Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: AEW Quake By The Lake

Minnesota is “the land of 1000 lakes” so this week’s special episode name couldn’t be less specific if it tried – which lake were we quaking next to? Wouldn’t it have been more impressive if they had found somewhere in the state that couldn’t accurately be described as “by a lake”? Nomenclatural quibbling aside, AEW promised another stacked card with two title matches, a signature gimmick match, and a tune-up for the upcoming trios tournament. Would the show make a splash with fans or end up all wet? Let’s look at all the best, worst, and everything in between from this week’s Dynamite.

Best Match of the Night

I made no secret of the fact that I found last week’s episode fairly lacking – not terrible, but only a couple of standout moments and nothing really worth going out of your way to watch. This week was a notch better, but there was only one match in my opinion that was worth revisiting if you missed it. Let’s talk about the matches that were close to greatness but not quite at the top of the heap this week. Darby Allin vs. Brody King in a coffin match deserves honorable mention even if it had a somewhat abrupt ending. I’m not surprised this wasn’t the longest match ever – the level of violence and brutality lent itself to an intense sprint rather than an extended fight. It just felt like the match should have concluded with more of an exclamation point after everything that came before. The thumbtack-covered skateboard was a nice touch, and the visual of tacks stuck to King’s abdomen and back throughout the match was a sickening reminder that there’s no gimmicking with thumbtacks. Brody’s corpse paint provided a striking contrast for the crimson that freely spilled from his forehead after Darby busted him open in the first moments of the match, and there were moments in which he did look like something out of a horror movie as Jim Ross pointed out on commentary. The numbers game was inevitably going to come into play with the no rules environment of the coffin match, but Sting was able to neutralize the House of Black and provided two of the better moments of the match – Buddy Matthews opening the coffin to reveal the Icon inside, and Sting dropping the bat in Malakai Black’s lap, daring the Dutch destroyer to do something with it. The outside interference did take attention away from the match at hand momentarily, which was a shame because the focus should have been on the intensity of the rivalry between Allin and King, but I’m not sure if this will be the last we see of these two facing off despite the apparent finality of the stipulation. The finish, as I mentioned, was a bit of a downer and left the door open to a rematch of some kind in the future – I understand using the chain to choke the monster out was a bit of poetic justice for Darby, but it felt like kind of a fluke that King fell into the coffin and the lid closed itself on top of him. Imagine if he had simply passed out and Darby had to physically maneuver him into the casket – that would have felt like poor planning on his part, but he didn’t move the coffin so his opponent would drop into it either so it didn’t seem like he should have been able to count on it working out the way it did. I know that’s a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but it felt more like Darby got lucky than that he really outsmarted or outmaneuvered his rival. You can’t deny his grit to outlast his physically superior opponent, but it’s not hard to imagine a more definitive finish that would have allowed their rivalry to reach a satisfying conclusion.

Rush and Andrade El Idolo reforming La Faccion Ingovernable against the Lucha Brothers was another excellent match on the night, though it felt like they were obviously holding back for a possible trios rivalry. They both have tough first round matchups in the trios tournament so it wouldn’t be surprising if they don’t end up facing off, but if the division is going to thrive, there need to be non-title rivalries as well. Death Triangle vs. LFI would seem like an obvious secondary rivalry especially if one of them helps facilitate the other’s early exit from the championship tournament. Their styles mesh well and there are plenty of individual matchups that seem like no-brainers, especially since PAC’s All-Atlantic Championship should be a desirable prize for Rush, Andrade, and even Dragon Lee to chase. This tag match was exactly what you would have expected going in – tons of flashy offense, plenty of counters, and nearly non-stop action from start to finish. The fact that it was a tornado tag match meant all four men could be involved at once, meaning that even if two of the competitors were selling their opponents’ offense, there were still two others to keep the action going. The finish even played off the two teams’ history together, as Rush had been on a roll of snatching the luchador masks off his opponents in recent months, so forcing Penta to either unmask or allow his brother to take the pin felt like an appropriate strategy for the heels to employ. Alex Abrahantes had apparently planned for just such an eventuality, as he produced a backup mask to allow Penta to cover himself, only for Andrade to intercept it and throw it into the crowd to prevent Penta from getting involved further. With Fenix left to fend for himself, the heels hit their finishers and put him away, safe in the knowledge that there would be nobody to stop them. It was a dominant if underhanded win for LFI, which made sense as they needed to be established as a serious threat to the Young Bucks and their mystery partner (more on that in a moment) in the first round of the trios tournament, while the finish did little to hurt the babyfaces, who are about as over as any tag team in the company.

