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AEW Dynamite - 5/5/2021 - Cody vs QT Edition!


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A ton of fun since seeing a true War Games, I mean Blood and Guts match again. Also, I have absolutely zero problem with AEW retconning the history of the match, especially with how WWE has bastardized that (among many other things). In a perfect world, AEW eventually retcons the entire JCP/WCW history and library. The finish made some sense, and I was cool with MJF pushing Jericho off the stage as a major moment to end the show, but that is the one issue of having War Games as the early part of the Inner Circle/Pinnacle feud. I hope for Blood and Guts to return on PPV next year, and as the close of a feud. First instinct is that I'd rate it somewhere in the second-fourth range of War Games matches, a step behind 1992 (which was an absolute perfect version of that match from start to finish), and sitting right with the great but slightly flawed 1989 and 1991 matches ('89 for the lack of blood, '91 for the slightly flawed finish and not having Arn on the Horseman team). In the AEW pantheon of matches, it ranks somewhere in the 8-15 range.

Actually enjoyed the rest of the show as we finally start fully building to Double or Nothing. I like the idea of running Kenny-Orange, but agree that it works better as a semi-man with say War Games as the main. Also, I don't mind Kenny on the mic, but he's better as a goofy bastard and not a Ric Flair tribute act. This may be the time for run a tag title match match as the main with the Bucks and Eddie/Mox (and agree with the idea of Kingston/Mox winning, as that would allow for Kingston to hold AEW gold, and also that they can transition belts to FTR at say all out after that). Also, Miro could be a badass TNT champ, and further build it up for someone like Jungle Boy to win it down the road). Interested to see how Hangman will factor in (re-match with Cage?) on his potential road to the All Out main event.

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Just remembered the best spot of the match: Cash gets Santana in a Gory Special outside the ropes, has to turn around, and Dax comes flying out with a dropkick to blast Santana's face right into the cage, whereupon he drops like a sack of shit to the corner and slips all the way down the cage and under the ring. That was balls-fuckin'-out. Beat that Spanish Fly all to hell. 

Edited by Curt McGirt
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Most of the B&G match was really good and captured the feel of the 87-92 WG matches. I think they tried too hard at the end, though. The rooftop segment wasn't that great, and the rest of the match ceased to exist at that point. There were probably better ways to end the match in the cage that could still write Jericho off, while still featuring the other participants. MJF could've smashed Jericho's leg with the bat, then used that to get him to surrender as they threatened to do something especially heinous to Sammy.

The #1 contender announcement was strange. I know AEW is lacking for main event faces at the moment, but neither Pac or Orange vs. Omega sounds like a ppv main event. Omega decisively won a feud with Pac a year ago, and Orange Cassidy is about as midcard as it gets. Orange/Omega would make a fun Dynamite main, or a good title match if you had say a Blood and Guts match to run at the top of the card. Not sure why they didn't just use Christian here. His long-term role in AEW should be like 2000s HBK, where he's in featured angles, but rarely the main title picture. Now's a perfect time to make sure you get at least one big match out of him in case his body doesn't hold up, and he's got the right balance of being a credible opponent for Kenny to beat, but also wouldn't lose heat for taking a clean fall.

Also, you can take the "immortal promo" title from Jericho and just hand it over to Miro. "I don't care if you're healthy. It doesn't make a difference to me, and it doesn't make a difference to you either" and "You get to see what happens when the man who doesn't mind dying meets the man who doesn't mind killing him" are the most epic promo lines in some time. I hope he gets a long run with the TNT title.

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8 hours ago, nofuture said:

I just can't imagine that's the best finish they could come up with.  Regardless on how the final bump looked, it just makes the IC look like idiots for trusting the guy that they were trying to kill in the ring not 5 minutes beforehand.

I have to respectfully disagree. There is nothing idiotic about Sammy not wishing to see Jericho hurled to his doom.  Sammy is the babyface so he has compassion and honor.  He is a badass with zero concern for his own safety, but he also does not want to see any members of his team be placed in a potentially career ending situation.

Naturally he would surrender the match for his team to save Jericho and the other members of the IC would have done the same.  That's what good guys do.

MJF is the heel so he has no moral compass and is a douchebag and naturally he would not keep a promise and spare Jericho even if the IC complied.  Pinnacle won the match and MJF went and tossed Jericho off of the cage anyway.  That's what bad guys do.

