This was the 2nd night of the James L. Knight Center Miami, Florida Saturday night special for Dynamite. Joining the broadcast team again was CM Punk and this show seemed a little livelier than the first night.
Malakai Black vs Dante Martin
Dante Martin came out with Lio Rush as his manager. This match was quite good and possibly Dante Martin’s best singles match. It did move a little slower than usual for Dante Martin partly because Black targeted Martin’s leg in offsetting Martin’s typical aerial offense. Story was that Dante has relied so much on going to the top with high risk moves that it failed him. On the other hand, Martin was able to push Black to the point that Black gave him a nod on the way back up the ramp as a sign of respect.
So again, AEW has been positioning these younger workers against the veterans to give them better exposure on TV, setting a better pace rather than relying on the more indy/spot style wrestling but still being able to get them to place their moves a lot better, allowing the audience to breathe and making them look far better, even if they lose. In turn, these veteran vs young blood matches are coming off less and less like squashes but competitions that are going to allow the young talent to both learn and ready them for the next 2-3 years to take the upper spots.
Jurassic Express Backstage Interview
Tony Schiavone is backstage with Jurassic Express and it doesn’t take long until the Bucks, Cole and Kenny Omega show up to redo the embarrassing botched power bomb from the previous week. Poor Schiavone is taking Marvez’s spot and even CM Punk mentioned Schiavone hightailing it when he returned. So at least CM Punk addressed one of the bigger elephants in the room (actually on multiple occasions on this broadcast)
The Inner Circle Reunion
Santana started an in ring interview but quickly was interrupted by Dan Lamert, America Top Team and the Men of the Year. Paige VanZant now has taken the role of Stephanie McMahon while Jericho lambasts her with cheap slut insults. Scorpio Sky reminds Jericho that he has two wins over Jericho now but I can’t even remember the first one since Sky had been buried in worthless feuds. This whole segment is a giant mess and it goes nowhere since they can’t figure out where, whom and when to do what.
Los Super Ranas (FTR) vs Lucha Bros
Andrade’s mystery team is the Super Frogs, whom no one has any idea whom they really are, although CM Punk does not try to beat around the bush in identifying them as FTR. Tony Schiavone tries to play dumb but CM Punk doesn’t go along for the ride and no sells it completely, which is great. So FTR eventually reveal themselves.
At any rate, this match was for the AAA tag team titles. From all the reports I’ve read, many of these titles over in Mexico don’t really mean much. But I guess because the Lucha Bros have belts and that FTR needed gold, they decided to give them gold, despite the fact that FTR really don’t wrestle in Mexico as far as I know. Oh and they won by a bunch of outside interference. Didn’t really pay attention to the match as it was just chaos as with the Lucha Bros matches so big deal.
Dante Martin and Lio Rush Backstage Interview
Tony Schiavone actually gives a civilized interview with Lio Rush. Lio Rush says that Martin has a new tag team partner in the form of Lio Rush to which Dante Martin seemingly reluctantly agrees to.
FTR Backstage Segment
God Schiavone is everywhere that night. I guess some people listened to how Marvez is completely worthless and gave him the night off. Anyway, FTR is climbing the stairs, MJF comes out to get money from Andrade (rather than the other way around). It was bizarre to say the least because I would have thought that MJF should be paying Andrade.
Wheeler Yuta vs. Jon Moxley
Yuta got utterly squashed. Moxley did 2-3 moves and destroyed Yuta with the Paradigm Shift. Don’t even know why this match happened. This is one of those cases where Yuta gets TV time but gets completely buried.
Serena Deeb Backstage Interview
Again, Schiavone is everywhere at once. Serena talks about her sabbatical and how everyone got lazy and is having fun. So Hikaru Shida comes out to brawl with her. I forget if this is where CM Punk casually mentions how it’s more dangerous backstage than in the ring but in truth all this shit was starting to blend together.
SuperKliq vs Dark Order
Adam Cole might be one of the most over people in AEW. It’s a shame he’s with the Elite just because he’s not getting to chase titles at the present and just goofing around with his buds. The match was a mess but I enjoy watching Cole. I still think he’s far better as a singles competitor but at least they’re allowing him to make the pins in these tag matches.
