Performance Review – AEW Dynamite (12/9/20)

Overall Evaluation and Achieved Goals

Hey, I forgot what it was like to be genuinely curious about all the crazy shit that was going to happen on wrestling. Movement combined with crazy in wrestling is fun: we’ve got Sting, Shaq, and Impact, but we’ve also got room for Jack Evans going wild and a team named the Varsity Blondes getting beat up. This is such good wrestling right now.

Performance: 4.0 / 5.0 (Excellent)

Areas of Excellence Within Performance

The Young Bucks vs. The Hybrid2 was positively absurd in all the greatest ways, a beautiful “capture eyeballs” kind of 90s cruiserweight tag that kept a hot tempo as Jack Evans finally just DID IT on national TV a decade after he should’ve already been doing it.

The high-flying was impressive even in 2020, highlighted by Evans doing a god damn Space Flying Tiger Drop that got caught and turned into a Meltzer Driver. Sting and Shaq brought eyeballs but this stuff keeps them.

Impressive how much they packed in: Dustin Rhodes/Dark Order’s 10 and FTR/Varsity Blondes on THIS show!? The balls.

Trying to think of another guy who used WWE in the modern era to build their legend back up better than Sting – any ideas? The follow-up this week with Cody Rhodes was low key, but the right kind. Team Taz‘ promo on them after was awesome too, real early 90s Dangerous Alliance vibes – loud, colorful, confident.

Someone else can talk about Impact Wrestling, but rich, fat and bald carny Don Callis grinning at Kenny Omega‘s side is the championship act I never knew I wanted and should’ve probably always seen coming at the same time.

The in-ring promo is overplayed even in AEW, but The Inner Circle’s Ultimatum was a good in-ring promo. This whole journey is fun and getting guys over, and this week they finally gave Ortiz a spot. He crushed that spot.

Amazing how much better Abadon is at wrestling than The Fiend.

MJF/Orange Cassidy for the Dynamite Diamond Ring is hopefully a match we can look back on in the Hidden Gems section of the AEW Network thirty years from now, a rock solid babyface/heel match with two guys who’ve only scratched the surface. Orange’s comeback was sooooooo good. So good. They somehow managed to throw in a rehab of the Miro character in there too – what a company!

Suggested Areas of Improvement

The Shaq/Brandi Rhodes segment didn’t work, and I’ll do you a solid and say it’s not even because Brandi Rhodes was over-involved. I think it actually makes sense to involve her. Cody/Brandi vs. Shaq/Jade Cargill doesn’t feel exciting on paper for wrestling fans and random people who’ll catch an ad on the NBA, but there is more going on with this program beyond Shaq eventually wrestling.

Newcomer Jade Cargill is being introduced with (and so far delivering in) a big spot, while lovable Cody has made sure he and his wife are front and center in the big spot too – what a heel.

AEW’s whole thing is that they more often than not get the tone right headed into that big spot though, and here they just didn’t. Shaq is a big deal and all but this felt more like WWE’s weirdo/careful approach where the build-up segments are stupid and over-edited because everybody knows nothing matters until the big match anyways. Hopefully it gets better.

Is Eddie Kingston (missed him) even THAT good of friends with The Butcher & The Blade?

All in on stuff like Dustin/10, FTR/Varsity, and the Abadon squash getting TV time on a heavily watched show – but it did all kind of feel like background noise too.

My Favorite Things

3. How MJF upped the tempo in his promo
2. “He’s better than you, and you know it” – Ortiz to Sammy WOOOOO
1. Space Flying Tiger Drop to Meltzer Driver