Happy New Year from your friends at All Elite Wrestling. Celebrate the occasion with a special “Fight For The Fallen” edition of AEW Dynamite from Asheville, to help support those recovering the hurricane last year. Well, that’s a rather nice gesture for them to do. I’ll give them that much.
Besides that, this is the first Dynamite show to be simucast on both TBS and the MAX Streaming Service as part of the new AEW/WBD TV deal that will let them do more of these things. Admittedly, I have been down on AEW as of late, but you know what? It’s a new year (yes, it is) and since I’m making a point to watch all the first shows of the year and doing musings on them, I might as well kick things off with Dynamite.
For those wondering, Impact will be up tomorrow. Smackdown will be up on Sunday. If I have the channel that Collision is airing on (a former Discovery channel redubbed USA Network – no relation), there will be that going up on Monday. And of course, the first RAW of the Netflix era will be covered on Tuesday… and then Wednesday will be stuff. Don’t expect regular weekly write-ups on these things or anything like that unless I happen to like the shows and dub them worth the effort; this is just a one off to see which of these shows kicks off the new year with a strong effort. Dynamite, of course, is the first one up… so it’ll have to be a real “banger” of a show (as the kids say) if it’s going to maintain its crown or something.
Anyhoo, here are some observations I’ve made during the show – not a blow for blow show recap because that requires a commitment that is well above my non-existent paygrade, but just notes on some stuff that I noticed or something. The usual output for this blog.
We open the show with Hangman Page defeating Orange Cassidy in what I thought was an entertaining enough match, though not so sure about Page eating a couple Orange Punches (Cassidy’s usual finish) before coming back with a Buckshot for the win. He beats on Orange for a little bit before Christopher Daniels comes out to save Orange… er, I mean, get beat up by Hangman himself… so I guess Daniels is coming out of retirement too, huh? Sure, why not? Might as well do something with the guy if he’s going to be a TV character again. I could think of worse things for him to do than be a punching back for Hangman for a bit.
The Acclaimed finally explode after a long period of not get along, with the team suffering a defeat at the hands of the Hurt Business… er, I mean, SYNDICATE… when Max Caster tagged himself into the match and got his ass kicked. Anthony Bowens then calls his partner an asshole and goes away. Well, there goes a popular act that lost its teeth ages ago. On the other hand, seeing these two go their separate ways and carving their own paths should be interesting. If nothing else, Max Caster doesn’t seem to be the headache that Enzo Amore seemed to be and Bowens looks like someone who could get a decent run as a singles guy… that’s assuming anyone with a brain is willing to commit to that.
Julia Hart defeated Jamie Hayter via mist to the eyes in what felt like the obligatory women’s match. It’s 2025 and I shouldn’t have to write the term “obligatory women’s match” on a wrestling show unless it’s a WWE show from the old days, but goddamn this felt like a genuine, honest-to-goodness obligatory women’s wrestling match. Granted, Julia came back from injury and probably still needs to find her feet, but Hayter just feels like another girl on the roster rather than someone with some semblance of star power before her injury.
Just to kill the show even further, let’s have a shitty Mercedes promo promoting a New Japan show. Because that’s what I want to see as a MAX streaming subscriber is an advert for another wrestling show on another wrestling streaming service that I have to pay for. Joy to the world, indeed.
Jay White defeated Swerve Strickland and Roderick Strong to earn a spot in the Gauntlet Battle Royal to determine a new challenger for Mox’s World title. The match itself was fine, but the post-match is the real story that saw perennial geek wrestler Ricochet do his best Sid Eudy impression by stabbing Swerve with scissors… well, TK did admit that he books for the sickos and they certainly gave this segment a response, so… mission accomplished, I guess?
The funny thing is that there used to be a time when such spots were done with such infrequency that whenever it would happen, it would seem like a big deal to build up heat for a big feud. But since it’s AEW, they have to do these things in excess and everything loses all meaning. I don’t mind stuff like this for the PPVs because people PAID for those shows, but wasting it on free TV – even if it is on MAX – feels pretty lame.
I don’t mention promos around here, but… yeah, Okada called someone a bitch, MJF is apparently done with Adam Cole (thank fuck for that), Hook wants to go after Christian Cage because his father isn’t dead yet, and Jeff Jarrett wants to challenge for the World title. Well, shit, we’re already teasing a World title program between Mox and Cope. Might as well throw Jarrett a bone while he’s still around.
Rated FTR (comprising FTR and Adam Copeland… er, sorry, I mean COPE… you’re just asking for them jokes, aren’t ya, Copey?) defeated the Death Riders to give the hometown guys a feel good win and a happy ending on a show that… well, let’s be honest. I was hoping for something that was a much bigger deal for something that was supposed to be a big deal… but it’s just business as usual for Dynamite. A generally watchable show with some good wrestling on display, some seeds for future stories being planted, and of course, some confounding segments.
Obviously, given the nature of the show – Fight For The Fallen is usually a charity event – I’m forgoing the usual Dynamite banner with Tony Khan head… but this is one of those rare occasions that such a banner is undeserving. This show was fine. Was it great? No. Did it make me care about angles going forward? Eh, not really, but for a one-off, it was a good show and that’s all I could ask for.
Tomorrow, we’ll do a write up on last night’s Impact.
P.S. Can we go back to the old Dynamite theme? The very old one. This new one isn’t working for me, brother.
dtm666 