I guess Tony Khan doesn’t believe in Joe Hendry.
He probably should; guy’s been doing great numbers for NXT lately. Wouldn’t surprise me if TNA pulled the trigger on him – not that I would expect them to.
Alas, we’re not talking about Impact – even though we probably should – but rather it’s this past Wednesday’s Dynamite show, which is the last show before next week’s big Blood & Guts match, which is a regular annual thing we do rather than something that’s needed to raise the stakes in a hot feud. I’ll be honest with you, folks; I am not feeling this Elite Vs. Team AEW thing that’s going on. The whole thing comes across as totally lame and also confuses me; so the Elite take out Tony Khan so that they can take over AEW, but now that he’s back, they… still have power and we have a limp dick commissioner in Christopher Daniels. Meanwhile, we’re trying to make the former Jungle Boy into a big time heel act and we even gave him the TNT title, but he comes across as such a wannabe tough-guy sounding geek that I can’t help but laugh. Then there’s Okada, one of the New Japan greats, who’s more than content to phone it in while racking in the dough. He must have learned a thing or two from Shinsuke Nakamura.
Just about the only guy who feels like a major heel is Hangman, who’s only in this match so that he can continue his feud with Swerve, who also happens to be the only major face on the AEW side of the match. Making up that group is Mark Briscoe – a guy that people actually like, but hasn’t done much of anything on AEW television… the fact that he happens to be the reigning ROH World Champion seems to be more of an afterthought than anything. And then we have the Acclaimed – good tag team, but not quite a major force for this type of match – and the returning Darby Allin, who seems to be perpetually punished for his wanting to climb Everest by suffering enough injuries to put off said climb and on top of that, going from one crazy match to another where he will undoubtedly try and kill himself to get more time on the injured list.
Right now, this Wargames, er, I mean, Blood & Guts match has no reason for existing beyond “it’s a thing we do every year.” It’s become the new “Hell In A Cell” where every year we do a Hell In A Cell match whether the matches warrant it or not. Hell, WWE stopped doing that with their Hell In A Cell match, but then turned around and turned Wargames into a Survivor Series thing. I mean, can we not just have these matches happen when we need them to happen to further the story? Must we have a match for the sake of a match? Do we have to pick up every discarded and hated WWE trope just so we could be the alternative to the other company that’s doing all the stuff we used to do? You know, the stuff that made us worth watching?
As far as the rest of the show goes… eh…
MJF defeated Will Ospreay in a 59:59 minute match to win the International All-Atlantic Western States Heritage Championship via his old stand-by; ref bump/distraction, diamond ring to the noggin, pins the guy for the win. I’ll give them credit; it got the crowd riled up, but that’s because MJF knows how to be a hated heel and the crowd are more than happy to play along. As far as the match itself is concerned, well, I’m not going to say that it’s a five-star classic or anything nor am I going to dub it the greatest TV match ever. I’ve seen better hour long matches on AEW television and this doesn’t quite make it that far. Ospreay’s somewhat spotty selling of shoulder and leg injuries – they only hurt when it’s part of the story when it should be the whole story – hitting big move after big move after big move, only for the finish to be a ringed-up punch to the face for the pin. Maybe if I hadn’t seen Anarchy In The Arena’s final moments with the flamethrower and shit, I’d give them a pass and say that it was something different, but it’s just a lame finish and me thinks that maybe this match didn’t need to be an hour long. I do like that MJF was in need of oxygen at the end of the match, but still had enough to taunt the crowd and celebrate his win. That’s class.
The Elite Geek EVPs ban Britt Baker from the arena to the delight of Mercedes so that she can successfully retain her title over Nyla Rose… and of course, Britt buys a ticket, gets a mask, and manages to sneak into the arena. So I guess security is a bit lax in AEW. I’d argue that if you want someone banned from the arena, you’d ask for that from more competent management, but considering who’s booking this stuff, I’m wondering if competent management even exists in AEW. (I am, of course, speaking in storyline, not in terms of the actual company… the booking, on the other hand…)
And then there was the Mariah May post-turn promo, where she is dressed up as Timeless Toni (and a bang up job they did of her too, I’ll say that much) to pay off the whole All About Eve influence of the angle and to further build this Storm/May title match at All In… yeah, when the only notable thing about this was Tony Schiavone’s sudden outburst and his partner’s shocked reactions, you know things are bad. May was cutting the most dry, uninteresting promo I’ve heard in ages while the crowd is sitting there, mostly bored, giving May the “WHAT?” treatment and chanting “We Want Toni!” Or maybe they’re chanting for “We Want Tony” and they meant more Schiavone… or maybe it’s code for saying Joe Hendry’s name, only for him not to appear.
Apparently, this was supposedly one of the best Dynamites in recent memory. I thought it was fine… I don’t know. Maybe I’m not into what AEW’s doing at the moment. Their top stories aren’t really doing it for me. The shows aren’t quite hitting that sweet spot for me. And while I’ll sometimes get a decent wrestling match or two, I’ve little reason to care beyond that and right now, we’re past the point where I can sit back and be happy with excellent pro wrestling on TV, especially in this day and age where we’re practically spoiled for choice when it comes to excellent pro wrestling. When TNA is putting on a more compelling product than AEW – and I say this without irony because that show has been a consistently good, easy watch – that’s when it’s time to reconsider things.
Hopefully AEW does well enough that they can get a nice TV deal out of it, but right now, the TV that they’re putting out isn’t doing it for me. I will watch the Blood & Guts show next week and share my thoughts on that because I want to give those guys a chance in trying to make that show into something more. I’m just not feeling it at the moment.
In other words… this show could have used more Joe Hendry.
Oh wait, there he is…
dtm666 