AEW Dynamite 11/10/2021 Review


Brought to you from the Indiana Farmer’s Coliseum in Indianapolis, Indiana, this was the Dynamite go home show before Full Gear this Saturday. There is still one more major show before Full Gear with Friday’s live Rampage but we’ll talk about that later. This show felt a lot more exciting than usual and there were some very interesting developments here and there that might hint at things to come in the future.

Bryan Danielson Vs. Rocky Romero

These two started it off as it was a special challenge from Romero to Danielson. The joke is that rather than Bryan Danielson going to Japan to wrestle in NJPW, Tony Khan is bringing NJPW people out here for him. They mentioned the two’s history as well as Romero’s second AEW appearance, the first one being at Elevation where they did a mini Roppongi Vice reunion.

This match was pretty competitive with a lot of technical, mat based wrestling. And Bryan Danielson is proving why he’s currently the best wrestler in the world as he’s having consistently great match week after week on television. He’s definitely not Hulk Hogan’ing it when it comes to his spot in AEW. They also, mentioned that Romero has aligned him with the Best Friends, which explained why he came out with them earlier and had Orange Cassidy in his corner. There was a tweet that went out beforehand showing Romero officially getting the Best Friends in team Chaos in NJPW.

JR talked a bit about his announcing for NJPW and mentioned briefly Okada. There’s been rumors about him showing up in AEW next. If Page loses to Omega on Saturday, then we might see Okada face Kenny on TV. Also, I imagine that Bryan Danielson will get a chance to wrestle Okada as well in the near future. That one might blow the roof off of AEW. At any rate, Bryan got a submission for the tap out and goes into Full Gear to face Miro.

Inner Circle Segment

Tony Schiavone started off in the ring in announcing the Inner Circle to join him in talking about their upcoming match on Saturday. They never made it to the ring as America’s Top Team and Scorpio Sky/Ethan Page ambushed them, taking Jericho and tossing him into the ring. They had Lambert put Jericho through the table as well as apply a lame looking Boston Crab. They tried to make some parts look real with Sammy Guevara taking a body shot and actually selling it. But as I said before, the entire angle had been ruined from the start because they treated this whole thing like Sports Entertainment rather than shoot fighters beating the crap out of fake wrestlers. So it’s very hard for me to get into this thing since it’s just plain stupid at this point.

Britt Baker / Jamie Hayter / Rebel Vs. Tay Conti / Anna Jay / Thunder Rosa

The only part that really mattered in this match was the start when Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa faced off. That part was hot because fans knew those two can deliver. The rest of the people involved in the match weren’t even close to being on their level. Rebel blows balls and shouldn’t be wrestling while Anna Jay is super green and Tay Conti just doesn’t get it. Poor Jamie Hayter received a nasty plancha from the top to the outside by Thunder Rosa. You could see Thunder Rosa checking on her because Jamie landed nastily. Tay won in pinning Rebel in a feeble attempt to give Tay credibility going into the PPV but no one is buying Tay beating Britt Baker. She’s just not good and the only match people want to see at this point is Thunder Rosa vs Britt Baker part 2. That’s the only acceptable match where Britt Baker has a credible challenger that will get people excited for the women’s title.

Jungle Boy vs. Anthony Bowens

Max Castor does his usual Freestyle on Jungle Boy for some cheap heat. Bowens has been doing a lot of singles matches and looking decent. But JB snared him with his submission for the win. It wasn’t bad but mostly served so that Bobby Fish could come out to pound JB a bit. Christian and Luchasaurus ran down to make the save before things got out of hand.

Adam Page and Kenny Omega Hype Video Package

A small recap of their feud. I still don’t know if Adam Page will beat Omega. At this stage, it’s really sink or swim for Adam Page and if he loses, he shouldn’t be in that title picture for a while. Or perhaps leave just because there’s nothing else he can do.

The Bucks and Adam Cole Backstage Segment

Here’s where they actually explained why Bobby Fish jumped Jungle Boy. Adam Cole introduces Bobby Fish officially to the Bucks and mentions their longtime friendship. There’s some references to the Undisputed Era from NXT by the Bucks in saying there is none because The Elite run AEW. Nonetheless, Adam Cole gives Fish his blessing in requesting Fish to beat Jungle Boy up a bit on Rampage before the PPV for which he’ll oblige.

Actually, an intriguing segment. A lot of people are expecting Adam Cole to turn on the Elite down the road. But it was interesting how they formally had Adam Cole reunite with his friend from NXT. There’s a lot of speculation that Kyle O’Reilly’s contract is up soon and could be in AEW by winter. Getting him in there with Fish would mean the reformation of the original Undisputed Era, which might position them against the Elite in a feud.

Also, there’s rumors floating around about Kevin Owens in WWE probably not re-signing with them. Since Roderick Strong’s contract probably isn’t up for a while, some people are thinking that Owens might take Strong’s spot in the AEW version of the Undisputed Era.

Now, I’m going to throw one more thing out there given the recent talent cuts in the WWE. Since Keith Lee got cut and Adam Cole has history with him, could he make for a new member within the Elite if they end up doing this Elite vs Undisputed Era story? There’s some very intriguing possibilities of things in AEW in the near future that does not seem all that far fetched.

Wardlow Vs. Wheeler Yuta

This was almost a pure squash where Wardlow annihilated Yuta. Nothing wrong with a Sid Vicious style squash on some job guy. Yuta might be good on the indies but he’s just not over yet in AEW. Let me give you a hint: get away from that jobber faction and put on some weight as opposed to looking like you just came out of a first year computer science course.