Now, if you want to argue that maybe Sammy should've kept MJF talking until one of the IC could climb up for a rescue you might have something, but that wasn't really the outcome this match was supposed to have this early in their feud.  The Pinnacle really needed this win.

I can accept the nature of the finish because bad things can happen even if you rehearse and prepare and Jericho should not be taking a bump like that in the near twilight of his career.  People using the "Mick Foley would've taken that bump unprotected so ..." argument really should take a good look at the extreme example they are trying to use to set the norm.   There is nothing normal about the beloved Mick Foley.  He is a special kind of crazy.

Edited by J.T.
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Speaking of commercial breaks, I think the barbed wire was *exclusively* used during the break. That’s impressive. 

PPV still has a lot of unknowns. The Kenny and Britt matches, the likely tag title match with Mox and Kingston, and...Cage/Cage? Maybe a hoss daddy Miro/Archer match? 

Thats 5 matches with no obvious, blow away main event. I can’t imagine Cody, Darby, Hangman, Pinnacle, IC, Death Triangle and your other big acts off the card. Are we headed toward some kind of multi man #1 contender type deal?

Edited by For Great Justice
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Really fun show this week.  It hit me that they can have two or three really stacked weeks in a row, and they still aren't burning through matchups too quickly.  I'd say that's the advantage of their deep roster.

Blood and Guts was awesome!  It really came off as violent as they pushed it as being.  No surprise, but FTR and P&P were the MVPs to me (with Sammy right there with them).  Cash's entrance was one of my favorite moments.  He just gets into the cage and goes flying at someone.  No cute spots or anything, just throwing his body at the other team.

Buuuuuut, goddamn was Jericho off in that match.  I feel like he spent 90% of his time in there calling spots blatantly, or just looking outside the ring for some kind of cue.  I mean, when Shawn Spears is in a match and you look worse than he did, that's a problem.  It wasn't just him messing with his blade for forever or obviously cueing MJF for the low blow or the other stuff on top of the cage.  He was also really bad about wandering around and calling stuff on cam while he was inside. 

I liked the idea of the finish on paper, but Jericho blatantly talking to MJF right before he's threatening to throw him off took away from it.  The Inner Circle had talked up how they were family a lot, so it makes sense that they'd quit to save one of their own.  I also don't mind the crash pad.  I'm all for safety for the guys, but at least figure out how to shoot it better.  They made the mistake of having a camera right on the part of the stage that exposed the pad the most.  

I think the lackluster explosion in the death match and the issues with the pad on the fall last night can be blamed on AEW's production people.  I really get the feeling that they're not testing these things out ahead of time.  They really need to see how important it is to do screen tests for these stunts.  It may all look fine in person (although there's no way that explosion did), but sometimes it's going to come off different on tv.  

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- I assume we are getting Bucks vs Mox/King at the PPV, otherwise literally no reason why you run SCU career vs title next week or have that #1 contenders match. I get they are pivoting Mox and King away from Omega, but so far there isn't much reason to want to see that over them in a singles title match

- As much as we all love to rag on Cody, I think the blood was obviously unintentional. I have no problem with him beating QT, he is much higher in the pecking order than him and this is obviously a stepping stone to the real end goal - Cody vs Ogogo.

- Fully expect Miro to beat an injured Darby next week, which is A-OK with me. Darby's run has served it's purpose and it's time for Miro to get elevated. Looking forward to the match. I predict Darby/Sting vs Page/Sky in another cinematic match for the PPV, which I am not overboard about. Darby needs to beat these geeks and move up the rankings.

- PAC vs OC as a #1 contenders match is just mind-boggling and so out of left field. I know the rankings are not meant to be taken as gospel and are a story-telling device, but Page was #1 and has moved out of the Top 3 due to one loss? Come on. When was the last time PAC even had a singles match on Dynamite? 3 months ago against Ryan Nemeth. OC has won a lot but the only guy of any value he's beaten is Penta. This is why when AEW fans talk about how their booking is planned out months in advance I call bullshit. PAC vs Omega has been done 3 times in AEW already, zero interest in it again. Omega's promo on OC did an alright job of getting me into that as a match, but it's definitely not a PPV title match level bout. I get that this is a filler match while they continue Omega's belt collector gimmick, but it's a PPV title match. Real wet fart booking.

