Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Tournament Of Champions Semifinal Dynamite

With next week’s special Grand Slam episodes promising a big showcase for a regular weekly episode between pay-per-views, it felt like this week’s Dynamite had a lot to accomplish. Obviously, the final two contenders in the Tournament of Champions had to be determined ahead of the AEW World Championship next week in New York City. In addition, the newly crowned women’s champ needed a new challenger, the tag champs put their titles on the line ahead of a title rematch from All Out, and one of the company’s “four pillars” laid out an open challenge. Did AEW serve up a quality preview of things to come at Arthur Ashe next week, or did it double fault away its potential? (Tennis puns. I am making tennis puns here. What has my life become.)

Best Match of the Night

I know I was a salty boy last week off the back of four of my favorite wrestlers being out the door immediately following a tepid entry in my favorite AEW pay-per-view franchise, but I hope I still managed to convey the fact that it was far from a bad night of wrestling. This week was no different, but I was actually in the mood to watch wrestling again, go figure, so I appreciated it more. AEW Women’s World Champion Toni Storm and Athena vs. Dr. Britt Baker DMD and Serena Deeb was an above-average women’s match, in large part because Serena Deeb being back on my television screen is always appreciated, and Jungle Jack Perry (which I’m surprised he hasn’t officially changed his name to, since Luchasaurus turned on him in part because he declared he wouldn’t be wrestling Christian Cage as Jungle Boy at All Out but rather fighting him as Jack Perry) against Jay Lethal was better than you’d expect from a TV match with no real storyline behind it. That said, however, there were three clear standouts in my opinion for match of the night. I’m going to blaspheme and name the main event match between Chris Jericho and Bryan Danielson as my first runner up – I know, it was a great match between two ring veterans and it went on last, so what could possibly prevent it from being match of the night? Well, two better matches on the card, for one thing, but also I feel like there were fewer highlights than you might have expected from this matchup. We literally saw a better version of this match, albeit with a (spoiler alert) different finish, just 10 nights ago. That’s not to say it was a bad match by any means, it was just a B+ match when you might have expected a solid A. (Yes, that B+ in reference to Danielson was intentional but also accurate.) Both men showed great endurance and physicality, chopping each other’s chests raw and delivering stiff shots aplenty. It was a technical showcase as well, with both men trading holds back and forth throughout and Jericho especially targeting Danielson’s injured leg late in the match, pulling the American Dragon’s boot and kickpad off to deliver punishment with Figure Fours and Walls of Jericho. The Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah even busted out a rarely-used German suplex at one point, and he wasn’t even in his consciously throwback Lionheart guise this week. Danielson finally made his foe tap to the LeBell Lock, which I appreciated since, as I’ve pointed out before, AEW tends to do the “tough guys don’t tap” finish all too often to the point that it’s unfortunately expected rather than notable. Jericho actually tapping seemed like a bit of a surprise in that context, but considering the built-in storyline of the first AEW World Champion returning to the title scene, it felt like Jericho losing at all felt like the bigger surprise than the way it went down. Don’t get me wrong – Danielson was the obvious favorite to win here, but it didn’t feel like so much of a mismatch in terms of star power and momentum, and as the broadcast team pointed out, Danielson had previously never beaten Jericho in his career. That uncertainty was likely the reason this match was put in the main event slot instead of…

My second runner-up for match of the night is the opening match between Jon Moxley and Sammy Guevara. Yes, trolls on the internet loved speculating about whether Sammy could beat Moxley and Danielson to become AEW’s version of first-ever Undisputed WWE Champion Chris Jericho (did you know he beat the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin on the same night?!) but did anyone really think he was going to pull off the win here? The fact that the outcome was really never in doubt did hurt investment in the match, but they made up for it with some quality in-ring action and a satisfying finish to get the crowd hyped for the rest of the show. The story of this match was basically that Mox was going to pound Guevara’s head into the mat and Guevara was going to run, flip, and cheat to keep that from happening for as long as possible. Turns out that’s a pretty good formula. The most recent world champ sent the Spanish God flipping and flying with power moves like a massive lariat and a German suplex off the top rope. Sammy managed to reverse a second lariat into a Spanish fly and heeled it up by driving Mox’s head into the steps on the outside, but basically any time he tried to trade strikes with the noted brawler was laughed off and turned into another excuse for Mox to club him into dust. Anna Jay distracted the ref to give her bestie Tay Melo an opening to kick Mox in the yam bags from behind, but just when it looked like Sammy might hit the GTH to put his opponent into real peril, the purveyor of Unscripted Violence(tm) countered into the Death Rider for the win. Again, it was an obvious conclusion, but the journey to that finish was enjoyable enough that it mostly didn’t matter. Mox’s budding rivalry with MJF meant he was absolutely going to make it to the finals (and probably win the title) but the clash of styles between these two performers made the match worth having, especially with the fan favorite Moxley kicking off the show with a well-received win.

