AEW Winter is Coming 12/15/2021

AEW Winter is Coming 12/15/2021

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.