Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Title Tuesday Dynamite

With an MLB playoff game set to take Dynamite‘s normal Wednesday night timeslot, AEW’s franchise program shifted to Tuesday with a stacked card to tempt its audience to deviate from their regular viewing. Oh, and WWE’s NXT brand also airs on Tuesday nights and promised appearances from John Cena, Cody Rhodes, The Undertaker, Asuka, and Paul Heyman, so you just knew Tony Khan would pull out all the stops to win head-to-head in the ratings. Two title matches, a #1 contender’s match, and a massive debut were all highlighted ahead of the show, but did the October 10th episode live up to its 10/10 billing?

Best Match of the Night

While I generally don’t approve of the absurd d!ck measuring contest that led to its creation, this week’s episode did at least deliver on the in-ring front even if the reasons it was so good are frankly stupid. Amazingly, if you have matches involving two or more of your company’s most popular stars, that tends to do better than a match with one big star and a relative nobody, even if the latter match type is necessary a lot of the time so you don’t completely grind your wrestlers into the ground. One such “big name vs. big name” match that delivered up to its billing was Adam Page vs. Jay White. There was nothing on the line in this match, so that made it feel less significant than it might have otherwise, but besides that this was just two great wrestlers putting on a showcase of what they can do. That’s how absurd the level of quality was on this show – two of the best wrestlers in in the world in their early 30s put on a midcard match with no title or stipulation on the line and it ended up being the 3rd-best match of the night. A lot of weeks, this easily could have been the best match of the night. Make it a #1 contender’s match or put a title on it (say the TNT or International Championship) and it’s almost certainly the main event on any run-of-the-mill Dynamite episode. But this week, it’s #3 because it meant nothing and also it ended via surprise rollup, the lamest of all wrestling finishes. Even with those drawbacks, Hangman vs. Switchblade still managed to beat out (spoiler alert) both title matches and two other singles matches on the night. It helped that they got two commercial breaks to work through, but it also helped that both performers are supremely talented and play off each other well.

Runner-up for match of the night goes to Luchasaurus vs. Adam Copeland. Sure, you could argue that White vs. Page was better on a technical level, but this match had more significance with it being both Copeland’s debut and the night’s main event. Plus it didn’t have a super lame finish. The Rated-R Superstar (a nickname I cannot believe he is legally permitted to use) has been putting on great matches well into his 40s, probably aided by the fact that his bump card isn’t as full as it would be if he hadn’t retired for nearly 9 years. Luchasaurus is a great if underrated big man who has been largely wasted in his recent role as Christian Cage’s heavy. I get that it’s opened the door for opportunities like this, but having him win the TNT Championship only for Christian to totally co-opt the belt as his own before winning it off him and none of that storyline being focused on Luchasaurus and how he would react to any of those developments feels like he isn’t being given the importance he deserves in his own storyline. He and the debuting Copeland put on a very good, smartly worked match that played to both of their strengths. The spear Copeland hit by running along the apron and launching himself off an upturned set of ring steps was well executed and sold well by the big man. Speaking of the big man, it was cool to see just how close in height Copeland is to the monster luchador – I don’t know if it’s just easy to forget how tall the former Edge is or if it’s that Luchasaurus is made out to be such a giant beast of a man that in my mind only similarly monstrous figures like Lance Archer are even close to his size. Copeland won, of course, albeit with some shenanigans in which Christian and Nick Wayne tried to get involved but his former tag partner managed to Uno reverse him and take advantage of the distraction to level Luchasaurus and spear him for the win. All in all, the match served its purpose of reintroducing Copeland to the AEW audience and building up the eventual confrontation between Copeland and Cage. Arguably, Luchasaurus doesn’t look too bad in defeat either, as he dominated the majority of the first half of the match and largely lost control due to his own guys trying to get involved on his behalf. The match justified both its length and its placement on the card and kickstarted Copeland’s AEW career in grand fashion.

