Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: AEW Fight For The Fallen 2023

After the Maui wildfires left over 100 people dead and countless more displaced from their homes, AEW stepped up to announce its Fight for the Fallen special would be dedicated to providing relief for those dealing with the fallout. (Check out AEW’s Youtube channel if you would like to donate to the Maui Food Bank.) With the biggest event in company history just less than two weeks away, this episode also had a lot of work to do in setting up the most important matches and storylines that will carry through to All In. The company’s current top champion addressed the challenges he will face at the pay-per-view, the final challenger for the women’s championship was crowned, and a prominent former champion promised to discuss his plans for the big Wembley show. Did Fight for the Fallen live up to its status as a special edition of Dynamite and as a fundraiser for a worthy cause?

Best Match of the Night

Honestly, this was a somewhat weak episode from an in-ring standpoint. Most of the biggest matches and storylines at All In have been established through promo segments, which was the case once again here, so it would hardly make sense to give away a grudge match for free between two people who are about to face off at the pay-per-view. With that said, there were still some good bouts on this show that played into ongoing storylines without giving away anything too important. The Gates of Agony (Bishop Kaun and Toa Liona) have mostly been used in Ring of Honor and only occasionally as backup for Swerve Strickland on AEW programming, so there was little drama about who would be victorious in their match against Darby Allin & Nick Wayne, but given their association with the Mogul Embassy, the match was clearly meant to further build up Swerve and AR Fox’s ongoing beef with Allin and his young protégé. This was overall a fairly inoffensive tag match – we haven’t seen a lot of Nick Wayne in AEW yet, so it felt like this was a good opportunity to introduce some of his repertoire to the audience, and Kaun and Liona are solid enough workers to give their more established foes a good test while never really threatening to take the win. A couple more minutes wouldn’t have been amiss here, as the match felt more like a sprint to the finish than it really needed to, but with Wayne and Allin throwing themselves around with absolutely reckless abandon, it made sense for this match to be fairly short. The post-match segment may have overshadowed the match itself by design, but that didn’t mean the match wasn’t enjoyable enough while it lasted.

Although they were clearly crowned champions far too early in their careers, The Gunns have arguably had one of the best runs of any homegrown tag team in AEW. Having them join Bullet Club Gold and now putting them in the main event against the Young Bucks have really raised their profile in the tag division, even if the match was more about building to the Bucks vs. FTR round 3. The Gunns have a great entrance, but having the Bucks jump them while literally basking in the glow of their spotlight was a smart decision even though it robbed the live crowd in Nashville of a “Carry On Wayward Son” singalong. (Granted, since it was only the Bucks and not the Elite as a whole, we might have just gotten the “Superkick Party” entrance instead.) Austin and Colten paid tribute to their father, whose in-ring retirement looks more and more like a work with each passing week, and Matt and Nick delivered their standard greatest hits which, admittedly, are a lot better than most people’s five moves of doom/suplex city nonsense. This match wasn’t nearly as frenetic as the earlier match, but it did also have more time. I know some people don’t love the Bucks’ whole schtick, but I love the little things like saying “see ya” or “you’re dead” before delivering a move. It gets me every time even though I wouldn’t want other people to do it too. As much as anything, I appreciated the efficiency of this match – AEW could do worse than building up the Young Bucks’ win total ahead of a big match with a win over a young team on the rise in the main event of its weekly flagship program.

As has often been the case in recent months, this week’s Dynamite was never better from an in-ring standpoint than its opening International Championship match, which in this instance pitted the champ Orange Cassidy against his former associate Wheeler Yuta. While normally Cassidy is the one working a comedic schtick and Yuta is more known for his straightforward technical wrestling syle, their roles were reversed here as OC went for a pre-match handshake and seemed to be more focused than usual, while Yuta was the one sticking his hands down the front of his pants and delivering the Kicks of Doom as his foe rolled down the ramp. The familiarity on display between these two men was completely appropriate given their past association with the Best Friends, and that aspect really enhanced the match with the counters and evasions that both men were able to pull out. One of the big talking points coming out of the match will most likely be Cassidy hitting the Paradigm Shift right in front of Jon Moxley, though I also particularly liked how he escaped Yuta’s signature seatbelt pin – a move OC himself helped impart to the young star. The finish, which saw Cassidy score the pin after blocking a sunset flip, was a little weak given the quality of the match that preceded it, but that’s a fairly minor quibble compared to the overall excellence on display from two of AEW’s best homegrown stars.

