In this WrestleTalk News, fans were more than slightly annoyed at last night’s AEW Dynamite,
more big returns lined up for WWE, and Oli’s review of Dynamite last night which everyone
loved.
Ass Boys, Ass Boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they become your new AEW World
Tag Team Champions.
Oh dear.
In the main event of last night’s AEW Dynamite, The Gunns dethroned The Acclaimed to become
the new AEW World Tag Champions, and people were not happy about it.
Aside from the stunned silence from the crowd, they eventually riled themselves up and were
chanting ‘bulls***’ at the finish of the show.
Which I’m reliably informed is not the reaction you want from fans.
Oli will be covering it more in his Dynamite review later here in the video, but for now
here’s noted Ass Boys lover Tempest’s reaction to finding out the news.
This week’s Raw saw the surprise return of WWE Hall of Famer Lita, making the save
for Becky Lynch in her steel cage match against Bayley.
While the return was far from expected, it is that time of the year after all - a time
when the WWE HOF bat signal is shone in the sky, calling those trusty WWE legends to don
their boots and tights for the ‘Grandest Stage of Them All’.
But what if WWE couldn’t wait until Mania in seven weeks?
What if they just had to call out the big guns for say… a week on Saturday at Elimination
Chamber?
Despite many assuming that the big return of Lita would result in a Mania match, it
seems like WWE’s plans are coming a lot sooner.
Not only that, but it also appears that Lita may not be the only legend to compete at the
Chamber.
According to a brand spanking new Twitter account known as WRKD Wrestling, which describes
itself as a ‘New source for wrestling leaks and news’ the plans involving Lita, Becky
and Damage CTRL are set to also include none other than Canada’s own Trish Stratus.
The report, which was later given a shout out by Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, so there’s
some credence lent to it already, stated ahead of Lita’s return that she would appear,
while WRKD would continue to reveal that a Trish return would take place on this week’s
Raw to then set up a match between Trish, Lita, Becky and Damage CTRL at the Chamber.
Despite the build to the match seeming a bit rushed on the surface, it does all seem to
make sense, especially when taking recent comments on Wrestling Observer Live from Bryan
Alvarez into account.
On the show Alvarez revealed that the plan for Lita to return was always set to happen
at the match’s original date at Raw XXX, it was simply rescheduled along with the match
itself.
Finishing up with a rather juicy development elsewhere in the wrestling sphere and a major
new crossover show has been announced, once again involving New Japan Pro Wrestling only
this time their dance partner will be… none other than Impact Wrestling.
Forbidden Door?
I guess?
Yes, as we have seen, there is perhaps no more accommodating company in the wrestling
world right now than New Japan, not only do they obviously have the sure to be massive
Forbidden Door 2 event with AEW coming up later this year, they’ve also managed a
way to form an (admittedly rather limited) relationship with the big bad wolf of wrestling
WWE.
And now it’s teamed with Impact for the suitably titled show: Multiverse United: Only
the STRONG Survive.
The event is coming to the Globe Theater in Los Angeles on March 30th, which if you check
your calendars is just two days prior to WrestleMania saturday.
Not only that but several of the show’s match card has also been revealed, with the
Main Event seeing Impact World Champ Josh Alexander taking on KUSHIDA, and in the co-main
former IWGP US Champ Will Ospreay will be squaring off with ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey
which is sure to be just… something else.
I think that’ll make Tempest feel better after the Ass Boys news.
And speaking of Ass Boys, here’s Oli with the Dynamite review.
It’s Thursday, you know what that means: AEW Dynamite: Championship Fight Night, where
multiple belts and belt opportunities were on the line.
Or as Dynamite from last May through to December would call that many championships up for
grabs: just Wednesday.
IN ABOUT 5 MINUTES!
Championship Fight Night opened on a match without a championship actually on the line,
with MJF vs Takeshita in a championship eliminator.
But it did provide an excellent World Championship throughline for the whole episode, with Danielson
vs Rush coming later on.
This was Max’s first match in two months, since beating Ricky Starks back in December.
He’s so incredible on the mic and wrestles so sparingly, I am always surprised at how
incredible he is in the ring.
He always seems to debut two to three different awesome moves, and actually had the spot of
the whole night - on a night that also included The Elite vs Top Flight and AR Fox - where
he effortlessly backflipped out a top rope lariat and hit a superkick.
He’s got all the talent in the world, which makes it so outrageous that he takes every
opportunity to cheat.
After pulling the referee in his way a bunch of times, and steadily working over Takeshita’s
bicep, he made him tap in the Salt of the Earth arm bar - mirroring Bryan’s own increasingly
more injured arm.
Max continued to lay into Takeshita afterwards, busting him open with the diamond ring until
Danielson made the save.
But somehow, that wasn’t even the best MJF moment from the episode.
In an interview backstage later on, he told a story about getting a BJ Whitmer from his
Prom Night crush while driving really fast.
He hit a telephone pole, totalling the car and knocking his date out.
He came to as police sirens wailed towards him, and in that moment, looking at his blooded
partner, he realised what kind of a man he was.
