Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Road Rager Dynamite

The Road Rager designation was originally introduced to mark AEW’s return to holding shows outside of Daily’s Place last year, but this year’s edition was just a regular episode dressed up all fancy. That doesn’t mean the company didn’t make an effort to make it special, however, as several New Japan stars made appearances ahead of Forbidden Door, the final AEW representative in the All-Atlantic Championship match was decided, and a huge title match headlined the show. Which matches and segments delivered as we close in on the company’s next big pay-per-view outing? Let’s take a look at the best and worst of this week’s Dynamite from St. Louis, MO.

Best Match of the Night

There were several good matches to choose from this week, but I want to give special mention to Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs. Toni Storm, as they managed to elevate what was, on paper, the textbook definition of a TV match. By that, I mean it was a non-title match that had little in the way of personal animosity aside from the fact that Baker dealt Storm her first loss in AEW during the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. With nothing on the line this time around, it was little surprise to see Storm get her win back, but it felt like the two competitors were on the same page more than in their first encounter, which led to a smoother and more enjoyable match. Storm looked less tentative than she has in past outings since debuting in AEW, and Baker looked like the confident head of the division that she’s grown into over the past three years. I was a little concerned when Thunder Rosa only ran off Jamie Hayter, leaving Rebel to possibly interfere on the good doctor’s behalf, but thankfully AEW resisted the urge to give Baker another tainted win and gave Storm a much-needed victory instead. Sure, it’s an almost certainty that Storm will lose to Thunder Rosa whenever they face off for the title, but in the meantime it makes sense to build her up as a legitimate contender. Baker having the Owen Hart Foundation title belt protects her a bit from a loss like this, though it should not be used as an excuse to have her go on an extended losing streak. Even though it’s a ceremonial belt rather than a title to be defended, the last thing the company should want is to associate that accolade with losing – look at how meaningless the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal has become in WWE because the winner never goes on to do anything of note. With that said, though, this was a well booked TV match that managed to rise above the usual standard for women’s matches on Dynamite, largely due to two performers who know what they’re doing being given a little extra time to deliver up to the standards they’re capable of.

I said last week that I’m not necessarily that excited about Will Ospreay in AEW, but I will admit that his match against Dax Harwood this week was one of the best matches of the night. Again, I have nothing against Ospreay as a performer – from what (admittedly little) I’ve seen of his in-ring work over the years, I know he is a talented performer who deserves to be considered one of the best in the world as Jim Ross mentioned on commentary. And yes, the accusations against him are less severe than those against, say, Jay Lethal or Darby Allin. I just want to give some context to his in-ring work because there are more important things in the world than wrestling. That said, he and Harwood had good chemistry and a good blend of styles here – Ospreay with the flashier style of offense contrasted well with Harwood’s more grounded offense. Both men pushed each other to the limit – Dax even went for the rarest of top rope maneuvers, though it didn’t pay off for him. At least he didn’t do a flip, which would have gone completely against everything FTR stands for. After AEW made the odd decision to have United Empire take a loss in its first match on Rampage, it made sense for Ospreay to pull off the win here, and the post-match showdown that drew out Roppongi Vice and a returning Orange Cassidy set the stage for some exciting developments at Forbidden Door. The prospect of an 8-man tag featuring FTR and Roppongi Vice against Aussie Open, Great-O-Khan, and Jeff Cobb was already enticing enough, but Orange Cassidy against Will Ospreay would be an unexpected but welcome addition to the card. Or they’ll just throw everyone together and make it a 10-man tag, which would be slightly less exciting but hey, Forbidden Door pretty much has to have some big multi-man matches or else it will end up having like 20 matches on the card and go 6 hours long.

