DYNAMITE- 7/20/2022!

[BrianS81177]

It didn't record this week! I'm so pissed. 

[SirFozzie]

Ok. I've gotten several hours of COVID-infused "sleep" to try to dampen my disappointment at that result, but I'm still not pleased with it.

So you get angry,snarky, defensive Foz instead of clear-thinking Foz.

The only vehicle to have more people step off, confused and crying than the Eddie Kingston bandwagon is the infamous porn BangBus.

Jericho and Kingston was a battle of pro wrestling and sports entertainment. And folks, nothing says sports entertainment like a hastily rushed main event that has the wrong guy win and everyone wondering "What was the purpose of that?". All it needed was Tony S. yelling "Folks, we're out of time, we'll see you on Thun...er.. Rampage!"

Maybe from now on, we should let super important matches lead off the show instead of at the end, because well, one of the problems with a show that offers its performers such freedom is that timing and time management can rear its head...

Honestly, I know, "In Coach Tony we trust", but I just don't get it.

Edited July 21, 2022 by SirFozzie

[The Man Known as Dan]

2 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

Who in the hell though Kingston had a chance in the main? I enjoyed a great deal of it, the only issue for me was how transparent the booking was. Compare that to Brody King vs. Darby Allin which is gonna place on my TV MotY list. Really natural stuff, great dynamic, great chemistry, felt equal parts thriller movie/real sport/bondage dungeon. And Brody over clean caught me off-guard.

 

I don't know, I've thought we are past the point of this feuds expiration date. I assumed they ended it today because nobody is going to care about the match if they hold on for another PPV. Kingston has literally tons of other program options open to him, and this just seems to have stalled his development into a top act instead of solidifying it. This feud has been going on for half a year, and the best moments of it were in March and May. We are about to enter August. This feud has had Anarchy in the Arena, Blood and Guts, and a fucking Barbed Wire match. Where can you go from here that feels like escalation and not just "Okay, let's just end this."

[AaronMLuke]

2 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

excuse me... he's the Painmaker, which totally isn't someone trying to rip off an 80s horror movie villain.

Piss poor Alice Cooper wannabe. Main event was great, until the finish. Fuck that noise.

[John from Cincinnati]

Gotta say, rewatching tonight's show I'm surprised at the concern for Eddie Kingston's booking and the lack of concern for Darby Allin's. 

I understand that Eddie Kingston is a sympathetic figure with a compelling story and arc to his career that people are invested in. I understand many of us find Jericho to be a little long in the tooth. I understand that many people didn't love the execution of tonight's main event. But Eddie Kingston is a survivor in ascendancy who is in his ultimate moment. He's achieving what he was always destined for right now. He's already beaten Jericho clean in what may be some people's MOTY (to my surprise, it may be mine). He's got a couple other of what appear to be probable submissions on the former Y2J. He's flying high with plenty of TV time in maybe the most important TV feud in AEW right now. There's no reason to be concerned for Eddie Kingston, especially with cries of "he has to win the world title" coming loud from most people. 

Darby on the other hand is someone who is headed... I don't know where. His ascendancy was crafted so well over the course of his issues with Cody, his flirting with the main event (vs Mox and Jericho), and his TNT title run. He's distinguished himself as someone who's marketable and appealing while also being thoughtful and captivating in his ringwork while perennial underdog from a physical standpoint. He's seemingly been one of the upper-tier producers of compelling in-ring psychological drama over the course of AEW's short history. He was one of the first alleged homegrown standouts in the company. And yet... he's seemingly stalled out momentum-wise. I have many kind things to say about KOR and Brody King (who I didn't think much of when I saw him in ROH or MLW but has had poise and presence to spare in the small sample of AEW singles outings he's had thus far), but they're well below Darby on the established pecking order in what is a very hierarchical company with no immediately clear ascendant singles path for either. And yet Darby's been a stepping stone for both. Good for them, but where has Darby's status dropped? It's not as though there's a clear underdog losing story arc he's on right now. It just seems he's fallen from being AEW's heart, CM Punk's first match back, and a presumptive future top guy to... just another face in the middle of the pack trading wins with the House of Black. I have a lot of questions about how we got here, and no good answers. 

I guess I'd just ask anyone worried about Eddie Kingston to stop for a second and spare a thought for another promising talent who figures to be part of this company for much, much longer. Eddie Kingston isn't in trouble. I wonder more and more frequently about Darby Allin, and I didn't expect that a few months ago. 

[eikerir]

Main event was OK-ish until the whole finishing sequence and post match stuff. Jericho, Eddie and Sammy looked like lost 6 year olds talking to each other in the middle of a school play trying to get in position and stumbling around, those last 5min of the show looked terrible.

