AEW pumped up the gas petal for last week's episode of Dynamite, stacking up the promotion's return to Chicago with a world title match, a Cody Rhodes return, a Kenny Omega and PAC rematch, amongst other festivities, which left very little left in the box for AEW's second consecutive week spent in the "Prairie State". The six-man tag pitting The Young Bucks plus Dustin Rhodes against Sammy Guevara, Ortiz, and Santana of The Inner Circle was the only heavily promoted match coming in, but it wouldn't go on last, and neither would Christopher Daniels' attempt to inflict vengeance on Pentagon Jr., a grudge that carried over from the third episode of Dynamite. Instead, the honor went to Joey Janela and Jon Moxley, who do have a miniature history that was built during their war to close Fyter Fest, but with Joey recently stuck in midcard purgatory, and Moxley obviously looking ahead towards a title match after being named the number one contender, it's not exactly the highest stakes battle Dynamite has ever seen. Still, a Mox main event is always a treat, and you had to know that Joey would pull out all the stops under such a spotlight.
- AEW Dynamite #10 (airing December 4th, 2019) comes to you from the State Farm Center in Champaign, Illionois, the home of the Fighting Illini's basketball teams. The regular trio of Jim Ross, Excalibur, and Tony Schiavone are back together on the call.
- Our opening contest is the afore-mentioned six-man tag, as Dustin and the Jacksons deliver a crowd-pleasing win to open up the night. This is a "popcorn" match, filled with tons and tons of spots, solidly entertaining though not terribly important from a narrative standpoint. Dustin is a hoot as always, leaping onto all three heels with a big crossbody, doing his "blown up" bit while delivering snap powerslams, and saving the match with a gritty kickout following a jab with the baseball-filled sock and Sammy's 630 senton. The Young Bucks close out Guevara by countering his Shooting Star Press with a double superkick, all of which is caught on Sammy's vlog, before Nick delivers the exclamation point, leaping off the top to dropkick two spike piledrivers and land on Sammy with a senton for the three count. The heels were primarily here to be fodder, which was something of a waste, all three are capable of far more, but this did it's job.
- I really loved Trent and Rey Fenix's see-saw battle that followed, as both men showed off their impeccable timing, with counters upon counters and big moves galore. Fenix's Tiger Feint Kick to Trent on the middle rope was clever, Fenix's sell put over Trent's tornado DDT big time, and the hand-held "Superman" spot that saw Fenix propel Trent with pure leg strength to set up a powerbomb was magnificent. Fenix closes it out by catching Trent with a roll-through cutter, then planting the bigger man on the back of his neck with a Black Fire Driver that evens up the Best Friends-Lucha Bros feud.
- Cody lands several stinging shots at MJF during an interview with Tony Schiavone, saying others promoters insulted Friedman's size, his scarf is fake, and called out that sloppy Cross Rhodes from last week. Cody offers up his Ford truck, a watch that was gifted to him by Tony Khan, his shoes, and even a briefcase filled with $50,000 in cold, hard cash to get a match with MJF, but there's no response. Cody remains a force of personality as a babyface, but this felt like a waste without an MJF appearance, I would've preferred that AEW come up with a rational explanation for why Maxwell wasn't present this week.
- Nyla Rose cleans up in another dominant performance, bulldozing through Leva Bates in short order. Rose's vicious display crosses the gender divide, as Peter Avalon takes a Chokeslam and Rick Knox is powerbombed through a table for sticking their nose in Rose's business. Shanna is laid out as well trying to make the save for Bates, and AEW takes a jab at WWE with a reaction shot of Britt Baker in the crowd (for reference, this comes after NXT spotlighted her during a WarGames match featuring Adam Cole, where they only identified her as "Adam Cole's girlfriend"- Excalibur refers to her the same way here). Everything about Rose's presentation over the past month has been money, and the destruction she wreaked in the ring was just the elevation in violence her character needed. Push her to the moon already, TK.
