Category: AEW Television Musings

Well, they did a separate Rampage taping in Toronto and much to my surprise, TSN actually decided to air this on their actual network rather than relegate it to their shitty, shitty app. And what did AEW give the wider Canadian audience who would rather watch their wrestling on TV than on a shitty app?

They gave them Ring Of Honor… or rather, the husk of a promotion that was once Ring Of Honor before it shutdown, got bought by Tony Khan, and now “kinda, sorta” exists for some reason.

They brought in another ROH alumnus in Dalton Castle to challenge Chris Jericho for the ROH World Title, as if I’m supposed to care about this. On top of that, FTR, after disposing of another ROH stable act, gets a challenge for their ROH tag titles from something called the Kingdom, which comprises Mike Bennett, Maria Kanellis, and some other dude whose name I don’t recall, but they did this act in ROH. All well and good for those who still care about ROH, but I sure as hell don’t and I’m still struggling to find a reason to care.

I get why they keep ROH on the air; to give the impression that it’s still alive despite not having a TV show to call their own. Honestly, the brand would’ve been better off if it were put on ice for the foreseeable future and when the stars align and you secure a TV slot for that product, you could bring it back then. All this is doing right now is souring me on the AEW product, which is the thing that I tune in to watch. And maybe if you focused on the AEW guys you already have – talented people that once had big runs but are now sitting on the sidelines because you’re too busy bringing in new guys and not doing a sufficient job of making people care about them – maybe the ship would be run a little better.

It’s a shame, too, because the show opened with a great tag match that saw Mox and Claudio beat the Butcher and Blade in a great match, Nyla Rose is actually starting to grow on me, and it was nice to see Shawn Spears get a feelgood win on TV in the main event tag, even if it’s involving some ROH guys that I care little about. And this is not a knock on the talent, but rather on the booking, which has been pretty spotty as of late. I’m sorry, but one little thing that has persisted ruined the whole show for me and ended up pulling a Leafs or Jays… I honestly don’t know which is worse.

Not even the Bunny could save this Rampage show.

Well, AEW finally held a show in Canada. And of course, they pick Toronto to make their big debut. And what better way to kick off your Toronto show than having Renee Paquette come out to a huge pop as she is now #AllElite. She then brings out Christian Cage who immediately goes for a Leafs diss, which draws the boos. But is the crowd booing because Christian is going to the cheap heat or are they booing because, well, he’s not wrong?

This leads us to Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus beating the crap out of each other in a pretty fun opener that ends with JB getting distracted by Christian, allowing the dinoasat to burning hammer his former partner for the win. Fun stuff, this match was… and then we get Wardlow and Samoa Joe teaming up to beat up the Factory people, which brings out some ROH guys, which brings out FTR (hey, they finally got booked!), which brings out the Ten guy, Shawn Spears, to a big pop. Wardlow powerbomsba a guy and he and Spears make up. Yay.

Swerve and Billy Gunn has a match… it’s fine, Swerve wins via pinfall while holding onto the ropes like a dastardly heel. Then the lawyer guy comes out and claims to own the rights to Scissor Me… why the fuck would you take away your hot act’s big thing? It’d be like telling Steve Austin he can’t give people the bird, for fuck’s sake.

Jon Moxley and Hangman Page trade barbs with each other. Mox is his usual brilliant promo self and even Hangman shows some fire with his words while also busting himself open for good measure. Sadly, the Toronto folks would rather chant for MJF, who’s in the crowd. One of these days, people in AEW need to realize that having MJF in the rafters takes attention away from the thing in question. And yes, they did this sort of thing in WWE. And yes, I hated it there too.

ROH World Champion Chris Jericho defeated Bryan Danielson when Daniel Garcia, playing the role of Ric Flair, turned on Danielson, playing the role of Sting. By the way, Jericho got a pop for being Jericho and Canadian, but Garcia turning on Danielson (after weeks of Danielson trying to court Garcia because he shares the same last name as his wife) also got a huge pop. Sadly, who is not popping are the people at Warner, who are sad that they’re not getting their Total Daniels reality show any time soon.

And then Orange Cassidy beats THAT TWO-TIMING MOTHERFUCKING GODDAMNED BASTARD PAC to win the All Atlantic International World Global Big Gold Western States Heritage 24/7 Ironman Championship. It was fine.

Good show, this Toronto show. Probably the only thing in Toronto that was a winner this year… because I have no hopes for the fucking Raptors.

All in all, a perfectly entertaining edition of Dynamite. Not sure if I’m going to be catching the PPV this weekend, but if not, there’s other stuff to look forward to, I suppose. There’s a WWE PPV that actually looks good (for once) and even the big Worlds Collide end of NXT UK Saturday afternoon. Stuff to consider.

