Category: Wrestling Television Musings

RAW celebrated 20 years of Randy Orton with the usual opening segment where a bunch of people come in and talk… and then they book a multi-man for the main event despite not liking tag-teams because how many fucking people do you gotta pay? At least the match ended with a happy ending and the crowd went home happy… or so I’ve been told.

Anyway, I just finished watching the Dynamite show a short while ago… man, what a great show that was.

Amazingly, Rob Van Dam did not make his supposed AEW debut, because what better time to make waves in the new promotion than on the 4/20 edition of Dynamite.

So now that we got the obvious deadhorse joke out of the way, the major announcement hyped up by Tony Khan turned out to be the official announcement of Forbidden Door, a joint AEW/New Japan PPV event from Chicago taking place in late-June… so another PPV event for me to sample, yippee. The way they handled this was fine; as TK came out and introduced the president of New Japan, only for Adam Cole to pop up on screen and make the announcement himself, which was the right move because Adam Cole is a good promo and TK often comes across as awkward. And then of course, this brings out Jay White of Bullet Club fame, who is… not the least bit amazing. By the way, him saying that he sold out MSG is cute and what a heel in taking credit for other people’s hard work.

I may have to go back and watch that MSG show, actually. One of these days.

Meanwhile, there was some good wrestling on here. CM Punk vs. Dustin Rhodes opened the show and that was a good match. Wardlow and the Butcher had a good ol’ fashioned hoss fight and after Wardlow won, MJF cut a promo to pay off Jake The Snake to cut one of his classic Jake The Snake promos before ol’ Murderhawk himself Lance Archer goes “Fuck all that. EVERY BODY FUCKING DIES!” Excellent. Trios between the Blackpool Combat Club and three geeks is always fun for a lark. Kyle O’Reilly beating Jungle Boy to advance in the Owen Hart tournament was NOT a surprise as it should’ve been, because we needz some genuine CANADIANS in this tournament showcasing this CANADIAN rassler. And the coffin match between Andrade and Darby was an entertaining spectacle if nothing else.

Points must be docked for one of the Private Party guys ripping a Sting sign from a guy in a Sting mask, who pulls the mask off to reveal himself to be… Sting. I could’ve sworn I’ve seen this bit in TNA ages ago. I must stress; I don’t mind it. It’s funny.

Oh, and Sting does another dive… and I was worried about Steve Austin having another match.

All in all, a perfectly fine edition of Dynamite. Summon the bots to hate this show.

Note to future wrestling promoters; if you’re going to have an overrun on your weekly television show, make it worth your audience’s while. Don’t blow it on something that nobody is going to care about.

Case in point; last night’s episode of Dynamite, which was another fine episode in a series of fine episodes and I’ve little to say in general. Jurassic Express beating O’Reilly & Fish to retain the tag titles was a nice surprise to an otherwise fine piece of tag wrestling, Captain Shawn Dean scoring another big win over MJF (albeit via countout after MJF was scared off by Wardlow because… whatever, don’t kill the Cap’n’s big moment, pal!), a fun six-man with Jericho’s crew beating up Eddie’s crew, and finally Team Taz’s best stars whose name is not HOOK get a big win over the NXT rejects of Swerve and Keith Lee. The women’s match was kinda trash, though. That’s what we get for saying Britt/Rosa didn’t live up to expectations, I suppose.

Samoa Joe vs. Minoru Suzuki was a good main event… didn’t quite live up to the physicality of Joe Vs. Kobashi (not that I would’ve expected it) and the match felt more like a tease of something bigger and more brutal, but it was fine and seeing Joe win the ROH TV Title from Suzuki was a nice little surprise. What wasn’t so nice was the follow-up, which saw Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt beat up Joe for a bit before the lights went out – another gimmick we need to kill off if the end result is another diminishing return – and when they turn back on, we get this big tall dude whose name I’m not even going to try and spell out because I might butcher it… I’ll look it up later, I promise.

I’d imagine this is a TBS deal or something… probably to try and get a big Indian name over… I wish nothing but the best for this guy, but my hopes are not high, as past experience has proven. It also doesn’t help that first impressions for this guy is that of a big, lumbering oaf that killed a previously hot crowd, who were probably expecting a name with some weight to it. Perhaps a certain Swiss superhuman or some guy named Johnny, not some failed basketball player who’s reminding me of another failed basketball player who was marketed as a giant among men and nobody bought into because he was just tall and lanky. Poor bastard has a long way to go to wipe the stencth of this first impression of the minds of the audience.

One thing is certain; this was definitely NOT WORTH the extra few minutes of overrun that had been hyped and was a downer ending on an otherwise fine edition of Dynamite. But I’m sure any negative reaction that this garners will be blamed on bots… because that’s Tony’s schtick these days.

And no, that’s not going away any time soon…

Another week, another edition of Dynamite… and it was just a show for the most part.

Mind you, it had its high points. Punk vs. Caster was good stuff. Mox vs. Jay Lethal along with Danielson vs. Yuta was a nice double dose of violence… still not entirely sold on the Blackpool Combat Club name, even if it does sound kinda cool. Darby vs. Andrade was tremendous and I’m actually starting to dig this Andrade fellow. Pity you couldn’t give Darby another win, but hey, the match was fun. And next week looks to be good..

The rest of the show… is just there.

Toni Storm debuting with a win over the Bunny is something, I guess. FTR vs. Gunn Club was also… something. The Jericho people getting ambused by Eddie and friends before overcoming the odds reeks of horrid WWE booking that almost caused me to turn the show off, because the last thing I want on the alternative wrestling show is more of the same shit as the show I avoid for those reasons. This Adam Cole/Hangman Page feud is still a thing for some reason and quite honestly, I’m bored with it. Never a good sign when Adam Cole is cutting a promo and I’m falling asleep. I don’t want to call this Hangman World Title reign a total bust, but we went from excellent pro wrestling with Bryan Danielson to meandering NXT goofiness with Adam Cole. Give the champ someone new and worthy, not NXT sloppy seconds. Thanks.