Jungle Boy came out by himself for some revenge from the earlier attack. It was stupid because he had no backup and the Dark Order cleared the ring, leaving him in a potential 4-on-1 situation that even the announcers mentioned. The Bucks and Cole started to head back to leave Brandon Cutler to get smacked around, including a chair shot to the back. Nothing really progresses in these matches so I lose interest quickly.
Cody Rhodes Vignette
Glock Anderson is trying to rebuild Cody and all his trainees are accusing him of being an egomaniac. Well, yeah the guy is so desperate to be a TV celebrity he goes out and does this stupid shit. This whole vignette was an uninteresting Fight Club-like video where Cody continues to show how tone deaf he is in creating forced shots of what he wants to do rather than allowing something to evolve.
MJF Interview
I didn’t pay attention because nothing really happened.
Anna Jay Backstage Interview
Again, Schiavone is everywhere. Anna Jay hardly gets in a half a sentence when Britt Baker interrupts. Apparently, Anna Jay is getting a title shot against Britt Baker despite not being ranked and not being on TV for a while except for the past month or so.
Kiera Hogan vs. Penelope Ford
I barely paid attention to this. Poor Kiera Hogan is jobbing left to right after signing. Ford is awful and I end up usually just losing interest quickly. Another after birth where Ruby Soho comes out to get some revenge even though the Bunny goes to check out on her partner. The thing about AEW is that people just get sent out all the time and they call it a story. I call it nonsense and it blends together quickly where you just lose the ability to care because nothing progresses.
Miro Promo
Not a bad promo. Miro questions his beliefs but there’s no clear cut direction for Miro at the moment so I don’t see a point to this promo. I’d prefer him to have a trajectory with a goal and opponents rather than just generically talking. He’s already established and doesn’t need random words.
Hangman Page Interview
Schiavone again is out there and at least this segment isn’t interrupted by anyone so that Page gets his words in. He makes a bunch of promises but it sounds empty to me. He’ll probably win the title but the momentum is lost just because I can’t see any further growth for him. People will say, “Well, this is long term story telling.” Not really when you have these major slumps where too much momentum gets lost. So again I just don’t care and if he wins, I still won’t care because they botched up the booking a while back.
Bobby Fish vs. Bryan Danielson
An interesting match that felt weird. Fish isn’t doing that much for me, although I did enjoy his match with Sammy. Maybe it was the Miami crowd. While this match was good on a technical level, it just never sucked me in.
Final Thoughts
This honestly felt like a random show with too much AEW booking. I think they’ve been on a downhill slope booking-wise, returning to all the bad habits of past AEW bookings with the post match beat downs, the constant interruptions during interviews and uninteresting angles. The title switch was dumb for me and the match stunk. I lost interest in America’s Top Team once Jericho got involved and can see that’s it’ll just be another Jericho’s ego vs a bunch of guys while he hogs up the spotlight and makes everyone else look awful with his lack of wit. Nothing progresses and poor Scorpio Sky will get buried in all of this. At least, MJF is free…oh wait. Now, he’s getting buried by a 60+ year old Sting.
CM Punk remains one of the few bright points in the company. His commentary tries to be smart and not insulting compared to the rest of the crew and it actually works well. Bryan Danielson is the other major bright point because he’s just going out and having good matches with a variety of opponents to earn his keep. So major props to both men.
Malakai Black also is the guy who is worth watching. He’s just so over and a great talent. I liked the nod to Dante Martin. Unfortunately, poor Malakai must still suffer the unending feud with Cody because that’s how AEW does things. People are calling for a double turn next week with Black vs Cody and I think most people don’t want to see them wrestle just because nothing good can come out of it.
I felt pretty worn out from this show. It started out good and ended good. But everything in between just stunk for me. Too much talking, lazy booking with run ins, etc. and you stop caring. The only match formally announced for Full Gear is Adam Page vs Kenny Omega. The rest of the show probably won’t be announced until one week before because the head booker has no clue how to build three months in advance when he has that opportunity. So it just feels absolutely frustrating.