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| Maybe Cody should talk more Photo Credit: WWE.com |
OOPSIDAISILIANO - The PAC/Trent? match that kicked the show off was another in the series of hot openers that All Elite Wrestling has become known for, but the most people are talking about is the flub at the end of the match. After PAC hit Trent? with the Black Arrow, Bryce Remsburg counted two when Trent? stayed down for three. While my timeline was mostly reasoned and measured about it (and even Botchamania auteur Maffew Gregg was incredibly kind to it), well, others weren't such. It sucks because Remsburg should be known for being not only the best referee in the game, but also an able hype man (as several appearances of his on my defunct podcast show) and one of the best color commentators. That being said, I wouldn't put it all on him.
For those who may not know the inner workings of a wrestling match, the referee is the point man. That person knows the finish of the match and at least attempts to keep the time so that matches and segments later in the show aren't bereft of time. Obviously, Remsburg wasn't supposed to count the pin, and PAC was always supposed to get the submission victory with his Rings of Saturn variant, the Brutalizer. The wrestlers also at least know the finish whether or not they choreograph the whole match, Randy Savage-style, or just call it on the fly until the finish. It's entirely possible that Trent? got his bell rung at some point during the match and wasn't mindful of when he needed to kick out of a pin attempt. It happens. Wrestling is brutal even if it's worked, and guys catch a potato to the head from time to time.
Hopefully this doesn't follow either Remsburg or Trent? or even PAC around, but judging from the eight AEW crowds I've seen so far, they're not a jaded bunch looking for things to hang onto because the show isn't doing it for them. They react the way wrestling crowds should react because AEW has given them no reason not to. The match itself was another piece of evidence that PAC might be the best male wrestler on the roster. He's so natural throwing guys around despite being taller than Ben Shapiro and not many other people. It's a good thing AEW's roster doesn't really have any giants on it, at least in the men's division. It's funny that Nyla Rose would tower over half the men on the roster, same with Awesome Kong. However, I digress.
The Spirit of the Dust Possessing His Son - As the son of the immortal Dusty Rhodes, Cody has always had large shoes to fill. Whether or not comparing him to his father is fair, it's what people tend to do with famous families. Look, the benefits of nepotism far outweigh minuses like that. That being said, no one ever confused Cody for his father on the stick, but what opportunities did he have to show whether or not the Runnells family authenticity was genetic? In WWE, he went from whitebread sidekick to Bob Holly to Randy Orton lackey to vainglorious but shallow gimmick to whatever the fuck Stardust was. I don't recall him speaking a whole lot during his run with Dustin Rhodes/Goldust in 2013 when they were the Brotherhood facing off against The Shield.
So his screed last night was both a bit shocking but familiar, even if tonally, it didn't really match a lot of his father's thematic elements. Dusty Rhodes was an everyman, salt of the earth, proletarian. Cody will never be confused with that, but I'm not sure he has to. He's best when he works the way his father did, so even if he's cracking on Chris Jericho's book prices or calling him a "carny succubus" in response to his jabs at millennials, his content is elevated by taking his father's spirit and channeling it in every word. While memorizing and reciting the Hard Times promo is a worthwhile activity not just for wrestling fandom, Cody doesn't have to nor should he have to tap into the material. He just needs the booming confidence, the oratory passion. He tapped into that vein last night, and it might have been the best English-language promo of the year.
The Blacked-Out Order - So, after debuting in essence at Fyter Fest with great fanfare, The Dark Order has become the incarnation of early Bray Wyatt on the WWE main roster, all style, no substance. It's not their fault, as they've been predictably great in the ring. That being said, they were absent from Dynamite until their semifinal exit from the Tag Team Championship tournament. They've got spooky trappings, but what about them is a hook and why should they be feared? That being said, perhaps last night can be a soft reset point for them. If their Tag Title win was never in the cards, perhaps they should have stayed on the sideline and allowed The Hybrid Two to be in the tournament ahead of them. The Dark Order feels like a special act that needs to be protected. I don't want to complain too much about the use of vignettes and pre-tapes so far because they've mostly been good and the ones that haven't are in service of building up Awesome Kong. That being said, the Dark Order feels like a team that needs more than just creepy hangers-on to make them important.
