Welcome, everyone to the fourth 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, September 2nd edition of AEW Dynamite.
Santana & Ortiz vs. Best Friends
This weeks episode of Dynamite opened with a personal grudge match between these two teams. Before the match even began the Best Friends attacked during Santana & Ortiz’s entrance. They used chairs and steel steps, and Chuck Taylor would be back body dropped onto a bunch of chairs before the match began. The action here was very back and forth and both teams got a lot of offense in. The end of the match came after Trent had hit his finisher on Santana, and Ortiz help break it up by putting his hand on the rope, they then used a steel baton to the back of Trent and hit the Street Sweeper to earn the victory.
Segment Rating: 6/10
This was a hell of a match that did exactly what it needed to do which was get Santana & Ortiz a win. They’ve kind of taken a back seat in the past few weeks in the tag division and they need to get more wins and get them into the title picture down the line. The street sweeper is one of my favorite tag team finishers, I love seeing. I thought both teams looked good here and the Best Friends were not hurt by losing here. We saw these two teams later on in another segment to set up the Casino Battle Royale, so this feud isn’t over and we’ll see where they go from there.
SCU (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) & Private Party vs. The Young Bucks & Jurassic Express (Winning team faces each other at All Out)
This match had a lot of action, The Young Bucks were serious from the get-go and didn’t even pose for their entrance, seemingly all business because Hangman cost them a tag title opportunity and they needed this win to just get on the All Out card. The entire match saw Young Bucks and Jurassic Express have some miscommunication throughout. Daniels and Kazarian looked good in this match as well, Private Party sold the hell out of the offense by the opposing team and I don’t think they get enough credit for how good they are at selling. The finish came when Luchasaurus was in control and about to hit a chokeslam but Matt Jackson tagged himself in and he and Nick hit the BTE Trigger for the victory.
Segment Rating: 6/10
I enjoyed this match, for the most part, I love that The Young Bucks were all business in this match, and that sort of lead to a little bit of miscommunication in the match because of it but their team still pulled off the victory. The bucks didn’t even stick around to bask in the glory of the win, they just walked off and didn’t even acknowledge Jurassic Express after. So they are going into All Out all business and both these teams need a win in order to stay in the Tag Team Championship picture down the line. SCU and Private Party are out of the picture right now which is fine, there’s a lot of tag teams and these guys will be back in the limelight soon enough.
Kenny Omega Interview/FTR Mind Games
This segment began with Kenny Omega saying that Hangman is going to have live with his actions and that the thing that won’t change is them defeating FTR on Saturday. FTR and Tully Blanchard appear carrying a cooler. Dax Harwood says that Kenny and Hangman have had a great run and they are looking forward to the match and they offer cheers with Kenny by offering him chocolate milk. Kenny responds by saying “I can never turn down a good choc, but what I can do is turn down a couple of d***heads. He said he’s ready to fight and he knows he’s outnumbered but he knows what FTR is all about.
Hangman Page appears on the stage and enters the ring. Dax says that they didn’t do anything to get into Hangman’s head, Hangman got in his own head and did what he did last week, and calls Hangman an insecure little boy. Dax then calls Hangman a POS, and Cash Wheeler follows that up with his own POS insult. Kenny tries to call Hangman down, then we see FTR holding the Tag Team Championships and they drop them in front of Hangman. Hangman picks them up and goes to give Kenny his but Kenny has left to ringside.
Segment Rating 7/10
I absolutely loved this segment, I love it because I don’t know where it’s going and that’s a good thing. There’s a lot of questions, what does Kenny really think about what Hangman did by costing The Young Bucks last week? What is Hangman thinking after this segment when he thought last week that FTR were his friends? What does all of this mean for the future of The Elite? This is the kind of storytelling we should all want from our wrestling, and I thought it was all done perfectly. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Joey Janela vs. Chris Jericho
Earlier in the night, we saw Jake Hager invite Orange Cassidy to watch Jericho’s match, and Jericho did a backstage promo right before this match basically saying what he’s going to do to Orange Cassidy on Saturday and that Janela will be made an example of. This match kicked off right after Orange Cassidy made an entrance to sit in the crowd. This match was all Jericho, with Janela barely getting any offense in at all. The finish came when Janela escaped Jericho on the apron and springboarded in the ring into a Codebreaker, then Jericho put on the Walls of Jericho and Janela taped out.
Post-match saw Jericho expose the turnbuckle and smash Janela’s head into it. Janela is bleeding because of it. Jericho wipes the blood on his shirt, which happens to be an Orange Cassidy shirt. This leads to Orange Cassidy entering the ring and him and Jericho start brawling until Hager cuts in. Sonny Kiss comes out to help. Hager attacked Sonny Kiss, and that lead to Orange Cassidy firing back, but Jericho and Hager retreat.
Segment Rating: 4/10
This segment was just fine, unfortunately, everything they’ve done in the last three weeks has not gotten me excited for a “Mimosa Mayhem Match”, because this feud peaked when Cassidy pinned Jericho three weeks ago. Janela played the role he always plays which is the fall guy to the stars. This made Jericho look strong but as I said it wasn’t necessary.
Battle Royale Participants Cluster Segment
This segment started with Taz saying a member of Team Taz will win the Casino Battle Royale, he continues to say that Starks will handle Darby Allin and that Cage doesn’t fear Lance Archer. This brings out Jake Roberts and Lance Archer, followed by Eddie Kingston and his group. Shawn Spears comes out with Tully Blanchard. Taz calls Lance Archer a bitch, which leads to a brawl between everyone. Basically every member of the battle royal ends up in this brawl which also included Jake Hager, Santana & Ortiz, and The Best Friends, and the segment goes on through the commercial with no end in sight or any big spot.