Writing these reviews often reminds me of something I learned very early as a wrestling fan watching WCW Monday Nitro: the biggest, most important match may go on last, but the best match often goes on first. It was true back when the likes of Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Juventud Guerrera, Psicosis, and Ultimo Dragon were tearing it up on TBS and TNT in the late ’90s, and it’s still true with Bryan Danielson and Swerve Strickland in 2023. (For the purposes of this review, I’m not counting the Youtube pre-show in which Eddie Kingston battled Minoru Suzuki – a good match worth looking up if you missed it; for my purposes, the show started with Danielson-Strickland.) The winner of this match will face Christian Cage for the TNT Championship on Saturday’s Collision, so there was a degree of importance to the match in addition to the fact that this was somehow the first time these two Pacific Northwesterners have faced off one-on-one. This match was a fast-paced, highly athletic encounter in which Danielson looked willing to take whatever risk necessary to pull off the victory and Swerve appeared to be taking a more cerebral, calculated approach to catching and punishing any small misstep his opponent made. Of course, being a heel, the leader of the Mogul Embassy also tried to cheat, but Adam Page was there to prevent the shenanigans from deciding the match’s outcome. (If you were wondering why Prince Nana helped Jay White in his aforementioned match with Hangman Page, this right here is why.) Danielson was ultimately able to hit the running knee for the win, but there were a ton of twists, turns, and nearfalls leading up to that moment that kept the audience guessing. The American Dragon winning makes sense – a heel vs. heel matchup with Strickland and Cage wouldn’t feel as compelling as a traditional babyface vs. heel setup, especially when it’s possible that Adam Copeland might try to cost Cage the title in order to make a stronger case for them re-forming their legendary tag team. I doubt AEW will take that route and have Danielson become the new TNT Champion, but I wouldn’t mind it if they did. When all is said and done, however, I’m guessing Christian will continue feuding with Copeland, Swerve will continue feuding with Hangman Page, and Danielson will be looking for a new dance partner heading into Full Gear in November. For now, though, this was a more than serviceable match that helped further elevate Strickland as a significant player in AEW and added to the career highlight reel of Danielson, one of the most accomplished stars in the company. Not bad for the curtain-jerker spot.

Best Moment of the Night

There were a lot of matches on this show so everything else kinda got shortchanged. Plus at this point we’ve got a lot of ongoing storylines that are still entertaining and enjoyable to watch but kind of fall into the same formula every week. Toni Storm is still wacky and unhinged as her wannabe silent film era starlet alter ego, Roderick Strong is still funny whenever he yells “ADAM!” from the medically unnecessary wheelchair he’s always rolling around in despite it not doing anything for his entirely fictitious neck injury, and MJF is still good at cutting promos when he isn’t holding up the microphone for the crowd to chant nonsense at his opponents instead. I suppose with MJF’s segment being the only one given any significant time to develop makes it moment of the night by default – Storm’s involvement was relegated to the commercial break and chasing off Ruby Soho while wielding a slipper as a weapon during the women’s title match, and the Strong/Cole segment this week was pretty much just a continuation of last week’s albeit in a much shorter form. Then again, Don Callis and Konosuke Takeshita were relegated to writing on poster boards like pandemic-era Sammy Guevara in their attempt to remain the most detestable people in AEW, so I guess these segments could have had it worse.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

Nothing bad on this show per se, though I will say hot shotting two title changes seemingly just to compete with NXT was not the most inspired decision Tony Khan has ever made. Granted, I’m absolutely not complaining about Orange Cassidy and Hikaru Shida winning their respective matches – I still feel like Cassidy shouldn’t have lost the International Championship when he did, and although Shida dethroning Saraya to become the first 3-time champion in the division’s history isn’t the most satisfying conclusion to the British champion’s reign, at least the title should be represented on the show more regularly now that it’s around the waist of a more full-time performer for the company. I just feel like both title changes were rushed and seemingly only done because of the increased pressure to deliver a more captivating show than the other company. Considering Jon Moxley was originally supposed to be in the International Championship match instead of Cassidy, that one especially felt like a title change for the sake of a title change. Of course, I fully expect AEW to redeem these booking decisions in the coming weeks, but for now it felt less like these changes were made with long-term storylines in mind and more like the old “car crash TV” booking of the Attitude Era in which frequent title changes were the name of the game in order to stay ahead in the ratings.

Parting Shots

• I still find Collision enjoyable, so I’ll give you a quick recap of my thoughts on this past week’s show. I can’t believe how many wrestling Youtubers that I follow posted videos with the title something like “REAL Reason Behind SHOCK AEW Title Change” after FTR lost the belts to Ricky Starks and Big Bill. Ummmm…before the match Dawson and Wheeler talked about how beaten up they are right now, with Cash Wheeler suffering from a broken rib. Now, I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but considering how early in the match Wheeler was dispatched via nice, safe chokeslam through the announce table, I’m going to guess the “real” reason for the switch is that FTR needs time off to heal those injuries. Seems pretty obvious to me, but I’m also not a TV detective.
• Also from Collision, Kyle Fletcher looks like a star in the making should AEW ever want to split him from Mark Davis permanently. With Davis currently out injured, though, at least we can enjoy a short solo run for him before Aussie Open rejoins the tag ranks.
• Back to Dynamite, where Powerhouse Hobbs is finally thriving under the tutelage of the dastardly Don Callis. Hobbs is too good of a wrestler, especially with that spinebuster of his, to be toiling away in obscurity in a faction with QT Marshall. He paid his dues in Team Taz, now it’s time for bigger and better things for the Powerhouse.
• Juice Robinson pulling out a roll of quarters as a callback to MJF’s story about being bullied in high school was a bit uncomfortable, but I think it did a good job of establishing just how despicable Bullet Club Gold is and what depths they’re willing to stoop to if it means throwing MJF off his game and getting inside his head.

That’s it for another week – really good wrestling-heavy episode this time around, which was great considering how long we have until Full Gear. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you back real soon for more Chair Shots!