Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: The Devil’s Due Dynamite

Full Gear is nearly upon us, and AEW still has some work to do to build up a must-see card to get as many pay-per-view buys as possible. The main event for the world title has been set in stone for weeks, but there is still plenty of room on the rest of the card for the company to make matches and storylines that feel significant. To that end, there was only one title match on the card for this week’s Dynamite, but there was a greater emphasis placed on building up contenders for the other titles that will almost certainly be defended at Full Gear as well. Did that strategy pay off in the ring and on the mic, or did the lack of championship representation leave us with a ho-hum show? Let’s take a look at the best, worst, and most noteworthy moments from this week’s flagship show live from Beantown’s Agganis Arena.

Best Match of the Night

I’m going to be honest here: I felt a little disappointed in this week’s in-ring output in general. It wasn’t bad by any means – we’ll get to the worst of it later – but everything felt okay to pretty good at best. Ethan Page vs. Eddie Kingston was fine – I know a lot of people didn’t want or even expect Kingston to lose, but I felt like the outcome was very much expected if you’ve been paying attention lately. Kingston is too over, despite his relative lack of use recently, to lose clean, but Page’s recent success as the breakout member of The Firm meant he clearly wasn’t going to lose either. (Heck, Page’s betrayal of MJF makes him an obvious candidate to challenge for the title after Friedman wins it at Full Gear.) I don’t think there’s any harm in having a more established star lose like this, especially given the amount of chicanery it took to prevent the Mad King from winning (not too much, but just enough), and Page benefits immensely from continuing to rack up wins. Plus, the avalanche Ego’s Edge that finished the match was incredibly cool.

The Acclaimed and FTR vs. Swerve in Our Glory and the Gunn Club was also pretty good – combining two ongoing rivalries into a single match is usually a good way of furthering those feuds while avoiding overexposure, even though an 8-man tag makes it hard for any individual to stand out too much. About the only issue here was that it felt fairly short, especially given the number of people involved. That said, it’s hard to imagine three of the most talented teams in all of professional wrestling having a bad match. Oh, and the Booty Bros were there too. (Mostly kidding but kind of for serious but mainly kidding.) There were a few fun spots, some inventive team-ups, and the right guys going over in the end. Lee and Strickland were spared defeat by having one of the Gunn boys take the pinfall, and the uncrowned #1 contenders Wheeler and Harwood took the win to keep them from falling out of the spotlight. Am I the only one still hoping FTR gets added to the Full Gear tag title match? Certainly not, but we’ll see if that happens or if they get their own dedicated title match at a later date. Regardless, this was a good opener that kept the primary tag storylines going without really adding much to either one. I’m neither more nor less excited for Glorious House against the Scissor Sisters as a result of this match, but we still have next week to heat things up a bit more or just bite the bullet and let FTR into the title match. For this week, the double doubles match (which nobody calls an 8-man tag) was a fine enough piece of wrestling to open the show.

The clear winner for best match of the night was the 2-out-of-3 falls match between Sammy Guevara and Bryan Danielson that main evented the show. It’s a good thing this match was so good, in fact, because I’m not sure a 3-fall match between these two was really justified and I don’t fully understand why we’re getting a four-way match for the Ring of Honor title at Full Gear. I don’t feel like Sammy and Bryan have had a personal enough rivalry to justify an extended match like this, and the way it played out with the Spanish God essentially throwing out the first fall just to get a little bit of an advantage for the second fall, which he won very quickly so that the majority of the match was spent vying for the decisive third fall. In which case it basically could have been a standard one-fall match, no? Also, while I’m airing my grievances (tis the season!) what’s the logic behind Guevara challenging for his buddy Chris Jericho’s RoH Championship? I understand Danielson and Claudio Castagnoli being there as former champions who want to end Jericho’s disrespectful reign of dishonor, but Guevara is in a group explicitly dedicated to appreciating Jericho, so what’s his purpose in being there? Unless he’s going to throw Jericho on top of a downed rival or win the match himself and then immediately lie down for Jericho to pin him and win the title back, it seems like he’s only putting the Ring of Jericho champ at risk by potentially getting himself pinned or submitted so the title could change hands without the champ being involved at all. Besides, if it was a three-way match, there would be no disqualifications anyway so Guevara could cheat to help out his mentor without actually being involved. Anywho, that’s a lot of words that have basically nothing to do with this match, but I suppose that kind of brain dump is what you get when I take an entire week off from wrestling commentary! I better never do that again, right? Haha…ha, yeah. So Danielson vs. Guevara was good! Both men got in basically all of their signature offense, which is unsurprising given how much time they had to showcase their skills. Sammy even locked in a few submissions and delivered a knee strike that were reminiscent of his opponent’s offensive style. Too bad we didn’t get a Danielson 630 splash in return, but I suppose there’s a pay-per-view coming up that they might be saving it for. Fingers crossed (except not really because that’s never happening)! Sammy also briefly locked in the Liontamer as an homage to his mentor whose title he’s going to try to take for some reas…y’know, I feel like I already talked about this. Moving on. Danielson finally got the win with a modified LeBell Lock, transitioning from having one arm trapped into a crossface with both arms trapped to secure the verbal submission. There wasn’t anything really on the line here, so the match could conceivably have gone either way, but it wasn’t surprising to see the more experienced, more popular wrestler pick up the win. It was a satisfying conclusion to an above-mediocre night of wrestling.

