Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Chicago Deep Dish Dynamite

The Second City once again played host to AEW for a massive night of professional wrestling as we close in on Revolution, the company’s next pay-per-view on March 6th. With only a couple of matches advertised in advance, AEW clearly had some surprises up its sleeve in addition to the main event featuring one of the Windy City’s favorite sons. Which matches and moments lived up to their billing, and which fell short? Let’s run down the highlights and lowlights of this Groundhog Day edition of Dynamite.

Best Match of the Night

Appropriately enough for a holiday with its own timeloop movie named after it, I feel like I’ve written this many times before, but the best matches of the night were… the opener and the main event. (Also, didn’t I already use that clip recently? Hmm…well, how about this one instead? Or maybe this one. It’s the only day of the year you can really appropriately watch that movie, so treat yourself. Plus it’s wrestling-related-ish, so…y’know, it’s got that going for it. Which is nice.) Okay, at least this week there was another notable match from the middle of the card, but it feels like every week the show gets off to a bang with a hot start, bogs down a bit in the middle, then picks back up at the end. Sure, that’s almost certainly intentional and wrestling cards are often laid out this way, but would it kill AEW to have a hot match like, third on the card or something? Just for some variety? One of these weeks I’d love to be like, “Man, the opener was pretty good, but that midcard match really SLAPPED this week.”

Alas, that was not the case this week, though Malakai Black & Brody King vs. Penta & PAC was a standout match that deserves a mention even though we almost certainly have not seen the best these two groups have to offer. I’m sure as soon as Rey Fenix is healthy enough to compete, we’ll see an absolute banger between either the Lucha Brothers or a fully formed Death Triangle and the House of Black, but for now this was an excellent preview of what these four can do together. PAC sure didn’t wrestle like a blind man early in the match, which of course made sense as soon as he ripped off the bandages to reveal he’s no longer blind! What a shocking revelation! From there, all four men managed to shine in a relatively short match, and Malakai Black spraying Penta with the mist was an intriguing development – will Penta join his brother on the shelf, leaving the recently returned PAC at the mercy of his tattooed tormentors? Will we see any hints of Black’s influence creeping into Penta’s character as we have with Julia Hart? Obviously, Black and King picking up the win was the right call here – they just recently debuted as a team so it makes sense to keep them looking dominant, and it’s not like Penta and PAC are such an established team that they should be expected to win every time. This brand of hard hitting, high flying, fast paced wrestling between two teams with a wide array of in-ring abilities will always be a winning formula, and if the story can be stretched out long enough to bring Rey Fenix back into the fold, we may be headed for another match of the year candidate like the Lucha Bros vs. Young Bucks was last year.

Jon Moxley vs. Wheeler Yuta also deserves a mention as a much improved Yuta showed out against a man who absolutely squashed him the first time the two met. This match also marked the AEW managerial debut of Danhausen, who attempted to put a curse on Moxley then immediately took to Twitter to apologize to his wife for doing so. (Love that Danhausen!) Though Mox was largely in control throughout, Yuta did deliver some impressive offense, including what looked like a modified Angle Slam to counter the Paradigm Shift and a big dive made possible by the aforementioned curse-based distraction. Moxley had to dig a bit deeper than usual into his bag of tricks, pulling out a move on the apron that looked suspiciously like his original Dirty Deeds finisher from his days back in the Fed and delivering a series of strikes to his opponent’s head in order to finally land the Paradigm Shift for the win. There might not have been much of a story going into this match, and I doubt there will be much if any follow-up between Mox and Best Friends, but it was a good TV match for sure.

