AEW Dynamite (May 27th, 2020): What's FTR Doing In The Impact Zone?!

So it's the aftermath of Double Or Nothing... the stadium stampede has come and gone... and I'm going to buy the replay since I've heard good things about the show. If all goes well, expect a write-up on said show in a couple weeks.

In the meantime, we have the aftermath on Dynamite and it starts with...


... Chris Jericho and friends deciding to hold a pep rally and stuck with a bunch of shirts that they can't sell because they are LOSERS. I felt bad for these guys...

Matt Hardy (who is now late-90s spot monkey Matt Hardy) and the Young Bucks defeated Joey janela and Private Party in what can be best described as a perfectly acceptable tag -team wrestling match. One of the Private Party guys seemed to hurt their knee and after the match was done, grizzled veteran Matt helped the PP guy to the back in a nice show of sportsmanlike conduct.

And then the Butcher and the Blade attack the Bucks due to an altercation during the match... which prompts a cut to a truck pulling up to Daily's Place and out comes the former Revival, going by FTR... and then Excalibur asks what FTR's doing in the Impact Zone... well, almost. Please don't do that anymore, folks. I don't need TNA flashbacks.

AEW World Champion Jon Moxley joins the commentary team to watch newest signee and Casino winner Brian Cage (formerly of IMPACT) defeated some job guy in seconds. Taz then cuts a promo on Moxley, introducing us plebians to Cage and challenging Mox to "beat him if you can, survive if he lets you."

So... I don't recall seeing Brian Cage anywhere until I remembered that Impact PPV from earlier this year where he got beat up by RVD of all people, which was probably not the best showing for a first impression. Seeing him in action briefly, this is a big dude and I have a feeling he and Mox are gonna have a great fight come the next Fyter Fest event, which takes place this summer. Now I need to check out more Impact stuff from last year... but let me get the DoN replay out of the way.

So Britt Baker comes out in a wheelchair due to a leg injury and claims there's a conspiracy that's causing her to get injured, naming several culprits before revealing the ringleader... Aubrey Edwards, who is, in fact, a referee. I'd cry foul at using Aubrey as a character, but then again, we're past that point, are we? Anyway, Dr. Baker's out until All Out, which is sad for most of us... but hopefully, she'll get to do some promo stuff in the interim because she's absolutely killing it.

AEW Women's Champion Hikaru Shida defeated some Brazillian lady in a short non-title match. Shida had beaten previous champ Nyla Rose to win the title in a hard-hitting No-DQ match and I've heard some people complain that Shida gave too much to the other lady, but I don't mind that. Shida came out of a hard fought battle and it's understandable for her not to get her bearings as of yet. Not to mention; it was roughly five minutes. If it were twenty, then I'd have a problem... but it wasn't, so I don't.

New TNT champion Cody comes out with his new shiny belt that I will reserve thoughts on for the DoN write-up in a couple weeks. Long story short; he'll be doing a weekly open challenge for the title, basically doing the John Cena deal when he was US champion at some point or another. Now if you want to call this Cody burying the entire roster, I can understand that since I felt the same way about Cena's run back in the day. However, looking at the bigger picture, it'll be a chance for some of these folks to shine for a bit before he loses the title to someone like MJF or something.

Kip Sabian and Jimmy Havoc defeated SCU's Kazarian and Scorpio Sky to earn a title shot opportunity against reigning tag team champions Hangman Page and Kenny Omega. Well, nice of AEW to remember that they have tag titles; prevailing circumstances notwithstanding. Again, a perfectly acceptable tag team wrestling match. Nothing really special and should make for an interesting title match some time in the near future... or next episode.

Jungle Boy wins a Battle Royal to earn the first shot opportunity at Cody's TNT championship. This was a thing that happened.

And then we get the Inner Circle Pep Rally, featuring Vickie "Get Your Earplugs Ready" Guerrero introducing each member of the group. We see a bunch of gifts offered, including Best Dad Joke trophies to the crew for participation, a poem from Jake Hager, a wheelchair for Sammy, and earphones for Ortiz... and then Jericho demands Mike Tyson's head on a platter because on January something or other on a Monday night, Tyson betrayed Jericho and Le Champion demands revenge. This prompts Mike Tyson and his posse to come out and confront Jericho. Le Champion runs his mouth, Tyson struggles with ripping out of his T-shirt, some pushing is done and a brawl breaks out to end the show.

Yes, this was reminiscent of the altercation between Tyson and Austin in 1998... except Tyson didn't have bills coming out of his pocket for his posse to pick up. And if this were a one-off thing, I'd be annoyed, but apparently Tyson and Jericho are continuing this thing and Tyson is going to be a semi-regular act going forward before the eventual blow off. And for what it's worth, the pep rally and the follow-up brawl was a fun piece of business to end the show.

So, yeah... a fun episode of Dynamite with stuff to look forward to. I dig it.