AEW was coming off of over 900,000 viewers last week as it kicked off 2020 with a bang. Coming to us from South Haven, MS, Dynamite promoted Memphis legends to be in the arena tonight. Let’s jump right into the opening bell and see if they could carry over last week’s momentum. Memphis Legend Dave Brown helped the usual crew call the first match.
Adam Page/Kenny Omega vs. Private Party
This match carries over the recent backstage/Being The Elite skits between Page and Private Party, as well as adds to the recent tension between Page and Omega. Dave Brown was so quiet that he was nearly non-existent on commentary. The Elite buddies relied on a power game, and Private Party added more new tandem offense. This went a little too long, but it served its purpose as a solid opener. Page and Omega had a near collision where they stopped themselves, but then Omega caused Page to be hit later, accidentally. Page is obviously going heel, it’s just a matter of when. Omega gets the win with the One-Winged Angel.
Backstage, an enraged Pac has Michael Nakazawa in the Brutalizer. Pac says this will keep happening until he gets his rematch with Omega. If that match takes place at Revolution, I can see Page costing Omega the win.
Riho vs. Kris Statlander- Women’s Championship
Brandi Rhodes is out for commentary for this match, and she makes sure to be heard far more than Dave Brown earlier. She throws out heel quips at Excalibur and is entertaining in her interjections. We see Britt Baker and Hikaru Shida watching from the crowd (why wouldn’t the wrestlers be watching backstage or come out onto the ramp to observe…they work there?). This was a really solid match that continued to expose the crowd to Statlander’s impressive power arsenal. She did a stalling vertical suplex off the ropes that must be seen to be believed. The Nightmare Collective comes out and starts messing with Rhio, but Statlander dives on them. LOTS of Tope Suicidas tonight. Statlander is face to face with Brandi, and the bald man from the vignettes (“Japanese Deathmatch Legend” Luther) comes out from under the ring.
AEW is REALLY terrible at introducing new talent to their audiences. Excalibur acts as if everyone knows who Luther is, and Tony fumbles through trying to explain that he was seen in the vignettes. Jim Ross is entirely lost the whole time, and the crowd is too. Riho wins, and then the Collective beat down both women. Big Swole and Hikaru Shida run down to defend the babyfaces, and Britt Baker stays in her seat (turning heel). If this sounds like a jumbled mess, it was. Too many run ins, too many forced pieces with no explanation, and the match got lost in the chaos. The people who are writing this show need to find better ways (with more logic) to introduce these characters to a casual audience.
There was a fun little package with Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford, as they “bring sexy back” to AEW and feud with Joey Janela. This was a nice way to lay groundwork for a character in a short time.
Chris Daniels vs. Sammy Guevara
This battle of grizzled veteran against cocky young flyer made for a nice clash of styles. All the offense was well-paced and realistic. It provided a stark contrast to all the other matches on this show, and told the story of Daniels having no confidence that he could still wrestle. Pentagon came out and distracted Daniels, leading to Guevara winning with a running knee. Quality win from the youngster.
The Dark Order comes out with Daniels in the ring, saying they believe in him. Daniels helped give Evil Uno his start in wrestling, so they played that into the storyline. They prey upon Daniels losing and his lack of confidence to try to get him to join them, which is a great character touch. After a good promo, Daniels rejects the offer and gets beat down. SCU and the Young Bucks run down and beat up the Dark Order.
Rhodes Brothers vs. Lucha Bros
This was a battle of two real-life brother combos for the first time. Pentagon is still doing his slow glove removal and saying “cero miedo” a thousand times before every match. This was just kinda there, nothing special outside of Cody’s hot-tag fire. Arn Anderson continues to pay off as the Rhodes’ manager. Dustin wins with the Final Reckoning. It’ll be interesting if Cody and Dustin get involved in more tag team stuff, but this decision seems odd with Cody right in the middle of his war with MJF. After the match, Tony Schiavone asks Cody about MJF’s demands, and Arn Anderson jumps in. He says they’ll think about MJF’s proposal.
Lanny Poffo is seen backstage talking to Alex Marvez as other Memphis legends stand in the ring. They did some legends segments that we’ll see this Tuesday on AEW Dark.
MJF and Wardlow come out, and this is by FAR the segment of the show. MJF says that Cody is scared to face him, and DDP comes out to a big pop. DDP says the world wants to know if he’ll wrestle one more match, then MJF brings out the Butcher and the Blade. DDP gives them Diamond Cutters before MJF low blows him. Everything about this was hot. DDP still has tons of charisma, MJF can hang with anyone in the world on the mic, and this was great use of Butcher and Blade. Using DDP to put over young talent like this will work wonders for new audiences who remember Dallas Page.
Jurassic Express vs. Best Friends/Orange Cassidy
By now, if you’re regular readers of this column, you’re well acquainted with my disdain for the acts of Marko Stunt and Orange Cassidy. So to combine those two levels of unbelievability and silliness was obviously not my cup of tea. They did maximize the usefulness of Stunt by having a majority of his offense come from being propelled by his teammates. There’s no denying the tired/lazy gimmick of Orange Cassidy is very over with live crowds. Jungle Boy gets a big pinfall here, and he’s a guy you can really build around.
There were some audio issues and stalling by the commentary team, which seemed to happen a lot tonight.
To close the show, Jericho and the Inner Circle came out to get Jon Moxley’s answer of their proposal to join him. Lots of groups recruiting talent on this show. Moxley says he doesn’t want their gifts, but he does want to dominate and tear up AEW, so he accepts. He pulls his jacket off to reveal an Inner Circle t-shirt. They all pop “a little bit of the bubbly” (for what goes on a bit too long to fill time) until Moxley says he’s just kidding. He gives Jericho and Guevara both Paradigm Shifts, and goes through the crowd with the keys to the car Jericho offered. It was painfully obvious that Moxley was never going to join, so it might have been a better choice to have him pretend to join and then try to destroy them from within.
Overall, I felt like this was an average edition of Dynamite. The two promo segments for the two top feuds carried it, but a few matches also felt long and overbooked. My fatigue for long-running wrestling shows has set in. I used to thirst for long matches with crazy moves. Now that those are available everywhere in 2020, I prefer angles and character promos over long spot matches where everyone does the same choreographed flips. But AEW does a great job protecting it’s main stars (Jericho, Moxley, Cody, and MJF) and building its main feuds. That alone leaves something for fans of both matches AND angles.
