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COMPLETE AEW DYNAMITE BLOG

Absolutely no time wasted as the Young Bucks, the AEW World tag team champions make their way to the ring.  We see where TH2 attacked them last week.  So just like that a team that has absolutely no hype behind them are in there with the Bucks.  We're told by Tony Schiavone (who's on the call with JR and Excalibur tonight) that TH2 will earn a title shot if they beat the Bucks tonight.  Here's hoping the champs win.  TH2 has as much chance of winning the AEW Tag Titles as Cory Strode and I do.  Bucks win this, we're spared the rematch where the outcome would be 0% in doubt.

New World Champion Kenny Omega and Sting will speak tonight, along with Shaquille O'Neal. So AEW is pulling out no stops tonight before we head into the Christmas lull.  

Don't allow my earlier comments to serve as an indictment of the skills of Evans and Angelico.  They very talented and have a place here.  It's just that AEW, for all their skills, have done nothing to make them interesting to me.   They get a very rare appearance on Dynamite.  They're barely promoted on Dark, along with the other 35 wrestlers on that show on any given week.  Evans gets conveniently thrown into the Acclaimed.  Bucks hit a Doomsday Device on Evans and by the time I finished writing that, he's already back on his feet.  Can you imagine the shoot beating Hawk would have laid on someone in the 1980s?  BTE Triggers by the Bucks finally put this away.  Decent enough showing by TH2, problem is you know it'll be 2021 by the time they get any more air time on TNT.  Before this, there was a Meltzer Driver on the floor.  That's an angle right then and there but it's quickly dismissed.The Acclaimed make their move on the Bucks but The Addiction (oops, SCU) make the save immediately.

MJF with a warning to his opponent for the Diamond Ring, Orange Cassidy.

Darby Allin's at a Doctor's office looking at pictures of Team Taz.  He laughs at a picture of Sting.

Here comes Arn Anderson & Cody Rhodes!  Darby Allin is in the rafters.  Tony Schiavone manages to get a question out before Sting arrives and we get an "It's STIIIIIIIIIIIING!"  That brought back some fond memories.  He's wearing the Crow outfit but is giving off the mannerisms of Surfer Sting.  Cody says he's waited a long time to share a ring with Sting but Sting kind of dismisses him, pointing out Darby in the crowd.  The crowd gives him a "welcome back".  Seems like Cody's trying to gage what's going on.  I can't tell if he's tweening it or overplaying the confused role.  Sting reminds us that he's signed a long term deal and will be here a long time.  Seems to be a lot of distrust between the two.  They got through the segment with no real amount of anything at all going on.  Not sure if this was the right time to have Sting goofing off with Tony.

FTR vs. The Varsity Blondes of Brian Pillman Jr and Griff Garrison is up next.  The Blondes have had some decent outings on Dark and got some wins under their belt.  Problem is that Pillman isn't really a blonde.  The two make a pretty good underneath team.  This is a perfect opportunity for FTR to make them look a little special. Two young upstart babyfaces vs. the heel FTR is a great opportunity the former champs to let the kids shine here.  They're playing it 50-50 but FTR doesn't look silly when selling here.  Garrison and Pillman should be getting some offense here.  JR just described Garrison as a "Project".  Can't argue with that assessment.  He's got a really good upside.  His role (and Pillman's, too) should be to get some wins against the lower tier guys and look decent fighting hard against the "Stars".  Goodnight Express and FTR gets the win.  FTR get into a little shoving match with Jurassic Express.

Alex Reytnolds and John Silver interrupt Hangman Page, and Page makes them his partners for next week's six man tag against Private Party and Matt Hardy.  The fact that Private Party even agreed to team up with Hardy after, I don't know, watching the program that they're on, makes them absolutely unsympathetic suckers in my mind.

10 of the Dark Order vs. Dustin Rhodes is up next.

FTR vs. The Varsity Blondes of Brian Pillman Jr and Griff Garrison is up next.  The Blondes have had some decent outings on Dark and got some wins under their belt.  Problem is that Pillman isn't really a blonde.  The two make a pretty good underneath team.  This is a perfect opportunity for FTR to make them look a little special. Two young upstart babyfaces vs. the heel FTR is a great opportunity the former champs to let the kids shine here.  They're playing it 50-50 but FTR doesn't look silly when selling here.  Garrison and Pillman should be getting some offense here.  JR just described Garrison as a "Project".  Can't argue with that assessment.  He's got a really good upside.  His role (and Pillman's, too) should be to get some wins against the lower tier guys and look decent fighting hard against the "Stars".  Goodnight Express and FTR gets the win.  FTR get into a little shoving match with Jurassic Express.

Alex Reynolds and John Silver interrupt Hangman Page, and Page makes them his partners for next week's six man tag against Private Party and Matt Hardy.  

10 of the Dark Order vs. Dustin Rhodes is up next.  Is the Dark Order even considered a thing anymore?  The complete and total make up of the group has been completely wiped away.  Evil Uno and Stu Grayson fit the bill, no doubt.  But since Brodie Lee entered the Federal Witness Protection program, everyone else has kind of just marched to the beat of their own drum, no rhyme, no reason.  10 just pump kicked Aaron Solow out of nowhere for some reason.  Anyway the group is kind of just Grayson and Uno, with a bunch of guys now just doing their own thing.  Rhodes wins and out comes Evil Uno to make an offer for him to join officially as 7.  Schiavone wisely points out that there's no way he'd want that number.  To the surprise of exactly no one, Dustin with a slap across Uno's face.  HEY, there's Colt Cabana.

