Another AEW Dynamite hailing from Agganis Arena in Boston, MA, which I think is the first time AEW has been to Boston. JR mentioned that fans had purchased their tickets from a while back and because of the pandemic, had been waiting for quite some time. The building was sold out and they even opened up a few extra seats which is pretty impressive but shows how much momentum AEW has gained over the past year.
Bobby Fish Vs. CM Punk
I have a theory that CM Punk and Bryan Danielson are secretly competing against each other to see who can have the best matches as this match was a pretty good one and vastly different from the one on 10/16/2021. This match was the result of CM Punk disliking Fish’s antics against Anthony Greene from Saturday’s Dynamite so they had a small angle going into this match. So the crowd was mostly pro-CM Punk, although there was a small section cheering for Bobby Fish.
Main story was that Bobby Fish went after Punk’s left leg and Punk sold it for a good portion of the match. Punk is one of the few wrestlers in AEW who understands good wrestling. He did the triple body slam spot again and even got a pop for it. It again made me believe that he’s trying to get over basic moves rather than crazy, nonsensical highspots along with selling to build drama to his matches. Punk did hit a suicide dive to the floor but it looked good and showed how varied Punk’s offense could be. Punk hit a weak G2S with Fish almost kicking out at the literal last second after Punk slid over slowly to cover Fish. That was to demonstrate how good Fish was supposed to be without burying him. This easily was the best match of the night and to me continues to demonstrate how versatile Punk is.
Now, I’ve been reading how people are starting to believe that Punk is being overexposed or that he’s not drawing the ratings that people have expected. I think that the idea is bad in that people who were used as special attractions like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, John Cena (now) and the Rock (now) weren’t really “wrestlers’ wrestlers.” Meaning that once they got to a certain level, what they could do was limited and better in very small doses.
In Punk’s case, he’s more like Bret Hart at this stage if Bret hadn’t been concussed in WCW and Hogan, etc. didn’t fuck him over. First, I think Punk is doing quite well for himself and that he’s slowly getting back into ring shape where his endurance improves and that his moves become more crisp. He’s not overdoing every match and showing every single move he knows. Now, that would be overexposing him.
Instead, Punk is telling these little stories and have actual pro-wrestling matches. Bret Hart was in a similar position after he won his first title. He would face a variety of opponents and have small but good matches with them, giving them a chance to have their spotlight while racking up wins. And if you look at what Punk is doing, he’s slowly working his way up the card. He’s treating his position as realistically in the context of pro-wrestling as he can.
And I think that’s a positive. Does he need to be in the world title contention? No. He’s over. But does AEW need someone like him? Absolutely. He’s giving the rub to other wrestlers, using his position not to his advantage strictly but to rebuild pro-wrestling. If anything Tony Khan probably had learned from the fallout from WCW and TNA where Hulk Hogan royally fucked things up by putting the spotlight on himself and not giving anything back unless it served him.
The other thing is that for all the money Tony is paying CM Punk, he’s certainly getting his money’s worth. Same with Bryan Danielson. These guys are workers and capable of putting on good pro-wrestling matches. Jericho, Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega, who are the other top stars, just haven’t put the same level of quality, despite whatever star power they have. So I think a lot of people are wrong about how CM Punk and Bryan Danielson are being “overexposed”. If anything, they’re producing the best stuff every week.
Malakai Black Promo
This was an interesting but bizarro promo. Basically, Malakai Black insists that he is the one who got the crowd to turn against Cody Rhodes (actually, I thought it was Cody’s wife but I digress). I did read how some people saw into the booking that Cody’s win over Malakai was the heel turn unofficially. But we’ll get into that aspect later.
MJF Vs. Bryce Donovan
This was an absolute squash. Honestly, this belonged on Dark or Elevation because I had no idea whom Bryce Donovan was. It mostly served as a segue into MJF having an in ring promo (whereas normally he just has promos and no matches so I guess this segment was an upgrade to say the least). I think Excalibur joked that this was one of MJF’s quarterly matches which actually made me laugh considering that MJF hardly wrestles.
At any rate, MJF was being MJF here, putting down Boston and getting heat. He did a feint where Sting was about to hit the ring with his entrance music. Then MJF fell to the ground laughing and you knew something would be up especially as the lights went out. Oddly, they did some impossible to hear and see video which lead to a message of vengeance for MJF and the lights turning back on with Sting carrying a bat. He knocked Shawn Spears and Wardlow down while MJF bolted.
