Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: AEW Wednesday Night Dynamite Oct. 27th

AEW made its triumphant return to Wednesday nights with this week’s Dynamite airing from Boston, MA. With Halloween rapidly approaching, the company looked to scare up some intrigue with several high-profile matches and segments that would hopefully offer more treats than tricks. Which bits went over like a full-sized candy bar in your treat bag, and which were as rotten as a Jack-o’-lantern on November 1st? Let’s take a look.

Best Match of the Night

I’m not going to lie, I spent the majority of the night thinking no match would dethrone Serena Deeb vs. Hikaru Shida as my match of the night. (Spoiler alert, one did.) This opening round match in the TBS Championship tournament was a masterpiece of storytelling and technical wrestling, with Shida coming into this match motivated by victory and revenge in equal measure after the Woman of 1000 Holds denied her a milestone 50th win at Dynamite‘s second anniversary show. She even brought the broken plaque that Deeb had snapped post-match in the midst of brutalizing her fallen foe, and her facial expressions early on showed a determination and aggressiveness that the normally composed Shida does not often display. The pace of the match early on reflected that increased aggression, as Shida went right after her opponent and even prevented referee Aubrey Edwards from counting Deeb out after she was knocked down on the outside of the ring – it was clear Shida did not want to win that way, but she also clearly wanted to inflict some more punishment. Deeb continued to show why she’s one of the best technical wrestlers in the game, working over her adversary’s leg throughout the match and locking in submission after submission including a Figure Four around the ringpost and an inverted Figure Four in the ring that Shida was barely able to escape from. Ultimately, the pure strength of will from Shida was enough to win the day, as the back-and-forth match ended in a pinfall victory for the resilient babyface, but Deeb got the last laugh on her opponent, obliterating her knee with numerous chair shots and a gratuitous Serenity Lock that was only broken when numerous officials (including Jerry Lynn!) emerged from the back to stop the assault. The post-match attack sets up Shida as the ultimate underdog going forward in the tournament and suggests this feud is far from over. Considering the quality of their first two matches, it is hard to imagine the third would be anything but a thriller.

Sammy Guevara vs. Ethan Page was another obvious standout this week, with the speed and agility of the TNT Champion meshing nicely with the power and ruthlessness of All Ego. Guevara continues to be one of the crowd’s favorite performers, and he did not disappoint on this night, hitting several breathtaking high spots including a double-jump springboard cutter, a standing Spanish fly, and a picture-perfect shooting star press from the top turnbuckle to the outside of the ring. Page sought to grind his opponent down enough to deliver the Ego’s Edge, nearly hitting the maneuver on several occasions only to be countered by his wily foe, and ultimately it was a counter of Page’s finisher that led to the jackknife pin and the win for the Spanish God. Like the Shida-Deeb match, it feels like a slightly more definitive finish was about all that was missing here – Page suffers very little in defeat, especially since the storyline basically compelled him to lose, and Guevara continues to look like one of the biggest upcoming stars in the company with another impressive win. Hopefully the Men of the Year get to experience some success as a tag team before going their separate ways, but Page definitely deserves a run as an MJF-like solo heel at some point. In the meantime, we have to wait another week to see who will represent American Top Team at Full Gear in the 10-man match against the Inner Circle, which is kind of like getting a toothbrush or an apple while trick-or-treating, but with two more weeks until the pay-per-view, I guess AEW can be forgiven for dragging things out a little.