The best match of the night was always going to be MJF vs. CM Punk. Yes, it dragged at times and was probably longer than it really needed to be. But it’s still CM Punk vs. MJF in Chicago. For the first time ever. And CM Punk lost. For the first time ever in AEW. And MJF will never let anyone forget about that fact. Ever. As a heel, MJF could not have asked for a better result. Sure, he cheated, and it didn’t make a ton of sense that the ref didn’t think to check him immediately after the match ended since, y’know, he did cheat once already, but as far as the record books are concerned, MJF is 1-0 against Punk. I’ll give AEW the benefit of the doubt because they haven’t been around that long, but I sure hope this “babyfaces lose in their hometown” thing doesn’t become a trend because it would only water down a moment like this. Imagine if Sammy Guevara lost in Houston or Moxley lost in Cincinnati. Wouldn’t that start to get predictable and not mean as much as if it happens only once in a while in a storyline that warrants a huge shocking moment? Anyway, as an isolated moment, Punk losing was the exact antithesis to his debut in AEW – those who were in attendance will never forget, for the exact opposite reason. No heel on the roster will have the kind of heat MJF has going forward, and it won’t matter that he’ll probably lose the rematch at Revolution, just as he lost his rematch with Chris Jericho after the Labours of Jericho were completed – he got his win, which he’ll crow about forever regardless of how it went down, and it’ll appear on a list of his career highlights long after most people have forgotten about the circumstances that led to it happening in the first place. For his part, Punk dug deep in his attempt to put away his mouthy opponent, hitting a Pepsi Plunge off the top rope as well as a Pepsi Twist…not off the top rope. I suppose he exhausted his entire soda-based offense, is what I’m trying to say here. Unfortunately, with his left arm injured throughout the match, he was unable to lock in the Anaconda Vice or hit the GTS, which was ultimately his undoing as he allowed the crafty scarf-wearing heel to hang around long enough for Wardlow to get involved, passing him the Dynamite Diamond to land a loaded punch behind the ref’s back for the win. I was wrong when I suggested we might see MJF vs. Wardlow at Revolution – it seems like the company will hold off on Wardlow’s face turn a bit longer, and there’s obviously a rematch to be had for Punk. If this match was any indication, though, I don’t think anyone will really mind – I doubt they’ll get as much time as they did this week, but I trust they can still craft a compelling bout in maybe half the time. Plus, if MJF wins again? Forget about it, dude will be the most insufferable heel in the history of insufferable heels. As much as I love both Punk and Chicago, this was a great piece of business to thoroughly deny them what they both wanted and expected – and they even had the gall to tease them with the possibility of a tainted finish before doubling down on it in the end. Bravo, you heartless monsters.

Best Moment of the Night

Lars Frederiksen from Rancid being at ringside for Ruby Soho’s match was pretty cool, even though it obviously didn’t bode well for her in the match itself. I am loath to give best moment to something that happened in the best match, but CM Punk holding MJF up for a fan in the front row to slap him in the chest was a funny moment, as was him smashing a fan-supplied can of (probably) beer over MJF’s head as he attempted to escape through the crowd. Obviously the best moment of the night was Bryan Danielson attempting to recruit Jon Moxley to join him on the dark (?) side after his win over Wheeler Yuta. After Bryanson sarcastically applauded Mox’s win over Ethan Page on Rampage a couple of weeks back, most were probably expecting a more straightforward feud between the two, so the former Yes Man claiming he no longer wanted to fight Mox was quite the curveball, and he had the audience in the palm of his hand from there as he talked about how they could recruit the likes of Yuta, Daniel Garcia, and Lee Moriarty to join them in a quest to rid AEW of its current crop of champions like the Anxious Millennial Cowboy Adam Page, dinosaur wanna-be Luchasaurus, and …noted vlogger Sammy Guevara. Yeah, it was kind of an “old man yells at cloud” promo, but it makes sense for someone like Danielson who is somewhat of a throwback in modern wrestling. Whether Moxley ends up taking him up on the offer is another question entirely, but either way it will be interesting to see where the story goes from here.