Of course, MJF ended up exactly where a disguised Darby Allin was waiting in a seedy trench coat (btw there was a girl cosplaying as Chun Li next to him). So as the crowd heats up Darby attacks and MJF proved to be the best sprinter because he shot back up the ramp while Shawn Spears and Wardlow got massacred by Darby and Sting. Darby brought out a stupid skateboard board with thumbtacks and nailed Wardlow’s back, which means we’ll see more of Wardlow complaining about MJF ditching him and possibly Shawn Spears too in the near future.
Okay, this whole segment was too much to handle. First, why the squash match? Can’t we get a normal match with a reasonable opponent with MJF rather than some unknown indy goofball? Second, the lights going out made me think that Malakai Black was showing up. I’m fine with one guy doing the lights out gimmick but not multiple people. It’s stupid and diminishes the effect for Malakai. Either that or just get rid of it. Why couldn’t Sting and Darby just come out of the crowd both in disguises?
Lastly, the way MJF managed to position himself right where Darby Allin was going to come out of the crowd looked hokey. And why did Darby Allin hesitate to attack since he had the advantage of surprise on his side? Instead, MJF just books and rather than going to the back, he stands around complaining. It just looked bad all around. It’s not as bad as a lot of things that Sting had been involved in but it did no one any favors.
Britt Baker Backstage Interview
Britt has her entourage back since Jericho’s cruise is done. Schiavone informs her that Abadon is getting a match against Britt for Rampage and if Abadon wins she’ll get a title match. How the fuck does this even work? Abadon has the worst gimmick in AEW. For me it’s even more offensive than Nakazawa and Brandon Cutler. It’s just gross and terrible looking. I get that she wants to be different and stand out but anytime I see her I want to turn the channel, leave the video in the background on a separate tab, or fast forward everything. But I guess this is one of those things where Tony Khan gives people TV time when he’s feeling generous and the whole Halloween theme just turns wrestling into more goofy shit.
Sammy Guevara Vs. Ethan Page
This was for the TNT title match. Sammy Guevara strikes me as the biggest idiot in AEW who has managed to capture a good spot. He basically gave Ethan Page a title shot with the additional risk that he would give up being part of the Inner Circle. So you’re saying that you’re so egotistical and self-absorbed you’re willing to sacrifice your friends for your own glory. The only “benefit” for Guevara in winning is that the Inner Circle would get a 5v5 match against Men of the Year and three of America’s Top Team at Full Gear. How the fuck does this benefit or promote Sammy’s career? It’s so idiotic.
At any rate, the match was meh to me. The more I think about the whole America’s Top Team angle, the dumber I realize it is. Ethan Page comes out making his little arrogant stupid face. He then proceeds to put on a game face but the whole thing doesn’t work because the association to America’s Top Team should have been a transition to effectively repackage him to be taken more seriously. Instead, he’s still this big goofball that no one cares about. His style and image haven’t changed a single bit and I doubt anyone believed he would win this.
And he didn’t. But of course there’s a post-match beat down with Scorpio Sky joining him. Then the rest of the Inner Circle come out to Jericho’s horrible theme song so that Jericho, who claims he wants to help these guys, just buries them on the mic. Our only hope in this upcoming match is that one of the America’s Top Team guys legitimately shoots to make this whole fiasco somewhat interesting because I doubt anyone takes them nor Men of the Year seriously just because Jericho has the bigger contract. At least, we have CM Punk and Bryan Danielson giving us reliably good quality matches and minimize the bad goofiness of sports entertainment.
One last comment I have is the mistake of putting the TNT title on Sammy Guevara. I get that he’s one of the “Four Pillars of AEW” but when you have him involved in this stupid Inner Circle bullshit, he has less chances to defend his title against others. With Miro at least, because he was solo, he could fight anyone. I’m hoping if this stupid America’s Top Team last longer than Full Gear that Sammy loses his title soon because otherwise, it’s a stupid way to give him a long title reign.
Eddie Kingston and Bryan Danielson Backstage Interview
Shiavone is with Kingston and Danielson. The interview is reasonably civilized and almost resembles Mark Henry’s “Time for the Main Event” talks on Rampage. Kingston says his piece before walking off while Danielson gives a fiery promo about wanting Kingston to have that fire so that they can have a top match on Rampage. So again, here we have that quality control with Bryan Danielson rather than a stupid interruption or unnecessary beat down.
Lucha Brothers Interview
This was almost civilized until Alex Abrahantes swipes the mic away from Tony Schiavone, who slunk off quickly. That made me laugh. Also, it made me laugh how Schiavone went from one environment to another in less than a second so you know these things are pre-taped. Basically, the Lucha Bros stupidly give FTR the title shot and I suspect that FTR will beat them deservedly now that national Hispanic month is over. And yet again the whole leaked PPV for Full Gear is starting to come together.
