Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Fox In The Henhouse Dynamite
AEW’s flagship show emanated from Albany, NY this week with some significant momentum but also some big shoes to fill after last week’s Blood and Guts. We were promised a title match, a three-way tag, and some new developments in the world title program on this week’s program. Did this week’s Dynamite continue the show’s hot streak, or did it suffer by comparison to last week’s more obviously significant entry?
Best Match of the Night
This week’s show wasn’t the greatest from an in-ring perspective – most likely due in equal part to last week’s Blood and Guts show and next week’s 200th episode of Dynamite. With this show caught in the middle, AEW put on a mostly filler show that still managed to deliver some decent matches and moments. The three-way tag match between the Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli), Best Friends (Chuck Taylor and Trent Beretta), and the Lucha Brothers (Penta and Rey Fenix) was an odd choice for the main event, but it was a pretty good bout anyway. The announcers played up Castagnoli and Moxley as the clear favorites which…I mean, that’s fair, but also way to bury the other two teams in the main event, guys. The Lucha Brothers may not have done anything notable lately, but they were tag team champions at one point, so they shouldn’t really be considered underdogs in any tag match. The Best Friends are…also good, I guess, and one of them has a mom with a sweet minivan, so…yeah, they clearly weren’t winning this match. Why were they in this match anyway? Oh right, the Lucha Bros and BCC needed someone to eat a pin so they didn’t have to. Because this was a three-way match, there weren’t any disqualifications or countouts, which the BCC took full advantage of to start a big ringside brawl to start things off, but that ended up backfiring on them in the end with Orange Cassidy getting involved to keep them out of the finish. For some reason. I know he was mad at Jon Moxley for attacking him earlier in the night (more on that later) but he sure didn’t help his Best Friends win the match by doing so. Anyway, this was a fairly standard multi-man AEW match – everyone got a few spots here and there, the “everyone hits a big move only to be taken out by another big move immediately afterwards until everyone has had a turn” spot happened, and we got a lot of near-falls to keep things interesting. With the tag team division on the backburner lately, it was good to see actual tag teams shine rather than the thrown-together teams that have been featured in recent weeks.
Darby Allin vs. Swerve Strickland was another decent match on this card that deserves an honorable mention. This was the only match on the show that had any kind of established feud, so that helped elevate it over the randomly-assembled main event and the other matches on the card that didn’t make the cut for an honorable mention. I’ll talk about the somewhat disappointing (but understandable for storyline reasons) finish in a moment, but the journey was enjoyable enough that it didn’t have to arrive at the perfect destination. The entire story of this match was how well both men know each other, so it was full to the brim with counters as each man tried to turn the other’s aggressiveness to their own advantage. Darby and Swerve are among the smoothest performers in the company, so of course they pulled off plenty of slick spots and sequences along the way. This match almost certainly isn’t the last time we’ll see these two on opposite sides of the ring, but it was a good entry in their ongoing rivalry, which is about all they needed to pull off for a weekly TV episode.
The best match of the night was, not for the first time in recent times, the opening International Championship match, this time between Orange Cassidy and AR Fox. Darby Allin successfully lobbied for his onetime mentor to get a shot at the champion, so there was at least an explanation for why we got this match in the first place. Fox has been fairly directionless in his time in the company so far (I promise I’ll talk about that in just a moment, please bear with me) but he’s always good for a match like this when given an opportunity. I’m about as big a fan of Cassidy as there is, but even I’ll admit his matches have become somewhat formulaic lately. We get it, Cassidy is about two matches away from body parts falling off mid-match. He can’t hit the Orange Punch without another of his phalanges turning to dust. His signature Beach Break, which used to be a sort of reverse piledriver, looks more and more like a standard backdrop because neither his back nor his arms can hold up under the pressure long enough to lock it in properly. So of course he over-relies on his mousetrap pinning combination to win matches – he can’t hardly do anything else these days. For now, this formula works just fine, as it did in this match, but hopefully we’ll get a legit feud to bring his reign to an end soon so that he can reset following some time off.