So you might be thinking at this point, “what could possibly be match of the night if not the opener or the main event?” Well, you’re probably not thinking that considering that I already named two other matches that were nearly match of the night contenders, and unless you somehow think Powerhouse Hobbs squashing some local jobber whose name I’m not even going to look up is going to take that spot, you’ve surely worked out via process of elimination that it must be Swerve in Our Glory vs. the Lucha Brothers for the AEW Tag Team Championships. Maybe I’m just a mark for these guys, but I legitimately felt like this was the best constructed match of the night, not only matching up two teams whose styles complement each other exceptionally well but also laying out a match that paid off that in-ring chemistry brilliantly. Before I get into that, though, have I mentioned how much I love Keith Lee’s entrance theme? Because I really can’t remember a time I would have had an excuse to bring that up, but seriously, it is as hype as it gets outside of…well, Keith Lee’s NXT theme. With that personal aside out of the way, Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee upped their power game to counteract the speed and agility of Penta and Rey Fenix, except when they busted out their own high-flying moves because, y’know, they can do that too. Surprisingly, Lee and Strickland managed to stay on the same page throughout the match, with not one instance of friendly fire that I detected, which I suppose was supposed to show that they are as unified as they’ve ever been heading into a rematch with the red-hot Acclaimed next week. Also, it was a relatively short match, so it was probably a bit easier to keep them from butting heads literally or metaphorically, but even so it managed to have two of the top in-ring highlights of the night. First, Keith Lee lifted Rey Fenix over his head outside of the ring and lawn darted him through the ropes to prevent Penta from pinning his partner. Second, Penta sprinboarded off his brother’s back to deliver a roof-rattling Canadian destroyer to 300+ pound Keith Lee. I generally don’t care about little things like wrestlers being in the ring when they haven’t tagged in because, let’s face it, as long as the legal man for the winning team pins the legal man for the losing team, it really doesn’t matter that much, but this match managed to pack in a lot of action without a ton of outside interference except at a few key points. They even dared to have the finish of the match be a move delivered by one wrestler to another while the other two wrestlers were on the outside. (Yes, Swerve pushed Penta off the top turnbuckle to set it up, but it was still Keith Lee hitting a finishing move to win.) Granted, I don’t know what to call that move, since I somehow doubt AEW wants to keep the “Big Bang Catastrophe” name that he used back in WWE, but it’s always cool to see someone win a match with a secondary finisher like that. Especially a good secondary finisher like Lee’s. It just makes future near falls off that move feel even more impactful because it’s actually been used as a finisher – nobody cares if somebody kicks out of a move their opponent has never won a match with, but you don’t want to have to spam the same finisher just to produce dramatic kickouts. That’s why I think every main eventer should have at least one established secondary finisher that they can use to win matches on Dynamite or Rampage but serves as a high spot in a more prominent matchup. Thanks for coming to my mini-TED Talk. Anyway, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Swerve in Our Glory drop the titles next week, and I feel like that would be a fitting end to their reign even if they haven’t been featured as much as I’d like. They have still been able to pack a few quality matches like this one against the Lucha Bros into their short run with the belts.

