Note: Right, so this was written before last night’s Dynamite aired and stuff happened on that show that won’t be touched on here, but will be touched on this Sunday. So if this seems a tad out of date, that’s why and please, no spoilers. Thanks.
Right, so it’s more or less expected of me to produce some semblance of wrestling material on this blog to take advantage of the Road To Wrestlemania… which is full of potholes that would put all of Montreal Island and neighboring municipalities to shame. That, and my lack of interest in the current wrestling product also plays a bit of a role. However, my buddy who usually supplies me with DVD recordings of PPVs for the purposes of these PPV musings, decided to give me DVD-Rs of last weekend’s PPV offerings, Saturday’s TNA Rebellion show and Sunday’s AEW Dynasty show.
Having heard horror stories about the TNA show, I opted for the AEW show. Hey, if nothing else, I can expect that the MJF/Kenny Omega match is going to be a nice, clean affair that doesn’t involve a whole bunch of skewers sticking out of someone’s skull, which is all I need to go “No buys.” That, and if the show turns out to be good, I might give AEW another shot. Anything to keep my mind off the disaster plex that is WWE right now.
The Young Bucks defeat Okada and Takeshita, with Takeshita grabbing one of the Bucks to prevent them from hitting their Meltzer Driver move on Okada, but then deciding “Nah, you can have ‘im.” And so they have ‘im and the pin… while I haven’t watched much, I’ve kept up via recaps, so I know that Okada and Takeshita has some issues seeing eye to eye and I don’t see this helping matters much. That and also Takeshita wants Okada’s International title, which apparently is set for later down the road, so that’s something to look forward, I guess. Needless to say, this was a fun opener. Bucks are their usual energetic selves, Takeshita continues to impress with solid performances, and even Okada seemed like he gave a shit for once, which is a nice change of pace.
Ricochet defeated JERICHO… I guess we have too many Chrises in AEW, so the veteran has opted for JERICHO. This is the kind of stuff that he couldn’t have done in WWE… another thing that JERICHO wouldn’t have done in WWE was job to Ricochet, but to be fair, you had a bunch of run-ins and distractions to taint the win somewhat. I guess that’s what happens when you wish a sick person had whatever thing that made them sick in the first place; you get a PPV match and a win over JERICHO. Failing upwards, it would seem.
All kidding aside, Jericho looked good here, having gained a beat or two that he lost during his last few months in the company. Sort of helps that you had this string of Canadian shows to cheer the guy out, though we’ll have to see if the sentiment holds when AEW returns to home turf. But again, Ricochet does a twit on Twitter that Tony Khan says “violated AEW social media policy” and he gets “punished” by getting a win over JERICHO? Who exactly is getting “punished” here?
Darby Allin defeated Andrade to earn a World title shot at some point in the future, which turned out to be last night’s Dynamite… so I guess I’ll have to watch that too and see what happens. The downfall for Andrade came when the crowd told him to take off his pants and he obliged, only to fail with a mooonsault and eventually eat one of Darby’s finishes. This is what happens when you listen to the marks, Andrade. Fun match, Darby does his usual crazy shit, and Andrade looks like someone who woke up from a long slumber and feels motivated, which is a step above the last time I saw the guy where he was just… kinda… sorta… there. Both shake hands and we move on to the next thing
AEW Tag-Team Champions Fuck The Revival defeated COPE and CAGE to retain the tag titles. Not exactly a five-star classic and really, after three somewhat fast-paced matches, seeing the older and slower COPE and CAGE going at it with FTR feels like a downer in comparison. That having been said, this was fine for what it was, which is a dream match of sorts between one of the premiere tag teams of the Attitude Era against… well, against FTR. It’s better than nothing, I suppose.
Oh and apparently former NWA Women’s Champion KAMILLE made her long awaited return to AEW (as far as I’m concerned anyway) on the preshow and went after Willow Nightingale. I’d imagine Kamille will be around for a couple weeks before doing the job to Willow and then she’s off TV again, which sucks because Kamille is the sort of brickhouse talent that this division could use more of. More Kamille. Less Mercedes. Much appreciated. Thanks.
Kevin Knight wins the Casino Gauntlet battle royal to win the vacant TNT championship, which had been previously held by Kyle Fletcher until a recent injury forced him to drop the title, which no doubt made Uncle Dave sad and cry about all the bad faith grifters or whatever the case may be. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then I envy your ignorance. Anyway, it’s a battle royal thing. There are fun moments. Kevin Knight being a tag guy with “Speedball” Bailey and winning the title is a nice surprise of sorts. We’ll see if it lasts.
AEW Women’s Champion THEKLA defeated Jamie Hayter to retain the title. Match was fine, but the crowd didn’t seem into it. Probably because they didn’t think poor Jamie had a chance of winning, which is a shame, but hey, what are you gonna do? These things happen. First time seeing THEKLA in action (I think?) and I’m liking what I see. I’ve seen her cut a couple promos and she seems like a cool character to have on the TV. Looking forward to seeing her more in the future.
Continental Champion Jon Moxley defeated Will Ospreay to retain the title in a surprising finish. Honestly, to tell the truth, there are a lot of surprising finishes on this show where the folks you expect to win don’t. Spoiler: this trend will continue. The match was a fun brawl if nothing else. Ospreay looked like he hadn’t missed a bit after considerable time off from a major injury and Mox does his usual stuff with the Death Riders that I wish would just go away and he can go back to either his Wild Thing entrance or hell, even his original AEW theme is a step above this crap. I’ve heard modern WWE themes sound better than this… and that’s not a compliment.
Roderick Strong, Orange Cassidy & the returning Kyle O’Reilly defeated Trios Champions THE DOGS (someone named Gabe Kidd who ended up getting hurt during the match, along with David Finlay and Clark Connors) to win the titles. Apparently, the DOGS won the titles on Collision the previous week so that they can drop them at this here PPV… because sure, why not? This was the bring-me-down match to cool people off. I don’t even know if there were pockets involved, but other than that, it wasn’t a bad match other than the injury Gabe Kidd suffered that took him out of the match midway. Wishing him a speedy recovery.
AEW World Champion MJF defeated Kenny Omega to retain the title. Thankfully, they chose to have a pretty solid and straightforward wrestling match rather than the hardcore street fighting horse manure of past main events and the match itself is pretty good. Kenny may have missed a beat or two, but he’s still one of the best talents in the promotion and MJF is a guy who could step up to the plate and hold his own when the situation calls for it. In a way, I’m actually fine with MJF retaining the title here because I don’t think we need to have him drop the title on a nothing (by AEW standards) PPV show. And Kenny can always win the title later down the road if that’s still in the books. (Though if I’m going to be honest, I’d much rather MJF hold onto the title until All In where he can drop to Ospreay or something… maybe give it to Kyle Fletch… nah, that’s going too far.)
Still, a surprising finish because you figured Kenny would have won this one and we’d eventually build towards what we assume will be Ospreay challenging for the title at All In, which is from London. How are the ticket sales right now? Honest question, I don’t know… and please don’t reference Uncle Dave.
Honestly, there’s not a whole lot to say about this Dynasty show. It’s the typical AEW PPV offering of four hours of fun, exciting wrestling matches with maybe a couple surprises here and there. The surprises, in this case, happens to be the four hours flying by rather quickly and also, all the hometown guys losing. It almost seems like Tony Khan has a thing against Canadians.
Aaaannnndddd cue Uncle Dave.
Anyway, I’ll probably give the Dynamite show a watch and possibly add some musings this weekend… and who knows? Maybe I’ll lose my mind and give the TNA show a watch. Because what else am I going to watch that weekend, really?
dtm666 