Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: MJF Day Dynamite

This week’s Dynamite emanated from AEW’s version of bizarro world, Long Island, NY. The company’s ultra-heel world champion received a hero’s welcome from his hometown fans as he received a key to the city in an over-the-top segment honoring him. Elsewhere on the show, AEW threatened to overshadow its scheduled Battle of the Belts VI with four title matches, in addition to some surprising returns, debuts, and announcements. Oh, and one of the best tag teams in the company put their career (in AEW) on the line in a last-ditch bid to regain the titles. Let’s look at all the best, worst, and most noteworthy matches and moments from this week’s show.

Best Match of the Night

On a night with so many title matches, a throwaway Sammy Guevara vs. Komander match still managed to stand out enough to merit an honorable mention. Granted, anyone who likes to complain about AEW throwing random matches together without any storyline justification probably didn’t enjoy this match, nor did anyone who complains about “psychology” as this was a fairly unabashed spotfest from two accomplished high-flyers. I would argue there didn’t really need to be a storyline apart from Sammy needing to rack up wins to prove he belongs among the other three pillars for their presumptive title match at Double or Nothing, but the criticism of the match as mainly flippy moves without much holding it together is fairish. Komander is a talented wrestler but we haven’t seen him do much besides springboards and dives in his AEW career so far, and that pattern didn’t change here. Sammy has proven to be more than just a high flyer in his career so far, and he made a point of establishing his bona fides with a pretty good post-match promo in which he criticized MJF for not wrestling and using AEW as a launching pad to bigger things, whereas he has built this company with his consistently strong in-ring work and has no plans to go anywhere else. Long Island booed him for saying such things, of course, but it was a good performance overall for the Spanish star. Jungle Boy and Darby Allin were shown watching the match from backstage and up in the rafters respectively to sell the idea that all the top contenders were invested in this match even though the result was never in question. It was still a fun sprint with some impressive moves that made the winner look good for absorbing/countering everything his opponent threw at him to emerge victorious.

Among the more impressive title matches on the card was the trios championship match pitting Best Friends & Orange Cassidy against the House of Black. I’m a big Sue mark, so the Best Friends’ entrance popped me for sure, though the House of Black has a pretty cool entrance too, I guess. Who needs Snoop Dogg driving them to the ring in a lowrider when you’ve got Trent’s mom in a minivan? This match was a bit of a mismatch on paper, with the champs clearly favored to retain, but the announce team talked up Orange Cassidy being motivated by the possibility of becoming a dual champ, and the babyfaces obviously weren’t going down without a fight. OC hitting the Kicks of Doom on Malakai Black before getting his head kicked off in response and Trent hitting two consecutive piledrivers on Black and Buddy Matthews before struggling to lift Brody King were comedic highlights of a match that was otherwise a fairly straightforward wrestling contest. (Trent was ultimately able to piledrive King – the extra strength conferred by his mom kissing his cheek pre-match obviously made the difference.) The House always wins, though, so it was no surprise to see the heels come back and pick up the victory, though I’m not sure how many would have guessed it would be Matthews getting the pinfall off a stomp on Trent. It does make sense to establish that all three members of the group are capable of picking up wins, though. Los Ingobernables were watching from ringside, which was an odd development as I don’t see them as challengers for the House of Black’s titles, but maybe they will be starting a feud with Chuck, Trent, and Orange. The Best Friends tag team may not win a lot, but Cassidy is established enough that a win like this means something, so hopefully matches like this will help Malakai and the boys to continue building momentum.

