AEW Rampage 12/31/2021

AEW Rampage 12/31/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/aew-rampage-holiday-bash-12252021.html

Betty White died today which has been the main talk of this New Year's.

Darby Allin vs Anthony Bowens

Max Caster did a rap bringing up Ghislane Maxwell. Darby took a nice shoulder bump into the post off the apron. AB hit a big superkick and a wild hanging roll of the dice. Bowens then put him up in an electric chair outside and banged Darby's head off the apron. Darby ended up winning this with a coffin drop and it was a fine match.

Andrade El Idolo came out then Bowens nailed Sting with a boombox. Darby then took a chain punch to the face by Max.

They did a video showing some of Hook's techniques with Taz talking over it.

Street Fight - Anna Jay and Tay Conti vs Penelope Ford and The Bunny

Penelope Ford did a moonsault off the top rope onto Tay who was on a table outside, but the table did not break. She then smashed Tay's head with a beer liquor bottle. The Bunny started bleeding hardway here and Tay got busted open too. Bunny took a hard suplex on a chair by Anna Jay and the chair did not bend much making it worse. Tay and Ford hit some nice shots on each other during the picture in picture break.

The Bunny brought some thumbtacks in and ended up getting superplexed on them. Tay took a hard double stomp with a chair on her stomach and was redder with blood than the kool-aid man is. Ford then took a wild off the apron gotch-stylve piledriver through a table. Anna Jay wrapped her arm in barbed wire and put Bunny in a sleeper to win it. This was WILD and was awesome. This was super violent and blood with 4 attractive women. This was maybe the best AEW match I've seen and was a great example of how to blow off a feud. Must see! Why was this not on Dynamite?

We had a video package on Page vs Danielson.

Lambert, Page and Sky did a splitscreen promo with Arn and Cody. As usual, Lambert said Cody is getting pushed due to Tony liking him and Arn spoke for Cody saying this was personal since Dan went after Brandi.

TNT Title - Cody Rhodes vs Ethan Page

Page pretended to sleep in the corner with the apron while Cody came in. Cody should have rushed in here like they did in the women's match but he just did the usual entrance and didn't seem to care.

Ethan did an interesting shoulder tackle off the apron onto Cody. A large portion of this got cut off by a commercial. Page's crew interfered here then Dustin Rhodes evened the score by fighting Sky. Cody got hit with a top rope powerslam for 2. Cody tried a figure four, got it reversed then ended up winning it with a couple of cross rhodes and a double underhook sitout piledriver. I didn't think this was anything too special and it dragged on after having to follow the women.

Overall thoughts: The opener was fine and the street fight was maybe the best AEW match I've ever seen. Cody's match should not have been the main here since it had no chance of following the wild women's match. I liked this show and I think the women's match was a must see.

AEW Dynamite 12/29/2021

AEW Dynamite 12/29/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/aew-dynamite-12222021.html

Lucha Brothers, Christian Cage and Jurassic Express vs Matt Hardy, Private Party and FTR

It went a few minutes too long but it was a fun opener.

Eddie Kingston, Santana & Ortiz vs Daniel Garcia and 2.0

This suffered a lot like the matches that follow the Young Bucks do. You see all the stunts and cool spots in the first match then the second match, which is usually lesser, has to follow it and can't. The heels got the win out of nowhere here and this wasn't too good.

The blew Jericho's run in here by putting the cam on the entrance way before Jericho came in. I thought Eddie being mad at Jericho didn't really work or make that much sense.

MJF did a promo with Wardlow and Spears. He told Wardlow that if he wins the title, he has to turn it over to him then brought in Mark Sterling to clarify that on the contract. They've been doing a slow burn on Wardlow turning on MJF and they are making it more clear.

Christian and J-E accused the Lucha Bros of "going into business for themselves" and costing them the match. J-E and Christian all looked super tall here while Rey and Schiavone looked super small. There was some kind of trickery here to pull that off and you all know how I feel about using shoot terms.

Wardlow vs Colin Delaney

I haven't seen Colin since WWECW. He looks about 10 years older and 50 pounds heavier. It's a shame his talents as an underdog face were pretty much wasted. He was destroyed here in quick fashion then Spears hit him with a chair after.

