Here is my commentary on the Voices of Wrestling Thursday Dynamite Review posted today, December 5, 2024. If you’re not aware, you can listen to this by checking out the VoW Patreon, which I’m going to trust you to be able to find. I’m not gonna shill every week but I figured I should at least point out exactly what I’m reacting to once. The host is the inimitable Joe Lanza; I’d have a specific nickname for him but they stopped doing that bit like a year ago.
Anyway, I have done a review of this event on my own where I give thoughts on suspension of belief, and I refer to some of these thoughts in the commentary so it’s worth checking out first.
Spoiler ahead for something that happened after the broadcast ended.
Joe talks about the ratings, including the record lows for all three AEW shows
I will usually punt on ratings talk here, but not because I’m not interested. I generally don’t have enough handle on the ratings to have a take that’s different from those of Joe, or of Brandon Thurston or Dave Meltzer. Their breakdowns typically seem plausible to me so I don’t have much to add. I did want to talk about Joe saying that ratings for shows increase & decrease gradually, and dramatic shifts are not lasting. I think that argues for having a strong whole show instead of relying on just a few breakout/top stars.
Joe talks about how AEW being cold can affect the likelihood of ratings resurging
I agree when he points out that AEW being cold can hurt them in the bounce-back, this is similar to a point I made in a recent blog about why it’s never good to slum it in the ratings. Obviously, I don’t think that people in AEW think that being cold is good, but the point I was making is that there are specific knock-on effects: being cold isn’t just about a low rating now, it’s also about the future. There’s a flipside point here, too: you can’t book with the idea that you’re going to have a big splash that suddenly turns everything around. It might seem like that’s the case when you finally have a big success, but the fact is, you will likely have been building up steam for a long time. Issues and criticisms that people have need to be addressed and bad or unpopular stories need to be concluded so that the participants can move on. Forging ahead on these bad storylines is doing so much damage to the promotion and to the wrestlers involved. When has MJF’s stock been lower since coming into the company?
Joe brings up how there will be more Continental Classic matches on the weekend than there will be over two Dynamites, and more on Rampage than on this Dynamite, then goes on to talk about how the Continental Classic hasn’t been pushed
I made a lot of these same points in Is the AEW Continental Championship Really Necessary? Another thing is that every feud is in a bubble in this company, nothing really weaves together unless it is very specifically meant to. MJF, Adam Cole, and Kyle O’Reilly essentially being unconcerned with the Death Riders makes no sense. They don’t all need to be right in it but there should be some involvement. They should be mentioning this big company-threatening force. AEW also has no sense of aesthetics or drama. They don’t get why, for instance, their tacky looking belts hurt their image. They don’t get why actually you need to put all your stars in your big deal tournament instead of just trying to run your regular storylines at the same time. Lack of vision is probably the foundational problem in AEW.
Joe talks about Fletcher/Benjamin, loved the finish
As I talked about in my review of the show, I hated the finish for this. I would have liked it if I had respected the means of cheating at all, but as was the theme in my review, I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy it.
Joe talks about Castagnoli/King, how it repeated the finish of Fletcher/Benjamin
Let me go ahead and say it on the blog: I would put even odds on this being the last year of the Continental Classic. The reason why is matches like this, even beyond not having all the stars. In my opinion, confusion is what creates heat. When you have stakes that are set and then someone (let’s say a heel) purposefully confuses those stakes for their own gain, that’s usually heat. However, confusion can also create “non-heat”. The difference has a lot to do with the context. What Barthes missed, and what a lot of people miss, is that wrestling fans do not only want the drama, they don’t only want heat. They also want to see athletic contests. For fans to suspend their disbelief enough that the stakes are meaningful to the point that confusing the stakes creates heat, they have to get enough straight athletic contests that they can be lulled into expecting that. Further, when you set up a tournament with the promise of having straight matches, you need to understand that what people want is straight matches. If they didn’t want that, you would not have interest in the idea of a tournament with straight matches. Twice in the same night, you gave people fuck finishes in your big deal straight match tournament. You’re going to destroy your own fucking concept. If everybody’s cheating, what does it mean to win this tournament? They already treat it as an also ran. Only “the freakazoids” will care if it goes. I’d love it if this was a cornerstone of the company but they may have killed it, especially if we keep getting these finishes.
