Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: AEW Dynamite Sept. 29th

It’s Wednesday. You know what that means.

Since the untimely passing of the late great Jon Huber (a.k.a. AEW’s Brodie Lee and WWE’s Luke Harper) the above phrase that he popularized has never been more appropriate, as AEW’s flagship program hailed from his hometown of Rochester, NY. The show itself featured several tributes to the former Exalted One, with a massive 16-man tag match that reunited the Dark Order to fight a common foe, the culmination of the feud involving the female representatives of the Order, and a defense of the title Lee himself legitimized in the main event. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the best, worst, and everything in between from this week’s Dynamite.

Best Match of the Night

Emotionally, the 16-man tag featuring Orange Cassidy and Dark Order against the HFO was probably the most satisfying match of the night, even if 16 people is just objectively too many to be in a single match. There was just enough dissention among the Dark Order – Vlan Vngels is apparently just Alan Angels now that he’s unmasked, throwing the Dark Order colors back in Evil Uno’s face – to give the HFO some time to get their licks in while not really creating much drama over the outcome. The finishing sequence in particular was an incredible string of perfectly timed and executed moves from the Dark Order, and John Silver went on an absolute rampage late in the match that is worthy of note all on its own. It’s a nice reminder that the Dark Order has some talented workers even if not everyone in the match got much of a chance to shine in a match this short with this many people. As a showcase for the group Brodie Lee famously led in his hometown, this match was more than serviceable for its purpose. Adam Cole vs. Jungle Boy also delivered in the opening match, another example of AEW delivering on the tantalizing matchups between established talents and newer imports. Cole might be the coolest guy in AEW and Jack Perry might be the most beloved guy on the roster, so this was an especially exciting matchup for fans who enjoy dueling crowd chants. There were lots of fun spots and counters that made the ending anything but a foregone conclusion, with Jungle Boy in particular showing off his athleticism at every turn and Cole punishing his opponent’s every misstep. The finish, in which Adam Cole exploited super ref Aubrey Edwards to take his opponent to dick kick city before hitting the Last Shot for the dirtiest win possible without outside interference, leaves the door open for a rematch at some point while still giving Cole a win to crow about for a while. Also, it was the AEW debut of shocked Adam Cole face, so that’s cool.

I’m going to give match of the night honors to the main event between Miro and Sammy Guevara by a slight margin over those two matches because it was a great mashup of two distinct wrestling styles with a genuinely surprising finish. Miro has been utterly dominant for nearly a year now and especially so for the last four months as TNT Champion, but Sammy Guevara has been on a low-key roll lately, so this figured to be a good test for both men. Not surprisingly, as mentioned, this was a back-and-forth affair, as Miro took a physical toll on his smaller adversary while Guevara kept coming back and never allowed himself to be taken out completely. Miro clubbed and kicked his way to near-victory numerous times, and the number of punishing counters delivered by the champ heightened the sense that the Redeemer was too crafty to let his opponent pry the title away. The Spanish God delivered most of the match’s biggest highlights including a flying crossbody that drove both himself and his opponent over the top rope to the outside and a standing Spanish fly to counter Miro’s attempt at a third consecutive clothesline. (Hey, it seemed like a good idea – the crowd was chanting “one more time” so, y’know, I’d like to see you try not to fall into that trap.) In the end, Miro was undone by his own misdeeds as Fuego Del Sol returned to get revenge for his poor moderately priced sedan and provided enough of a distraction for Sammy to ram Miro into the turnbuckle he’d just uncovered in frustration at being unable to put the challenger away. Guevara followed that up with Fuego’s signature Tornado DDT, a GTH, and a 630 senton from the top rope to pull off the stunning but fully deserved win. The result was a triumphant culmination for one of the better babyface runs on the roster, and the effects of this loss will no doubt have a profound impact on the former champ who figures to be extra furious and motivated to prove himself in the coming weeks. The TNT Championship definitely shouldn’t have title reigns as long as the world title, so this didn’t feel like the wrong result even though Miro felt like a more dominant champ than his 140 days with the title might suggest, and there are plenty of exciting fresh matchups for Guevara that should keep the championship routinely featured on Dynamite and Rampage going forward.