Jade Cargill’s 30th opponent was supposed to be Leva Bates, but Jade doesn’t want a joke opponent. What a burial of Leva Bates. Does she have as bad as of a win-loss record as Brandon Cutler?

So yeah, that was a show. A show with good stuff, but a show nonetheless. Meh.

So I have not been keeping up with AEW as of late. I have still not seen the PPV and the closest thing I’ve done to catching up was following whatever recaps I could. But I was able to sit down and watch this episode of Dynamite and… well, I guess I need to bust out the Five Point Format, don’t I?

So… Tony Khan just bought Ring Of Honor… and then assured us Shane isn’t here. It’s all him. Well, it certainly is big news. How this pans out down the road… I guess we’ll have to see.

We follow that with Bryan Danielson and Christopher Daniels having a fun little match, with a handshake to start and a head getting kicked in to finish before MOX comes out and offers Danielson the first shot, but doesn’t take it.

I didn’t catch last week’s episode, but I did catch the MJF promo where he used his past as a bullied fellow and CM Punk leaving to gain sympathy. I wasn’t a fan of the promo because it kinda humanizes the villain and sometimes humanizing a particular loathsome character is the worst thing you could do. So Punk comes out, recounts all the terrible things he’s done, offers Max a handshake, and instead gets a hug and subsequent shot to the balls because Cody isn’t around to cry foul at that particular angle being used, so we might as well do it here. Then Punk gets bloodied and choked by a chain before his buddies show up to save him.

Other than that, a bunch of other stuff happened, I guess. I don’t know; once you got the big announcement out of the way and the chances of Shane McMahon popping up became a figment of one’s imagination, the rest of the show became something of a blur… and this is the go home show for their upcoming PPV this weekend.

Yeah, so that was a show, eh?

I’m going to be honest here; Keith Lee and Jay White debuting on AEW doesn’t do much for me, as I’ve largely avoided NXT during Lee’s time there (not his fault) and I’m not much of a New Japan guy. So calling these “huge signings” might seem so to TK or the hardcores, but I’m just shrugging my shoulders here and going “cool.”

CM Punk and Jon Moxley teamed up to beat FTR in a pretty good tag match that was spurred from an opening promo between MJF and Punk, who challenged Wardlow because HE was the guy who beat him. Punk and Mox make a good pairing, but what about Bryan Danielson?

So I ask AEW a favor here; can we please stop having long Jade Cargill matches please? It’s bad enough when she’s working with competent talent, but with someone who is essentially a no-name? I was waiting for this thing to end because it was just so DULL. People make fun of Goldberg for having short matches, but you want to know what those short matches did? It made him into a BIG STAR. Someone like Jade should be having short Goldberg things with these geeks, not 20 minute exhibitions that looked worse than anything I cook up in whatever WWE video game I’ve got laying around.

I mean, SERENA DEEB beat a fucking geek in less than a minute. WHY THE FUCK CAN’T YOU DO THAT WITH JADE FUCKING CARGILL, TK?! SHE’S PERFECT FOR THAT SORT OF THING?!!

Goddamn, all caps in an AEW musings. We’ve finally hit that particular wall.

Yeah, so the main event… AEW World Champion Hangman Adam Page retaining the title over Lance Archer in a Texas Death Match that saw both guys bloodied up (with Hangman bleeding a fucking gusher). There was a bit of smarts here where some goof took out the top ropes, which neutralized Hangman’s ability to do his Buckshot Lariat finisher (he flips over the top and clothesline a dude), but while the ref was hunch over, Hangman did his Buckshot on Archer through the table on the other side for the eventual win. This was a fun little brawl there, but I’m going to echo a few sentiments out there and say that I’m over everyone getting cut up for these things. You do something one time too many, it eventually starts to lose its appeal. Also, please cut back on no-DQs, street fights, and lights out for the foreseeable future. These are also somewhat lame unless you’re going to do old-style WWF hardcore where you’re fighting across the street at a local bar or something. Just saying.

That’s all I’ve got.

Dynamite was a weird show, mostly because I missed a good chunk of it and the DVR was fucked.

So it was supposed to open with Jon Moxley vs. Brian Kendrick, until Kendrick was yanked because someone uncovered some stupid shit that he said years ago. If people got shitcanned because of shit they said years ago, everyone would be fired. So, instead we got Mox killing that Wheeler Yuta kid, and then Bryan Danielson comes out and invites Mox to join forces with him. Interesting turn of events. Go watch the promo.

Then they followed that with a Brandi Rhodes segment and I turned off the show to do other stuff, but mostly because I had no desire to sit through Brandi trying to be Stephanie McMahon. It’s the first time I’ve ever shut off an AEW show because of something they put on screen. I wonder if that’s something Brandi will twit on her Twitter, but she’ll probably get ratings or something. Don’t know. Don’t care. Sorry.

Eventually, I came back in time to catch the main event and what a main event that was. MJF defeated CM Punk twice on this show; first with a taped gimmick that slipped and when the ref saw it, he restarted the match, which made fans assume Punk would win. Then Wardlow would come out, distract Punk while he discreetly passed on TEH RING to MJF, who used it to KO PG Punk for the win. By the way, this was in Chicago and the hometown guy got beat… TWICE. I lament the tired WWE trope, but in this case, it works well here because this would end up being a big win for MJF.

Anyway, that was a show from what I saw. Better luck next week, I suppose.