Chair Shots With Killem Faulkner: Weed Day Dynamite

AEW blazed its way into Pittsburgh for the 4/20 edition of Dynamite, and some truly high times were in store as Tony Khan promised a spliffing big announcement, Hook rolled into the joint for the first time on the flagship show, and fan excitement got higher than a kite as the company built toward its next pay-per-view, Double or Nothing. The question remained, however: would this week’s session deliver that dank primo stuff, or would the show go up in smoke leaving viewers with nothing but stems and seeds? Grab your best buds Jay and Mary Jane and let’s toke…I mean, take a look at the buzz-worthy moments from this week’s show.

(Also, I’m going to stop with the marijuana references now – it was a mildly amusing gimmick to get us started, but I’m not a stoner so it was bound to feel increasingly forced and unnatural as the article went on. Plus it won’t be 4/20 by the time you read this so who really needs day-old jokes anyway?)

Best Match of the Night

This was a pretty average show from an in-ring standpoint, in my opinion – there were some decent matches but nothing that really blew me away from a quality standpoint. We need the occasional building show like this to tide us over between pay-per-views, but I doubt anyone is going to go out of their way to re-watch this show or recommend any of the matches to their friends who may not be wrestling fans. That isn’t to say that it was a waste of time, however, and there were plenty of moments for fans to enjoy even if the overall show wasn’t anything monumental. CM Punk vs. Dustin Rhodes got the show off to a hot start as the two ring veterans clashed one-on-one for the first time in their careers. This was a very good match, probably the best from a pure wrestling standpoint, as both men sought to work over their opponent in a fairly mat-based, old-school type of match. My only real complaint was that the finish felt kind of weak – Rhodes tried to counter the GTS into a sunset flip but Punk sat down for a surprise 3-count. Punk is clearly being built up as a contender for the AEW World Championship, so you would have expected a hard-fought but ultimately more definitive conclusion rather than a somewhat flukey “surprise rollup” kind of finish. Maybe the idea was to keep the Natural looking strong in defeat, but I seriously question how much it would have hurt him to eat a GTS from one of the top stars in the company. The display of sportsmanship after the match was nice, however, as Punk checked to make sure his opponent’s knee was all right after the punishment it took in the match, and Rhodes raised the victor’s hand to further put him over. Adam Page emerged for a post-match faceoff with his presumable challenger at Double or Nothing, but AEW wisely saved any physical or verbal sparring for another time. Overall, this match was effective at what it set out to do, which was deliver a good match between two men who many fans have wanted to see in the ring together for a while now and continue building up Punk as he chases the world title.

Another match that delivered on its potential was the Blackpool Combat Club vs. Lee Moriarty, Dante Martin, and Brock Anderson. Granted, it felt like a bit of a step down for the BCC to fight a random collection of wrestlers after defeating one of the most successful trios in AEW, the Gunn Club, on last week’s Rampage. Still, it was a good excuse to get some talented young prospects in the ring with one of the hottest acts in the company, and Pittsburgh’s own Lee Moriarty got a chance to shine in particular against Bryan Danielson, who name-dropped him when recruiting Jon Moxley to join this enterprise in the first place. I did wonder why Brock Anderson was in there instead of Darius Martin, who has largely been MIA since his return from injury last month. I suppose AEW may have been trying to save Top Flight from taking a loss as a team, though I can’t imagine anybody would particularly care about their trios record. That isn’t meant as a dig at Brock Anderson either – he accounted for himself just fine, delivering a spinebuster that dear ol’ dad Arn would have been proud of. There isn’t much else to say about this match – it was good, if a little short, and it served as a showcase for the newly united Danielson, Moxley, and Wheeler Yuta.

My personal pick for match of the night was the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament qualifier between Kyle O’Reilly and Jungle Boy. All you need to know about this match was summed up in a single spot early on in the match when Jungle Boy went for a flying arm drag and O’Reilly countered it into an armbar. JB brought the high-flying, fast-paced offense we’re used to seeing from him, and O’Reilly used his technical skills to pick his spots and counter his opponent’s offense into painful kicks and submission holds. O’Reilly getting the win was a bit of a surprise as he really isn’t a singles match guy, but I suppose after his backstage pep talk from earlier in the night he needed to show he could back up his words with his actions in the ring. Plus Jungle Jack has won enough matches in his career that beating him still means something and registers as a bit of an upset even though on paper this was two tag specialists going one-on-one. Their individual styles meshed well together as expected, which is why we will hopefully get another match between reDRagon and Jurassic Express (or “Jungle Cruisers” as O’Reilly termed them) sometime soon. Jungle Boy even showed a bit more aggressiveness and even frustration than usual in this match, drawing the ire of referee Aubrey Edwards as he worked over O’Reilly in the tree of woe and needing to be consoled by Christian Cage after the loss. I’m not sure if that will lead to anything, but at the very least it put over how much winning a spot in the Owen Hart tourney means to the participants in these qualifying matches.