The Super Elite, Fish and Kyle O'Reilly did a promo. The Bucks were mad at Kyle for not saying hello to them and Kyle wanted time to talk to his old partners. Kyle said him and Adam had "heat" and said they need to group to survive. Kyle said Fish has his back and he will find out if Cole does too.

Dan Lambert, Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page did a promo. They ripped on Cody and Brandi, who of course had to get her TV time by coming out and talking down Dan. Dustin had to come and "hold Brandi back" in a lame angle that had Cody and Brandi's fingerprints all over it.

They did a vignette for Bryan vs Page and Excalibur looked like a 10 year old with his mask and white t-shirt on.

Thunder Rosa vs Jade Cargill

I think this went a little longer than it needed to. Jade is on some roids and clearly could beat the crap out of half the AEW roster. Rosa took a hard step kick off of a botched 2nd rope move then Rosa was smashed in the head with bottle by a masked person before she pinned by Jade. The masked person ended up being Mercedes Martinez whom I had hoped I never had to see again when she got fired from NXT. They beat up on Rosa and then Ruby Soho made the save. This wasn't a bad effort at all by the girls. The match mostly made sense with Rosa working Jade's leg and Jade trying to power out of it but Jade still has a long way to go.

CM Punk did a promo. He's back to being a face again and he cut a promo on MJF calling him a waste of time. This promo was a waste of time and didn't accomplish much.

Ricky Starks and Hobbs did a promo. Starks said Dante Martin screwed up by turning on Team Tazz and they asked if Dante really wanted a second round with Hobbs. Still no explanation on why Dante turned on Lio then Team Tazz.

They showed Sammy losing his title to Cody and Sammy did his bit with the signs through picture in picture, which the went to a full commercial. This is not what I'd want to be doing if I were in Sammy's shoes.

They had Shida do a promo on Serena Deeb, telling her to stop crying and to just challenge her again.

Brian Pillman Jr. did a promo on Malakai Black. He brought up his dad and being a second gen wrestler like always and said we would see a new version of BPJ next week. The lights went out and Black appeared and left. This promo wasn't anything special.

They announced Darby vs Bowens and Cody vs Ethan Page for Rampage and that honestly sounded better than what this card had. They did quick promos with The Acclaimed and Sting/Darby after and neither was good.

Best Friends vs Adam Cole, Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly

I have no problem with AEW redoing Undisputed Era. It makes Cole seem more important and hides Fish and Kyle's weaknesses. This had the usual Orange Cassidy/Best Friends crap in it. U-E won here after the Bucks and Brandon Cutler interfered. This was the wrong match for U-E's AEW debut as they should have gone over easy. They did at least further the story of Kyle/Cole not trusting each other by Kyle accidentally kicking Cole.

Overall thoughts: This show wasn't that great but had a lot going on. AEW has a big debut on TBS next week and the main event for it got one small vignette when it should have been the main focus. The roster is very bloated right now and because of it, we are seeing more multi-man matches and more slow burning feuds to space things out. I liked the opener here and the women's match but I didn't like the Brandi segment.

WWE 205 Live 11/19/2021

WWE 205 Live 11/19/2021

Edris Enofe vs Malik Blade

This is Enofe's debut.

Enofe won with a standing shooting star press here. Blade hit a nice high dropkick during this but it was mostly just armdrags and cradle attempts. It really wasn't bad though despite that as the attempts were quick and looked good. Neither guy is very big though and I question what they will be able to do on this brand.

Tiffany Stratton vs Amari Miller

This is Stratton's debut.

Tiffany is doing a spoiled rich girl gimmick. She did a promo bragging about how she was prettier and better than the crowd but it was kind of wooden.

Tiff did a nice handspring out of a lariat then took two wild looking kicks. Tiff ended up winning with a pin here where she actually held Miller's shoulders up. This was very basic and not too good.

Kacy Catanzaro and Kayden Carter vs Valentina Feroz and Yulisa Leon

The KC's get a special entrance through the stands. We're told Leon and Feroz are best friends who are finally teaming up. Leon and Carter had a small dance-off here and KC entered the ring over the top into a sunset flip on Leon. Feroz did a big sell on a shotgun dropkick and really bumped big all match long. The KC's won with their neckbreaker/450 combo. This really wasn't bad at all. The pace was quick and the KC's looked very comfortable leading this one.

