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


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I watched Blood and Guts this morning while getting ready for work and it... has some problems guys.

The production team fucked the talent over pretty badly by missing things, taking bad angles and focusing on things (like guys getting out blades) that they shouldn't. The timing of the commercial breaks was awful (you cut out Wardlow's shine? MJF escaping the cage?) and they should have jockeyed to cut out things of less significance (like Spears' entrance). Coming back from commercial with no replays was a bad idea.

Hated that Dax went for a cover before anyone else got into the cage. I get you establish that the match can't end that way but you do that later (like when Spears tapped out to the ankle lock) rather than make your people look outright dumb. It's one things if you've been rocked and working on instinct, it's another to do it while it should be freshest in the mind of the workers especially someone who is usually booked to be pretty smart in Harwood.

Honestly, most of the botches didn't take me out of it due to the chaotic nature of the match. No real problems with Sammy falling off a springboard in a rather convoluted spot. The noted exception to this was the Wardlow fumble on Hager. I don't have a problem with the two guys actually in the move, but the people having to stand around while they recovered and watch Wardlow stand up with Hagar? Those people needed to move past the spot and just put something together on the fly because them just standing there is weird.

Match suffered a lot from a lack of closeups. If your guys are going to bleed and suffer, let me see the suffering. Let them draw me in. As it was we didn't do a lot of that until the finish with MJF and Jericho. 

Weapons in a cage match are dumb. You have and two rings and a giant cage to work with and you still needed a hardware store to have this match? The most effective things were not the chair and baseball bat. There evidentially was barbed wire but only in a commercial break which makes you wonder why they bothered. The fork was more effective but you probably could have done the same thing with punches and gotten to the same place.

Can I just tell you how livid I was that they blew the penultimate run in at the end when Jericho came in so they could take a fucking picture? And don't mistake that for anything else, that was absolutely why the match stopped and the poor Inner Circle guy had to be tossed into their ring. Could you stop being so pretentious and just fight? Your people have been dying for 15 minutes and you wander into the ring? Please lord help me.

Can Tony please dial back the righteous indignation and hatred of MJF? He's biting Jericho and Tony is just losing it. Tony, he just got stabbed with a fork a dozen times. Shut up.

Finish was fine in theory and terrible in practice. AEW needs to stop trying to be fancy and overreaching with their finishes instead of just going home with something that they know will look good. They are terrible at stunt show/pyro stuff. Stop doing stuff you're bad at!

This saddens me for a couple of reasons. Lots of guys worked hard in this thing only to get their heads chopped off by the production choices. The lay out was good!  The closing idea of someone quitting to save someone else in the Inner Circle was good! They just overreached and could not stop pouring dressing on the salad. The most effective stuff they did involved the two rings and the cage and they just had to keep adding elements they didn't need.

 

 

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First half of War Games was incredible; second half fell into tropey modern wrestling weapons and stunt bumps of the NXT War Games stuff. Still an incredible match overall and for free TV obviously one of the more incredible matches you'll ever see. 

Here's my thinking. The WWE has done those stunt bumps for 20 years so anytime you do stuff like that it feels derivative and WWE is able to shoot those a lot better and they also don't care if they kill their performers. If I was AEW, just stay away from the tropey shit where the heel escapes the cage or there's some stunt bump onto a crash pad. This is the second big time match where the ending leaves you feeling slightly deflated after what was otherwise just an incredible showcase.  

You could have done the exact same story with like MJF just sticking a spike into Jericho's eye or like the Sting/Flair Thundercage finish of Jericho in a submission hold and being tortured and the IC handcuffed or something and finally quitting on his behalf. Like, there are ways to tell that exact same story without Jericho falling into a pile of feathers. 

Match was also too long but that's just the world we live in now. 40 minutes becoming standard main event times is a world I will fight against. 

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I think they booked themselves into a corner by making it a one match show for the live crowd. It had to run long or else they would've burned the crowd, their loyal fan base. In a perfect world, the "match beyond" would've been 10 ultra violent minutes leading to the finish.

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18 minutes ago, Hagan said:

You could have done the exact same story with like MJF just sticking a spike into Jericho's eye or like the Sting/Flair Thundercage finish of Jericho in a submission hold and being tortured and the IC handcuffed or something and finally quitting on his behalf. Like, there are ways to tell that exact same story without Jericho falling into a pile of feathers. 

Well, the whole point of that particular finish was to have MJF get the win in such a way that the IC would not have the opportunity to counter by using a Pinnacle member or even Tully himself as a retaliatory hostage.  They booked themselves into a corner because Pinnacle needed a huge win at this stage of the feud.

The match was laid out perfectly fine.  They just should've put more effort in the production value of the final bump.   Not having cameras directly on Jericho as he fell would've been the right thing to do.