As for the match itself, it was a typical Private Party match, where they took an ass-whipping and then came back to flash past the larger, stronger wrestlers with their high spots. It kinda sucks for them that Matt Jackson took Gin n Juice so perfectly because whenever someone like Stu Grayson takes it and it looks a little loose (like it will for 99 percent of opponents who take it), they're gonna suffer a loss in perception. Still, putting them in the tag title match at Full Gear is probably the right call, even if they don't win.
SOULTRAIN JONES - A couple of weeks ago, Cody had a serious, focused, inspirational vignette about how he needs to be World Champion, and this week, Chris Jericho countered it with a parody, even down to the beginning where Sammy Guevara played the role of ersatz Brandi Rhodes. When you're used to WWE comedy segments being cruel or corny and only funny to a septuagenarian with a warped worldview, seeing something like this vignette is shocking. Whether it be the old lady with ribald language, Jake Hager standing in the corner saying nothing, or the Virgil, under the far superior name Soultrain Jones, getting his fuck money payday by putting Jericho over, it was a brilliant play on the self-serious Cody segment.
The Female Quandary - It's both true that Dynamite is underserving its women's division by having one match on Dynamite and one match on Dark each week and also that the women's wrestling it has been presenting has been for the most part the right women's wrestling to present, Britt Baker's puzzling push notwithstanding. Emi Sakura and Riho are probably the two best wrestlers on the roster, so it's fitting that they're the first Women's World Championship match to happen on pay-per-view. They also seem to have found some players to go with Sakura, Riho, Hikaru Shida, Nyla Rose, and Awesome Kong in Jaime Hayter and Shanna. Now, all they have to do is maybe put women in two separate matches on the main Dynamite card, and they're on the path to creating a robust division and not just something out of the WWE playbook for several years before their women pressed their undeniability.
While Riho and Sakura are both out front with how good they are, I was mostly impressed with Hayter, not just throwing her size around and playing into her black hat, but just with the extra little things she does. To wit, when she had the camel clutch locked in as a resthold, the little flourishes she put in, namely the fishhooks and the Wet Willies, helped train attention onto her. Restholds are both necessary and not always the highlight of a match, so anything you can do to jazz them up is welcome.
Spears' Niche - Even as Tye Dillinger, the Ten Guy, Shawn Spears never had a fully-formed character in WWE. It looked like he'd just be a dude hanging around as an ex-WWE fuck you in AEW at the beginning, because hitting people with chairs isn't really a character either. That being said, what he's done the last week has given him more of a fleshed out character, a sadist if you will. Between trying to remove Joey Janela's tongue on Dark with pliers to his dismantling of Brandon Cutler on Dynamite, Spears finally looks like he's got the makings of a character, which is great and what the midcard needs. I wish they'd started to build him vs. Janela earlier than on Dark for Full Gear, because it would've beaten them as enhancement talent for the Jon Moxley/Kenny Omega match, but hopefully, it's a feud that spills over into the next big show. Honestly, I think both guys can really carry a feud.
CLUBBERIN - The main event was an AEW main event: fast, hard-hitting, lots of counters, and ending with the Judas Effect. Poor Hangman Page, he gets to go into his match with PAC having Judas entering his mind. Anyway, the notable part to all this was the show-closing brawl, which was chaotic, frenetic, and involving of all the main feuds going into Full Gear. The most important quality was that it felt organic. You know that Omega would want to help out his buddies, which would draw out Moxley, but the Inner Circle would have no love for Mox if he wasn't with them. It was an exercise in violent entropy, yet I didn't have problems following the action. Nick Jackson jumping off the stage was a nice touch as well. All in all, this show, from top to bottom, has gotten me insanely geeked for Full Gear, which is this Saturday. I cannot wait.
