Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Surprising Returns Dynamite

AEW rolled into Laredo, TX for another edition of its weekly flagship program, featuring a contractually mandated appearance from the world champ, a Texas Tornado Tag match, and a rare women’s main event. In addition to the in-ring action, the company also had a few surprises up its sleeve as performers who have been rarely seen on television in recent times returned to throw a spanner into the works for the build to Revolution. Which matches and segments delivered up to expectations? Let’s take a look at all the best and worst from this week’s Dynamite.

Best Match of the Night

There wasn’t anything terrible on this week’s show from an in-ring perspective, but the matches on the card this week didn’t exactly exceed expectations. After last week’s show that was packed with champions and top contenders, this week’s episode was always bound to be a bit of a letdown. Still, the main plot developments this week came mainly from the segments around the matches rather than the matches themselves, so it wasn’t like AEW was pinning all its hopes on the matches that were largely made up of less-featured performers and storylines. For instance, Mark Briscoe vs. Josh Woods was a good match between two performers who haven’t been featured on AEW television that much and probably won’t have a role to play until Ring of Honor’s weekly programming gets up and running again, which is reportedly coming soon. Mark Briscoe has been enjoying a bit of a resurgence recently after his brother’s untimely passing, which explains his presence here, but there wasn’t much of a storyline between him and Woods except for the fact that Woods pinned Jay Briscoe in one of their final matchups. That didn’t stop it from being an enjoyable enough match with a few notable spots like Briscoe kicking out of the same Chaos Theory that once put his brother away and delivering his own Froggy Bow for the win. I don’t see Mark challenging Claudio Castagnoli for the world title, but if the title is transitioned off the Swiss Superman, I could absolutely see Briscoe in the title chase sooner than later. This wasn’t much more than an average TV match that won’t have much of an impact on the pay-per-view to come, but at least two RoH talents got to be featured in a fun match that left the crowd satisfied.

The women’s triple threat match that closed out the show was similarly decent with a bit more storyline impact than Briscoe/Woods, so it gets the slight nod as runner-up for match of the night. The match started out a little slow, which I suppose is to be expected as Britt Baker, Toni Storm, and Ruby Soho haven’t worked together a lot during their time in AEW, so they had to get past the feeling-out stage to get onto the more intricate three-way spots planned for later in the contest. Still, this was the only match on the card where the outcome wasn’t immediately obvious before the bell even rang, and once the match did hit its second gear, it actually turned out to be a pretty good match. I’m glad Ruby Soho didn’t just get thrown onto the “AEW originals” side of the conflict between Baker and Hayter against WWE imports Saraya and Storm, as she more easily fits the role of outsider. I expect at some point Ruby will be forced into an uneasy alliance with the newly babyface champ and her mentor before challenging for the title, but she makes sense as the next #1 contender, probably at Revolution. From that standpoint, it wasn’t surprising that she won, but with Baker and Storm being the more established names in the division and the #1 contendership not being officially on the line, it would not have been out of the realm of possibility for either of them to pull off the win. It would have been nice if Soho had won in a more definitive fashion than with a standard rollup, but I suppose this was their first encounter in their current roles, so there is still room to establish her as a legitimate contender in the future. It’s good to see her getting a renewed push after falling off so soon after her debut in the company, and it’s a positive sign for the women’s division as a whole that there is a storyline worthy of main-eventing Dynamite.

Best match of the night has to go to Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli vs. Preston Vance and Rush. Two things were working against this match, in my opinion: first, Vance and Rush absolutely were not winning. Second, there was an excessive amount of blood for a match that was as irrelevant as this. Yeah, they were using weapons so it wouldn’t have made sense for there to be no blood at all, but Mox and Vance especially looked like they had been through a war rather than what was a fairly standard tag match contested under Tornado Tag rules. With that said, this was an above-average match that delivered above its position in the middle of the card, featuring the two biggest male stars on the card (with all due respect to Jungle Jack and Hangman Page) as Bryan Danielson got a well-deserved week off. Rush and Vance are trying to establish themselves as (former?) associates of Andrade, so it makes sense they would be swinging for the fences against the more established Blackpool Combat Club, and Vance’s spear to Moxley off the apron onto their partners sold that idea early on. Mox and Claudio just enjoy violence, so of course they went harder than they had to – Claudio raining down punches with his fist wrapped in a steel chain was a particularly brutal spot that busted the former Pres10 open. Nothing earth-shattering here, but it was an appropriately intense tag match to anchor the show’s in-ring offering. The Texas crowd was into it, especially with the nod to Texas wrestling history with the tornado rules, and all of the performers come out of it looking good. Well, Mox and Vance were pretty bloody by the end, so they didn’t actually look good, but you know what I mean.

Best Moment of the Night

First, it has to be said that Jeff Jarrett being featured in the opening match as a tribute to his father Jerry, who just passed away, was a nice touch that may have been planned before the elder Jarrett’s passing but still felt like a cathartic moment for a man whose family is so intrinsically linked to the wrestling industry. I wouldn’t consider it a real “moment of the night” contender, but it deserves a mention as a small tribute to a significant figure in wrestling history.