Best Moment of the Night
The Jericho Appreciation Society hasn’t always been the most narratively interesting faction around, but the ongoing downfall of the group as Don Callis tries to recruit Chris Jericho to join his own new faction has been fairly compelling so far. This week, Callis recruited Jericho for a tag match with Konosuke Takeshita next week before revealing that their opponents will be Daniel Garcia and Sammy Guevara, arguing that Jericho himself stated that his former protégés should strike out on their own and make a name for themselves apart from the Society. With Jake Hager already having abandoned his beloved hat as a sign of his dissatisfaction with Jericho’s leadership, the remaining members of the group – Matt Menard, Angelo Parker, Anna Jay, and even Sammy’s pregnant wife Tay Melo – confronted the object of their appreciation to express a similar sentiment. While Parker stated he will not be giving up his beloved switchblade comb despite it being a present from Jericho himself, the foursome echoed Hager’s statement that they could not continue to commit to the group if their leader wouldn’t show the same degree of commitment. Jericho didn’t have much to say in his own defense, which leaves the mystery of what he’ll ultimately decide to do lingering in the audience’s minds. I also thought it was hilarious that Callis resurrected the “uncomfortably ripped shirtless painting” bit from his bromance with Kenny Omega. I wonder if Jericho will start to realize the similarities in how Callis is recruiting him compared to his former alliance with Omega and get out of there before Callis betrays him, or if he’ll continue to entertain the idea of joining a new family despite the danger.
It is finally time to talk about AR Fox turning heel, attacking Orange Cassidy after their match, costing Darby Allin his match against Swerve Strickland, and proclaiming his loyalty to the Mogul Embassy. In the short term, his interference in the Allin/Strickland match lowered its quality a bit. In the long term, however, it will hopefully give Fox something to do rather than just partner with random partners in meaningless trios matches and pad out larger multi-man matches like the Casino Battle Royale. Fox snapping Orange Cassidy’s sunglasses and laying him out after their match laid the foundation for the turn, as Allin confronted him over the poor sportsmanship on display, but it was in the closing moments of Allin’s match that his turn was cemented. Where this will lead is anybody’s guess at this point, but Strickland suddenly has some additional backup in his feud with the skateboarding star that should prove significant for the storyline.
The best overall moment of the night, in my opinion, was the pre-recorded promo featuring Adam Cole and Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Yes, I’ve said in the past that it’s not ideal for AEW to pre-tape segments like this, but the developments it contained made it the most intriguing segment of the night. MJF said that regardless of what happens in their tag title match against FTR, he plans to put the world title on the line against Adam Cole, who fought him to a draw in their eliminator match last month. This suggests at least two possibilities, in my mind: the more obvious choice would be for MJF to turn on Cole, costing them the tag championship match to brutalize his supposed friend. A more interesting way to go would be for Cole to be the one to turn on the champ – have Cole go to Tony Khan to lock in the title match against MJF before walking out on him and letting FTR get some payback on their former Pinnacle mate. If AEW wanted to go so far as to book a double turn here, with Cole turning heel and MJF turning face (I know, it’s a crazy idea) they absolutely could. MJF getting stabbed in the back by his only friend Cole, especially if Roderick Strong is revealed to have conspired with Cole to make the betrayal even more heartbreaking, could absolutely endear him to the fans who have been cheering the goofy antics he and Cole have been getting up to in this blind eliminator tournament. If they want to keep the face-heel dynamic intact, however, they could play it straight and have Cole reveal to Roddy (and the audience) that he’s been playing along with MJF to get the match he wanted, which he has now secured so he no longer needs their tag team alliance, so he’d really appreciate it if Strong quits ruining his plans thank you very much. This entire Cole-MJF storyline has been done quite well, so I hope they stick the landing whenever it comes to that, but segments like this have been incredibly entertaining and enjoyable regardless of the payoff.
