Performance Review – AEW Dynamite (9/16/20)

Overall Evaluation and Achieved Goals

This was fun. I like when wrestling is fun. All Out and last week weren’t so fun, but this was fun in all the right ways: good wrestling, good talking, and intriguing directions all topped off by a Parking Lot Fight in the main event that was FUN!!!

Areas of Excellence Within Performance

Lots of good quality wrestling this week. FTR vs. Jurassic Express for the Tag Titles was good quality tag wrestling. I don’t think it was better than the title switch, but it was a lot less exhausting. There were a couple extra cool moments here good enough to highlight in the “My Favorite Things” section below, a couple standard moves you could tell these guys were putting some extra sauce on.

Hangman Page vs. Frankie Kazarian was good quality enhancement wrestling, a match that felt both dominated by Page and competitive for either guy. One second Kaz was trying to keep the cowboy down with headlocks and the next they were pasting each other with elbows like it was the G1 Climax. Good pacing and whatnot.

The Best Friends vs. Santana & Ortiz in a Parking Lot Fight was just good quality professional wrestling, wrestling ring or parking lot. All four guys leaned into every nasty bump taken and there were a TON. I audibly gasped at Chuckie T’s swanton bomb on a car roof and Trent’s powerbomb through a car window. This was such a fun feud that pushed two talented but quiet tag teams forward and deserved the feel-good payoff it got. Long Live Sue.

Good quality mic work this week too: MJF is back to an interesting tone (and did a strut!), Eddie Kingston is Eddie Kingston, and we had no less than Jake Roberts and Taz forming a temporary alliance to go after Jon Moxley, who responded his partners Random Will Hobbs and Darby Allin, who he told to get to Jacksonville next week. It was such good wrestling – built a match, introduced a new guy, built some characters. Not to mention a Jake Roberts and Taz alliance! SO MUCH FUN!!!

Also, Technique by Taz is back – excellent.

90 seconds of promo time and “The Best Man” Miro is all jacked and interesting again. Between this, the Parking Lot Fight, the Moxley 6-man angle, and uhhhh basically their entire existence in 2020, AEW is the company that makes wrestlers seem like SUPERSTARS.

Suggested Areas of Improvement

The Young Bucks are not doing it right now. Too over the top in every way. Feels like Being the Elite co-directed by Vince McMahon or some bullshit.

Jake Hager taking a Silly String from Private Party was tremendous but one thing this TV show probably did not need was he and Chris Jericho doing a SmackDown beatdown on Private Party. The idea of a random turning on TNT and seeing fat Jericho working Isaiah Cassidy is charming, but not charming enough.

Thunder Rosa vs. Ivelesse was a stinker but I’m pretty sure Thunder Rosa still rules. A more straightforward match would have been better than Ivelesse trying to get all her stuff in. Also would’ve been better if Ivelesse didn’t just sit there at one point looking like she was exhausted watching television before Thunder Rosa applied a full nelson.

I dunno, make your Women’s Division even cooler. Something like that.

My Favorite Things

3. Jungle Boy’s Powerslam Counter
2. Dax Harwood’s Back Elbow to Jungle Boy
1. Sue Flips off Santana & Ortiz

Official Star Rating

4.5 out of 5 Stars

Related