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Dynamite - 5/18/2022


The Natural

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Thank God that Tony signed the right Johnny! Was definitely worried at first but this was much better and unexpected. Hangman/Takeshita was awesome as expected, great match.  Fun squash from Keith & Swerve and post-match with Christian making matches. Thought Wardlow came off great no selling the lashes. Kyle/Fenix was great stuff, excellent finish. 

Enjoyed the set up for Gang Warfare at Double or Nothing. Moxley shutting down the Stadium Stampede was hilarious. Marked out for the epic return of Maki Itoh! Hadn't been thinking of her as a possibility so this was a cool surprise. Her entrance will always be the best. Fun short match w/ Britt. I hope we get as much Maki as possible while she's here 

Cole/Hardy was short and predictable but not bad. Felt like they were so short on time that Cole even had to give up his entrance! Loved the post-match brawl with the classic Nitro "we're outta time! we gotta go!" Next week doesn't feel like it's already the go home show for Double or Nothing, it's been coming up quick.

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I was amused seeing so much speculation on who the respective Jokers would be.  No way they'd bring somebody like Claudio, Miro or Athena just to lose their first match in.  So I'm quite happy seeing Johnny and Maki be the Jokers as it was unexpected and led to some fun matches.  The three rumored folks will have a chance to make their mark but not for this tournament.  I'm expecting somebody new to show up at DoN but unsure if it'll be just one person or a couple.

As for the rest the first hour was stronger but from what I saw of the second while playing Hades (for the 104th time.  Yeah, they count it) was good.  I'll have to rewatch that but no way could anything in the second hour touch Hangman/Takeshita or the smart layout of the lashing segment for Wardlow.  I think it's safe to add the Takeshita match to Natural's lists and I'm hoping people still think back to this come the end of the year.

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Hanger/Soup was fantastic but a pretty wild call to send out you world champ to take a lot of risks in a random match two weeks before the PPV. Glad it seems to have worked out.

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I learned from this thread that there are more people that strongly dislike Gargano than I knew about. I remember he annoyed some with the Ciampa matches (that he didn't book himself) but I always enjoyed him as a wrestler, I wouldn't mind him popping in as a regular but the roster is just so full right now I don't know where he'd slot in.

Aside from Jericho/Mox/Kingston, the promos tonight were all rough (I'm including Regal, not because he is a bad promo but his story didn't really fit in with the quick zingers everyone else was doing and the crowd buzz decreased). I'm not sure if they were rushed, didn't have time to practice, or what but the talking parts didn't click for me for the most part. The matches being good made up for it though.

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1 minute ago, DEAN said:

JESUS CHRIST! WHAT A FUCKING MATCH!

 

The late, great Mitsuharu Misawa-San would appreciate that elbow smash. Nobody through elbows/rolling elbows like he did to this day.

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Overall a good show. Pacing was off and a little weird at times.

Like why would you save your last PIP for Itoh vs. Baker and not Cole vs. Hardy with less than 10 minutes to go? They need to structure these shows a little bit better.

I think Johnny Elite would've been fine for a one-off or a few shows, but I don't get signing him long-term right now. They have too many guys, not enough TV time, and not enough people getting booked on TV who should. 

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These can be added to Double or Nothing:

AEW World Tag Team Championship: Jurassic Express vs. Keith Lee/Swerve Strickland vs. Ricky Starks/Powerhouse Hobbs. #FTR get added next week?

Sting/Darby Allin/Hardy Boys vs. Undisputed Elite or Young Bucks vs. Hardy Boys. By doing the former, you save the latter for another show. Thinking it'll be the eight man tag.

Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz vs. Jericho Appreciation Society.

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Not reading the next two pages so I'm just gonna give my late-term (heh... fuck yes, Punk, rep it for the world) opinions without any read-through. 

- Takeshita vs. Hungmin was great until the no-selling and strike exchanges started. You got a better match in you, boys. Still, real fun. 

- Smo Joe is crazy over. Rey Fenix is crazy over. Wardlow is crazy over. EDDIE FUCKING KINGSTON is probably the most over person in Houston not named CM Punk... and yet the most heat was garnered by MJF, who is a lightning rod at this point. L'chaim! 

