Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: AEW Dynamite Full Gear Fallout

After a consequential Full Gear pay-per-view that saw several feuds come to an end, several more feuds taken to a new level, and a major shift at the top of the card, this week’s Dynamite looked to build on that foundation and turn to the future as the company ushered in a new era. Norfolk, VA was treated to Cowboy S#!t Day thanks to the new AEW World Champion, in addition to a quarterfinal TBS Championship match, the AEW debut of a member of NJPW’s Chaos faction, and a high-profile TNT Championship main event. Add in some big developments in new or continuing feuds and you’ve got the recipe for an eventful TV episode. But eventful doesn’t necessarily mean good, right? Right! So let’s talk about what was actually good and what was just stuff that happened.

Best Match of the Night

I mean, do you even need to ask? The Butcher & the Blade had a match this week. That’s all I need to know to declare it match of the night.

…What’s that? I actually need more than that to declare something match of the night? Fine, they did happen to be facing off against Orange Cassidy (who is now a member of Chaos, don’t forget!) and Tomohiro Ishii (who has been a member of Chaos for a long time, don’t forget!) and it was, unsurprisingly, a really fun match if you like Freshly Squeezed comedy stuff mixed with hard-hitting brutality. Plus it was just fun to see the Stone Pitbull in AEW for the first time. And if you don’t find those things fun, I’m not even sure what to say to you right now. Maybe find another hobby instead of watching wrestling, I guess. But don’t stop reading these reviews, my self-esteem couldn’t take that kind of hit if I accidentally talked my entire audience out of a hobby I’m heavily invested in. Anywho, that’s match of the night sorted, onto the next bit!

Ha, just kidding. Not about Cassidy & Ishii vs. Butcher and Blade being a good match, but I guess maybe I should admit that it isn’t automatically the best just because I like all four of those guys and I get to keep up my silly running bit of imbedding links to (sometimes) thematically appropriate Every Time I Die songs just because that entertains me (and probably nobody else) and I genuinely enjoy that band not just because a wrestler I also enjoy is in it.

So who else had a good match this week? Well, Nyla Rose vs. Hikaru Shida was a really well-told story centering around the two winningest women’s wrestlers in the company trying to one-up each other, Shida’s injured knee, and all the ways the deck was stacked against her but her tenacity and determination would not let her back down. Oh, and a spot in the semifinals for the TBS Championship was on the line, so that’s kind of important too. Hikaru Shida is perhaps the ultimate babyface in peril in AEW today, and of course Nyla Rose is one of the most physically dominant monster heels in the company, so the match automatically had a dynamic that worked well for both performers. There’s no shame in Shida losing, as her knee was just too injured and the constant interference was just too much to overcome, and Rose looks like a major force to contend with after getting a tapout victory against one of the tougher women in the division. All in all, this was a good showing that furthers the stakes for the TBS tournament and continues to build towards a highly-anticipated rematch between Shida and Serena Deeb.

The real, actual match of the night has to be Dante Martin and Lio Rush vs. the Acclaimed (Max Caster and Anthony Bowens). Yes, I’m giving match of the night to a Dante Martin/Lio Rush match for the second week in a row. No, I’m pretty sure I haven’t given two match of the night awards to the same performer(s) in consecutive weeks before. (I say “pretty sure” because heck, even I don’t pay that much attention to my own articles and can’t be bothered to go back and check.) Rush and Martin have become quite the team in such a short time, regardless of Caster’s joke about how many partners Martin has had since his brother went down to injury. Bowens continues to impress in his time in the spotlight, and at least Caster got a chance to wrestle and not just rap this week. (I don’t mean that to sound disrespectful – he’s a good wrestler too, it’s just that lately he’s mainly been a hype man rather than a tag team partner.) There was an impressive early sequence where Rush and Martin double-teamed Bowens using their speed and agility to take their powerhouse opponent off his game. All four men managed to look good individually in addition to the team-up spots, and the post-match angle with Team Taz claiming “it’s all business” offering Dante Martin a spot on the team while Lio Rush was dealing with the death of his grandmother was well done and didn’t overstay its welcome. Turning Rush babyface is an interesting development, but in context it makes sense – he certainly seems preferable to Martin aligning with Team Taz or any of the other jerkfaces who are trying to recruit him, and when they can turn in crowd-pleasing tag matches on the regular, maybe it’s not so bad even if he was originally manipulating the hot young star to his own ends.

Best Moment of the Night

Kenny Omega kicking off the show telling the Young Bucks and Adam Cole that he’s taking some time for himself and hopes they’ll hold down the fort while he’s gone only to clarify that he was only talking to the Bucks, not Cole, was an incredible little moment and foreshadows the long-awaited implosion of the Elite that all-but-certainly is coming at this point. (The later moment of Cole announcing he will team with Bobby Fish on Friday to take on Jurassic Express, which ended with Fish saying they’ll put an end to that “Jurassic joke and that’s…” something that can’t be said on AEW TV, was also excellent. Please, Kyle O’Reilly, come to AEW and re-form that faction that shall not be named so that we can do this properly. Oh and I guess Roderick Strong can come along too at some point, whenever his contract expires, if that’s feasible and the faction still exists at that point.) Adam Page telling Bryan Danielson that he beat Kenny Omega in under 30 minutes was also an incredible little dig at the fact that Danielson fought the former champ to a time-limit draw. The new champ deserves to revel in his victory a little, especially given how hard the American Dragon went after him and interrupted the biggest celebration of his career.

