AEW Dynamite Cliff Notes 6-24-20

Wardlow vs Luchasaurus

Lumberjack matches; COVID-19’s best friend.

Good use of the lumberjacks until it just became redundant, 3 or 4 straight dives into the lumberjacks with them standing there waiting. Marko Stunt gets his shots in, looking better than Jungle Boy. A really good match, would have preferred to his end the show but definitely a great start. Finally got to see these two wrestlers actually show off their skills.Probably the best start to Dynamite ever.

Another pull apart brawl, that’s like the 3rd or 4th straight week we’ve had one to extend the beef of Jurassic Express and MJF through to Fyter Fest.

Shida squashes 

Problem is it’s too little, no way Shida shouldn’t have been squashing her opponents leading up to Ford. She better squash Ford as well. I think it may be too little too lateif Ford gets in too much offense at Fyter Fest.

Press conference

You’re not New Japan, just stoooop. Cody has a long speech that is too heavy in tone and Hager finally shows up. The whole thing was entirely too contrived, not feeling that crap at all; fake drama for nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that this was a good idea but it was booked terribly. Put this at the end of the show and make the title a bigger deal, the entire show was completely out of sequence.

Joey Janela & Sonny Kiss vs Colt Cabana & Brodie Lee

Joey Janela and Sonny Kiss’s produced segment was a good way to set them up as a legitimate tag team. A win against a lesser team would have gone a long way. A great vignette is negated by a loss, big booking mistake.

Brodie Lee just challenged Moxley for the title recently, now he is being taken to the limit with a tag team that is just now establishing itself. Later, Cabana is a reluctant partner of Brodie Lee, going up against babyfaces like SCU.

FTR vs SCU

A spirited promo by FTR calls out everyone after a long and boring match. I haven’t actually seen a great match out of them yet, they seem slow in AEW. I understand slowing the matches down but their matches just don’t fit the show. They should have been on Dark wrestling Janel and Kiss. The bucks help out FTR after the Lucha Bros return lacking every bit of luster.

The path of Cage

Cage destroys another jobber and Tazz drops another fantastic promo. So WWE gets a TON of flack for not talking about real world stuff like COVID-19 yet Tazz gets to call Moxley being at home a bullshit excuse. Where’s the outrage? They turned a serious pandemic into a storyline… sounds like WWE to me yet it isn’t. Other than that it was a cool segment.

Santana vs Matt Hardy

10-9 are you serious?! They were the hottest free agents at the time of their signing and they are now barely above .500?! Now he is at .500 after this loss to Hardy. Nothing wrong with losing to Hardy but not when you’re supposed to be on the rise. Again, WWE is buried for it’s 50/50 booking daily by the likes of Bryan Alvarez yet, AEW is doing it quite a bit as well. Private party comes to the rescue so late even JR pointed it out.

Juiced

Jericho had words for Orange Cassidy and Cassidy just had hands for Jericho. OC was busted open on a careless move by Jericho but the brawl made its way into the crowd. I’ll give credit to AEW for going with this feud instead of having Mike Tyson involved with Jericho but the match is too soon, this feud needs far more build than what it is getting.

Honorable mentions

1. After positive COVID-19 test within the wrestling community, AEW STILL decided to have a lumberjack match. No way they get tested 3 times, why do they even need 3 tests?

2. There’s a guy that looks like Jungle Boy and I don’t know if AEW thinks it’s funny or not but I don’t; it’s stupid.

3. Big Swole and Baker continue beef as I yawn.

4. Cool vignette hyping the tag team title match but far too little and far too late.

Final take

This was a solid episode of Dynamite to me, maybe even a triple, not the homerun they needed for a go home show but still pretty solid.

#FTR #aewdark #ChrisJericho #orangeCassidy #LuchaBrothers #AEWDynamite #AEW