Things didn’t end there as Orange Cassidy and Chuck Taylor attempted to help their friend because out came Kassidy and Blade to jump Cassidy and Taylor. Matt Hardy jumped the railing and put a Twist of Fate on Cassidy with a chair. This is going to setup a lumberjack match between Cassidy and Hardy at Full Gear. And in my mind, this is another Paul Jones vs Boogey Woogey Man Johnny Valiant endless feud.

CM Punk and Eddie Kingston Parking Lot Brawl

So this is Punk’s first nonsense segments. Not sure why Punk was in the parking lot nor Kingston because neither were allotted for the show. Nonetheless, they got some screen time along with a bunch of people attempting to break them up. It felt like complete filler.

Matt Sydal / Lee Moriarty Vs. Dante Martin / Lio Rush

I have to admit this match was another very intriguing one for me. I’ve never seen much of Lio Rush outside of his debut as the Joker but I don’t think it really did him much justice. So I was curious more about him than anything else.

HOWEVER

The parts with Lee Moriarty and Dante Martin were insane. They did some fairly complex stuff in the first half. I had already been impressed by Dante Martin and saw a bit of Lee Moriarty. But this was on a whole different level where you could tell Lee Moriarty was out there trying to make a huge impression. People were already talking about Dante Martin and Lee Moriarty being future rivals because these two had some amazing chemistry here. Yes, it was high paced and flippy, but the intricacy was above what a lot of people were doing.

Lio Rush did some amazing stuff too. He was the heel but he’s so flashy, fluid and fast that you have to respect the guy. And just like Moriarty, I feel that Lio Rush was trying to make a huge impression. Right now, at the very least, AEW absolutely needs the equivalent of a cruiserweight or X-division type of title where you give these lighter guys who can fly the chance to get their own title. That way a guy like Miro could have the TNT title longer rather than Sammy Guevara. Either way, I’m definitely going to keep my eye out on these guys.

Miro Promo

Miro delivers his best promo. You really have to wonder if Bryan is going to beat Miro on Saturday. Right now, I’m not sure.

Pac Vs. Dax Harwood

This was another really solid match. It was going to be hard following up the tag match. But this was more pro-wrestling and they managed to regain the audience’s attention in the beginning. There were some strange moments in the match. Felt like the pacing was a little off at times but after the commercial break, it picked up steam. Pac hit a crazy top rope brain buster. Eventually, Dax hit his own but not on the top rope. He also hit a beautiful top rope side suplex like Barry Windham’s finisher back in the day. Honestly, Dax was amazing here. We rarely get to see him in singles but he was awesome.

Pac got Dax in a submission where Dax relinquished quickly since he was sporting an injured shoulder and is going into the PPV for the tag titles. So nice little well placed notion there in selling the necessity of tapping out quickly. But Pac wouldn’t release the hold and Cash stormed in to pound Pac. Lights went out for a bit so that Malakai Black and Andrade showed up to put more damage onto Pac. That caused the Lucha Bros, Cody and Arn to come down to save Pac and chase off the others. There was a small moment where Malakai made contact with Tully. Thought that was super cool just because it’s such a difference in eras meeting up.

Kenny Omega and Adam Page World Title Signing

Schiavone was in the ring with a table bearing the contracts for the title match for Saturday. Page talks about how Kenny made him feel bad and lose confidence. But in reality he fears Page becoming the world champion. Kenny wants to shake and tells him “good job” which is a signal for the camera man, who in reality is Don Callis in diguise, to attack Page. Page bleeds from the forehead and they wipe his blood on the contract. Callis uses Kevin Spacey’s line from Unusual Suspects about the greatest trick the devil pulled. Basically, this whole thing made Page look like a total chode. Because Page got embarrassed here, he might actually have a chance at winning since AEW is known for creating opposing momentum rather than positive momentum going into a PPV.

Final Thoughts

Overall, not a bad show. I wasn’t completely frustrated and they had 6 matches, three of which I really enjoyed. The most interesting thing was the Adam Cole and Bobby Fish reunion. There’s so much talk about Adam Cole eventually turning on the Elite and Bobby Fish being officially connected and acknowledged by Adam Cole in AEW instantly made Bobby Fish into a big time player here. He was having good matches on his own but not really doing anything. But this has the potential to be a monstrous story with very long term development in getting the NXT Undisputed Era feuding with the Elite.

That just shows what context is all about. When Bobby Fish just showed up, he got a lukewarm response. But now he’s being connected to Adam Cole, he’s become massively interesting because all the history starts to come into play. And NXT right now is absolute trash ever since Vince decided to dismantle it. Let’s be honest, basically AEW is NXT 2.0 or ROH 3.0. And when people start speculating like this in terms of dream scenarios, that’s when pro-wrestling becomes incredibly awesome.

Like for me, the Elite just as is are nothing more than goofs. They really aren’t being pushed by anyone as a group. They had lame feuds with everyone but no one has really challenged them in a meaningful manner to them as a group. The idea of taking what made Adam Cole super hot in NXT and rebuilding it in AEW as a foil to the Elite would be pretty sick. I mean what we’re really looking at here is a bunch of reunions taking place. But it’s happening on a much bigger stage and given the opportunity to live out its potential.

AEW’s only limitation is the amount of TV time they have.

 

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