Best Moments of the Night

I mentioned earlier how much I enjoyed having Serena Deeb featured on AEW programming once again, and one such reason she’s great is that she can have a single-leg crab locked in on the women’s champ, get kicked and elbowed mid-hold, and just stare down the opponent who dared to do so until her partner could get in and deliver a superkick to drive them away. It was a small moment, but I absolutely loved it. Another amazing but miniscule moment was the AEW debut of Luigi Primo! …Who immediately got kicked in the face by Ethan Page during what I guess was supposed to be a backstage interview. Page then claimed to be sick of people not taking wrestling seriously, which drew out the most seriousest wrestler on the roster (and Egon’s good friend) Danhausen, who heartily agreed and wished Page well against the “jester of AEW” – whoever that might be – en route to his stated goal of becoming the “king of the Atlantic.” Speaking of the All Atlantic Championship, another great blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment was Orange Cassidy attacking PAC with an Orange Punch while he was being interviewed backstage about (and taking exception to) the “bump in the road” suffered by his Death Triangle partners who failed in their attempt to become double champs. It seems out of character for OC to sneak attack somebody backstage, but there is an established animosity between the two, and to be perfectly honest, I think Ethan Page would match up better against Freshly Squeezed than PAC while leaving Death Triangle to focus on their trios titles.

I guess by default I’m going to give MJF‘s promo moment of the night honors, even though it is practically inseparable from the long-winded Stokely Hathaway promo introducing “The Firm” as a faction designed to support the Salt of the Earth and nothing more. Well, nothing more except also apparently all of them want to become champions except W Morrissey, who apparently is just…happy to be there? Look, I like Hathaway, and he cuts a good promo. I’m just saying this one felt unnecessary and could easily have accomplished just as much in like half the time. But MJF was great as he always is, even though his laser focus on Jon Moxley is either the most obvious spoiler imaginable or will go down as one of the biggest red herrings in wrestling history if Bryan Danielson wins next week. Granted, even though everyone seems to think he’s going to use his poker chip for a title match in New York, as that would presumably be a friendly crowd for the Long Island native to win the title in front of, the prize for winning the Casino Ladder Match isn’t the equivalent of the Money in the Bank briefcase that can be cashed in at any time, so maybe MJF needs an interim non-title feud before setting up a high-profile title match on pay-per-view. Regardless of how things shake out at Grand Slam, MJF has easily established himself as the top heel in the company in very short order, which is no surprise given his ability on the microphone. This won’t be remembered as one of his all-time greatest promos, and he left too much time for the less important and less interesting Firm introduction, but considering the in-ring portion of the show was so strong, there was relatively little time left over and MJF still managed to deliver a strong segment.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

Nothing worth noting from this week, but you know what’s something bad from last week that I never mentioned because I was too in my feelings about CM Punk being a big dumb dummy and getting himself and the Elite suspended? My awful picks from All Out! Seriously, do you remember who I said would win? If not, go read it for yourself now! What an idiot I was, right? I legitimately cannot remember a time I’ve gotten more than half of my pay-per-view picks wrong. Admittedly, that’s probably because I barely ever pay attention to how well my predictions do afterwards. Half the time I can’t even remember who I picked by the time the pay-per-view rolls around. But I completely whiffed on every title match on the main show. I picked Mox, Athena, Jamie Hayter, The Acclaimed, and the Dark Order. You will note that not one of those people won their respective match at All Out. Wow. Whose genius idea was it to let me write a weekly feature on professional wrestling when I clearly know nothing about it?

Parting Shots

• Another fatal four-way for the interim women’s championship next week is…not the most inspiring choice coming out of All Out, though at least two of the participants are different this time so…progress? I would absolutely love it if AEW used the opening created by everyone being suspended/injured to legitimize its women’s division, though. Let’s say two weeks from now, Toni Storm comes to the ring as soon as the show goes on the air and cuts a promo about how she didn’t come to this company to wait her turn, and the AEW women’s division shouldn’t have to wait until the second hour of Dynamite to have their one match of the night, and then have her issue an open challenge for a title match right there and then. It wouldn’t fix everything, but it would go a long way towards establishing the women as something to invest in.
• Matt Hardy challenging Darby Allin to a match on Rampage seems quite random, but I suppose neither of them have anything else going on at the moment, and Allin is sort of a Jeff Hardy-like wrestler so that’s logic enough to put them together.
• Sonjay Dutt’s pencil is rapidly becoming the AEW equivalent of the Spanish announce table. After having it snapped by Dax Harwood’s daughter at All Out, it went flying from behind his ear as Jungle Boy knocked him off the apron in a devastating spot of wood-and-graphite brutality.

That’s it for another week – pretty good show all around, and there’s certainly a good deal of excitement for Grand Slam next week, which is generally regarded as the biggest non-pay-per-view event on AEW’s calendar. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope you’ll come back again next week for more Chair Shots!