Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: A Battle Of Wills Dynamite

Sometimes a wrestling match is a pure display of athleticism in which two or more opponents pit their strength, agility, and quickness against each other to determine who is physically superior. Other times, wrestling matches can be more cerebral, with the key to victory depending more on whose strategy and cunning can carry them to victory. Other other times, both wrestlers have the same first name, which allows the bookers to make a silly pun name for their match and call it a day. This week’s Dynamite had a little bit of all three but mostly that last one. So let’s take a look at all the best and worst of this week’s show, why not?

Cheers

• Okay, so the jokey intro might make it seem like the wrestling this week wasn’t good, but I promise it was, I just like stupid jokes. The pun match, Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Will Ospreay that was creatively labeled “A Battle of Wills” because do you get it, opened the show and was overall the best match on the card. Ospreay has now collected all the Infinity Stones of the Don Callis Family and is ready to face Bryan Danielson at Dynasty with the gauntlet fully powered up. In fact both Ospreay and his Dynasty opponent had one of those big vs. little matches that the WWE 2K video games insist everybody loves this week as Danielson took on Lance Archer in the second match of the night. Both matches were quite good despite there being very little drama about who would win, though I feel like Hobbs/Ospreay was a little better simply because Hobbs is more established as a legit wrestler. I like Archer a lot as a big man who’s going to hurt his opponent regardless of the fact that he always loses, but he isn’t around that consistently and doesn’t feel like he’s on the rise in the way Hobbs is. I always love when Danielson enters the ring early so he and his future opponent can cross paths on the ramp. It’s such a perfect detail for his character to play mind games while also exemplifying how much of a hurry he is to get his match started.
• Adam Copeland’s show-opening promo was fantastic – he expressed a sincere appreciation for wrestling in all its forms, talked about some first-time matchups that he still has to look forward to, and put over Ospreay ahead of his match against Will Hobbs. With a certain colossal wrestling event happening this weekend, it’s easy to see why Copeland wanted this time to talk about how it’s okay to like other wrestling promotions too because wrestling is wrestling and we should all just like what we like. Especially considering Cope had to leave the wrestling business for so many years, he was the ideal choice to tug at the heartstrings by talking about his appreciation for the opportunity to be back in any company much less AEW where he still has so much to tick off his bucket list. I always enjoy when a wrestler goes out of their way to talk about the state of the wrestling industry and get excited about how much great stuff is out there because I try to be a very positive person when it comes to professional wrestling and I do think it’s great that there are so many places for wrestlers to work nowadays. The wrestling business has been dominated by one company for far too long, and the weakest years in history have very often coincided with a lack of genuine competition while the strongest years have tended to involve a strong alternative to the biggest company in American wrestling.
• Speaking of great promos, Willow Nightingale might just be the biggest babyface in the women’s division after a fantastic interview with Renee Paquette. She talked about her road to AEW and how much it meant to have the fans supporting her as she goes after Julia Hart’s TBS Championship at Dynasty, and it just came across as so genuine that it’s impossible not to root for her to dethrone the House of Black’s head honcho on pay-per-view. Mercedes Moné emerged to declare herself next in line for the TBS title regardless of who wins at Dynasty, which was a further hint that the CEO’s time as a face may soon come to an end. That’s obviously not a bad thing – she’s been an incredible heel over the years ever since she was bullying Izzy in NXT – and should lead to a red hot program between her and the woman who surprisingly defeated her for the NJPW Strong Women’s Championship. I know plenty of people are champing at the bit for Mercedes to challenge for the women’s world title, but I don’t think feuding over the secondary belt is a waste of her time and talent by any means. AEW has long needed to build up a legitimate secondary program in the women’s division, and with established stars like Moné and even the hopefully soon returning Dr. Britt Baker DMD there should be plenty of work to go around.
• I’m always a little skeptical when a segment rather than a match closes the show, but the contract signing between AEW World Champion Samoa Joe and Swerve Strickland worked out pretty well in that spot. Joe reiterated his status as the final boss of pro wrestling, telling Swerve that he’s bought into this fairytale that it’s his destiny to win the title just because the people like him and advising him not to make the mistake of actually signing the match contract because he’s only going to end up getting hurt. Swerve responded that he knows exactly how dangerous Joe is but the champ may be forgetting just how dangerous his challenger is too. Swerve tried to use the chain around his neck to choke out Joe, but the champ responded with a headbutt and wrapped the chain around his fist to deliver a series of punches to the face to bust Swerve open and leave him lying in the ring. Swerve laughed off the assault and signed the contract in his own blood, only for Joe to return to the ring to put Swerve through the contract signing table with a uranage. We’ve still got a couple of weeks before Dynasty so this segment doesn’t have to serve as the final word in their feud, but it definitely laid a good bit of groundwork for their title program.

