Dynamite came from Independence, MO at the Cable Dahmer Arena. Not a huge arena from what I could tell (5k roughly) but it looked pretty packed and seemed like the first time, which I know of at least, for AEW doing a show there. The show had a different feeling mostly because of the recent announcement for Jon Moxley getting help with his alcohol addiction. So that threw a bit of a curve ball into plans but at the same time seemed to work out well in other ways too.
Kenny Omega Vs. Alan “Five Angels”
This match wasn’t announced beforehand and the announcers played it up as a return bout from a year prior where Alan came up short against Omega. Also, Alan Angels was not wearing a mask for once, which I thought was a good move since I often confuse him, Stu Grayson and John Silver in terms of physical appearance (I’m being partly sarcastic as Alan’s mask helps slightly in separating him from the other two).
At any rate, I’m guessing that with the Dark Order getting a modicum of revenge the previous week with that wretched Halloween match, this supposedly gives Kenny Omega a little bit of momentum going into Full Gear. Mostly, I’m guessing they wanted to show off Alan’s progress since it’s reported that he’s one guy that puts an incredible amount of effort after hours in the gym.
Alan did kick out of one of Kenny’s moves and Kenny hit a pair of V-Triggers against Alan along the ropes for the pin. Afterwards, Kenny berated Alan and was about to toss him onto a chair with his One Winged Angel, but Hangman Adam Page cleared the ring with Alan taking away the chair. Page did a small mic promo for their match at Full Gear and appeared confident as ever. Hard to say if he’ll win, I think it’s not the move but it probably will happen. With Jon Moxley down for the count, then I’m guessing Bryan Danielson will take it but we’ll see how that turns out.
Malakai Black Promo
Malakai cuts a promo on Tony Khan about Caesar and betrayal. Oddly, he was barred from ringside during Cody’s match so he hinted that someone else would do something against Cody.
CM Punk Interview Segment
Punk is serious and gets the crowd to chant for Jon Moxley as he acknowledges without directly saying what Moxley’s problems were. It’s basically a break in kayfabe and showing support for Moxley as he battles addiction in getting help. CM Punk additionally gives a PSA for dealing with addiction and asking for help if you’re suffering from something similar. That part was really classy on AEW’s part and Punk did an excellent job of selling it.
The second half of the interview composed of Punk calling out Kingston where he’s going to confront Kingston on Rampage. People were chanting for Punk to face Kingston at Full Gear for a match but Punk said he’ll just have that “talk” with Kingston at Rampage instead. As far as we know, it’s probably going to be a long promo segment which allows Kingston to get some shine from Punk and Punk getting his first major heated story in AEW. This might be very good.
Miro Promo
Miro “cuts a promo against God”. That was fun to write. But the main thing here is that he’s back and going to face OC in tonight’s World Title Eliminator match pretty much taking Moxley’s place. Pretty much the perfect replacement in my book. Also, I read that they flew Miro down at the last minute to deal with this. I think he was on PTO in looking at his Instagram photos recently.
The Elite Backstage Interview
Alex Marvez is back with the Elite no less. Adam Cole starts the interview and the Bucks call themselves “tough guys”. However, Christian is back after getting injured so that he could focus on losing the Impact title to Josh Alexander. Then Luchasaurus comes in before the Bucks can do anything to Christian and a brawl breaks out.
The Elite get the upper hand for a bit until Jungle Boy makes an appearance. He eventually takes down Adam Cole with his Jungle Trap allowing Christian to bring out a pair of chairs to give Cole a conchairto. I’m never comfortable seeing chair shots to the head and Christian seemed to check on Cole after it. But this segment was the usual Bucks mess. Felt bad for Cole. Read that he’s supposed to face Christian Cage at Full Gear. Really wish he just would get an individual segment rather than deal with the Bucks’ typical BS as well as Cutler.
TBS Women’s Championship Video Package
Decent summary of what’s going on.
FTR Vs. Samurai Del Sol / Aerostar
This was for the AAA tag titles. So Samurai Del Sol is Kalisto from the WWE after he got let go. No idea about Aerostar. Never seen these two. But it’s a typical lucha match. Tons of flips. FTR made them look great and Kalisto got to show off his abilities unlike in the WWE where I read him complaining how he wasn’t understood. They lost with FTR cheating to win by holding the ropes.