Overall thoughts: It was only 30 minutes long and 2 of the 3 matches were perfectly acceptable here.

AEW Rampage: Holiday Bash 12/25/2021

AEW Rampage: Holiday Bash 12/25/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/aew-rampage-12172021.html

Jungle Boy vs Isaiah Kassidy

JB had a nice run up the ropes into a dropkick and Kassidy hit a nice tornillo dive. It started out well but then they started kicking out of the ki krusher's and poisonrana's which I didn't like. We had interference from HFO then Jurassic Express and HFO went at it. JB then hit his stf and won it.

Ricky Starks took credit for screwing over Dante Martin in his match with MJF for the Dynamite Diamond Ring. We still haven't gotten any explanation on why Dante turned on Lio Rush or Team Taz, though at this point.

Miro got a vignette where he said he will return with no flaws and said he will become champion.

Hook vs Bear Bronson

Wasn't a fan of this one at all. Hook took a sitout driver then no sold it. Bear took a hard head and arm suplex on his neck and then was choked out with the tazmission. Hook just isn't big enough to buy him throwing around Bear like that. Tony Nese was shown watching from the stands.

Bear Country is a good example of why Vince doesn't feature tag teams much. One of the members gets injured and then both are basically useless while still getting the same pay.

Eddie Kingston said he respected Daniel Garcia cheating to win. He said him, Santana and Ortiz will take on Garcia and 2.0 in a trios match.

Kris Statlander vs Leyla Hirsch

Neither girl got an entrance here. Kris looked at least a foot taller than Leyla. Kris ended up winning this with a nudo out of nowhere. Leyla was good here stiffing Kris and using her small stature to take down Kris, but she's a tough one to book. She's small so she should kind of be the face but she wrestles like a heel and just doesn't come across as a face.

Sammy and Cody (with Arn) did a splitscreen promo. Arn talked about how he's been chewing out Cody and he should be upset, then Sammy said he's mad too at being underrated. He said he would carry Cody today which I didn't like since that broke kayfabe.

TNT Title - Sammy Guevara (c) vs Cody Rhodes

The only way Sammy should really lose this is if Cody goes full heel here and wins it that way. Cody got the big entrance here, which Arn wasn't allowed to join in on. Lee Johnson and Arn's son also came out then were immediately sent back. No idea on that one.

David Crockett was out here to present the winner with the title.

Cody got rushed early with a big drop kick and some other moves then took a walk into the crowd to stall. Cody came back in and got beat up some then hit a nice Cody cutter. We had what felt like a long commercial break during the match and after, Sammy hit double jump Cody cutter. Sammy then hit a cross rhodes and landed hard on a double jump 450 to the outside. Sammy went for a running hurricanrana and was caught and thrown into the front row. Cody hit a disaster kick and Sammy sold it well, then Sammy sold a cross rhodes well. Cody blocked a 630 with his knees and won after 2 cross rhodes and a sitout double underhook piledriver. I thought this was a good match with Sammy using some of Cody's moves against him to upstage him and Cody working like a heel here against him.

While Cody winning continues that storyline, it hurts Sammy and Miro. Miro shouldn't of lost to Sammy but it looks worse since Sammy ended up just becoming a transitional champion to Cody. It didn't seem like there was a ton of planning involved with Miro losing to Sammy and this result furthers that. Meanwhile, if the plan all along was to have Sammy lose to Cody, you could have made a story out of it to make it better. Doing this on the Christmas version of Rampage also didn't make much sense since a large portion of the AEW audience probably isn't tuning in.

Overall thoughts: I liked two of the four matches and had some changes been made, I might have liked all four of them. They just did too much in the opener and Hook's offense wasn't believeable.

WWE 205 Live 12/24/2021

WWE 205 Live 12/24/2021

They gave this show 40 minutes instead of the usual 30 minutes, which gives it time for another match.

Ivy Nile vs Fallon Henley

Henley got a few shots in then was wheelbarrow suplexed. Ivy hit a nice running kick thne dodged one high kick from FH before getting another. Ivy then hit her cool looking dragon sleeper to win it. It really wasn't as much of a squash as just a short match.

