Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Peer Pressure Dynamite

First things first, if you were looking for a review last week, there wasn’t one. Long story short, there was a storm, the power went out in my area, and by the time it came back on I felt like it would have been too late to write and publish the review, so I decided to just skip a week. But it’s a new week (yes it is) so here I am and we’re back on track. On with the review.

AEW’s Canadian tour continued this week with a stop in Edmonton for its flagship show. The tag team tournament kicked off along with the opening round of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament coming to an end. Did the show continue to lay the foundation for promising storylines going forward, or was the show more Canadian Stumble than Stampede?

Best Match of the Night

I’m going to be honest here: I feel like this was a very average episode of Dynamite. I mean, look at that show graphic. That image does not say “we put our all into making this a memorable night of TV!” It barely says “eh, we tried to put together some stuff you might like, I guess.” Maybe it’s just that the show was largely dominated by blind tag tournament matches that didn’t have much going on outside of the random pairings. Maybe it’s that All In is so far away that there isn’t a ton of forward momentum yet, especially since we’re going to get a Blood and Guts match between the Elite and Blackpool Combat Club before then. Not sure what it was exactly, but nothing really stood out from this show for me. With that said, though, there were at least three good matches that deserved recognition. Ruby Soho vs. Dr. Britt Baker DMD as the final opening round match of the Owen Hart tourney was a good match between two women who are capable of better but accomplished what they needed to here. As usual for an Outcasts match, there was a bit too much interference for it to be truly great, but it did highlight the fact that Jamie Hayter’s absence is holding the good doctor back from greater success. As much as this match was about Soho getting revenge for Baker defeating her in the finals of last year’s tournament, it also felt like Toni Storm got a measure of revenge after Baker and Hayter conspired to eliminate her last year also. With the face/heel alignments switched this time around, it was Storm and Soho combining to cost Baker a chance to advance. There were a few moments where the competitors looked a little tentative and disjointed, but the history between the two competitors went a long way toward telling a story to overcome any minor hiccups in the ring.

I’ll give my second runner-up spot to Darby Allin & Orange Cassidy vs. Swerve Strickland & Keith Lee in the opening round of the blind eliminator tag team tournament. Darby challenged Lee backstage to prove himself in this match, so it was confusing to see his team fall short even though he and his former tag partner were predictably not on the same page throughout the match. I felt like having the divorced dads win would have made more sense – the obvious story would have been “they don’t get along anymore, but the chemistry is still there regardless” – but Cassidy and Allin hardly ever lose these days so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Again I say to Tony Khan: Book. Keith. Lee. Like. This. All. The. Time. Please. He looked physically dominant throughout the match, chopping each of his competitors down to the mat with a single blow, and they had to respond by focusing their most devastating offense on him. A man the size of Keith Lee taking a Canadian destroyer will never not be impressive. The spot where Lee picked Cassidy up on his shoulders and walked up the ring steps while Darby’s legs were trapped underneath them was also very inventive. The trope of “can these two coexist?!” is overdone in wrestling, but I did like the detail of Lee chuckling after a Tower of Doom spot that allowed him to essentially powerbomb his former friend, only for Strickland to return the favor by accidentally hitting him with a 450 splash. I wonder if AEW has something planned for Lee after this – it seems like they have gone out of their way to continue to present him as a genuine threat in recent weeks, but he hasn’t been winning. It’s good to see him featured on TV regardless, but I just hope all of this leads to something bigger and better for him, especially an actual blowoff against Swerve. In that respect, getting eliminated in the first round might be a blessing in disguise since the tag tournament seems to be the MJF/Adam Cole show. Allin and Cassidy are pretty much just sticking around so they can put on another good match or two as something to do while they wait for something more interesting to develop.

Match of the night goes to the main event between Kenny Omega and Wheeler Yuta, which was a good showcase for the younger star while not quite reaching the heights of what we’ve come to expect from a TV match involving the Best Bout Machine. I recognize that this is an unfair comparison, but this was no Omega vs. El Hijo del Vikingo. Still, Yuta has come a long way since associating with the Blackpool Combat Club, and this match served as a nice showcase of his development. He does not by any means look out of place in a main event match. Omega obviously looked at home there as well, though after his match of the year candidate against Will Ospreay at Forbidden Door, he obviously wasn’t in tiptop form for this one. Yuta looked to take advantage of Omega’s injuries, as well as some outside interference from Don Callis and Konosuke Takeshita, but the former world champion was able to persevere and overcome with his patented finisher that nobody kicks out of (except for himself at Forbidden Door – at one!) to take the win. I appreciate that everyone except Callis and Takeshita stayed out of the proceedings until afterwards (more on that in a bit) so Omega and Yuta had plenty of time to themselves to put on a quality match. It was clear that the feud between the Elite and BCC wouldn’t end here regardless, so the match itself was just a preview of things to come when the two factions face off in Blood and Guts. They did enough to build excitement for that match without giving away too much ahead of time, which maybe wasn’t necessary given how long the feud has gone on but made for a pretty good TV main event.

