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, October 28th edition of AEW Dynamite.
AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament Round 2: Wardlow vs. “Hangman” Adam Page
AEW kicked off this week with Dasha interviewing MJF and Wardlow, she asked Wardlow how he feels about the tournament and being closer to being the champion, MJF cuts him off and says since Wardlow works for him if and when he wins this tournament he’s going to give the AEW Championship to him, and Wardlow begrudgingly agrees. Then Sammy Guevara walks up and says that he’s going to personally make sure that MJF does not join the Inner Circle. MJF doesn’t understand what Guevara’s gripe is with him.
Immediately after this Wardlow versus Adam Page began, and it was a pretty good match that didn’t last very long, Wardlow was in control early because of his power advantage and even hit an F-10 mid-way through the but Page was able to avoid a pin by rolling out of the ring immediately after. A turning point in the match came when Wardlow on one apron went to the top rope and he pulled Page up with him on the opposing apron, and was going to attempt an F-10 from the top, but Page fought it off, then it looked Wardlow was gonna change it to a Chokeslam but Page turned it around and hit a top rope exploder suplex. He followed this up with two straight buck shot lariats for the pin. Page would celebrate by chugging a beer.
Segment Rating: 6/10
This was a fun match that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite it being super predictable, I’ve said since day one the finals is going to be Page versus Omega and at this point we are half way there. I still think we are building to a feud between Wardlow and MJF probably at the next pay-per-view after Full Gear. Little seeds being planted there between him and MJF for over a month now. Page moves on in the tournament, and is going to the finals at Full Gear.
Eddie Kingston vs. Matt Sydal
Before this match we saw a recorded promo of Jon Moxley, talking about how he’s defended the title for nearly a year but at Full Gear he’s gonna weaponize it and that there’s no room in AEW for “this” Eddie Kingston, and says he crushes windpipes, crushes necks, and crushes egos. Then tells Kingston to “Protect Your Neck”.
Before his match Eddie Kingston who was flanked by The Butcher, The Blade, and The Bunny, would state that he’s offended that the world champion isn’t here tonight, and that he decided to stay home because he’s a coward. and tonight he’s gonna get retribution on “The Joker” Matt Sydal because as we all know he never lost that battle royal, then he says hi to Lance Archer who is in the crowd.
The match begins, and Kingston is in control for the majority of the match. Sydal would turn it around after hitting a standing hurricanra off the top rope, then a double knee drop for a near fall. Frustrated Kingston hit a spinning back fist, then locked in Moxley’s signature bulldog choke for the submission. After the bell he kept the choke on and The Bunny walked in with a mic, and Eddie said “say I quit Moxley”, and Sydal says it to end the segment.
Segment Rating: 5/10
This match was exactly what it needed to be, Kingston getting a win to build momentum to his title opportunity at Full Gear. It’s refreshing to see title contenders winning matches before a title match, because that’s how it’s supposed to be. Sydal sold great for Kingston, and I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of him doing jobs for the stars. Kingston looked good and is ready for the pay-per-view.
Young Bucks/FTR Sit Down Interview
Next we get a pre-recorded split screen interview with Excalibur sitting with the Young Bucks, and FTR with Tully Blanchard (who didn’t say anything) sitting somewhere else. Excalibur asks Matt Jackson how his ankle is, Matt says he’s fine and the match is still on no matter what. Excalibur then asks FTR why they would put this dream match in jeopardy by doing what they did to Matt, Cash responds by saying that they don’t care about dream matches, all they care about is being tag champions. Excalibur then asks the Bucks if this ankle injury to Matt is come-uppance for their recent attitude change. Matt responds by saying he doesn’t regret anything they’ve done the past few weeks, and that they’ve been suffering for months and this attitude change was what they needed to get their edge back, and that ever since “these pricks” (FTR) joined AEW they have been messing with their livelihood.
FTR gets offended and Dax says they don’t have to deal with this disrespect and since they aren’t needed for this interview they are leaving. Nick Jackson says that they have way more to lose then just a title match, and he doesn’t like it. Matt states if they lose they can never challenge for the tag titles again, and closes by saying they have made a career out of betting on themselves.
Segment Rating: 5/10
As much as I am super excited to watch this match, I have not loved any of the segments leading up to it, last week with the “lottery”, and this week with this interview, granted not as bad as the lottery I found it to be a complete waste of time. It felt unnecessary, and the Young Bucks unfortunately don’t have an ounce of the passion that Cody does in his promos, so the announcement for the stipulation sounded forced, and not necessary either. I don’t like the stipulation because unlike Cody who did this already a year ago, The Young Bucks are a tag team and nothing else, nobody wants to see them as singles, and they don’t want to be singles, so them not being able to challenge for tag titles in the future would be stupid. FTR didn’t really stand out here as they didn’t really say anything. All together kind of unnecessary.