Their singles feud peaked with the initial PPV match which is a proper classic, they've tried to do way too much stuff afterwards and seems like we're not done

Wrestling should really stop using padlocks with keys and go with combination ones, there's always an extremely long awkward wait for whoever needs to open it because everyone seems to forget how keys work in the heat of the moment.

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by eikerir

[J.T.]

Darby makes Brody King a star by taking an assbeating while Moxley made Yuta a star by handing him one.  Holy fuck.  Why do you do this do yourself, Darby, and can you do it more often?  MIRO IS A DUDE~!  WITH AN ATTITUDE~!

The Athena vs. Jade singles match should be really good.  I await Jade's face turn when the Baddies betray her during the title defense.  Willow Nightingale also had a star making performance last night and Kiera Hogan showed some signs of brilliance.  It was a match filled with awesome black women whose respective hair colors are not found in nature beating the living shit out of each other.

Kingston vs. Jericho had just the right amount of blood and crazy for me to go to sleep happy and the right guy went over.  Kinsgston has been on a roll for a while and could stand to drop a fall.

Christian Cage is a dick.  He is great.  He stayed true to the gimmick by letting Vibora the Terrible do the majority of the damage and then tagged in just in time to score the pinfall.  OUTWORK EVERYONE~!  

Ricky Starks showed Danhausen more respect than I thought he would.  Begging off a week and putting off the FTW title defense until later.  Heelish.  Totally heelish.  Under no circumstances should a heel ever give the fans what they want.

Edited July 21, 2022 by J.T.

[eikerir]

Starks was great in that post match promo specially when he did Danhausen's voice, the crowd loved that bit.

 

[Coletti]

They missed a good joke with Daniel Garcia watching the tag match. Dude should have been watching at the typical WWE angle, facing forward and off to the side. 

All around good show even if the main event was a bit of a flop, but you can't deny that Eddie and Jericho were putting in the work with some pretty nasty spots. The ending was baffling, and I was actually expecting a Danielson return to negate Sammy but

Was also hoping for a Briscoes run in during the tag promo. I love FTR but I greatly prefer stuff like the face-to-face sit down vs mega babyface one-sided promos. Fuck that one Warner exec or whatever. 

[Casey]

Unless I'm overlooking some matches, the Kingston/Jericho feud has actually been evenly split where wins and losses are concerned. In their two singles match, both have wins, and the two team gimmick matches are the same way. Even if you extend it out further to include matches against people in Jericho and Kingston's orbit, I'm pretty sure they're both even-keeled (or very close to it). I wouldn't hate (or be surprised) if there is a third and final match with Jericho & Eddie. I do wonder where else you can go after you've done a big ol' arena brawl, double cages, and barbwire everywhere matches. Maybe end it like it started, with just a wrestling match?

I'm curious if Ruby gets some back up for going up against TayJay. That's probably my favorite thing about AEW feuds, are the threads that get spun out of one feud - pretty consistently, too.

Danhausen is totally going to win the FTW title only to have Hook either betray him, or challenge him to a match for the title. I don't think they do that segment last week where Lexi Nair asks Hook about titles, and then have Danhausen challenge for one the next week, if that isn't the plan. Maybe I'm wrong.

Tony Nese & Mark Sterling seem to be the go-to mini feuds for people who are coming off hot streaks. Which I'm not mad about, and didn't even hate it when Wardlow did a one or two week little thing with them. I know Keith Lee gets all the hype and praise, but, man - Swerve Strickland is such a cool motherfucker.

Lastly: Athena & Willow versus Jade & Kiera was awesome, I loved it. Jade is going to be a mega babyface one day. Immediately throwing to the back after the match ends, gottagetourshitinthemaineventstartssoon. Ugh. But Miyu Yamashita will be on Dynamite next week and that's going to rule, even if everyone knows she isn't going to win. You know what doesn't rule? Putting Britt Baker back into the fold. I also do not like Rosa & Toni still being a "tag team". Can we fast forward to where we get Jamie Hayter turns on Britt (even if the most likely outcome is making Britt a face), and to where Toni Storm wins the title? Pretty please?

[eikerir]

56 minutes ago, christopher.annino said:

They missed a good joke with Daniel Garcia watching the tag match. Dude should have been watching at the typical WWE angle, facing forward and off to the side. 

 

You can’t really top the time the Bucks did it though 

 

I actually liked that he was watching the TV like a normal person and acknowledged and mugged to the camera instead of acting like it wasn’t there.

