Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Dynamite 200

AEW’s flagship weekly show reached a significant milestone this week with its 200th episode airing since debuting in October of 2019. There were a few nods to the show’s history this week, both in the video packages that aired and in the live in-ring action. One of the cornerstones of the women’s division challenged for the title, a tag match was booked involving two men who have been in AEW since the very beginning, and one of the company’s breakout stars was given a chance to shine on the mic as he often does. Did this landmark episode deliver up to its potential, or was it just another Dynamite on just another Wednesday?

Best Match of the Night

The opening match, pitting prospective Don Callis Family members Chris Jericho & Konosuke Takeshita against (former?) Jericho Appreciation Society members Daniel Garcia & Sammy Guevara, was a good match that could have been significantly better if given more time and a more definitive finish. It was also a bit of a shame that Takeshita was an afterthought here, as the entire story revolved around former Inner Circle members Jericho and Guevara coming to blows and JAS member Garcia having to pick up some of the slack when Guevara was hesitant to take the fight to his mentor. With that said, however, the match did tell a good story and furthered the tension between Callis and the JAS, with Jericho torn between the two. Jericho made it clear that he doesn’t harbor any ill will towards his apprentices, but he also clearly wanted to win the match and displayed some resentment at how physical they were willing to get with him. Granted, that problem could have been solved by tagging out more to let his younger partner do more of the heavy lifting, but Le Champion seemed to want to prove himself against two younger stars who developed under his wing. He even broke up a pinfall attempt late in the match, much to the consternation of Sammy. Of course, since this match was never going to end the issues between Jericho and the JAS, we didn’t get a clean finish, with Callis taking advantage of Takeshita distracting Aubrey Edwards to hit Garcia with Floyd the bat. Jericho was visibly upset but didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and took the win anyway. It’ll be interesting to see whether we get Jericho and Takeshita aligning with some other heels to take on the remains of the JAS in a big multi-man match at All In or if Jericho and Sammy go one-on-one, but it seems like Jericho’s ability to rejoin the society he formed is decreasing with each passing week. This match did an effective enough job of selling that ongoing storyline without giving away too much assuming there is some sort of rematch planned for the pay-per-view.

The triple threat “anything goes” match between Jon Moxley, Trent Beretta, and Penta was also worthy of an honorable mention, with all three men getting an opportunity to shine despite having less storyline reason to exist than the opener. We have seen Best Friends and the Lucha Brothers paired against the Blackpool Combat Club in recent weeks, so I guess there is sort of an established feud between them, but we don’t really have a clear sense of what they’re feuding over exactly. Are they queueing up for a tag title shot? Will they target the trios titles instead? It’s not entirely clear, but as long as they continue building upon this rivalry heading into the next pay-per-view it should be fine as a midcard attraction. It’s interesting to note that the BCC has come up short twice in a row without really losing either time – Penta pinned Trent last week, and Trent returned the favor this week, so we’ll see if Moxley just gets pissed off at some point and decides he has to be involved in the finish one way or another the next time they meet. The “anything goes” stipulation was interesting – a three-way match can’t end by countout or disqualification anyway, so I guess the only real difference was that the referee didn’t even bother to admonish the participants for using weapons on each other. This was another weird match in which weapons were used and yet there was very little blood – I think only Beretta got busted open and that didn’t appear to be intentional. I know there was a report a while back that blading (among other things like piledrivers and 450 splashes) had to be pre-approved by management, so maybe this is the consequence of wrestlers being extra careful not to run afoul of those rules. Regardless of those quibbles, however, this was a good match between three talented wrestlers with a surprising(ish) finish that kept the audience guessing right up to the end.

I guess in a way the fact that the Ring of Honor Tag Team Championship match pitting champs Aussie Open against Komander & El Hijo del Vikingo was the match of the night is somewhat of an indictment on the rest of the show – on a night when the focus should have been on AEW and its historic 200th episode, an RoH match stole the spotlight. I will say, however, that there wasn’t a big gap between this match and the two honorable mentions (or indeed a fourth match that I saved for later) so it’s not as if the company failed to highlight some of its biggest stars. Also to be fair, the AEW crowd didn’t really seem to care about this match as much as they would have if it had been, say, an FTR match instead. There’s not much I can say about this match that will surprise anyone who knows about these four competitors – Aussie Open are a solid tag team, and although Komander and Vikingo are less established as a team, they are both capable of spectacular displays of athleticism. Not surprisingly, that’s exactly what this match consisted of – Mark Davis and Kyle Fletcher focused on solid tag team psychology while Komander and Vikingo hit dives and flips all over the place. With Aussie Open winning the titles at Death Before Dishonor less than two weeks ago, it was extremely unlikely that they would lose here, but despite the lack of drama surrounding the finish, this was just an all-around excellent tag match that would have been an easy headliner if it had appeared on RoH’s weekly show instead of Dynamite.

Best Moment of the Night

I left the main event out of the best match of the night considerations because, while it was a solid match, it did devolve into the usual Outcasts shenanigans before the challenger ultimately gained the upper hand after a surprise kickout. However, the moment of Hikaru Shida winning the AEW Women’s World Championship for the second time was a notable enough moment to merit inclusion here. As established earlier in the evening, Shida was the division’s pandemic champion, which meant she had a decent enough reign that will not be remembered especially fondly due to the empty arenas it played out in front of. Essentially, Shida is AEW’s Drew McIntyre, though her ability to win the title again proves that unlike the Scottish superstar, she hasn’t fallen out of favor with management despite helping to shoulder the load during a difficult period of time. I’m not sure Shida will enjoy a long reign with the title this time around, which is why this moment didn’t rank higher on my list for the week (that and some stiff competition from other segments) but I appreciate AEW giving her another championship win on this historic show as she’s one of the company’s biggest homegrown stars. Although Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter have surpassed her in terms of their standing in the women’s division, it was nice to see Shida get some recognition for her importance to the brand over its first 200 episodes.