Best moment of the night hands-down has to be CM Punk confronting Maxwell Jacob Friedman as he claimed to be above everyone else in the locker room. I can’t think of a feud AEW fans have looked forward to more since Punk debuted in the company, and even we here at FilmIronic have made it clear how much we long to see Punk in a rivalry that he can really sink his teeth into and build over weeks or even months rather than the one-off short-term feuds he’s had so far. This moment promised both – Punk walked to the ring to interrupt MJF, said nothing, refused a disingenuous handshake, and left. Not only does it tease Punk vs. MJF, it’s also clear there will be more to this story coming in the future, and both men will undoubtedly deliver on the mic while building to what figures to be an explosive in-ring clash. Plus, hear me out here, what if Punk is the catalyst for Wardlow finally turning on MJF? What if we get Punk/Wardlow against MJF/Shawn Spears as an appetizer before the one-on-one main course? That way we could pretty well luxuriate in this feud all the way to Double or Nothing in May if AEW really wants to. I’m not saying they have to do that, but wouldn’t we all enjoy a nice long feud between one of the pillars of the company and one of the hottest free agent signings in the company’s history? Can you imagine how insufferable MJF would be if he beat CM Punk one-on-one?! And then if Punk somehow wins, we’d get the inevitable feuds with Jungle Boy and Sammy Guevara because once you’ve beaten half of the four pillars of AEW, you may as well go for the full set.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I’m going to reserve judgment on Bryan Danielson‘s out of nowhere heel turn because, although it doesn’t seem to have been motivated by much of anything in particular, it’s pretty hard to deny that he’s had a pretty great run as a heel in his career, even if nobody particularly wants to hate him at this point in his AEW career. At the moment, though, it does feel like a bit of a waste to throw away all the good will and babyface momentum he had built up since his debut at All Out without any real buildup or apparent motivation. It also feels like a bit of a bummer to feed the Dark Order to him just to sell his newfound heelishness, but I suppose they have proven to be able to absorb a bit of losing and still maintain the group’s popularity. Malakai Black being thrown back into a tag team with Andrade despite the two not exactly being on the same page at Full Gear also felt like an odd booking decision, even if the 8-man tag with FTR against Cody and Death Triangle should be a heck of a match. It’s even odder since Cody and PAC clearly didn’t get along either, so putting them on a team again so soon doesn’t seem like something either of them would particularly want despite the fact that they just won at the pay-per-view. It’s logical that FTR would want their rematch, as the legal man wasn’t the one pinned at Full Gear, but the logic for the 8-man tag kind of falls apart other than that. Hopefully something interesting will come of it, anyway.

Parting Shots

• Full Gear ended up being quite good, huh? It was obviously never going to live up to the standard All Out set – heck, plenty of people have All Out 2021 as the best PPV in AEW history – but it was certainly the second-best show of the year and certainly had the most satisfying ending imaginable. Not too shabby as we head into 2022.
• Norfolk, VA – do y’all kiss your mothers with those potty mouths of yours? Aside from the expected “cowboy s#!t” chants in the opener, the live crowd transitioned seamlessly from “holy s#!t” to “shut the f*ck up” when CM Punk interrupted MJF and then it looked like MJF was going to speak and ruin the moment. Not to mention there was an admittedly well deserved “you f*cked up” chant when the Butcher tried to go strike for strike with Tomohiro Ishii. I certainly hope a classy city like Chicago can demonstrate the kind of decorum and politeness that this week’s crowd sadly lacked.
• Spotted a “Sign Keith Lee” sign in the crowd – YES. That is all.
• I had a good chuckle at one of the Ass Boys dropping an “I like turtles” reference at the end of their confrontation with Darby Allin – nothing like dead meme humor on a nationally broadcast television program.
• I left Jay Lethal’s debut on AEW off my best moments list because I’m honestly not sure how to feel about him in the wake of the Speaking Out movement – I will try to be objective about him as a performer going forward, but I won’t deny I don’t entirely feel comfortable with him being in the company. Don’t get me wrong, I had a moment of visceral excitement when he debuted at Full Gear because he’s a big name in the wrestling business and I’ve enjoyed a lot of his previous work, but then I remembered the allegations made against him and…yeah, I don’t know. It feels kind of icky. Sorry to end this article on such a downer, but I felt like I needed to address the elephant in the room somehow.

So that’s it for another week! Pretty solid follow-up to Full Gear, even if it’s too soon to tell how things will play out and whether some of the storyline developments that occurred will lead to a satisfying payoff. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter @FilmIronic, check out our SoundCloud and YouTube, read more articles right here at FilmIronic.com, and we’ll see you back here next week for more Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner!