IN LAIMAN’S TERMS #436
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Thoughts on AEW Dynamite – July 5th, 2023
1. I am very much not a gamer. I don’t think I’ve played a “new” game since 2009, and that’s being generous. I will say though, AEW Fight Forever is a mostly fun experience. I think the career mode is too short and has too few options, and the entrance features leave a lot to be desired. Some of the dialogue is comical at best. I think it suffers from a lot of the basis of its storylines (and its roster) being two years out of date, but that’s a minor gripe. But I’ve really enjoyed it. I have found it easy to pick up and have some fun with. I hope this idea of them adding to and adapting it rather than releasing a new one every year is something that comes to fruition. I’ve been using my partner’s Nintendo Switch, so it’s the first game I’ve played on that console that was actually made for it. I’ve borrowed it a few times to play some oldies from when I was a kid, but that’s about it. I can imagine it might not be too exciting if you’re a really avid gamer, and that’s okay too.
2. We start off with Darby calling out Keith Lee to “pull his head out of his ass and take this seriously.” Damn, shots fired already.
3. Lethargic rocket, controlled presumably by the B button in the eight seconds of entrance you’re allowed, it’s a tag team night. I love this blind tag concept, as convenient as it mostly seems to be. Orange Cassidy gets a huge pop, and he’s teaming once again with Darby Allin against the re-united against their will Swerve in Our Glory. Darby himself gets a big cheer too. This crowd is here for it.
4. Flash back to the Dynamite cinder block incident (and remembering that Parker Boudreaux was involved for a hot minute), and it at least helps to know that they also haven’t forgotten that the basis of this feud was set last JBLdamn year.
5. Swerve in Our Glory have about the same amount of mis-timing and tension that they did before the breakup. I wonder if it’ll be similar to how they were as tag team champions, with the obvious dissent between the two despite their success. Darby smacks Keith in the face, and Keith responds by launching Darby so far, I think he flew out of the front door of the Bel-Air mansion. The late James Avery had nothing on Keith. Even OC had an incredulous look on his face.
6. I love this crowd so much already, they’re into everything. Darby getting launched gets a “holy shit” chant, as does the OC psych-out tap chops. Keith Lee shrugs it off and hits at least a double by Baseketball rules, but it’s only the third inning.
7. Keith Lee gets double-teamed by multiple Coffin Drops and Orange Punches, but he spent the money to get the stoic stance in response to strikes. Finally Swerve gets in, which means more Swerve/Darby, yes freaking please. De-FY! Orange continues to sell the hand, which isn’t going to get any better if he keeps using that move, but strategy can only get you so far.
8. The match graphic for the Butcher in the later random tag match makes it look like there’s a No. 2 pencil sticking out of his head.
9. Keith Lee powerbombs Swerve suplexing Darby Allin. That was a unique twist on the Tower of Doom spot, I like it. It also makes sense, since I’m sure Keith likes powerbombing Swerve for any reason regardless.
10. Swerve decides that Darby should be livin’ in a box… Yeah, he’s living in a steel step box. Then OC fails at attacking Keith, and Lee does a remix of the “heavy guy steps on someone” spot by walking up the steps while they’re still crushing Darby. This is a uniquely inventive match. Speaking of which, failed Stundog Millionaire into Code Red. I love this match.
11. Swerve tries to break up a pinfall attempt but ends up taking tremendous glee in hitting a 450 on Keith Lee. The crowd chants “you fucked up,” which has to be at least the second time for that already, given Darby’s antics. OC dives to the outside and FINALLY lands a tornado DDT on Keith while Darby pins Swerve with a… something.
12. The lights go out like the House of Black is about to take issue with this but… No, just blue lights of celebration? This match has capstones of technical mix-ups, since Keith Lee’s theme started at the “I” minus the “Who am.” Keith Lee is a good sport and does fist-bumps. Darby and OC both take the time to go see the two kids dressed up like Darby and a little Statlander. How sweet!
13. Speaking of Defy, we’re talking about Nick Wayne in Everett, Washington. Is the young prodigy finally on his way? It seems so, he’s turned 18, and it’s to be continued. Learning who Nick Wayne was at the show I was at in Seattle when I resurrected the column is something I was glad I got the opportunity to catch up on.
14. Review of the Jungle Boy promo and proceeding ske-daddle. Tony is standing by as JP comes out to take another step toward becoming the young Christian Cage protege with the outfit. JP doesn’t get the chance to go to Tony’s office as he’s jumped by Hook, but JP again gets away via giant SUV escape car of doom.
15. Next, the Acclaimed and Senior Ass are facing… The Blade and the Bollywood Boys? Speaking of teams I saw at the Seattle show in January… Holy shit, it really is random season mode to promote the game tonight, isn’t it? It’s like some of the random teams you get on Road to Elite, like Sting and the not-Big Show, Orange Cassidy and Matt Hardy, Kris Statlander and Kenny Omega… It’s entertaining, I’ll give it that.