Edited July 21, 2022 by eikerir

[YouHaveUntil5]

1 hour ago, Casey said:

Danhausen is totally going to win the FTW title only to have Hook either betray him, or challenge him to a match for the title. I don't think they do that segment last week where Lexi Nair asks Hook about titles, and then have Danhausen challenge for one the next week, if that isn't the plan. Maybe I'm wrong.

I think Starks wins and beats on Danhausen after the match, and then Hook is the next challenger after making the save and we get Taz all conflicted because he doesn’t know who to side with. Hook then wins his dad’s belt, Taz sides with his son and Team Taz ends. Starks and Hobbs should stay together of course, but calling them Team Taz seems kinda silly at this point because Taz is never actually seen with them - he’s just their cheerleader on commentary. 

[Pete]

Taz has gotten so damn good on color. Even during Starks' match - a guy he manages - he doesn't do the blatant evil bad guy announcing but explains strategy, verbally coaches him in a "thinking out loud" way, calls him out for showboating/mistakes, etc. So incredibly refreshing. I lost my shit for Starks' Danhausen impression as well - he has personality to burn and I wouldn't be surprised if they flip him face within the next year.

I wanted to love the main event but you had too many plot holes. Guevara not in the cage with JAS gave away the finish to me, even with the great swerve of BCC/Ortiz clearing out JAS after they invaded the ring. Anna Jay turning heel to be with her BFF at least made sense after they teased it, although I would've liked to see it drawn out a bit longer than the one week we got. I'm also cracking up at those bars being wide enough for half the faction to slip through... makes me wish they had everyone in the cage strip down and tie their clothes into a rope for someone to climb down and procure the controls from Ruby.

Eddie dropping the fall was problematic, but the post-match played out beautifully. Too many times a babyface gets pinned and sits there making  faces while his dastardly heel opponent runs away smirking... Eddie said "fuck your tropes" and got his heat back in spades by laying out. I'm guessing they bring this back one more time at Grand Slam... Eddie closing the book on Jericho in his old stomping grounds would be the most poetic out.

[Kevin Wilson]

I didn't mind Jericho winning but the last three minutes of the match (including post-match) just felt rushed. TK really has issues with timing the events, I know it is hard to time live TV to be exactly two hours but it feels like every other Dynamite ends awkwardly. The finish wasn't too far from what I thought would happen - soon as Sammy came down I thought Eddie would chuck Sammy into the barbed wire pit, then get caught with a Judas and lose. I guess they wanted to go off TV with the visual of Jericho in the barbed wire but I think that would have been a smoother and perhaps more satisfying ending since everyone hates Sammy anyway.

[Jenalysis]

8 hours ago, The Green Meanie said:

.....so is Anna out of The Dark Order?

I was seriously expecting Luchasaurus to turn on Jungle Boy immediately, surprised it didn't happen. I really want to know what it was that Christian whispered in his ear to cause the initial turn.

Eddie should have won that match, give him his dignified win finally. It was fun, but that ending, sheesh.

 

It's clear dark Order is being wound down.   Silver, Anna and Preston are the folks who are gonna be ok.  (Reynolds deserves better!)

 

 

[Zimbra]

I liked how Darby came out and was like "I will die in front of all of you," and then Yuta came out and was like "No, it is I who is the bump freak" and then Alex Reynolds came out and was like "You are both like small children to me.  Now watch me fly into this concrete wall."

I think I'm higher on the main event than most.  You could tell from the moment they announced the JAS would be in a shark cage that this would be booked to the hilt, so I can't really get mad about that.  I think the booking of the finish, where Eddie wraps the wire around Jericho to try to end him but it backfires, would have been really good without the unnecessary Sammy interference.  Also the visual of the JAS squirming and pulling themselves out of the cage when Tay couldn't get the key to work was really cool and sold desperation.  I have no idea where this feud goes from here, though, since there's not really anywhere else to escalate things

[chriskbrown50]

Anna turning was a little too telegraphed for me but still was good. But the main event being rushed again for a stips match which was pointed out earlier here. It was an over engineered match. The beauty of old school barb wire matches is no one gets in because of the barb wire; the match was some weird not barb wire match. 

The FTR promo was gold. The Allin Brody King match and post-match with Sting and Miro was really good. After that, not so great for me.  After a few great Dynamites in a row, this one just was under whelming. 

[Pedro]

11 hours ago, JLowe said:

Fuck it, give Sammy and Tay 100k and 3 months off for a honeymoon.

The hangup I have with AEW is that Sammy and Tay have be involved in everything. Tay can't open a lock for Christs sake and ruined the whole ending of the match.  Sammy has XPAC heat and came back to soon after being tossed off the cage. Hopefully this feud ends and we can all move on to green pastures. 