Shida Backstage Interview
Shida didn’t get a single word in except “Thank you” before Nyla Rose and Vickie Guerrero interrupted as per AEW’s usual. Surprisingly, no brawl broke out but Vickie did point out Shida’s leg, which I imagine will play a part in her losing to Nyla when that match happens.
Inner Circle Full Gear Match Picks
The Inner Circle shows up with the usual Jericho music. Dan Lambert comes out with America’s Top Team and introduces each person so that the Inner Circle can make their picks. Besides Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page, Dos Santos and the Pitbull (don’t remember the guy’s name). Suddenly, Lambert brought out Paige VanZant and she got some mic time.
Sadly, Paige VanZant outworked virtually everyone on the mic here. She’s a natural and probably could outwork Britt Baker and every single woman on the roster right now on the mic. Jericho makes his usual misogynistic lame jokes against VanZant but people are saying that they need to sign her. Considering how bad most of the AEW women are in the ring and on the mic, VanZant would be a pretty big deal imo.
Ultimately, they added Dan Lambert as the last pick. Well, as I said, there’s no chance for this angle to be good. So now it’s just solidified as a big joke. Sad because it could’ve been huge but Tony Khan has no idea how to book a story like this.
Ana Jay Vs. Jamie Hayter
This is another TBS women’s title eliminator round. I’m glad to see Jamie Hayter again. I actually like her more than most of the women on that roster because she has character, can talk and her work isn’t bad. But they don’t feature her that much and she rarely gets to talk which sucks. Ana Jay is blander than drying paint. Also, she just can’t work. When she was coming into the turnbuckle, she turned very awkwardly and it looked bad. The good news is that she won’t advance.
Britt Baker’s team continued to beat up Ana Jay after the match, bringing out Tay Conti. Tay just seems like an idiot to me when it comes to wrestling. Just no clue what to do. There’s a moment where she’s about to get curb stomped and she just hung there. No attempt to resist, no facials, just looking like an idiot. She only knows how to get her offense in. Her selling is nonexistent, her facials blow and she is very limited in the ring. At least, they’re getting her losing to Britt Baker for a title shot on PPV out of the way because after that, she shouldn’t be near the title picture for at least two years until she corrects all her mistakes.
Thunder Rosa made the save at the end. Thunder Rosa is a top talent but I think she’s overrated too. She looks good, her moves are crisp, she has fire and even if she’s not a native English speaker, she has passion in her promos. My biggest issue with her is that she only knows how to make herself look good. She needs to work on match psychology so there’s more back and forth between her opponents. I think Jamie Hayter is facing her next so they used this instance to setup that match as well.
Jade Cargill and Mark Sterling Backstage Promo
I can’t stand Mark Sterling. He’s just another bland manager. I don’t think he’s added much to Jade. Problem with Jade is that they’re trying to sell her as a bitch but I don’t think that’s her real personality. She seems more like a caring mother type and I wish they had allowed her to do a pseudo Storm character with costume rather than a Goldberg-like character.
People compare Jade to Chyna but that analogy is completely off because Jade isn’t wrestling guys. Right now, Jade has 2-3 moves max and hasn’t really lost but is booked as a monster. She doesn’t really sell and I think giving her this type of character will hamper her career since she’s too green. I feel that having someone like this receive beatings and learn their craft while grinding up is much better than a loss-less Goldberg type of booking.
Worse yet, if they give her the TBS title it’s going to be awful. No offense to her but she doesn’t need the title. They need someone who can put out good matches and right now the best candidate is Ruby Soho.
MJF Promo
Basically, put Darby down but compared/contrasted them in calling them the most important pillars. Eventually, Sting came down as things got chaotic. Eventually, Darby came down while Sting’s clones did something as Shawn Spears and Wardlow came out. I didn’t pay attention to this as it didn’t interest me besides MJF talking. It just lasted too long and was stupid because of the Sting clones nonsense. Give me the match, not the stupid shit leading up to it already.
Cody Vs. Andrade
This was actually a pretty decent match. From what they said, neither man had faced each other before so this was a fresh match. I enjoyed it right up until the nonsense ending. I kept thinking that Andrade must be happy because he gets to wrestle finally and show off. But the flips were minimized compared to Andrade’s stuff with Pac and they had a decent wrestling match. One of the better spots was them exchanging Figure Four Leglocks. This was significant because Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair often used them against each other and both Cody and Andrade have history/connections with both wrestlers.