Ultimately, and with all due respect to CM Punk and Bobby Fish who put on a very good opening match, there was really only one choice for match of the night this week: Dark Order vs. the Elite in the main event. What can I say about this match that shouldn’t just be obvious from the matchup itself? Of course this match ruled. The costumes were top-notch, with Stu Grayson as Kratos, Colt Cabana as Brandon Cutler (complete with face mask and cans of cold spray), and of course the Elite as the Ghostbusters being particular standouts. (John Silver following through on his promise to dress up as Bambi was cool too, but his costume was a little less readable than the others, in my opinion. Maybe I’m just going blind, but I could not figure out what was going on with that headgear at first.) AEW has gotten a reputation for doing big multi-man tag matches well, and this match was no exception – two groups who are well-known for their inventive combinations pulled out all the stops here, giving each man an opportunity to shine in a silly but still competitive bout that took full advantage of the Halloween gimmick while still remembering to deliver a quality wrestling match. Of course the Elite used their proton packs to cheat whenever possible, including a veritable monster mash from all four men on their stunned foes while the ref was down. Ultimately, it was some costume-based chicanery that cost the heels, as they ganged up on the horse who accompanied the cowboy-clad Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds, and Alan Angels during the Dark Order’s entrance, only to discover that it was in fact Brandon Cutler, mouth duct-taped shut to prevent him from ruining the surprise, under the mask. Then, in a shocking twist to rival any good horror movie’s final reveal, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man who had been in the Elite’s corner throughout the match unmasked to reveal Adam Page, who leveled Matt Jackson with a lariat and demolished Kenny Omega with Deadeye to a thunderous ovation. Silver got the pin off the assist, Dark Order stood tall to end the night, and the show went off the air with the ultimate expression of Halloween in America – a bunch of grown adults in costumes drinking beer together. All in all, the main event was the most fun and satisfying match of the night, worked by some of the best wrestlers and overall performers that the company has to offer, and it was impossible to deny match of the night honors despite some strong contenders elsewhere on the card.

Best Moment of the Night

Tony Nese refusing to sing along to “Judas” when the camera cut to him was pretty funny – apparently he’s too cool to boogie, man. Sting and Darby Allin‘s ambush of the Pinnacle was great even if MJF’s insult comedy material for Boston was not particularly inspired in the promo that proceeded it. The thumbtack-studded skateboard Allin cracked across Wardlow’s back is exactly the kind of hardcore nonsense one would expect from a company that has given us exploding barbed wire deathmatches and Jordans with thumbtacks on the sole (for superkicking, of course). The best segment of the night had to be Cody Rhodes‘ promo explaining why he’s not turning heel even though the fans want him to, and for the simple fact that it was exactly the kind of promo needed to win fans over again. Sure, saying he hears the fans and then not doing what they want is not exactly the best plan in the world, generally speaking, but there was none of the cheesiness of his fake retirement speech here. Instead, Rhodes spoke plainly and directly about the situation, admitting that he could have done a very different move from that double underhook position he had Malakai Black in last week and that doing so could have led him down a very different path than the one he intends to take. He knows that there’s an expectation in many fans’ minds that he’s going to abuse his power, go back on his word, and take the world title for himself, but he claims he won’t because that’s too easy. And he’s right when he admits that he already has it better than he maybe deserves, considering his wife is out of his league, his brother is a better wrestler than he is, and his father established a legacy that he could never touch. He knows that trying to push his luck and take something else that he doesn’t deserve would be unforgivable in the eyes of many fans. None of that means he couldn’t be pushed off the deep end in the future, of course, but at least for now it seems sensible that he wouldn’t try to book himself into such a prominent position on the card. Pairing him off against someone like Andrade, who may be cool but is definitely easy to boo as long as he isn’t taking fully deserved shots at Cody’s awful neck tattoo, seems like a step in the right direction – Cody was always going to get booed when facing someone as popular as Malakai Black, so as much as their feud was a logical starting point for the debuting Black to make an impact in the company, it makes sense to pivot to something new at this point to allow the American Nightmare to build himself back up in the eyes of fans. Promos like this will help with that goal – the crowd may have started out booing Cody, and some even continued as the promo went on, but a lot of fans found their way to applauding the honesty from a guy who may come across as over-the-top or even phony sometimes. I think this is the strongest version of Cody’s character and one the company would do well to further establish going forward if they plan to keep him as a babyface – keep his motivation simple and understandable, let him speak his mind in a way that doesn’t feel like a contrived promo, and put him up against foes who need to be taken down a peg rather than ones who want to take him down. That and having him work more as a mentor for the Nightmare Family rather than only using them as backup or emotional pawns in his own storyline would certainly help. Oh, and continuing to cosplay as Fuego Dos probably wouldn’t hurt either.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I can only think of one negative moment on the night and it may be something that only really bothers me, but I’m going to talk about it briefly anyway. At the conclusion of CM Punk vs. Bobby Fish, which I must reiterate was a very good match, Punk hit the GTS and went for the pin, but Bobby got his shoulder off the mat just after the ref finished counting 3. Okay, so Punk won, as he was obviously supposed to, and I guess in theory Fish looks like he was almost but not quite able to kick out and Punk won by a mere fraction of a second. Normally, I don’t have a problem with this kind of finish when two wrestlers are trading pinfalls and one happens to stack the other up for the win – if Serena Deeb kicked out at 3.5 in her match with Hikaru Shida, I didn’t even notice because it makes sense in that context. But when one person hits their finisher and gets what should be a decisive victory over their opponent, it just feels selfish to kick out right after the ref has counted 3 – as if that finishing move didn’t completely put them down for the count and it was just a fluke that they mistimed their kickout. It devalues the concept of a finisher if it’s only barely enough to win the match, and although of course in bigger matches people may actually kick out of their opponent’s finisher at 2 which theoretically invalidates the move more than kicking out after 3, this wasn’t that kind of context. In a regular TV match, the only way a finishing move shouldn’t lead to a pinfall is if it’s hit outside of the ring or somehow propels the opponent out of the ring or close enough to the ropes that they can get a rope break. Otherwise, if someone hits their finisher, that pretty much needs to be the end of the match. I don’t want to belabor the point and I’m not sure why Bobby Fish kicked out – maybe it’ll be part of a storyline going forward, maybe it was a rib on Punk, or maybe he just went into business for himself, knowing that his record hasn’t exactly been exceptional so far in his AEW tenure and it may not get much better anytime soon, but it seemed kind of disrespectful from where I was sitting.