Best Moment of the Night

I could be wrong about this, but was tonight the first AEW appearance of Joker Sting? I can’t recall any specific moments when he would have appeared previously. I know such a wacky variant of the normally stoic character isn’t for everyone, but Steve Borden clearly has fun shaking things up every now and then, so it’s fine by me, especially in small doses. I thought we already knew Darby and Sting would be facing Swerve and AR Fox in a Coffin Match, or maybe I just assumed something like that would happen, but either way his warning to Fox was hardly necessary, and as soon as the announce team mentioned that Prince Nana was conspicuous by his absence, you probably could have guessed he would show up later in the segment. Still, Sting trying to call Nana back only to transition into singing “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” was pretty funny. It was a minor segment and not really that notable content-wise, but I thought it was fun at least, which is what wrestling is supposed to be, right? So it’s getting an honorable mention.

Eddie Kingston had been over in Japan for the G1 Climax for the last month or so, but he returned this week to attack Claudio Castagnoli and…well, that kind of seems to be his whole thing these days. Oh, and I guess he also set up a Stadium Stampede match at All In between himself, the Best Friends, Orange Cassidy, the Lucha Brothers, and the Blackpool Combat Club plus whatever three schmoes they can find in the locker room who they haven’t beaten up yet. Or I guess three really forgiving schmoes who they have already beaten up. I’m assuming three is the correct number of schmoes needed since I can’t imagine Bryan Danielson will be cleared in time, considering he had surgery to fix his broken forearm back in July. Stadium Stampede is always a fun time, and the involvement of the ultra-violent BCC (who should be booed by the UK crowd in London purely for continuing to cite Blackpool in their name despite not having anyone British in their group) should make for a unique and memorable match. Their parking lot brawl against the Best Friends was a great piece of excessive, bloody violence, and I expect nothing less when they match up again at All In.

Just as the match of the night was no surprise given what we’ve seen for the past few months, the best moment of the night should be no surprise either, as the storyline between AEW World Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman and challenger Adam Cole has completely dominated Dynamite recently, and this week was no different. The brochachos going to Outback Steakhouse was a fun little jab at their All In Zero Hour opponents Aussie Open, though I have to say I do not want to see MJF actually attempt a kangaroo kick in their match. Humans do not have prehensile tails on which to balance in order to give such a maneuver the requisite power to be effective, so let’s just leave that idea on the drawing board where it belongs. I absolutely loved Tony Khan berating them for using the Double Clothesline of Doom outside of a sanctioned match, which MJF said would come back to bite TK in 2024 only for Khan to re-open the door to ask him to repeat himself, which MJF declined to do. I will give TK credit here – he’s capable of performing in pre-taped comedic bits like this even if he should probably avoid live segments because he generally comes across as stilted and unnatural. When he has as many takes as he needs to get it right, though, he can get the job done. The main draw of this segment was the in-ring portion in which the two amigos finally addressed the fact that yes, they are going to wrestle each other rather than just focusing on their tag team match on the pre-show. Their promos were fairly tame but still great – MJF’s line that if there’s no All In, there’s no MJF really hammered home how important the original show was in his development and put over how important this year’s edition of All In will be for him as well. I think Cole and MJF have really nailed the dynamic of two bros who are still competitive but respectful of each other – MJF insisted he will win at All In “because I’m better than you and you know it” but left the space for Cole to respond that the new champ after All In will be “Adam Cole Bay-Bay.” Aussie Open attacked but they fended them off without using the most powerful tag team finisher in all of professional wrestling, the double clothesline, and Cole feigned a superkick before hugging it out with his bro one last time to end the segment. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this storyline has been executed masterfully from start to finish, and whatever happens at All In should be well received whether Cole turns on MJF, MJF turns on Cole, or nobody turns on anybody and they just have a friendly competition in which each man tries to one-up the other. I’m actually at the point where I’m leaning toward the latter – I would like to see MJF and Cole recruit a third to face Roderick Strong and the Kingdom before their union finally inevitably falls apart – but I can understand why some people might be disappointed if the storyline doesn’t culminate at such a major event as All In at Wembley Stadium.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I can respect the need to do brand deals from time to time. I follow a lot of Youtube channels that do them sometimes and while I may not be a big fan of such videos, they generally don’t bother me because I completely understand the motivation behind them. They bring in extra ad revenue and can be mutually beneficial when pulled off correctly. However, I hope we can all agree that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Deathmatch between Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy was absolutely putrid garbage that should never have made it on our screens in the first place and should never be repeated no matter how much profit and brand synergy there might be. I don’t even want to waste the time and space it would take to list all of this match’s problems, from the first half of the match being almost entirely impossible to see what was going on (though given how bad it was once the match got to the ring, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that we didn’t have to see any more than we actually did) to Leatherface, who was supposed to be on Jarrett’s side (I guess), chasing off Karen Jarrett instead. There were weapons, fake blood, and a metric butt-ton of outside interference, but none of it mattered one bit. Tony Khan, next time an asymmetric multiplayer horror game comes calling with a sponsorship offer (and they probably will given just how many asymmetric multiplayer horror games there are nowadays) just say no.