Joe talks about the Death Riders presentation being weak, disliking that Moxley showed ass
I agree that the schmozz was bad. It’s just like okay, why should I now give a fuck about the Death Riders? What’s their threat if they can just get beaten up like this? Just do this type of shit a few more times and you’ve got em whipped. More than that, what exactly is it that the Death Riders want? They want to “destroy AEW and build it up brick by brick” or however they say it, what does that mean? That’s one thing that I hate about these types of angles: there’s no REAL stakes. Does Moxley want to change the rules? Does he want to be the matchmaker? Does he want to stop specific people ever getting shots, or kick them out of the company? We never get any hint as to what the end game is and, the longer that we don’t, the less sense it makes that they’re putting out all this effort to attack everyone. Is it just Moxley pulling a bluff and a propaganda game so he can protect his title? Let’s see some more of that. Let’s see him having to scrape wins by Hangman and Swerve etc. There’s just no substance to the act. It sucks because they’re good in the role, it all works well from a performance standpoint, but there’s nothing to sink your teeth into.
Joe talks about not caring about the Dynamite Dozen, that story (Cole/MJF) not worth caring about
I recently said that Adam Cole was popular, and I’m not sure if I was watching something else or going off of common opinion or something like that, because he was absolutely cold as ice here. No point trying to justify my stance or defend the story. I never liked this story and I was wrong about Cole. Joe also talked about how MJF’s appearance didn’t pop the crowd either. I’m gonna keep beating this drum: if MJF doesn’t want to come to work, I do not give a shit about MJF. He should just be off TV if he has “something better to do”. Hell, you could sell that he’s scared of the Death Riders, that’d be a much more interesting spot for him to be in than like Dr. Cortex from Crash Bandicoot teasing the heroes.
Joe talks about the repeated use of the “don’t fight this guy, you’ll get hurt” for faces
I talked about this before, but this is an outgrowth of cinema-brain in wrestling. These guys think that for something to be compelling it has to be like a play, so they think the best way to convey that someone is dangerous is for other people to be scared. Like Joe says, this is not the right energy for pro wrestling at all. If someone is dangerous, they should hurt people, end of story. It’s okay for the Bucks (and potentially MJF) to be scared of others because they are heels, they’re not supposed to be cool. But doing this type of storyline? It breaks the rule of cool. That’s a big part of why Cole is so ice fucking cold: he is doing everything in the lamest, most cinema-brain way possible, and he is absolutely avoiding the rule of cool. Another thing, just as a special criticism of Cole, but also of modern wrestling: enough with the fucking entrances. Sometimes, you don’t need to do the spin and point. Just fucking hit the ring. Doing this shit every time makes you look like a HUGE DORK. We know it’s scripted. Don’t put a spotlight on it by forcing everyone else to look stupid by allowing you to do your whole dumb routine every time you appear.
Joe talks about overdone stories
Agreed.
Joe talks about the Jay/Ford video being aired too late
Agreed. Sloppy shop.
Joe talks about the Hook angle
I disagree about Hook’s performance, he was fine. The issue with Hook is that he isn’t over, and possibly his presentation. The promo wasn’t strong but it wasn’t bad, it just did nothing to elevate him. I think if you cut a promo that does its job and you’re not stumbling nervous, that’s all you gotta do. It was short, it got the job done. Obviously, ideally you want great talkers, but all you have to do there is make sure your weaker talkers are not going on for ages. Don’t give them the Roddy/Cole/O’Reilly extended back-and-forths. Everybody has to talk at some point, but not everyone has to stand in the middle of the ring and give a monologue. I also disagree that this felt like a write-off. You wouldn’t give someone a specific injury as a write-off and you wouldn’t be focusing attention on Hook being injured, it would be constructed to just make the Patriarchy look good. Again, I think this is mostly about Joe not liking Hook than about what actually happened; similar to how a lot of people (not Joe, to be fair) thought Kamille was being written off when she clearly wasn’t. The reason people misread that angle is that they think she’s been bad so they’d prefer it if she was being written off, it’s not that the angle was presented wrong. It’s fine to not be into Hook or Kamille, I’m not saying they’ve been diamonds in the rough or anything, but it’s important to point out when analysis is being too strongly colored by bias.
Joe talks about the Hurt Syndicate segment
As I talked about in my review, I agree that it “served its purpose”, but I think it was a dumb segment. I’m way over random backstage attacks and especially when it’s some rando that I’ve never seen before.
Joe talks about the Hart/Hayter stuff
I’m also not into the story.
Joe talks about the Jericho segment and the spoiler that Matt Cardona would be facing Jericho for the ROH World title at Final Battle
Basically agreed with Joe’s opinion. I do not care for this match at all but I also don’t really care about Jericho’s reign with the title. I think it’s likely that Jericho as champ does look better for TV negotiations if that’s in the works, but it doesn’t draw me in as a fan at all. Have pretty much zero interest in Jericho/Cardona.