The Man in Blak

I've actually been playing the game for review and, in general, I think people looking for something in the AKI N64 lineage will be pretty happy with Fight Forever.

MJF is still getting one of the healthiest crowd reactions out of anybody on the roster; he's not really the problem here. That said, this was a middling go-home Dynamite overall. So much of the booking here felt like TK waiting until the last minute to write his big term paper - it seemed like there were two weeks' worth of storytelling to frantically cram into one show: - The additions to the Elite/BCC feud were way out of left field and were totally secondary to the actual issue; Eddie's announcement of Ishii as the next guy was almost comical, with Ishii stomping down into the ring to get turbo-squashed in seconds just so they could rush into their big Danielson/Okada confrontation. - The MJF/Cole segment felt more about establishing their tag team for the upcoming tournament, with the Tanahashi setup being played more like a punchline for Cole than anything meaningful. - The OC/Shibata/Garcia/Sabre Jr. four-way announcement came out of nowhere and effectively took the steam out of the tag match finish, since nothing about it had really been teased there as a possibility for FD. - Even the CMFTR/Bullet Club stuff at the top (which, alarmingly, didn't blow the roof off the house in Chicago) built towards the next Collision with virtually nothing cooking for the PPV. In particular, just tossing out CM Punk's first singles match in months as an afterthought for Forbidden Door -- and for the Owen Hart tournament?????? -- seems like a missed opportunity. Coming off of the inaugural edition of Collision, where the show seemed coherent from bell to bell and willing to let each segment have a singular focus, this episode of Dynamite had some major whiplash. Maybe it's just fresh in my mind because The Lapsed Fan podcast is finishing up their journey through Hogan-era TNA, but this felt very much like an episode of Impact from that time, with every segment being way too pre-occupied with achieving multiple objectives at once (and not really getting any sort of traction on any of them as a result). Sure, Forbidden Door is basically a "dream match" PPV in concept, but AEW still had an opportunity to do better than just throwing matches out there at the last minute, especially if they wanted to draw an audience into that show beyond the diehard fans.

This is maybe worth taking to the Michaels GWE thread or into a Microscope thread or something but, if anything, I feel like 2nd run Michaels was a little too comfortable with a standard opening against bigger guys like Umaga or Kane or Batista or Undertaker that had nothing to do with chain wrestling; it was constantly duck and chop, sidestep and chop, block and punch, all leading to Shawn getting flattened once or twice before transitioning into heel control. So, while I don't remember a lot of headlock takeovers, I do remember the same "stick and move" song repeated almost note for note to start off most of those matches. Which, while being boring in its own way, doesn't really carry forward into much of what Adam Cole was inexplicably working with bigger dudes.

I mean, yes, I think it’s ridiculous too, but this whole saga has been ridiculous and lawyers have been already been involved, so…

I could see it being a point of contention for the Elite, since they were stripped of their trios titles. “If we can’t keep ours, he can’t keep his.”

Nigel tried a bit of heeling during the Wardlow/Luchasaurus match, but it didn’t really land. I think Nigel just seemed rusty overall, though - he got better as the night went on. KK isn’t Excalibur, but he’s solid. Ross was completely out to lunch, but that’s been the case for him for a year or two now and he was only around for the main event. As it is, I like the commentary team and overall presentation. Ultimately, Collision was the best bit of TV they’ve done in a LONG time, even since before Brawl Out. From top to bottom, the whole thing felt distinct from the rest of AEW in a way that was really refreshing; everybody seemed energized. Andrade, in particular, looked the best that he’s ever looked in AEW and, honestly, even better than he was at the end of his WWE stint. Punk will get the lion’s share of the attention (and deservedly so), but getting Andrade “relaunched” could end up being the biggest win out of this inaugural episode.

