Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: New Year, New Opportunities Dynamite

Welcome back everyone, feels like forever since we’ve done this but it’s finally time for more Chair Shots! In the spirit of “new year, new me” we’re going to be making some changes around here to streamline things and keep these articles a little shorter than they have been in the past, both to help me get them written in a timely manner and to make them more digestible for the reading public because let’s face it, y’all don’t need 10,000 words on any random episode of Dynamite. You watched the show, you’re just here for my thoughts and maybe some humor along the way. So the new format is going to be a simple Cheers and Boos, with the Parting Shots returning for anything that I’m neither positive nor negative about or anything that extends beyond the episode at hand that I want to talk about. So without further ado, let’s get on with it!

Cheers

• AEW’s renewed focus on its homegrown talent is a welcome development. This week we saw Private Party and Top Flight apparently begin a program together, and Anna Jay, the Gunns, and Hook were all in prominent spots on the card. It’s kind of funny that the Young Bucks, positioning themselves as heel EVPs who insist on being called Nicholas and Matthew, talked about wanting to avoid “yesterday’s self-serving, cancerous superstars” and yet that’s exactly what the company is doing…and that’s a great thing. (Yes, I get that the heel part of the Bucks’ act is that they’re basically booking themselves as Sting’s final opponents, but I did think it was ironic that their stated heel values, when put into practice, seem to be so well-received by the fans.)
• Speaking of the focus on building young stars, Hook being in the main event of Dynamite this week was an incredibly shrewd move on the company’s part. We’ve seen this formula work countless times with the likes of Wheeler Yuta, Daniel Garcia, Sammy Guevara, and others: take someone the company has faith in, put them in a spot they’re not really ready for just yet, let them shine as a preview of things to come, and by the time they are ready to take the next step in their career, you have a video package and a built-in storyline of how much they’ve grown in the time since and how ready they now are to take the spotlight. It was obvious Samoa Joe wasn’t losing in his first title defense and Hook wasn’t about to become the world champion, but the fact that the match was in any way competitive and Hook’s defiance in the face of Joe’s monster onslaught spoke volumes about where he is in the pecking order of AEW. Joe didn’t simply dominate Hook, hit him with a muscle buster, and call it a night – Hook kicked out at ONE after Joe’s usually devastating finisher, and ultimately Joe had to counter Red Rum into the Coquina Clutch to finally put him away as Hook passed out rather than tapping to the hold. Hook revived as Joe was making his exit, taunting the champ into returning to the ring to deliver a low blow and a muscle buster to the cocky young challenger, further cementing that the apple doesn’t fall from Taz’s tree when it comes to toughness. He’s not ready for a world title run yet, but this match will go a long way toward establishing that he’s closer to a main event player than people might have realized.
• Obviously the most heartwarming story of the night was that Jay Briscoe’s daughter, who was injured in the fatal car accident that took Jay’s life last January, has regained the ability to walk despite doctors’ predictions. AEW also aired a touching tribute to the late Briscoe, which was a welcome reminder that he has not been forgotten in the year since his passing and reaffirmed the company’s commitment to Mark and the family he left behind.
• Donna Palazzo…er, Deonna Purrazzo vs. Toni Storm is going to be fun. If they can make throwing a shoe back and forth entertaining, they should have no problem making the match work. Purrazzo carried Anna Jay to a decent match, so she and Storm given enough time to put on a real match should be magic.

Boos

• Wardlow just doesn’t seem as special since he joined up with the Undisputed Kingdom. Granted, this may be a storyline thing – it certainly would make sense if the Wardog is the one to turn on his stablemates and break off on his own. Let’s look at the facts: Adam Cole, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, and Roderick Strong were all friends ahead of time, and the group’s name is literally a combination of Cole’s previous Undisputed Era faction and the tag team Taven and Bennett were in beforehand. Wardlow has no name in the game, no major connection to anyone else in the group, and with Cole doing all the talking for him, it wouldn’t take much for him to end up resentful. The group’s stated plans are for Taven and Bennett to win tag gold, Roddy to win the International Championship, and Wardlow to…win the world title and hand it to Cole. Okay, so maybe him being kept in the background is a long-term storyline. It’s just a shame that he’s effectively back to the same role he occupied when he was the muscle for MJF.

Parting Shots

• Speaking of the Undisputed Kingdom, it will be interesting to see what Taven and Bennett do in the near future. Roderick Strong challenged Orange Cassidy to an International Championship match after he and Trent Beretta defeated the Lucha not-Brothers. Is Chuck Taylor nearing a return? If so, maybe a trios match between OC and the Best Friends against Taven, Bennett, and Strong is in order, but I don’t see the Kingdom challenging for the AEW tag titles anytime soon, especially since…
• Darby Allin claiming that he and Sting would be tag champs before their run together ends at Revolution on March 3rd seemingly indicates the EVPs are going to book themselves in a title match against Ricky Starks and Big Bill, which the Young Bucks will win. That’s a decent plan and a fitting accolade for Sting’s AEW run to end on – I know a lot of people wanted to see a singles bout (presumably against Darby) for his final match, but he’s been in nothing but tag matches during his entire run in the company. I just hope that when he and Darby vacate the titles immediately afterwards, AEW does something more interesting than just having Ricky and Bill win them back and continue where they left off. There’s no shortage of teams (like the aforementioned Kingdom, but also Top Flight and Private Party whose match had a flukey finish indicating they may not be done with each other) who could use something to do, and with the tag titles being seemingly de-emphasized recently, it would be nice if the company used the next two months and Sting’s retirement to build up their importance again. Maybe after the Bucks win the belts, they can organize a tag tournament to determine their next #1 contenders after Revolution as a sneaky way of guaranteeing their title reign lasts at least until then. And, of course, Matthew and Nicholas could always insert themselves into the match with whoever wins the tournament to further their heel run.
• I love how Swerve Strickland and Hangman Adam Page are acting like they’re not feuding even though they clearly still are. Both guys want the world title, and that obviously puts them on a collision course (maybe in a triple threat with Joe at Revolution) but neither man wants to acknowledge it. Both men’s promos were basically that Mariah Carey gif and the verbal equivalent of subtweeting each other.
• Bullet Club Gold becoming Ring of Honor 6-man tag champs is an interesting move for them – on the one hand, maybe shifting Jay White and the Gunns to RoH for a little while would allow them some time out of the spotlight so White’s recent failure to win the world title doesn’t linger in fans’ minds for too long, and they could come back to AEW with a bang (bang) when there’s more for them to do. On the other hand, their alliance with The Acclaimed seemed to be going somewhere, so if they’re just going to be on AEW television for the entirety of their title reign, that doesn’t bode well for the RoH titles they now carry. It could go either way in my mind, which is why I’m talking about it here rather than in either of the sections above.

That’s it for this week – pretty good show overall, and I appreciated the continued focus on homegrown talent. Thanks for reading once again, and I hope to see you back here next week for more Chair Shots!