Boos

• It’s never a great sign for a program that the company is basically apologizing at every step of the way and making extra sure the audience isn’t going to reject it, but that’s exactly what’s been happening with Chris Jericho and Hook. They made LionHook shirts already so it’s not like they’re going to cancel whatever plans exist for them, but each time they show up on TV together it’s like Jericho is tiptoeing through a minefield because the crowd is never more than a few seconds away from booing him out of the building and a single misstep will surely set them off. First he proposed a tag team with Hook in the most tentative manner possible, then he challenged Hook to a match but went way out of his way to be as respectful as possible about it because the crowd actually likes Hook, then he suggested a mentorship between the two of them, and this week he basically reaffirmed that while acknowledging that it’s valid for the younger star to not trust him entirely at this point. It’s really weird but also kind of understandable because a lot of people have soured on Jericho, especially in the wake of allegations/rumors of locker room misconduct involving much younger women, and there’s an overall feeling that Y2J is just riding the coattails of the company’s younger stars to significantly diminishing returns. I hope AEW gets to whatever the endgame for this program is as soon as possible because it’s just painful to watch them spin their wheels in such an obviously “we really don’t want to piss you off so hopefully this is okay” manner. A good segment of the population isn’t going to be happy to see Jericho on television no matter what he’s doing, so just get on with it already.

Parting Shots

• I’m going to be honest, I’ve fallen behind on Collision due to the NCAA tournament and the start of baseball season. My beloved Fighting Illini got bounced in ignominious fashion, but I stuck with them until the end…well, until they were down 30 in the second half, at which point I switched over to the Cubs game.
• Apparently the Best Friends are no more, with Trent Beretta blasting Orange Cassidy with a running knee strike following their loss to the EVPs. Chuck Taylor is still injured but that didn’t stop him from being out there to look on dumbfounded as Trent betrayed their friend. His mom Sue was there too, so now that he’s apparently going to be a heel I fully expect her to start driving him to the ring wearing a leather jacket and aviator shades on the back of her new Harley.
• The feud between The Acclaimed and Bullet Club Gold continued this week with a throwaway match between Jay White and Billy Gunn. That may sound like a harsh description but they literally threw this match away with White getting himself disqualified via a low blow right in front of the ref. Of course, Papa Patootie was carrying a steel chair into the ring right before that so it seemed like a non-finish was definitely in the cards no matter what. Nobody really bought into the partnership between the two groups in the first place, and the Bang Bang Scissor Gang didn’t exist as a faction long enough for anyone to really invest in it anyway, so the feud between them is tepid at best. Hopefully they do at least unify the AEW Trios Championships with the Ring of Honor 6-man tag titles because the company can barely support one trios division let alone two.
• Thunder Rosa vs. Mariah May was good but really short for a #1 contender’s match, though nobody expected May to win. Of course she’ll probably turn on Toni Storm or vice versa eventually, but it’s way too soon for that, much less for May to get a title shot. Rosa vs. Storm is probably going to be a good match even though this clearly feels like a placeholder feud until something more important comes along.

That’s it for another week – pretty good show this week with a good balance between in-ring action and some good talking segments. Yeah, you could watch the opening segment, the first two matches, and then fast-forward to the contract signing and not really miss all that much, but that’s still a recipe for a decent episode of weekly TV. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you next time for more Chair Shots!