The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 10.23.24

The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 10.23.24

So I don’t know what happened with Collision tonight, but I guess I’m not reviewing that. So instead, we’ve got an episode of Dynamite from October that I missed due to being at a work conference that week.

Live from Salt Lake City, UT

Your hosts are Excalibur, Tony Schiavone & Daddy Magic

Hangman Page joins us to start, after his meme-worthy attack on Jay White the week before. But before he can deliver his promo, Colton Gunn attacks him from behind, which results in Hangman kicking his ass. Luckily, Jay and Juice make the save, as the Bang Bang Gang falls apart before our eyes. And Jay White lets us know that he’ll be seeing Page again soon.

Sammy Guevara v. Shelton Benjamin

I didn’t even realize Sammy escaped his exile to ROH for a week, to be honest. Shelton was coming off his debut the week before, and he immediately throws Sammy around and hits him with a snap suplex. Sammy flips over him and chases him to the floor before following with a quebrada out there. But then he tries another dive and Shelton catches him on the way down and suplexes him on the ramp as we take a break. Back with Shelton in control in the ring as he hits Sammy with a german suplex, but Sammy rolls him up for two and throws superkicks to send Shelton to the apron. Sammy hits him with a dive and back in with a cutter in the ring, which only gets one. Sammy tries a springboard and lands on a superkick while MVP tells him to stop “playing with his food”, so Shelton obliges and hits the running knee in the corner. Exploder powerslam finishes at 10:16. And then I don’t recall Sammy being on Dynamite again after that. Not quite a squash and Shelton gave him a ton of offense. ***

Meanwhile, Mariah May goes into Anna Jay’s locker room and tosses out her gear, because she doesn’t deserve to be in the same room with the champ. Women, am I right?

Meanwhile, we take a look at the history between Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher.

Kyle Fletcher joins us, as they’re still tweaking his music at that point, and Kyle does a YOU PEOPLE interview that quickly drags to the point where the crowd chants “WRAP IT UP” at him. Promos definitely not his strong point. Finally he gets to the point and challenges Ospreay to a match next week, where he will apparently hit multiple Tiger Drivers until Will’s neck turns into dust. And since he can’t be anything like Will, Don Callis gives him a pair of clippers and he shaves off his boy band haircut, making himself into Randy Orton instead in the process. It was a better change for him anyway.

Meanwhile, Ricochet talks about his loss to Takeshita at Maple Leaf Wrestling and promises payback, but MVP interrupts and offers him the card that would change his career path.

Brian Cage & Lance Archer v. Local Talent

The jobbers appear to be some kind of Bruiser Brody tribute act, but the Murder Machines finish with the double chokeslam at 1:00 regardless.

Meanwhile, newly minted agent Chucky T tells Orange Cassidy that it’s time to stand up to the Death Riders. Yeah that didn’t work out very well for him.

ROH World title, ladder match: Mark Briscoe v. Chris Jericho

Briscoe tosses a ladder at him and immediately shoulderblocks Jericho through a pair of tables, but he sets up a ladder on the railing and can’t suplex Jericho onto it. Jericho finds another ladder under the ring, but Mark hits him in the mouth with it and they fight to the floor again. Briscoe misses a dive and breaks a ladder. I don’t know if it’s the sound mixing on the episode but this Salt Lake crowd is REALLY dead tonight. Into the ring, Jericho spears him in the head with the ladder and Mark gigs on camera as we take a break. I should note that despite paying $10 a month for TSN Plus to access these archives, I still have to watch unskippable commercials, so I’m learning a lot about Potash mines. Back with Mark taking Jericho off the ladder and putting him through another ladder with a death valley driver. He goes up and Jericho brings a ladder to the corner, but Briscoe shoves it over and hits him with a swanton bomb. I think Jericho was supposed to get sandwiched by the ladder but he threw it away at the last second and just took the normal bump. They fight up the ladder and slug it out on top, but Mark gets slugged down and then pushes over the ladder to save. They slug it out and Briscoe sends Jericho into a ladder in the corner, and then puts him on a table before climbing the ladder. That brings Bryan Keith out to run interference, only for Rocky Romero to save. So Mark drops the flying elbow off the top of the ladder to put Jericho through the table and follows with the Jay Driller. That should be enough, but Big Bill runs in now, chokeslams Briscoe through a table outside, and then puts Jericho on his back and walks him up the ladder to allow Jericho to win the title at 15:45. NOBODY WANTED THIS. There was a lot of back-end justification afterwards, like “Oh, they’re about to get a ROH TV deal” or whatever, but ultimately it didn’t lead to anything notable and just served to drag out the stupid Learning Tree stuff for more months. ***1/2. Afterwards, Ishii comes out to stare him down, and that took a LONG time to pay off with anything. Also the next week Jericho bragged that Dave Meltzer gave it FOUR STARS, but I don’t know that I can go that high. It certainly wasn’t as terrible as the anti-Jericho trolls bleated about, however.

