AEW Dynamite (April 7th, 2021): The Honeymoon Is Over

History was made on the seventh day of April in the year twenty-twenty-one. It is a day that will live in immediate infamy before being promptly forgotten about, for it is the day where AEW aired the first episode of Dynamite that I actively didn't like.

To be fair, it wasn't all bad and it's entirely possible that I was just in a sour mood, but the show certainly left me in even more of a sour state coming out of it. So I'll blow through this quickly, but be forewarned that the usual happy or morosely calm musings is nowhere to be found. Instead, you're getting grumpy musings and there's a bunch of things that made me grumpy.

First off, why is Max Caster - a tag guy - third rank in contention for the World title? People can cry about how he's gotten wins on Dark, but as somebody who doesn't watch Dark and suddenly sees some dude as one of the top contenders, it speaks volumes of how much lack of care are put into how the Rankings are used. On top of that, he's had a ten minute match with Hangman Page, who is the top contender and thus shouldn't be having that long match with a tag guy. All due respect to Max - I'm sure he's a nice guy, he works hard, and to be fair, the match wasn't bad... I guess, but I have a hard time believing he's good enough to be one of the top five contenders for your WORLD TITLE. Even the guy who wrestles with his hands in his pockets isn't ranked that high.

There's an Inner Circle segment that was fun, with the end game being Jericho challenging MJF's group to a Wargames Blood & Guts match on May 5th, which seems a tad too quick for my tastes, but whatever I'm sure they have a plan.

Jurrassic Express defeated Bear Country in the Godzilla Vs. Kong promotional gimmick. All I can say is go watch the movie instead. This was a fun disaster, at least... but the movie is better.

And then there was a QT Marshall promo to explain why he doesn't like Cody or whatever the case may be and then he spotlights his charges whose names I forgot because... I'm sure QT is a nice guy and a good trainer, but as a promo guy? Ooof. I was dozing off at times and that's not a good first impression on a new stable.

And then we have Darby Allin defending (and retaining) the TNT Championship against JD Drake; a guy that I've only seen like once or twice, but apparently he's challenging for the title and... remember when Cody was doing the open challenge for the title and we got challengers like Eddie Kingston and Ricky Starks who were so awesome they got AEW contracts afterwards? And so we went from those guys to JD Drake, who has about as much fanfare as Fifi the Maid. Are there not any top guys we can book Darby with so that this TNT title seems like something important as Cody once claimed it did? Is it really that difficult?

Then there is a brawl between the Matt Hardy crew and the Dark Order which leads to a tease between Tay Conti and the Bunny and I figured "Oh that match is next." But no, we gotta have Jericho's crew and MJF's crew fight it out before Mike Tyson comes along to make the big save and now he and Jericho are buddies, having seemingly buried the hatchet. I'd question this, but then again, he and DX are apparently tight despite Tyson knocking out Shawn a decade prior, so I guess he's the forgiving type.

And NOW we get the Tay Conti/Buny match... and I can't help but wonder; why didn't you do that tease between Tay and Bunny before the commercial and then do the match after the break. You can save the Inner Circle/Pinnacle thing for later, but this killed the flow for me. It reminded me of all those times you'd have a WWE guy or  gal make their entrance, then they play the video package that lasts half an hour, and we cut back to the poor fool who had to stand there staring at this video package thing. Seeing this play out, I'm imaging Tay and Conti frozen in their staredown while the whole brawl was going on and then they have their match. That's not a good feeling to have, folks.

And while we're on the track, CAN WE BE DONE WITH THESE GODDAMNED RUN-INS AFTER EVERY FUCKING MATCH?! I GET IT; YOU HAVE BILLIONS OF STABLES WITH BILLIONS OF STARS SIGNED. PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING THAT YOU DON'T SHOW ENOUGH OF YOUR STARS! THAT DOESN'T MEAN HAVING THEM RUN IN AFTER EVERY MOTHERFUCKING GODDAMNED MATCH! THERE IS SUCH A THING AS PACING!

Jesus fucking Christ, I thought this is supposed to be the GOOD show!

And then finally, in the main event, the Young Bucks turn heel, superkick Jon Moxley, and they do the two sweet with Kenny and the Good Jobbers to re-unite the Elite... except for Hangman, but let's forget about that little detail. FINALLY, we got this stupid waffling Bucks gimmick out of the way and they did the thing everyone saw coming that should've been done ages ago. And I honestly could not care one bit about this thing.

Okay, so I'm going to be honest with you. I am NOT digging this Bullet Club reunion or whatever it's called. I was already bored with this thing once they brought in the Good Jobbers and did nothing of note with them. To make matters worse, this is basically a rehash of something that was being done in New Japan and if you haven't watched that show or followed the Elite all those years, none of this means a damned thing and quite frankly, I don't want to have to watch years worth of some other show from some other promotion just to get the context behind this whole deal.

So that was Dynamite, everyone. I didn't like this show, at all. People wanted to know when the honeymoon period was going to end with AEW and this was it. Hopefully, next week's show will be better and given that it's their first night unopposed, I hope they put out a great show that gets a big audience and such. But as the header says, the honeymoon is over, the grace period has come and gone, and the once clean sheet of AEW creative has seen its first blemish.

Better luck next time, folks.