Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: AEW Dynamite Sept. 15th

AEW continues riding high after the seismic shift that was its All Out pay-per-view, and the company looked to build on that momentum this week as Dynamite aired live from Newark, NJ. A massive in-ring debut, a confrontation between two of the hottest stars in wrestling, and plenty of hype-building for next week’s Grand Slam shows were promised heading into the show, so let’s take a look at how those matches and moments played out.

Best Match of the Night

There were several contenders for best match this week, starting unsurprisingly with the show’s opening match between Adam Cole (Bay Bay!) and Frankie Kazarian. This match was a great showcase for one of AEW’s newest additions, and pairing him with “The Elite Hunter” was a great decision for his first match in the company – Kaz is established enough that a win over him still matters, but he’s not going to be hurt too much by the loss. Cole showed off what we can expect from him going forward – the Panama Sunrise may be utilized a bit more frequently than his previous employer may have allowed him to, and his finisher looks to be the same even if the broadcast team didn’t name it as such. Cole setting up a match between himself and the Young Bucks against Christian Cage and Jurassic Express just adds further intrigue on top of a quality in-ring debut. FTR vs. Matt Sydal and Dante Martin may have been a random matchup on paper, but all four athletes delivered a clinic in making disparate styles mesh as “No Flips Just Fists” met “Yes Flips Also Kicks” for a quality tag team affair. Dante Martin rebounded from last week’s underwhelming outing to continue his excellent run of matches since his brother Darius went down to injury. FTR have been on a bit of a roll since Cash Wheeler returned from an injury I STILL never need to see again, thank you very much AEW. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are in line for a title shot soon now that the Lucha Brothers have the belts, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if Martin challenged FTR again once his brother is fully healthy – both of those hypothetical matches would be every bit as great, if not better, than this random throwaway TV match. The main reason I didn’t have this match as the best of the night is the finish – Matt Sydal rolled up Wheeler to prevent him from interfering in Martin’s official pinfall on Harwood, then rolled out of the ring after the kickout and…just stayed down on the outside while his partner got double-teamed and pinned? If Tully Blanchard had run interference or FTR threw him into the barricade or something, I could have accepted it but as it was, it just seemed like he left his partner high and dry for no reason. Still, a good match with a slightly illogical finish is at least worthy of an honorable mention.

That leaves best match of the night honors to Darby Allin vs. Shawn Spears – I may not have been too high on the promo that set this match up last week, but I can certainly say I was not surprised that the in-ring output exceeded the setup given the talent of the two performers involved. Shawn Spears is basically the deluxe heel version of Frankie Kazarian – he usually doesn’t win when put up against a legitimate rising star, but he almost always gets the best out of his opponent and makes the win feel earned in the process. Darby Allin is on the verge of excellence – if AEW delays putting the belt on Adam Page or pulls the trigger on Page and elects to turn Allin heel, we could see him in the title picture soon and it wouldn’t feel at all unearned. This match highlighted the strengths of both men well – Spears sadistically wore down his opponent using the ring steps and sought to keep the high-flyer contained, while Allin looked for opportunities to pick up the pace and hit his signature risk-taking offense to deliver maximum impact with each move. Spears’ overzealousness after taking his kneepad down to deliver an extra shot to his prone opponent and instead crashing into the steps himself led to an opening that Allin sought to exploit throughout the contest, and the closing sequence saw Spears attempting to put away his foe with a C-4 onto the aforementioned steps but Allin turning the tables with a flipping stunner over the top rope, a tope suicida to the outside, and the Coffin Drop for the win. There was even some good heel work from Spears and Tully Blanchard throughout, as Spears used a wet rag to wipe Allin’s face paint off, and Blanchard blocked a dive by simply being in the way as the daredevil Allin thought better of launching himself onto a 67-year-old manager. The heelish beatdown after the match, with FTR getting involved to hit an assisted spike piledriver on Sting and Blanchard wiping away the Icon’s makeup, should give both sides something to do going forward – FTR likely biding time until they get a shot at the tag titles, as I mentioned previously, and Sting’s involvement with Blanchard might lead to future clashes with the Pinnacle. MJF vs. Darby Allin, for instance, would be a fun program if the mouthy heel needs a new opponent to feud with after Brian Pillman Jr. Even if next week’s clash between the two teams is a one-off before moving on to other things, it should escalate and build upon the animosity established here, with the Chairman potentially getting involved to get his revenge on the straight-edge skateboarder.

