The AEW Wednesday Night Dynamite Thread

[RedRooster]

6 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Even the Punk segment felt a little off…. His promo style didn’t seem to suit speaking into someone else’s microphone, and it felt like everyone was selling a crowd reaction that wasn’t quite there.

As far as that goes, I can only assume that the reaction didn’t come across quite as well on TV. During his promo the crowd seemed fairly loud, but I though the pop for his entrance was quite tepid. 

I thought the promo itself was fine, but Punk/Darby feels very much like a wrestling equivalent of a wrestling ‘friendly’. At this stage, there’s not much of a spark behind it. Or any of the All Out matches, for that matter.

[Guest]

I expected something dramatic to happen given the announced show was so weak they must be hiding something, but that was all filler with one shite announcement of Mox vs another NJPW Dad 

[DavidB6937]

Considering that's the most excited I've been to watch Dynamite in ages I couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Yeah some things definitely felt off. The Punk stuff wasn't timed nearly as well this time round and proved they were right to just let him do his thing on Rampage.

That Red Velvet moonsault. Sigh.

MJF and Jericho again so soon? I'm not into it. We've already got Omega/Christian again.

And that ending. It was just weird. They really need to stop having randoms run out at the end of stuff.

Not the show they should've been aiming to put on after all the Punk hype. A shame to be honest as they've put out so many great shows.

[quote the raven]

Not a great way to follow up on the Punk hype at all. That main event and run in? I have no idea who that guy is. 

Matt Hardys new gimmick should be "hardway" matt hardy. Poor sod.

 

[Nick James]

Imagine being Max Caster and being punished for a rap while Darby Allin gets the marquee exhibition match against the returning megastar after facing allegations of abuse.

Cash Wheeler has posted a nasty picture of his elbow on Twitter, I wont post it as its very graphic, however he is teasing that he may be done with wrestling due to struggling with grip strength in his arm. 

[ColinBollocks]

I ended up skipping a chunk of it, as it just felt like they were filling time until Punk showed up. Not sure that's what they're after.

The Punk promo was fine and I did enjoy that he spent it building up his match, but it just felt too brief. Suppose anything outside of a classic angle or promo would have felt a bit of a let down after Friday.

Edited August 26, 2021 by ColinBollocks

[Mr.Showtime]

Don Callis was great again! And Miro's latest 30 seconds. I mostly had the show on in the background so the poor matches didn't bother me so much. It is a shame they spent time on the bloody Gunn Club etc., but ah well.

[The Gaffer]

I was about to say yesterday that AEW have put themselves in a position now where their first big missteps - and there will be many - are going to come like a gut punch to people when they get picked apart and analysed.

I don't think Dynamite was quite that, but you can see how big the discrepancy feels between those big moments they're giving us on a conveyor belt and stuff that just feels...like a weekly wrestling show. Last night was just a decent weekly wrestling show, as we've come to know it. They should have done better I guess - and it does seem like it could potentially have been a blown spot with some of those new viewers coming in - but hopefully it's just a blip in the long term. 

So much of Punk's pop is in the spontaneity of his music, isn't it. That's not a knock against him - Austin never quite got the same pop when J.R. set up his segments first - but it's definitely something that's needed. With the segment prepared and Tony already in the ring, his entrance became a lot of arms folded "Well we know he's here, let's see what he has to say."

The promo was definitely too short. Not everything needs to be a pipe bomb, but it did feel clipped. Not that it confirmed anything, but it felt cheeky of him to give away Bryan coming in as well. It's promo number two though and it already got me thinking Punk should be on limited time as a face. He should be turning on everyone and everything real soon.

It's a shame the in ring stuff was average because the likes of Darby and Mox being in the next segment after the break is exactly who you'd want. By all rights it should have had last week's Dynamite opening vibes on either side of the Punk thing. That's your ideal scenario. 

Still, it's 2021 and Tony interviewing Punk giving away Bryan Danielson coming into your promotion was on a bad show. 

Oh well!

Edited August 26, 2021 by Gay as FOOK

[TheLoon]

Utterly baffling. What was Khan thinking? With more new eyes on them this week than ever, this is what they chose to deliver? No blow-away angles or matches. Just a succession of jobbers (except the tag tournament bout, which was decent if occasionally sloppy). Punk's promo was the highlight, but even that felt flat compared to Friday. Hopefully they can recover soon if all the new viewers haven't already shrugged and given up.

Edited August 26, 2021 by TheLoon

[LaGoosh]

There was a lot of good stuff on the show but the bad stuff was really bad and gave the show a deflated, flat overall feel.