Best match of the night honors go to Jamie Hayter vs. Riho for the AEW Women’s World Championship. This matchup is an absolute no-brainer – the power of Hayter against the resilience of Riho just makes too much sense. The inaugural AEW women’s champ sold Hayter’s offense well throughout while managing to escape and counter just enough to keep the champ from dominating completely, and the match hummed along at a good pace without feeling rushed. In fact, it felt like they gave this match plenty of time – I’m not one to time matches or anything, but it felt like only the main event was allotted more time on this night, which is a big win for the women’s division that needs more showcase matches like this. Even more importantly, the Outcasts didn’t get involved – they were instead given a backstage promo congratulating the champ on her win but asserting that they will make sure she loses that title to one of them, not that it matters which of the three gets that honor. (I do like teasing a little dissention among the heels – they all clearly want the title for themselves, so if one of them tries and fails to dethrone the champ it might lead to some squabbling despite the united front they’ve projected thus far.) Hayter showed respect to her challenger after a hard-fought match, and that was the extent of the segment – nothing earth-shattering, but a really good match between two of the most talented performers in the division. Like I said at the beginning, each woman’s style complemented the other perfectly, and it led to the most cohesive, highest quality match of the night.

Best Moment of the Night

I’m going to break with the format for a moment to talk about a moment that won’t be on this list before getting into the actual best moments of the night. Given the title of this review, I don’t think I could get away with not talking about the MJF Day celebration, but in my opinion, it was sadly just…mid. Was anybody asking for MJF to sing “Pennies from Heaven” on a wrestling show, impressive as it may have been? We already knew he could sing and dance from Le Dinner Debonair segment with Chris Jericho, so this segment just felt self-indulgent and way too long. Also, what was the deal with the mayor town manager of Oyster Bay getting booed by the live crowd? I’m sure somebody local could explain that to me but as a lazy TV viewer it made no sense. Also also, unlike other MJF segments, this one couldn’t even end with him getting his comeuppance, as evidenced by the amount of boos generated by the limited physicality we got between him and Jungle Jack Perry. MJF was untouchable in Long Island’s eyes, so there wasn’t really a way to make it feel satisfying or important in the eyes of the home audience. That’s not to say it was a bad segment by any means – MJF is always great on the mic, and he managed to weave in a couple of jabs at his rivals to keep the segment from feeling entirely pointless even if his story about his former teacher not believing in him did not make for one of his best “sure that happened” promos. The whole thing was fine but considering the entire show was basically built around it, I don’t feel like it lived up to that standard. Not bad enough to be among the worst moments, but not good enough to be among the best moments either. Speaking of best moments…

I’ll give an honorable mention to Jay White‘s debut – we’ve seen him on AEW programming before due to the working relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling, but since he became a free agent recently, this was presumably confirmation that he has signed on for good rather than just another guest appearance. It was a shame that we didn’t get to see Ricky Starks vs. Juice Robinson as promised, but White is a good addition to the roster and his continued partnership with Robinson should lead to some interesting storyline possibilities going forward. I don’t know how serious WWE was about trying to sign White, especially given a recent development that I’ll talk about later on, but this was a good get for Tony Khan. Speaking of good gets…

Nigel McGuinness is All Elite! As an announcer. Oh, and All In is going to Wembley! Tony Khan teasing monumental announcements has pretty much become a meme at this point, and I’m not entirely sure why there needs to be more hype than just a simple “Tony Khan has an announcement to make” – it’s not like he’s on TV every week, so it still has an impact when he is scheduled to appear – but this one did actually live up to its billing as far as I’m concerned. Wembley Stadium is a massive venue, and AEW spreading overseas is a big development in the company’s maturation into a legitimate wrestling alternative. Hopefully the event sells out (however they need to configure the arena to make that happen) and British fans give AEW the full treatment to make the event seem like a big deal even for us unsophisticated Yanks. It remains to be seen if All In will replace All Out this year or if they’ll have two similarly themed events so close together on the calendar, but the fact that there will be a UK show at all is very exciting news. Speaking of exciting news…

