I caught the latest AEW Dynamite and I have to say… it was okay. I don’t really have any particular overall thoughts, though the reprise does have a discussion on what “a champion” is via talking about Darby Allin’s seemingly inevitable title win. Everything was built solidly but unspectacularly. No bad matches here, though I could have honestly done with a couple of squashes to cleanse the palate, and some of the promos were a bit of wasted space.
Review
Note: Watching a day late. I tried to avoid pausing as I watched but I can’t help it.
Mox & Friends Are Walking
Not much to say, intro’d the main event which is good to do up top.
Renee interview with Jay White and Orange Cassidy, asks “who they are focused on”; Page comes in late to say Mox is “his”
Dumb question, needlessly antagonizing.
I think interviewers should try and ask realistic questions, not only realistic on the part of what we-the-fans might be thinking but realistic in terms of what an interviewer would really ask. I think it’s really stupid to go “Hey, so you know this thing you have to do in a second, do you really give a shit about that or nah, and please say so into the camera.”
Darby & Will promos
Okay.
Kind of lifeless. Not a bad idea to put them on here but these didn’t make me any more excited than just hearing about the match.
Importance of league updates when league is going over multiple shows
Just a personal note. League updates should be a bigger part of the show, especially on Dynamite.
Moné vs. Jay, TBS Championship
Should put more emphasis on these extra-curricular matches instead of just showing a PIP during an entrance. Alright early stuff, noticed Mercedes whiffed a hook but recovered “well” (w/ coop); “quickly” is better. Liked Jay adding that kick into her iconoclasm set-up, nice sequence into the lungblower. Moné using the straightjacket a lot but it’s not a real hold. Meteora is a good move but it’s being used a ton. Ugly looking body slam but more “dangerous” than “wrong”. The problem with “NXT face” is that it’s too much; shave like 20-40% off the intensity of these and I think they can work. You want to see emotion but people shouldn’t pitch their emotion like they’re meant to be freeze-framed. Nice sequence ending with the Gory bomb but Jay was a little sloppy there, Moné definitely jumped into the Gory bomb. Fun stuff, we’ll have to see if Jay can take the lessons here further. Moné wins. ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
FTR pre-tape
Solid stuff.
MJF thing
As Daddy Magic said: “it’s a bit much.” MJF promo didn’t move me. Cole on the TV. As stupid as when MJF did it. At least it led to the Memorex spot.
I don’t know if other people know it as “the Memorex spot” but I remember it from the nWo feud where someone goes on the tron to interrupt people in the ring, then they go “maybe it’s real but maybe it’s Memorex” and then appear to attack the people in the ring. Memorex was a VHS brand and that was one of their slogans.
Hayter promo
Good stuff, dumb story. Hayter may not be a top tier promo but she’s great at these short ones.
When I say Hayter isn’t “top tier” that’s wrongly chosen words but I’m not sure a short way to say it. She’s a good promo, however, she might not be a “main event” promo, the kind that you’d want to really sell you, in the vein of MJF or Jay Briscoe or Eddie Kingston. It’s not so much about level of skill as it is about genre, that’s what I’m trying to get at. But when she needs to talk she does a good job. It’s like when people say Bret Hart was a bad promo; he was a pretty good promo in his way but yeah, he was bad if you wanted him to do something like Piper or Rhodes or Roberts etc. That wasn’t his genre.
Christian & Wayne vs. Hook & Shibata
Nick Wayne is appropriately greasy. Pretty boring match so far; work isn’t strictly bad but there’s no go in it. Nick Wayne could have something but I need to see him go at it in a straight match. I really hate the crawling for a tag bit in tag matches. Fun finish, too much from the “give everybody a taste” school but okay. Hope they give Shibata a match to get his heat back, Shibata/Wayne could be fun. Christian/Wayne win. ★★★☆☆ (3 stars)
Can they please stop saying “The Cold Hearted Handsome Devil” Hook, it sounds like they’re using his church name.
Chris Jericho’s King of New York promo
It’s a very funny bit.
Bandido promo
Is he gonna get a shove? Doing okay with the hype videos but it’s all about the follow-up.
May promo
Pretty solid.
Ricochet in-ring segment
YouTube spoiled me a tiny bit here so I know something is gonna happen but don’t know any context. So Ricochet got punked out. Not sure what the point of this was? Just wanted to make Ricochet look like shit for some… reason?