MJF‘s promo segment with Christopher Daniels was a solid contender for moment of the night on an episode that was heavy on significant segments. The Burberry-clad champ is always good at promos, of course, and calling on Daniels to trash his rival Bryan Danielson was a seemingly random decision that predictably didn’t pan out the way MJF expected it to, but it was an entertaining segment anyway. MJF criticizing the fans for seemingly being on his side such a short time ago and now being back to booing him mercilessly is such a classic heel move, especially after he admitted to being a relentlessly despicable person in his last promo. Daniels defended his work with Danielson in Ring of Honor, which he said laid the groundwork for AEW and thus gave MJF the opportunity to chase his dreams as champion. I’m not sure taking a “respect your elders” stance is necessarily going to get the American Dragon more over with the crowd, but I get AEW’s commitment to championing wrestling history. Of course, this was all a setup to MJF clamping on the Salt of the Earth armbar and Danielson running him off to put further heat on the champ and keep their rivalry hot while allowing Danielson to not wrestle himself into the ground ahead of their match. The segment worked overall even if it wasn’t anything overly special considering who was involved.

Another segment that deserves to be mentioned among the best moments of the night is the Jon Moxley/Adam Page/Dark Order promo which Mox kicked off by claiming he and Page had nothing left to prove against each other despite winning their previous match by rollup. Hangman unsurprisingly pointed out that they are just even, meaning a rubber match is justified, and claimed the only ending worthy of their rivalry would be a violent finale with only one of them left standing. Mox, flanked by his BCC compatriots, needled Page for being an “emo cowboy” with no friends, which prompted the second surprise return of the night (we’ll talk about the first one in a moment) as the Dark Order backed up Hangman for the first time in a good while. Evil Uno got in Mox’s face, saying he doesn’t fear him and pie-facing him backwards into Yuta and Castagnoli. Mox talked around him, saying he would meet Page at Revolution in a Texas Deathmatch, which seemed like a clear attempt to pop the Laredo crowd rather than a logical stipulation choice considering San Francisco is *checks notes* not in Texas. I wish the Dark Order involvement felt a bit more impactful, but I did love the fiery defiance of Evil Uno’s brief promo here. Mox and Page both played their roles well, and I’m glad AEW bothered to formally confirm that they will face off at Revolution considering how many matches are just penciled in at this point rather than officially announced. We also got two matches to set this segment up, so it kept the show humming along in a fairly efficient manner.

The best moment of the night was Christian Cage‘s surprise return from injury to lay out Jungle Boy Jack Perry and reignite their rivalry heading into Revolution. I know some may be disappointed that Christian is returning just as Perry is beginning his push towards singles gold, but with the TNT and world championships already being booked up for Revolution, it makes sense to bring back a rivalry that never quite got its conclusion. Perry will presumably win and catapult himself to new heights thereafter, so this figures to be just a brief detour. However you feel about the rivalry, it must be said that Christian’s return was well-executed, coming out of nowhere after Perry’s victory against Brian Cage. (I mean, we should have expected him to avenge his cousin so that they can face off against the Page brothers, Ethan and Adam, in a Cage vs. Page showdown for the ages.) Christian sprayed his foe with some sort of mace-like substance before removing his arm brace to reveal he is healthy once again and delivering a Killswitch on the ramp to punctuate his dastardly return with another despicable act. Again, Christian is basically just here to give Revolution some more star power, but it’s great to see that he’s fully recovered from injury since he was doing some great work before he got hurt.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

As I said in the opening segment, there wasn’t actually anything bad on this show. It may not have been the greatest night in Dynamite history, but at least there wasn’t anything really worth complaining about.

Parting Shots

• Wardlow’s interview segment with Jim Ross was better than expected – I don’t know if I entirely believe his story about his hair being a connection to his dad, whose passing led him to grow his hair and beard out, but it was a good promo from a guy who isn’t really known for them. He kept it short but focused and added a new dimension to the rivalry between himself and Samoa Joe, who he figures to face again at Revolution for the TNT Championship, and by that standard it succeeded in making an otherwise mediocre program seem more significant.
• The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it insertion of the House of Black into the segment between The Elite and Top Flight/AR Fox (who will have a rematch on Rampage) was very exciting to me. I know people will inevitably compare this to Bray Wyatt’s audiovisual glitches from the Wyatt Family era and the QR codes heralding his return, but the dark and spooky nature of Malakai Black makes such comparisons inevitable anyway, and at least this was the first time they’ve used something like this to hint at potential supernatural powers for the group.
• The Gunn Club’s rematch against The Acclaimed was inevitable, but I’m glad AEW is spicing things up by adding two more teams to the mix. Whether they end up using those extra teams to give the Gunns someone else to retain against or to put the titles on someone more legit for Max Caster and Anthony Bowens to chase remains to be seen, but at least it won’t be just another rematch.

That’s it for another week – not the strongest episode, but it had plenty of developments that led to either confirmed or at least heavily implied matches at Revolution, so it was at least successful on that front. Thanks for joining me, and I hope to see you all back here next week for more Chair Shots!