Best Moment of the Night

Here’s where I’d usually say “the wrestling wasn’t amazing but there were some great promos to make up for it” but uh…there wasn’t anything super great outside of the ring either. I promise this wasn’t a bad episode of Dynamite, just a very average show which seems odd with only two main shows left before Full Gear. MJF cut a promo on a podcast called Pardon My Take, comparing himself to some of the biggest stars of professional wrestling and stating that “the devil gets his due” at Full Gear. What more can I say? MJF is always good on the mic, though without a live crowd to play off of it was a little more subdued but no less good, and it didn’t add that much to his feud with the world champ but it didn’t really need to – we’re already as ready as we need to be to finally see them face off at the pay-per-view. The same goes for Jon Moxley‘s response later in the evening – it was great and it brought up Mox’s own history with William Regal after so much had been made of MJF’s past with Lord Regal, but it felt a little unnecessary at this point. It feels like there’s more to be mined out of this rivalry, but for whatever reason AEW has felt content to leave this rivalry up to the considerable mic skills of both men without really amping up the intensity or making things more personal between the two. The match should be every bit as good as anything either man has done in their careers, but I do feel like MJF vs. CM Punk did a better job of raising the stakes from week to week in advance of their ultimate showdown. MJF and Moxley built up immediately after Mox won the title and MJF won the poker chip guaranteeing him a title shot but since then has pretty much stayed at the same level. Anticipation remains high for their eventual showdown, but the stakes haven’t gotten any higher since it originally became apparent that they would face off. (Probably because the original plan was to revive Punk vs. MJF, but let’s not open that can of worms again.)

Probably the best moment of the night was Saraya announcing she’s medically cleared to compete and will face Dr. Britt Baker DMD at Full Gear. I’m on record as saying I’m not that excited about Saraya’s return because she was cagey about what her role in the company would be from the moment she arrived, but it is gratifying to see that she is going to return to the ring, albeit likely in a very part-time role. She has always cut a pretty good promo, and the added emotion of announcing her in-ring return and chronicling all of the struggles she has had to endure throughout her career elevated this segment above her average mic work. Baker added her usual schtick about being the face of the women’s division in AEW to push back on the idea that it’s ever going to be Saraya’s “house” (though I thought it was Swerve’s house, so we obviously need a house unification match at some point) and raise the apparent stakes for their non-title showcase. The physicality between the two of them was brief but significant, and saving this face-to-face showdown until just before Full Gear was obviously the smartest way to build anticipation for this first-time matchup. It’s also great to see AEW building multiple women’s rivalries to pay off at the pay-per-view – in addition to Saraya vs. Baker, we’re also getting Jade Cargill vs. Nyla Rose for the TBS Championship and Toni Storm vs. Jamie Hayter for the AEW Women’s World Championship. The feuds between all three sets of women haven’t been earth-shattering, but at least a greater attention has been paid to the division than the company has in the past.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

I was never sold on the pairing of WarJoe (not least because of that minimum effort name) so it’s not surprising that I didn’t really care about Samoa Joe turning on Wardlow after yet another pointless squash match for the TNT Champion. Neither man has much momentum going for them at the moment, so this random heel turn does very little for either of them, and it completely overshadows the budding rivalry Wardlow had with Powerhouse Hobbs. I get that the idea was supposed to be that Joe was offended by Wardlow’s comments about wanting all the titles in the company, but like…he’s the Ring of Honor TV Champion. That’s not really an AEW title so I don’t see how that statement could be interpreted as a threat to his reign. If he had chilled out for a moment, maybe Wardlow would have proposed adding Andrade to their team to go after the trios titles as WarJoeIdolo and, if successful, they could defend their belts against Miro, Serpentico, and Angelico. Or maybe they could add Parker Boudreaux (sound it out) and feud with Aaron Solo, Nick Comoroto, and Anthony Ogogo. Or Chris Jericho and Evil Uno…look, the joke here is that there’s lots of wrestlers in AEW whose names end in a long “o” sound. And we’ll never know how far they could go on the show if given the chance to grow into something pro and…okay, I’m out of clever “o” sounding words so I’m going to drop that joke again. The point is, this heel turn could have waited until after Wardlow and Hobbs had their big meaty men slapping meat match, and it even could have caused Wardlow to lose the title if they want to give Hobbs an opportunity while protecting the purveyor of the powerbomb symphony in defeat and starting a personal feud between the two big men. Instead, we got a throwaway heel turn that didn’t feel earned or impactful enough to make any real difference.

Parting Shots

• I’m not a fan of Jeff Jarrett, but at least they got an old guy to wrestle Sting so the sides actually feel even for their tag match involving Jay Lethal and Darby Allin. I can only hope AEW transitions J-A-double R-E-double T to a fully backstage role once that match is over, but no other wrestling company in the last 20 years has seemingly been able to do that, so Tony Khan has his work cut out for him. At least Jarrett isn’t in charge this time so he can’t book himself to win the title one last time to serve his vanity.
• Orange Cassidy finally has a championship and yet he’s apparently not scheduled to defend it at Full Gear. As consolation, we get to see him defend the All-Atlantic Championship against Lee Moriarty, that international star from *checks notes* Pittsburgh, PA. In the United States of America. The country Orange Cassidy is also from. Well, I guess the U.S. is on one side of the Atlantic, so technically it fits the theme of the title. I mean, there were Japanese wrestlers in the initial tournament, so who needs geography!
• I honestly can’t even think of a third thing I want to say about this show. It’s like the old saying goes, “put on an average show, expect an average review!” (That’s a saying, right?)

And that’s it for another week! Like I said, for whatever reason I wasn’t really feeling this show overall, though it did have its moments and a pretty good main event. I’m not as excited as I’d like to be with Full Gear so close, but it should end up being a good show regardless of the somewhat lackluster build. There’s always next week to ramp up the excitement even more, so I hope you’ll join me then for more Chair Shots!