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IMPACT STARS APPEAR, OMEGA VS. FENIX & MORE: COMPLETE AEW DYNAMITE NEW YEAR'S SMASH BLOG

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We are LIVE from Dailey's place in Jacksonville for the first AEW Dynamite of 2021, appropriately titled New Years Smash. Le Champion Chris Jericho joins Excalibur, Taz and Tony Schiavone at the booth as SCU and the Young Bucks open tonight's action in a Cory Strode favorite, a multi man tag team match against TH2 and The Acclaimed. 

The ring skirts and railings are all about promoting TBS' Go-Big Show.  Platinum Max Caster actually got edited out twice doing his pre match rap.  The kid has got some charisma, I have to give him credit.  I'm not clear as to whether tonight counts as a team breaking up-esque loss for SCU should they lose here tonight.  

I'll say it, TH2 and the Acclaimed need to win this match.  The Acclaimed had a hell of a breakout performance 2 weeks ago against the Buck.  TH2 has never been given proper credit by the company.  A loss here would just keep AEW on the trajectory its always on: the stars (in this case, the Bucks) make the upstarts look good, the match is competitive enough, stars win, rinse, repeat.  I will say that as a longtime ROH fan, it's always odd seeing the Bucks and Kazarian/Daniels cooperating with each other, given the Ladder War they had in 2016.   

Kazarian and Matt Jackson hit the BTE trigger and Evans breaks up the pin.  Do not, I repeat, do not have that move used in such a way that lower card guys can continue to compete after getting hit with it.  That move, to me, looks as devastating as an Omega V Trigger, an Ibushi Kamagoye and a Nakamura Boom-aye.  SCU and the Bucks score the win with the Daniels assisted Best Meltzer Ever.  Kazarian educates the Dynamite audience about the deal he made to break up the tag team with Daniels the next time they lose.  This was a storyline begun on AEW Dark, which may have been missed in the 4th or 5th hour of the show, so I consider it a wise move to make sure the main audience understands what's at stake and maybe, just maybe, SCU can get some heat behind them.

Former AEW World Champion Jon Moxley is back as he takes to the ring. Mox reminds us life is not fair and it's an unforgiving world.  sometimes all you can do is grit and endure.  There won't be any griping on his part.  Mox believes in protecting the integrity of the AEW world title.  He says it's not his right to interfere in Rey Fenix' destiny.  He does have a violent warning for Kenny Omega.  Good promo by Moxley and a nice way to let us know he won't be involved in tonight's match.

Chuck and Orange Cassidy give the report that Trent will be out 4-5 months.  They're immediately interrupted by Kip Sabian, Miro and Penelope Ford.  Chuck issues a challenge.  Miro accepts with the stipulation that Chuck will be Miro's "Young Boy" until the wedding in February if Miro wins.

Wardlow vs. Jake Hager is up next.  As a "Son's of Anarchy" fan, I greatly appreciate Wardlow's "Mr. Meyhem" moniker.  The rest of the Inner Circle comes to the stage to watch this one, Jericho remains on commentary.

A huge THANK YOU to all you fans out there who, in ONE DAY, made Brodie Lee the Top T Shirt seller on ProWrestlingTees for all of 2020.  Wrestling Twitter can be a cesspool at times, but wrestling fans always come through in situations like this.  Bravo to you all!

We're back from commercial.  We've got you basic big man match.  Not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, just basic.  Jericho saves it by screaming at Excalibur for plugging the upcoming Shida vs. Abadon title match instead of calling the issue at hand.  These 2 hosses are doing a good job hitting power moves.  Wardlow has no business being able to to a senton with such ease at his size.  Warlow with the clean pin after an F10.  I gotta admit, I had this one ending in shenanigans.  Seems these 2 beat some mutual respect into each other.  Good ending really improved the overall match.

Matt Hardy, Private Party & Snoop Dogg are in the back.  Matt wants them to sign a managerial contract, which they do.  Matt makes reference to them being allowed to do Cameo, Twitch, etc.  Snoop Dogg was booked in this segment to do absolutely nothing.  That doesn't make any sense to me, but what the heck do I know.

The Machine Brian Cage comes out with Team Taz for tonight's weigh in.

Darby Allin comes out through the entrance, BRAND NEW AEW TNT title belt in tow, and it is beautiful.  Cage is a solid 272lbs.  Allin weighs in at 170 lbs.  Taz is giving the business to Schiavone.  He's great!  As a huge fan of Tony and Conrad Thompson's podcast, I know Schiavone is desperately trying to hold in the laughter.  Allin actually wants to fight them all and the lights go out.  Sting comes out and Team Taz retreats, again.  Taz cuts an impassioned promo on Allin.  There must be an edict against swearing since TNT is trying to edit all the questionable language.  The funny part is they're about a second behind so all the words remain but the next word doesn't.

I've railed against the way Team Taz keeps getting run off by a 61 year old and a 170 pounder.  It seems redundant to do it here again, but in my opinion, they need to stop doing this, especially if the plan is for Brian Cage to NOT win the TNT title, which conventional wisdom tells me he will not.  These five guys were made to look weak again.  I just don't understand it.  I honestly don't.  In my opinion, Team Taz deserves better.

MJF is talking to Jake Hager, trying to calm him down.