[The Natural]

 

[Jiji]

5 hours ago, L_W_P said:

Kingston is 40 and feels like he's got one real shot at being elevated into main event status and winning the title.

Hes 1998 Mick Foley to me. He gets 12-18 months at the top, MAX, and time is running out.

Darby is 29. Hes got plenty of time and will have plenty of great/bad booking over the next... however many years his body has left.

What? Why? Does Eddie Kingston rely on athleticism at all? Has he slowed down in any way lately? If anything he is working much better than he did when he was younger, not to mention he's lost a lot of weight freeing up pressure on his joints. 

Kingston can talk people into the building and buying PPVs for the next 10 years. He's wrestling somebody that is doing that very thing right now. That's his strength. He also wrestles a style like another 50 year old in Minoru Suzuki that doesn't rely on agility at all. Unless he starts to fall apart at the seams, why can't Kingston keep doing his thing for as long as he wants to? 

The Man loves Terry Funk and other legends that kept wrestling into their 60s. I don't see why a guy like Kingston can't be a top guy for the next 10 years. He should probably be a transitional, feel good champ in the next year though. That's a different story. But even the delayed gratification is part of his story. With his character you should feel a little anxious. 

I'm not worried about Darby one bit. I think it'll be hard to make him your Guy with the allegations looming over his head and they never addressed them in a meaningful way, not that it's something you say sorry for and move on like nothing happened. He's been TNT champ in a company where winning any belt is a huge accomplishment (well before the last 8 months) and is consistently featured. Brody King needed to win tonight a helluva lot more than Darby. Darby is, after guys like Omega and Danielson, their best and most consistent wrestler, is still over with the fans, and can be elevated at a moment's notice. Brody King won a battle royal outta nowhere, lost a pretty underwhelming title match that the crowd was pretty flat for, and needed to bounce back in a big way. These kinds of wins establish those lost in the shuffle tier guys and make them credible whenever they get their next moment to shine or put somebody over. It certainly seems like we are headed towards a Sting, Darby, Miro vs. House of Black tag which the former will likely win. Kyle O'Reilly is incredibly talented and beating Darby was a clear sign of commitment to him and gave him legitimacy. Both losses counted for something and helped. I get that the Owen was a thank you to Adam Cole, but I think Kyle is the most Owen like guy on the roster and should've won. Would've done him a lot more good than the overexposed Cole. 

I think there are a tonne of issues with AEW's booking this year but neither Kingston or Darby's booking are among them. They'll both be fine long term and are still moving in the right direction. Don't know how long Sting will be around for and his pairing up with Darby has worked better than I think anybody could've imagined. There's a bit of a logjam in the tag division but I wouldn't be against Darby and Sting winning the tag titles before Sting retires. 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Jiji

[Pete]

28 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

I think I'm higher on the main event than most.  You could tell from the moment they announced the JAS would be in a shark cage that this would be booked to the hilt, so I can't really get mad about that.  I think the booking of the finish, where Eddie wraps the wire around Jericho to try to end him but it backfires, would have been really good without the unnecessary Sammy interference.  Also the visual of the JAS squirming and pulling themselves out of the cage when Tay couldn't get the key to work was really cool and sold desperation.  I have no idea where this feud goes from here, though, since there's not really anywhere else to escalate things

I think you bring Eddie/Jericho back one more time in a cage, since that's been their most reliable feud decider. Maybe the exploding kind. Then clear the runway for both guys and make it explicit that this is the last time they face off. You ban everyone from ringside. I mean clear the locker room, clear the backstage area, make everyone who wants to be there pay for a ticket, and promise to fine/suspend/prosecute the shit out of them if they even try to run in. Any fool who runs interference for either wrestler will be stuck in Wrestling Narnia for the rest of their lives.

[Jiji]

Empty arena brawl? 

[Matt D]

The only logical escalation is loser leaves town, but….

[Jiji]

Dax is so cringe to me. My friend was watching live and I was about 30 minutes behind. He said you'll never guess what Dax talked about. "His wife and daughter, being the best team ever, and love of this business?" "Pretty much."

So corny. Hard pass. I get that it's obviously working but it's not for me. I'm really down on them with the over the top praise they get. 

[Technico Support]

The women’s tag was good but the booking is awful.  Are we sure Statlander, Athena, and Willow are the babyfaces here?  Because the booking is backwards.  They’ve looked like ineffective losers two weeks in a row while the heel champion and her friends dominate them in fair fights.  I feel like TK has no idea what to do with Jade until her eventual face turn, because “dominant heel champion with a one note personality (she’s really mad, guys) who beats all the faces fair and square” is ridiculous.