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.