We see highlights from last night's Dark, where Dark Order's -1 came out and talked some trash to Marko Stunt.  I'm OK with that.  Jurassic Express is cutting a promo when FTR interrupts them.  It's Stunt and Perry vs. FTR next week.

Matt Sydal vs. Cody Rhodes is next.  Snoop Dogg joins Cody tonight and Snoop recorded a little intro to Cody's theme.  For my money, the single best celebrity friendship besides Patrick Stewart and Ian McKlellan is Snoop and Martha Stewart.  Snoop is holding the Arn Anderson scouting report.  I think I'll give the Go Big Show a whirl.  Cody accidentally nails Sepentico in the crowd, which angers Luther. My spidey Sense is tingling.  Snoop is calling some plays for the American Nightmare as we go to the iconic picture in picture.  Given the star power of Snoop, I think doing PIP here was a bad decision.  You really want to make the most of your minutes with him.  They already kind of blew it with the Private Party skit.

Sydal just ran into Cody's knees on a shooting star press.  That, folks, has GOT to hurt.  Cody with a disaster kick.  The Jacksonville crown with a brief "this is awesome" chant.  I'm not going that far.  It's good, no doubt.  Probably not helping that I've watched NJPW 3 straight days. Cody with the CrossRhodes for the pin.  HERE comes Luther and Serpentico.  Sydal fights them off.  Cody and Sydal beat Serpentico down and Snoop Dogg himself with a splash off the top rope.  This is ordinarily the part where I complain.  I'll say this, AEW wanted some mainstream pub and this will help get it.  No one besides a lower level Dark guy (Serpentico) got sacrificed and a song and dance number did not break out.  I actually found that pretty cool.

AEW World Women's Championship match time as Abadon challenges Hikaru Shida.  I have not been a fan of this on a lot of fronts.  Abadon gets a brutal win in her AEW debut vs. Anna Jay and isn't seen for months.  Shida, this fighting champion who has been the shining light of the in ring portion of AEW's women's division, is somehoe terrified of her?  And now they've given Abadon the gimmick of biting chunks out of Shida's flesh?  I hated it when Shayna Baszler did it to Becky Lynch and feel no different about this.  Abadon dragged Shida under the ring.  When they emerged, Abadon was drooling blood and Shida was bleeding from where, I believe, the carotid artery would be.  That strikes me as dangerous.  Luckily, as the Black Knight would say, it's merely a flesh wound.

Shida's recovered nicely.  They seem to have backed away from the "Shida is afraid" portion of this feud.  Oddly the match ended about 90 seconds after they came back from commercial.  Shida with the running knee, 1-2-3.  Just like that, the threat of Abadon is finished.  Methinks they're running low on time as they went right to the back for a Tay Conti interview.  She's challenging Serena Deeb for the NWA Women's title next week.

Next week's show is STACKED.  No clue how they'll fir everything in

9:29 on the East Coast and it's main event time as Rey Fenix comes out for his moment of destiny.  Justin Roberts with his Mega-Omega intro. I get a kick out of it.  If you were to tell me in 1998 that the leader of the Oddities would be THE managerial highlight of 2020 and beyond I'd say you were crazy.  nice touch by the announcing to let us know that, if needed, TNT will stay with this match past 10:00 eastern if need be. I have no doubt this will end on time but it's a nice way to legitimize the match as a real contest.  Excalibur throws a little congratulations to Kota Ibushi for winning the IWGP and Intercontinental titles at the Tokyo Dome this week (definitely watch the Jay White match if you can).  I've said this before (heck, I said it earlier, I think) and I'll say it again: This is undoubtedly a good match, these 2 are hitting their moves, the announcers are working hard to get the match over.  The problem; I have no belief that Rey Fenix has a snowball's chance in hell of winning this.

It's one of AEW failings.  The television show is LOADED with good matches.  I can't, for the life of me, remember when AEW truly and pleasantly surprised me with the results.  For the most part, the storytelling borders on very good to excellent.  Fenix is great.  He's one half of a great tag team that, despite their press clippings, has never been in real serious contention for the AEW World Tag Team Titles.  He's not winning here, it's just a matter of how Omega will put this away.

Fenix kicks out of a V Trigger. I'll repeat what I said about the BTW earlier, a mid level contender should not be kicking out of this.  Ever.  The V Trigger should be what Omega puts guys in this tier away with.  One Winged Angel should be what finishes the top guy.  I say that and Fenix kicks out of another V Trigger.  At least Omega puts it away with the OWA.  Plenty of time in the broadcast remains. Callis worked out some kind of deal with Eddie Kingston for him and his men to take out the rest of the Death Triangle.  Omega goes to "end Fenix' carrer" and Moxley hits the ring with his barbed wire baseball bat.  The Impact tag team champions the Good Brothers hit the ring and lay out Moxley.  Omega is bleeding from the arm.  Omega lays the bat into Moxley unti the wrestlers at ringside try to stop it.  Omega with one last bat shot after they fight off the ringsiders.  The Young Bucks come out to talk some sense into the situation.  Brian Pillman and Griff Garrison grab Omega and the Bucks lay them out with SuperKicks.

The Good Brothers, The Bucks and Omega with the Too Sweet gesture as we go off the air.

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