AEW Dynamite Cliff Notes 7-29-20

Inner Circle vs Best Friends & Friends

What the hell was this match? Guys waiting on others to do a dive? There were like 5 dives back to back, that is no exaggeration. These types of matches are just filler, it’s not ok when WWE does a ton of them and it’s not ok when AEW does either. The Inner Circle loses and continues to be a joke of a faction. Once, there was a time when the Inner Circle was the coolest thing in all of pro wrestling, that lasted about a month, then they started taking more and more losses. Matt Hardy pushes Sammy off of the ropes and negates the entire match.

Inner circle come out again, this time to address some things while interrupting Tony Schiavone. Jericho announces that he will be wrestling Orange Cassidy again and Sammy wants Matt Hardy. Can’t see either one of them winning actually, even if they do they will be giving their wins back relatively quickly.

Cody [c] vs Warhorse

I really didn’t know what to expect going in and most of that was giving this company the benefit of the doubt. Warhorse just didn’t work, he was an indie guy just there to take the pin and make Cody is some benevolent Champion that bestowed a title opportunity on a commoner and other loyal subjects.

Cody wins with figure four, which I have now dubbed the “figure foreshadowing” because we all know he’s doing it because he’s turning heel and starting a Four Horsemen faction. The Dark Order randomly show up for some reason and attack Cody. Matt Cardona debuts in unimpressive fashion and it turns out Cody had been lying when he said he wasn’t going to hire him. They had a shitty shirt out before the show even ended.

Hikaru Shida [c] vs Diamante

Another poor showing from the women’s division, Shida deserves better. The division won’t be built up any time soon because there is no one that can be taken seriously besides a handful that have already wrestled each other quite a bit. I’d maybe put the entire division on Dark and just do vignettes of what happened on Dynamite.

Kenny Omega [c] & Hangman Page [c] vs Evil Uno & Stu Grayson

For the titles? Oh yeah, Evil Uno and Stu are undefeated, too bad they didn’t really tell us until the match. The match was fine to be fair but it was just thrown together with no story.

Brodie Lee has a shit promo after the match and Anna Jay is now with him? Dark Order attacks the elite and are beaten? FTR show up to help out, this story is lame.

The deadly draw

Rules

1. The tournament is a random draw

2. All competitors must draw a color

3. Matching colors will become a team

4. Selections are final & cannot be appealed

So let’s put teams together that not only never met but don’t even wanna be a team. This is the antithesis of tag team wrestling.

The state of AEW address with MJF

I love the Trump gimmick, the Stone Cold reference and the call out of the in ring performances of AEW just being gymnastics. It’s all 100% true. This promo just catapult MJF right into the top heel spot and I can’t wait until he takes the title off of Moxley, then again why would they do something that logical?

Darby Allin & Jon Moxley [c] vs Ricky Starks & Brian Cage [c]

Tornado tag, no DQ

Moxley and Darby win, burying Starks and Cage in the process. The focus went from the Machine that is Brian Cage to Darby Allin getting a title shot right after Cage’s loss.

Tazz ask how are thumbtacks legal in a no DQ match, leaving me stunned at how it went from serious competition to a comedy show. Starks oversold the spot and Cage was being tapped out so he couldn’t help…how does that help Cage? Next thing you know he’ll be randomly attacking Jungle Boy and end up in a feud with Jurrasic Express; being as far away from the title picture as possible while still being on Dynamite.

Honorable mentions

1. Moxley promo. Hated it, he mentioned Darby’s size, why do that as if Darby can’t defend himself?

2. All out is announced.

3. FTR signs contracts and turn tag team wrestling into a joke.

4. Britt Baker calls out swole to face an opponent of her choosing

Final take

I hated so many things about the booking but for me it didn’t feel as disjointed as it usually does and the in-ring action was more rooted in storytelling. I give the booking very low marks but I give the actual show a B+.

#allin #Warhorse #aewdark #MattCardona #AEWDynamite #AEW #DarbyAllin