P.S. Apparently Bobby Fish’s contract has expired and AEW is not re-signing him. So much for that Elite vs. ReDragon trios feud, bay bay.

Last week, I expressed my befuddlement (or something to that extent) in regards to the Punk/Mox unification match being booked on a Dynamite rather than at the PPV that’s about to take place in two weeks. Well, turns out that Jon Moxley beat CM Punk to officially become a two-time AEW World Champion and in just under three minutes. Holy shit! AEW can actually do short matches where one guy dominates the other guy and kicks his ass quickly…

Well, after several weeks of promotion joint New Japan ventures and a Ring Of Honor PPV that only a minute number of hardcore ROH fans will care about, Dynamite returns to form pushing some AEW talent on its AEW program. I’ve largely zoned out of the AEW cycle for the past few weeks and only caught glimpses here and there. I’m not going to dwell too much on the past (you can listen to the DTM-Cast episode posted yesterday for that), but I just want to talk about this Dynamite show, which has been, again, a return to form.

So, Forbidden Door has come and gone. Heard it was a great show with some great wrestling. I didn’t watch it because I didn’t care enough to order the PPV on the strength of good wrestling alone since that would be akin to giving a kid a participation trophy for showing up for softball practice. Good wrestling – even great wrestling – is not something that is lacking in good supply these days and I was more than content to fill the void with virtually anything else… as was the case when I posted yesterday’s weekly PPV musings.

Now Blood And Guts II on the other hand? THAT piqued my interest.

It’s rare for me to witness a good, bloody Wargames style match and the few that I watched back in the day have always been a fun spectacle of violence until I got the DVD comp that collected all of them, which is where I started to truly enjoy the match concept as a whole. So it’s the second ever AEW Blood & Guts match and this one has fucking CLAUDIO. What could possibly go right?

Some questionable stuff from All Elite Wrestling, which should shock some folks, I’m sure, but like I said a couple times, the honeymoon period is long gone and now I’ve got things to complain as it relates to this recent of Dynamite.

Before we get to that, let me just say that wrestling-wise, this episode delivered the goods. There was a really good main event in Jon Moxley vs. Kyle O’Reilly. I might not think of Cool Kyle as a top-tier name, but he’s getting there. PAC vs. Buddy Matthews was pretty fun as well… yes, I’m forgoing the usual PAC gimmick; that’s how dour I am. Hangman Page getting a big win over New Japan’s David Finlay resulted in another good match. Thunder Rosa, your reigning AEW Women’s World Champion, was stuck having to carry one of Cold Ronda’s buddies to a borefest of a match, but at least she was on TV.

Okay, so we’ve highlighted the highlights, which remains the wrestling. Now click the break to start an effigy on the booking, which BAFFLED me to no end.

I know I said last week that I wasn’t going to do any more of these weekly Dynamite musings, but something important and significant happened on this show that prompted me to talk about this piece of business. It’s been the talk of the town and I feel the need to provide my two cents on the matter. I am, of course, referring to…

Well, it’s the go-home show for Double Or Nothing, which means the last push before the big PPV event this coming weekend. It’s also going to be the last AEW Dynamite musings for a good while. I’ll keep watching the show on and off, but I think I’m going to give these things a rest for a couple months and pick it up later down the road.

That said, this was a fine show.

Wardlow killed the Ten Guy in a steel cage after a chairshot from Ten Guy killed special ref MJF, which prompted a regular ref to make the winning pinfall count. This is followed by a pretty solid Hangman/Punk promo segment hosted by Tony Schiavone, who is more than happy to stir up shit between these two, leading to Hangman knocking Punk on his ass… the intrigue in this World title feud is enticing, unlike anything involving Roman these days.

Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston beat up a bunch of dudes and then they brawl with Jericho’s crew. This is followed by a ROH Tag Title match between defending champs FTR and Roppogi Vice ending in an actual, honest-to-God DISQUALIFICATION FINISH on an All Elite Wrestling television program caused by a couple New Japan guys whose names I don’t recall beating on both teams… I guess we gotta start building towards that PPV while we’re at it.

Thunder Rosa cuts a promo hyping her title defense against Serena Deeb… it’s fine. Britt Baker advances to the finals of the Owen tournament by beating Toni Storm… and Samoa Joe defeated Kyle O’Reilly to advance to the finals against Adam Cole or someone… and part of me has this funny feeling that the tournament is going to be won by Cole and Britt because they’re doing the lovin’ or something. I hope I’m wrong on that count because… eh…

On a whole, a perfectly fine go-home show for Double Or Nothing and a good note to bow out on this journey for now. See you all next Wednesday… or earlier if you like the other shit I post here every so often.