Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Championship Fight Night Dynamite

With less than a month until Revolution, AEW kicked the build into overdrive with a championship-focused episode of Dynamite, featuring two title matches and two eliminator matches in which the challenger could earn a future title shot. Elsewhere on the card, two babyfaces looked to earn themselves a shot at their rivals through some convoluted heel shenanigans. How well did these matches and angles hold up compared to the lofty expectations of an episode dedicated to championships and their contenders?

Best Match of the Night

First off, I understand that the whole “Championship Fight Night” deal didn’t necessarily imply that all of the titles would be on the line, but it was a bummer that we only got a brief pre-taped promo from TNT Champion Samoa Joe and absolutely nothing from TBS Champion Jade Cargill. It’s weird that the TBS Championship is so often relegated to Rampage despite the fact that Dynamite is on TBS and Rampage is actually on TNT. Still, Jade just won her 50th match so I suppose she’s earned herself some time between title defenses. Anyway, let’s talk about the title matches that actually happened rather than the ones that didn’t. The Elite vs. Top Flight & AR Fox for the trios titles was a pretty good match despite, y’know, the complete lack of drama about the outcome. No offense to Top Flight – they are great and would absolutely make sense as tag team champs in the not-too-distant future. And no offense to AR Fox, who is a tremendous worker and obviously a great mentor to a lot of the high-flying indie guys in the locker room. They just don’t make sense as a contender in the trios division, not yet anyway. Not compared to the literal Elite of the company. Matches like this do wonders to raise their profile, but I just wish there was more depth to the trios division so challengers didn’t feel so random and sporadic. At any rate, these two teams are both fantastic and they put on a great match regardless of the obvious outcome. The action was fast-paced, full of counters and near falls, and full of the kind of ultra-athletic risk taking and high flying that you’d expect from these two teams. The finish was a little meh, but for a weekly TV match, this delivered in a big way. There’s no obvious direction for either team going forward, which is a bummer, but I’m guessing we’ll find out the next trios challengers soon, and I think Top Flight will continue to be in the mix in the tag division. Everyone looks good coming out of this match, and the audience seemed into it throughout. Not a bad deal all around.

The opening match between MJF and Konosuke Takeshita was also quite good, though only a bit less predictable than the trios title match because Takeshita could conceivably win since the AEW World Championship wasn’t on the line. That said, as the commentary team pointed out, MJF doesn’t exactly wrestle on a weekly basis, so he needed a win to look strong heading into his first major title defense at Revolution, and there was so much cheating that Takeshita isn’t really weakened at all by losing. In fact, that’s about all I could really find to complain about with this match – I get that MJF is an ultra heel, but some of the shenanigans felt a bit excessive. It did sell the threat that Takeshita poses, however, that the champ felt he needed to take so many shortcuts just to beat the surging Japanese upstart. MJF pulled off the most surprising spot of the night when Takeshita looked to clothesline him off the top but he flipped and landed on his feet – the champ’s mic work may be the most notable part of his arsenal, but he is somewhat underrated in terms of his athletic prowess. Takeshita sold an arm injury quite well here – hopefully it was just selling, because at times he really seemed to be working something out as if he was really hurting – while MJF sold a knee injury after a powerbomb/backbreaker spot that he evidently got the worst of. MJF’s regular armbar wasn’t enough to put Takeshita away, so he had to lock in a more extreme-looking variant to finally get the tapout, which was also a nice little way of protecting the young star in defeat. MJF went the extra mile after the match, shoving down referee Paul Turner and heeling it up with the Dynamite Diamond ring on Takeshita. Unfortunately the cameras caught Takeshita passing the blade to one of the officials for the second obvious blade job in as many weeks after Jon Moxley very obviously cut himself to get some color last week. I’m not a fan of blading in general, but at least hide it better if you’re going to do it. Danielson ran out and sent MJF packing, as you’d expect, which further served the purpose of this segment to build heat on the champ and heighten the audience’s desire to see Danielson dethrone him at Revolution. Of course, Danielson had one final hurdle to clear before his ironman match with the champ would become official, which leads us to…