Anarchy in the Arena didn’t close the show last year. It wasn’t even the second-to-last match! I mean, I get it - the “four pillars” story is one of the most ineffective title programs that they’ve ever done, so I can certainly understand the urge to punt. But if the idea was to try and legitimize the three challengers as PPV main event players, then I feel like they should have actually put them in the main event. When they’ve deferred to an attraction like Stadium Stampede, it’s been in situations where they clearly had placeholder challengers like Brodie Lee (RIP) or virtually non-existent builds like the three way with Pac, Omega and OC. Whether the four pillars feud was *good* is sort of immaterial to the fact that they put a lot of energy into it and then treated it in a kinda self-defeating way when the chips were down (pun intended).

I feel like I watched a different OC/Garcia match than everybody else. Yes, Garcia's look sucks right now, but he was doing plenty of heatseeking schtick throughout the match, including a cute bit during the PIP commercial break where he faked the ringside crowd into clearing out for Cassidy to be thrown into the seats, only to throw him back in the ring with a shrug. He's landed on one of the most obnoxious in-ring dances that I can remember; he outright yelled "SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT" to boos at one point. If he cranks up the act any further, he's probably going to generate more go-away heat than actual animosity from the fans. As it was, there was plenty of heat in the match, which was pretty good! Cassidy has a lot to do with that, of course, but Garcia played his half pretty well, displaying a solid mean streak through the final stretch. I've been down on Garcia in the past and he still has some adjustments to make, but I thought that was as good as he's ever looked in AEW.

Jay White as a heel, running the same tired Bullet Club playbook with Juice Robinson as Diet Gedo, is just a really awkward fit for the roster right now. White’s an incredible worker, but all of his best babyface pairings are tied up - Omega, Page and Cole are already in programs, Orange Cassidy is on a roll with weekly title defenses, Wardlow needs to build momentum as a new champion, etc. With all other options removed for White to make a splashy re-debut, you‘re sort of left with Starks, who is so out of White’s league at this point that it can’t help but feel like he’s being set up as a speedbump. It’s a lose-lose program and, worse off, everyone in the audience knows it. If White comes in as a babyface, his options aren’t much better (since the Elite decided that they needed a babyface program with the BCC), but he at least could be mixing it up with MJF and/or Sammy instead of the lackluster “four pillars” storyline.

Ricky is miles ahead of them in terms of his ability to talk, but I don't know if I would put him on their level in terms of in-ring ability. That said, AEW has given Guevara and Perry featured TV matches almost every single week from the beginning, whereas Starks has spent a ton of time in AEW as a mouthpiece or a guest commentator or squashing jobbers on Dark. He's a guy (along with his Team Taz stablemate, Hobbs) that feels like a victim of AEW's inability to consistently develop people further down on the undercard.

You spent multiple pages of that thread telling everybody that Brawl Out was a work because nobody took a cellphone video - still stand by that?

I don't know that he's anywhere near contention on my list, but I came across a match with KENTA at Dead or Alive 2008 (2008.05.05) that I think might be useful for others that have him on the bubble. If you're looking for a big main event style match for Doi back from his earlier days in Dragon Gate, I'd recommend checking it out.

If you were to believe All Access, he's already had those matches and they were with Danielson. (But yeah, for those of us still grounded in reality, I think we're still waiting.)

Yeah, Guevara is AEW’s version of Randy Orton. He’s been living off of “potential” since the very first TV match in AEW history, which is why it was hilarious for him to deliver lines about Darby and Perry being the “chosen ones” in that dreadful opening segment last night. For all of the criticisms of how MJF leans into edgelord crap for his promos, at least he still stays on task and reads the room - Jack Perry may be a dud on the mic, but I think Sammy might actually be more damaging with his promo work because he has all the wrong instincts on the mic paired with no self-awareness whatsoever. This still feels unlikely to me, even with the bizarre decision to have MJF help Sammy win last night, but who knows. All Access has definitely been going above and beyond to try and repair Sammy’s image - they clearly see him holding the big belt at some point, for whatever reason.

Honestly, the whole "four pillars" concept feels like AEW desperately trying to make fetch happen for Sammy and (especially) Jungle Boy. Darby is at least within striking distance of MJF - he held his own on the mic against MJF last week when he actually had something to work with and he's the runaway best worker of the three. He's not at a point where he can actively save crappy material like the opening segment, of course, but he's got enough sincerity behind what he's saying that he can eventually evolve into a solid promo with enough reps. (He reminds me a lot of Bret in that way, actually.)