Best match of the night honors have to go to the AEW Tag Team Championship match between Jurassic Express and the Young Bucks. Would it have been better if the Hardy Boyz were involved as originally planned? Maybe, but after yet another arrest for Jeff there was really no option but to make it a standard 2-on-2. (I hope Jeff gets the help he needs, but I also hope we don’t see him on AEW TV for a very long time. His in-ring talent does not justify the number of second chances he’s already been given, and I hope Tony Khan makes him work hard to earn one here because I don’t want to see him continue to be a hazard to himself and others.) Regardless of the fact that it was supposed to be a three-way, I don’t think anyone can really be disappointed in what these teams delivered. All four men delivered highlight-reel stuff from the opening bell, with numerous ladders and tables being brought into the fray throughout the contest. (In fact, now that I think of it, the post-match fallout [which we’ll talk about in a minute] seems even less surprising in hindsight – with all those tables and ladders, somebody needed to get chairs involved too.) Luchasaurus took the most brutal bumps of the match, one off the ladder onto another ladder that looked genuinely unpleasant and, of course, probably the biggest highlight of the match when he was pushed off the top of a ladder in the ring through four tables stacked up on the outside. He even ate a Canadian destroyer, which may be a relatively standard high spot these days but is always impressive for someone his size. Jungle Jack Perry had plenty of highlights of his own, doling out hurricanranas through tables like they’re going out of style, though Nick Jackson apparently didn’t get the memo and countered one into a powerbomb instead. If this was a last hurrah of sorts for Jurassic Express (again, we’ll get to that shortly) it was a fine way to go out, and losing to one of the best tag teams in the world today is nothing to be ashamed of. The Young Bucks may not have been originally planned to win the titles, but it made sense that they did – if anyone was going to become the first two-time tag champs in AEW, is there a better choice than Matt and Nick Jackson? I submit to you that there is not. It will be interesting to see who the Young Bucks face at Forbidden Door – they have plenty of history in New Japan, but I’m sure everyone involved would rather not simply rehash something that’s already been done; on the other hand, with the IWGP tag champs presumably busy elsewhere on the card, there isn’t an obvious pairing for them to face off with. That uncertainty doesn’t affect the quality of this match, however – regardless of where the new champs go from here, this was an absolute banger and well deserving of its position in the main event.

Best Moment of the Night

This episode was fairly wrestling-heavy so there weren’t as many highlights outside of the matches themselves. That said, Willow Nightingale accepting Jade Cargill’s open challenge while referencing her history with Stokely Hathaway was a fun little moment even if she’s undoubtedly going to lose to the TBS Champion and nothing further will come of it. Nightingale and Hathaway are just plain entertaining, so putting them together made for a highlight. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Miro punching Dan Lambert – that just doesn’t happen enough for my liking. For the record, Miro’s match against Ethan Page was better – and more competitive – than one might have anticipated, even though the result was never really in doubt. I’m just saying, more people need to punch the American Top Team leader straight in his boomer face.

This week’s best moment had to be the long awaited heel turn of Christian Cage, who took advantage of Luchasaurus being laid out from the aforementioned fall through a stack of tables to hit Jungle Boy with the Killswitch and follow it up with a vicious con-chair-to as the show went off the air. I’ve talked about this before, but a shocking moment doesn’t have to be unexpected or out of nowhere to be good – in fact, I would argue a logical but unpredictable turn is actually better because it’s less likely to insult the audience’s intelligence or present something totally illogical. In this case, anyone who’s been paying attention knew Christian was going to attack Jungle Boy at some point, but we didn’t know where or when it would happen. (I would argue that’s why Christian actually drew a cheer from the live crowd when he grabbed JB on the way out of the ring – it wasn’t that people wanted to see one of the more popular young stars in the company get laid out like that, but because it meant we finally got a payoff to the long-simmering resentment between the two.) Now that the turn has been accomplished, I’d like to see a one-on-one feud between the two, which would free up Luchasaurus to do his own thing for a while. Jungle Boy could even make a point of preventing his friend from getting involved – Christian had it in his head that JB was the weak link of Jurassic Express, so the only way to prove him wrong would be to show he can win his own battles. The big dino has been impressive during his time in AEW, so it would be fun to see him have a singles run without Jurassic Express having to break up. Christian still clearly has some fuel in the tank, so seeing him go back to a more active performer after months of serving as little more than a mouthpiece is an enticing prospect, and Jungle Boy is a great choice to play his foil. I fully expect JB to be upgraded to Jungle Man by the time his issues with Christian are finally settled.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I like Adam Cole and Hangman Page, but their segment this week did nothing for me. It made last week’s segment seem entirely irrelevant, since not only is Kazuchika Okada no longer the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, but also Page and Cole just repeated the same sentiments rather than adding anything new. Jay White’s involvement similarly seemed pointless – he attacked Adam Page from behind, but then he stated his intention not to face Page or Cole at Forbidden Door, in which case why did he get involved in the first place? Couldn’t he have just ignored them and focused on finding a challenger he does want to face? I understand wanting to get the new champion on TV, and we may end up getting Cole vs. Page vs. White after all, but the whole segment was lacking in any real substance. Plus, I already knew Okada might not be at Forbidden Door, but what a huge bummer to have it made official like this. (Well, “official” in kayfabe terms anyway – Cole is a heel, after all, so it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for him to be lying, but I suspect that is not the case.) Also, Sammy Guevara disguising himself as Fuego Del Sol to interfere in the hair vs. hair match (which was surprisingly good, by the way) made absolutely zero sense – Ortiz has never been shown to be close to Fuego so it’s not like anyone was expecting him to show up to have Ortiz’s back only to turn on him. I guess if anything it was just further evidence of how far gone the old Sammy Guevara is – he and Fuego used to be friends, now he’s using his gear to hide his identity so he can pull off a sneak attack. Still, I feel like it would have made more sense for Sammy to make his presence known, have the commentary team play up the fact that he was upset with both sides when the Inner Circle broke up, before inevitably siding with the heel Jericho Appreciation Society. Also, the addition of Suzuki-gun to this rivalry is a pretty weak excuse to get them on the card at Forbidden Door, though again it is unsurprising that multi-man matches are the only way to get everyone on the card who deserves to be there.

