Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Fifth Man Dynamite

AEW’s Canadian tour continued this week with the coolest city name of the entire tour, in my opinion, as Dynamite aired live from Saskatoon. The Owen Hart and tag team tournaments continued, while elsewhere a new young wrestler made his debut and the final participant for each Blood and Guts team was revealed. Did the Saskatchewan crowd get their loonies worth, or were the loyal Saskatoonies let down by this show in the same way their local sports team frequently disappoints? (There are no professional hockey teams in Saskatchewan, which I suppose is itself a disappointment.)

Best Match of the Night

All of the matches on this week’s show were good, in my opinion, with none standing head and shoulders above the rest. It was a good show as a result, but it’s kind of hard to really recommend any match in particular over the others. However, if I was going to rank the top matches in terms of their quality (and I’m being told that it’s my job to do exactly that) I feel like it makes sense to start from the top with the opener between Chris Jericho and Komander. This match arguably had the least reason to exist, but the performers found a way to overcome that inauspicious start with a quality match that nevertheless felt like a foregone conclusion. There might have been a bit more drama if the announcers had referenced Action Andretti’s shocking victory over the Ocho, but it feels like the company has pretty well abandoned that storyline so there was no real reason to believe that the high-flying luchador had any chance of winning. Still, Jericho smartly tried to grind his opponent down to prevent him from pushing the pace with his speed and agility, which gave the match a fun push-pull rhythm. Jericho didn’t seem especially heelish here – the crowd was firmly behind the Winnipeg-born veteran rather than the relatively unknown newcomer, though he did take the time to flip them the bird mid-match – but that seems to play into the uncertainty about this “new direction” for his character. Will he turn heel and join his old pal Don Callis, or will he reject the most hated man in the company to turn babyface? We didn’t get a clear answer on this night, but the match proved that although his diminished workrate might more obviously lend itself to heelishness, the career chameleon Jericho is still able to play around with the way the audience perceives him and even draw a significant amount of cheers.

Another quality match on the night that didn’t quite stand out from the pack was the main event between Nick Wayne and Swerve Strickland. For Wayne’s debut, AEW made the smart choice to pair him with a veteran who he had faced before in his career, and they managed to tap into their grappling history to create a satisfying bout. It felt strange to see Wayne lose his first AEW match, but in a company where wins and losses supposedly matter, it makes sense that he wasn’t allowed to just waltz in and hand someone who has been pushed more lately a big loss. Wayne is going to have to start from the bottom and work his way up, in the same way that many of the stars of today like Wheeler Yuta and Daniel Garcia did. Swerve was ultimately crafty enough to pick up the win, but Wayne with the support of his mentor Darby Allin managed to keep the match competitive in a way that leaves open the possibility of a meaningful rematch victory at some point in the future.

The best match of the night was also the most evenly matched, competitive, and unpredictable, which aren’t necessary qualities for a great match to possess, but in this instance it made a big difference in my evaluation of its quality. That match, the semifinal in the tag team blind eliminator tournament between the teams of Orange Cassidy & Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara & Daniel Garcia, really could have gone either way as Cassidy and Allin are among the most protected wrestlers in the company while Guevara and Garcia are longtime allies in the Jericho Appreciation Society who are still trying to figure out their relationship with one another as their fearless leader threatens to leave them behind. There was certainly a fair amount of dissention between the heels as both men seemingly tagged themselves into the match more than their partner willingly allowed them into the match. I’m not sure why Swerve Strickland got involved in the finish – maybe a feud with Allin might be in the offing given the fact that he went on to defeat Allin’s protégé in the main event – but the match was so back and forth that it was clear only a small boost was needed to turn the tide in one team’s favor, so it makes perfect sense that the heels would be the ones who took advantage. Although I stand by my take that this blind eliminator tournament has been a mediocre at best idea all along, it has turned out some enjoyable wrestling and fun moments up to this point, which this match pulled off to a great degree. The finish held it back a bit in my opinion, but the back-and-forth, genuinely unpredictable action made it undeniable for the top spot of the night’s in-ring action.

