Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Title Upgrade Dynamite

AEW wrapped up a number of major storylines and kickstarted a few new ones at Revolution on Sunday, so this week’s Dynamite had some opportunities to establish the direction for the show as we turn our attention to Double or Nothing in May. Two title bouts and several matches and segments designed to build off Revolution looked to get the next pay-per-view cycle off on the right foot, but did they land the way they were intended to? Let’s take a look at all the best and worst of this week’s show from Sacramento, CA.

Best Match of the Night

Revolution was a hard-hitting, bloody show nearly from top to bottom, so it’s little surprise that some of the top performers felt the need to take the night off or just work a lighter-impact match just three nights later. That said, there were at least some halfway decent matches on this night. AR Fox and Top Flight vs. the Jericho Appreciation Society (represented by Chris Jericho, Daniel Garcia, and Sammy Guevara) was one such decent match. The sports entertainers spent quite a bit of time schticking it up, posing and dancing on the apron and generally being obnoxious in their leather pants. The high flyers spent most of the match doing flips, dives, and other aerial-type maneuvers to make the crowd go “ooh” and “aah” and “what a maneuver” if they’re secretly Vince McMahon from the ’80s. AR Fox did a fair bit of the heavy lifting here, which wasn’t surprising since they were definitely losing and you don’t want to sacrifice one of the hot young teams just to build up an already-established faction like the JAS. I quite like a lot of the stuff Fox did in this match and what he has brought to the company since his debut in general, but I wouldn’t mind if he served more of a managerial role to allow Top Flight to focus a bit more on the tag division instead of the trios division where they seem to serve mainly as jobbers. Darius hit an impressive deadlift German suplex at one point, which was a nice reminder that the Martin brothers are not just flippy spot monkeys but actual wrestlers too. The finish was bleh, with Jake Hager using Floyd the bat behind the ref’s back to give Jericho an opening to hit the Judas Effect for the win on Darius. Jericho and co. crowed over their victory after the match and celebrated their one-year anniversary (no confetti, somehow, considering paper is the traditional first anniversary gift) despite the fact that, y’know, the match itself was just okay and they cheated to win it. Winning a single trios match is apparently enough to earn them the honor of getting their heads kicked in by the House of Black next week in a three-way match also involving the Elite, so I suppose when you think of it that way it wasn’t such a bad outcome for Top Flight and AR Fox. I would have preferred to have the lights go out in the midst of their bragging and come back up with the entire Jericho Appreciation Society laid out by the new trios champs, but I suppose we can’t have them looking too strong at this early point in their reign.

The main event TNT Championship Match between Wardlow and Powerhouse Hobbs was similarly decent, elevated slightly by the fact that it was a “falls count anywhere anything goes” match, which is a weird way to pronounce “street fight” in AEW-ese. That stipulation was a decent cover for the fact that Wardlow didn’t have his ring gear after it was stolen (along with his new title belt) the night before the show. The match started off hot with a backstage brawl in the car park with Hobbs hitting an overhead suplex onto a car’s hood and Wardlow hitting a back body drop through its windshield. One imagines this was a cathartic moment for the Wardog after having his rental car broken into, dealing damage to a vehicle in retribution for its cousin’s inability to defend his precious possessions. Once in the ring, Hobbs hit a spinebuster symphony on his opponent, but moments later the champ hit one of the most insane spots of the match, diving from the top turnbuckle to drive Hobbs through a table at ringside. Only the Wardaddy is allowed to hit three of the same move in sequence, he seemed to say as his massive frame flew through the air in a display quite unbefitting of a man his size. However, the match took a significant downturn from there as QT Marshall got involved to help Hobbs. I really want to say “for some reason” but I do suppose Marshall owing Hobbs a favor was foreshadowed somewhat even though most people probably hoped he would just forget about it. At least his involvement here will hopefully lead to two further developments: first, hopefully Wardlow utterly demolishes Marshall at some point in the near future, and second, hopefully his alliance with Hobbs has come to an end. We certainly don’t need a random team named QT Power or Marshobbs kicking around the tag division. Hobbs and Marshall combined to put Wardlow through a somewhat breakable part of the set, by which I mean Hobbs powerbombed him while Marshall totally helped in some definitely meaningful way, and since the match was apparently also a last man standing match somehow, Wardlow was counted out by the referee to give Hobbs the win. Marshall produced some sort of replica TNT Championship belt to signify the changing of the title, and the show went off the air with the Powerhouse champ mean mugging for the camera. It’s not ideal to hot potato the championship like this, but with Hobbs winning in such obviously underhanded fashion, it’s obvious Wardlow isn’t done with the new champ by any means. Having Hobbs lose after winning the Face of the Revolution match would have been worse, in my opinion, so I’m not complaining too much about the result. The way of getting there was slightly wonky and less than ideal, but there were enough highlights along the way that the latter portion of the match didn’t entirely overshadow the good bits.

