AEW Dynamite (October 23rd, 2021): Fade To Rhodes

The show opens with Bryan Danielson and Dustin Rhodes just beating the whole hell out of each other in a fantastic wrestling match that ended with Danielson trapping Dustin in a guillotine and causing him to pass out, thus winning the match and advance in the World Title Eliminator tournament for a World title shot in the future. Good to hear that this Danielson fellow is keeping his promise of providing excellent professional wrestling because I've been enjoying his stuff. As for Dustin, the fact that he did all that stuff in his early-50s proves that age isn't a detriment if you can still go... and boy can that SOB still go.

Also, Eddie Kingston beat Lance Archer to advance in the tournament in a match that saw Archer almost DIE in a move gone wrong. Apparently, he's okay, but someone should remind him that he's the MURDERHAWK and he's the one who's supposed to be murdering people and not get murdered.

Disclaimer: No one is condoning actual murder; that is a figure of speech that plays into his gimmick and nickname. Shame on you for thinking otherwise, you sick deprived people.

Ruby Soho advances in the TBS title tournament by defeating Penelope Ford in a match that is not quite excellent professional wrestling, but was still a fun little piece of business. Speaking of fun piece of business, former NXT refugee Bobby Fish beat up some dude in like a minute and continued beating him up until CM Punk ran out for the save, teasing a future match at some point next week. I'm also digging this Fish fellow and I look forward to his match with Punk.

There's some good promo stuff here. The interaction between MJF and Sting was classic, with MJF accusing Sting of negligence that might put currently out-of-action Darby in the same position as Lex Luger... in a wheelchair. Jon Moxley cut another brilliant monologue about having to hurt everyone else to get to see his daughter. And more fun stuff with Dr. Britt and Schiavone.

And in the main event, Cody Rhodes defeated Malakai Black in a pretty good match that is marred by a crowd booing Cody and Cody insisting on being the good guy because he has a reality show on TNT. I also question the decision on having Cody being the guy who killed Black's winning streak, as that's something you could've ran with for a while, especially with a lot of new guys going on undefeated streaks, like that Punk fellow... or that Danielson fellow... or hell, even that Cole fellow.

This was a good episode of Dynamite with a lot of great stuff on it for a Saturday Night, but my God, this Cody thing REALLY NEEDS A COURSE CORRECTION. Nobody is buying his good guy schtick and he clearly has that McSon-In-Law air to him that is slowly turning me off on everything he does. That is not a good sign for the future and hopefully, things change on that front.

Other than that, hell of a show and I'm looking forward to the next one.