AEW Dynamite (Oct. 14th, 2020): Belated Anniversary Show

 

Well, Dynamite has crossed the one-year mark and what better way to celebrate the one-year anniversary than to have an anniversary show... two weeks later.

Hey, better late than never, I suppose. And given that the past year has given more more wrestling hits than misses, I'm not one to complain. In any event, we've got a big show with all AEW championships on the line as well as a major announcement from MJF. Let's get to it.

AEW Tag-Team Champions Fuck The Revival defeated Best Friends to retain the title in a perfectly acceptable tag team wrestling match that featured a random arcade machine getting caved in. This results in Miro coming out and killing the Best Friends because he's sloppy at keeping his shit in gear.

In the next match, we have a tag-match that featured mostly Miro being a monster and squashing this one jobber. Kip Sabian cuts a promo of sorts and Miro yells out "GAME OVER" in a low-rent Bulgarian Raul Julia as M. Bison cheap rip-off sort of way. Not sold on the character - I dug the few Twitch shows Miro's put out and he's got a fun charisma to him, but making the Twitch gamer thing part of his wrestling gimmick is a turn-off. That said, but Miro looked like a beast here and more than redeemed his mediocre debut.

Lance Archer and Jon Moxley has fight in the back.

We have the brackets for the No. 1 Contender tournament to determine a new No. 1 Contender that will challenge in the future. They are Penta, Rey Fenix, Kenny Omega, Joey Janela, Colt Cabana, Hangman Page, Wardlow, and Jungle Boy. Should be fun, I suppose.

MJF comes out for his announcement and invites Le Champion to appear. Jericho and the Inner Circle shows up and MJF stalls for a bit before announcing that he wants to join the Circle. Jericho invites MJF for a steak dinner next week. Thrilling.

Yeah, for those needing clarity, I'm not amused by these skits. At first, they were fine. They play off each other well... but silly schtick for the sake of silly schtick like this was kills the deal for me and quite frankly, a week of more silly schtick is not something I'm looking forward to. Part of me is intrigued by where this is going, but as for how we're getting there, I've had enough.

There's a bit with Dr. Britt featuring Tony Schiavone getting his chest waxed... you know, Dr. Britt is good in her new role (model) and Schiavone plays the poor straight man just fine, but again, I'm wondering if there's going to be an endgame with these things. Again, fine at first, but when it devolves to silly schtick for the sake of silly schtick, that's where my patience runs thin.

The match between TNT Champion CODY and Orange Cassidy ends in a time limit draw; Cody retains the title. I wanted to like this match, I really did. It showed Orange in a more serious light, it has some decent action and close shaves, there was some Dark Order stuff before they got ejected that prompted a character moment for Orange, and I didn't mind the time limit draw because the only thing you could've done was have someone be beat. However, the close call time up is what killed this for me. It's nice that Orange is getting up a "rub" of sorts, but sooner or later, he NEEDS to win. And that's what killed it for me.

Jon Moxley and Lance Archer haz fight.

Matt Hardy declares he is 100% and then Sammy shows up to taunt Matt a little more... and apparently, this feud must continue as AEW continues their best efforts to kill Matt Hardy and take Sammy's reputation with him. STOP BOOKING THIS MATCH!

AEW Women's Champion Hikaru Shida defeated Big Swole to retain the title. This was a thing that happened... and that's not something I expected to write about anything involving Shida. I like Big Swole as a character, but something didn't click with this match and I was mostly "meh."

And in the main event, AEW World Champion Jon Moxley defeated Lance Archer in a No DQ match via crucifix pinfall to retain the title. It was a good brawl, if nothing else... which is the least you can expect from Moxley these days and I'm not complaining in the slightest. Archer attacks Mox afterwards, prompting the arrival of Eddie Kingston and the Lucha Bros. Archer leaves, Eddie helps the champ up, and puts him down before slapping on a rear naked choke on Mox, because this feud must continue. Sure, why not?

And that was the Dynamite Anniversary Show... I gotta say, for an average Dynamite episode, this was the usual good episode; not quite as strong as the usual output and some bits had me rolling my eyes with great disinterest, but the good stuff was good enough to carry the show. For what was a special occasion, it didn't exactly feel all that special. Still, another good show is another good show and I, for one, enjoyed the show more often than not.