Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Returning To Roots Dynamite

AEW returned to where it all began as this week’s Dynamite aired live from the Capital One Arena in Washington DC, which is the same venue where Dynamite‘s debut episode emanated from almost four years ago. This show featured two title matches and a potential #1 contender’s match, but with the short-term focus on the crossover New Japan Pro Wrestling show Forbidden Door, there was a lot of work to be done on that front as well. Did this episode deliver on its many promises, or was it too scattered to produce a focused show?

Best Match of the Night

Damn, this was an incredible night of wrestling. In my opinion, this was one of the best Dynamites of 2023, not just from an in-ring standpoint, but we’ll save the non-wrestling stuff for a little later. There were five matches on the show and I would argue that only Wardlow vs. Jake Hager was truly skippable. There may not have been much on the line between Orange Cassidy, Keith Lee, Darby Allin, Sting, and the Mogul Embassy, but they still managed to turn out a well above-average multi-man TV match. There was a weird moment where the word “NO” appeared superimposed over the onscreen action, which I won’t speculate on but I’m sure the internet will have a reasonable, proportionate response that in no way will entirely get out of hand and lead them to draw insane conclusions based on one tiny piece of evidence. As far as the match at hand, it was great though a little abrupt in the end – Cassidy was the star of the match for his team, though it was Darby and Sting who ended up getting the win. I would have liked to see Gates of Agony getting a little more spotlight here, but I suppose it could be argued that they got their own showcase two weeks ago and the show was already overstuffed as it was so they probably couldn’t spare any time to give them more time to shine. Swerve has managed to garner heat with both Lee and Cassidy in recent weeks, so it made sense that he often found himself having to fight out of trouble and use his larger associates to take the brunt of the offense. Again, about the only thing that held this match back was the lack of stakes, but for a TV match that delivered up to the level it did, that isn’t really the worst criticism in the world.

Another great match this week was Skye Blue vs. Toni Storm for the AEW Women’s World Championship. The criticisms of this match are as valid as they are inevitable. No, Skye Blue had virtually no chance of winning the title here. Yes, there were too many heel shenanigans as there always are with the Outcasts. No, it doesn’t make sense that Willow Nightingale waited to come out until after the match was over rather than just being at ringside to keep Ruby Soho from stepping out of line. Yes, AEW should have more than one women’s storyline going on at any given time. With all that said, there was one moment in this match that overshadowed all of that negativity and should be the reason both Skye Blue and the audience should hold onto hope that the homegrown AEW wrestler will get (and deserve) a big push in the not-too-distant future. With Soho keeping the ref distracted, Storm looked poised to spray Blue in the face with the ever-present green spray paint, but Blue beat her to the punch with her own can of blue spray, which opened the door for her to hit a superkick, knock Ruby off the apron, and hit her finisher on the champ for what could well have been the decisive pinfall. The visual of Skye Blue, one of the biggest stars-in-waiting in the women’s division, having the champ pinned (albeit behind the ref’s back because she didn’t actually take out Ruby for good) with the crowd fully behind her should absolutely be read a sign of things to come. Then, just to further drive that point home, Blue ran into a cheap shot and a Storm Zero, only for her to kick out of the champ’s usual finishing move. I understand that I’m not grading these matches based on potential or what they might mean but rather on what they actually deliver between the ropes, but the match itself was quite good in addition to delivering a very exciting tease of what is to come. I don’t think AEW wants to sit Mama Blue at ringside each week to garner sympathy for her daughter, but the DC crowd seemed very ready to get behind Blue regardless of Storm and Soho spraying her mom in the face just to be jerks. Storm’s run as champ has been fine so far, and I see no reason that she shouldn’t get at least a few more good title defenses before she probably drops the belt back to Jamie Hayter at All In. But if there’s even a slight chance Hayter won’t be back in time for the big UK show, I don’t see why she and Britt Baker couldn’t join forces with Willow Nightingale to give Blue the numbers advantage she needs to pull off a crowning achievement in Wembley. That may be wishful thinking or far too optimistic a timeline, but it’s easy to see big things in the future for Skye Blue.