Benjamin vs. Mortos, Blue League
We’re a little sloppy in the opening here, Mortos not making connection on a couple of his spots. Pretty sure Mortos crotched himself, good recovery by Shelton. Things are not picking up really. Mortos not looking good. Nice powerslam variation, boring match. Benjamin wins. ★★★☆☆ (3 stars)
Not sure what was happening here, maybe I’m just not used to Mortos, but this felt very sloppy.
Garcia/Briscoe come out to rescue Mortos from being attacked by Hurt Syndicate, they fail
Okay.
Ricochet promo again
Decent interaction with Swerve, I guess we’re gonna get Swerve/Ricochet in a bit.
Toni Storm thing
I’d heard she was doing an amnesia thing and here it is. Of course RJ City is here. The segment did nothing to make me wish this was happening, which it is.
I’ve said it before but it genuinely makes me so sad that we’re doing more gimmicky bullshit with Toni Storm. If this is what is really fulfilling for her then okay. I support creative people doing what they want to do. That doesn’t mean I like it all.
Ospreay vs. Allin, Gold League
Surprising non-response for Ospreay to my ears. Alright, that’s it, I’ve had it, take the chants out of your songs. Also, Ospreay’s gear suuuuuuucks. I bought it as like the “I’m really mad” outfit but to just do this for now, this blows. Excalibur glaaazing the hell out of Allin. What I’m looking for Darby to show here is offensive aggression in a way that seems sustainable; not just throwing himself into his opponents but having the ability to dominate. Good maneuver exchange between the two ending in the Code Red. Built up into something fun at the end, but I didn’t see what I wanted to see. I’ll talk about it later but basically, Darby fought from so far underneath here he could’ve just come out of Satan’s mouth. Allin wins. ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
Surprised by Allin’s win here honestly but it was a good match.
Death Riders vs. White/Cassidy/Page
The call “Not sure if it’s the Beach Break or just a back body drop” is exactly why I’m against finishers in wrestling. You want storytelling? White/Page having a blow-up is the kind of storytelling that works: has an impact on the match, has broad movements, has little ambiguity. It’d be sick if Yuta could put on 10 or 20 pounds. Overbooked ending, Mox stealing the win seems against character, too… cute of a scenario to wrap it all up. Death Riders tried to follow up but got run off. Death Riders win. ★★★☆☆ (3 stars)
I could have talked about finishers in the reprise and it’s something I definitely will devote a bit of space to at some point, probably in a Pro-Wres Lab post.
Reprise
Decent show with lots of stuff I didn’t really like. Allin’s match brought to mind an exchange I recently had on Bluesky where I asked “why would you want Allin to be your champion?” I got a few replies from people who I then insulted, primarily because they thought that my point was that a small guy shouldn’t be champion. That wasn’t my point.
My point is this: what are we looking for in A Champion? When I am looking for a champion, I’m not looking for someone like Darby Allin. Part of it is his gimmick and part of it is, yes, his size, but not in the way that people were coming at me with. So let me try and break this down a bit more.
Firstly, when I say a champion here, I don’t just mean someone who wins the title. Darby Allin is definitely a good performer and I wouldn’t be opposed to him beating a champion. When I say a champion, I mean something more like “an ace”, or something in between those ideas. Basically, a person who is meant to be a significant championship threat, someone who I could see having a long title reign. That’s where I don’t see it with Darby.
How does his size play into that? It’s not just that he’s a small guy. Two names people brought up in those replies were Rey Mysterio Jr. and Bryan Danielson. And those are actually two perfect names, because I hated Rey’s reigns and I’ve enjoyed Bryan’s. It’s not that I think Rey sucks or anything like that. It’s how they both worked, both in general and, especially, while champion.
Rey Mysterio always fought from underneath. In every single match he was an underdog. And yes, it made sense because of his size, but that’s not what I think a champion should be. To be a real champion, an ace or a semi-ace, you need to be a dangerous wrestler. You need to be able to have a long control period where it’s believable that you’re dominating the match. You also need to be able to do this against most of your competition. This is something that Bryan Danielson was always able to do. He could have underdog matches, certainly, but there was always the knowledge that Danielson could just beat anybody. Even in WWE, he was able to cultivate that aura around himself. That’s the difference.
