Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: New Championship Endeavor Dynamite

This week’s Dynamite, which aired live from Savannah, GA, promised to be both a throwback and a step forward for the company. The return of the ranking system, a long-requested feature of the early days of AEW, feels like a return to form as well as a bold step in making the new world champion’s reign feel distinct from the old one. In addition to the champ addressing his competition, we were promised a sit-down between the women’s champ and her presumptive top challenger, an announcement from a retiring star and his loyal buddy, and six matches including a “not in your wildest dreams” main event. So let’s look at the results from a stacked night of wrestling.

Cheers

• Can we talk about how perfect that opening segment was for reintroducing the ranking system? What’s that, I’m in charge so we can talk about whatever I want? Great, let’s talk about it then! Samoa Joe walked out to the ring, announced title shots have to be earned again, and stated his intention to sit back and watch as everybody on the roster tried to prove themselves worthy of facing him. His previous challenger, Hook, came to the ring to shake his hand for defending his title against him last week and promise that he would be back in the world title scene some way, some how. Joe had security clear him from the ring, which was cowardly and unnecessary but allowed Hook to throw around a bunch of local enhancement talent before leaving. In this one segment, AEW reinforced Joe’s status as the final boss of professional wrestling, confirmed that the previous #1 contender is returning to the back of the line, and demonstrated that Joe is loving the fact that he can use his authority as champion to have others do his bidding for him while he kicks back and waits for the rankings to take effect. Super efficient, really well done.
• Another segment that really worked was the sit-down interview Renee Paquette conducted with Toni Storm and Deonna Purrazzo. First and foremost, the split screen with “Timeless” Toni in black and white and “The Virtuosa” in color was incredibly well done. Toni’s character continues to connect brilliantly with the audience, and the genuine connection between them (including a matching calf tattoo) made the segment work uniquely well. As opposed to mainly befuddling her previous contenders, the “Timeless” gimmick didn’t faze Purrazzo, who challenged her former friend to dig down deep and find the tougher, less delusional version of herself that she used to be. That matchup, which will presumably happen at Revolution in March, figures to be one of the most intriguing matches on the card.
• The theme of the night on the wrestling side was challengers for the world title trying to establish themselves, which was a great way to keep the night flowing along smoothly. Hangman Page won the opener over Penta in what was easily the best match of the night (not that we’re officially naming a match of the night anymore), Swerve Strickland beat Jeff Hardy in a decent midcard bout, and Wardlow went over Trent Beretta in a surprisingly fun and competitive match. All three matches felt about equally important and were pretty similar in length and quality, which suggests that no single wrestler is head and shoulders above the others in their quest to become world champion, regardless of how Page and Strickland tried to make a case for themselves in a backstage altercation. I think this was a smartly booked night of wrestling on the whole – everybody is still jockeying for position, and the rankings are still very much in flux with over a month remaining before the pay-per-view where Joe will presumably defend his title next.
• Of course, there still needed to be a main event, and while I don’t think Adam Copeland’s in-ring still meshed as well with Minoru Suzuki as other wrestlers like Eddie Kingston or Bryan Danielson have in the past, it was still a relatively fun bucket list match for both men. It was probably more of a sprint than it really needed to be, owing to the fact that the rest of the show definitely ran longer than it was supposed to, but in the end Copeland exists outside of the world title scene, so it was an appropriate way to close out the show with something that felt like an entirely separate attraction to the rest of the show. Copeland is free to continue primarily showing up on Collision each week and trying to bring the TNT Championship back to its proper network home.

Boos

• This isn’t the biggest issue in the world, but with how much focus was placed on world title contenders needing to earn their shot, what was the logic in allowing Mogul Embassy to challenge for the AEW Trios Championships after losing the Ring of Honor 6-man tag belts last week? It felt more like The Acclaimed taking their turn to kick the former champs while they’re down and a way of furthering the Bang Bang Scissor Gang by having both teams defeat the same trio in successive weeks. It wasn’t a terrible match, but the lack of logic behind a team losing one set of belts one week and challenging for another set of belts the next week was a little jarring.
• I’m not trying to make this a regular thing, I promise, but Savannah wasn’t so bananas on this night – the crowd was either fairly dead or the ringside microphones didn’t convey their enthusiasm particularly well. I could have sworn Matt Hardy was leading the “whose house” chant despite the fact that his brother Jeff was the one facing Swerve this week. It didn’t help that there was a guy in the front row talking on his cell phone for the entirety of that match either. Again, not trying to judge here, maybe there’s a decent explanation for the seeming lack of interest from the fans, but it was kind of a bummer that a genuinely good show from top to bottom didn’t feel as exciting as it should have.

Parting Shots

• I feel like the Matthew and Nicholas personas work well for the Young Bucks leaning into their role as EVPs. I wonder if they will use their executive privilege to veto the tag title match that was offered by Sting and Darby Allin and accepted by Big Bill and Ricky Starks. That way the Bucks could win the gold for themselves ahead of their presumptive showdown in Sting’s retirement match and drop the belts to the veteran and his protégé at Revolution so Sting can add one last title to his list of career accolades before riding off into the sunset. Then of course he and Darby would vacate the belts and AEW could get back to rebuilding the division, ideally with FTR vs. the EVPs happening somewhere along the way.
• Taya Valkyrie and Johnny TV showed up out of nowhere this week. Taya will be jobbing out to…I mean, competing against Deonna Purrazzo next week, and Johnny got to show off his himbo Ken-esque vibes. (Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie were *egregiously snubbed* by the Academy, for the record, though America Ferrara was entirely deserving of her best supporting actress nom. As great as Ryan Gosling is, Ken shouldn’t have been recognized over Barbie or the director who brought the feminist critique masquerading as product placement to life. Ah well, award shows are BS anyway.)
• I guess Thunder Rosa is positioning herself as a challenger for the TBS Championship, which is currently held by Julia Hart. Rosa’s win over Red Velvet this week was fine, and I’m glad she’s back, but it feels like there are more interesting things she could be doing. At least Hart would get to share the ring with a veteran who at least theoretically is better equipped to lead her to a good match than some of the less experienced wrestlers she’s been matched up against early in her title reign.
• I forgot last week that I wanted to carry over my trend of at least commenting on the past week’s Collision as part of this article. This week’s observation: I know the Undisputed Kingdom just officially formed, but did they have to get rid of Killswitch Engage as Roderick Strong’s entrance music? His finishing move is called “The End of Heartache” which is the same name as the song he used to enter to, it couldn’t have been more perfect! What a bummer that the company chose to go in a less inspired, more generic direction instead.

That’s it for another week – I thought this was a really good show, nothing pay-per-view-worthy but a lot of really solid matches and an exciting direction for the shows going forward as everyone is trying to rise in the rankings. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope you’ll all come back next time for more Chair Shots!