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, November 17th edition of AEW Dynamite.
National Cowboy Sh*t Day Celebration
Dynamite kicks off with a video of the Elite talking backstage and Kenny talks about Full Gear not being a good night for all of them and he needs to re-think some things before he even thinks about a rematch and he says he wants the others to hold things down while he takes time away and Adam Cole steps in and promises and Omega interrupts and says he was talking to the Bucks before Nick tells Brandon Cutler to cut the feed.
In the ring the entire Dark Order is in the ring and they introduce “Hangman” Adam Page, who makes his entrance the crowd breaks into a “You Deserve It!” chant but he interjects and says that he would like to correct the fans and says no he earned it which they then start chanting “You Earned It!” He mentions that he’s just a man with a boss, and he says from day one that his boss was the fans and if they will allow it he’d like to spend as much time as he wants to celebrate “National Cowboy Sh*t Day” with them. He then mentions Bryan Danielson is next.
This brings out Bryan Danielson, who gets a mixed reaction from the start for the interruption. He says he’s here for one reason only and that’s to congratulate Page. He then mentions that he’s kind of disappointed that after winning the tournament that he doesn’t get to take the title off of Kenny Omega. Hangman steps in and says no it’s not Kenny Omega but he did beat him in under thirty minutes, something Bryan couldn’t do.
They get in each other’s faces and Bryan asks the crowd if they want to see him face Page tonight for the title, and as the crowd erupts he continues and says normally he would but Page has always had a long list of excuses for his misfortunes and Bryan talks about how he always works hard no matter what and was in the main event of WrestleMania and worked the next night and is always dressed to compete tonight and Page is wearing these cowboy boots and jeans, and some kind of horrible leather jacket and he doesn’t want to give Hangman a ready made excuse for why he’s wasn’t ready to defend the title.
Page says “I guess they won’t fight tonight, but Virginia might be for lovers but he’s still gonna fight.” Page then pushes Bryan and they are immediately separated by The Dark Order. Bryan then mentions how Hangman’s friends are holding him back because he doesn’t really want to fight tonight and even Hangman’s friends know that Bryan would kick his ass. Page then runs through The Dark Order and continues the brawl. as it’s broken up again and they go to break.
Segment Rating: 7.25/10
I loved that this was the first time really that AEW kicked off with a promo and it did exactly what it was meant to do, I absolutely loved all of this, I love that Bryan is essentially a heel now because he’s worked every single show and he throws that in Page’s face that he’s better then him because of it. I love how personal this is right away because of Page mentioning he could beat Kenny and did it in less then thirty minutes unlike Bryan, all of that is great. Kenny getting a well deserved break is fine by me. He revealed he’s been wrestling with vertigo since 2018 and I think he could come back better then ever if he gets that taken care of.
Bryan Danielson vs. Evil Uno
Immediately after the break we get this match and I loved right away how much more vicious Bryan’s offense was in this match. He basically flipped a switch as soon as it became about the title and I freaking love it. He continues hit big strikes and Uno gets back into it with a neckbreaker to flip the momentum for the time of being. Bryan fires back with a rolling forearm shot and continuous chops and slaps. Bryan hits a huge dropkick in the corner and eventually hits his running knee to the head.
Bryan then does the arm trapped stomps and they are vicious this time around as fans are booing him he immediately locks in a triangle after this and Uno passes out immediately for the submission victory. After the match, Tony Schiavone enters the ring and asks how intense things got before and during that match. Bryan says he initially came out here to congratulate Hangman, and ended up kicking someone’s head in. He says he wants to beat up every member of the Dark Order then mentions how next week they will be in Chicago and there’s a member of Dark Order from Chicago, and challenges Colt Cabana to a match next week and walks off.
Segment Rating: 7.5/10
I absolutely loved this, and I’ll say it again Bryan Danielson is so good that he’s a heel just because he wants to wrestle and puts people down who don’t work as hard as he does. I freaking love that, and now he wants to destroy every member of Dark Order just to get to Hangman mentally, and make sure he’s at his best to face Bryan. All of this is great, and I love that Bryan could be a baby face after this over because he’s just a workhorse who just wants to be the best. I can’t wait to see where this goes.
The Butcher & The Blade vs. Orange Cassidy and Tomohiro Ishii
This match was special, Ishii starts off with The Blade and hits numerous strikes and then tags in Orange Cassidy for the usual sloth style stuff, but this doesn’t last long as The Butcher and The Blade take advantage and now Orange is in trouble. Ishii eventually tags in again and destroys The Blade with strikes again, and The Butcher then tags in and has a stare down with Ishii before they start hitting each other with strikes and eventually a superplex and then tags in Orange Cassidy again.