Best Moment of the Night

As usual, plenty of potential candidates for best moment this week. MJF‘s anti-New Jersey promo may have been a somewhat watered down version of his scathing diatribe on Cincinnati from last week, but he still managed to get a few good shots in. (And of course, by “good” I mean “awful, heelish, and borderline offensive” but I suppose that goes without saying.) Going after Bruce Springsteen is always a good call as far as I’m concerned because, well, his music does kind of suck. That’s right, I said it. I’m always down for a song that people mistake for being patriotic until they realize what the lyrics are like “Born in the USA” and I guess “Glory Days” and “Dancing in the Dark” are all right (even though the dancing in the latter video is just impossibly lame) but you can keep the rest of his discography as far as I’m concerned. Rosario Dawson mixing it up with Malakai Black was a cool if WTF-worthy moment (hi Cultaholic! I’m not stealing your gimmick, I promise) even if it was mainly a bit of cross promotion for that show she and Cody Rhodes co-host that nobody watches. Also I suppose Brandi shouldn’t get involved this soon after giving birth, so Dawkins was an acceptable substitute, not to mention a bigger name as far as mainstream media is concerned, which can’t be a bad thing for a company that has already gotten a fair bit of attention recently. (Also also, I forgot she’s dating a Congressman from New Jersey, so it makes even more sense why she was there.) Black’s brief promo before the confrontation was also good, calling on “the House of Black” to expose the sinner in their midst, and although the brawl through the crowd was unnecessary to set up their clash next week, I’m not going to complain about Cody and Malakai beating on each other to end the segment. Christian Cage had two of the best burns of the night, aimed at Adam Cole – saying the Elite “dragged him out of developmental” and that he’s “used to losing Wednesday night wars” – and the further tease of tension between himself and Jungle Boy (who he cut off to get his own lines in) is certainly a welcome reminder that Cage did kind of jump the line to face Kenny Omega, and Jungle Boy (among others) might have a rightful bone to pick with him.

The best moment of the night, for the second week running, was Bryan Danielson confronting Kenny Omega. This storyline is already way more compelling than Omega vs. Christian ever was, and I didn’t even find that program uninteresting, just excessively invested in the history between Christian and Don Callis when the focus should have been on the AEW title. The American Dragon stated this week that for him, it’s not about the title (yet!) and that he just wants to face the Best Bout Machine to see if he’s really as great as they say, since all he’s seen of the champ so far is a guy who hides behind his “goofy stooges” and lets Callis do all the talking for him. That motivation is completely understandable, and it allows the company to give us Danielson vs. Omega without breaking its own internal logic of determining the #1 contender based on win/loss records. Callis trying to deny Danielson’s challenge on behalf of his associate while calling the Planet’s Champion a mark if he believed his signing with AEW was for the good of the wrestling industry was perfectly on brand for the slimy manager, and it’s no wonder the champion overruled him in the first major sign of dissention between them. Omega is a proud champion who knows what it takes to be the best, as evidenced by his ranking at #1 in the PWI 500, but he also has to know that his position within the industry is constantly being challenged, and with Christian Cage poaching the Impact Championship off him on the inaugural episode of Rampage last month, Omega must be even more eager than usual to prove himself. It’s also notable that the rest of the Elite was nowhere to be seen – last week, Danielson interrupted the whole group but singled out Omega specifically, and this week he reinforced the point that he’s only interested in facing Omega, not the rest of the Elite. Omega and Callis going it alone this week seems to suggest that the champ respects Danielson enough to respond to his one-on-one challenge directly even if he isn’t quite ready to strike out entirely on his own yet. We may still see some sort of wonky finish next week with the Bucks and/or Good Brothers getting involved, if only to push off the inevitable pay-per-view clash between Omega and Danielson a bit longer, but the promos between the two have been excellent so far and really sold the idea that respect is on the line even though the title will not be.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I’ve officially given up on picking just one “worst” of the night, so I’ll just run down the contenders and leave it at that, since there is so rarely one standout among the weaker matches and moments. There truly wasn’t anything bad this week, so I will just say that the post-main event brawl pitting Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston against Minoru Suzuki and Lance Archer was kind of pointless, especially since it felt pretty tame given the brawling reputation of all involved, and Suzuki teasing a piledriver through the timekeeper’s table only to have Moxley thwart it for more bland brawling felt like a missed opportunity to raise the stakes for their clash next week. Jade Cargill and Leyla Hirsch are both talented wrestlers on the rise, but their match this week was average at best – too short to really showcase either woman, it came across as both women just being in a holding pattern with nothing more interesting to do. I continue to be hopeful that the women’s division will improve, as an extra hour each week will allow for more development beyond the title picture, but filler matches like this one will need to be taken up a notch for people to really start taking notice. It was far from a bad match, and Cargill certainly looks like someone the company is invested in building up, but it’s going to take more than average matches to move the division forward.