In the review portion, I mentioned that I wanted Darby to show me something in this match and that I didn’t see it. This is what I didn’t see. I’ve watched a good bit of Darby, especially during his time in AEW. Like Rey, Darby is always fighting from underneath. Worse, Darby is always putting his body on the line and seemingly crippling himself in every match. The fact that he’s okay isn’t the point; within the match, he sells it like he’s dying, and that’s the problem. It’s not that he can never work like this or even that working like this is bad. But this is a guy who would always be the longshot if this was a real competition, and that’s just not a champion to me.
As for his gimmick, look, I think a champion needs to be the champion of having straight-up matches, and that’s not a thing that Darby Allin ever has. I cannot buy that he’d be able to win matches without employing the stairs or being able to dive out of the ring etc. He’s playing someone who doesn’t really care about the rules of competition, who is all about guts and glory, about putting himself and his body through tests of pain and endurance. He’s not focused on being a competitor and the top of his game, not in his gimmick. And for that reason as well I don’t think he’s a good fit as A Champion.
I did say that people came at me with the examples of Rey Mysterio and Bryan Danielson. Do you know the example I actually used, before I got any of those replies? It was Mankind. My point was this: it’s not like Mankind wasn’t good enough to win the title. But if I was in the chair, I don’t think I would have booked that, and even so, Mankind was not The Champion ever; wikipedia gives him 3 reigns as WWF Champion, with a combined total of less than 60 days. And that’s kind of my point.
Could Darby ever win the AEW World title? Of course, yeah. He just had a really good match with Will Ospreay and he’s been having good matches throughout the C2. But should he be the Ace of the company, the guy “carrying AEW on his back” as Dunkin Donuts employee of the month Excalibur said? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think he should be winning the C2 tournament, even though he might. I think he should be a guy who is expected to lose a lot of the time because he works a daredevil style in a sport that requires having matches all the time. His body should not just magically hold up to all that.
But please don’t misunderstand me here, I’m not trying to gatekeep Darby from success. Dusty Rhodes wasn’t a long term champion anywhere. Mankind, like I just said, was not a long term champion. Jake “the Snake” Roberts and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper never became WWF Champion. What I’m saying is that being The Champion or A Champion is a specific role and I don’t think that Darby as is fills that, or at least he doesn’t meet my personal criteria.
Could Darby be a champion-type guy? It’s possible. If it was me being asked, the two things I would want to see are for Darby’s gimmick to get more down-to-earth and less pedal-to-the-metal, and also to develop a style where he can be dangerous in a straight wrestling match without killing himself and without wrestling as if he’s bigger than he is. Both things are possible. But both are also key parts of Darby’s appeal (not wrestling like he’s bigger; that’s just a trap that smaller guys can fall into when they’re trying to be “more main event”, see Shane Hollister).
As an aside, but a related point, what I would try to do is tie any title bonuses (which should definitely be given, even in “fake” wrestling) to title matches specifically, rather than to simply holding the title. Also, all participants in a match should get the bonus equally. This way, you’re not being penalized if you are somebody like Darby who may be a frequent challenger but not a frequent winner; what matters is getting into the match. Maybe they do it this way, I don’t know. It just comes to mind because obviously being the world champ would be one close-to-surefire way of getting a payday, which could disadvantage guys like Darby who do play important roles in getting people interested while not being, in my mind, suited to “carrying the torch”.
I figure I’m on an island with my thoughts about Darby but we should definitely think about the Kofi Kingston syndrome, where fans are all about a guy in the chase but not so into his title reign. Is Darby better than Kofi? I think some at least would say yes. That said, I don’t think skill was really the issue for Kofi. It might have been that he just wasn’t seen as the sort of guy who should be the champ. He was a midcarder who’d been a song-and-dance guy, he wasn’t a Serious Wrestler.
I’m not making any predictions about Darby here, I think he’d definitely fare better as champ than Kofi did. What I am saying is that I wouldn’t put it at 100% that the fans do stick with him as a long-reign champ, and I’d put it at lower odds than if you belted up Ospreay or even Okada “Ron Simmons” Kazuchika.
Getting reactions now doesn’t mean that it’ll translate to when he’s the champion, that’s the point. You could say that about anybody, I hear you saying, and that’s true. But that doesn’t mean we just throw up our hands. It’d be better to think about this stuff and plan ahead so hopefully you have to best shot of landing something. If you throw shit against the wall until something sticks, yeah you might get something that sticks, but you’ll probably get a lot of shit on the floor first.