Cassidy hits a stun-dog millionaire out of nowhere and then a tornado DDT, and sets up for the Orange Punch after a near fall but he’s cut off by Butcher and Blade who hit a double team for another near fall, that Ishii breaks up and then drags Cassidy to their corner to tag him. Ishii fights off both Butcher and Blade by himself, he knocks Blade out of the ring.
He continues to fight Butcher and Matt Hardy gets on the apron distracted the ref, and then Bunny gets on the opposite side, Ishii hits a great looking German suplex on Butcher disposing of him, and Blade runs in with brass knuckles but Orange Cassidy recovers and pull Blade out before he can use them and then Cassidy does a dive onto Blade and Matt Hardy then sends Blade back into the ring to the waiting arms of Ishii for a brainbuster and pinfall victory.
Segment Rating: 5.75/10
This was a fun match, especially knowing that The Butcher made sure he could appear for this match by taking a day off from his bands tour to do it, and then go right back to the tour. This was a fun match that Ishii did a great job adapting to the style of Butcher and Blade, and him teaming with Orange Cassidy is hilarious to me, because Ishii has always been the straight forward guy who wants to beat you up and him working with the sloth style of Orange is so interesting to me. Now that all of the Best Friends are part of Chaos I hope we see more members on AEW eventually leading to the eventual AEW appearance of Kazuchika Okada, because it’s going to happen.
TBS Championship Tournament Round 2: Nyla Rose vs. Hikaru Shida
I am tired of seeing this match, now I get it doesn’t happen as often as I make out like it does but I’ve seen this match like four times no matter how long in between matches they are, with that said, this was the best match between these two. There was a lot of great spots throughout. Some big strikes by both, there was a great spot midway through the match where Rose set up a chair and set Shida up sitting in it and jumps off the apron but Shida moves and Nyla destroys the chair.
Vickie Guerrero was screaming and getting involved a lot through out and Shida would get frustrated and attack her with a kendo stick. Serena Deeb would come in out of nowhere and chop block the knee of Shida. Nyla would then try to capitalize by hitting her flying knee of the top to Shida who is draped over the top rope, but it results in a near fall. Nyla then goes for the Best Bomb but Shida turns it into a triangle choke and keeps it on for a while before Nyla powers her up again and breaks it with a powerbomb. After a couple of top rope move attempts that don’t work for Nyla Shida goes for finishing kick but Nyla gets out of the way and locks in a stretch muffler on the injured knee of Shida for the tap out victory.
Segment Rating: 6/10
As mentioned this was my favorite match between these two and I’d be fine not seeing again for a while. It appears that Shida and Deeb are gonna have another showdown and now Nyla will move on to facing the winner of Kris Statlander versus Ruby Soho.
MJF Talks What He Wants, An Unexpected Person Answers
So earlier in the night we get a video of MJF after his match with Darby and he talks about his knee being banged up and not knowing how bad but that it doesn’t matter because he knows what’s next and then he hits his catchphrase.
So here MJF comes out and passes the mic off to Shawn Spears to get them to be quiet so MJF can speak. MJF takes the mic back and says he has something to say but it will probably go over the heads of all these people. He continues about how he should be next in line for the AEW World Championship, but the rankings don’t tell you that (Excalibur explains on commentary how MJF has only had like three singles matches all year). He says that he deserves the next shot and that nobody in the locker room is on his level.
Then the familiar music of Cult of Personality breaks as CM Punk makes his way out to the ring, certainly not in the mood he was in at the beginning. Punk takes his time to get in the ring and crosses his arms before entering. As soon as he gets in the ring the fans break out into a “Holy Sh*t” chant, MJF then tries to interject but fans tell him to STFU. MJF once again tries to speak and tries to formally introduce himself to CM Punk by offering a handshake, CM Punk looks at MJF’s hand, laughs, turns around and leaves the ring, as he’s making his way up the ramp he turns around and laughs and shakes his head, and leaves.
Segment Rating: 8/10
So I wasn’t expecting this right now and the fact that it’s happening, I’m so freaking happy. It makes perfect sense too, CM Punk extended his hand to Eddie Kingston after beating him and Kingston walked about because, Eddie Kingston knows the kind of person CM Punk is and following that CM Punk sees the opportunity to make sure that Eddie Kingston is not proven right about him by going after the most hated person in AEW. No matter what you’re going to root for the person who challenges MJF because he’s MJF, so Punk can hide behind that to avoid the fact Eddie is right about him. CM Punk doing to MJF exactly what Eddie Kingston did to him, makes so much sense because CM Punk is doing it to prove MJF needs to earn his respect like he thinks he needs to do for Eddie, when in reality Eddie is just sitting and wait to be proven right about Punk being just like MJF, a dick. I freaking love it, and CM Punk is going to do everything he can to get under MJF’s skin by doing things MJF will hate because who did MJF grow up being a fan of, CM Punk, masterful storytelling without a word even being said and it’s only going to get better.
