AEW Dynamite Thread 2022

[Loki]

“Even if you ignore that CM Punk is their biggest star, in the best form of his life, the crux for me is that Hangman will be infinitely more interesting dealing with a big loss than he currently is as Champion. He’s the epitome of the magic being in the chase”

@Supremo

Agreed, but he needs a proper heel to chase, and Punk’s not right for that.  And honestly MJF isn’t right either as he’s not physically dominant enough.  

If you wanted Page on a long chase for the title they need a heel Joe or heel Wardlow.

AEW are actually too face heavy atm I think, they’ve got lots of popular young stars and not enough proper scary heels.  Miro would be good or, hell I support the Brian Cage option, with a good manager.

 

Re: Kingston, I absolutely think he can get a run as champion but it needs to be the Mick Foley thing where it’s almost a reward for the fans.  He needs to have a few  shots and fail first.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Loki

[The King Of Swing]

Finally caught up on everything on Dynamite this week and I mostly enjoyed it.

Thought Page's promo was really good.

Jericho Vs. Santana was fun. 

Fenix Vs. Martin was a cracking little match.

BCC match was ok but they need something bigger to sink their teeth into imo.

House of Black stuff started ok imo but dragged on. Crowd seem to really want to like them. 

Fucking hell ANOTHER Britt, Jamie, Ruby and Toni segment.

Hardy Vs. Fish happened. 

The Deeb/Rosa segment was a bit naff imo. 

Main event was nowhere near as cold as I was dreading. Match was decent if nothing special.

Overall an ok show that I will have mostly forgotten by next week. 

[WeeAl]

I can't remember who said it now, but I was reading the thread yesterday and I completely agree with the sentiment expressed that way more is missing than hitting at the moment. 

House of Black - shite. Lethal's gang - shite. Undisputed Elite - shite. Jericho's group - not landing yet. The entire women's division bar Jade Cargill and Serena Deeb (though that promo this week with Rosa? Jesus that was rough) is cold as ice. All the TNT title stuff from Cody and Men Of The Year through to with Guevara, Scorpio, Page and Conti. There's more I just can't remember it all. Worst of all with a lot of it is that it doesn't feel anywhere near as planned out as it has in the past. Hopefully they hit the reset button on a lot of this stuff soon. 

A big part of the problem in the title scene is actually Punk and Bryan joining which has disjointed things a little. AEW clearly had a line of descent for the belt that went from Jericho-Moxley-Omega-Page. The fifth notch on that post seemed destined to me to be MJF, and the stories wove neatly to get you to that point. However now they have Punk, and whilst it's a great problem to have (considering how great he has been) it's a problem all the same because they don't know which way to go and you can kind of see that as the weeks go by. For what feels the first time, I'm not sure AEW know who is coming out of the next PPV with the belt and I've never felt that before.

Page losing to Punk shouldn't really hurt him, but because he has been second fiddle to others for most of his reign, it probably will. I kind of think Page needs to beat Punk, then do a re-match shortly thereafter before the Forbidden Door PPV with Punk winning. MJF can be the one to beat Punk down the line when they heat that back up and they end up where I guess they always were going to, with giving Hangman something to hang his hat on for the future. 

On something unrelated to that, I'm not inspired in the least by the tournament lineup for the men. Adam Cole is going to the final and possibly winning. Yuck. 

To end with something positive though, Wardlow and MJF has been note perfect up to now and the clamour for Wardlow to blitz MJF will be colossal on the night. He can do that and it still leaves MJF plenty of time to piece together a few wins for his shot to take the belt off Punk in the September-December period. 

[Supremo]

I’m still not tired of this. I also love that they’ve subtly set up Dax vs. Adam Cole as Bret guy vs. Shawn guy. Do it for the Hitman, Dax!

Disappointed by all the chatter of Gargano potentially being the joker though. I’ve got no interest at all. Worse still, I saw someone suggest Sting as the joker and now anything less than that will be a disappointment.

[Infinity Land]

My pick for the men's Joker would have been Harry Smith. I was reminded he's popped back up in the NWA recently. Link to the Hart family, plus Samoa Joe can squish him without anybody caring.

[d-d-d-dAz]

What better tribute to Owen Hart, with Martha there watching, than having a HBK tribute act tap out a Hart fan and then close the night with two guys who “are more stunt men than they are wrestlers” trying to arrange a death by falling.

Strange decisions.

Punk as a heel for a night was great. He’s so good as a prick.

Edited May 12, 2022 by d-d-d-dAz

[FLips]

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

What better tribute to Owen Hart, with Martha there watching, than having a HBK tribute act tap out a Hart fan and then close the night with two guys who “are more stunt men than they are wrestlers” trying to arrange a death by falling.

Strange decisions.

Punk as a heel for a night was great. He’s so good as a prick.

Martha Hart's reaction to Adam Cole winning was pretty much in line with mine. This tournament has been an absolute dud so far on both the men and women's side. No sense of urgency because it's been going for weeks, half the big names have better things to do, not much Canadian representation at all and no big match feel for any of it including Hardy/Allin which to some is a dream match. It's just there to push Adam Cole and the one potential breakout star of the thing in Dax Harwood just tapped out to a sharpshooter.

I think I mentioned it before AEW is really losing steam for me now. This time last year I was genuinely thrilled to be watching and keeping up with all these fresh faces and rising stars and a year on and the show is mostly faces I stopped watching back in NXT. Adam Cole and his mates are shite.

[d-d-d-dAz]

MJF and CM Punk are the MVP’s of the show, and are secretly still feuding. Until they get back together for the title, the show will be missing something.

