Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Pre-Halloween Dynamite

As the spookiest, scariest day of the year approaches, AEW reached into its bag of tricks and pulled out…a regular episode of Dynamite. Wait, really? No special appearance by the “Living Dead Girl” Abadon? No trios match between wrestlers dressed as the Three Amigos and, I dunno, the Beastie Boys? Not even Orange Cassidy chilling backstage eating a bag of M&Ms? Okay, so it was kind of a bummer not to have a proper Halloween special, but at least AEW promised plenty of treats from an in-ring perspective with a #1 contenders tag match and an AEW World Championship match headlining the show. Was the show the TV equivalent of getting a king-sized Reese’s peanut butter cup in your trick-or-treat bucket or a bag of rainbow fentanyl masquerading as Skittles? (That’s a very real thing that you should be afraid of, parents of America!) Let’s take a look at the best and worst of this week’s non-Halloween episode of AEW’s flagship show.

Best Match of the Night

Hey, remember how I said the treats from this show came in the form of in-ring action? Well, that ended up being the case – all five matches on the card ranged from good to great, so I’m actually just going to include them all here in ascending order of quality. Let’s start with Riho vs. Jamie Hayter, a good match between arguably the most popular woman on the roster at the moment and the first women’s world champion in company history. The idea of an up-and-coming star crossing paths with a legitimate established star automatically makes for an intriguing matchup, and in this instance both women played their roles exceptionally well to deliver an above-average example of that match concept. Riho is an incredibly smooth wrestler, and her Code Red was a thing of beauty. I’m not convinced that the ripcord lariat is the best finisher for Hayter, but at least they did a good job of teasing it before the finish, which looked impactful and Riho sold it like a champ. (Well, like a former champ anyway.) It seems like Hayter is being built up to challenge Toni Storm at some indefinite point in the future, maybe as soon as Full Gear, and matches like this perfectly illustrate why she’s worthy of such an opportunity.

Next up is the JAS vs. BCC tag match that kicked off the show, pitting Chris Jericho and Daniel Garcia against Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta. Call me old-school if you must (and I stress you absolutely do not have to do that), but I love a match where the heels mainly get offense in by being opportunistic or outright cheating, while the babyfaces dominate the action the rest of the time. It felt like Castagnoli and Yuta were hellbent on taking out their frustrations on Jericho and Garcia for their various attempts to mess with the Blackpool Combat Club, not to mention Yuta’s desire in particular to show Bryan Danielson what a mistake he made by focusing too much on recruiting Garcia rather than remaining loyal to his fellow BCCers. All of that backdrop for the match made it way more enjoyable than just another tag match between these two factions could have been with less inspired creative behind it. Claudio showing off his power game with a dual airplane spin/big swing, Yuta delivering the physicality and agility by mixing suplexes and strikes with dives and splashes, and ultimately Claudio putting the match away with the Neutralizer were all highlights for me, with just enough interference from Hager, Parker, and Menard to give Jericho and Garcia openings to keep the match from seeming too one-sided. Really enjoyable match with the right result that furthered the storyline within the BCC without overstaying its welcome to get the episode off to a hot start.

The storyline heading into Full Gear was obviously AEW World Champion Jon Moxley against MJF, so the title match against Penta el Cero Miedo didn’t have a ton of drama behind it, but it was about as good a match as you’d expect given the participants (which is to say obviously quite good). Moxley’s whole deal is that he demands his opponent be as tough as he is if they’re going to survive, and Penta has absolutely zero backdown in him (see his mask vs. mask match against Villano IV at AAA Triplemania), so they were clearly going to go hard for as long as they were given before that inevitable conclusion. It was interesting to see Mox bust out the same lariat that ended in injury for Hangman Page last week, though Penta took the bump differently in an apparent effort to make sure he landed safely. That’s not to say either man played it safe for the most part – Mox hit a particularly nasty-looking DDT on the edge of the ring steps, for instance, and both men hit their own versions of a piledriver (though it was a bit of a bummer that Moxley shook off the Fear Factor so quickly and easily before the finish, though that may have been a timing issue as they needed time for the post-match angle with The Firm). Mox finished Penta off with a Paradigm Shift followed by a Death Rider, a nice nod to his opponent’s toughness implying that Mox knew just one finisher wouldn’t be enough to keep him down for good. Penta is mostly a tag team/trios guy so it doesn’t really hurt him to lose a big singles match like this, especially when the champ clearly had to go all out to beat him, and we can now officially pivot to Moxley vs. MJF, which was further emphasized by the post-match attack.