OC vs Matt Hardy was a really good match but at the end of the day it's still Matt Hardy in 2021 so it almost doesn't matter if it is good or not.

Varsity Blondes are a simple, meat and potatoes, old school babyface type tag team. They cannot, and should not, be wrestling a Lucha Brothers-type match. It takes years of experience to pull off that type of fast paced spot heavy match without it looking like slow, awkward dog shit which is what this was. Pillman also seems to be bulking up, but like all short guys who bulk up they start looking pretty stupid and start moving pretty sluggish.

That womens match and the whole scenario is probably the worst shit in AEW in ages. Britt is a heel who gets babyface pops. She brings in her new muscle for protection and her new muscles goes 50/50 with Red Velvet who is tiny and useless. Her new muscle then gets knocked out the ring by a single punch from Kris Statlander. Statlander is not as over as a babyface as the heel champion is. Whole thing is a mess.

Why is Darby bothering with Daniel Garcia again? Darby should be 100% focused on Punk.

Never end your show with a Lee Johnson run in. Ever. It'd be like ending a 1999 episode of Raw with a Chaz run in.

Everything else ranged from good to great. Sadly a bit of a flop of a show though. Seemed to lack some energy. Ah well, can't win them all.

[Factotum]

I love Tony S, but he should have been nowhere near that Punk promo. Punk still looked like a big deal, but so much of his aura is about him being out on his own just going off. Hopefully that never happens again, and it shows how perfect Friday was. I agree that his music being spontaneous is what make his entrances. Its the closest thing to an Austin glass smash we've got.

The rest was fine, but for a show they knew eyes would be on it should have been 1000 times better. It should have been a showcase for all the guys the new viewers might not know. Omega should have been all over that show as the Champion. Hell, have The Elite interact with Punk and start teasing something.

Christian should not be in that Main Event. It seems everyone knows it. Thank God for Callis who has worked his arse off on the mic to build a story there.

[I Bent My Wookie]

2021 is mad. A show that had Sting and CM Punk on, plus ex champions in Jon Moxley and Chris Jericho was main evented by Arn Anderson and his rookie year son before a run in by Lee Johnson.

I honestly thought I dreamt that happened until I read the results back.

[BomberPat]

I don't think putting Matt Hardy on TV is the worst idea - a lot of people who tuned in for Punk will be after other familiar names, and using those names to leverage AEW "homegrown" talent is a sensible option. Between the Hardy Boyz and the Broken gimmick, Matt is still someone who has a bit of cachet with fans who might not have followed him to AEW, so for curious first-time viewers is a familiar face being used to put over one of AEW's better babyfaces, so I have no problem with that. 

The problem is that it sort of felt like they were attempting that across the whole show - Billy Gunn serving a similar purpose in the trios match, for example - and the other matches felt sort of immaterial; I love Jamie Hayter, and a Jamie Hayter squash match will never be a bad thing, but probably not on a big show that's main evented by a Malakai Black squash match, when all involved are still relatively new to this promotion.

I wonder about that choice of main event, if there's some advertiser/TV land stuff we're not seeing that means the closing segment isn't the most important one in terms of viewership, so they don't mind putting a relative damp squib out there if an earlier segment is the actual "main event" in business terms. I feel sorry for Brock Anderson in a way, though, as he's a victim of Cody Booking - he got a major announcement of his debut, a big hyped up tag match with Cody, then fucked off to the B-show with nary a mention until they needed someone to be squashed by Black. It just feels like everyone Cody-adjacent has no long term plans for them once Cody isn't involved, like he lacks object permanence when it comes to opponents and tag team partners.

 

Darby getting into it with Daniel Garcia is interesting. I know thus far AEW haven't really done cop-out finishes, but I wonder if Garcia is going to get involved at All Out. There's no way Punk doesn't win, but they're going to want Darby protected - if he goes in knackered because Garcia's been torturing him with submission holds, that might be the story, and give Darby a feud moving forward. 

[Factotum]

14 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

The problem is that it sort of felt like they were attempting that across the whole show

You summed up what I was trying to put into words earlier. Absolutely bang on

[Yakashi]

I guess the show was fine in a vacuum. But Jesus, what a shit presentation considering it was possibly in front of your biggest audience of all time. Just a total bunch of geeks all over the show and some bizarre booking (why Garcia is starting a feud with Darby a week before the biggest match of his and the company’s life is baffling).

Its like they assumed a load of (ex) wwe fans would be tuning in so tried to give them as much of a wwe show as they could, 5000 run ins and all.