Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: AEW Saturday Night Dynamite Oct. 24th

For the second straight week, AEW’s flagship show aired on a Saturday instead of its traditional Wednesday night but promised the usual level of quality associated with the Dynamite brand. Two first-round matches in the AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament, the first match of the TBS Championship tourney, and the presumable blow-off in one of the most heated feuds in AEW were all scheduled beforehand, and several ongoing storylines figured to progress as Full Gear draws nearer. Let’s take a look at the highlights, lowlights, and all the notable matches and moments from this week’s edition of Dynamite from Orlando, FL.

Best Match of the Night

There weren’t a ton of candidates for match of the night this week, especially with some very short matches making room for storyline developments elsewhere on the card, but the standout matches were all at or above the level of quality you’d expect on weekly TV. Penelope Ford vs. Ruby Soho was a great kickoff to the tournament to determine the first ever TBS Champion. Despite being a newcomer to the company, Soho is clearly one of the top wrestlers in the division, and Ford has quietly become one of the better performers who came into AEW as a relatively unknown quantity. These two have good chemistry together, and performances like this will certainly help sell the idea that the new championship is a highly coveted prize. Considering the AEW women’s division has not always gotten the spotlight it deserves, this tournament figures to correct some past mistakes as well as serving as an unspoken rebuttal to the highly criticized Queen’s Crown tournament – the match may have ended with a rollup, which is not ideal, but at least it wasn’t a sub-2 minute afterthought. Cody Rhodes vs. Malakai Black definitely lived up to the hype even if many will question whether it needed to happen or whether the result was the right one. There is definitely a subset of fans who are willing to get behind the American Nightmare – he got some cheers on Rampage as he prevented a further beatdown of PAC at the hands of Andrade and Black, and there were a few “Cody” chants interspersed with the boos and “Cody sucks” chants. That said, there was a clear aversion among the live crowd to Rhodes winning this match, despite the appearance of the ever-popular Arn Anderson, who drew “get the Glock” chants as he stood in the center of the ring. The Dutch Destroyer played his part well, firing off some nice sequences of offense like his diving stomp, ripcord knee, bridging German suplex for a close two-count. Rhodes delivered one of his best performances in AEW as well, clearly willing to put his body on the line with a Cross Rhodes off the apron through a table and a suicide dive to the ramp. Rhodes winning off a Cross Rhodes and Tiger Driver may be controversial, but at least he had to push himself to an extra gear to pull off the victory, and Black’s association with Andrade should give him some direction going forward and keep him looking dangerous as ever despite the defeat. Whatever you thought of the finish, the match that proceeded it was undeniably one of the stronger in-ring efforts of the week.

The best match of the night was also the first, as Bryan Danielson and Dustin Rhodes delivered a clinic in the opening match of the Eliminator Tournament to determine the new #1 contender for the AEW World Championship. The younger Rhodes may have been in the more prominent spot on the card, but his elder brother delivered a show-stealing performance against one of the hottest performers in all of professional wrestling. The Natural may be slowed by age as the announcers were quick to point out, but he’s shown in recent performances that he still has plenty in the tank and can still deliver impressive offense in spurts that can keep him in matches no matter who his opponent is. The American Dragon has been on an absolute tear recently, delivering a technical masterpiece in each of his singles matches with the company thus far, and as the broadcast team mentioned, he has shown a great deal of versatility, finishing each match with a different move rather than relying on a single established finisher to pick up victories. Danielson brought that technical proficiency and aggressiveness in this match, while Rhodes managed to counter and deliver his own impactful offense to keep his chances of winning alive. Unsurprisingly, it was Danielson who advanced after forcing his opponent to pass out in the full-body guillotine, revealing yet another weapon in his arsenal that makes him one of the most feared competitors in the business. While the result was never really in doubt, this was a quality opening match for a company that often delivers standout show-openers, and nothing in the show that followed was quite able to rise to that level of quality. That’s more of a compliment to the work put in by these two ring veterans than an indictment of the other matches on the card.