The Elite vs. Blackpool Combat Club in the main event was awesome and very nearly got my top match of the night honors, but I’m giving it a rare third runner-up – yes, I’m officially saying there were four matches worthy of discussion as match of the night contenders. I don’t feel like I really have to explain or justify why a match featuring “Hangman” Adam Page, the Young Bucks, Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, and Wheeler Yuta was good. Have any of those men had a bad match in 2023? Or 2022 for that matter? But okay, let’s talk a little bit about this match specifically. The clear narrative here was whether the “Hung Bucks” could work together as well as an established unit like the BCC. After all, Page just rejoined the group fairly recently, and there are still some lingering questions as to how much he should and does trust his former friends turned rivals turned friends again. Meanwhile, Moxley, Yuta, and Castagnoli have been steamrolling the competition for quite a while now, with Bryan Danielson again on commentary to oversee proceedings. Tony Schiavone pointed out that the BCC hasn’t lost a match in over a year with Jon Moxley as part of it, so it was both surprising and not surprising that they lost clean to Page and the Bucks here – surprising in the sense that they always seem to win (not to mention the numbers game in their favor), unsurprising in the sense that Schiavone wouldn’t have brought it up if they weren’t about to have that streak snapped. There was plenty of high-flying and athleticism on display here as well as the kind of hard-hitting technical wrestling you’d expect from the BCC. There was a lot of post-match hubbub which we’ll talk about in a little while, but even without all of those developments this match did a good job of furthering the longstanding rivalry between the Elite and BCC that has dominated AEW programming for a good while now. With virtually everyone in both groups heading towards an unrelated match at Forbidden Door, this might be the last big multi-man match we get from them for a little while, but they certainly went out on a high note if that turns out to be true.

As good as the main event was, I’m giving match of the night honors to Maxwell Jacob Freedman vs. Adam Cole in the opener. Yes, it was a 30-minute time-limit draw. Not the greatest ending, but it was clear that this isn’t the last time we’ll see these two face off, not to mention the fact that MJF and (probably) Adam Cole have to put their rivalry on hold for a different matchup at Forbidden Door. With that said, however, this match felt like anything but a safe opening salvo for a new world title feud that will likely last throughout the summer. Yes, there was some stalling and schtick at the beginning, but that’s to be expected from someone like MJF. From there, though, both men went hard in this one, including MJF hitting a Tombstone Piledriver on the apron and a flying elbow drop from the top turnbuckle through the timekeeper’s table. Cole got back into the match with a straitjacket German suplex on the apron, and MJF gave him the proverbial own goal by trying to take advantage of the ref being down by grabbing the title belt and tossing it to Cole to fake being hit to draw the disqualification only for Bryce Remsburg not to get up in time to see Cole with the belt, which allowed Cole to deck him for real and dispose of the evidence. Cole put himself in a position to win with a superkick, Panama Sunrise, Boom sequence, but of course the bell rang just as the ref’s hand was coming down to count 3. I liked this finish more than I would have if it had been an ironman match or something where the time limit was more of a focus – I didn’t really think about the time limit at all until the bell rang. I hope this doesn’t lead to the overdone trope of MJF forcing a would-be opponent to jump through a ton of hoops to get a title shot – it was an eliminator match to earn Cole a future title shot if he had won, but there isn’t anyone obviously in line for a title shot otherwise (besides Hiroshi Tanahashi, who is scheduled to face MJF at Forbidden Door except the champ himself said “nope” to the very idea of it) so there’s obviously more story to be told here. Still, this was such a good match that I can’t imagine anybody really minds that we may not get a conclusive rematch until August or September.

Best Moment of the Night

I’m just going to throw the various Forbidden Door match announcements into a single entry here because, unlike last week, they weren’t spoiled in advance (at least not as far as I could tell) and they did a great job of picking matchups that should be fun to see but don’t necessarily need a big match or segment to build them up. IWGP Champion Sanada issued an open challenge, which was answered by Jungle Boy Jack Perry. As mentioned previously, Hiroshi Tanahashi called out MJF for the AEW World Championship, which is apparently scheduled to happen regardless of the champ’s opinion. We’ll presumably get Orange Cassidy vs. Zack Sabre Jr. and Daniel Garcia vs. Katsuyori Shibata, or maybe a four-way between them. Considering the show is on the 25th, which has really snuck up on me, it made a lot of sense to lock in a few more matches and tease at least one other. Last year’s show ended up being awesome even though it was incredibly cursed, so it should be fun to see how this year’s edition will go with (hopefully) more of their intended card being available.