Serena Deeb Vs. Hikaru Shida
Not only was this match one for the TBS title tournament, but it was a bit of a revenge match for Deeb’s win over Shida. These two worked well together. I keep saying that Deeb is the best pure wrestler in AEW’s women’s division. Her only problem is that she hasn’t delivered a big promo like Britt Baker or Ruby Soho. Otherwise, she’s in my S-tier in AEW.
Shida worked more aggressively as did Deeb. Shida still looks off to me in terms of her execution. I can’t tell if it’s nerves or something else but I think she’s sloppy for her level of experience. Also, she really needs to abandon the chair spot. She cut her hair in an attempt to “repackage” herself after her major title loss but no one cared and nothing changed. If you compare her to Asuka, people will believe Asuka because of how hard she’s capable of hitting. Hence the “Asuka is going to kill you” chant. Shida’s blows are weak and unconvincing. I don’t know if that’s stupid Brandy telling them not to hit each other hard but it makes the division look bad compared to the WWE.
At any rate, Deeb’s style is really good. I like her European style upper cuts and everything she does looks crisp and convincing. Sadly, she didn’t win and did, you guessed it, a post-match beat down. Actually, this worked very well because Deeb annihilated Shida pretty much cementing Deeb’s full heel turn, which I love. But it’s clear that they did this to setup a story going into Shida’s match against Nyla Rose so that Shida will lose and allow Nyla to advance in the tournament.
Let me just stop and say how much I fucking hate this booking. This is absolute garbage. Nyla Rose won’t win this thing nor even get close to the finals. It’s clearly being setup so that Jade Cargill and Thunder Rosa have that final match on PPV. But Jade and Rose suck badly so it feels like a complete waste. You know they’re trying to give Jade easy wins to make her seem over but she’s just too green. And in Nyla’s case, she’s sloppy and needs a lot of work. It’s pretty bad when you compare her to Nia Jax. Jade and Nyla shouldn’t even be pushed this hard compared to other talents like Serena. Ugh, this tournament just blows.
Lio Rush and Dante Martin Backstage Interview
I should really say this was all Lio Rush because I don’t think Dante Martin got a single word in. But they said that Mike Sydal is injured so the tag team match with Lio Rush will be out so that Dante goes for the 3 for 3 against Matt Sydal on Rampage. At least, they kept this interview civilized.
Moxley Vs 10
Speaking of horrific, stupid tournament bookings, here we have another terrible idea. 10, who no one ought to take seriously, somehow was given the chance to partake in this world title tournament. 10, who had a serious injury, was out for a while, doesn’t have meaningful victories, got a chance in this tournament rather than oh say CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Miro, Adam Cole, Jungle Boy, MJF, etc. This is why I fucking hate this company’s booking so badly.
In turn, Moxley’s entrance probably lasted longer than this squash of a match. Moxley beat the shit out of 10, 10 seemed to have got a sloppy but snug blind elbow shot to Moxley’s chin and Moxley later would come back with a nasty receipt that also sounded snug. Moxley took 10 to the outside and tried to rip his mask off so he could bite him. In turn, 10 got color and came back to the ring a bloody mess. Mercifully, the match ended with a big Paradigm Shift and pretty much it looks like Moxley is going full heel, which I hope he does because it might suit him better.
So that leaves Moxley vs Orange Cassidy in the next round. Everyone knows that we won’t be seeing Bryan Danielson vs Orange Cassidy and Tony Khan’s leaked memo showed Moxley vs Danielson, which could be good or a complete disaster. But it is a big name match for the PPV. The real thing is that I hope we see this version of Moxley vs Orange Cassidy. I don’t mind seeing Moxley decimate Orange Cassidy as long as OC gets bloodied up and Moxley embarrasses the guy. So hopefully some good comes out of this tournament.
Tully Blanchard and FTR
This is FTR’s rebuttal to the Lucha Bros. I really can’t wait to see FTR win the tag titles again. They really deserve it.
Cody Rhodes, with Arn Anderson Promo
I have to admit this was a morbidly fascinating thing to watch. Cody Rhodes acknowledged all the boos he’s been receiving but ultimately says that he refuses to turn. He says that he loves the audience and even apologizes to Arn Anderson and says that Arn was right. But no matter what Cody does, he cannot get cheered. He’s basically John Cena’d himself in AEW and it’s fucking hilarious to watch. This is one of those things where you really don’t know where it’s going. I personally think Cody is being sincere here and the only piece of doubt is what Malakai Black said. But if Cody is going to turn down the line, then he’s doing a fantastic job acting here because I really don’t believe he wants to turn. To me where the line gets blurred is what makes pro-wrestling absolutely the best.