16. MJF and Adam Cole both saying “shut up, Schiavone!” had “shut up, Harold” energy. They bring it back by comparing a random big guy in the gym to him… for some reason. And now we’re seeing the odd team working out, and this is glorious levels of HAM. These bench presses are more fun to watch than the time Ryback and Mark Henry had a bench press competition at an episode of Smackdown I attended in Hershey a long time ago, so that’s something.
17. The (other) triple B had to hang out in the ring for the break and that whole segment?
18. These Darby/Kris kids are living the life tonight. I love seeing stuff like this.
19. There’s actually going to be a cheap heat portion of this tag match. I didn’t expect it to be long enough to make picture-in-picture. I guess with an additional show, more time for matches like this to go longer is available.
20. The Bollywood Boys and the Acclaimed wore very similar color schemes tonight.
21. Anthony Bowens just keep getting better by orders of magnitude. The Acclaimed win to the surprise of literally nobody, but it was fun for what it was. Random night is going to continue at least once more tonight.
22. That QTV person who had the segment on Rampage with them a little while back says some things on screen. I didn’t realize that we needed a living embodiment of all the members of the Fashion Club, but here we are.
23. The security guard must’ve popped Billy Gunn because he stopped, laughed, and gave him a hug.
24. Eddie Kingston beat Kenta? I’ll be damned. This leads in to the history between Mox and Kingston with some early videos included too.
25. Random night continues as the Mattitude Era finds out he’s teaming with Jeff Jarrett in the blind tag tourney.
26. Wheeler Yuta claims he’s the favorite going into the match against Kenny Omega tonight. Sure, Jan…
27. Jericho gets a pretty big pop himself, though it’s Canada so no surprise there. He and his smashed Disco ball shirt are out to say things about something. He acknowledges the unimpressive record he’s put up lately, and promises some changes. The crowd boos him mentioning being trained by Stu Hart, and that throws him off so much that he has to point it out. He throws back the life on the road and when wrestling was everything to him. He’s even harkening back to an Attitude Era reference or two.
28. “Did a dumpster capsize?” “No, that’s just Don Callis.” Now his entrance music is just a sound. Callis’s heat continues to be unreal. Jericho gets to play the face, which he hasn’t done since that weird angle at Full Gear, I think. It seems too obvious though, where’s this going? Callis officially asks him to join the family, as his best friend of 34 years. He already has a faction named after him though, so I imagine Takeshita’s about to perform a hit. But Jericho leaves a “maybe.” Okay then. That went from heat so loud you could barely hear him to mostly muffled confusion.
29. The Owen Hart tourney is recapped and further previewed, and then Renee gets a medical update on Roderick Strong. For once, words are interrupted by friendly voices. Roderick asks what’s up with MJF, so there’s totally nothing going on.
30. Speaking of nothing going at all, MJF comes out to HAM it up more as the ring announcer’s voice goes up suddenly at the “world” in world champion. They’re facing Daddy Magic and the Butcher. I love the results of actually random shit like this. MJF trying to mimic Adam Cole’s entrance is so fanboy and it might be the best thing I’ve ever seen. Should I just write in MJF and Adam Cole for the HAM for the next several Wednesdays now? MJF running in a circle while AC tries not to look annoyed while setting up his big callback moment.
31. MJF begging Cole to be a big dork with him is making my whole day, and Adam Cole’s “not having it but trying not to corpse in the process is nearly as great.
32. MJF is playing face in peril. I’ll add that to things I didn’t think I’d see anytime soon.
33. MJF begs Adam Cole to save him from the dreaded pain of the abdominal stretch. This continues to invoke memories of Bryan and Kane, which I had the privilege to cover on this very site once upon a time. This took the potential of the MJF/Sammy pairing and it’s turned it up way past 11 in every great way imaginable.
34. MJF begs to get back in after Adam Cole finally gets in the match for the first time. Adam Cole just wins anyway, and MJF forgets those boundaries again. MJF has a mic, so the HAM isn’t over yet. (I mean we’re getting more, not as in the award hasn’t been decided. Nothing’s touching this.)
35. MJF sets up Adam Cole to do his callback, this is amazing. Adam Cole’s mic isn’t working. MJF asks for another Bro Session. Everyone but Tony says they do. Please keep making these things happen. And now we’ve got a birthday party with streamers and a tiny cake. And yes, party hats. HAM of the Year is in serious danger of being decided in July. Max ends up face-down in another cake. The whole crowd wants cake, because of course they do. Adam Cole actually sounds sincere in thanking MJF, so that stoic facade breaks just a little bit. The story continues.
36. Backstage with Renee and Britt Baker, and Britt brings back a bit of that heel side to address Ruby’s promo. She rubs winning the cup last year in her face.