That, uh, is all. Really, I had to stretch to come up with two weak moments this week. Three I guess, if you count the finish to FTR vs. Sydal/Martin as I mentioned earlier. It was a good show, is what I’m saying.

Parting Shots

• The Lucha Brothers are apparently feuding with the Butcher and the Blade now, so that’s cool. A video package highlighted their history together, so I expect their clash to be both physical and emotional as they play on their past as allies who now find themselves as enemies.
• Fuego Del Sol putting his car on the line in order to get another shot at TNT Champion Miro is so completely on brand for him, especially because the car is a cheap-looking Hyundai or something. (No shade intended to Hyundai – they make good cars and all – just that it’s not a Ferrari or something where the audience is likely to react strongly to the idea that he might lose it. Stone Cold filling Vince McMahon’s Corvette with cement is not in the cards here.)
• Chris Jericho confronting Dan Lambert this week confirms my suspicion from last week. Also, it does appear that the fans know the words to “Judas” well enough. Jericho and Jake Hager vs. Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky promises to be a fun matchup so long as Hager doesn’t decide he simply must join all the super legit MMA guys on American Top Team. After all, he is an undefeated MMA fighter himself, as Jericho pointed out in a “no thanks, we’ve already got one” moment in his verbal sparring with Lambert.
• Billy Gunn tried to justify his turn on Paul Wight by pointing out that the Gunn Club is undefeated as a tag team or trio, which is just a great heel move to expose the inconsistency in AEW’s “wins and losses matter” messaging. Granted, I’m not sure if any of those wins have been on Dynamite or even Rampage, which is how the company is likely justifying the Gunn Club not being in the top 5, not to mention that three undefeated tag team combos (Billy and Austin, Billy and Colton, Colton and Austin) is not the same as one undefeated tag team being credited with all of those wins. Still, this is why I love the idea of rankings – it gives a sense of legitimacy to how #1 contenderships are determined while leaving open the possibility that a winning wrestler/team might be overlooked due to others being “more impressive” with a worse record.
• I must admit that I am a terrible sinner and I missed this past week’s Rampage, so I didn’t catch all of what went down between PAC and Andrade, but at least it sounds like we may not have seen the last of that feud, so hopefully I will be able to atone by catching their next clash.
• CM Punk working with Team Taz may not have seemed like the most exciting use of such a huge star, but his upcoming match with Powerhouse Hobbs definitely qualifies as “working with the younger guys” as Punk has stated is his goal in signing with AEW. Shame that “lucite table” as Excalibur called it didn’t break when Hobbs attempted to chokeslam Punk through it, but I suppose that’s just one of the hazards of live TV.

That’s it for another Dynamite – I thought it was a really sold show this week, with virtually everything being above average or better, and I look forward to the Grand Slam shows next week. With AEW only airing 4 pay-per-views a year, it feels smart to use these special edition Dynamite and Rampage episodes as a way of showcasing higher-profile matchups in front of slightly larger live crowds to keep things feeling momentous and important in between the really big shows. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @FilmIronic, and be sure to check out the rest of our entertainment coverage from the world of TV, video games, film, and more!