Segment Rating: 2/10
This segment was bad because it was your generic participants of a battle royal have a brawl segment with no other purpose. The fact it went on through the commercial was a problem for me because it was time filler that was just not needed at all. The battle royal itself is giving the winner a world championship shot so instead of just having every participant (except one surprise from what I heard) just brawling doesn’t help make the match seem important at all.
Thunder Rosa vs. Serena Deeb
This was a very good match with a lot of back and forth action that showcased both competitors. Both of these ladies are amazing in the ring and I think Serena Deeb is one of the talents that AEW should sign to help the division recover. Serena got a lot of offense in, but Thunder Rosa scored the win after hitting the Thunder Driver for the win.
Segment Rating: 6/10
There are two reasons why this segment wasn’t rated higher, the first one is Thunder Rosa should have won handily and the match despite being very good was too long and she gave Serena way too much. I understand wanting to have a great match and that’s fine and I enjoyed it a lot, but Thunder Rosa should have run through Serena to prepare her for the title match on Saturday. The second thing I disliked was, where the hell was Shida, ever since this match was announced they were just doing pre-recorded segments and they even signed the contract in a pre-recorded segment, but this was the last show before the pay-per-view, Shida should have at least showed up on the stage and raised the title, something.
Big Swole Interview/Britt Baker Attacks
Tony Schiavone interviews Big Swole, she says she’s ready to finally get her hands on the Buy-In at All Out, in something called a “Tooth and Nail Match”, I don’t know what that is and they didn’t explain what that is either. In the middle of the interview, Rebel, for some reason shows up dressed as a pizza delivery person, says that the pizza is for Tony, this served as a distraction for Britt Baker to attack her from behind and lock in the Lock Jaw, and she proceeded to smash pizza in Swole’s face which felt unnecessary.
Jon Moxley vs. Mark Sterling/MJF Makes a Statement
The match itself was a nothing match, Mark Sterling, who is a trained wrestler from the indies, and also is a part of the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast with Matt Cardona and Brian Myers, has been playing the role of MJF’s lawyer, and this match he played the role of the person who doesn’t know how to wrestle but is forced to. Earlier in the night he was trying to find a way out of it and MJF warned him that he can either man up and have this match or he’s gonna have to deal with Wardlow. Wardlow came out with Sterling to make sure he didn’t try to run away so MJF doesn’t lose his title opportunity.
The entire match was a lot of Moxley toying with Sterling, he fell out of the ring a couple of times, he got smacked in the ear and sold that he couldn’t hear out of it, until Moxley caught his leg, that led to Sterling poking Moxley in the eye, which pissed Moxley off, and the assault was on. Moxley finishes the match returning the favor on the poke to the eye and hitting the Paradigm Shift for the win.
The real story was after the match, as soon as the bell rang Wardlow attacked Moxley. Wardlow would deliver a couple of F-10’s, this brings out MJF, who would throw the walker and take off his jacket and shirt to reveal he’s no longer “injured” and he attacks Moxley as well. Giving him loads mounted punches, and then chokes him. He puts on the Dynamite Diamond Ring and Punches Moxley square in the head while Wardlow held him. He then continues to punch and strangle Moxley on the ground after busting him open and wipes the blood all over his white tank top to close the show with him holding up the AEW Championship belt.
Segment Rating: 7/10
Let me just say from the start, the rating is for the post-match beat down and not the match. The match itself was completely unnecessary and shouldn’t have been the main event, the entire match was Moxley toying with Sterling and this wasn’t the match that needed to happen to end the go-home show of a pay-per-view. I probably would have done this earlier in the night if it was completely necessary and did a separate segment for MJF to establish his dominance going into the Championship match.
However, the post-match beat down is the story of the segment and it was the first time in the feud that I enjoyed something that these two did together. The MJF campaign angle didn’t work for me, and even though MJF can talk his ass off, the promos leading up to this segment didn’t make me excited to see these guys wrestle. With that said, this segment did exactly that because it made MJF look like he could take Moxley at his game. They sold me a ticket and I am now excited for this match how I should’ve been from the start.
As I mentioned last week I really hate the angle of banning the Paradigm Shift since Moxley has won multiple title defenses without it, so that part of the story bugged me because AEW is usually good with those kinds of minute details. Moxley should make it known he’s won plenty of matches including title matches without that move and that angle that MJF took to hinder him doesn’t matter, I can’t let that one go.
Remarkable Wrestler of the Week
For this episode AEW Dynamite, The Remarkable Wrestler of the Week is MJF.
MJF gets it this week because his intensity in this segment sold me a ticket to the main event, despite both guys being undefeated in singles matches, MJF finally showed me what I needed to see from him against someone like Jon Moxley to make me believe he could win this Saturday and made me super excited to see the match.
Overall
So that’s all the highlights of this episode of AEW Dynamite on September 2nd, the go-home show to All Out. Overall I give this show a 5 out of 10, it was almost a 6 if it wasn’t for that pointless battle royal participants brawl. The best matches hands down were the Santana & Ortiz/Best Friends match, and Eight-Man Tag Match, while the Kenny Interview and the MJF post-match attack helped two storylines move forward in the right direction and that’s what a good story is supposed to do.
What are your thoughts on Thursday Night AWE Dynamite? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @SLTDWrestling
Follow Mouthing Off: @MikeJC821
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