Thursday, April 21, 2022

AEW Dynamite (April 20th, 2022) - Amazingly, RVD Is Not #AllElite


Amazingly, Rob Van Dam did not make his supposed AEW debut, because what better time to make waves in the new promotion than on the 4/20 edition of Dynamite.

So now that we got the obvious deadhorse joke out of the way, the major announcement hyped up by Tony Khan turned out to be the official announcement of Forbidden Door, a joint AEW/New Japan PPV event from Chicago taking place in late-June... so another PPV event for me to sample, yippee. The way they handled this was fine; as TK came out and introduced the president of New Japan, only for Adam Cole to pop up on screen and make the announcement himself, which was the right move because Adam Cole is a good promo and TK often comes across as awkward. And then of course, this brings out Jay White of Bullet Club fame, who is... not the least bit amazing. By the way, him saying that he sold out MSG is cute and what a heel in taking credit for other people's hard work.

I may have to go back and watch that MSG show, actually. One of these days.

(By the way, to any of those hardcore WWE fanatics who are writing this off as a nothing deal, I remind you that last year, WWE was in discussions with New Japan regarding a partnership of sorts and if that deal had gone through, you folks would have gotten the biggest hard-ons in the world. Don't believe me? How many of you cheering Cody now shat on him in AEW? Just saying.)

Meanwhile, there was some good wrestling on here. CM Punk vs. Dustin Rhodes opened the show and that was a good match. Wardlow and the Butcher had a good ol' fashioned hoss fight and after Wardlow won, MJF cut a promo to pay off Jake The Snake to cut one of his classic Jake The Snake promos before ol' Murderhawk himself Lance Archer goes "Fuck all that. EVERY BODY FUCKING DIES!" Excellent. Trios between the Blackpool Combat Club and three geeks is always fun for a lark. Kyle O'Reilly beating Jungle Boy to advance in the Owen Hart tournament was NOT a surprise as it should've been, because we needz some genuine CANADIANS in this tournament showcasing this CANADIAN rassler. And the coffin match between Andrade and Darby was an entertaining spectacle if nothing else.

Points must be docked for one of the Private Party guys ripping a Sting sign from a guy in a Sting mask, who pulls the mask off to reveal himself to be... Sting. I could've sworn I've seen this bit in TNA ages ago. I must stress; I don't mind it. It's funny.

Oh, and Sting does another dive... and I was worried about Steve Austin having another match.

All in all, a perfectly fine edition of Dynamite. Summon the bots to hate this show.

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