- I am going to mull on the main event a bit. I enjoyed it, but didn't love it. In truth I didn't think it was significantly better than the NXT versions, which I am over. I caught a version without ad breaks and I'm not sure it was any better, if anything the ad breaks and TV format really hurt this. They had to deliberately pad out segments during the breaks, repeat a couple moments, and there was a moment where Jericho stopped climbing up the cage halfway so they could get the shot of him getting to the top during TV time. It was exposing. I enjoyed Jacksonville's greatest Arn & Tully tribute band bleeding gushers, Santana & Ortiz using the fork and Sammy's effort, but I don't think the others brought much to the table here. Match went on forever and the finish was a bit of a cop-out. Just have Jericho tap if that's what you're doing. I didn't have a huge issue with the angle at the end, it really made MJF a top level heel again, but the crash pad was way too obvious. Visually, it looked like a giant beanbag covered in cardboard, they needed to do a better job making it less obvious for me.

 

Despite my moaning I did enjoy the show and look forward to next week. 

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13 minutes ago, Log said:

They really need to see how important it is to do screen tests for these stunts.  It may all look fine in person (although there's no way that explosion did), but sometimes it's going to come off different on tv.  

Now we're getting into fair criticism territory.  Pro Wrestling is a lot like a magic show and immersion relies on the misdirection provided by the proper camera angles selling the illusion of violence.  I hold the AEW production team primarily responsible for most of the business exposing spots in the broadcast.   What you don't show on camera is more important than what you show.

Close cameras should've only caught the aftermath of Jericho's bump and left the drama of the actual fall to the far away shot.  Panorama makes long falls look a thousand times worse than they actually are.

Edited by J.T.
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I think the reason for the Omega promo being where it was, was for the fans who were there live. Because they didn't see the actual opening match (it was taped before they let anyone in), but they wanted the fans to see Kenny and all his belts.

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A big part of how stupid it looked is the shit ass "steel" panels. Bush league. I don't get people reducing this to "would you rather see jericho die like Matt Hardy!?" false dilemma. Either set it up and film it so it's not so transparent or better yet keep Wargames in the fucking cage. 

Edited by Jiji
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28 minutes ago, Jiji said:

A big part of how stupid it looked is the shit ass "steel" panels. Bush league. I don't get people reducing this to "would you rather see jericho die like Matt Hardy!?" false dilemma. Either set it up and film it so it's not so transparent or better yet keep Wargames in the fucking cage. 

I meant to say it in my other post, but I didn't like that they left the cage.  The way the match had been going, I think they could've done something violent in there that would've worked.  

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2 minutes ago, Log said:

I meant to say it in my other post, but I didn't like that they left the cage.  The way the match had been going, I think they could've done something violent in there that would've worked.  

Even worse they left the cage during the damn commercial break.  

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I'm wondering where does everyone go from here?  I feel like it was too early for this, as these guys kinda have to feud with each other for a few more months.

 

Hopefully it leads to Sammy being pushed to eventually take the TNT off of Miro in about six months after making MJF pay.

 

MJF kinda needs to go for gold against, but heel vs heel?

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Jesus fucking Christ. All of the bitching over Jericho's bump onto the stage. All of you bitching about this are some old ass and jaded men. To start, the bump itself didn't lead to the finish, it was adding insult to injury. Secondly, look at this from the perspective of an older kid or teenager watching that. Those are fans that didn't grow up seeing Foley get yeeted off the cell or through the cell. You're still up on top of a tall ass cage, which is fucking scary to begin with. Even the thought of getting thrown off feels like death. And then, Jericho got thrown off! No one wants to see Jericho's body bounce off of fucking concrete like he's Foley, but even still, it's not like he took a bump into nothing but an air pillow. There's still a wood frame with wood panels over whatever helped cushion Jericho's fall. It still made a good sound. And if you're a teenager or kid or even a college aged person watching this, then it still looks sick as fuck.

Try looking at this stuff through that lens. 

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1 hour ago, Jiji said:

Either set it up and film it so it's not so transparent or better yet keep Wargames in the fucking cage. 

If the action were kept in the cage, there would've been no build to the desired finish.  The IC was beating the shit out of the Pinnacle on even ground so selling a win for the Pinnacle inside of the cage would've been really hard.. 