Inner Circle Town Hall
We follow up one pointless segment with another one. Tony Schiavone and Dasha Gonzalez are moderating this “Town Hall” As they introduce the Inner Circle (without Jake Hager who has an MMA fight tomorrow) and MJF. Luchasaurus asks the first question and asks MJF how he can contribute the earning potential for Inner Circle. MJF shows a chart that would show the earnings pre MJF and post MJF that would go way up.
Britt Baker and Rebel walk up next, first with Rebel parodying the woman from the Trump Town Hall, who told Trump he had a nice smile even though she didn’t vote for him, Rebel did that to Jericho for no reason at all. Then Britt Baker steps in and says that MJF has a horrible track record with friends and how that makes Jericho feel. Jericho responds by saying he’s not a “dipshit” like Cody, and if he tried to turn on them they knock his teeth down his throat. MJF responds by saying he just want’s to make money and doesn’t want to turn on them.
Then Peter Avalon is up next, and he goes “I’m just gonna shoot my shot, can I join the Inner Circle?” they all laugh at him. That’s followed by Eric Bischoff who has numerous questions. He asks what MJF would bring to the Inner Circle, MJF responds “Friendship”. Bischoff then asks MJF what joining the Inner Circle would do for him, he says he’s not the best team player but he thinks once he joins the group he can learn to be. Bischoff then asks MJF he has worked with Jericho in the passed and he’s a “prima donna” which angers Jericho and Tony tells him to shut up. Bischoff then says that since MJF is kind of a “prima donna” as well how do him and Jericho not end up killing eachother.
Jericho then asks MJF why they shouldn’t expect him to stab them in the back, MJF says he gave Jericho the best segment of his career, and asks what he hasn’t done in this business. Jericho says he hasn’t beat him, but he’s gonna get his chance, at Full Gear, because they are going to face each other in a match and if MJF wins he will be in the Inner Circle. MJF says he’ll do anything to win.
Ortiz cuts in and says next week him and Guevara are not on board with this, and if Hager was here he’d agree with them, but Santana is undecided, and next week he’s gonna team with Wardlow to face himself and Guevara and they will make sure he doesn’t make it to Full Gear.
Segment Rating: 3/10
Once again, WWE….I mean AEW tried too hard here. This wasn’t entertaining, it wasn’t funny and you have to question why they did it at all. People continue to give these segments a pass because It’s Chris Jericho, or because MJF is a hell of a talker. Both of those excuses because that’s what they are excuses, don’t help the argument for any of these segments. they are all bad. MJF on the mic recently has been very very bad. Why all this was necessary at all, is beyond me, but AEW is better then this. They promised us an alternative and a more sports oriented show, this is the exact opposite of that and I’m sorry but they don’t get a pass from me. Regardless of all that, the match should be good, we all kind of saw it coming and where it leads is where I’m most intrigued, does this divide the Inner Circle? Does someone turn on someone within the Inner Circle because of Chris Jericho’s ignorance? We’ll just have to wait and see.
TNT Championship Lumberjack Match: Cody (c) vs. Orange Cassidy
I’m not a huge fan of Lumberjack matches because they always tend to go the same way. A group of faces, and a group of heels surround the ring, the heels attack people, the faces send people back in the ring. Of course that happened again, but it was a good match regardless. Early on they try to hit signature moves early but they back off each other after both reversing them. Orange played some mind games by pretending he was gonna put his hands in his pockets like he starts every match, but he hits a side headlock takeover which was a nice touch. They did a lot of chain wrestling with Orange getting the upper hand on Cody every time which seemed to frustrate Cody. At one point Cassidy knocked Cody off the apron and he is caught by the Best Friends who realize it and just drop him as Cody re-entered the ring, I don’t know why that did aggravate Dustin and QT Marshall who were amongst the lumberjacks.
The spot of the match was during a brawl that broke out between the lumberjacks (of course) during the commercial was Cody hitting a superplex on Orange Cassidy to the outside onto the pile of all the lumberjacks. The finish came after a nice sequence of traded signature moves and near falls the Alan “5” Angels distracted the referee, which lead to John “4” Silver to hit a pump kick on Orange Cassidy and for Arn Anderson to hit Cassidy in the back of the head with the TNT Championship, Cody didn’t see any of it, but he followed it up with a cross rhodes to get the victory.