Andre Chase vs Damon Kemp

Kemp is the brother of Gable Steveson and I think this is his debut. He is wearing a dirty looking copper colored jacket.

DK went under Chase's legs then picked him up and slammed him from behind before rolling him. Chase gave him rope burn between the fingers and they had plants with Chase U sweaters which they said was the student section. He spelled out his name to them with stomps. Kemp hit a nice overhead belly to belly then did an up over into a botched chaos theory german suplex. Chase pulled down Kemp's kneepad, distracting him then he hit his hamnmerlock flatliner finisher to win it.

I thought Chase was really good here doing all kinds of unlikeable heel moves and Kemp wasn't bad for his debut.

Solo Sikoa vs Ru Feng

Ru has a really cool look and Solo reminds me of Mark Hunt. Ru hit some chest kicks and knees to the gut then Solo came back with sentons. Solo spin kicked him to the gut, then uraken'd him before getting the win with a top rope splash. I liked this one. We had two big dudes going at it and it was kind of fun to see a strike based match. This would have been 10x better in Japan and I'd really like to see this one again a few years down the line when these two are better.

Overall thoughts: A fun episode with two short but decent matches.

AEW Dynamite 12/22/2021

AEW Dynamite 12/22/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/aew-winter-is-coming-12152021.html

Adam Cole vs Orange Cassidy

I didn't like this one. This had the usual OC shenanigans which I'm no fan of. Cole and his crew have done a bunch of bad stuff to OC and the Best Friends and OC wasn't real mad about it here.  Best Friends and The Elite brawled here. Kyle O'Reilly made his AEW debut by costing OC the match. It would have been better if they did this last week when everyone was watching than this show which has less hype behind it. They teased dissension with Cole/Fish/O'Reilly and the Young Bucks.

They announced Page vs Danielson 2 on their TBS debut which makes sense. Page then did an interview with Schiavone which Danielson interrupted. Bryan accused him of stalling in their match and said he wants judges in their rematch. Page agreed but wanted no time limit instead. Judges have been done before, but they never ended up being used and probably won't be here since it's a lame ending.

The Pinnacle did a promo. MJF was critical of Wardlow and blamed Punk for it. I didn't have any problems with it.

Wardlow vs "Captain" Shawn Dean

Wardlow powerbombed him four times for an easy win. They announced the rankings would reset at the end of the year.

Dan Lambert, Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page did a promo from the stands. He was using shoot terms again and I'm no fan of that. Dan said Tony Khan plays favorites with the EVP's and said Cody is bigger dick than he is.

Britt Baker did a promo with her crew and Tony. She said Riho is out of her league and said "you'll shoot your eye out, kid" to her.

They did a nice little package on Owen Hart and gave us a little more info on the Owen Hart Tournament.

I did not watch the Soho match.

Serena Deeb said Shida didn't beat her for real yet and she would come at her again and again.

Malakai Black vs Griff Garrison

Griff charged at Black to start which was cool and got high kicked for it. Griff got a nice tope in and had his leg kicked a bunch of times before losing to a single leg crab. Black hit a spin kick on Pillman after in a good segment. Griff looked good here as he usually does.

Matt Hardy and Private Party then Junrassic Express did promos on each other. Hardy said JE are the #1 Contenders, but if they take out JE, then they will lose their #1 contendership.

Sting, CM Punk and Darby Allin vs MJF and FTR

Sting had Punk style facepaint on and Punk had mid-90's Sting facepaint on, which was a nice touch. Darby dyed his hair pink and had pink Sting facepaint on. I thought this was a good example of why size/looks matters in wrestling. Sting would not have been as over if he had the body that Punk does. The heels stalled early and Darby hit a nasty bullet tope on all of them. Darby got tossed over the top and bumped his head hard off the apron. Darby also hit a very nice crossbody knocking him and one of FTR over the top. MJF disappeared for most of the match and finally came in near the end to try and get the cheap win on Sting but took an awful header onto the floor. Sting then did dive off the top to the floor. Dax pushed MJF out of the way and took the faces finishes to end the match. This went long but had some good moments.

