The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 07.24.24

The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 07.24.24

Took my kid to see Longlegs this afternoon like a responsible adult father would do, and she LOVED it. It’s definitely not a horror movie as such, more like a creepy as hell psychological thriller like Silence of the Lambs that leaves you unsettled and bothered for the entire thing. And of course Nicholas Cage is amazing and worth whatever they were paying him.

I also watched Crisis On Infinite Earths Part Three because I had kind of enjoyed the first two, but this one was a boring piece of crap and did not stick the landing at all. It should have been banished to the pocket universe instead of the heroes.

Live from Nashville, TN

Your hosts are Excalibur, Taz & Tony Schiavone

Meanwhile, Will Ospreay shows up for his car, but someone has stabbed his tire with a knife, so he hijacks Alex Marvez’s ride.

MJF joins us to start, complete with his own cheerleading squad, and he buries Ospreay and reminds that he hasn’t forgotten about the AEW World title either. And wrestling analysts are saying that his victory over Will was the most dominant victory of all time! So he calls Will’s dead grandmother some mean names and challenges Ospreay to come fight him, but of course Will is busy trying to get to the arena. Also the title belt makes him gag because workhorse titles are for poors like the audience, and he tosses it in the garbage to prove his point. So now the International title is the American title, complete with patriotic belt design and flag backdrop. But then Will Ospreay does make it to the arena and chases Max off before announcing that they’re rematching in Wembley for the new American title. And then Will rescues the International title from the trash on the way out.

Meanwhile, Bryce Remsberg goes to flip the coin with the Elite, but they’ve already attacked Daniels and substituted a double sided coin.

FTW title: Chris Jericho v. Minoru Suzuki

They trade chops to start and just keep throwing them until Jericho’s chest is busted open. And after 5:00 of chopping, Jericho goes down and we take a break. Back with more chopping. Chop chop til you drop, chop chop never stop. Jericho finally sends him to the apron and tries the dropkick, but Suzuki catches him in the hanging armbar from the apron and beats on him with a chair while Taz puts the badmouth on Jericho. So Suzuki smashes the hand with a chair and snaps his pinky finger, which neutralizes Jericho’s right hand chopping. Back in the ring, Murder Grampa goes to work on the hand with some SMALL JOINT MANIPULATION, but Jericho catches him with a codebreaker for one. Suzuki tries the sleeper, but Jericho reverses him into the Walls and Suzuki counters out of that. Gotch piledriver is countered with a low blow by Jericho, and the Judas Effect finishes at 13:56. I mean, we’ve seen Suzuki’s routine and it’s fine but he doesn’t do much different anymore. ***. Afterwards, the Learning Tree comes in for the beatdown, but Shibata makes the save.

Meanwhile, Willow’s interview is quickly interrupted by Kris Statlander, who lays Willow out and wants an eliminator match next week for Willow’s CMLL title. Why not just ask for a title shot?

Meanwhile, Bryan Danielson chats with Renee about the upcoming All In title shot, but Jeff Jarrett stops by and tells him to heal up mentally and go all in and do what he couldn’t.

Dr. Britt Baker DMD v. Hikaru Shida

Britt takes Shida down with a crucifix for two and immediately takes her down for the Lockjaw, but Shida counters for two. They fight to the floor and Shida gains the advantage as we take a break. Back with them trading suplexes and Shida rolls into a guillotine as they’re weirdly out of sync her for some reason. Britt with a superkick and they trade cradles for two and Shida makes the ropes to escape a submission attempt. Shida gets tempted by the kendo stick, but then changes her mind, and Britt hits the neckbreaker for two. Shida with the falcon arrow, but Britt catches the kick and rolls her into the Lockjaw to finish at 10:20. This one was pretty rough. I could see what they were trying for but Britt looked really rusty. **

Afterwards, Mercedes Mone comes out and declines the title match at All In, and then Kamille finally makes her debut as Mone’s new heater and lays out Britt in impressive fashion. Kamille as the Diesel to her Shawn Michaels is a good fit.

Meanwhile, Nick Wayne has his promo time interrupted by a brooding Kip Sabian, who has changed his look again, and they’re both in the Royal Rampage match this Friday.

Pac v. Bear Boulder

Boulder overpowers Pac quickly, but misses a splash and Pac dropkicks him in the corner and finishes with a brainbuster at 1:54.

Meanwhile, Team AEW has trouble getting on the same page until Mark Briscoe unifies them as usual.

