Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Brittsburgh Dynamite

Have you ever noticed that all of Pittsburgh’s sports teams (Steelers, Pirates, Penguins) all have the same black and yellow color scheme? That’s some solid branding right there, and of course that means everyone in the Peterson Events Center had their Terrible Towels ™ ready to wave around when their hometown heroes entered the arena. A certain local dentist was on hand for the night’s festivities, along with her significant other, and there was even a title on the line as a former champion looked to regain the belt he was cheated out of just over a month ago.

Best Match of the Night

I’m not going to mince words here: this was an aggressively mediocre episode of Dynamite all around, so despite the fact that there were a couple of good matches, they were hampered by head-scratching decisions that I’m probably going to end up talking about more than the actual in-ring action. Let’s start with an inoffensive match that we can actually talk about from an in-ring and storytelling perspective without raising any serious questions: Komander vs. Jay White. Both men are still looking to establish themselves in AEW, so it made sense that the match was basically booked to highlight the most notable aspects of both men’s offensive skillsets. Komander walked the ropes and flew around the ring while White looked to slow things down with strikes and counters. There was little doubt that White would be walking away with the win, as he and fellow Bullet Club Gold member Juice Robinson actually have a storyline going while Komander does not, but it was booked in a satisfying enough way and the post-match involvement of Shawn Spears and Ricky Starks would imply that we may get a tag match pitting White and Robinson against Starks and Spears at Double or Nothing. It’s a little hard to get excited about Spears’ involvement considering he just re-debuted at a random Rampage and it previously seemed like White vs. Starks straight up was being built up, but if the company actually books the Chairman to look strong before eating the pin to protect Starks in defeat, I’m okay with it. There isn’t much more to say about the match itself, though – it was worked well without overshadowing anything more important on the card, and White looked good in his official AEW debut.

The best match with the most questionable finish (which makes it the second runner-up, don’t question my math) was Sammy Guevara vs. Jungle Boy Jack Perry in the main event. In order to explain why the finish to this match was bad, I need to first talk about a questionable segment from earlier in the night, in which three of the four pillars interrupted each other to spout mainly the same stuff they’ve been talking about for weeks now, only for MJF to interrupt and announce that there will be a tournament to determine who will face him at Double or Nothing with Darby Allin getting a first round bye as determined by his name being randomly drawn from a hat. Obviously there was going to be something screwy with the tournament considering we very obviously will be getting a Four Pillars match for the title at the pay-per-view, but rather than let that intrigue build, AEW opted instead to completely let the cat out of the bag by depicting MJF giving Sammy Guevara a blank check to lay down and let him win at Double or Nothing after winning the tournament. Not surprisingly, then, no matter how good the main event was, there was no doubt that Sammy would win – MJF would look like an unbelievable fool if he paid Sammy some unspecified amount only for him to lose in the first round to Jungle Jack. So of course, when presented with the opportunity to interfere and make sure Perry got counted out, MJF pounced with the Dynamite Diamond ring to cement the count-out victory for Guevara. The finish itself would have been questionable regardless, but given how incredibly obvious it was after the earlier segment, it was outright unfathomable that nobody stepped in to prevent MJF from cheating to ensure himself an automatic win at Double or Nothing. I get that Tony Khan doesn’t want to be an on-screen authority figure because that trope is as played out as it gets, but even Renee Paquette couldn’t have been like “um, MJF, you’re literally on camera right now, there’s absolutely no way you’ll get away with this scheme”? If you eliminate the segment in which MJF openly bribed one of his top contenders to throw the match against him, the rest of the show could have played out as normal – just have MJF approach Sammy backstage to say that they need to talk before walking off-screen together, and the announce team would have been left asking why MJF would help Sammy win and advance without any concrete evidence of malfeasance. Then next week, after Sammy and Darby have their match to determine the #1 contender, Jungle Boy could reveal video evidence, taken in secret, of MJF bribing Sammy to do the job for him at Double or Nothing, and with the conspiracy blown wide open the stage would be set for the four-way match that we’ve all known we’d be getting for quite a while now. As it was, Taz had to be like “well, we don’t know why that just happened” as Tony Schiavone and Excalibur were like “yes we do, we all saw Sammy accept a bribe from MJF” and Taz had to respond like “I guess maybe you’re right, we’ll see” as the show went off the air. It was a dumb ending to a first-time matchup between two of the most exciting young stars on the roster who were on their way to a good if not great match before the shenanigans went down.

Best match of the night honors go to Dr. Britt Baker DMD and Jamie Hayter vs. Ruby Soho and Toni Storm. I would argue that AEW is a bit too beholden to booking the good doctor to win in her hometown, but otherwise there really wasn’t anything to find fault with here. All four women have good in-ring chemistry together, and Saraya’s involvement was thankfully kept to a minimum (though not entirely eliminated, of course) so the focus mostly remained on the women involved rather than some outside shenanigans interrupting the flow of the match. The Brittsburgh crowd booed everything the heels did and cheered heartily for the babyfaces, and the actual wrestling was good enough to warrant the kind of reactions it got. Baker got the win almost singlehandedly (by submission, no less) after Hayter was taken out by the heels driving her shoulder into the ring steps. It was unclear from this segment where this storyline might be going as the babyfaces have seemingly already vanquished the dastardly heels so there would be no obvious reason for them to face off again, but we’ll talk about the new direction that may have been suggested in a different segment in just a moment. As far as this match is concerned, though, it was every bit the hard-hitting affair you’d expect between two groups who have been feuding for a while now, and the finish was pleasing to the live crowd even if it didn’t seem to make a ton of sense to have the babyfaces go over in their first in-ring encounter.