Segment Rating: 6/10
For a lumberjack match this was good. I got exactly what I expected. The Dark Order got involved and basically cost Orange Cassidy the match, probably because they want Cody to keep the belt so Brodie Lee can eventually get it back from him which probably won’t happen. The thing that stuck out to me was Arn Anderson kind of getting frustrated by Cody getting cocky, and him also getting involved. I’ve been saying for a while a Cody heel turn is gonna happen at some point and Cody was getting frustrated during all these matches for a while, so I think it’s inevitable down the line. Orange Cassidy loses again which I guess was expected, I don’t know where he goes from here but he does have a match with John “4” Silver at the buy-in of Full Gear. Cody goes on to Full Gear to defend against Darby Allin who watched from the rafters.
NWA Women’s Championship: Serena Deeb (c) vs. Leyla Hirsch
This was a great match, by two great performers. They had a great chain wrestling sequence to start the match, and pretty much from there on out Serena was in control or had an answer for everything that Hirsch did. The finish came when Hirsch went for a a moonsault but missed, and Serena capitalized with a sequence of a suplex neckbreaker, a rude awakening and a tequila sunrise for a submission victory.
Segment Rating: 5/10
I enjoyed this match and it proved what I said a few weeks ago, Serena is really good. A few weeks ago she had a match with Big Swole and she lost and I said that was a mistake and it absolutely was, I get it was to build Swole for the title match she inevitably lost, but Serena is very, very good and this was all the proof anyone needed. I’m happy she’s getting this opportunity, the NWA is still playing along and she’s the champion now which has people wondering what is next for Thunder Rosa. The thing that sticks out here is you got a signed AEW superstar, facing an unsigned up and comer for NWA’s title, granted NWA only has three signed women so yea further proof these two companies need to work together.
Shawn Spears vs. VSK
The match was literally shorter then Kenny’s match last week. Bell Rings, C4, pinfall, Spears wins. The story was after the match. After the match someone in the crowd was throwing candy at Spears. He goes in the crowd and pulls the man wearing a bull mask out and brings him in the ring. He turns his back to get the slug to put in his glove from Tully Blanchard and the man unmasks to reveal it’s Scorpio Sky, and he hits Spears with a TKO, and it’s announced they have a match next week.
Segment Rating: 4/10
The match was what it was if you can even call it a match. The segment that followed was also just what it was and it forwarded the story between the two. Which will lead to the match next week.
AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament Round 2: Penta El Zero Miedo vs. Kenny Omega
This was hands down the match of the night. Kenny once again gets an overexaggerated entrance like last week to push being a singles star. Penta took the place of his brother Fenix who defeated him last week because of injury. Kenny starts the match in a shirt, and reveals the AAA Mega Championship which he beat Fenix for last October. Fenix didn’t like this and hopped up on the apron. Penta and Omega start the match by trading chops, and Omega taunts Penta further and and takes his glove off and throws it at Omega but he slaps Penta with it. Kenny asks to be chopped again but he kicks Omega to end that sequence. There was a lot of back and forth action and they played the hits for the most part.
One thing that was crazy was a canadian destroyer on the ramp which garnered “this is awesome” chants, followed by a package piledriver in the ring for a near fall. One spot I think that needs to go from Penta’s arsenal is the armbreaker he does almost every match. The reason I dislike it is because every single time he does it commentary says “so and so is gonna have hard time pulling off some offense now” which they did again here, and it inevitably backfires because said offense ends up happening anyway. The finish came when Penta came off the top rope right into a V-Trigger by Omega, followed by the One-Winged Angel, that commentary said he wouldn’t be able to hit because of the armbreaker for the pin and the win.
Segment Rating: 6/10
Surprise surprise, the finals is “Hangman” Adam Page versus Kenny Omega. Nobody is surprised about that one bit, but that’s fine, it doesn’t matter if that was predictable because the pay off in the end is going to be a hell of a match. As for this match it was great, even though it too was very predictable. It was a paint by numbers match which like I said they played all the hits as these two tend to do, but it was very enjoyable and Omega moves on to the finals at Full Gear to set up a hell of a match with Adam Page that is sure to be amazing.
Remarkable Wrestler of the Week
For this episode of AEW Dynamite, the Remarkable Wrestler of the Week is, Kenny Omega.
Kenny Omega gets the RWOW this week, for his performance in the main event alone. It was a great match, and I’ve loved the charisma and cockiness he’s been showing the past couple weeks, the Kenny Omega of old is back and I love it.
Overall
So that’s all the highlights for this episode of AEW Dynamite on October 28th, overall I give this show a 5 out 10. It wasn’t the best show, because once again the interview segments brought the show down a lot, but most of the matches it saved it from being the worst AEW show I’ve reviewed to this point. The tournament matches, and the women’s match saved this show.
What are your thoughts on AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @SLTDWrestling.
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