Best Moment of the Night

There were lots of small moments that I quite enjoyed this week – Eddie Kingston responded to a big chop in the corner from Lance Archer with a quick flick to the eye, Sammy Guevara used his commercial break cue cards to call Ethan Page “Loose Pecs” in response to his claim to have “the tightest t!ts” in pro wrestling, and Tony Nese (“one of the hottest free agents in pro wrestling”) appearing at ringside during the opener added an extra bit of appeal to an already exciting match. Jon Moxley and Miro each stood out with a short promo segment, but it was the longer segment between MJF, Sting, and the Pinnacle that was the best segment of the night for my money. MJF continues to be the most detestable heel in the company even when he tells the truth about Floridians (saying “it’s easy to fool a bunch of people who solve all their problems with gun violence and incest”) and his antagonism towards Darby Allin sets up their eventual in-ring confrontation as arguably the most anticipated grudge match in AEW currently. Of course, the company would be well advised to save that match until Full Gear, so talking segments like this one make sense to build the feud while keeping the physicality safely contained until then. There was even an added treat of Wardlow confronting MJF over throwing him in front of Sting last week, the most direct acknowledgement yet of the simmering hostility between the bodyguard and his employer. MJF brushed him off, naming Shawn Spears as his “accountabilibuddy” (I’m going to need an official spelling on that, AEW, but for now I think that captures it well enough) which should lead to some awkward interactions between the two going forward as they try (and probably fail) to get on the same page. The Pinnacle may not be long for this world, but it should be fun to watch things fall apart.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

Nitpicking here but there were a couple of not-so-great moments in the Dan Lambert/Men of the Year confrontation with Sammy Guevara – first, the crowd just could not get on the same page with the prompted “fat-faced dips#!t” chant, which was awkward as everybody paused so the home audience could hear a bunch of uncoordinated crowd noise, then Dan Lambert made a lame insult about how much hair product Sammy uses…despite the fact that he was wearing a hat and we literally couldn’t see his hair. I did like the line about how Sammy has a reputation for not being that great at promos, which is exactly the kind of backhanded compliment Lambert seems to be particularly good at. No bad matches this week, so instead I’ll explain why the two squash matches were actually well done – Brandon Cutler was clearly a sacrificial lamb, so of course he didn’t get in any real offense against Jungle Boy because it was always about the post-match sneak attack from Adam Cole and the Young Bucks. That strategy perfectly aligns with what we know of the Elite – Cutler means nothing to them, nor does giving Jungle Boy a meaningless victory. The opportunity to make an emphatic statement, hitting a post-match BTE-Trigger and Last Shot before launching Jungle Boy off the stage through a couple of conveniently-placed tables, was all that mattered here, and everyone involved executed their role to perfection. The other squash match, Bobby Fish over Anthony Greene, served a purpose that the Jon Moxley squash on Wheeler Yuta a week ago did not – namely, it gave Fish a much-needed win after two early losses in his AEW tenure, and the post-match beatdown led to a confrontation with CM Punk that will give Fish another high-profile match in the near future. (None of that was accomplished by the Moxley squash, unless you count a potential added motivation for Orange Cassidy in the second round of the Eliminator Tournament.) Sure, it could be argued that Fish needs to rack up wins like this on Dark rather than having them on TV, and that’s definitely true especially if he’s going to lose to CM Punk, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to establish him as a dangerous man on television before he gets the reputation as a guy who always loses. As much as squash matches have a bad reputation in modern wrestling, examples like these show that there’s still a place in the modern wrestling landscape for one-sided, uncompetitive matches when used properly in service of a larger storyline.

Parting Shots

• I like the TBS Championship bracket utilizing the top 5 rankings to determine who gets a bye – Tay Conti is going after the Women’s World Championship at Full Gear, so she’s out of the running, but the other four are automatically through to the second round as a result of their place in the rankings. I’ve said before that I like how AEW uses these rankings, and this is another example of how the company reinforces that importance in small but significant ways.
• Red Velvet evening the odds as Penelope Ford and the Bunny tried to double-team Ruby Soho after the match was a smart choice – the heels have had issues with Tay Conti and Anna Jay recently, so you might have expected one of them instead, but as mentioned Conti has turned her attention to the Women’s World Champion and Velvet faces the Bunny in her first-round matchup, so it makes sense from a storyline standpoint. More importantly, though, it gave the company an opportunity to put a young babyface in the ring with a more established star – it’s no secret that Red Velvet was basically working as the heel in her mini-rivalry with Britt Baker, which cannot be what AEW creative had in mind, and she just has not gotten over to the degree that anyone would have hoped to this point. Associating her with more popular stars like Ruby Soho will only build her back up in the eyes of fans, and hopefully a good showing in the tournament will establish her as a next-generation star.
• Best wishes to Lance Archer, who took a nasty bump off the top rope that obviously cut his match against Eddie Kingston short. I’m not sure whether it changed the result or whether it even matters who was originally supposed to win, as they were always going to lose to Bryan Danielson in the next round anyway, but it is always scary to see someone thrown for a loop as a result of a blow to the head. Hopefully it’s nothing serious.
• I’m not gonna lie, for a moment there I really thought Brandon Cutler had a pair of Jurassic Park Reeboks on for his match against Jungle Boy. What a missed opportunity.

That’s it for another week of AEW programming – we’ll be back to the usual Wednesday schedule this week so don’t forget to tune in or set your DVR! In the meantime, give us a follow on Twitter @FilmIronic and check out the rest of our entertainment news, reviews, and features!