AEW Dynamite (December 22nd, 2021): Holiday Bash At Greensboro

You know... sooner or later, I'm going to have to get a new banner for these Dynamite musings. After all, next week is the final show on TNT before the move to TBS. Maybe come up with something a little more generic, but in any event, we've got the Holiday Bash and there's quite a bit of stuff to touch on here, so let's not dawdle.

Kyle O'Reilly made his AEW debut, running in during a match between Adam Cole and Orange Cassidy that saw him kick the latter down while the ref was distracted by Bobby Fish, culminating in a win for Cole after a pretty good match. Orange's buddies try to run in for the save, but get killed by the formerly known as the Undisputed Era, which prompts the Young Bucks to come out and be confused by Cole bringing in all his old NXT buddies... well, maybe not Roderick Strong; he might be resigning with WWE if rumors are to be believed.

We get another great Hangman Page/Bryan Danielson promo segment in which we're given a date for the rematch: January 5th. This time, however, we have JUDGES in the event of another draw. Judges, you say? Well, that's going to ensure a totally fair finish that won't result in another draw because the judges can't decide or anything... hey, whatever you gotta do to stretch this feud to the final PPV and have them wrestle TWO HOURS for all I care. And to anyone who thinks I'm crazy, I feel if anyone can pull off two guys wrestling for the entire span of PPV, it's Bryan Fucking Danielson.

Oh yeah, and the promos were wonderful here. Hangman got some good zingers with a couple WWE references (B+ Player and such) while Danielson continues to be an unlikable dick... but the good kind you want to see get their ass kicked, not the bad kind that makes you want to change the channel.

Wardlow kills some dude, but never mind that now because Dan Lambert is back to spill the beans on Tony Khan's latest scheme; trying to get people to cheer for Cody Rhodes. Gotta admit; that is some pretty carny shit right there.

We get a Owen Hart tribute video featuring a bunch of talking heads alongside some footage of Owen's exploits in New Japan. Kudos for including Mark Henry and Dustin Rhodes in the package, who were around during Owen's final years on this Earth. This is basically to advertise the Owen Hart tournaments (one for men, one women) that will culminate at the Double Or Nothing PPV. It's a touching tribute if nothing else.

Ruby Soho defeated Nyla Rose to advance in the TBS Title Tourney while Malakai Black kills Who The Fuck Is Griff Garrison.

And then we get the main event; the six-man tag match with MJF and Fuck The Revival going up against Sting, Darby Allin, and CM Punk. Sting has a Punk shirt and facepaint to match. Darby has some Sting-looking facepaint, and even Punk got in on the facepaint action, with an homage to old-school Sting minus the blond hair. I'm not gonna lie; this was loads of fun. FTR are great, MJF is a great chickenshit, Darby is a great crazy guy, Punk is great, and Sting is great as the returning legend... because we are in Greensboro, you see. Even better, they continued teasing the Punk/MJF feud by never having the two make any physical contact and gave us the fun visual of CM Punk chasing MJF like Wile E. Coyote chasing Road Runner. See, kids? Wrestling can be silly and not stupidly insulting.

Say, this was a fun little show. Stuff happened, I guess. But I had a good time. Imagine that.