Mariah May v. Kaitlyn Alexis

Hey, a second women’s match on Dynamite! Feels like it’s been a while since we’ve seen that. Hopefully someone is keeping track. Mariah steamrolls her to start and beats on her with forearms and the Mayday follows. And she adds a hip attack and Storm Zero to finish at 1:37. Evil Mariah still isn’t working for me yet, but Mariah tries to fake out the crowd with Toni Storm’s music, only to find the real Toni has been playing an arena staff member in disguise, and they get into a brawl with Toni showing FIRE. OK that’s immediately better. That promo last week was kind of a disaster for May and this helped a lot.

Blood & Guts: Team AEW v. The Elite

We start with Jack Perry and Darby Allin, and they fight into the crowd before heading into the ring for some weapons brawling during the first 5:00 period. Jack javelins him into a trash can in the corner. Second into the match is Nick Jackson, who brings a suitcase with him and legdrops Darby on the way in. We take a break and return with Mark Briscoe in the match and running wild, suplexing the heels all over. He finds a ladder and puts it on Nick before hitting a senton and then smashing him with the trash can some more. Matt Jackson is the next one in, also with a briefcase, and he DDTs Darby onto the case and then hits him with the rolling northern lights suplexes while Mark Briscoe gets busted open. Anthony Bowens is the next one in for Team AEW and he runs wild for a minute, but Matt tosses the case at his face and cuts that off immediately. Darby and Briscoe make a comeback and Darby rides his skateboard onto Matt’s back. And then Bowens finds golden scissors and tries to stab Perry in the head with them. Okada is next for the Elite, bringing his road sign with him and tombstoning Briscoe onto that. And Nick holds up a chair for a dropkick as we take another break. Back with Max Caster as the next guy for the babyfaces, and he uses the microphone as a weapon in a more literal sense than usual. Max finds a barbed wire board, but Bowens takes the bump onto that and then the Bucks sandwich him with another board and then hit him with a senton to break the board. Okada finds thumbtacks and fills Max’s mouth with them, which finally shuts him up. The last man for the Elite is of course Hangman Page, but he’s a no-show. So Team AEW makes a comeback and the Acclaimed do a barbed wire Scissor Me Timbers on Nick. Swerve is the last guy for the match, but Page appears fashionably late and nails him with a chair from behind before handcuffing him to the cage outside and doing a bitter promo on him. How is this not the Wembley match? But Matt is sick of Hangman’s sass and threatens to fire him if he doesn’t get into the ring and start the match. So this begins the Match Beyond portion, despite Swerve still being cuffed on the floor and we take another break. Back with Jeff Jarrett hitting the ring and unlocking Swerve, who cuts his way into the cage and runs wild. So everyone is laid out and this sets up a showdown with Swerve and Hangman, as they throw down for the hottest sequence of the match thus far. Swerve finds a staple gun and goes after Hangman, but the Bucks go low and we learn that one of the cases is filled with staple guns for the Elite, and they all staple him. But then Swerve gets his gun back and staples them all in turn in a funny sequence as we take another break. Back with everyone out of the cage and tables stacked at ringside. Bowens goes flying through those for the stuntman bump. In the ring, Briscoe hits the Elite with Jay Drillers one after another, and then Darby climbs up the ceiling and drops onto Perry with a senton, putting him through a table. Perry gets cuffed to the cage and they beat on him with kendo sticks and demand surrender, which leads to Darby going under the ring and finding a gas can after a couple of tries. So Darby threatens to immolate Jack in one of the goofier idle threats we’ve seen in a while, and Matt Jackson quits to save Perry at 50:00 and gives Darby a TNT title match for All In. Yeah, these are pretty hard to screw up normally, but there was SO MUCH wrong with this one. Okada looked lost in this, for one thing. Swerve and Hangman literally disappeared before the last commercial break and didn’t even factor into the finish despite being the hottest part of the match. Darby took forever to find the gas can and no one seriously believed that we were gonna have someone lit on fire on national TV as a finish. And as usual, the “official” part of the match ran way too long and didn’t need a 7:00 overrun to conclude it. It had moments and some clever weapons spots, and Mark Briscoe stole the show as usual, but they ran out of steam way too early and couldn’t stick the landing. They desperately needed a Jon Moxley or someone else with real credibility in there instead of the Acclaimed. Easily the worst version of this match they’ve done yet. ***

I thought this episode was a big disappointment, even with the lacklustre build to the Blood & Guts match factored in.