The best moment of the night, and the only thing that could really overshadow that massive announcement, was FTR winning the tag titles and remaining in AEW. The match itself may not have been a seven-star classic and certainly won’t show up on FTR’s highlight reel (though it probably should appear among the Gunns’ best matches so far) but the moment that cemented Dax and Cash will be sticking around was an undeniable highlight. It’s unclear when FTR actually re-signed, but it was smart to work this angle to play up the uncertainty about their status in the company even if I would argue it was a bit too soon to pay it off. The match was laid out in an intelligent way also – Colten and Austin tried to get themselves disqualified so they would retain the titles and send FTR packing, but referee Paul Turner refused to ring the bell in the heels’ favor. It would have been nice if commentary had made more of a point that FTR couldn’t just win the match to remain in AEW – since the stipulation was title vs. career, the champions still had the advantage of being able to retain by disqualification or count-out to prevent their rivals from sticking around. Still, it was clear that Turner was on the ball about the stipulation and rightly insisted that the match have a clean finish, something the heels will no doubt complain about in the weeks to come. FTR staying in AEW is a welcome development especially given that aforementioned recent development that I promise I’ll get to very soon, and regardless of how underutilized they may have been to this point in their careers, it is hard to imagine Dax and Cash won’t be featured prominently going forward. It may be too little too late for some fans, but I’m hopeful we’re about to see FTR’s 2022 run in other promotions replicated in AEW. Speaking of…wait, this segment is over, time to retire that bit.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

Nothing from this show, but let’s get on to the negative development I referenced twice already.

Parting Shots

• WrestleMania 39 Night 1 was very good. WrestleMania 39 Night 2 was not very good. WWE was also sold to Endeavor Group in a deal that will keep Vince McMahon in charge as executive chairman. I can’t state for certain that the two negative events of the weekend were related to each other, but they probably were. The worst Raw after WrestleMania in recent memory almost certainly was related to McMahon’s meddling, so it isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine he had a hand in Night 2 going off the rails as well. I’m on record that I will not watch WWE so long as Vince is involved, though I might be content with him simply being out of creative, so I’m out for the foreseeable future. (It’s extra fun for me to know that Cody Rhodes losing in one of the most disappointing WrestleMania finishes of all time is the last thing I’ll see of WWE for a while.) I’m not remotely surprised to hear some wrestlers either want out of their contracts or may not re-sign with the company as a result, and I wouldn’t be surprised if any possibility of Jay White or FTR signing with WWE was nuked by this deal. UFC’s parent company is probably among the only entities that were rumored to make an offer to buy WWE that would have been fine with Vince remaining in a prominent role – they already have Dana White and Joe Rogan, after all – so of course that’s the offer Vince would accept on behalf of the entire organization. Because what’s good for him (and his stupid mustache) is all that really matters, right?
• Keith Lee appeared on Dynamite for the first time in what feels like forever to challenge Chris Jericho to a match next week. Too bad the Limitless One will almost certainly be doing the job, but I hope the fan reaction is strong enough that Tony Khan will give him a chance at a solo run. It’s insane to me that two major wrestling promotions have failed to find something more than a midcard or tag team gimmick for one of the most talented big men of this generation.
• Matt Hardy turned on Ethan Page to allow Hook to retain the FTW Championship. It’s hard to tell which part of that anyone should care about, but at least Hook hit a Twist of Fate first so at least we got a fun moment out of it. I like all three guys so it’s disappointing that none of this matters, but that’s where we are.
• Luchasaurus has a slightly new gimmick and is still paired with Christian Cage. I am fine with all of this.
• I know Bryan Danielson has gotten one-word gimmicks over throughout his career, but “amateur” is up there with “fickle” from his days as The Planet’s Champion: it doesn’t work for me, brother. At least there was somewhat of an explanation for the Blackpool Combat Club’s rampage across the AEW roster lately, even if I’m not sure I understand what the distinction between the BCC as “professional wrestlers” and the “amateurs” they’ve been targeting recently. It just sounds like it’s BCC vs. the world, which is fine, but I would have expected more of a reason for going after the Dark Order, Adam Page, and The Elite specifically – they’re too obviously related for it to be just random chaotic violence.

That’s it for another week – pretty solid show this week with a great finish and plenty of worthwhile matches and moments along the way. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you all back here next week for more Chair Shots!