Earlier today, Tony sat down with Shaquille O'Neal and Brandi Rhodes.  OK lets get the scorecard out.  Jade Cargill is a heel who attacked Brandi.  Brandi theoretically is the face.  Shaq is beloved, but he's aligned with Jade, the heel.  Brandi addresses Shaq as a complete and total bitchy heel.  She throws water on Shaq.

Someone please tell me who I'm supposed to be rooting for here.

Time for the Ultimatum.  If MJF was so divisive, why don't they just throw him out.  Santana is not there.  MJF takes the mic and tries to sway things in his favor.  To Jericho's credit, he acknowledged that he saw what happened last week and knows Sammy Guevara didn't try to throw in the towel.  Sammy gets right in MJF's face.  MJF swears on his life he had the towel just to wipe sweat.  Ortiz gets him the way and actually plays peacemaker.  He advises Sammy to shake MJF's hand.  In life you don't get to choose the hand your dealt.  Sammy shakes his hand but basically says MJF is on Super-Not-So-Secret Double Probation.  If one more things happens, he'll quit the Inner Circle.  Everything worked out well, except...

Jake Hager and Wardlow don't like that each stares at the other.  Jericho, as the father figure, tells them to stop staring at each other.  MJF plug the main event and reminds everyone that Orange Cassidy beat Jericho twice, and MJF knows how hard that is.

 

Eddie Kingston, Butcher and Blade vs. The Lucha Bros and Lance Archer is next.  I'm not entirely sure why Archer and Kingston have issues. Archer won the battle royal some time back.  He got his title shot.  Kingston had a arguement that he was never eliminated.  HE got his title shot. They both lost their opportunities.  Neither man had anything to do with the other at all.  Now there's some odd grudge the two have had against each other for quite some time. Make no mistake, Kingston and Archer are going to have a fun brawl when this finally comes to a head.  Surely, AEW could have come up with a better angle, storyline, incident, something to make us care.

I'm kind of watching this waiting for all hell to break loose but nothing really of note is happening, aside of Penta being sent through a table and not competing.  Hmmm...Penta not involved with any physicality against Kingston?  Something to keep an eye on. Fenix with a tope suicida lands on his head.  that looked scary.  Kingston, Butcher and Blade pick up the win and the Murderhawk Monster goes on the attack, showing a little bit more fire than he did during the match itself.

Red Velvet is getting beaten up by Jade Cargill and the Vicious Vixens.  This lasted about 30 seconds and may have been the single worst act of physicality I've ever seen out of an alleged wrester.  Cargill belongs as far away from my TV as humanly possible.

Abadon picks up a quick win over Teisha Price.  Apparently, all the referees are afraid of her.  Shida makes the save and wallops Abadon with the Kendo Stick.  Undertaker...oops, Abadon sits up and the champion slowly walks away. 

The Inner Circle will be at ringside for MJF tonight.

AEW World Champion Kenny Omega and Don Callis arrive on a helicopter.  That's a nice touch, I have to admit.  Omega gets his Justin Roberts intro.  The presentation is tremendous and Callis is a GREAT talker. The dynamic these two bring is going to be very interesting to say the least.  I still for the life of me can't figure out what's in this for AEW.  Impact absolutely comes out of this looking much better.  Tony Schiavone takes Omega to task and says it's the most disgusting thing he's ever seen in wrestling, and that covers a lot of angles.  Callis tells us all that their plan to take over wrestling has been years in the making.  Don and Kenny take credit for creating AEW, reminding us of Tony Khan's statement that the Omega v Jericho match from the Tokyo Dome gave him the idea for AEW.

Kenny takes the mic and announces he played the long game in getting Callis into the company to take it over.  Omega makes reference to his "art" and "performance".  Callis reminds us that Kenny makes history before Kenny bids us adieu in his classic Bullet Club exit.

Dynamite diamond Ring and Main Event time as MJF takes on Orange Cassidy.  As promised, the Inner Circle comes out with MJF and the Best Friends accompany OC.  My best guess is that Miro and Kip Sabian get involved here somehow. Two of the most polarizing young talents in wrestling today kick things off with MJF on the attack.  Cassidy grew on me, no doubt.  There's 2 issues I've had with him over the last 5 months:

1.  He's overexposed.  The character works so much better and so much more effectively in smaller doses.

2.  In the ring, the character just looks off having to sell so much.  A guy this "cool" and nonchalant almost gives off the feeling that he deserves the beatings he's getting

MJF has pretty much controlled this thing from the outset.  Best Friends bring out the reinforcements to counter the numbers with the Inner Circle.

BTW we are advised that Dec 30 and Jan 6 will be specially themed New Years Shows.  Good call on AEW's part as the 30th had the potential to be that missable show between the holidays.

Orange Cassidy takes over and hits a spring board senton to the Inner Circle on the outside.   MJF tries to use Floyd the Bat to pull off an Eddie Guerrero like trick play but Cassidy outplayed him nicely, first by not catching the bat and then dropping dead-like when MJF grabbed it.  The lumberjacks are brawling and here comes Miro with a lariat and the ref missed it.  MJF with the pin and his 2nd Dynamite Diamond Ring victory.

AEW definitely used tonight's show as a chance to breathe after the chaos from last week.  Cory and I will have the post game show up later tonight. Thanks for reading.

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