Parting Shots

• JR seemed to be enjoying himself, especially early on, claiming that he saw the tope suicida from CM Punk coming but he let Excalibur call it because he says it better and joking with Tony Schiavone that he tucked his head on every suicide dive he’s ever done. Best wishes to the legendary broadcaster after the reveal of his skin cancer diagnosis. Listening to one of the voices of the Attitude Era always feels like a time warp, in a good way, so hopefully he gets the treatment he needs to continue living his best life.
• While we’re on the best wishes train, sending all the best to everyone involved with Ring of Honor as they plan to shut down until sometime in the spring of 2022 – the word “reboot” has to be particularly uncomfortable in the context of an entire wrestling promotion, but hopefully everyone comes through it all right. I’m as guilty as anyone for not following their weekly programming as closely as I should have liked to since the start of the pandemic, but there are tons of talented people throughout the organization who will be looking for work elsewhere, at least in the short term. Hopefully none of them stay unemployed for long, and hopefully those who needed a break anyway will find the time personally fulfilling as they suddenly have more time on their hands.
• The Lucha Brothers agreeing to put the AEW Tag Team Championships on the line at Full Gear because they have “Cero Miedo” is fair enough, but how hard would it have been to require FTR to put up the AAA belts at the same time? Maybe the plan is for FTR to drop those titles between now and then, but it seems like a missed opportunity not to get a free title rematch at the same time as accepting a title challenge.
• I do not apologize for any of the Halloween puns in this article and in fact I don’t even know what you’re referring to. Spooky season is coming to an end, so enjoy it while it lasts, I say.

That’ll do it for another week – a very enjoyable episode this week with plenty of highlights that are worth going out of your way to check out if you somehow managed to miss it. What did you think of this Halloween-themed Dynamite? Let us know in the comments, follow us on Twitter @FilmIronic, and stick around for more entertainment coverage!