Bryan Danielson vs. Sammy Guevara gets the top runner-up spot for this week, as it felt like the most fully realized story as well as one of the better executed matches of the night. Danielson clearly wanted to dominate his opponent in response to the provocation of Wheeler Yuta from earlier in the night as well as the impending closed-door airing of grievances promised by Claudio Castagnoli. Guevara seemingly knew what he was in for and attempted to strike quickly and early, going for a springboard cutter almost immediately after the bell rang. From there, Danielson was in control for the majority of the match, with Guevara hitting the occasional counter like a particularly eye-catching standing Spanish Fly. For Bryan’s part, he managed to pull off a pretty impressive counter of his own, turning a GTH attempt into a poison rana. The American Dragon was finally able to trap his opponent following a running knee, locking in a triangle choke after some well-placed kicks to the head. Guevara was essentially the underdog here, which is an unusual position for the heel to be in, though he was never going to get any sympathy from the crowd due to, y’know, being Sammy Guevara in 2022. Danielson played the aggressor, a role that made sense given his increasing frustration with his own stablemates, and although I’m not sure turning him heel is going to be the best choice in the long term, he’s certainly capable of blurring that line when called upon. This match had a good amount of physicality, the action moved along at a good clip, and the conclusion felt earned and logical. All in all, a really good match between two talented performers.

Best match of the night, which you may have figured out by process of elimination, was FTR vs. Swerve in our Glory for the #1 contendership for the AEW World Tag Team Championship. While FTR have been the #1 ranked team for months (though apparently AEW stopped updating its official rankings back in August), they have yet to challenge for the titles, which allowed Strickland and Lee to make the case that they deserve a rematch and set up this match to determine The Acclaimed’s next challengers. One underrated aspect of this match, in my opinion, was Keith Lee selling the physicality of FTR’s offense to a surprising degree – generally a big man like Lee can be booked to look like the immovable object against smaller opponents, but he actually made the chops and strikes from Dax and Cash look impactful. That said, though, he had one of the most impressive spots of the match leapfrogging both men as they ran the ropes, so it could be argued that he played less of the giant role that he would normally be expected to fulfill throughout this match. That’s one of the unique aspects of the Limitless One – he’s a physical monster capable of imposing his will when called upon to do so, but there’s more to his game than just straightforward power, and it’s fun to watch him switch it up and emphasize a different element of his skillset. FTR continue to be one of the best tag teams in all of professional wrestling at the moment, and although the shenanigans with the Gunn Club may not be to everyone’s liking, it made sense that it took some extra outside interference to prevent them from getting the win. I wouldn’t be surprised if a triple threat match at Full Gear is the eventual plan – FTR can knock off the Booty Brothers to prove they still deserve to be considered Top Guys, while Swerve in our Glory have already earned their spot fighting for the title, and with The Acclaimed looking to prove themselves as champions they may welcome the additional challenge. We’ve already seen Caster and Bowens against Strickland and Lee, so it would make sense to add another element to their next encounter, though that may end up being a stipulation of some sort and hold off on FTR’s shot at the gold. Whichever way AEW chooses to go with it, we’re getting some seriously excellent tag team wrestling ahead of what should be a big showcase match at Full Gear.

Best Moment of the Night

With so much in-ring action this week, there weren’t a ton of other moments to choose from, but I will highlight a few that I thought were particularly good. One was fairly minor but well executed in my opinion – as Penta was being interviewed about possibly becoming a dual champ in the main event, Alex Abrahantes suggested that Rey Fenix might do the same by challenging for the All-Atlantic Championship. Christian Cage and Luchasaurus promptly interrupted, with Cage following up on his threat that his right hand of destruction would be a nightmare for anyone holding a championship and staking his claim to that title shot instead. Orange Cassidy popped up from nowhere and basically said, “You want a title match, and you also want a title match? That’s cool, next week, let’s go.” I’m glad to see AEW has a plan for newly heel Luchasaurus, and putting him in the ring with two smaller guys is probably the smartest thing they can do with the big man at the moment. This should be a fantastic match for the new self-proclaimed king of the Atlantic to show that he deserved to be crowned champion (finally!) and of course Fenix deserves to stay busy with singles matches while the Lucha Bros and Death Triangle aren’t involved in anything significant.

There was a well-edited video package teasing the return of the Elite, with iconic moments involving the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega being “erased” along with the All Elite Wrestling logo losing its “Elite” in the process. I think we all suspected the EVPs would be back soon, so there wasn’t much point in making a big deal about it, but it is nice to have that confirmed anyway. The video itself was quite good, and it seems like people are excited to have them back despite the controversy from Brawl Out. I hope AEW doesn’t try to have them return as conquering heroes because that would feel inappropriate given the complexities of the backstage situation, but perhaps the assumption is that backstage morale will be improved by having them back as top babyfaces and the supposed “cancer” of CM Punk being purged. (More on Punk in a bit.) I have mixed feelings about the Elite at this point, if you couldn’t tell, but I will admit that it has felt very weird not to have Omega or the Bucks on TV for so long. From that standpoint, I enjoyed this video package well enough despite my misgivings about how the company might try to present them upon their return.

