome. Crime boss Danielson is so refreshing after the MJF feud, and I love Takeshita getting the rub here. I do think Takeshita and Callis will turn on Kenny in due time, but I'd like to see them milk the odd yet sensible babyface alliance with the Elite for a while. Still lots of mileage left for Takeshita as face, especially with this as his first real major feud.

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