Worst Matches/Moments of the Night
Jon Moxley attacked Orange Cassidy in the opener. Cassidy returned the favor on Moxley in the main event. Did the audience know why they were upset with each other? Did we get a short video highlighting what happened between them at Ring of Honor’s Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view on Friday? Was the inciting incident in question justify the apparent start of a feud between them? Well, in a word, no. I don’t have a problem with Moxley vs. Cassidy, of course, but Mox really doesn’t need the International Championship, so hopefully he causes the current champ to lose it to someone else before embarking on a personal feud. However, there is no excuse for having this burgeoning feud take up two segments without any direct justification for it. I get it, Ring of Honor is AEW’s sister brand so Tony Khan probably hopes the majority of the audience for Dynamite also ordered Death Before Dishonor, but uh…that almost certainly isn’t the case. If it happens on another show, even if it’s one of AEW’s own shows, we still need a video package or at least a specific explanation from the broadcast team. It’s extra unacceptable to have neither of those things when the incident we need to know about happened on another company’s show.
Parting Shots
- It’s becoming basically a weekly feature for me to recommend watching last week’s Collision. Maybe it will become a permanent thing, or maybe I’ll forget and drop it without any explanation at all. Who knows, check back next week to see what happens! Anyway, this week’s Collision wasn’t as incredible as the previous week’s episode, but I did want to highlight a brilliant little moment that I’m choosing to believe was entirely intentional on Nigel McGuinness’ part. When discussing the TNT Championship situation between Luchasaurus and Christian Cage, McGuinness suggested that they could split custody of the title belt, with the actual champ holding the belt during the week and the “champion maker” Cage having it on the weekend. On the surface, that seems like a pretty standard heel suggestion – after all, Luchasaurus would have the title for at least 4 or 5 days out of the week, while his mentor would carry it around less than half the time. But when you scratch beneath the surface just a little, you begin to realize exactly what he’s suggesting. Collision airs on Saturday. AEW pay-per-views air on Sunday. So although Luchasaurus would get custody of the belt for the majority of the week under McGuinness’ plan, Christian would have it on the only nights that matter. So in that way, a throwaway line from the heel commentator trying to make the absurd case for joint custody of a belt that properly belongs entirely to Luchasaurus actually becomes a sneaky justification for why Cage should get to carry it around all the time. Hilarious.
- Jack Perry is going to have a match/face-to-face showdown/something with ex-ECW star Jerry Lynn next week. Well, he had a face-to-face showdown with him this week, so I’m not sure how next week’s…thing is going to be any different, but I guess by putting it off a week, Perry’s cowardice is highlighted. Ideally, Lynn serves as bait for Hook to get his hands on Perry and we all forget about a former wrestler from the Attitude Era being the one to call out the new heel rather than literally anyone else who might have a more interesting interaction. I somewhat doubt it will happen, though, in which case this will have been even more of a waste of time than it already was. Perry is doing a good enough job of drawing heel heat that this segment stayed off my worst moments list, but AEW’s roster is too stacked for its middle-aged backstage agents to get involved in a storyline like this.
- PAC fought Gravity this week because his nickname used to be “the Man Gravity Forgot” back when he was Adrian Neville. Did you get it? The incredibly subtle joke that the entire internet figured out long before the match happened? Well, don’t worry if you didn’t because PAC loudly yelled “forget me not” as he brutalized his masked opponent. Obviously, his opponent didn’t actually matter that much, as the whole point was for PAC to re-establish his intense, psychotic in-ring style. Still, it was already a one-note match, it didn’t need another one-note gimmick that basically consisted of PAC going “do you get it?!” over and over before finally putting his unfortunate foe away.
That’s it for another week – a decent if underwhelming episode sandwiched between two more consequential episodes that still managed to deliver a few bits that worked better than expected. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you all back here next week for more Chair Shots!