Dante Martin & Lio Rush vs. The Acclaimed
After the usual Max Caster roast rap where for some reason he called Dante and Lio virgins (Lio has three children), Lio and Dante started the action by doing a dive over the top rope to the outside. No instead of breaking down everything that happened in this match I’m just gonna say, Dante and Lio are one hell of a team and I’m in awe of them and their athletic ability every single time.
The crowd goes nuts for pretty much everything going on and when The Acclaimed gets the advantage back and eventually after Caster gets tagged back in he hits the Mic Drop on Rush for a near fall because Dante broke it up. Bowens would tag back in and try to work on Dante but Dante fights him off and and hits the double jump moonsault, and sets Bowens up for Rush to hit the frog splash which he does for the pinfall victory.
After the match Team Taz comes out, and Taz talks about his offer that he extended to Dante to join Team Taz, and then discusses how Lio missed Rampage and Full Gear due to his grandmother and gives his condolences. Then Ricky Starks jumps in and says he’s giving Dante one more pitch to join and that he gets some time to think about it.
Segment Rating: 6.25/10
This was such a great match, Dante and Lio were amazing in this match and I hope they remain a team for a while and keep having matches like this, the Team Taz stuff will probably produce great matches between these two and Ricky and Hobbs because Dante most likely isn’t join Team Taz.
TNT Championship: Sammy Guevara (c) vs. Jay Lethal
Man was this a good match, these two had great chemistry in this match from the beginning. The one thing about this match I didn’t like is, Sammy Guevara has his ribs taped, he shouldn’t be doing splashes of any kind because that under minds the fact that he’s supposed to be injured. The storyline of the injury should force Guevara to change his offense against someone as good as Jay Lethal.
The fans were losing their minds for this match and were doing battling chants for both guys throughout the match. Both guys left it all out in the ring, and when they were exchanging strikes towards the end of the match, I was at the edge of my seat because I had no idea who was going to win and that’s how it should be. Lethal would attempt the Lethal Injection numerous times and it would never work. Sammy with his injured ribs attempted the GTH but he just couldn’t do it, until the third time he tried after knocking Lethal out with multiple running knee strikes, securing the victory after finally hitting the GTH. There’s so much that happens in this match me going over all of it wouldn’t do it justice, just know it’s worth the watch and even if you watched it, it’s worth watching again.
After the match the Inner Circle came down to the ring and raised the hands of both guys and part of me thought someone was going to turn on someone here but it didn’t happened the show just ends.
Segment Rating: 7.5/10
This match is amazing, I love it and you should definitely watch it if you haven’t and if you have just watch it again because it’s worth it. Sammy left it all out in the ring against Jay Lethal who is so damn good in his own right, and having this kind of match with this big of a veteran is good for the future of Sammy and a loss in this classic of a match doesn’t hurt Lethal at all in his first match.
Remarkable Wrestler of the Week
For this episode of AEW Dynamite, the Remarkable Wrestlers of the week is Sammy Guevara.
Sammy gets the RWOW this week for his stellar performance in this match, as I mentioned I wish would have sold the ribs more but that wasn’t enough for me to not highlight his performance here.
Overall
This was another stellar episode of AEW Dynamite and I loved the new stories being established especially Bryan/Page, and Punk/MJF. Overall I give this episode of Dynamite a 6.8/10. This was a stellar episode with so much good and there was a lot of other great promos throughout this show with FTR and Andrade challenging Cody, Pac, and Lucha Bros to a 8 man tag with Malakai Black, and each member of that match other then Cody having something to say about that. Jade and Red Velvet having promos to set up their match in the TBS Title Tournament. The Super Kilq challenging Jurassic Express to another match but the Bucks aren’t cleared so it will be Jurassic Express versus Cole and Bobby Fish and a tease to Cole and Fish’s past as a team. Eddie Kingston having something to say but getting interrupted by 2point0 and Danny Garcia and that pissing him off. As well as Tay Conti talking about her match with Britt and how she’s gonna get better and be champion one day, and Britt Baker saying she is ready for Jamie Hayter to take out Thunder Rosa for good in the tournament. So much great stuff on this show that I can’t wait to see where it all goes.
What are your thoughts on this special AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @SLTDWrestling.
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