AEW Dynamite 9/29/2021

AEW Dynamite 9/29/2021

Adam Cole vs Jungle Boy

It was going well then they did the hurricanrana to the outside which they didn't sell much. Then they did a panama sunrise that was kicked out of. That ruined what was a decent match. Kicking out of canadian destroyers in the opener? Really?

The Elite Segment

Wasn't a fan of this one at all. This was goofy and Danielson shouldn't have been involved with it. This would have been crapped all over if it was done by WWE.

Andrade/Lucha Bros Segment

This was hard to understand and made the AAA titles look bad.

Dante Martin and Matt Sydal vs Cody Rhodes and Lee Johnson

As usual, Cody gets the big entrance and Lee gets nothing. Brandi wasted no time here in wanting to get back on screen. Dante gave himself a tombstone here in a classic AEW botch and then everyone did their flips during the commercial break. Dante took a vertebreaker, kicked out then came off the top 20 seconds later. This was AEW at its worst.

I don't really know what to say about the Arn promo. If the goal was to put over Arn and bury Cody, I guess they accomplished that. Odd for AEW to have Arn glorifying shooting people when they dedicated a show to being anti-gun violence.

Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston and Darby Allin vs Bear Country and Anthony Greene

Wasn't a fan of this one at all. Bear Country hasn't been on Dynamite in months and Greene hasn't been on Dynamite period. Instead of some hype videos to make these guys look important, they got made to look like jobbers. I did not like Bear Country getting thrown around here at all. Greene was never treated this bad on 205 Live, which is really saying something.

16 man tag match

I get that this was supposed to be a Brodie Lee tribute and I'm just going to leave it at that.

Hey Lio Rush is back. He'll probably be retired by the next Dynamite.

Tay Conti and Anna Jay vs Penelope Ford and The Bunny

Busy night for AEW Botches here as Tay Conti took a random bump to the outside that pretty much killed the match.

MJF did a promo and referenced the cringe 4 pillars meme, which compares some of AEW's young talent with All Japan's 4 Pillars of Heaven from the 90's. Not a fan at all. Those guys aren't on that level and it's just going to give people more ammunition against them. MJF mentioned Darby's relative dying during a promo. Orton did something like that with Eddie Guerrero's death a long time ago and that was not received well, yet I have a feeling Dave Meltzer will give it a pass this time. MJF is bringing himself down with these stunts and is becoming more reliant on it by the week.

Not a fan of Bryan Danielson being on Rampage. AEW's been trying but it is clearly the second show and wasting Bryan on it is a mistake.

Miro vs Sammy Guevarra

The SSP counter spot was a cool idea but they botched it. Miro overbumped here and took way too much offense for his character. Putting Sammy over him was a really bad call since Miro was doing well and since this wasn't that well built, but at least it helped out Sammy. They cut away from Sammy's victory celebration too fast also.

Overall thoughts: This was indy garbage and a total 180 from last week. We had a couple of classic AEW botches here, bad Japanese references, a couple of burials and a lame MJF promo.

WWE NXT 2.0 9/28/2021

WWE NXT 2.0 9/28/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/09/wwe-nxt-20-9212021.html

B-Fab vs Elektra Lopez was really bad. It's developmental, so it's fine if its bad, but B-Fab has a long way to go. She's comfortable as a personality though and that's more important. Lopez is a weird hire to me as she does not look like the usual WWE hire. My guess is its because of her ethnicity.

Xyon Quinn beat Oney Lorcan. Quinn's name is awful, maybe the worst yet, but he has a good look and he gets how to do his moves and sell them. We'll have to see what he can offer on the mic, but this was a good debut for him. You have to feel bad for Oney though. He wasn't the most featured guy, but he has to be concerned that he will be part of the next batch of releases.

Grayson Waller's package was at least some attempt to give him some backstory. I've liked Waller since he debuted since he can talk and has some personality.

I liked the segment with the four tag teams. Carmelo Hayes came across well and Briggs and Jensen did too. The tag titles have been MIA since the re-branding of NXT, and they returned here.