Overall thoughts: The less storyline-intensive AEW shows are, the more I tend to like them. I didn't like the OC/Cole match and I didn't like the Dan Lambert promo, but the rest of the show was fine.

AEW Rampage 12/17/2021

AEW Rampage 12/17/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/aew-rampage-12102021.html

A whole lot of people didn't make Dynamite this week due to the Page/Danielson one hour draw so they are making up for it here with multi-man tags.

“The Infamous” Bobby Fish & The Super Elite (Adam Cole, Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson) vs Orange Cassidy, Rocky Romero, & The Best Friends (Chuck Taylor & Trent)

This was the usual Best Friends comedy and you know the Bucks and Cole have no problem getting in on that. The Best Friends partner Wheeler Yuta got kicked in the nuts last week by Cole and the Best Friends could have cared less here as Orange was kissing Cole and goofing off. I spent the first part of this trying to figure out who Trent Baretta resembles most now. A less tan Frankie Kazarian? A thinner Miro? A darker Cesaro? Brandon Cutler with hair? All of the above? Who knows. Fish drove Trent hard with a top rope falcon arrow and Trent got the win over Bobby Fish with a Peach Sunrise because reasons. Cole's value continues to drop by the appearance.

Dan Lambert promo

I hated this. He used tons of shoot terms and broke kayfabe in a promo on how much he hates Tony Khan, who really should never even be mentioned on this show.

Cody got his own special entrance here through the middle tunnel with fireworks because he's an egomaniac. Him and Lambert kept taking the mic from each other then Cody got beat up by Page and Scorpio Sky. Dustin Rhodes tried to make the save and then Sammy Guevarra had to make his own save. He hit a cool double jump cutter to clear out the heels.

Submission match - Tay Conti vs Penelope Ford

Believe it or not, I liked this. This was a submission match and both girls tried to do submissions the whole match which made total sense. The girls brought some intensity and Page/Danielson should have looked a lot more like this did. This was the women so it did have some sloppiness, but I actually enjoyed this more than most of the AEW stuff I've seen. Tay got the win here then got dropped with a nice brass knuckles shot.

Owen Hart Tournament

We were promised more info on this tonight after they failed to announce any information about it on Wednesday. They gave us one graphic that lasted like 5 seconds and didn't tell us any new information. What's the big secret?

Eddie Kingston, Ortiz, Santana & The Lucha Brothers (Penta El Zero Miedo & Rey Fenix) vs 2point0 (Jeff Parker & Matt Lee), Daniel Garcia, & The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster)

They did a promo before this with everyone involved and Mark Henry's beard looks so bad. Fenix did an ode to Dante Martin here with a frogsplash knee to Garcia's face. They didn't have much time for this and it was really rushed with everyone trying to get stuff in. To make matters worse, it also had to go through a commercial. Garcia won out of nowhere with a pin on Kingston with a pull of the tights. Jurassic Express made the save for the faces after.

Overall thoughts: The women were really the only redeemable thing on this show as it had a lot of the usual AEW lowlights with botches, comedy and kayfabe being broken.

AEW Dynamite 12/15/2021 Winter is Coming

AEW Dynamite 12/15/2021 Winter is Coming

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/aew-dynamite-1282021.html

AEW World Title - Hangman Adam Page vs Bryan Danielson

Page should have been suspended for this for hitting Bryan last week. The story going into this was that Bryan was beating up on Page's friends. Was Page mad? He sure didn't wrestle like he was as they had a slow technical match which further hurt the weak story. It was clear they were going long since this was the first match and since they started off slow. It went the full 60 minutes and while they did put out the effort, it wasn't a fantastic match. Page bled a bunch and they overdid it with multiple apron moves. Page also came off the top a few times for some big dives including a high moonsault from the top to the floor.

Matt Sydal vs Wardlow

Wardlow won here as he should have in a quick squash. Shawn Spears was out here directing traffic for Wardlow, trying to get him to hurry up which seems to be going somewhere. This was a bathroom break match after the draw.

Tay Conti and Penelope Ford did dueling promos. It really wasn't anything special and Tay has a heavy accent.

They did a neat little video with Malakai Black inducting possibly Brody King into his group by black misting him.