He switched places with his date so he wouldn’t get charged for dangerous driving.
It doesn’t matter how you win things, it’s that you win them that counts.
Max is so three dimensional, over just the course of a few weeks he’s able to elevate
his character from chicken s-word coward to psychotic really dangerous comic book villain.
He’s incredible…
but you did just confess to a felony on national TV, so you’re gonna wanna lay low for a
while.
And, most importantly, the hard cam positioning is still in line with the bottom rope.
That’s three weeks in a row and is likely a permanent production change at this point.
The Bunny appeared to be hurt in Jamie Hayter’s relatively easy championship eliminator win.
The show cut back to Saraya and Toni Storm bullying Leva Bates, spray painting L for
Loser on her beaten up body.
I find this incredibly one dimensional and lame, but at least it’s told in order - which
is more than I can say for Ricky Starks, the latest person to be sucked into the Chris
Jericho vortex.
After already beating Jericho clean in the first Dynamite of the year, dispatching of
most of the J.A.S. in the process, the last month has been devoted to building Ricky Starks
beating Jericho clean and dispatching most of the J.A.S in the process.
This time round was the Garcia Guevara Gauntlet match, where Starks easily beat Angelo Parker
and Daddy Magic, was on top facing Garcia, but a masked luchador knocked him out with
a Judas Effect from the front row to cost him the win.
I wonder who that could be?
It was Chris Jericho. 64% of Luchadors are always Chris Jericho.
Danielson found himself locked in the trainers room with Takeshita when his match against
Rush was supposed to start.
It was a neat idea to beat the count, but the timing was off, with Danielson getting
out the room super easy, barely an inconvenience, and then making it to the ring by 6.
They proceeded to have a cracking match, though, with Danielson gushing so much blood it got
on the camera, and Rush displaying his high intensity charisma.
The crowd got incredibly into the action, particularly with a strong style headbutt
exchange, but Danielson got the win with a second Knee - confirming him to take on MJF
at Revolution in the 60 minute ironman match.
Max attacked Danielson afterwards, locking him in the Salt of the Earth.
After somehow overcoming the Firm as their first title defence at last Friday’s Rampage,
The Elite took on Top Flight - who had scored a shock pinfall victory over the Bucks two
weeks ago.
The Martin brothers were joined by AR Fox, but I can tell you who certainly wasn’t
tagging with anyone during this match.
The concept of gravity.
As you’d expect, the action was incredible, particularly letting AR Fox and Dante Martin
shine.
Omega only just got the win, failing to hit a One Winged Angel, but scoring a technical
pin instead - perhaps leaving room for a rematch.
Stokely Hathaway cut a promo on Hook frustrating the Firm, but Hook was right behind him.
[STOP TRYING TO MAKE THE FIRM HAPPEN] And the main event saw The Acclaimed defend
their tag team championships against The Gunns.
Before I start diving into this, I just want to applaud AEW for putting this match on.
If you remove emotion from it, these are two young, homegrown AEW teams, culminating a
near year long storyline, which has created some of the highest selling merch in company
history and gotten so hot, the tag team titles were moved into the program at the expense
of FTR.
On paper, this is an incredibly effective example of long term booking getting over
new stars.
Unfortunately, it’s only got one half of the program over to the extent that they could
lead a division.
The other half, well, they still feel a bit ass.
Because The Gunns, through many shenanigans, and to be fair, perhaps one of the greatest
ref bump sells of all time, are your new AEW World Tag Team Champions.
Thankfully Daddy Ass didn’t side with them.
He actually stopped them illegally using the belts after the referee was bumped, but Colten
knocked out his own dad.
Bowens got a visible pin, but another title shot from Colten allowed Austen to roll up
Anthony to win.
The Gunns are very good considering how long they’ve been wrestling.
Austen in particular is both fantastic on the mic and a really good goofy seller.
But they aren’t credible.
Their only win of note was going over FTR two months ago.
They needed way more solid wins on TV.
It really devalues the prestige AEW has built up around their tag division.
But that’s the point, you might say.
The Gunns’ characters are undeserving cheating, spoiled brats that are only there because
of nepotism.
Actually building them up to win the titles would nullify that story.
And you’d be right, but that’s where I think it comes down to a matter of taste.
MJF’s opening performance on this episode showed you can still be a credible threat
in the ring and cheat.
That’s what I feel AEW excels at, that to hold a championship in their promotion, you
do at the very least have to be excellent.
It’s the moral choices you make that determines the heat you get.
Which is why The Gunns winning fell so flat.
Sure, it got chants of bull s-word, but that felt more a meta-chant at the company’s
booking rather than the dastardly characters themselves.
I’m not saying The Gunns wouldn’t have gotten there eventually.
I’m actually a really big fan of them.
But this is way too soon.
I expect it to be a short reign, and likely a way to get the belts onto a returning FTR
come Revolution.
What did you think of Dynamite?
Let me know in the comments.
I’m loving the MJF vs Danielson storyline, and the trios matches are spectacular.
But that’s about it currently in AEW.
And I think the tag title change will go down as a mistake long term.
This week’s Dynamite is 74%.