Io Shirai and Zoey Stark beat Gigi Dolan and Jacy Jayne. Toxic Attraction continues to look like a main roster level act and Stark had a good showing here as well. I actually enjoyed this a little. I feel bad for Io though as her stock isn't improving.

Bron Breakker and Ciampa did a quick segment which was good and continues to build to a match sometime down the line.

I really liked Boa vs Andre Chase. Chase didn't show anything at all before his gimmick but he is doing well with this gimmick. I really buy it. I loved him messing around with Mei Ying. I'd love to see them continue with this and it'd be cool if the mist that Chase took made him start acting all strange and dressing weird. That'd be something unique.

Strong vs Walker was fine and the Diamond Mine are really coming together. I'm sad the Creed Brothers didn't wrestle tonight.

I really liked the Lashing Out segment. Lash Legend is super comfortable on the mic already and has some personality, and this was her first real chance to do something. She hit this out of the park. I would love for this segment to be some kind of weekly recap or insider on what's going on in NXT. It could be a cool way to build up some feuds and show off some of the personalities. This girl is not going to be in NXT long.

I didn't see all of O'Reilly vs Ridge Holland but I thought Ridge had another decent showing. Von Wagner coming out to help O'Reilly was a way to get him involved in the show again. It was weird how he was essentially in the main event on the first night and hasn't wrestled since.

I still think Tony D'Angelo should cool it off with the obvious mob tropes, but the character is growing on me and if they work with it, he will go places.

I had little interest in the main and skipped most of it. I'm not into either girl. Raquel's top ripped during this and she had to hold it together.

Overall thoughts: Another good episode of NXT. I really like the direction this show is going and this show is exactly what a developmental show should be. I'm happy to be along for the ride and I'm really excited to see what things are going to be like 3-6 months down the line.

AEW Grand Slam 9/22/2021

AEW Grand Slam 9/22/2021

Kenny Omega vs Bryan Danielson

Putting Omega vs Danielson on first was a bad idea. This match was supposed to be this giant dream match yet it was the opener without any packages or anything to make it a bigger deal.

They telegraphed that this would be a draw early when JR mentioned it. Not smart at all as few would have thought that would have been the outcome otherwise. Time limit draws are tough to sell because 99% of matches don't have the time announced. If they did, when you do a draw and the time starts running out, it becomes less obvious as to what the finish will be. But when you just mention it out of the blue like they did here, it telegraphs the result.

The crowd was very hot for this here but the match didn't have any  particular story. You can tell a lot of stories with the time limit but they didn't do them here. They didn't do the usual Omega match here, which is a good thing. Instead of doing Omega's "work a body part > forget about it > do big moves for 2.999's", they just opted to go to the chops and the strikes which are hard to screw up.

I didn't like the commercial here as it always takes you out of the match. I also didn't like the kick out of the release top rope dragon suplex much like I didn't when Omega did the top rope dragon with Okada a few years ago. This was one of the better matches Omega was involved in but not even close to Danielson's best match this year.

CM Punk promo

I didn't like him saying "How do you follow that?". Because how are people supposed to follow a 30 minute match with top rope dragon suplex kick outs?

MJF vs Brian Pillman Jr.

Pillman did a pretty good job here but the commercial messed this up and the ending was out of nowhere.

Cody Rhodes vs Malakai Black

Of course Brandi has to make her "big return" for this one. A big thank you to NYC for coming out strong and booing Cody. I'm shocked Cody allowed a commercial to go on during his match. I'm glad AEW finally did the right thing here and allowed a heel to get a win in their first big match for a change.

Sting and Darby Allin vs FTR

I actually really liked this. Sting looked great for his age and was really moving well here. I don't know if FTR were the right team to take this loss, but this was fun. I also liked Sting changing up the face paint a bit for this.