The tone of the match didn't really shift until Jericho climbed the cage to pursue MJF and MJF being an opportunist, used it to his advantage.  I'm not thrilled about that angle, but it is what it is.  Someone made the decision to make this equal parts War Games and Hell In A Cell.... which is perfectly fine because we make shit up as we go anyway.

The best thing would've been for them to have set up the proper camera angles to mask the fall and let our imaginations do the rest of the heavy lifting.

11 minutes ago, Infinit said:

They should've done a wide shot of MJF tossing Jericho, then found the best looking angle of impact for the replay. 

That's what I said earlier.  Production plays a big part in these sorts of televised matches.  Location of cameras and timing of cuts is important.  It has to optimized for the audience at home as well as the live audience.

Edited by J.T.
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The spot they did to create the Pinnacle with Jericho taking the powerbomb looked great and it was probably the same foamy crash pad set up.    It isn't really a knock on Jericho but more a knock on the shoddy look of the crash pad and the camera shot

 

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Why are we thinking it's impossible for heels to transition back to power in a match that had some strange layouts of heels fighting back and getting control of the match? They'd get momentum on their side just before the extra man advantage kicked in at least once but I think twice. All it takes would be Wardlow hulking up or a couple low blows or Tully giving one of them a new weapon. Come on, guys. 

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The main person who should be happy with the finish besides MJF is Gabe Sapolsky because nobody is talking about how Ethan Page just ripped the fuck out of EVOLVE saying nobody watched his product.   Which was kind of a self own to be honest

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52 minutes ago, alstein said:

I'm wondering where does everyone go from here?  I feel like it was too early for this, as these guys kinda have to feud with each other for a few more months.

 

Hopefully it leads to Sammy being pushed to eventually take the TNT off of Miro in about six months after making MJF pay.

 

MJF kinda needs to go for gold against, but heel vs heel?

I get the feeling there's going to be another Pinnacle vs IC match at DoN with Jericho-less IC trying to get revenge for him. Not enough time to build towards another major match for MJF and the other big players all seem to have something going on right now. I'd be down for something like FTR/MJF vs Santana/Ortiz/Sammy would be sweet.

 

I didn't have issue with them leaving the cage, but that and the weapons did make this feel more like the TNA Lethal Lockdowns than an NWA-era WarGames (not that I have any beef with that).

 

  

2 minutes ago, hammerva said:

The main person who should be happy with the finish besides MJF is Gabe Sapolsky because nobody is talking about how Ethan Page just ripped the fuck out of EVOLVE saying nobody watched his product.   Which was kind of a self own to be honest

And the guy moans about how he never gets pushed too far in any company he's worked. What a turd. 

Edited by killsteve
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Just now, Jiji said:

Why are we thinking it's impossible for heels to transition back to power in a match that had some strange layouts of heels fighting back and getting control of the match? They'd get momentum on their side just before the extra man advantage kicked in at least once but I think twice. All it takes would be Wardlow hulking up or a couple low blows or Tully giving one of them a new weapon. Come on, guys. 

well both of them did happen last night.   On a damn commercial break.   Well Tully really didn't give a weapon it was helping open the cage.  But Wardlow coming into the match in a 4 inch screen was dumb.   

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17 minutes ago, Jiji said:

Why are we thinking it's impossible for heels to transition back to power in a match that had some strange layouts of heels fighting back and getting control of the match? 

At the point of the match where IC established dominance, they had the numbers game and had even torn one of the rings apart and were using turnbuckle rods as weapons.  Santana was gouging dudes' heads in with a fork.  Pinnacle was bloody and beaten.  I personally would've found it far more business exposing for them to have made a comeback at that stage of the game.

MJF saving his own ass provided the opportunity for victory and he will probably call that leadership and strategy in a future promo.  I can believe in that story.

The only disconnect I had with the IC game plan is the issue of Shawn Spears.   He'd already tapped to Hagar's ankle lock but the submission didn't count because all participants were not in the cage.   Once everyone was in and IC had the advantage, why bother with bloodying MJF?  Go and break Shawn Spear's ankle and win the damn thing.  I guess we will have to chalk that up to Fog of War.

Wardlow's entrance being relegated to picture-in-picture really sucked.  Khan really does need to spend some extra cash for commercial free air time during these sorts of special events.

Edited by J.T.
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