Newly announced dad-to-be Sammy Guevara came to the ring to cut a promo in which he basically turned babyface, only to be interrupted by Darby Allin who challenged him to start his big life changes by breaking away from the Jericho Appreciation Society. That drew out Chris Jericho himself, who shockingly asked to have his own music cut short, but Sammy refused to back down and said he has nothing to apologize for since Chris didn’t have his back while he chased the world title. The segment ended with Sting facing off baseball bat to baseball bat (not a euphemism) with Jericho to set up a tag match, and there’s every possibility that Sammy turns heel and feuds with Darby going forward, but it would obviously be incredibly satisfying and entertaining if he did finally turn his back on the JAS and feuded with Jericho instead. Sammy made for an obvious heel when he left the woman he proposed to on national television for Tay Conti, but with the announcement that they’re having a kid (and some slightly toned-down PDA) it’s a no-brainer to make him a babyface again. Neither man has anything obvious going on right now either, so a feud between the two seems like a win all around.

I’ve criticized a fair bit of the build to this Saturday’s Collision debut, but the CM Punk hype video that aired this week did a lot to get people on board for not only the first show but also for Punk’s “second coming” with the company in general. I said that the announcement Punk is going to wrestle in front of the loyal Chicago fans wasn’t necessarily the most exciting use of him as a performer in his first night back, but it sounds like they’re going to either give him a promo segment as well or they’re going to tease us with all that he’s got to get off his chest since he’s been away. The biggest question I have is whether Punk’s claim that he is returning for the same reasons that he signed with the company in the first place – namely, that he’s got some scores to settle and some fresh matches that he wants to wrestle – will turn out to be true, or if he’ll change his tune as a result of everything that happened with him last year and everything the company has gone through since he left. That’s an effective and efficient use of a pre-recorded segment – it sure worked better than anything Tony Khan has accomplished with his “special announcements” over the past month.

Yes, I picked out four segments as well as four matches this week. I told you that this was an exceptionally good show. Moment of the night goes to the post-main event shenanigans in which Eddie Kingston returned to fight off Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta before refusing to fight, and restraining the Young Bucks from fighting, his old running buddy Jon Moxley. Konosuke Takeshita interrupted by attacking Kingston from behind, which of course drew out Kenny Omega to even the odds. He got in some good shots before his Forbidden Door opponent, Will Ospreay, blindsided him to leave him lying to close out the show. I’m sure some will say there were too many moving pieces and overall chaos in this segment, but it served at least three distinct rivalries and injected a ton of star power into a segment that already featured seven of the biggest names in the company. A segment like this really serves to establish Forbidden Door as an absolutely stacked show full of talent worth getting excited about, and the fact that they had time for all the run-ins without making the match itself feel rushed or like an afterthought just made the segment shine even more.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

Come on, I told you this show was awesome. There’s no way I’d say that and then pick a match or segment to criticize here.

Parting Shots

• I’ll be interested to see how AEW Fight Forever ends up doing both commercially and critically – it doesn’t release until the 29th, but I’m preordering it both because I want to support AEW Games and because it seems like it will be a lot more fun to play than it may look from a graphical standpoint. I haven’t been a fan of the more simulation-esque entries in recent WWE 2K games, outside of GM Mode, so I’m hoping Fight Forever will be a fun game to actually play a wrestling match instead of just fantasy booking.
• Luchasaurus and Christian Cage took out Arn Anderson backstage ahead of a title match between the giant masked lizard and Wardlow. I know the idea is that Anderson cost Christian at Double or Nothing, but I can’t imagine him getting involved between Wardog and the Jurassic nightmare. This was the match most people wanted all along anyway, so we’ll see how it turns out compared to the ladder match at the pay-per-view. That’s not really a fair comparison, of course, but hopefully we get at least a solid TV match out of it for now.
• Collision. Watch it. I won’t be reviewing it, but watch it anyway.

That’s it for another week – really good show this week with some fun matches and teases for both Collision on Saturday and Forbidden Door in a little more than a week. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you all back here next week for more Chair Shots!