Adam Cole joins us, but the Kingdom interrupts, trying to warn Adam about MJF, and try to recruit him back into the fold. Man, Taven & Bennett sure got screwed over in THAT deal, didn’t they? Oh well. But Roddy wants MJF first, but we get another of Max’s phoned-in promos via satellite, this time while he’s getting a massage, and offers a match at Full Gear to which ever guy wins three matches in a row first. God this feud was so bad.

Meanwhile, Jamie Hayter has words for Penelope Ford.

The House of Black v. Local Talent

“Ha ha, good luck boys!” notes Menard in reference to the geeks at the other side of the ring. Malakai quickly knocks one of them out of the ring with a kick, and the House goes to work on one of the others and finish him off at 2:00.

Meanwhile, Buddy Matthews challenges Adam Cole to a match next week, which will be Adam’s first of three.

Kamille v. Queen Aminata

Oh, is this the infamous one? Kamille with a corner splash and lariat for one, but Aminata fights back with forearms and takes her down with a headscissors. Knee strike gets two, but Kammile pops up and gets a backbreaker where she manages to miss her knee and just kind of slams her instead as we take a break. Back with Aminata making a comeback as Kamille appears to be incapable of selling properly, and Aminata gets the running kick in the ropes for two. The Queen with the bodyscissors and they slug it out, but Kamille tries a powerbomb and we get a slow motion reversal into a rana for two. But then Kamille, who is totally blown up now, hits her powerbomb for two and can barely make the cover. And some kind of inverted DDT finishes at 9:17. Uh, YIKES. This was bad. No wonder they pulled the plug on Kamille soon after this. ½*

Meanwhile, the crew of geeks is ready to confront the Death Riders in the parking lot, but it’s just the Patriarchy instead.

Meanwhile, Hook reveals that it was Christian Cage who attacked Taz, and then heads to the ring to take care of them, but Kip Sabian turns and joins the Patriarchy, allowing Christian to lay Hook out on the contract.

Daniel Garcia & Private Party v. The Young Bucks & Jack Perry

Say what you will about the “Tony fumbled” nonsense but he absolutely did Private Party dirty with their tag team title reign, as the Bucks went crazy getting them over and the company completely botched them. The faces manage to triple team Matt to start, but the Bucks fire back with superkicks while Perry hits Garcia with a draping DDT from the apron to the floor and we take a break. Back with Zay getting beat up on the floor while Stokely tries to recruit him in a storyline that went nowhere. Perry powerbombs Garcia through the timekeeper’s table while Zay gets double-teamed by the Bucks in the ring, and Risky Business gets two. Zay takes them down with a headscissors and it’s hot tag Quen, who walks into double superkicks. Back to Zay, but Perry gives him a poison rana for two. Bucks with the double stomp powerbomb for two. Zay keeps fighting and escapes the TK Driver and cradles Matt for the pin at 12:00. This set up a tag title match for the next week, where PP finally won it after putting their career on the line. ***1/4

And finally, the Death Riders pull up in their truck, but it’s actually just Marina providing a diversion to the geeks outside while the real team takes out Private Party like complete geeks and then drags Chuck Taylor to the ring and PIllmanizes his neck to end the show.

A pretty mid show with a couple of good matches, but nothing particularly memorable during a pretty down time for the company.