Best match honors go to Orange Cassidy vs. Jay Lethal in the opening match for the All-Atlantic Championship. Amazingly, given the way these two competitors have been booked recently, this was actually a one-on-one encounter free of the outside shenanigans one might’ve expected (until after the match was over) and, even more amazingly, it was quite good. Oh, wait, maybe that first part was more amazing and the second wasn’t amazing at all. Lethal targeted Cassidy’s leg while Cassidy targeted Lethal’s arm, both of which played a role in how the match played out. OC tried to hit an Orange Punch at one point, but his leg buckled and Lethal was able to take advantage by locking on the Figure Four. Late in the match, Lethal went for a Lethal Injection, but his arm buckled and OC was able to take advantage by hitting an Orange Punch. Lovely symmetry there. As we all know, of course, Orange Punch beats Figure Four by the rock-paper-scissors logic of wrestling, so Cassidy was able to win and retain his title. It’s sort of hard to describe what made this match so good because there weren’t a ton of high spots or crazy moments but just a lot of solid, logical professional wrestling full of counters and athleticism and good stuff that wrestling nerds like me enjoy. Cassidy is a great champ and deserves better than having to work Jeff Jarrett, which he will now have to do after having his knee El Kabong-ed by Jarrett’s guitar after the match. At least it was announced later in the night in a promo from Tony Khan that was not at all awkward or repetitive or redundant or anything that the All-Atlantic Championship will be upgraded into the International Championship (is that really an “upgrade”? I’m not sure – “International Championship” just sounds kind of generic, though technically more accurate than “All-Atlantic”) after Cassidy inevitably retains it again next week. Because surely he’s going to retain it against a 55-year-old whose greatest wrestling skill is being related to the person (or just being the person) booking the show, right? Right, Tony Khan? Anyway, Cassidy vs. Lethal was quite good on a night in which most of the wrestling was just fine. What more can you ask for?

Best Moment of the Night

Adam Page cut a good but short promo warning the rest of the AEW locker room that he won’t hesitate to take them to hell the way he did with Jon Moxley on Sunday while also claiming he’s done with Mox and moving on to bigger and better things. Having Renee Paquette conduct interviews with her husband’s victims is always great, so having a black-eyed conqueror in Hangman Page giving the promo here was a nice change of pace. Of course, this promo was very exciting as his program with Mox reached its natural conclusion after a brutal Texas death match, so that promising development had to be undone later in the evening when Page came out to stand up for his Dark Order allies(?) when Mox and Claudio Castagnoli took some liberties with John Silver and Alex Reynolds post-match. At least it sort of seemed like Page was more involved with Claudio than Mox. That’s…different, right?

FTR returned to a huge ovation after their surprising return at Revolution, and they wasted no time setting their sights on the Gunns and their tag team titles. This was a great, emotional promo in which Dax and Cash talked about needing time away due to losing all of their titles in such a short time and losing one of their best friends, Jay Briscoe. They revealed, however, that seeing the Gunns parade around with the tag titles like they deserved more respect than they had earned, especially after they had tainted the end of the final FTR vs. Briscoe Brothers match, brought them back to serve up some overdue retribution. It’s interesting and notable that they spoke about professional wrestling and the fans in general without ever directly referencing AEW and its fans, which may reflect the fact that they haven’t signed a long-term extension to stick around beyond their reported April contract expiration. Then again, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but then again again, maybe now that they’re back that means their good pal CM Punk is also returning and everything will be good again forever! Believe what you choose to believe, that’s all I’m saying.

Much as I normally prefer promos to be cut on the night of the show itself rather than being pre-recorded, I have to give best moment of the night to Bryan Danielson‘s promo recorded after his brutal ironman match with MJF at Revolution. (MJF’s pre-recorded promo was also good, but Danielson managed to one-up him here.) Danielson spoke of being more ashamed by the realization that MJF was right that he had put wrestling ahead of his family and he was putting himself at risk of being unable to play with his kids than the humiliation of tapping out to his own submission finisher, and it really tugged at the heartstrings with the intercut footage of the American Dragon and his kids playing around in the ring. He talked about how he always thought he was setting a good example for his kids by teaching them that you have to fight for what you believe in, but he realized that there may be more value in just being there for them. He ended the promo by rising to his feet and saying “It’s time for me to go home.” Who knows when we’ll see him again – with the rest of the Blackpool Combat Club turning heel, it makes a lot of sense for him to allow them to do their own thing and sell his loss to MJF by taking some time off. Then again, Moxley has been rumored to take time off for quite a while, and he just wrestled three nights after one of the most brutal matches at Revolution that absolutely could have served as an excuse to write him off for a bit, so maybe time off is an illusion that doesn’t exist in AEW’s world. Regardless, Danielson absolutely smashed this promo with his raw, emotional delivery and mannerisms.

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

Other than the aforementioned weird promo from Tony Khan and the ridiculousness of having QT Marshall involved in a main event angle, there wasn’t really anything to complain about here. Moving on.

Parting Shots

• Revolution was excellent overall despite a somewhat underwhelming build, and I only got one of my predictions wrong (which, admittedly, was my least confident prediction anyway) so I was a pretty happy camper by the end of the night despite the fact that I desperately wished it had been on a Saturday rather than a Sunday because I’m old as dust and having an hour-long match at the conclusion of a pay-per-view that was already running a bit on the late side on a school night was not the most fun thing in the world. Having the show run until 11 p.m. makes it hard to get to bed at 1 a.m. because I have to wake up in the morning, dammit. Put the show on Saturday so I can luxuriate until 3 a.m. after the show ends like a normal adult.
• Ruby Soho’s promo explaining why she sided with Saraya and Toni Storm didn’t quite make sense, but at least they offered a promo segment to a woman on the roster other than Britt Baker. I still think everything that happened at Revolution up to Soho helping the heels spray-paint their rivals would have worked better, establishing her as a completely independent entity rather than another generic heel. I did like her line about needing to tear everything down before it can be built up again, though.
• I feel like Don Callis is particularly unnecessary now that Kenny Omega is a babyface again – Kenny’s a good enough promo that he never really needed the Invisible Hand, in my opinion – but him saying that Chris Jericho is the second-best wrestler from Winnipeg and “if I had a couple of months to train, you’d be #3” really got me.

That’s it for another week – nothing transcendent in this episode, but some good stuff and overall a solid follow-up to a hot show on Sunday. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope to see you all back next week for more Chair Shots!