The match of the night, unsurprisingly, was Chris Jericho vs. Jon Moxley for the interim AEW World Championship. This match got the most time and the most buildup of anything on the show, and these two veterans put on the kind of marquee match you’d expect them to deliver on a major pay-per-view. First of all, the presentation of Jericho’s “Lionheart” persona – no “Judas” singalong this week, it was a full-on ECW throwback with “Electric Head” by White Zombie blaring out as he made his way to the ring. Ripping Moxley’s earring out also felt like the kind of spot you would have expected in the old school land of the extreme, complete with the “you sick f*ck” chants that the Philadelphia faithful would be proud of. For his part, Mox also played into Jericho’s history, though his references were to slightly more recent Y2J opponents with the ankle lock made famous by Kurt Angle and a crossface made famous by a certain Crippler who shall remain nameless. Jericho countered with a tribute to his status as “the last survivor of the Hart Dungeon” as he locked in a sharpshooter around the ringpost, and he also dusted off a super hurricanrana, springboard dropkick to the apron, and Liontamer, though he still reverted to his Judas Effect finisher when trying to put his opponent away. Moxely became the first man in AEW to kick out of that finisher, according to the announce crew, and fought back with a chokehold for the win. The match was a great blend of brawling and technical work, physicality paired perfectly with precision and psychology. I was initially skeptical of the decision to have the match cut to commercial with Moxley locked in the Walls of Jericho, as it felt like the seriousness of Jericho’s signature submission was undercut by the fact that the match was surely not going to end during an ad break, but it ended up being a perfectly executed spot. The entire break, captured in picture-in-picture, was devoted to Mox trying to escape the hold while Jericho sought to reposition his opponent for maximum damage. About the only things that didn’t work were Sammy Guevara’s attempted interference late, as he massively overshot his target trying to introduce Floyd the bat into the proceedings and Jericho had to exit the match to retrieve it, and Moxley’s attempt at a flying nothing that was obviously countered into a codebreaker. With the commentators noting how rare it is for Moxley to attempt a high-flying move after he hit a double ax handle to the outside, it felt clear he wasn’t going to land a second consecutive aerial maneuver, and he didn’t even bother to make it seem like he was trying to hit anything as he sailed into a counter that anyone would have seen coming a mile off. Those flaws aside, this was a worthy title match and fully earned its spot in the main event. Moxley stays red hot as champion, while Jericho showed he can still deliver in a big spot after last week’s relatively underwhelming match against Wheeler Yuta. Although his feuds will likely be dictated by whoever the Society is paired off with, he’s still capable of making a one-on-one match like this feel intensely personal. We’ll see who he sets his sights on next, though it seems clear who Mox will be taking on in the near future…

Best Moment of the Night

It feels wrong for the long-awaited return of CM Punk not to be the overall moment of the night, but it was a relatively subdued moment that was slightly overshadowed in my mind. At least it portends more great moments to come. With the Jericho Appreciation Society outnumbering Edde Kingston and the Blackpool Combat Club, the Second-City Saint emerged to a thunderous ovation and cleared the ring of the heels to come face-to-face with the interim champ who he’ll likely face soon to unify the AEW World Championships. Punk appeared to be in good shape physically – he even hopped around on one foot to show how much he’s improved since his surgery – but he didn’t do too much to prove an in-ring return is imminent, and the announcers pointed out that he has apparently not been cleared to compete, so we’ll see how much longer we have to wait for his official in-ring return. However, there’s no doubt that a match between himself and Moxley will tear the house down regardless of where and when it ultimately happens, though of course the hope is that it’ll go down in Chicago at All Out in September. His return was a brief but exciting moment, which is all it needed to be for now.

Best moment of the night, however, goes to the backstage segment between the Young Bucks, Dark Order, and Adam Page. The Bucks cut the kind of naturalistic promo that felt less like an overblown catchphrase-fest and more like a real conversation between legitimate friends, showing their appreciation for Page having their backs last week and apologizing for how things turned out between them. Page responded with appreciation of his own, but he declined their offer to re-form the Hung Bucks to enter the trios tournament out of deference to the Dark Order, who have had his back in a way the Bucks didn’t. Everything in this segment worked to perfection, and everyone involved felt completely at home in character – it felt a lot like the unscripted behind-the-scenes stuff you would normally expect to see on Being the Elite rather than a made-for-TV promo. There will be tons of speculation about Kenny Omega returning to partner with the Bucks, and that would obviously be an incredible moment if the Cleaner is capable of coming back at this point, but the Bucks’ journey to this trios tournament has already made for some captivating television regardless of the ultimate payoff.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

Well, I kind of expected this might be the case when Hook won the FTW Championship, but it looks like Hookhausen is no more – Danhausen will finally face off against the Ass Boys on Friday night’s Rampage, but El Diablo Guapo won’t be in his corner, replaced instead by Erick Redbeard. It’s sad to see a team with such comedic chemistry split up so soon, but Taz’s boy certainly has bigger and better things ahead of him, so it’s hard to argue with the decision to put him in a more featured role.

Parting Shots

• The fact that there were a bunch of Brandon Cutler cosplayers at ringside tells me there would be a pretty big pop if he ended up being the third man for the Young Bucks…or at least if he made his entrance only for the Bucks to order him out of the ring in favor of their actual partner.
• I didn’t want to include it in my “worst moments” segment, but the Factory trying to recruit Powerhouse Hobbs could not be a less exciting start to his solo heel run. There’s some history between Aaron Solo and Ricky Starks, so I guess they wanted to tie that match into the group’s recruitment campaign of Starks’ former partner, but I could not care less who QT Marshall wants in his pointless group of jobbers.
• Speaking of things I don’t care about, Jay Lethal continuing his feud with Wardlow and FTR getting dragged into it just seems like a waste for the champions, but at least it seems like a holdover feud until something hotter comes along. Sonjay Dutt barely wanted to get involved when they were facing off against Best Friends, so I can’t imagine him voluntarily getting in the ring with Wardlow or FTR, which leads me to believe he’s either going to have to recruit someone else to make it a valid trios match or it’s going to be a short-lived rivalry.
• I know Madison Rayne just arrived in the company, and I’m okay with her having an occasional match, but it didn’t seem necessary to put her out there with Jade Cargill for her second match in the country. It wasn’t terrible, but there was very little heat to it and Jade didn’t benefit much from winning except that afterwards Athena staked her claim for an upcoming title match that the crowd seemed quite excited for.
• I loved the dueling signs for the main event – “I’m from Winnipeg, you idiot” vs. “Wild Thing break his Lion Heart” is the kind of intra-audience feud that I’m 100% here for.

That’s it for another week – good show overall, though I fully expect things to ramp up big time in the next few weeks as we get closer to All Out. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope you’ll come back next week for more Chair Shots!