Afterwards, Andrade came out to ridicule Cody Rhodes but more importantly in how somehow he stuck his nose in Andrade’s business. So they have a brawl with the lights turning off again (ugh and here’s where the earlier part with Sting just fucks this segment up) and Malakai Black comes out. So they start beating on Cody until Pac runs out to make the save. Once more the hinted upcoming match at the PPV will be Malakai/Andrade vs Cody/Pac. Maybe it’ll be a four way since they’re talking about how this alliance between Cody and Pac is an unlikely one. At least with Malakai and Andrade it makes sense because of their common affinity with Zelina Vega. I believe that they also mentioned Andrade will be facing Cody on Dynamite next week. That one might be interesting and at least we finally get to see Andrade wrestle rather than ramble for once.
Dark Order Vs. The Elite
Ugh, I don’t even know where to start with this thing. I knew it was going to be horrible by the nature of all the people involved. The Dark Order had teased a stupid Halloween dress up party in their match against the Elite. Why? I fucking cringe every time I see the Dark Order. There’s nothing redeeming about them and once in a while they get an obligatory spot on TV.
This whole match was horrible from start to finish because both teams came out to stupid Halloween costumes and made everyone identity-less outside of the Elite who came out to their own version of Ghostbusters while dressed up as the Ghostbusters. I barely paid attention to the match itself because I knew it wasn’t going to be much of a match and just a bunch of indy, DDT Pro/Chikara crap.
The match fell apart towards the end where nothing made sense, the referee got knocked out, of course, and some horse figure came out. So the Elite grabbed him thinking it was another member of the Dark Order where one of the announcers suggested it was 10, despite the fact that he had the shit beaten out of him. After giving this goof a BTE Trigger, the Elite unmask him and it turns out to be Cutler with tape over his mouth. This was so stupid because his arms weren’t tied together so he could have removed the tape. But this thing looked like they got it from the old movie Darkman where one of the villains had his mouth taped while wearing a mask. Then when he came down to warn another villain he got knocked down and shot.
So because their dumb ass buddy got beaten up, the marshmallow man took off his mask and it’s not surprisingly Adam Page who assaulted one of the Bucks (I can’t distinguish between them) so that John Silver, who know one can distinguish from the other bald headed bearded generic members, could get the pin. Somehow Colt Cabana, who had been smashed up by a bunch of proton packs and was laid out stood around smiling at the end.
This match was exactly what you never want to show anyone who might want to become a fan of pro-wrestling. It basically buried anything pro-wrestling related because you have a bunch of goofy millenials on top at the executive level being allowed free reign in creating shitty matches like this. The Dark Order, who constantly got their asses beat and embarrassed by the Elite, decided to dress up in costumes to beat the supposed top men in the company. You go from having a great serious match with CM Punk vs Bobby Fish straight into the toilet with this garbage. I get people want to have fun but you just end up burying your show.
Final Thoughts
I’m at the point where I believe the only thing worth watching on these TV shows are the first matches. Right now, the three best people in the company are Malakai Black, CM Punk and Bryan Danielson in terms of those that keep me watching. Those involved with them usually end up for the better. But the rest of the show was unbearably frustrating.
Poor Adam Cole. He’s now buried with the stupid Elite crap. He should be taking on Sammy Guevara and beating him for the TNT title on PPV. Instead, he’s playing around with his buddies and losing his sense of identity. The Elite look like little kids with their memes because they refuse to grow up and take the world seriously. And the thing is that Adam Cole knows better but he’s just going to go along for the ride because his friends are there and they’re going to pressure him in burying all the fire he came into AEW with.
On a related note, Bray Wyatt, aka the Fiend, aka Mike Rotunda Jr. aka Windham Rotunda posted that he has two more days on his non-compete. Since Impact’s PPV went off with a shudder, I’m guessing at this point Bray Wyatt will show up in AEW. And at this stage, I’m guessing he’s involved in the Dark Order and revitalizing them into what Brody probably intended or turning them into a truly dark cult. If not they should just get him to kick out Evil Uno and a few of the other useless goofs to make his own core. Either way, I wish they did something serious with the Dark Order because they just suck. I’m sorry but they have no purpose outside of being fodder and no matter how many times one of their members gets a win, I won’t care because none of them really stand out. And you need someone with credibility like Bray Wyatt to make me care. Adam Page needs to separate himself away from them so that he can either be world champion for a short, gratuitous period or slink in a corner getting drunk.