Category: AEW Television Musings

So, I guess we should talk about this Dynamite show… and probably Impact too, but I’ve got less to say about that one, hence no musings. But we’ll save that for after the break.

Just as an aside, I’m not covering the whole show; just some of the more notable bits that I can recall from memory. For what it’s worth, this was a fairly busy show with a lot of stuff going on. Hopefully, things slow down for the next episode.

So… the Impact show is something that I just breezed through for the most part. An empty studio show with a bunch of stuff happening and no effort to get potential new viewers familiar with any of the characters since this was their most watched show in ages. There’s a pretty good Sami Calihan promo hyping his rivalry with Eddie Edwards over that errant baseball bat hit across the face from yesteryear – I’m amazed I actually remember that angle – and there’s a neat bit where the reigning Impact World champion is refused entry to the parking lot… yes, the reigning world champion of your company was shut out by a portly security officer, which is a hell of a first impression for new viewers… but other than that, the only notable bits were the two AEW segments. The first being a paid ad with the two Tonys and the second being the awesome interview between Josh Matthews and the Don Callis/Kenny Omega team… and since those segments are online, it renders the whole episode pointless if you’re just tuning in for the AEW stuff.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (Dec. 9th, 2020): Slow Down A Bit, Kid”

(Yeah, so I was going to put this out last week, but forgot about it, so better late than never.)

Winter came and went… some quick thoughts on the monumental edition of AEW Dynamite where a bunch of stuff happened…

THIS SHOW FUCKING RULED. THE END.

Oh, you want more? Fine… but don’t expect much more. When a show leaves me with little to say other than “this rule”, then that’s a sign of a quality, entertainment program.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (Dec. 2nd, 2020): I’m With Vinny On This One”

Well, Dynamite has crossed the one-year mark and what better way to celebrate the one-year anniversary than to have an anniversary show… two weeks later.

Hey, better late than never, I suppose. And given that the past year has given more more wrestling hits than misses, I’m not one to complain. In any event, we’ve got a big show with all AEW championships on the line as well as a major announcement from MJF. Let’s get to it.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (Oct. 14th, 2020): Belated Anniversary Show”

So here’s the deal; I’ve been fairly complimentary of AEW in these various write-ups. For the most part, they’ve put out some quality wrestling shows and even when the shows felt underwhelming, it was never to the degree where the shows felt off… until tonight.

So, for the folks who felt that I’ve been overly positive towards AEW as of late, you’ll be happy to know that I’m shifting gears today and will focus on the bad parts of the show, of which I’ll touch on three that really irked me and contributed to an episode of Dynamite that, while still somewhat fun, started to fall off the wagon a bit.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (August 27th, 2020): Matt Vs. Sammy In A Commercials Match”

So, I’ll keep this short because there’s only a couple pieces of business worth mentioning; this was another fine episode of Dynamite that did a fine job of hyping up the PPV taking place in a couple weeks. And they made the most of the temporary timeslot running opposite whatever Takeover event was taking place by giving us a special show, even if the matches weren’t up there.

– Fuck The Revival is now joined by Tully Blanchard… but what about the ten guy? He beats the “Dead Ass” guys and then a backstage thing takes place where they propose a gauntlet match between the various tag teams to determine who challenges for the tag titles at the PPV.

– So the Jon Moxley/MJF feud continues with another quality Mox promo followed by MJF, his neck brace, and entourage challenging Mox to sign a petition to ban the dangerous and deadly Paradigm Shift (a double-arm DDT) from their All Out match or else he’ll SUE! Yeah, just one problem with that theory. What’s to stop Mox from dishing out a DEATH RIDER, which is also a double-arm DDT? Why not just say DDTs are banned and he can hit you with a piledriver, instead? Which is even worse than the DDT… all snark aside, this is more good quality promo work from both guys and it gives me a World title match to look forward to rather than “meh, cool, derpy funny mask thing.”

– They had the finals of the Women’s Deadly Draw thing take place. I didn’t watch the Youtube show, but if this match was indicative of the rest of the tourney, then I’m glad I didn’t miss much. But hey, Hikaru Shida vs. Thunder Rosa should be a fun match at the PPV, so that’s something.

– The Elite beat the Dark Order and Kenny goes made after a while, but who gives a shit about that? The main event saw The Exalted One Mr. Brodie Lee DESTROY Cody in a total squash to win the TNT Championship. Good job, AEW; you did a short match… after the other short match with Darby, but I digress. Cody is taken out on a stretcher, but the Dark Order geeks beat him up, they drag out Dustin and that other guy who were already beat up, and even Anna Jay gets in on the action by choking out Brandi. If you wanted a better way to put the Dark Order over as a true potential threat, then you’ll have to find it somewhere else because this did the job perfectly. Brodie looked like a monster, the Dark Order didn’t look like total boobs (this will last until the next BTE, I’m sure), and the bit where Brodie is sprinkling the broken pieces of the old TNT belt over Cody’s near-corpse was a nice touch.

So, yes, thoroughly entertained… and yes, regarding the bit where AEW is going to start having actual fans again in limited capacity… setting aside all the safety concerns, I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen the show take place. AEW usually does a good job with these limited capacity showings and I think they’ll be fine, but let’s wait and see with this one.

Sorry for the delay, folks… but here’s my quick Dynamite thoughts after the break. Probably won’t be covering the pre-emptied editions of the show ahead and I’m not even sure if All Out is in the cards at the moment, but we’ll get back to this one soon enough in some form or fashion.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (August 12th, 2020): Tag Team Appreciation Night Doesn’t Appreciate Tag Teams”

So here’s a bit of catch-up from the past couple episodes of Dynamite since… well, it’s not worth doing individual posts for episodes from the prior month. I’m not going to point out every single piece of business on the shows, just the notable bits.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (Rest Of July and a bit beyond)”

A week after their 2-night Fyter Fest from an empty Daily’s Place, AEW held their Fight For The Fallen show on an episode of Dynamite, where proceeds to T-shirts would to COVID relief efforts, keeping in line with the charitable nature of the event. We’re getting a World title match on this show that we didn’t get the week prior due to COVID related reasons.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (July 15th, 2020): Fight For The Fallen 2020”

Full disclaimer: I had these written back in July shortly after the shows took place, but because of the self-imposed moratorium in regards to wrestling-related material, they were obviously not posted until now. So if there is no reference to anything that came afterwards (title changes and whatnots), that’s why… and the same goes for tomorrow’s Fight For The Fallen.

With July over and done, the moratorium is lifted and we begin the week recapping a couple big Dynamite shows, continue with a general follow-up post on Wednesday, do this week’s episode, and eventually follow up with some thoughts on this past weekend’s big Talk-N-Shop-A-Mania show.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (July 1st and 8th, 2020): Fyter Fest 2020”