By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
AEW Tag Champions The Young Bucks vs. Pac and Penta El Zero Miedo in a non-title match: The athleticism was just too damn good to give this match a Miss, but I do have issues with the lack of rule enforcement during most of AEW’s tag team matches. A case can be made that the core AEW fan base doesn’t care about tag rules, but I see enough fan complaints that AEW should try to appease the bigger audience by tightening up the rules. Or, as Jake Barnett wrote in his live review last night, the company could just announce the use of lucha rules in their tag team matches. The match finish with Penta just sort of standing there while Nick Jackson pinned Pac was rough. And yet despite some flaws, this was a hot match with the usual jaw-dropping spots that we’ve come to expect from the participants.
Dustin Rhodes vs. Nick Comoroto in a bull rope match: A big part of me wishes that AEW would have stashed Comorota away until they felt he was ready for a big push. I don’t feel like I know anything about his character, so it’s tough to feel invested in his feud with Rhodes. On the bright side, it was a well worked brawl. While this wouldn’t have belonged in the main event slot of a regular Wednesday night show, it was fine in the late night main event slot when viewers probably drop off as the show goes on.
Jungle Boy and Christian Cage vs. “Private Party” Marq Quen and Isiah Kassidy: A decent match. Jungle Boy getting the win was the right move as he approaches his AEW Championship match with Kenny Omega. I went into the match wondering if we’d see some hint of a Cage heel turn coming, but I didn’t catch anything if there was. On a side note, I’m not a fan of Private Party dressing like they work in office cubicles just to play into the strange Hardy Home Office gimmick.
Cody Rhodes and Lee Johnson vs. Anthony Ogogo and QT Marshall: A solid television match. I liked the finish with Ogogo punching out Cody, enabling Marshall to steal the pin. It wasn’t always pretty, particularly when Johnson was late to break up a pin. Ultimately, though, it accomplished what it needed to by giving the heels the upset win over Cody in a way that put heat on both men.
AEW Dynamite Misses
Andrade El Idolo: A good addition to AEW and I like that they made it a surprise, but there was nothing particularly memorable about this segment. It’s strange that Andrade’s debut wasn’t booked to pack more of a punch.
Red Velvet vs. The Bunny: A soft Miss. The match was sloppy at times and Velvet’s dive to ringside was downright frightening. I loved the Allie character in Impact Wrestling (until she entered the Undead Realm), but I’m still not sure what to make of The Bunny.
The spectator wrestler section: Why? The spectator wrestlers added so much to Dynamite during the pandemic. But it’s time for them to stay backstage whenever real fans are back in the building.
Britt Baker’s celebration: Baker was fun and it was good to see her heeling on the crowd again, but the fast food loving pig in me simply can’t condone the crime of burger abuse that was committed by Nyla Rose. “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun!”
I am one of the AEW fans that really wants to see them enforce tag-team rules. I get the Bucks are heels and it fits their stories, but the amount they break the rules with no consequences is ludicrous. Jim Ross called a lot of attention to the kayfabe incompetence of Rick Knox during this match – was that JR’s very real exasperation or are they setting up some kind of angle where Knox is deliberately helping the Bucks?
“The athleticism was just too damn good to give this match a Miss”
Why? Who the hell cares how much flipping and diving someone can do if they do the same match every damn time they’re in the ring and completely bury every ref that has to do one of their matches?
The Bucks are nothing but spot monkeys whose matches feature the same crap over and over again.
In that case, you are nothing but a troll monkey who writes the same shit over and over again.
How pathetically childish you are Jason, grow up, well done for proving you are no journalist, just a crybaby manchild who can’t handle anyone criticising AEW, typical cult member, so embarrassing
Criticize AEW all you want. In this case, I was responding to our resident “AEW can do no right” troll who obsessively writes about how bad AEW is, yet never misses a single show and then disappears when he’s called on that by me and many others. You might actually get along great with him since you used the word cult to describe their fans.