Edited by J.T.
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11 minutes ago, Hagan said:

You could have done the exact same story with like MJF just sticking a spike into Jericho's eye or like the Sting/Flair Thundercage finish of Jericho in a submission hold and being tortured and the IC handcuffed or something and finally quitting on his behalf. Like, there are ways to tell that exact same story without Jericho falling into a pile of feathers. 

Like you could do the same exact elements of MJF bailing out of the ring, fighting Jericho on the top and threatening him with something while holding The Inner Circle at bay with threats. Then once Sammy surrenders, do the thing he threatened and run away while the Circle was on their way up to check on Chris. You didn't need the giant bump that ended up looking bad. 

EDIT: The holding a member of the Pinnacle as a retaliatory hostage doesn't work because no one would believe that MJF would care more about them then he would about himself. Honestly, mirroring this in the future would be a good way to get Wardlow turned face because MJF would absolutely sacrifice Wardlow for his own gain, without question.

Edited by Goodear
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1 hour ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

Can we talk about that stupid Arn Anderson getting ejected spot? Was it deliberate to troll the online commentary around their refusal to ever DQ anyone or make the rules seem relevant?

Anyone who isn't trying to use a chair or a knife in every match in this promotion is a moron. 

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25 minutes ago, Goodear said:

EDIT: The holding a member of the Pinnacle as a retaliatory hostage doesn't work because no one would believe that MJF would care more about them then he would about himself.

You make it sound like Dax would not have surrendered if Cash's health were on the table and visa versa.   They were homies long before Pinnacle formed, right?  And what about Tully?  Certainly Shawn Spears or one of the members of FTR might've had the good taste to call it in if their mentor was threatened.

MJF did not have the sole authority to surrender the match for his team and with this sort of analysis, we're all drilling down and seeing why things happened the way they did.  Pinnacle needed to win this match so here we are.

And yes, Wardlow figuring out that MJF only sees him as a chess piece is a really good springboard for a run as a babyface.

Edited by J.T.
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1 hour ago, Craig H said:

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. 

The hypothetical young people whose perspective I imagined thought it was lame. Don't know what to tell you. I tried.

Edited by John from Cincinnati
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23 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

Anyone who isn't trying to use a chair or a knife in every match in this promotion is a moron. 

Puppet the Psycho Dwarf had it right all along.

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11 minutes ago, J.T. said:

You make it sound like Dax would not have surrendered if Cash's health were on the table and visa versa.   They were homies long before Pinnacle formed, right?  And what about Tully?  Certainly Shawn Spears or one of the members of FTR might've had the good taste to call it in if their mentor was threatened.

MJF did not have the sole authority to surrender the match for his team and with this sort of analysis, we're all drilling down and seeing why things happened the way they did.  Pinnacle needed to win this match so here we are.

And yes, Wardlow figuring out that MJF only sees him as a chess piece is a really good springboard for a run as a babyface.

But at that point, you aren't negotiating with Dax or the others because MJF is the one holding the hostage. Let's say they grab Dax and make him quit, how does that stop MJF from "killing" Jericho which is what The Inner Circle is trying to avoid?  At that particular moment, their goal is no longer to win the match (obviously since they gave that up) but to save Chris.

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  • Chris Jericho told Sports Illustrated about why he thinks now was the right time to do the Blood & Guts match: “It made me think of what Hell in a Cell or Elimination Chamber or Money in the Bank used to be. Now you see matches just get thrown in there. It’s like, F---, there’s no reason for it other than the name of the pay-per-view. This only works when the story demands it, and with what we have done here, the story here demands it. It wasn’t right for us to wait until Dynamite was touring again to have this match. You don’t book this match and have an angle follow it—you have the angle that leads to this match. That’s the only way to do it, and that’s why the time to do this is right now.”

Chris Jericho's right on Hell in a Cell. I remember when it was reserved for the hottest match as a feud ender. There's only been a few memorable ones since WWE went PG in 2008 with a yearly PPV since 2009.

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They should have just done the Sid/Pillman War Games finish. Have Wardlow knock out Jericho and the IC surrenders.  

Anyway, all this fantasy booking just shows that they overthought the finish. On a night where El Jefe returned as the rightful purveyor of violence, we saw Jericho take a trust fall on his My Pillow to end what was otherwise an awesome match. 

 

Edited by Hagan
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31 minutes ago, Goodear said:

But at that point, you aren't negotiating with Dax or the others because MJF is the one holding the hostage. Let's say they grab Dax and make him quit, how does that stop MJF from "killing" Jericho which is what The Inner Circle is trying to avoid?  

It doesn't keep MJF from killing Jericho at all.  MJF won't cave in if Dax is a hostage because he doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself and all competitors in this match have been booked to be far too competitive to submit on their own.  Dax would never cost the match for his team by himself, but his partner and road brother Cash more than likely would cry uncle to save Dax and visa versa.