Hikaru Shida vs Serena Deeb

They blew a Lou Thesz press to start. Deeb spent most of the match alternating between working the knee and neck. Shida ended up getting the win though here. If I had to watch any of the AEW women, it's Deeb.

The Varsity Blonds did a promo about Julia Hart who was misted last week. Griff Garrison wanted a piece of Black but Pillman was trying to talk him out of it, then they teased dissension over it. I think Pillman and Griff should have switched roles here.

Dynamite Diamond Ring Match - MJF vs Dante Martin

Dante's booking made very little sense last week and we will see what happens here. My guess is that Team Tazz costs him the match. MJF did a promo here on Punk and really ripped into him by making fun of his promo last week and his endless matches with lower card talent. He called him the new Ryback as an insult, but Ryback was pretty good.

Dante did a rolling thunder into a 450 knee to the face which had to hurt. Dante climbed up to the top and was pushed off to the barricade outside. Dante also botched a springboard SSP where he knee'd MJF and banged his face off the ramp. Dante threw some horrible corner punches here between some nice flips. Dante botched another moonsault and Ricky Starks came out to cost Dante the match. I'm glad they followed up on the Team Taz/Dante stuff from last week but we got no explanation on what Dante turning on Team Taz was about. Dante continues to show that he can do cool stuff, but not much else.

FTR came out to celebrate with MJF then Sting and Darby jumped all of them. They got outnumbered and CM Punk came out to clear them off. They announced a trios match between them next week.

They teased an Owen Hart Tournament announcement which never happened here and the big surprises we were told about also didn't happen here.

Overall thoughts: The lack of surprises/announcements were disappointing here since they were promised. Page/Danielson took up the majority of the time here and they didn't have a lot of time to do comedy or make booking mistakes so the show benefited. It was fine but this was the weakest of the big tv specials so far.

AEW Rampage 12/10/2021

AEW Rampage 12/10/2021

This was the first Rampage I've seen in a little while.

Lucha Bros vs FTR - This was pretty much just one Rey Fenix spot after another with very little wrestling. At least Rey can hit his spots. It flowed fine and all, just it was all spots.

Hook vs Fuego del Sol - Hook's debut was pretty good. I would have knocked a minute off of it but his offense looked good and he has a cool look. If he was only a few inches taller and about 40 pounds heavier he could really be something.

I didn't like the promo leading into the main and I don't cover intergender matches. Trent's new hairstyle makes him looked like a tan Jon Moxley.

Wheeler Yuta vs Adam Cole - This was fine. It was mostly just there for filler and it's not exactly how I would want to close a 10PM show. I enjoyed Cole kicking Yuta in the nuts after. 

Overall thoughts: What I saw of this wasn't bad at all.

 

AEW Dynamite 12/8/2021

AEW Dynamite 12/8/2021

 

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/aew-dynamite-1212021.html
 

CM Punk Promo

This was just a weird segment with CM Punk cutting a heel promo on Long Island because MJF is from there and the crowd likes him. I have no idea how the non-New York fans were supposed to respond to this. The segment went way too long and got the show off to a bad start.
 

Dynamite Diamond Battle Royale

Why didn't they have qualifying for this or something to explain who got in and why? Wardlow was buried here just like he was last year and Jay Lethal was buried too here. This was a mess with Dante swerving Team Taz after swerving his new friend Lio Rush last week and Punk going from heel to face after one segment. MJF and Dante Martin were the last two survivors and will compete for the diamond ring next week.

 

The Dante swerve makes less sense the more you research it. You see, the battle royale wasn't even announced until 12/1, which was after Dante turned on Lio(11/24). So Dante would have to have advanced information about the battle royale and about who was in it(if Team Taz isn't in it, the plan fails). Dante would also have to be betting here that neither he or Team Taz gets eliminated, or else the whole plan fails and the plan has to assume that Lio Rush essentially threw the match.
 

Jurassic Express and The Varsity Blonds vs The Acclaimed and 2.0

It was fine for what it was with the faces getting the win in a quick multi-man match. Eddie Kingston got involved. JB getting knocked off the apron was funny and Bowens kicked Pillman right in the face. Griff's dive was nice.

We had an AEW production screw up as Eddie Kingston did a promo into a camera that nobody heard.

Tully Blanchard is back to being FTR's manager after Vicki took over for their Mexico trip. No explanation was given for it.
 