Jason you should really ignore these guys or just ban them. It’s clear from their lingo they are Jim Cornette fanboys. Usually guys in their 40s and 50s who want wrestling to look like what they remember in their youth in the NWA. Which is fine. But that isn’t AEW and they just shouldn’t watch it. AEW is about a bunch of different styles. But they lean heavily on the athletic indie and luche style. These guys and Cornette want to see big burly men slap each other and use rest holds. Again, that isn’t AEW. AEW is action and features a lot of smaller wrestlers. It is designed to appeal to younger fans but also older fans who aren’t stuck in 1985. AEW reminds me a lot of peak ECW from 1995-1999.
Thotless hasn’t done anything to warrant being banned. While the anti-AEW schtick gets tiresome, he does make fair criticisms at times. I just wish that he would realize that the hatred he has for AEW ends up invalidating his fair criticisms for some readers because he comes off so slanted.
When it comes to readers labeling me as biased, I just laugh it off because I’ve had fans of every major company claim that I am biased against their favorite promotion (or biased in favor of the company they despise). I just call it as I see it regardless of the company putting on the how. Always have, always will.
Do you remember when Bobby Lashley was us champion and won a non title match against Jeff Hardy on RAW,and you moaned and said they should of made it a title match if the champ was winning, yet 2 days later the young bucks the tag champs won a non title match and you said that was great bc it made the match less pridictable, that is why people say you are biased
Savage
Dude is an AEW fanboy pretending to be a “journalist” no matter what he says about calling it as he sees it. Anyone with a brain can see his complete bias and it’s laughable when he tries to explain it away.
I’m genuinely surprised you gave a hit to any of the Codyverse crap. Possibly the least interesting storyline, with some of the least inspiring personalities in all of pro-wrestling. No clue why Cody seems so absolutely determined to define himself and Dustin down with a bunch of barely talented nobodies in a shitty storyline that belong on Dark at BEST.
I’m not a fan of what Cody’s been doing lately and I’ve noted that many times. But if he’s going to do it, at least put the lesser banes over once in a while. He did that this time and the finish was clever with Ogogo throwing the punch and Marshall taking the pin. I like that both heels got something out of it, so that’s the logic behind the Hit.
I’m not sure QT actually got anything out of it though. He’s so bland and uncharismatic and people care so little about this storyline that even pinning Cody doesn’t get HIM heat. It doesn’t actually do anything for him, it just makes Cody look weak and defines him down.
And besides, there’s nothing clever about that finish, it’s a finish that’s been used literally thousands of times in wrestling, “non-legal wrestler hits the face illegally then their partner makes the legal pin”. Admittedly, it’s usually done better and the illegal wrestler actually hits with a better looking move or a weapon rather than Ogogo’s ridiculous punch of doom, but the principle is still the same.
Marshall got a win over Cody. It doesn’t make him a star or anything, but it does give him pest heel bragging rights for stealing a pin that he didn’t earn. I think you can agree that this scenario did more for Marshall than standing on the apron and watching Ogogo pin Cody.
As for Ogogo, you don’t like the knockout punch finisher. Heck, I’m not even a fan of it going back to the “Hands of Stone” Ron Garvin days, but he is a former elite boxer and they are trying to establish the punch, so it was effective in that way. If nothing else, at least it wasn’t the gut punch. Anyway, I hope this explains where I’m coming from even if you still disagree.
If AEW actually enforced standard tag team rules, what would a Bucks match look like?
I think they could incorporate the tag rules and their matches would actually be very similar. There’s no reason they couldn’t incorporate their awesome spots. I know it’s not the perfect comparison, but it’s not like tag rules prevented the Rock-n-Roll Express from throwing a double dropkick, the Road Warriors from performing the Doomsday Device, or the Hart Foundation from using the Hart Attack clothesline. Fans of traditional tag team wrestling accept and want the double team moves. It would just require more structure to the body of the match. The Jacksons are ultra talented and I have no doubt that they could make it work. It may actually be a tougher sell on a team such as Penta and Fenix given their lucha rules roots.
Generation Me is what they would look like. They wouldn’t be over at all and wouldn’t have a clue how to do their normal spots.
I think you missed Ricky Starks walking out of Taz’s promo, and Taz’s son staring a hole into Brian Cage.
It was missed bc no one cares about it bc it will be messed up like most things AEW does