Welcome everyone to the latest edition of #MouthingOff (with MikeJC): Dynamite Weekly, the weekly review feature on AEW Dynamite here on SLTDWrestling.com. I will be giving my thoughts and opinions on all the highlights of the show as well as giving the “Remarkable Wrestler” of the week. So here are the highlights of the Wednesday, January 6th edition of AEW Dynamite, New Year’s Smash Night 2.
Eddie Kingston vs. PAC
Dynamite kicks off with a video package showing the history of Eddie Kingston and his family and how that was built to setup this feud with PAC. This was a pretty good match that had a lot of back and forth action. The styles of these two meshed very well the hard hitting brawling style of Kingston, and the hybrid, high flying and striking style of PAC. The finish came when Kingston went for a DDT and PAC held the ropes to down Kingston, and he dragged Kingston to the corner to hit the black arrow for the pin and the win.
Immediately following the match PAC locks in the brutalizer and The Butcher and The Blade would interfere as well as the Lucha Bros. Then Lance Archer comes out as Kingston and his team leave. Archer and PAC have a stare down, and Archer tells PAC to get on the same page.
Segment Rating: 6/10
I enjoyed this match, and expected it to be the end of this feud. Clearly it’s not over because of the thing with Archer, but it seems to me like this will be transitioning into an Archer/PAC feud and Kingston doing something else. Good match to start of the show.
Miro vs. Chuck Taylor
This match was pretty obvious the moment it was announced. These guys worked well together though. Chuck started the match with a flurry of punches that sends Miro outside and he hits a swanton on the outside. He he disposes of Kip Sabian who attacked Orange Cassidy. Then Miro took control. With his own flurry of strikes and a Belly to Belly suplex out of the corner. The finish saw Miro hit a superkick to the back of the head followed by the Game Over for the tap out victory.
Following the match Miro would head up the ramp and stare at Orange Cassidy who didn’t look impressed as per usual with his demeanor.
Segment Rating: 5.25/10
This was an okay match with a predictable winner. I’m intrigued about what kind of skits they will do now that Chuck has to be Miro’s “butler” until Kip and Penelope’s wedding on February 3rd at Beach Break. Those segments have potential to be really funny. I liked the dominant performance by Miro and I hope we are gonna see more intensity from him in matches hopefully leading to something bigger for him in AEW.
Inner Circle’s New Year’s Resolutions
All of the Inner Circle comes out and they are talking about what they hope to accomplish in 2021. Jake Hager immediately screams “championships”, MJF says he wants to continue to strengthen his bonds with his group mates. Ortiz says he wants to master a recipe. Jericho says this is the year that MJF and himself will win the AEW Tag Team Championships. Santana then cuts off Jericho and says that he picked Santana & Ortiz to be the tag team of the Inner Circle, then Sammy Guevara chimes in and calls Chris Jericho a “tag team slut” because he’s teamed with Guevara, Hager and now MJF, and Guevara says next Jericho will be teaming with Snoop Dogg.
MJF tried to interject and get the fighting to stop, but Guevara wasn’t having it. So Jericho intervenes again and says just like Wardlow and Hager did last week. He thinks the rest of the Inner Circle needs to blow off some steam next week. So he announces there will be a triple threat tag team match, the winner will be the “official tag team” of the Inner Circle. It will be Jericho and MJF versus Santana & Ortiz versus Sammy Guevara & Jake Hager. All three teams lay claim to whose going to win, and when Guevara says Sammy and Hager will win, Jericho says “Sammy Hager?” in reference to rock legend Sammy Hagar, which Guevara claimed to not get.
Segment Rating: 5.5/10
This one of the few Inner Circle segments I actually liked since MJF and Wardlow joined the group. They all seemed to still be at a stand still because it’s obvious to everyone that this is leading to a split of the group sooner rather then later. Also they finally made sense of something I’ve been asking for, Jericho has been wanting tag title shots, and Santana & Ortiz should have been pissed about from the beginning for the exact reason that they finally addressed in this segment, and I love when they make sense of things even if it should’ve been addressed a lot sooner. So that triple threat should be very interesting and I believe is the first time any of these guys will be facing each other.
