Well, it's gotten to that point, kids. But this is the end of the weekly AEW Dynamite musings on this here blog. That doesn't mean I'm giving up on the show or anything, because they've been fun shows and continue to be the easiest two hours of wrestling on television... but I want to actually enjoy the shows without having to worry about gathering thoughts for a blog post a day or so later. So from this point on, it'll be every once in a while as opposed to every week.
With that in mind... what a show to end this run on.
The Lucha Bros. defeated Hangman Adam Page and Kenny Omega in a pretty fun and exciting little wrestling match where miscommunication and an accident lariat has Kenny eating a package piledriver to give the Luchas a win. Hangman and Kenny argue before THAT MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD PAC shows up on the screen and finds that Nakazawa fellow in the locker room. Kenny rushes to help, but is cut off by the Lucha Bros and we have a brawl in the Picture-In-Picture commercial break... which annoys me.
Listen, guys. I appreciate the PnP gimmick during matches because I can follow the action somewhat and one of my pet peeves with TV matches are the commercial breaks that make you miss part of the action. So the PnP thing for that purpose is fine. The PnP to run important angles that further the story, on the other hand, is not a good idea and it completely and utterly SUCKS.
CODY and Darby Allin defeated The Blade, The Butcher, and the Bunny... wait, that doesn't sound right. Anyway, whatever. Cody and Darby beat the other guys, revenge is attained, and now we can expect Cody/Darby II somewhere down the line. Cool. This was alright. Probably not as exciting or engaging as the opening match, but for what it is, that's perfectly fine.
Awesome Kong kills some girl in half a minute. Not much else to say there. Next.
The ten-minute time limit match between Le Champion Chris Jericho and the Jungle Boy Jungle Jack Packard Perry Boy ends in a time limit draw. Jericho is not thrilled with that and demands five more minutes, because that worked so well in the past. However, after a couple minutes of action that sees the Jungle Jack Boy fellow get the upper hand, Jericho bails and promises big things for Jon Moxley on New Year's Day... presumably he got another pitcher plant or something.
The match itself isn't much, but served two purposes. It gave Jungle Boy a bit of credibility by having him be able to hang with the champion for 10+ minutes, making him a bigger deal than he was before... though I doubt he'll be more over than the dinosaur, but that's okay. And the second thing is to give Jericho a bit of a chink in his armor without flat out beating him. This is the kind of thing where the time limit does wonders for a match rather than detract from it, as was the case with that one Moxley/PAC match from a month or so ago.
Kris Statlander defeated Dr. Britt Baker DMD via tombstone in a perfectly acceptable wrestling match to earn a title shot at Riho's Women's title on New Year's Day. Then Brandi shows up and invites Statlander into her Borg Collective or whatever. Stat says no, Brandi gives her shoe, and leaves. The match itself was fine and went by quickly enough, but I'm still not sold on this Brandi stuff.
AEW World Tag-Team Champions SCU (Scorpio Sky and Kazarian) defeated The Young Bucks in what I thought was a pretty good match until the sudden ending where Sky hits Matt with a TKO and they do the finish to retain the titles. And then the Dark Order shows up and attacks everyone, with more guys showing up to get beaten down. I can appreciate AEW trying their best with this Dark Order thing, but I'm just not sold on it. The vignettes were kinda neat, I suppose, but when it comes to the actual in-ring sports entertainment part of it, it comes off as a big huge pile of "meh."
And that's it for me. On a whole, a perfectly fine show with some good wrestling matches, some solid story progression, and the usual easy pacing that makes this a joy to watch. I'm done with these things on a weekly basis... though I may touch on the New Year's Day show if I feel it. We'll see.
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