Best Moment of the Night

It may be a small moment in the grand scheme of things, but Jake Hager talking to Chris Jericho backstage about the future of the JAS and turning in his favorite hat until Jericho figures out what he wants to do was an outstanding bit of character work from both men. Hager’s more comedic turn in the sports entertainment faction has been fun to watch, but he does manage to bring genuine pathos from time to time even if he will never be an all-time promo master. Jericho continues to play his cards close to his chest, so the audience is never quite sure which way he’s leaning. Will Hager, Guevara, and Garcia abandoning hm cause Jericho to decide he doesn’t need them anymore and join Don Callis to prove it, or will he reject the temptation to remain on the dark side and try to recruit Hager and Guevara to join him? Again, this storyline got multiple segments on the night without a resolution, which builds intrigue for the future.

Runner-up for best moment was the revelation that PAC (not Jericho, as it had been speculated) would be the fifth man for the Blackpool Combat Club, while Kota Ibushi will be the Elite’s fifth man for Blood and Guts. I know many will be questioning why this was only the runner-up, which is fair, but in my mind this moment was held back by two main factors. First, Ibushi didn’t actually appear in person, which is not the biggest deal in the grand scheme of things but was a letdown considering all the speculation that he would be reuniting with Kenny and the Bucks. I don’t have a problem with the lack of surprise factor his announcement caused – it’s actually incredibly satisfying to know that someone who has been a free agent for a fair while now is finally making his way to a company that should value the contributions he’s still able to make at this point in his career – but the video package revealing that he will be coming to Blood and Guts felt a little flat without an in-person appearance to cap it off. Secondly, while it is confirmed Ibushi will be appearing in AEW for the first time, there has been no confirmation about his contract status – this may be a one-off appearance rather than a long-term signing, which would be a bummer. I have no issue with PAC being the BCC’s fifth man – not least because he restores the actual Blackpool connection now that William Regal is gone – and his heel turn feels fully earned and logical. If we got a “Kota Ibushi is #AllElite” graphic and/or an in-person appearance to back up his Elite brethren, this segment easily could have been the best of the night, but one other segment managed to outshine it.

Although their matches haven’t been anything to write home about – not bad but certainly not incredible – Adam Cole and Maxwell Jacob Friedman have consistently been the most entertaining partnership in the blind tag tournament, and their pre-taped bonding session knocked it out of the park this week. Cole’s love of video gaming and his commitment to his romantic partner Britt Baker clashed with MJF’s hatred of virgin nerds, but he revealed a bit more character depth with his references to the loneliness that comes with having a single-minded focus on becoming the best wrestler in the world. The audience has genuinely been on the verge of liking the career heel champ at a couple of points in the company’s history, and it will most likely feel all the more devastating when he inevitably tries to stab Cole in the back. Again, it seems odd that a tag tourney is being used to forward the world title feud, but these segments have really worked to establish the comradery between two men who really should be bitter enemies.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I know I said how cool I think Saskatoon is in the intro, but I’m going to throw the fans under the bus for worst moment of the night. I get that Canadian fans have a strong preference for their hometown (or at least home country) heroes, but the complete lack of interest in young talent like Skye Blue is very disappointing to me. Her match against Ruby Soho wasn’t so amazing that it should have earned a significantly better reaction, but the crowd didn’t know that when they sat on their hands during her entrance. Come on, Canucklechucks. You gotta do better to support the young up-and-coming talent in the company.

Parting Shots

• The Cole/Friedman Double Clothesline ™ will have to wait yet another week. The only real question in my mind is whether MJF will use that spot as an opportunity to turn on his partner and clothesline him right out of his boots.
• Ruby Soho’s run in the Owen Hart tournament may not have been incredible from an in-ring standpoint, but I do like how both Britt Baker and Skye Blue are now incentivized to show up on behalf of Willow Nightingale to prevent the Outcasts from running the table. Whether they succeed in preventing Soho from winning the trophy is anyone’s guess, or if Jamie Hayter’s return from injury will be necessary to turn the tables in the babyfaces’ favor.

That’s it for another week – solid show overall, nothing particularly special, but good work from everyone involved. Thanks for joining me once again and I hope you’ll all come back next week for more Chair Shots!