37. Jericho tells Danny and Sammy that they’ll always be his Dark Order, or something like that. Coincidentally, they’re also teaming together. That tension that Sammy seemed to be feeling with those two hasn’t gone much of anywhere yet, but I’m sure it will.
38. Faces continue to be dumb when it comes to the Outcasts. They come out as their trio, Britt comes out alone. I’m sure the ref will somehow be completely surprised that there are shenanigans involved too.
39. Ruby’s strategy for the match seems to be mostly based on powdering. The ref watches the two others act like they’re going to do something and is like “hey…. stop.” After the Don Callis coming back with no consequences thing at Forbidden Door, why would anyone listen to them?
40. Oh my JBL, there are shenanigans. Who saw that coming?
41. One session of shenanigans weren’t quite enough, so Saraya makes the distraction, and Britt head-butts her own title belt. Ruby still can’t put her away though, because they still made the wrong decision last year when Ruby desperately needed the win and they can’t stop making us think about that.
42. Britt remains invincible, as she has no trouble with a 3-on-1 attack. It takes some leverage and a victory roll for Ruby to get the win. I know they almost had to do it that way, but it’ll be Ruby and Skye. That match was… not great. Skye Blue, instead of being down there to balance things out a bit, comes out to just vaguely stare at her. That happened.
43. We get the main event as Kenny Omega vs. Wheeler Yuta, the latter being the obvious favorite. The shortened Kenny introduction with no custom creativity, but what can ya do.
44. Kenny Omega does what Kenny Omega does, to a tremendous amount of crowd support. The crowd has been hot all night, but it’s an extra degree for Omega, of course. Omega starts to sell his injuries from the match with Ospreay, and they reference the Tiger Driver, which was still one of the scariest moves I’ve ever seen.
45. Someone repeatedly screams at a very high pitch right into the camera. Thanks for that, whoever you are. I may never have the hiccups again.
46. Big Bill and Brian Cage/Trent Beretta and Matt Sydal, more randomness! Yay! Also, Nick Wayne’s debuting against Swerve next week, so they didn’t drag that out too long.
47. Wheeler gets a lot of the heat you’d expect from a main event match when the heel takes over. That’s the perfect time for the upcoming matches rundown. Wheeler does look sharp. He’s been trying to regain the magic of the Moxley match ever since, and I think he continues to get better as a result of who he’s spending time with, not to mention against whom he’s had a lot of matches.
48. Despite being a heel this time, Yuta is gaining some of that magic back with the near-falls being traded.
49. Callis comes out and all the security guards conveniently come out to stop him. Takeshita gets him from the other side. Omega wins anyway with the One-Winged Angel. Shenanigans be damned.
50. Claudio comes out of nowhere and joins in the attack, as does Takeshita, who helped Yuta pretty much zero. Hangman and the Bucks come down with chairs. Hangman is about to swing away, but the Dark Order stops him because they’re not allowed to have any fun without them. Even despite this, the Elite remain strong against the BCC. Okay.
51. This show was really tremendous at the start, and the ending was all right. The teams check on their respective fallen comrades. Despite everything, it did feel a little rushed at the end there.
1/4/23 – The Gunns
1/11/23 – Daddy Magic
1/13/23 – Danhausen
1/18/23 – Sonjay Dutt
1/20/23 – Stokely Hathaway
1/25/23 – Tony Schiavone
1/27/23 – Danhausen
2/1/23 – Jade Cargill
2/3/23 – Ethan Page
2/8/23 – MJF
2/10/23 – STIIIIIIING
2/15/23 – Ruby Soho
2/17/23 – Dustin Rhodes
2/22/23 – Chris Jericho
2/24/23 – Matt Hardy
3/1/23 – Big Bill
3/3/23 – Jungle Boy
3/5/23 – MJF
3/8/23 – Anthony Bowens
3/10/23 – Riho
3/15/23 – MJF/Darby Allin/Jungle Boy/Sammy Guevara
3/22/23 – STIIIIIING
3/29/23 – Juice Robinson
3/31/23 – Eddie Kingston
4/5/23 – MJF
4/7/23 – Darby Allin/Julia Hart
4/12/23 – STIIIIIIIIING
4/14/23 – 2.0/Biff Hager
4/19/23 – Sammy Guevara
4/26/23 – MJF
5/3/23 – Triple J/Mark Briscoe
5/5/23 – The Firm Deletion – All of it
5/10/23 – Chuck Taylor and Trent Baretta
5/17/23 – Toni Storm
5/24/23 – Jay White
5/28/23 – Darby Allin
5/31/23 – Juice Robinson
6/7/23 – MJF
6/9/23 – Ethan Page
6/14/23 – The cardboard cutout of Saraya
6/17/23 – CM Punk
6/21/23 – Adam Cole/MJF
6/23/23 – Anthony Bowens
6/24/23 – Powerhouse Hobbs
6/25/23 – Will Ospreay
6/28/23 – Keith Lee
7/1/23 – Andrade
7/5/23 – Adam Cole/MJF