Best Moment of the Night

Chris Jericho, basking in the glow of his home nation’s adoration, pondered a new direction for himself in an in-ring promo that was good enough for a runner-up for moment of the night. He did an effective job of referencing his past (especially his extensive history in Canada) while stating his intent to become the best version of himself, before being interrupted by Don Callis, who offered to allow him to join his “family” to bring out his potential. Callis tried to take credit for Jericho’s career resurgence, as he was the one who suggested Jericho face Kenny Omega in New Japan. Jericho countered by pointing out that he helped Callis get into AEW, which allowed him to have another shot in the industry. The segment ended inconclusively, with Jericho giving a truly neutral answer when asked to join a faction rather than starting a new one. Jericho is the king of reinvention, and with Callis and protégé Konosuke Takeshita involved in the ongoing BCC/Elite feud, it would be typically savvy for the Ocho to throw his hat into the ring as the fifth member of Team BCC at Blood and Guts. On the other hand, with Sammy Guevara on the verge of breaking out as a babyface, perhaps Jericho would be better suited turning face himself to continue acting as his mentor. The segment wasn’t anything groundbreaking from a promo standpoint, but it did set up some intriguing possibilities for the future. Plus the juxtaposition between non-stop booing when Callis spoke and the cheers of adulation that Jericho received was absolutely hilarious.

The announcement that Nick Wayne, who signed a developmental contract with AEW at age 16 with the option to work for the company full time once he turned 18 on July 10th, will make his in-ring debut next week was another welcome surprise on this show. I will admit that I have only seen a few clips of Wayne’s work on the indie scene, but his story is so easy to get behind (minus being mentored by Darby Allin) that it really doesn’t matter how much the AEW audience knows about his career ahead of his match next week. AEW has done a great job of developing young stars to this point in the company’s history, so it is easy to get excited about the prospect of another young wrestler debuting under Tony Khan’s watch.

As I mentioned earlier, the blind tag tournament mainly seems to be a showcase for Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Adam Cole, but I will say their buddy schtick mostly worked for me this week, which is why it’s getting moment of the night honors despite not being featured among the best matches of the night. I will say, the tasteless fat jokes while they were at the gym, with even the babyface Cole getting in on the action by taking a shot at Tony Schiavone, were a black mark on that segment, but their goofy chemistry in the match against The Butcher and Matt Menard brought me back around for the most part. Max locked Daddy Magic in an octopus stretch near Cole in the corner, and he started a “do it” chant to get his babyface partner to finally, begrudgingly grab his hand for added leverage on the hold. The champ also called for Adam to bring him in for a double clothesline spot that never materialized, but MJF seemed to shrug it off as Cole lowered the Boom for the win. It was the post-match birthday celebration for the Panama City Playboy that put the icing on the cake (pun fully intended) for this segment, in my opinion. MJF brought out some goons with balloons and a cake as streamers rained down on the ring, and he did his best Mariah Carey impression singing happy birthday to his partner. As Cole went to blow out the candle on the modest supermarket-bought cake, MJF was poised to push his face into it only for Cole to see it coming and reverse his partner face-first into it. Cole thanked him for the effort and left the ring as MJF sat eating bits of cake from his face showing he was a surprisingly good sport about the whole thing. Cole and MJF have a nice chemistry going with both men clearly aware of what’s really going on behind all the “brochachos” and actually kind of remind me of the relationship between MJF and Chris Jericho before the Pinnacle waged war with the Inner Circle. (Cole is hopefully self-aware enough to avoid suffering the same fate as Jericho, obviously.) I doubt they’ll win the tag titles before turning on each other, which will render this entire tournament pointless in retrospect, but at least we should get some fun if insubstantial character development along the way.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I mentioned earlier that AEW has done a great job of building new stars, and for a while it looked like that would be the case with The Acclaimed; sadly, they have lately been relegated to trios matches with Billy Gunn and feuding with QTV. This week’s squash of the Bollywood Boyz and The Blade (who had been split from his partner by the cruel hand of fate…er, RJ City) did absolutely nothing for Max Caster and Anthony Bowens, nor did the post-match callout by Harley Cameron (I literally had to look up her name, that’s how little I care about QTV or this storyline) who I guess is still trying to flirt with Bowens? Or something? Look, I’m glad The Acclaimed were on TV. Plenty of trios and tag teams are sitting back at catering at the moment while the House of Black are MIA and the tag champs are waiting to find out their new #1 contenders from a field of randomly-paired teams, so at least Caster and Bowens are doing something. But to say this storyline is scraping the bottom of the barrel is offensive to barrels – at least sometimes they might have something worthwhile at the bottom, unlike this feud.

Parting Shots

• I’m really not sure what happened at the end of this episode – the show went off the air pretty abruptly, but it didn’t seem intentional in a “tune in next week to find out what happened off-air” kind of way. But the show was already ending past the top of the hour, so I’m not sure why the network didn’t just give them another minute or so to finish what they were doing. Obviously the Dark Order isn’t finished with Adam Page, and they may be inching ever closer to a full-on heel turn, but the way this all went down made them seem like an afterthought rather than a significant part of the storyline.
• Jungle Boy Jack Perry said he wants to settle things with Hook in a match, then Hook attacked him backstage because apparently he wasn’t paying attention despite apparently lurking just out of the camera shot while Perry was talking. I get that Perry is supposed to look like a coward running away all the time, but you can’t expect to get what you want if you disregard your enemy’s demands, Hook. That’s just bad negotiating.
• Matt Hardy will team with Jeff (Jarrett) in the blind tag tournament, because those are two guys who need more screen time in 2023. Wardlow hasn’t been on TV since he lost his TNT Championship 2 1/2 weeks ago, and when’s the last time we saw the likes of Dante Martin, Lee Moriarty, or Rush in any meaningful action, but by all means let’s push the names from yesteryear ahead of the faces of tomorrow.

That’s it for another week – as I said, very middle of the road show that I wouldn’t bother to go back and watch if you missed it, but it was decently entertaining for those who saw it live. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you all back here next week for more Chair Shots!