Maybe as an attempt to redirect, I’ll just say that AEW takes a lot of flak for moves that require excess gymnastics and cooperation, but it’s everywhere in modern wrestling: Austin Theory does more forward rolls before moves than RVD and one of the hottest new finishers in NXT is Sol Ruca springboarding off the top and flipping/tucking forward into a cutter while their opponent just kind of hangs out for a few seconds. Athleticism is the aesthetic now for wrestlers that can’t elicit a “CALL THE POLICE” from Titus O’Neal at ringside when they blister someone’s chest with a chop.

Oh, rest assured, a Punk/Jericho match in 2023 is going to be a slog. It felt like they feuded for a lifetime in WWE without anything approaching a good match and that was over a decade ago.

I actually think Jericho makes a ton of sense as Punk's first opponent in for all parties involved - the fans are going to want a proxy war for Brawl Out anyway, so it makes more sense for Jericho to play that role opposite of Punk, especially when AEW is already spending a lot of time and energy trying to distance the Elite from all of that. (See also: AEW All Access.) I just...don't know where you go after that. It feels silly to me that you would bring Punk back and not have a plan set up for Punk/Elite -- it will cast a shadow over everything, "soft" roster split or not -- but it's also silly to me that TK didn't have a real plan to handle the Punk/Cabana situation when he brought Punk in either.

It's difficult to make Battle for the Belts seem all that special when Dynamite this week already had two title matches ahead of it (three, if you count the FTW belt (I don't)).

The Starrcade ‘97 comparison isn’t that Cody is Sting (or that Roman is nWo Hogan) as much as the match being a marquee main event anticipated for months that was marred by a screwy finish. The nWo had run for around 17-18 months (July ‘96 to December ‘97) at the time of Starrcade; the Bloodline has run for over 20 months (July ‘21 to now).

Also, I love the idea of them doing Wembley, but it was just last week that they weren’t able to fill Chaifetz Arena (which isn’t even the biggest arena in St. Louis) for Dynamite. PPVs are a different beast, of course, but they’re really going to have to come up with something.

The first two episodes of AEW All Access have been pretty banal. It’s very clear who the “main characters” are — the Young Bucks Don’t Want To Talk About All Out, of course, and the Bucks (along with Sammy Guevara and Britt Baker) are portrayed as favorably as possible throughout. Even with the hagiographic approach, though, it’s kind of amazing that Sammy can’t help but come across as a jerk in trying to squash his beef with Eddie Kingston (in the most choreographed way possible). He prefaces the conversation with a confession that he thinks this all started because Eddie had a vendetta with him - that he’s an easy target for people backstage to hate because he won the TNT title - and basically opens and closes the conversation with Eddie in a sentence that basically boils down to “yeah, so we haven’t talked in a while, we good?” Eddie says exactly what’s needed on camera - yeah, we’re good, let’s just be pros - and not much else and then the Sammy storyline just moves forward without really dwelling on why someone like Eddie might have been frustrated, assuming that was even the case. Let’s see how many episodes it takes before Sammy gets to Andrade, I guess!

Yeah, same. In my book, you’d have to go back twenty years or so to find a three way match from any company that’s comparable to the WM39 IC match. It was brutal for Bianca and Asuka (who had a decent match!) to have to follow that.

I don’t think Cody is cooked, even though he clearly seemed cooked in his delivery during that opening. (I do wonder if his deal for returning to WWE got altered, Darth Vader-style, by some of the recent developments with the Endeavor acquisition.) If anything, he’s an ideal opponent for Lesnar because he actually sells and can be effective in doing so as a sympathetic babyface. As long as Lesnar stays on point as a menacing beast like tonight and not the smirking mayor of Suplex City, it helps protect that dynamic as well. But the way they got there was pretty lackluster, Brock has a lot less rub to give than he did six months ago and the whole angle doesn’t really give a great hook for next week other than “why, Brock, why.” A swerve for swerve’s sake.