And what if MJF were the hostage?  Certainly MJF would want Wardlow to throw in the towel so that his measly entitled ass could live to fight another day, knowing he would not do the same if it were Wardlow.

So now it's a race to see who can grab the most valuable hostage to see who can get the other team to surrender first.  The IC made a babyface decision because they are babyfaces.  They took MJF at his word because they thought it might save their friend and leader and it did not, but what alternative did they have?   Stand by and do nothing because winning is more important than Jericho's well being? 

Are they still babyfaces if they refuse to comply and allow MJF to carry out his threat?  

Once you start going down this rabbit hole, you start to see just how this match is laid out to certain designs tailored to reach a specific outcome.   They have to end in a certain way.  This is why there haven't been too many decent WG matches since 1992.  WG matches are black holes.   As much as I love the violence, I hate the way this type of match has to be so rigidly booked. 

Edited by J.T.
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12 hours ago, sydneybrown said:

Maybe if that's your proposed finish, come up with something better?  If Jericho isn't going full Foley, maybe not book a  Foley finish?  It was a deflater of a finish, and it made the Inner Circle look like idiots.  "NO!  Don't throw Chris onto a mattress!!"  AEW books better and feels more legit than WWE.  They don't get passes when they are worse.  Chris himself should have known how bad that was going to look.

 

11 hours ago, Jiji said:

For real. No more lame finishes to otherwise dope matches. More specifically: no more crash pads. Ever. Stop it. That was fantastic right up to the finish. Hats off to all of 'em but AEW really needs to hit the landing on these big gimmick matches. Terrible trend. Some of the visuals with MJF post-match were fantastic though. Particularly the wide shot of him with Blood &

No more crash pads? If Jericho isn't going full Foley (aka his body was destroyed he had to retire at 34 years old) maybe not book a Foley finish? The fuck is wrong with you guys? You know a wrestling ring is softer than the crash pad setup he landed on right? So maybe we should take the ring away and only bump on concrete floors now? People got pissed when Matt Hardy got hurt on his big bump because it was too reckless. Now the same people are mad because Jericho didn't get hurt and they wanted it to be more reckless? The stunt could have been made a little more visually appealing but you guys are out of your minds if you're thinking a man that's 50 years old should be bumping on anything but the safest of crash pads.

There's a fair middle ground for people who didn't like that finish. But complaining that the stunt man bump looked too safe is a bridge too far for me.

 

 

 

 

 

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EDIT: Aimed at J.T.

Wait, wait, wait.  My impression of your argument was that they had to threaten to throw Jericho off the top because if MJF did something like threaten to stab him in the eye, that would take too long and The Inner Circle could just grab a different hostage. My only derivation from the situation we got is what MJF is threatening Jericho with so we don't have to throw Jericho off a cage. This could all happen exactly the same otherwise including being on top of the cage so The Inner Circle can't just run over and stop MJF. Am I misunderstanding your position?

Edited by Goodear
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Guest Jimbo_Tsuruta

First show I've checked in a bit. Enjoyable stuff, warts n all, and nice to see crowds back. Looking forward to Darby getting chucked around by Miro next week.

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5 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

No more crash pads? If Jericho isn't going full Foley (aka his body was destroyed he had to retire at 34 years old) maybe not book a Foley finish? The fuck is wrong with you guys? You know a wrestling ring is softer than the crash pad setup he landed on right? So maybe we should take the ring away and only bump on concrete floors now? People got pissed when Matt Hardy got hurt on his big bump because it was too reckless. Now the same people are mad because Jericho didn't get hurt and they wanted it to be more reckless? The stunt could have been made a little more visually appealing but you guys are out of your minds if you're thinking a man that's 50 years old should be bumping on anything but the safest of crash pads.

There's a fair middle ground for people who didn't like that finish. But complaining that the stunt man bump looked too safe is a bridge too far for me.

You're engaging in a false dichotomy. You seem to be saying the choice is between either a) falling off a high thing onto crash pads or b) falling through a high thing onto concrete. You could just not fall off the high thing at all. That way you don't have to do something that either looks bad or scrambles Matt Hardy's brains across the pavement. Or you could learn to shoot things effectively but AEW production seems really bad at that.

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Man, I don’t generally like crash pad bumps, but I feel like the furor over this one has gotten out of control.  Especially because, however they gimmicked the stage, it looked notably shallower and less pillow-y than the vast majority of crash pad gimmicks.  Like, yeah, it broke his fall substantially, but there’s no way that didn’t jar his ancestors.  It looked way hurtier than similar gimmicks AEW and WWE have used before.

And it must be said again:  Ol’ boy took a no-look flatback bump off AEW’s giant ass cage.  That shit was ballsy, no matter what he had waiting for him down there.

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