Bryan Danielson vs. Rush was match of the night, and it wasn’t particularly close in my mind. With all due respect to the other matches in this segment, Danielson and Rush just went above and beyond in their midcard match that probably should have been the main event, though I can somewhat understand why it wasn’t. Rush played his role as MJF’s well-paid mercenary looking to put an end to Danielson’s title aspirations. Him kicking out after a running knee was a heck of a spot and really put over how tough he is. If Wardlow wins the TNT Championship from Samoa Joe, I could absolutely see Rush being a serious challenger for that title very soon. There were some great sequences throughout this match with lots of headbutts, chops, and strikes along with some power moves like the straitjacket piledriver Rush hit and Danielson’s impactful dropkicks. All in all, this was an intensely physical, technical match that never quite made you believe Rush would pull the upset (though there is still plenty of time for the American Dragon to finagle another way to get his match against MJF) but made Danielson look resilient and strong by withstanding the onslaught from El Toro Blanco and gutting out the win. The nonsense before the match with Danielson getting locked in the trainer’s room was unnecessary, as was the post-match brawl, but the meat of this match more than made up for any shortcomings in the setup. I was a little surprised Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta didn’t get involved at all – I understand leaving Moxley out of it because he shouldn’t get involved with the champ and has his own stuff going on, but I feel like the Blackpool Combat Club has taken a backseat in this feud so far and it seems like having MJF face another one of Danielson’s friends would make sense as a way of buying time before Revolution while deepening the personal animosity between the two. I understand having Danielson do his own thing, though – the BCC has always had that sort of “we’re together when it matters but we give each other our own space” vibe, especially since William Regal left. Regardless of the overall storyline implications, Rush vs. Danielson was a great match in its own right and played its role in Danielson’s quest to earn a championship opportunity.

Best Moment of the Night

I can’t say there were really any highlights outside of the ring this week, so I’ll just give MJF‘s promo moment of the night because, as gross and heelish as it was, it hit exactly the right note of “I’m awful but I embrace it” ahead of his matchup against Danielson. AEW has really leaned into making MJF the most despicable character imaginable despite seemingly positioning him as a more sympathetic character ahead of his big title win. This promo was full-on sleaze from the champ, recounting his willingness to throw someone he seemingly cared about under the bus to save his own skin, and although this promo didn’t ring anywhere near as true to life as some of MJF’s other promos in the past, it still exemplified his commitment to being an awful person with no actual redemptive qualities. At least they didn’t go full-on Katie Vick by implying his lady friend was killed in the car accident.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I’m going to go with a genuine bummer of a moment first – the Bunny vs. Jamie Hayter finish seemed to have played out in a way that wasn’t planned, probably out of concern for Bunny’s well-being after a seemingly botched move late in the match. The women’s division doesn’t get enough of a spotlight as it is, so it’s unfortunate that they had to cut this match short, but at least they didn’t put Bunny at any further risk and hopefully she’ll be okay.

The worst moment of the night undoubtedly was the Gunn Club winning the tag titles in the main event. The Acclaimed are so massively over at the moment that having them drop the belts already seems like a terrible call, and although their popularity will prevent them from falling down the card too far, this feels like AEW’s “Jinder Mahal” moment. Whether Austin and Colten Gunn ever live up to their billing as second-generation stars, this out-of-nowhere title win will not help them get over or give them any more legitimacy in the long run. I was initially willing to give this moment a pass and just comment on it in Parting Shots, but the more I thought of it, I just can’t see this turning into something positive for anybody. I want to be optimistic about most things in AEW, but I have been down on this storyline from the beginning, and this development does not make me feel any more optimistic that it will turn around.

Parting Shots

• I haven’t seen anybody complain about the relative lack of actual title matches on a Championship Fight Night, so this may be an example of me making up a guy on the internet, but I just want to say that title eliminator matches are a-okay with me. You’re not often going to see a title change hands on regular television, so having a bunch of title matches against non-competitive challengers doesn’t make the title any more prestigious or make the champ seem any more legitimate. However, if we’re not going to bother with the ranking system anymore, I like the idea that someone who isn’t involved in a long-term rivalry with the champ needs to earn a title shot by taking on the champion. It also gives the company the option to book its champions without needing to put them in significant danger of losing their titles or always having them win in dominant fashion to keep them looking strong.
• It was odd that Ricky Starks needed to run the gauntlet in order to face Chris Jericho on the same night, but that only made it more obvious that he wouldn’t win. AEW is obviously saving that match for Revolution, and rightly so, but there was no way there was going to be time to have a legit match between Starks and Jericho on a night that was already so packed with matches. I suppose with Bryan Danielson winning a series of matches to earn a shot at MJF, it made sense to have the other babyface fail to earn his shot. Chris Jericho getting directly involved was a smarter move than MJF just trying to keep Danielson from having the match and then just sitting back and letting Rush lose when the initial plan failed.

That’s it for another week – kind of an uneven show overall in my opinion, with some good midcard matches but a serious letdown in the main event. I understand the title change was viewed as a more significant moment to close the show out on, but I still feel like Danielson officially earning his title shot should have been saved for the main event, especially given the universally negative response to the Gunns winning. Hopefully the company will deliver something fans will love next week with its post-Valentine’s Day show. Have a great week, and I hope to see you all back here again for more Chair Shots!