Parting Shots

• I kind of knew the 20-on-1 security guards vs. Wardlow match was going to be a whole lot of nonsense, but it was funny to see how completely normal match logic was abandoned – Wardlow was openly stacking guys face-down on top of others and pinning them. Unless you’re ex-Funkadactyl Cameron, I’m pretty sure anyone with even a passing knowledge of professional wrestling knows that’s not how it works. At least it was entertaining in a totally nonsensical way.
• I generally enjoy Jon Moxley’s promos, and I think his match against Hiroshi Tanahashi is going to be one of the highlights of Forbidden Door, but their segment this week didn’t make me any more excited to see them face off. I felt like Mox just kept using the word “Ace” because they wanted to get over Tanahashi’s nickname, but he never really explained what it means or why he’s called that, so it didn’t really serve much of a purpose. And unless Mox and Tanahashi are going to team up to beat 2point0 or something, I’m not sure what Chris Jericho and his goons were doing in this segment either.
• Keith Lee certainly seemed upset about being dumped out of the Casino Battle Royal by his tag partner Swerve Strickland last week, so why is he waiting until Rampage this week to address it? Is it because AEW doesn’t really care that much about their rivalry? Because it kind of seems like that’s exactly why. And that’s very disappointing for this Keith Lee fan who just wants some dang glory to bask in already.
• This isn’t directly related to AEW, but I wanted to comment on it anyway. Apparently Sasha Banks has been granted her release from WWE, which of course has opened the floodgates on rumors that she might be headed to AEW. She would obviously be a huge shot in the arm for a division that has struggled to get off the ground due to inconsistent booking and a general lack of investment in developing new stars, but I can’t see her signing with AEW unless Tony Khan makes a serious commitment to improving the division overall. In my opinion (and this is basically never my opinion because I’m a big wrestling fan and hate to see a big star leave) she might be better off going to Hollywood and seeing how far she can go as an actor – may as well strike while the iron is hot following her role on the Mandalorian. Unless she’s really committed to being a professional wrestler full-time (and willing to take a substantial pay cut) I just don’t know if staying in the wrestling industry is the best option for her right now. As with numerous other wrestlers who have been let go by the Fed, however, I do not presume to know what’s best for her personally, and I look forward to seeing what she does next regardless of whether that’s in the squared circle or not.

That’ll wrap things up for another week – good show with plenty of wrestling highlights and some decent groundwork being laid for Forbidden Door even though it seems like there isn’t enough time for a proper build and too many wrestlers not appearing on that show due to injuries or other reasons for it to completely live up to the hype. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you all back here next week for more Chair Shots!