Of course, the most fascinating part of this match was the crowd’s reactions. It still seemed that Cody was getting mixed reactions and Andrade would get the crowd to his side. It’s just a surreal moment. They teased another Pedigree/Double Arm Piledriver from Cody but he did neither.
Ending came when Cody attempted a suicide dive while the referee was distracted by Arn Anderson taking out Andrade’s manager. That allowed a pair of hidden FTR members to slam the AAA tag title belts against Cody and slide back under the ring. Then Andrade pulled Cody in, hit his finisher and got the pin.
Afterwards, FTR entered to hug Andrade and Tully came down too. That made Arn Anderson hot and he took off his jacket to confront Tully. I honestly thought that was a cool moment because they teased the two former partners possibly getting into it. FTR and Andrade were about to strike Arn but then the Lucha Bros came out to clear house. Obviously, this was to further setup the FTR vs Lucha Bros tag title match as well as deepening the Andrade vs Cody stuff, although now we know what Malakai meant with his Caesar’s reference.
John Silver Interview
Conducted in the ring with Tony Schiavone, this surprisingly was a clean interview. First time I ever saw John Silver on the mic solo. And I think there’s a good reason for that. Basically, called out Adam Cole in their coming match at Rampage. This interview did nothing for me and just showed that John Silver is a goof.
Miro Vs Orange Cassidy
Miro came in as a last minute replacement for Jon Moxley. Honestly, the perfect candidate too because Miro did complain weeks prior about not being involved in this tournament, despite having an impressive win/loss record in AEW as well as a lengthy TBS title run. They did a big table spot that Miro sold. Match was slowed down but I liked the pace better with more selling from both sides. Miro sold quite well in this match except for the moment he went for his finish. But at least it went quick. Don’t think he needed the whole “Game Over” scream since it lessened the urgency of getting the victory on OC. The right person won here though since the world isn’t ready for Bryan Danielson vs OC.
Bryan Danielson was on commentary and eventually came down to the ring to inspect Miro as they will face each other at Full Gear. I think Miro looked pretty excited because this is a huge opportunity for him in not only be facing Bryan Danielson (which I think is their second ever match) but being in the world title scene, even if this whole thing happened at the last second. This makes the match between Page vs Omega up in the air. If Page wins, does Bryan Danielson go after him? The mega money match is eventually Bryan Danielson vs Omega part 2 but for the title. But if Page wins, then Miro would be a sound challenger since at least he’s a heel.
The other thing is that Miro actually holds a win over Bryan Danielson but in the WWE. So this might be Bryan’s way of getting back that win. If that happens, then Omega should be the one facing Bryan. I mean, the question is whether or not Moxley was planning on getting a big come back from Full Gear. I expected that OC was going to get destroyed by Moxley so that Moxley could go full heel in facing Bryan Danielson. Then the following match would be Page vs Moxley which would be a big time match for Page. Danielson vs Page doesn’t feel as big since both are faces. So very strange things right now.
Final Thoughts
5 matches again. The only things I cared about were Cody vs Andrade and OC vs Miro. I would have cared about Hayter vs Ana Jay just for Hayter but Ana is too bland to me. The talking segments were too long and certain parts felt that they should have been matches instead. The Elite brawl and MJF stuff went on too long. So did the Inner Circle segments. Paige VanZant was the only non-wrestling segment that hooked me in anyway because I wasn’t expecting her to be that good on the mic. Everyone else from America Top Team just blows in terms of blandness.
Rampage looks awful though. The Bunny vs Red Velvet will be terrible. The Bunny gets too much TV time for her skill level. Adam Cole vs John Silver is weird because they were just on AEW Games on Twitch. That’s probably how this match even came about since they probably were like, “Hey want to have a match after Halloween?” Also, CM Punk is only confronting Eddie Kingston. So does that mean the rest of the matches are going to be 20 minutes a piece? How long is that talking segment going to last?
This whole thing feels like some terrible chore just to get to Full Gear. I’m not all that excited for the lead up. I was morbidly curious about Bryan Danielson vs Jon Moxley along with theoretically Adam Cole vs Christian Cage. But I’m assuming that we may see a decent match between Bryan Danielson vs Miro. The rest of the card is pretty meh for me. The booking has been insufferable to me and I just want them to move on.