Best Moment of the Night

Andrade and the Lucha Brothers have been at odds for a while now, but the backstage tease that Andrade has “friends” who want to challenge for the AAA tag belts is definitely an exciting development. The IWC will no doubt abound with speculation about who that might be referring to, and while it might turn out to be somebody (relatively) underwhelming like FTR or Men of the Year – neither of which would result in a bad match by any means but wouldn’t live up to the mystery promised by this setup – it is likely to be someone new stepping through “the forbidden door” and, for once, it probably won’t lead to a match involving Jon Moxley. Which, again, wouldn’t be a bad thing, but it gets kind of repetitive and wouldn’t make any sense in this case. The verbal faceoff between Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Darby Allin was another standout moment of the night, with MJF doing his level best to get under Allin’s skin and the straightedge facepaint enthusiast promising not to let the arrogant jerk’s words get to him. As exciting as the new arrivals like Punk, Danielson, and Cole facing off against homegrown AEW talents is, feuds between two rising stars in the company still need to be given some degree of priority if the company is going to be successful long term, and it’s hard to imagine a more tantalizing pairing than MJF and Darby Allin.

Despite the Dark Order’s match being merely an honorable mention for match of the night, it just wouldn’t feel right not to give moment of the night to  -1 and Amanda Huber, along with the other women of the Dark Order, preventing Evil Uno from leaving and reinvigorating the team en route to a triumphant victory. Tony Khan’s mandate that the Dark Order put aside their differences for one night was justification enough to make the match happen in the first place, and I suppose there has been enough of a rivalry with the Hardy Family Office that they might have been expected to band together against a common enemy, but it definitely felt like there needed to be something extra to keep everyone in line. The group’s issues run too deep for them to just spontaneously get back on the same page, and Windham Rotunda, sadly, wasn’t walking down that aisle no matter how much it would have made sense for him to debut in the hometown of his former Wyatt family ally. Instead, it fell to the honorary leader of the group, Brodie Lee Jr. a.k.a. -1, and Jon Huber’s widow Amanda to read the group the riot act at the exact moment when it looked like they might fall apart. The super happy handshakes and hugs ending to the match was great, even if it isn’t destined to last until someone more permanent comes along to reunite them again, and it hit the exact right tone on a night dedicated to Rochester’s favorite son and his family.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

The trios match between Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston, and Darby Allin against 3 random guys…er, Bear Country and Anthony Greene (whose name I literally did not catch clearly during the match, which should tell you something about the level of importance he was given) felt like a waste of all the talent involved. AEW has had a knack for making even the most random matchup feel meaningful, and even inconsequential matches are often given a few extra minutes to craft a decent story regardless of how obvious the outcome may be. That really wasn’t the case here – it was short, pointless, and at best served as a reminder that Mox and Kingston are still around. (Allin, of course, had his own showcase later in the night, so his involvement here felt extra unnecessary. Then again, he barely got into the match so maybe even the agents who put this match together realized he really didn’t need to be here except to even out the sides.) That doesn’t mean it was a terrible match, of course, but there wasn’t a single moment worth remembering from this entirely disposable match. Another negative point on the card, on the other hand, couldn’t have been less unmemorable – Arn Anderson‘s super weird promo is destined to become a meme, which may be because it was actually bad, good, or so bad it’s good, depending on your perspective, though I seriously doubt many watching fell into category B if truth be told. Much as the legends in AEW bring a certain sense of history and gravitas to the company that its relative youth might not otherwise lend itself to, there is definitely a sense that giving a wrestler of the older generation a mic and the creative license to improvise certain parts of their promo is, at best, a calculated risk. This promo started out odd and just got weirder from there, culminating in the line that will be its legacy about the Enforcer pulling out his glock and painting someone’s brains across the concrete. It came seemingly out of nowhere, it added nothing to Cody Rhodes’ feud with Malakai Black, and while it certainly will not be forgotten anytime soon, it probably should not be something AEW is proud to remind us of. Then again, they showed us Cash Wheeler’s forearm nearly being ripped off for like a month straight after it happened, so you never know.

Parting Shots

• Speaking of Cody Rhodes, it felt weird that his match featured Dante Martin and Matt Sydal, meaning there were three men in a tag match who have a sibling in the company who was not involved. Granted, Darius Martin had a good reason for not getting involved, since he’s currently out injured, but as far as I know Dustin Rhodes and Mike Sydal should have been available. Then again, Lee Johnson had an important role to play in the post-match aftermath as he, uh, stood awkwardly in the background while a former Four Horseman cut what’s likely to become the best known promo (for better or worse) of his hall of fame career.
• Lio Rush isn’t retired! And he’s in AEW now! And he’s talking about…money? Like, investing and stuff? I dunno, his entire promo went right over my no-stonks-having head.
• CM Punk said Penelope Ford and the Bunny are the best-looking members of the HFO, to which Excalibur quipped, “Either that or the Butcher” and well, I think you all know what I thought of that.

That’s it for this week – an up-and-down show that succeeded in paying tribute to a great wrestler gone too soon and struggled in other areas but ended up being a decent if not outstanding episode overall. Check us out on Twitter @FilmIronic and we’ll see you all back here next week for more Chair Shots!