Best Moment of the Night

The main event coffin match may have ended up being fairly pedestrian compared to other extreme gimmick matches the company has put on, but there was a fun moment when Marq Quen grabbed a sign that read “I came to see Darby Allin” from a “fan” in a Sting mask, only for him to unmask and reveal it was actually Sting underneath. Yes, it was super obvious that it was Sting all along and I have no idea why heels continue to be fooled by that particular disguise, but it was a funny moment anyway. Hook‘s Dynamite debut may not have been anything special, but it was good to see him introduced to a wider audience, and the post-match confrontation with Danhausen was great. If you haven’t been following the storyline between these two, Danhausen has tried to curse Hook several times now to no avail, and he has been increasingly flummoxed by this fact. That led to the moment when Danhausen, mic in hand, confronted Hook and said if he won’t be cursed, he’ll just have to fight him instead. Of course, Hook brushed off his challenge, shoulder bumping the very nice, very evil one on his way out of the ring. If Danhausen’s debut match in AEW ends up being against Hook, that will be a very exciting development indeed.

The best moment of the night, unsurprisingly, ended up being Tony Khan‘s big announcement, which was upstaged by Adam Cole and Jay White. Khan brought New Japan Pro Wrestling’s president Takami Ohbari to the stage with him, but Cole interrupted and announced that the two companies will be holding a joint pay-per-view in June called, appropriately enough, Forbidden Door. Cole upped the ante by announcing a preview of sorts this Friday when he will take on NJPW’s Tomohiro Ishii in a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. Jay White entered to inform Khan and Ohbari that this show isn’t about AEW and NJPW, but rather the Undisputed Elite and Bullet Club. This announcement is great news for a couple of main reasons. First, it’s always nice to have another AEW pay-per-view to look forward to, as this will apparently be an additional show rather than a replacement for one of its established shows. Second, it will be a great opportunity for some big crossovers between the two companies who have worked together in the past but not to this degree. Yes, we’ve seen White, Ishii, and Minoru Suzuki on AEW programming in the past, but we have yet to see some of the bigger NJPW stars cross over. It’s not hard to imagine the likes of Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, and Tetsuya Naito facing off against some of the top stars in AEW at a show like this, and the number of dream matches one can easily imagine coupled with Khan’s proven penchant for giving the fans what they want makes this a truly thrilling development. Especially if you live in the midwest and hope to get tickets to see it live…

Worst Matches/Moments of the Night

At least Sammy Guevara and Tay Conti were leaning into the heel reactions this week, but it was still incredibly odd to see Dan Lambert get anything approaching a positive response from the crowd. Darby Allin backdropping Andrade’s assistant Jose onto the thumbtack-covered coffin lid was a good idea in theory, but in practice it looked like only Jose’s legs came anywhere near the tacks – I certainly don’t expect there to be any grisly photos of his bare back covered in pinpricks on social media as they were likely intending to deliver from that spot. As I said before, the coffin match overall just didn’t work for me, and it was little stuff like this (and the fairly anticlimactic ending that reeked of “we’re out of time, just go home”) that made it feel off despite the best efforts of all involved.

Parting Shots

• I appreciate the “Simon give us an ↑” sign at ringside (as well as the “Support WrestleTalk” sign that I think was held up by the same person) but it seems premature to bust that out in the first match, no? Surely Simon Miller is going to want you to earn that golden up, right? The golden up is a prestigious honor, after all, not something he just randomly awards for no reason whatsoever just because you asked for it.
• While I’m nitpicking that opening match (which again I must emphasize was quite good) why did CM Punk go for a Figure Four Leglock rather than the Sharpshooter? He was wearing the Bret Hart gear, after all.
• I’m legitimately not sure if anyone is more over in their hometown than Dr. Britt Baker DMD in Brittsburgh. Her qualifying match was a full-on squash and she managed to bury the entire women’s division in her post-match promo (not a smart move, AEW) but she could have read the phone book for five minutes and the crowd still would have eaten it up. I suppose it didn’t hurt that she had two Pittsburgh Steelers, running back Najee Harris and tight end Pat Freiermuth, accompanying her to the ring this week either. Oh, and her parents were at ringside, so she was basically as bulletproof as it gets on this night.
• Cash Wheeler will face Dax Harwood next week in an Owen Hart Foundation Tournament qualifier, which is just brutal for two guys who clearly idolize the Hart Foundation but should produce an incredibly fun match for the fans at least. Sorry FTR, there’s only enough space for one of you in the tournament itself, apparently.
• Speaking of exciting matches that were announced for next week’s Dynamite, we were promised a blowoff between Hikaru Shida and Serena Deeb in a Philadelphia street fight. This feud will officially come full circle, as they had their first match in Philadelphia last June, and it has been nothing short of excellent so far. If it does come to an end next week, hopefully AEW will give them the time needed to deliver a fitting conclusion.

That’ll wrap things up for another week – like I said, I feel like this was a pretty average show with a couple of standout moments sprinkled in. Thanks for joining me once again, and I hope you’ll all come back next week for more Chair Shots!