Ruby Soho vs Britt Baker

The commercial hurt this one. It felt like their match time got shortened due to something else running too long. Ruby took a nasty air raid crash from the top for 2 which of course was kicked out of. This should not have gone on last.

WWE NXT 2.0 9/21/2021

WWE NXT 2.0 9/21/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/09/wwe-nxt-20-9142021.html

I will just give some quick thoughts here.

I thought this was a pretty good show. They featured a lot of the newer development guys on it and had a bunch of packages that further helped explain who these people are. I wish more promotions would do video packages and just in general show what various wrestlers do at various places and situations to help get their characters over.

I thought the opening promo with Ciampa introducing the younger guys took a little long. Kushida/Strong was a short match with a lot of interference, but I think it did what it was supposed to do here. I'm not sure what purpose the Cruiserweight title serves at the moment though and I'm curious as to who is left to fight for it. 

It was good to see Kay Lee Ray on TV and they even gave her opponent, Amar Miller, a little promo time which is good for her. 

I didn't see much of Dante Chen's match but it was that they gave him something to do before it started by beating the other guy up outside. Whether it was good, bad or neither, it at least gives him some character which will help people to figure out who he is supposed to be.

Andre Chase got a new gimmick here and did well in his skit. He's been around for a while but had no real character and this is at least something for him to do.

Joe Gacy got a new gimmick here. I don't know where they were going with it and we will have to give it time to see where it plays out. It's still better than what he was doing before which was having matches on 205 Live that nobody saw.

I missed the women's match, but Odyssey Jones got to show off a bit and seems like he is headed in the right direction. His gear is absolutely awful though.

I liked the Toxic Attraction promo and Mandy Rose looks like a completely different person with dyed hair. I also loved Jiro's segment as it really got over his unique persona.

I thought the main was decent with Bron Breakker and Ridge Holland having a nice showing. The crowd really got into it and that was the best I had seen Ridge look so far. Bron's already pretty over and seems like he is on the fast track to success. I'm already a fan, but it is a shame he can't be Rex Steiner.

Overall thoughts: A good show that was much better than anything AEW Dark ever did. Not everything was a hit - Von Wagner's promo and Tony D'Angelo's segment, but they are just beginning with these gimmicks and we will have to see where things are in a few months. There was a ton of stuff going on here at a very fast pace and I like the direction of the new NXT. Even the wacky colors didn't seem as bad as before.

WWE NXT 2.0 9/14/2021

WWE NXT 2.0 9/14/2021

This was one of the most bizarre episodes of wrestling I've ever seen.

A lot of people crapped on NXT and I don't know why. People online want smaller wrestlers and they want indy style matches. NXT gave that yet that audience completely rejected it for AEW. I don't really blame Vince for deciding to go in a new direction since the target audience actively turned down NXT for the shiny new toy in AEW. Even though NXT was dull at times and did need a change, I did like it and it's weird to see that version of NXT completely disappear. If NXT was off-air for a while and came back like this, it'd be different story. But it's shocking and  weird when everything changes so fast.

I didn't think much of the new color scheme when I saw it. I figured it was just a logo, but the lighting and set up are just as bad and really do come across as some 1990's game show. Completely out of touch and out of style.

The names on this show were stupid. They are all FCW style names that sound like they were created from a robot. I can't believe nobody backstage tried to stop those names before they were used.

Of the new debuts, Bron Breakker looked really good though why he is not using the Steiner name when he is a Steiner is something only WWE would do. He hasn't been in development for long but he looks like he is ready. Brooks Jensen wasn't too good but it's early and we will see what happens. Von Wagner is still really green and I really hope he can talk because I don't think this is going to work out otherwise. Someone in the chat said he looked like a mini-Khali and they weren't wrong.

The Creed Brothers are now on their 2nd or 3rd match and look like great prospects and potentially a new Steiner Brothers. I'm really excited to see what happens with them.

They showed a vignette for Tony D'Angelo and he's doing a mafia gimmick. It was as un-subtle as it gets and was cringeworthy.