The Young Bucks vs Chuck Taylor and Rocky Romero

This sucked with the usual stupid Young Bucks spots and Chuck Taylor wrestling with sunglasses on. Why was Matt Jackson not DQ'd for pulling the ref down? The Bucks won here which was expected. Wheeler Yuta got involved after and was beaten up, then Trent's mom Sue drove him in via minivan and Trent cleared house. Was Trent stuck in traffic or something while Yuta was getting destroyed? Trent now has a buzz haircut. We are now 3 for 3 by the way with all of the matches so far having shenanigans in them.

Ruby Soho was interrupted by Penelope Ford and the Bunny and then ended up getting beaten up by them and Vicki Guerrero.

Cody Rhodes announced he would take Sammy Guevara's open challenge for the TNT title then Ethan Page and Scorpion Sky complained about this while in the stands.
 

Jamie Hayter vs Riho

Hayter forgot to catch Riho on a dive and she landed hard from the top to the floor. This wasn't bad but they did too much here and kicked out of stuff they shouldn't of. Rebel tried to get involved to make it 4v4 on matches with shenanigans in it. Jamie took a hard looking crucifix bomb from the top and a shining wizard for the Riho win.

The Lucha Brothers will fight FTR on Rampage. They actually mean it this time, not like last time. Hook also debuts on Rampage against Fuego del Sol.

The Varsity Blonds were interviewed. The lights went out and Malakai Black misted her then left.
 

Bryan Danielson vs John Silver

A match with an obvious result that was slow and went too long. Danielson went to beat up on Silver after and Page stopped it. Wasn't Page supposed to be suspended if he touched Danielson before the match?

Overall thoughts: Not a good one here. The first two segments were confusing and made no sense. We had shenanigans in almost every match, some classic AEW screwups and they did very little to build up to what should be a big show next week.

AEW Dynamite 12/1/2021

AEW Dynamite 12/1/2021

 

Bryan Danielson vs Alan Angels

This was to put over that Bryan is now a heel. I don't support Bryan being a heel right now. I'm not buying it whatsoever and the crowd clearly would rather have him be a face. I still don't get the whole logic behind Angels having a mask(while having a normal name) and then getting umasked by his partner in a random match. Let some heel beat him in a mask vs hair match instead.
 

CM Punk vs Lee Moriarty

MJF saying, "Why has this match lasted this long?" pretty much sums this up. This was just time filler and Lee did some very generic babyface stuff here. 

Orange Cassidy/Adam Cole segment

This made no sense and was totally stupid. OC had to see the Bucks coming in and it made no sense for Cole not to nail OC when he had his hands in his pockets.
 

Wardlow vs AC Adams

Wardlow has 6 more losses than Austin Gunn does at the time of this match. Let that sink in. More filler.
 

Sting and Darby Allin vs The Gunn Club

This is a battle of undefeated tag teams. Billy's cobra clutch bomb on Darby was really nice and Darby's two topes were awesome. This was stupid though. Colten beat everyone for over a year just to lose a random tv tag match. Stuff like this just buries the ranking system and undefeated streaks. It also just confirmed that the despite their record, the Gunn Club are just goofs. Awful booking that I guess you have to be a Booker of the Year to understand.

The Lio Rush/Team Tazz segment didn't work and neither did the Rosa/Jade segment. Not that I'm going to watch it, but letting Rosa be a commentator when she speaks in Spanish half the time doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

Kris Statlander vs Ruby Soho

I enjoyed Tazz's version of Ruby's theme. The armdrag sequence was sloppy. Ruby had a wild surprised face to a kickout here and they dropped each other on their heads a few times before Ruby won.

Atlanta Street Fight - Andrade El Idolo vs Cody Rhodes

Cody's back was seriously peeling here. This started out well and ended up being okay, though it went a little longer than it needed to. I thought some of the moves with the chairs were stupid as it probably hurt the person doing them as much as the person receiving them. AEW of course had to stick in some comedy here with a golden shovel and sledgehammer. I was really surprised by the flaming table spot but wasn't surprised by Brandi of course having to get her tv time in.

Overall thoughts: This show was mostly filler with the main event being the only thing that was really of note.