I’m not willing to say that any skepticism around AR Fox turning heel has been disproved at this point, but his and Swerve Strickland‘s attack on Nick Wayne this week went a long way toward establishing that Darby Allin’s former mentor made the right move for his career by going to the dark side. It was a relatively short segment, but it drove home the reasoning behind him joining the Mogul Embassy – namely, that he felt as though Darby had left him behind when he signed with AEW, and although Allin did call in a favor to have Orange Cassidy defend his International Championship against Fox, the facepainted star was also quick to criticize him for expressing frustration over the loss. Allin also waited until Fox was already in the door to support him, whereas he went out of his way to make sure the young Wayne got signed in the first place. Those grievances led to bloody retribution being meted out on the freshly 18-year-old high flyer as the Embassy paid him a visit at his late father’s training academy. They smashed a picture of Nick and his father over his head and forced him to call Darby while they continued the beatdown, which elevated things to an uncomfortably personal level in a feud that has only just recently begun. With no titles on the line and Allin being the only established star in the mix, upping the ante like this was a smart move and should lead to more heat between these four men than there would have been otherwise.

Best moment of the night unquestionably goes to Maxwell Jacob Friedman‘s promo segment in which he laid bare all the insecurities that have led him to become such a d-bag and basked in the acceptance of the crowd who finally understood him enough for him to let his guard down. He talked about how being rejected and bullied as a kid led him to distrust everyone close to him, and he made a point of stabbing them in the back before they could do the same to him. He said that his friendship with his new tag partner Adam Cole has finally convinced him that even a “scumbag” like himself deserved to be happy and accepted. It has to be said that this could all still be emotional manipulation on the champ’s part rather than a genuine face turn, but it does raise enough questions about whether he or Cole will be the one to turn on the other that it works either way. For now, AEW fans seem to be genuinely enjoying the ride without worrying about the destination. MJF called out Cole to tell him that although he had promised him a title match, he no longer thinks he deserves it…before revealing that he had a contract for Cole to sign making their match official for All In at Wembley Stadium, which figures to be one of the company’s biggest shows of all time. Cole signed without reading the contract, which raised suspicions in my mind – MJF could easily be playing up this whole friendship angle only to get him to agree to some unfair stipulation or other to humiliate Cole when they finally face off for the title. However, the emphasis of this segment was entirely on celebrating their friendship and looking forward to the two top stars of the summer finally going one-on-one in front of the biggest crowd AEW has ever had.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

This show was a celebration of a significant milestone for AEW. Sure, the company is not perfect, and this show wasn’t either, but I feel like any nitpicks that I may have aren’t really worth talking about since they’re relatively minor.

Parting Shots

• Hey, I remembered the thing I said last week about devoting a bullet point to Collision, which you should totally watch if you aren’t already. This week’s show was particularly notable with CM Punk revealing that yes, he has been carrying around his old AEW championship belt in a bag since he returned to the company. He spray-painted a black X over the belt’s faceplate, claiming that it was his way of marking the title with a symbol that belongs exclusively to him. It also felt appropriate that the X crisscrossed over the letter E in AEW, as if he was symbolically crossing out the Elite by doing so. (Considering Kenny Omega promised that we’d be seeing more of the Elite on AEW programming after they signed contract extensions with the company this week, his reference to showing up even on Collision felt like a lightly veiled response to Punk’s actions.) Punk and Ricky Starks both dropped references to MJF after Punk claimed to be the real world champ; Punk said his catchphrase, “I’m straightedge which means I’m better than you,” has been stolen (apparently referring to MJF’s signature line “I’m better than you and you know it”) and Starks claimed to have beaten Punk twice, which no one else has done (taking a shot at MJF’s claim to have beaten Punk twice despite only winning after a restart which only counts as a single victory). Again, I’m not about to start reviewing Collision on a weekly basis, but there is some really good stuff happening on that show. Just saying.
• Speaking of Kenny Omega, the Elite’s match against Jay Lethal, Jeff Jarrett, and Satnam Singh was harmless filler at best and an active waste of time at worst, but at least it gave them a chance to confirm that they had in fact re-signed, even though that news had already broken ahead of the show. It felt like a milestone show like this couldn’t exist without the Elite being featured somewhere on the card, but they don’t have an ongoing rivalry at this point so this was the best they could do.
• Another interesting callback to AEW’s history was announced with Best Friends and Orange Cassidy facing the Blackpool Combat Club in a parking lot brawl on Friday’s Rampage. I may not watch that show every week anymore, but I will probably be checking this one out for that match alone.
• One thing that felt out of place on the 200th episode celebration was the first appearance of Rob Van Dam on AEW programming. That’s not inherently bad, for the record, but a one-off match between him and Jack Perry is not the most exciting development in the world. It’s better than whatever might have happened between Perry and Jerry Lynn, though. I was a fan of RVD back in the day, but I don’t know if I would have reacted with as much excitement as the crowd in Tampa did, though hearing Pantera’s “Walk” blaring over the sound system was certainly enough to get my heart racing a little.

That’s it for another week – solid show this week and a fun look back at the first 200 episodes of Dynamite. I suspect things will pick up in the near future – All In is less than a month away at this point, and with the men’s title match being confirmed this week and a new champ in the women’s division, some of the dominoes are starting to fall into place for that momentous show. I’m excited to see what AEW puts together in front of that huge crowd. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you all back here next week for more Chair Shots!