LA Knight lost twice on this show. This dude is the total package yet they love to job him out for no apparent reason. I have no idea what they are doing at all with this guy and hopefully he is just in some kind of weird holding pattern before he gets put on the main roster.

The wedding was stupid with a bunch of shenanigans. At least it happened though. Too many wrestling weddings don't actually end up completing and it's good to see the fans actually getting what was promised. Don't even get me started on the zombie ref.

Overall thoughts: It was great to see some new faces but this show feels really out of touch. It's bad enough that I honestly will be surprised if this show isn't cancelled by the end of the year.
 

AEW All Out 2021 9/5/2021 Review

AEW All Out 2021 9/5/2021 Review

 

Miro vs Eddie Kingston

Some hard shots from Miro in this one. You have to give it to Eddie. He loses constantly yet doesn't really suffer from it, but he's gotta get a big win soon.

Moxley vs Kojima

You could tell a large portion of the crowd had no idea who Kojima was. I liked this one, but one of AEW's younger wrestlers should have been in this spot.

It looks like The Jon Moxley Japanese Trial Series continues on with Minoru Suzuki. I'm sure it excites a lot of internet fans, but I don't know how much the average person cares. I didn't like the forearm battle at the end.

Britt Baker vs Kris Statlander

This went a lot longer than it should have. Why did this not end after the Panama Sunrise? Why do so many wrestlers insist on making the Canadian Destroyer a mid-match move? AEW has to come up with someone else besides Thunder Rosa for Britt and they need to come up with it soon.
 

Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros

As usual, the Bucks did way too much here and it went too long. The Lucha Bro's winning was the wrong call. The Bucks have been the champs for a long time and are kind of the aces of the tag division. They should have lost at the end of a long feud and this one just feels out of the blue almost.
 

Chris Jericho vs MJF

CM Punk vs Darby Allin

I want to put these two matches together because their situations were similar. As I said  many months ago, it's hard to follow long drawn out matches with big spots like the cage match. You can't really do more and when you were going at the pace they were, everything that follows feels so much slower. That's what happened here in both matches. Jericho/MJF never had a chance in trying to follow the Bucks' match and I'm surprised no one saw that coming. But the problem really came in the next match...

So let's get onto Punk vs Darby. I didn't like Punk's long tights with matching shin protectors. It's just too much color and comes across as a child's outfit.

Darby was the wrong call here for the match they needed. He showed up Punk, which is a major problem as Punk did not come cheap and I think there's less interest in seeing him again after this one. Had they just stuck someone like Ethan Page, Scorpio Sky, MJF or some other heels, they could have gotten a little in before losing and Punk would have just been able to look good in a short match. As I said in the Jericho match, this one also suffered from the Bucks' match and some of the other stuff on the card. Punk was never the guy to do big spots and spectacular moves and it's just hard to look good when you are following guys that do. Punk didn't exactly look thrilled either, but big credit to Darby for looking like he deserved to be there.

QT Marshall vs Big Show

What was that outfit that Show was wearing? This was one of those diva bathroom break matches to get you ready for the main.

Kenny Omega vs Christian Cage

The crowd was tired out by the time this came around. It was clear to me that Kenny is not 100% as he took it pretty easy here. Christian however, did not. This dude literally is outworking everyone and is putting out 110% effort. He really deserves some kind of award for his efforts this year.

Adam Cole should not have debuted here. I'd be pissed if I made my big debut only for Bryan Danielson to make his seconds later. AEW has a big problem right now with the roster being too large. Think of how many people didn't make this card for various reasons(some of which weren't AEW's fault) - Page, Archer, Cody, Pac, Black, Brian Cage, Santana and Ortiz, Sammy Guevara, Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky and almost all of the women would have missed if it wasn't for the battle royale. And this was a close to 5 hour show. Someone's getting the short end of the stick here.

Overall thoughts: Too long of a show with too many big moves and big spots for me, but AEW is looking good now with multiple big name signings. If AEW doesn't get a monster ratings boost this week, something is seriously wrong.