- The Jokers were both softballs but that's okay. Johnny Whatshisface didn't match up with Joe at all stylistically, but he tried. Maki Itoh did her thing. I shrug. 

- Lest said about the Serena promo the better, but she really really tried, and even brought up some shit that was probably really uncomfortable to her. She has my admiration for that. 

Good show!

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Since I can be a grump sometimes, I''ll list what I liked first. 

Johnny All was a great pick to be the men's Joker. He's credible enough and over enough to pop a crowd and deliver an intriguing matchup without losing anything if he jobs to Samoa Joe. Made total sense to me.

I called the Wardlow thing last week. Him not selling the lashes made him look awesome (and Cody kind of look like a biiiiiiiiiitch). Wardlow is going to dismember MJF at the ppv. I can't wait.

Maki Itoh is fun. Really fun.

Keith Lee & Swerve have great chemistry. Props to the WHMen for going out of their way to make their opponents look like absolute stars. Ricky Starks is so, so cool. He and Hobbs look fantastic together. That 3 way tag title match is gonna rule, and Christian finally turning on Jungle Boy is gonna be great, too. I'm All In on Jungle Jack being top guy in a year or so. Swerve telling Starks he was dressed like a bar of soap was phenomenal. 

Serena Deeb tried really, really hard. I appreciate the effort. It was putrid, but that's not on her. She doesn't need to be cutting promos on live tv. That could've been a really good JR interview segment.

The BCC/JAS segment kicked all kinds of ass, and that match, whatever it's gonna be, is going to fuck. Glorious wrestling violence, as Mox would say. Him saying he's not doing that shit popped me. Jericho bringing up pissing in Regal's Earl Grey popped me, too. Matt Menaud has the most punchable face in wrestling.

The fuck was that Matt Sydal/Dante Martin promo? Sydal's voice sounds like if you listened to Dolph Ziggler on 1.75 speed.

What I didn't like:

Again, the decision to push nxt refugees over your own homegrown talent is baffling to me. Kyle O'Reilly couldn't draw a dollar with a green crayon, and he's going over Rey Fenix? Maddening. 5'9, charisma free workers grow on trees in the current wrestling scene. There is zero special about that dude, and he and his sawed-off buddies get more TV time than they did at their old jobs. No wonder AEW's audience has stagnated. Adam Cole is truly achieving something special; the chance to kill the audiences of two Wednesday night wrestling shows. Imagine seeing Ricky Starks, Will Hobbs, Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee walk into your building and thinking "we gotta make sure Adam Cole has a match and an interview this week." It's horseshit, and it does nothing for your tv audience, as reflected by the quarter hr numbers.

That Serena Deeb promo was fucking awful. She desperately needs a manager. 

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I was trying to explain to my wife who John Morrison was and the best I could come up with was "He's just, I don't know, some fuckin' guy who's been around forever and changes his name a lot."  And he proved me right by just being some fuckin' guy in the ring.

I'll add to the Takeshita Kicks Ass chorus.  He reminds me of a Japanese Barry Windham: just a big, rangy athletic guy with great presence.  Loved his sell of the GTS, too.  Just crumpling like that looks way better than taking a big bump off of it.

Fenix/KOR was way better than I thought it would be.  Fenix was really laying his spinny kicks and shit which ruled.  KOR continues to grow on me week after week.

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Is there merit in Wheeler Yuta turning on the BCC already at the PPV?

He was away from the tapings tonight yeah? I was kinda half expecting him to be dragged out or beaten backstage as a way of justifying how they ended up with the 5 they did.

On one hand, Yuta gains a hell of a lot more from being associated with those guys and makes him into a big deal. Also arguably too soon to be considering it.

On the other, you give them a reason to continue the feud and proceed to Blood & Guts at a later date, Garcia/Yuta vs Ambrose/Danielson allows for Kingston/Jericho to still be the focus of the feud as it should be, and we hopefully get a follow up to the awesome Moxley/Yuta matches in the process. Given the story told so far has been Yuta progressively getting better each time from getting embarrassed to being competitive to Moxley needing everything in his arsenal to keep him down, I feel like that story logically has to conclude with Yuta beating him too.

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