Best Moment of the Night

Again, I thought this night was exceptionally average, so even the standout segments were decent at best. The Elite vs. Blackpool Combat Club rivalry is about as hot as anything in AEW at the moment, but their promo segment was just okay, in my opinion. Kenny Omega is good at promos, but his admission that he didn’t have much to say underscored the lack of material there is to work with at this point in the feud. These two squads just plain don’t like each other and want to fight, so let them. Bryan Danielson distracted the babyfaces by appearing on the big screen while Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, and Wheeler Yuta snuck up behind them for a sneak attack. Don Callis emerged with a steel chair in hand but thought the better of it as BCC had them outnumbered, but he retreated to the back only to recruit Konosuke Takeshita to serve as the equalizer and run off the baddies. The brawling part of the segment was way more effective at furthering the feud than the promo bit, and it will be interesting to see if Takeshita joins the Elite full-time or if he ends up getting taken out only for someone else (Kota Ibushi, maybe…?) to take his place for a four-on-four battle at Double or Nothing. I like the idea of building up Takeshita further by having him partner with one of the premier factions in AEW, but we will have to see what the future holds for the rising young star.

The best segment of the night, which saw Adam Cole and Chris Jericho come face-to-face for the first time, was not without its flaws either. While most of what Cole and Jericho had to say to one another was good, it didn’t feel like this feud was all that personal or heated from either man in particular. However, once Daniel Garcia emerged to attack Cole, things took a bit more personal turn as Dr. Britt Baker DMD ran out to the ring to slap Jericho in the face in defense of her boyfriend. (Why Keith Lee didn’t also get involved after last week’s match against Jericho and Cole’s support for him post-match is anyone’s guess. At least they explained why Jamie Hayter couldn’t make the save, as she was still dealing with the effects of the shoulder injury she suffered in the earlier tag match.) The Outcasts emerged from under the ring to take out Baker, and Garcia provided the most awkward handcuff job on Cole to allow Saraya and co. to attack Baker with a kendo stick while Cole was forced to watch on helplessly. I question the use of a kendo stick here – yes, it looks and sounds like the person getting hit with it is really being hurt, but they are just not the kind of weapon that is capable of delivering serious pain and suffering. Putting Baker through a table or smacking her repeatedly with a chair would have been a stronger visual in my opinion. With that said, might we get a mixed tag match pitting Saraya and Jericho against Baker and Cole? That would certainly be an interesting angle, and it would free up Soho and Storm to face another homegrown babyface team like Willow Nightingale and Hikaru Shida or Riho. (Where that leaves the women’s champion Hayter is less clear, but there is still over a month for a new challenger to be named for Double or Nothing.) Again, I would have liked more content to the promo than Cole saying “I admire you and modeled my career after you” and Jericho saying “I don’t give two $#!ts about you” but once the segment turned physical, it improved significantly in my opinion, and without much competition it was enough to take home the honors for moment of the night.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I’m willing to suspend judgment for a little while, and I understand the argument that having a TV title like the TNT Championship change hands on a regular episode of Dynamite is actually probably better than saving it only for pay-per-views, but taking the title off Powerhouse Hobbs at this point in his career is probably not the right call. Wardlow brought backup in the form of Arn Anderson, who implied there might be more to their union than simple mentorship with his reference to the Four Horsemen, but FTR didn’t emerge to help the Wardaddy regain his title so I’m not entirely sure what that mention was supposed to accomplish. I get that QTV sucks and is not very effective as backup for Hobbs, so it makes sense that Anderson could negate them all by himself, but that still doesn’t mean the title change was justified. Again, it felt like AEW was going too far out of its way to leave the Pittsburgh crowd happy by having the local favorite Wardlow get the win and the title, and unlike hometown hero Baker getting beaten down following her big tag team win, there was nothing to counterbalance that crowd-pleasing but otherwise confusing result. The TNT belt has been hot potatoed around too much already, so another title switch only leaves one wondering why the decision was made to have the Wardog lose in the first place. Hobbs deserves a bigger push than he’s gotten, which was the hope when the belt was put on him to begin with, so taking the title off him so soon surely dashes any hope of improved fortunes for the big man, at least in the short term. Even worse, Christian Cage’s protégé Luchasaurus emerged as Wardlow was celebrating his victory, seemingly positioning him as the next contender and further sidelining the former champ. We’ll see where all this goes, but it’s hard not to feel bad for Hobbs at the moment.

Parting Shots

• Did Kenny Omega refer to Don Callis as his uncle? Were we supposed to know that? Holy crap, those shirts of Kenny and Don shirtless with (in one case heavily) airbrushed abs are even more unsettling now…and they were plenty unsettling to begin with.
• Unless the Chris Jericho/Adam Cole feud balloons to include the entire JAS and Cole has to recruit The Acclaimed for backup, it is truly disappointing how far Max Caster and Anthony Bowens have fallen recently. Granted, I know they shouldn’t be feuding with FTR over the tag titles, but these guys were massively over a very short time ago and now they’re killing time in a nothing feud against Jericho’s B-squad. At least they have Billy Gu…I mean, Daddy Ass with them. Seriously, that’s how he was introduced for their match this week.
• FTR and the Impact Jayers (as Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal would probably prefer not to be called) are apparently going to have some sort of “can they coexist?!” match on Rampage against some randos who apparently attacked Mark Briscoe backstage for…reasons, maybe. I assume this is leading to Jarrett and Lethal getting a title shot for some reason despite literally any other worthy tag team on the roster. I do not care for any of this.

That’s it for another week – it was a decent episode but nothing really stood out as particularly strong and the booking of the main event picture has been very illogical so far. The end result should be awesome, so it’s hard to complain too much, but I don’t think it’s asking too much to give us a plausible storyline between now and Double or Nothing. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope you’ll all come back next week for more Chair Shots!