[Mr.Showtime]

There are a bunch of acts on the show I'm not interested in at all, but there's still enough good to keep tuning in, even down to the fun commentary and silly segments (like that Dark Side of the Ring parody, I missed the start but gotta go find it again!) At least with Adam Cole, I am begging to see him get his arse kicked, AND he didn't use a low blow, so at least that's something.

I liked Toni Storm v Jamie Hayter, it wasn't smooth towards the end but I think that somehow added to it. If it's not a Britt/Ruby final with the latter finally getting her big win, I'll be very surprised.

After Darby came off the ladder I didn't think he'd get up in time before the show ended, holy moly. And I could barely watch as Jeff went to the top for his Swanton to the outside. I'm a little baffled with the outcome (and it's happened to Darby before so I hope that plays into something) but I hope after this, Hardy winds things down a lot. Take it easy, man!

Edited May 12, 2022 by Mr.Showtime
grammarhausen

[Merzbow]

Sparkly jacket twats were booing Hook, ban them from all future shows.

[Hannibal Scorch]

The whole segment from when Wardlow walked out, to when MJF was staring at the ring at Wardlow will go down as one of the best AEW segments. 2024 will be a hell of a year for MJF financially. He was so good!

Cole winning via Sharpshooter was crap. Don’t mind Jeff winning as the only man to have wrestled Owen. Enjoyed the woman’s quarter final as well. 
 

Punk V Meatboy was decent, and while a squash, Danhausen’s debut perfectly set up the story. Enjoyable show.

[d-d-d-dAz]

12 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

The whole segment from when Wardlow walked out, to when MJF was staring at the ring at Wardlow will go down as one of the best AEW segments. 2024 will be a hell of a year for MJF financially. He was so good!

The only thing that missed for me with the MJF segment was why he didn’t just get out of the ring in the first place, rather than waiting for Wardlow to get rid of the security. That was clunky.

If I understand it, the ‘match’ at DoN is;

Wardlow gets flogged ten times;

If he can continue, he immediately faces SS in a steel cage with MJF as ref.

If he wins that, he gets an immediate match with MJF and if he wins he gets an AEW contract.

…Is that right?

*edit* I just saw the Darby bump again. Fucking idiot. Imagine looking at Jeff, struggling to walk or think, and thinking ‘I want to do what he did… but more.’ Just absolute garbage of the highest order, especially in a match with no heat or stink on it whatsoever… and he’s fine immediately after? Fuck off.

Edited May 12, 2022 by d-d-d-dAz

[Hannibal Scorch]

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

The only thing that missed for me with the MJF segment was why he didn’t just get out of the ring in the first place, rather than waiting for Wardlow to get rid of the security. That was clunky.

If I understand it, the ‘match’ at DoN is;

Wardlow gets flogged ten times;

If he can continue, he immediately faces SS in a steel cage with MJF as ref.

If he wins that, he gets an immediate match with MJF and if he wins he gets an AEW contract.

…Is that right?

No the flogging is announced for next week, I assume the cage match will be the Dynamite before DoN.

@RedRooster not sure what Bias you are talking. I have already watched it twice, it has an amazing spoof of DOTR, and a crowd eating up every word. I don't often go back and rewatch a segment the next morning.  

Edited May 12, 2022 by Hannibal Scorch

[RedRooster]

1 minute ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

The whole segment from when Wardlow walked out, to when MJF was staring at the ring at Wardlow will go down as one of the best AEW segments. 2024 will be a hell of a year for MJF financially. He was so good!

It was good, but you're possibly falling victim to recency bias here. I doubt it would even make the top 10 for most. That said, if Wardlow does end up becoming a huge star, segments like this will be looked at as the reason why. 

I thought it was a much stronger show this week, and I pretty much enjoyed it from start to finish. There's someone on here, I can't remember who, who really dislikes Toni Storm. I've no idea why (so far) - she seems like a really good addition to the AEW Women's division. 

CM Punk playing the heel in Long Island was a load of fun, and every time I see the guy I feel more and more delighted that he's decided to come back to wrestling. He's absolutely brilliant, and has to already be a top contender for wrestler of the year. 

...Unfortunately for him, the other main contender, so far, is MJF. I can't remember the last time he was in a bad segment. If Tony Khan doesn't make him the highest paid wrestler in the company to keep him beyond 2024, he's making a huge mistake. AEW is an ensemble product, but losing MJF would be absolutely devastating. Dynamite wouldn't feel the same without him. He's by far, for me, the best heel in the industry right now. I suspect he has it in him to be the best babyface in the industry too, somewhere down the line. 

I enjoyed the JAS segment a lot more this week, and I'm interested to see who they face on the PPV. The focus on the Jungle Boy/Christian relationship has me feeling optimistic that Christian's long-overdue turn is about to happen. 

I'm still finding the Hardys and Darby utterly tedious. Darby needs to go away for a while, and Matt Hardy probably should too, to detach himself further from the dreadful HFO. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

46 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

 

I'm still finding the Hardys and Darby utterly tedious. Darby needs to go away for a while, and Matt Hardy probably should too, to detach himself further from the dreadful HFO. 

Darby’s not just tedious, he’s dangerous to himself and the business.

Shit like that ratchets up the expectations from fans for all matches.

The fact he took the sickest bump I’ve probably ever seen on TV in a match with no heat on it, then was fine minutes later? It’s absolute garbage and he needs to be sidelined for a bit.

Jim Ross calling it one of the best matches ever seen on dynamite made me want to be sick out of my eyes. There were probably 3 better on that show alone.

Edited May 12, 2022 by d-d-d-dAz