- Chris Jericho doesn't get anywhere near as much time to riff this week, which is upsetting after the brilliance of last week's "Thanks-giving" celebration, but he does go off on another wild tangent reading from the "Lexicon of Le Champion". Jericho calls out all the names of people he won't wrestle in his final match of 2019, which is mostly a rhyming game, although it notably contains at least a dozen inclusions of Jon Moxley. That's all the build to that eventual showdown we get for now, as Jericho moves on to beefing with the Jurassic Express, as Chris trades barbs with Luchasaurus, before digging himself a whole by declaring that he can beat Jungle Boy in 10 minutes. I do think the set-up for a time limit match was awkward (than insult to Jungle Boy was way too specific to sound natural), but I am insanely excited to see AEW continue to utilize time limits in their story-telling, it's a classic pro wrestling staple that needed to be revived.
- Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida butt heads this week after teaming last week, with the former being solidified as a bigger player in the division with the inclusion of more of her alien shtick in her entrance, and a big win over Shida. Shida puts in the work to make Statlander shine, and Kris was excellent for her part. Statlander combines her impressive agility, shown off by a sequence of cartwheels, a big dropkick, and a scissors kick, and eye-popping power, highlighted by a vertical suplex off the apron, to turn in a heck of a performance. Statlander wins with the Big Bang Theory (a cradle piledriver), then comes face-to-face with Brandi Rhodes and her heavy, Awesome Kong, afterwards. Brandi kills the crowd with AEW's worst promo to date, spouting verbose gibberish about being neglected by society, or something, and offering Statlander the chance to join her and Kong in the Nightmare Collective, her spin-off of Cody's Nightmare Family. I have no clue why Brandi is recruiting Statlander, their characters are nothing alike, but we never get an answer anyway, as a plant from the crowd rushes in to offer her hair up as a sacrifice to join Brandi. This is independent wrestler Melanie Cruise, who has certainly drawn the short end of the stick here, making her debut on national television in this mess. Brandi was immediately out of her depth with this new character, and whatever crowd investment AEW were hoping for was gone instantaneously, the folks in Champaign sat on their hands.
- Pentagon Jr. and Christopher Daniels settle their score in the penultimate match of the night, and these two veterans get off to a solid start, with a mix of fiery brawling and slick wrestling that clearly demonstrated what they were capable of. Unfortunately, it all evaporates in an ugly botch, as Daniels looks every bit of his near 50 years, slipping attempting a springboard moonsault and crashing on the ramp. Both men scramble to get to the finish, where Fenix waltzes for some shenanigans with Daniels' mic stand, and Pentagon takes advantage of a distracted official to land a low blow, winning with the Package Piledriver. Certainly, no positive I can offer on this match is going to cover for that slip by Daniels, the biggest mishap in Dynamite's history thus far, occurring at the worst time, too, after Brandi's horrendous promo. If it were me, I would've brought out Scorpio Sky, so at least SCU could stand tall by sending the Lucha Bros running for the hills, a brief moment of joy to win the crowd back after that screw finish.
- Main event time, as Jon Moxley and Joey Janela meet in a straight-up wrestling match, with Janela promising that Moxley will be forced to put "The Bad Boy" down to win. That was an audacious claim by Joey that doesn't come anywhere close to being true, as Moxley is pushed hard, but wins without needing to resort to drastic measures. Joey, as anticipated, was a wild man, spiking Moxley off the ramp with a nasty step-up DDT, and flying through the air for a splash that sent both men through the timekeeper's table. Moxley is as brutal as ever on offense, attempting to cave-in Janela's chest with wincing chops and an X-plex, which is always a thrilling move to witness. Moxley uses his surroundings to his advantage, knocking Janela loopy with a Paradigm Shift off the top turnbuckle, before securing yet another victory with a second Paradigm Shift in the ring. This time, it's Chris Jericho that observes from the aisleway, as Dynamite again closes with the two staring down each other, but still no acts of aggression to add any heat to their feud. I get it's a slow build, but AEW could be doing more to convince that Jericho is fearful of Moxley beyond those few mentions in the promo earlier.
6/10
Moxley main events are reliably great, and this one with Janela was no different, anchoring a moderately entertaining evening, though one that threatened to fall off the rails at points. There's obviously a lot left in the tank for AEW before their next major pay-per-view, so a little downtime was expected, but cracks are beginning to show. AEW could use a significant win sometime soon.
- Henry
Comments