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.