Parting Shots

• I did promise a parting shot dedicated to Collision each week, but I don’t have a ton to say about this past week’s show. Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Miro promises to be a great feud, and I like the idea of CM Punk and Samoa Joe renewing hostilities even though it does push Punk’s issues with Ricky Starks to the side for now. I’m not sure if we’ll get a “real” world title match between Joe and Punk at All In, but I feel like it would be better saved for All Out in Chicago the week after. That show is starting to feel like it will be a Collision pay-per-view anyway whereas All In will be more Dynamite-focused. Other than that, I don’t really have any big takeaways from this past Saturday’s show – it was good, just not all that much of note.
• Some of you may have expected Chris Jericho turning face and Will Ospreay attacking him to set up a match at All In to be one of my moments of the night, but I felt like the segment that led to it was full of questionable decisions. Why did Don Callis bother asking Jericho to join his group if he was so sure that he would say no, and if there was any chance he’d say yes, why have the painting in the ring when Jericho would obviously want to see it? Jericho burned his former group to the ground on the mere speculation that he might join the Callis family, so it made no sense for Callis to be so confident that the answer would be no. If the whole plan was never to have Jericho join the group and this was all an elaborate ruse to sucker Jericho in for the ambush, fine, but then why did Callis make up excuses about the painting when confronted about it? That’s the moment to spring the trap! On Jericho’s part, why list all the reasons why he obviously shouldn’t join Callis’s faction only to say yes but then change his mind a moment later when it was clear Callis was going to stab him in the back? That’s your big babyface turn? “Yes, I would like to be evil, but wait, it seems like you are also evil and I don’t want that, so I guess I will not be evil by default.” Sammy Guevara looked like the more valiant hero by coming to his mentor’s rescue, which I guess is the long-term plan anyway, but the way this segment was handled left a lot to be desired in my opinion. Jericho vs. Ospreay will be great regardless, and hopefully the company doesn’t run Sammy’s goodwill with the fans into the ground, but otherwise I wasn’t that impressed with the way this segment concluded the ongoing saga of the Jericho Appreciation Society and the Don Callis Family.
• I know some people will be disappointed that we won’t be getting a Kenny Omega singles match at All In, but unless they’re ready to strap the proverbial rocket to Konosuke Takeshita, I think it makes more sense to take things slow and start off with a trios match. Plus, I’m not sure how else you’d get Bullet Club Gold, Adam Page, and Kota Ibushi on the card otherwise.
• Dr. Britt Baker DMD got the predictable win over the Bunny to cement her spot in the women’s four-way at All In. I get relying on the division’s most established stars for such a big show, but the way this match came together was a bit uninspired in my opinion. They were never going to leave Saraya off a match in the UK, of course, but I would have liked to see Skye Blue get into that match somehow either instead of Baker (who doesn’t need it) or just as an added fifth competitor. Someone young to represent the next wave of AEW talent rather than just the old guard. It should still be an incredible match regardless.
• Max Caster’s reference to Donald Trump being “on lockdown” got a mixed reaction from the Nashville crowd, so of course he followed it up with a more politically neutral reference to Derrick Henry. American football truly is the great uniter. Caster strikes me as the type to troll a deep red state regardless of the fact that he’s supposed to be a babyface, so I’m not surprised he went there – especially after he referenced Mitch McConnell on Collision despite the fact that it was in North Carolina, not Kentucky (hey, it’s still a current events reference regardless) – but I’m sure there were a few in the crowd who cheered when Buddy Matthews busted him open a few moments later as if in retaliation for that line even though Matthews, who is Australian, probably couldn’t care any less. Speaking of Matthews, he got engaged to Rhea Ripley over the weekend, so congrats to him on his recent run of success both personally and professionally.

That’s it for another week – solid show, plenty of intrigue ahead of All In, and a few matches/segments that would be worth going back to if you missed it live. Thanks for joining me once again, and I’ll see you next week for more Chair Shots!