Kenny Omega & The Good Brothers vs. The Varsity Blondes & Danny Limelight
This match was promoted as The Elite in six man tag team action. Before the match Kenny asks The Young Bucks if they want to come out together, and Don Callis interjects and says he enjoys the Young Bucks entrance so they should come out separately. Omega comes out first with his usual over the top introduction. Then Don Callis says he’s taking over for Justin Roberts. He introduces Kenny Omega’s best friends, The Good Brothers. As we see The Young Bucks standing at the gorilla position with Tony Khan realizing they got played by Callis.
The match it self is a brawl from the beginning, a lot of it saw all three members of Kenny’s team singling a member of the opposing team and isolating the others. Danny Limelight and Griff Garrison looked the best in this match for the opposing team. There was a moment during the match where Omega had Gallows in a backpack position and Anderson jumped on top for a three man compactor to Garrison. The finish of the match comes after Anderson hit a rocket kick on Garrison he goes to hit a gun stun but Garrison breaks free, tags in Limelight who goes for a DDT but it’s reversed into a big spinebuster by Anderson followed by the Magic Killer for the pin and the win.
Immediately after the match, Jon Moxley’s music hits as he comes out through the crowd like he usually does and immediately starts brawling with all three members of Kenny’s team. Then the Lucha Bros. come out to help Moxley and then the locker room empties to clear the brawl, as it turns into a full fledged pull apart. Then the Young Bucks come out and they are trying to reason with Moxley and calm him down. Then for some reason the Lucha Bros. give The Young Bucks each a superkick, as Omega and Callis escape the chaos to end the segment.
Segment Rating: 6.25/10
This was basically a warm up match for Omega & The Good Brothers for their match on Saturday at the Impact pay-per-view. This added another wrinkle to this thing with Omega, they had you think he was on the same page with The Young Bucks, now we have to question what is really going on there. The Varsity Blondes are a good team and I hope they have a future as a team, and I enjoyed Danny Limelight’s work as well. We’ll see what all this means in the coming weeks.
The Waiting Room with Britt Baker
This was promoted with Cody as the guest, and as soon as Cody was introduced, Britt says she has a surprise guest and it’s Jade Cargill. We hadn’t seen Jade Cargill in weeks and I was 100 percent okay with that. She comes out and talks about Shaq again, and she doesn’t care that Cody’s wife is gone for nine months with her pregnancy, she wants competition. Then Red Velvet comes out which leads to Jade and Velvet slapping each other and leads to a pull apart. Then once Red Velvet leaves. A video comes up on the screen of when Britt and Rebel attacked Thunder Rosa. Thunder Rosa says that she is getting her match with Britt and it will be on a bigger stage with time, at Beach Break on February 3rd.
Segment Rating: 3/10
I absolutely hated this. None of this was needed to set up what it set up. Why did we need this segment to setup Jade versus Red Velvet? Why did Cody have to be here at all? It’s okay if he isn’t on the show one week. Why did they put Thunder Rosa segment immediately after a brawl. They could have completely gotten rid of this segment as a whole, set up the Jade/Velvet match on Dark, and did the exact same video that played for Rosa and Britt to set up that match without everything else, and given the time to other matches. None of this was needed at all.
Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt) vs. FTR
This match was great, which is not surprising at all. As soon as they announced last week that Marko was taking Luchasaurus’ place, we all know that FTR was going to give him a lot and they definitely did here. There was a lot of great action here, Jungle Boy looked great as always. FTR were amazing in their roles as the heels. I enjoyed this match a lot. The finish of the match came after Tully got involved and pulled Marko out of the ring and when Jungle Boy goes to make the save Cash throws Jungle Boy into the barricade and that sets up FTR to hit the newly named Big Rig (formerly known as the Goodnight Express).