Worst Moments/Matches of the Night

Dan Lambert was on our television again this week! Twice! And him admitting to being a sexist doesn’t make it remotely okay for him to talk about a woman’s body the way he did, even if that woman is as disliked as Brandi Rhodes is at the moment. (Okay, his line about being surprised that Hangman Page is in the home of the Blackhawks and not back in Cleveland where “they cancelled their Indians” was decent, even if not for the reasons that he probably intended – the Blackhawks are an absolute dumpster fire at the moment and could really use a significant franchise change, probably including a name change like Cleveland and Washington have recently undergone. Oh, and while I’m at it, Brandi telling Ethan Page that AEW only signed him to get to Josh Alexander was kind of funny too, but those were literally the only highlights in these two painful segments.) I’m not as down on the use of “insider terms” as some people are – if you’re watching a wrestling show and don’t know what’s going on in the world of wrestling, you’re either going to look up whatever you don’t understand or just let it go. What I’m not a fan of, however, is insider MMA references being used on a professional wrestling show. I neither know nor care about whatever American Top Team drama Brandi was referencing in an attempt to dig at Lambert, and it added absolutely nothing to the segment, which is saying something because the segment itself added absolutely nothing to the program. Paige VanZant emerged to target Brandi because…reasons, I guess? Maybe at Revolution we’ll get a mixed tag with Cody and Brandi going against Paige and…like, Ethan Page or somebody? Or isn’t Paige married to one of those MMA guys Dan Lambert used to trot out with him every week? Maybe that guy will be her partner to really drive home the fact that this entire feud has done nothing for the actual wrestlers involved. Yeah, that’ll be fun. Oh, and if you’re going to leave a comment with her husband’s actual name and MMA record or whatever, don’t. I couldn’t care any less, which is why I didn’t bother to take the two seconds it would take to Google it for myself.

Were there other bad things on the show this week? Maybe, but the staggering awfulness of everything Dan Lambert was involved in blocked out everything else from my mind, so I’ll just leave it at that and move on.

Parting Shots

• Brian Kendrick being pulled from debuting with the company was absolutely the right call after video of him spouting deeply problematic, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories resurfaced online. Sure, it’s possible that he no longer believes the things he said in those videos, as it was a long time ago, but these aren’t your garden variety “NASA faked the moon landing” or “the earth is flat” kooky but mostly harmless beliefs. (I do have to acknowledge even those conspiracy theories can be rooted in incredibly not harmless beliefs depending on what the source or reason attributed to creating/maintaining the conspiracy.) Regardless of what explanation or apology Kendrick offers – at time of writing, I have not seen anything from him, but I could have missed it – I can certainly say I would not want to see him on television right now, and I don’t see that sentiment changing until/unless he offers some pretty serious contrition for the viewpoints he expressed. I can say with some confidence that although plenty of people have embarrassing posts from back in their youth that they’d rather pretend didn’t exist, this is on another level entirely, and he was a fully grown adult at the time so he doesn’t have the “I was a kid back then, I didn’t know what I was saying” excuse. We’ll see how this all plays out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t end up seeing him in AEW after all, which is a shame given his talent but is fully justified given the circumstances.
• On a less serious note, has Isiah Kassidy of Private Party always spelled his last name with a K? Because I feel like I’ve spelled it with a C at some point in the past (can’t be bothered to check, though – feel free to go back and read through all my previous articles to see if you can catch me on this incredibly minor slipup!) and for whatever reason I just noticed it in the match graphic for his TNT Championship match that was made for Rampage. Maybe it’s just the fact that his name isn’t usually written out in match graphics, as it’s usually just Private Party. Anyway, now I know, and…well, you probably know the rest.
• Speaking of names, are Malakai Black and Brody King really going by the “Knights of the Black Throne” now? I had to rewind to be sure I saw what I thought I saw, but their entrance graphic definitely said “Knights” even if the entrance video in the background said “Kings” and then they are also the House of Black, so there’s a lot going on there. Oh well, I dig it either way, and after all, what’s in a name? (Yeah, I can make classy references sometimes too. Deal with it.)
• Chicago crowds are great, but the “Restore the Snyderverse” sign prominently displayed on camera is just…no. I can appreciate nerdy fandom references, but this one is just embarrassing. Let’s all try to remember the good times, like the #FreeAli sign in the front row and when the crowd started chanting “deep dish pizza” during the main event. Because MJF is from Long Island, New York where they don’t know about such things, you see. It’s funny because they were heckling a man about his poor taste in pizza. Oh, and there was a “let’s go Moxley” / “Danhausen” chant in the opener that made my heart warm. Also, I hope the “if MJF wins we jump him” sign-holder didn’t actually follow through on that threat, even though it was a quality sign. Also also, RIP “Larry > MJF” sign that got ripped up during MJF’s entrance. You were too good and pure for this world.

That’s it for another week! Pretty good show all in all, I thought, even if nothing outside of the main event will live long in the memory. Time is fleeting and it rushes ever onward, leaving behind all but the strongest memories in its wake. Or something like that, I guess, this ain’t philosophy class. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope you’ll all come back next week for more Chair Shots!