I’ll give moment of the night honors to MJF‘s promo segment, almost by default (which is not meant to demean the quality of the promo but rather just to point out that it was the most significant non-match segment on the show) – he didn’t really cover any new ground here, but it did hit differently with his future opponent’s wife holding the microphone while he ran down the champ. I did particularly like when Renee pointed out that saying “with all due respect” doesn’t make what you’re about to say any less disrespectful, to which he retorted, “Renee, with all due respect, shut your mouth.” It was a funny moment in an otherwise somewhat standard promo, though the bit with Stokely Hathaway did set up the post-main event happenings. MJF insisted that Hathaway and The Firm stay out of Moxley’s match, as he needs to be 100% for their title match at Full Gear, which Hathaway seemingly agreed to in the moment. MJF also promised not to use the Dynamite Diamond ring against Moxley and overall to wrestle a clean-ish match without too many underhanded tactics, which was another sign that the normally ruthless Friedman is trying to soften a little out of a desire to win his first title in the company the right way. This may, of course, all be a great ruse to sucker in the champion only for Friedman to pull out every dirty trick in his arsenal to steal the title, but for now it’s interesting to see MJF willingly tone down the heelishness while still emphasizing that it’s not at all in his nature to be a nice guy.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

With all that said about MJF’s promo, the eventual betrayal by The Firm just highlighted the pointlessness of this alliance. Yes, Stokely Hathaway doing what he feels must be done by having his guys attack Jon Moxley after a successful title defense makes sense in terms of his character, but it obviously drew out MJF, who had promised to fire Hathaway if he so much as looked at the champ after the main event, leading to a five-on-one beatdown of both champ and challenger. I did appreciate the detail that the Blackpool Combat Club was locked in their meeting room backstage to prevent them from getting involved, but The Firm had barely been established as a thing and basically did nothing apart from handing MJF the poker chip at All Out before turning on him. Again, this may be an elaborate hoax with MJF only pretending to be upset with them in order to convince Moxley that he genuinely wants a fair fight before yanking the rug out from under him to cheat him out of the world title. That said, the lack of an established alliance between MJF and his Firm buddies makes it hard to really care one way or the other – if MJF overcomes them in his quest to prove himself as serious contender, it will only further reinforce the job squad vibe of the group. If they continue to support MJF, who clearly hasn’t needed them to this point, they will feel like directionless goobers whose only purpose is to serve this overly complex plot. Either way, it doesn’t seem like great news for The Firm. That said, it’s possible AEW pulls off something more interesting than the possibilities I’ve laid out here, but I’m not holding my breath.

Parting Shots

• The story about CM Punk’s dog having two of its teeth knocked out in the post-All Out kerfuffle almost certainly needs to be taken with a whole heap of salt, considering the other side is pretty much barred from speaking on the issue, but if true that certainly gives some important context to the fight. It doesn’t excuse Punk’s unprofessional “gripe bomb” comments that precipitated the whole thing, but I certainly would feel like swinging on somebody who hurt or even mildly inconvenienced one of my perfect angelic doggos. I’m not really interested in debating which side to believe or who comes out of this looking good (nobody), just saying I’m on Team Larry regardless.
• Speaking of he who shall not be named, although I still think it’s pretty unlikely that CM Punk goes back to WWE, it’s absolutely wild that a reportedly big sticking point in AEW’s attempt to buy out Punk’s contract is a non-compete clause. There are only two wrestling promotions I could see Punk signing with – WWE and New Japan – and given AEW’s working relationship with NJPW, it’s hard to see them trying to prevent him from going there except to potentially avoid having to work with him again. So a non-compete would presumably be designed to keep him away from the company AEW was designed to be an alternative to. The company that just a year ago Punk talked about as the place that killed his love of professional wrestling. The company where he was so miserable by the end that he left the wrestling industry for seven years. The company whose new leader may have made a lot of progress among fans but with whom Punk gets along only slightly better than the old guy whose aforementioned treatment drove him away in the first place. That’s the company that AEW apparently feels like it has to keep Punk away from. Crazy that this is where we are in the year of our Lord 2022.
• Ah yes, other things happened on this week’s show as well. Let’s see…oh, Chris Jericho announced he’s going to face another former Ring of Honor champ next week, and although it would make sense for Claudio Castagnoli to get his rematch, I think it would be kind of a letdown to have the “mystery opponent” schtick used for someone who’s already on the roster. I would say, given the various options available, Davey Richards or Eddie Edwards would be the most intriguing, though the availability of either would be complicated by their status with Impact Wrestling. Christopher Daniels or Samoa Joe feel more likely, given that both are currently employed by AEW and don’t appear as regularly as Claudio.

That’s it for another week – as I said, I thought this was a really good week wrestling-wise, though maybe I was just overly impressed with an ordinary week of AEW TV. (Maybe a little of both, I will admit.) Just a quick programming note here – I will be off next week, so I hope you all have a great Halloween, and I’ll see you all back here in two weeks for more Chair Shots!