Segment Rating: 6.5/10
I loved this match and FTR continues to win matches since losing the tag titles, building back up to that eventual rematch with The Young Bucks. Jurassic Express, are not doing much right now. Marko takes the pin again which is the usual when he wrestles. Jungle Boy has a huge future ahead of him and I’m sure that he and Luchasaurus will be tag champions one day.
NWA World Women’s Championship: Serena Deeb (c) vs. Tay Conti
This was Tay Conti’s best match ever in her entire career. Serena Deeb is so good and it shows every single time she has a match. This was a great match between two women who wanted to show what they can do. Once again AEW is giving more time to the NWA title then their own title and champion, Hikaru Shida who was nowhere to be found this week at all. This match saw a lot of chain wrestling a lot of trading of submissions. Conti really got to show what she could do using her Judo background here. The finish came when Conti went for the Tay KO but Deeb reversed it into the Deeb Tox for the win to retain the title.
Segment Rating: 6.5/10
I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if Conti had won this match. Deeb pulled it out in a very good match that was very enjoyable, I still don’t understand why this title is featured more then the AEW title, that really needs to be fixed big time. Tay looked great in this match even in a loss and I think if AEW figures out what they are doing with their women’s division she could have a bright future. Deeb is so good and I hope look forward to what she does after losing this title eventually but she’s having a hell of a run and keeps climbing the rankings.
TNT Championship: Darby Allin (c) vs. Brian Cage
Darby Allin is a star. This was a hell of a match, and these two worked very well together, this was hands down Brian Cage’s best AEW match for sure. Early on Cage showed off his strength by catching Darby into a suplex off of a suicide dive, very impressive. Then he gorilla pressed Darby over the top rope at least a few feet away onto a table. Darby gets busted up from the table spot. Cage then carries Darby back into the ring in a suplex position.
Later Cage sets up the steel steps outside and looks to slam Darby on them but Darby knocks Cage of the apron and Cage lands on the steps and then Darby hits the coffin drop on Cage while he’s laying on the steps. Darby gets another near fall and when Cage powers out he tosses Darby up into the air and Darby lands on the top rope and immediately hits a diving foot stomp. Darby goes back up but Ricky Starks gets involved when Hook (Taz’s son) distracts the ref.
The lights go out and when they come back on, Sting appears and he hits Starks with the bat. Cage climbs up to take Darby out but Darby turns it into a crucifix pin from the middle rope for the pin and the win. Darby Allin retains. The snow begins to fall as it does during Sting’s entrance as the show goes off the air.
Segment Rating: 7/10
This was a great match, a great way to end this show. Both guys looked good in this match and Cage didn’t look bad for losing thanks to surprise pin after Sting appeared. Darby is a star as I said earlier and he has a very bright future, and I believe he will be a world champion one day. I’d like Darby to move one from Team Taz but that might not happen because of Sting. I still would like to know what Sting’s agenda is, obviously he has business with Team Taz because he wants to be associated with Darby but this needs to be explained finally because Sting not saying what any of this means is just annoying at this point but it’s still cool to see him come out despite me not wanting Sting to wrestle ever.
Remarkable Wrestler of the Week
For this episode of AEW Dynamite, the Remarkable Wrestler of the Week is, Darby Allin.
Darby gets the RWOW this week for his stellar performance in the main event. He finally got his win over Cage that we’ve been hoping for him to get. He won the best match of the night and that’s why he gets it this week.
Overall
So that’s all the highlights for this special episode of AEW Dynamite, New Year’s Smash Night two, overall I give this episode of Dynamite a 5.75 out of 10. I enjoyed pretty much all the wrestling tonight as most of the matches were ranging from fine to really good. The Waiting Room segment was completely pointless and Jade Cargill was bad on the mic again and that segment as a whole was the only thing that brought down a solid episode of Dynamite.
What are your thoughts on AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @SLTDWrestling.
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