AEW Dynamite (Oct. 9th, 2019): Bubbly Inner Circles

As promised, I've tuned in to the second episode of AEW Dynamite on TNT... or, well, in my case, it's TSN2, as the show has not been pre-emptied or anything of the sort. We've got plenty of time for that, however, and in the meantime, we have episode 2 of this Dynamite wrestling show on Wednesday nights.

Just as an aside, I'm not going to do this for the long haul. While I may watch the show on a regular basis, that doesn't mean full-blown musings or anything like that. It could very well be bullet points or a couple quick blurbs, much like the RAW or Smackdown musings that I would occasionally post. For the moment, however, we'll keep it in this fashion until the Full Gear PPV comes into play.

In the meantime, let's jump into this week's episode...






Private Party defeated the Young Bucks to advance in the tag-team tournament to crown the first AEW World Tag-Team Champions. Some would suggest this to be an upset, but honestly, I'd have no problem with it going either way. A fine display of tag-team wrestling that kept me entertained and fired me up for the rest of the show... which is the whole point of an opening match.

So, last week, TSN2 failed to provide us with the picture-in-picture action that the Americans got. This week, TSN2 delivered on their picture-in-picture action, so we saw commercials in the big screen while the tiny screen has Private Party celebrating on their way.

Next up is a promo segment featuring Le Champion de AEW Chris Jericho, accompanied by his entourage of Sammy Guevara, Ortiz, Santana, and Jake Hager... or as Jericho calls him, HAGAR. The group is called the Inner Circle, there's a pot shot at WWE Creative when a "We The People" chant breaks out, and there's Jericho taunting Cody over their upcoming title match. I liked this segment; without going too deep into it, they introduced us to the major players of this new Inner Circle faction, they highlighted both tonight's main event and the upcoming Full Gear PPV title bout, and it wasn't a complete waste of time. Sadly, the shots are almost WWE-like, but I won't knock them for that.

Darby Allin defeated Jimmy Havoc in a perfectly acceptable wrestling match to earn a title match against Le Champion du AEW Chris Jericho at next week's show. For two guys who supposedly thrive on ultraviolence, this was just a rather run of the mill match with the occasional biting and underhanded tactic. Nothing worth complaining about or anything; it was a fine enough match, but not one that sold me on their individual characteristics.

Dr. Britt Baker DMD and AEW Women's World Champion Riho defeated Emi Sakura and Bea Priestly when Baker submitted Sakura with a Rings Of Saturn/Mandible Claw combination that looked painful and unique... hey, she's a dentist, so she should know a nerve hold to apply to someone's mouth. For what it's worth, I enjoyed this match a lot more than I would've thought. If there was any nibble to be had, it's that it felt like half a good match and the rest fell into a black hole. Still, I'm not bored by this, so kudos.

Jon Moxley defeated Shawn Spears (w/ Tully Blanchard). Again, perfectly acceptable wrestling with Tully doing the interfering for timely openings for Spears, but ultimately Mox prevails and turns his attention towards the arriving Kenny Omega brandishing barb-wired bat and a barb-wired broom... and then that bastard PAC (who was in the announcers booth) ambushed Kenny and left him for dead. Mox considered it, but left Kenny behind anyway because while he may be a violent man, he's not an asshole and won't hit a guy while he's down. What a concept!

And in the main event, Le Champion Du AEW Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara defeated Hangman Adam Page and Dustin Rhodes where Jericho hit Rhodes with the Judas Effect elbow finisher after a timely save from Shattered Dreams by Jake Hager. Well, what do you know? The champion of the world is winning matches and not being made to look like a total geek. What a concept! Despite being on the losing end, Hangman and Dustin make a pretty damn good tag-team and I wouldn't mind seeing them together a couple times along the way. Other than that, perfectly acceptable tag-team match.

Once the match ended, Hangman and Hager fought their way to the back, leaving us with Dustin getting pounded by both Jericho and Sammy. Then the lights go out so we can have a billion things happen in the next five minutes. When the lights are up, Cody is in the ring and takes out Sammy, but gets cut off by Santana and Ortiz, allowing Jericho to choke Cody with his own tie. That must be fun for Justin Roberts to revisit. Then MJF comes along with a chair, teases turning on Cody, but hits everyone else with chairs, poses for the camera, and then eats a Codebreaker from Jericho. And then the Bucks show up to take care of the former LAX while Dustin took out Sammy as Jericho bailed to bully a referee. And then Jericho gets ambushed by Darby Allin with a knee and a skateboard because we need to build to next week's title match and the babyfaces stand tall as the show ends.

Holy shit, that was a mouthful.

The second episode of AEW Dynamite lacked the initial excitement and anticipation of the premiere outing and that is to be expected. However, it did a fine job in advancing some storylines, establishing some of the major players going forward, and setting us up for next week's main event title match, so you have something to look forward to next week. Like last week, the wrestling wasn't anything really special, but the important thing was that stuff was going on and most of it set us up for the next episode, again, giving us something to look forward to next week.

I'm done for tonight.
Later.