Tag: Hangman Adam Page

Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (09-23-2020)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

It’s time once again for some DYNAMITE ACTION, and yes I am very late on putting this one up.  Things got a bit hectic around my schedule so I barely had a chance to watch this week’s show; let alone recap it!  Still, the extra time has let the events that played out simmer in my brain for a bit longer before throwing my brilliant opinions out into the world, so maybe this will be the most comprehensive and well-articulated critique of a wrestling show ever written!  Okay, probably not.  BUT, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot to say about this week’s episode as there were some… INTERESTING things that happened here!  Was it good?  Was it bad?  Let’s find out!!

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Kip Sabian & Miro Vs. Joey Janela and Sonny Kiss

Kip Sabian is accompanied to the ring by Penelope Ford

Wait, what?  We’re not going to build up to his first match on AEW; he just shows up on an unannounced opening match?  Well THAT feels like a wasted opportunity, but I guess it’s better than waiting a few months for whatever PPV they have next.  Miro straight up did the Rusev entrance with the jump and shout which was VERY cool, but they’re not gonna give us everything all at once as the match starts with Sonny and Sabian.  Before we get to Miro, I definitely want to point out that Sonny Kiss is getting better and better the more I see him.  He and Joey Janela are a very good team and I hope that something comes from it aside from a bunch of Dark Matches and one offs against bigger teams because they are a combo that you can tell great stories with even outside of a title chase.  Eventually they cause enough damage to Sabian that he finally gives Miro the hot tag and the guy comes out with all his fury; knocking Sonny right on his ass and utterly DESTROYING Joey Janela with a giant slam!  It’s great to see him in this match and look every bit as pumped to be here as we are pumped to see him, but sadly things don’t go as planned and the match ends up getting a bit ugly towards the end.  Miro takes a bump over the ring ropes and to the floor, but as soon as he’s down there he starts limping.  Reports are that he merely “tweaked” his ankle and that he’s fine now, but despite his best efforts to power thru it the match just kind of loses momentum and gets sloppy.  He manages to toss a charging Joey Janela over the barricade and immediately seems to regret it, but he waves Sabian to follow with the next move (something that is in FULL view of the camera and I’m not sure why they didn’t just cut to a different angle there) and tries to toss him over the barricade onto Janela.  However, he just doesn’t have the strength and I THINK Sabian falls on his head onto the concrete on the other side of the barricade.  THEN Janela tries for a cross body on Miro, but Miro can’t catch him and Joey just falls like a ton of bricks.  I haven’t heard anything about either of them having injuries so that’s good at least, but it was not a good look for the debut of such an anticipated talent.  Thankfully things get back on track after that with Miro seemingly recovering during the match (or at least having enough adrenaline pumping thru him to ignore the pain), and he finishes off Sonny Kiss with a kick, a stomp, and a Camel Clutch.  Look, things happen and even the best wrestlers don’t always have a good match so I’m not about to say anything negative about Miro, but this is certainly not the match anyone wanted to see from him right out of the gate.  Hopefully he’ll have a match next week and it’ll be as great as we were hoping this one would be.

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Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (12-18-19)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

We’re back with yet another episode of Vince McMahon’s giant pain in the butt!  While last week’s episode left me a bit cold (possibly due to being sick at the time), I am still hopeful for what happens this week as we finally get the Jungle Boy match against Chris Jericho that they have been building up for weeks, and we can only hope the rest of the show is just as gret considering they are going off the air for two weeks; resuming on January first of next year.  I consider this to be a phenomenally good decision because I frankly don’t NEED a Christmas Day show and forcing wrestlers to work over the holidays like that is utterly heartless and I still want to have at least SOME hope that a heavily moneyed wrestling promotion isn’t entirely evil!  Is this a return to form for the series and the best way to end the first year of AEW?  Let’s find out!!

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The Luchas Bros (Fénix & Pentagón Jr) Vs. Hangman Adam Page & Kenny Omega

DANG!  We’re not just starting off with a bang; we’re starting with a freaking CANNON as these are four of the biggest stars in the entire company and they’re coming out as the opening act!  The first part of the match is a bit of a clown show with both teams peacocking at each other, but the crowd was SO into it as it basically devolves into elaborate call backs like Pentagón’s glove thing which I still don’t fully get as well as prideful stare downs where they give their best smoldering intensity for no discernable reason other than everyone involved REALLY wanting to show off.  There is almost negative momentum here as no one is in any particular hurry to get the match going and I found it a LITTLE bit off-putting as I prefer matches to have some real flow and movement, but there’s genuine charm to watching the biggest hams in wrestling Kenny Omega and Pentagón Jr staring at each other for an almost uncomfortable amount of time; daring the other to be the first to break the tension.  The match does eventually pick up, and while it’s never a barn burner to bring the house down, it’s fun and has a lot of really hard hits that the crowd continued to eat up.  I particularly liked this one spot where Pentagón drags Kenny Omega out of the ring so that Fénix can follow up with a Suicide Dive.  THAT shows some real teamwork that you just don’t get when you throw two randos together in a match like this!  Now one of the things about last week’s tag match with Adam Page and Omega is that Page seemed to have some sort of resentment for Kenny that didn’t manifest into a full blown betrayal but definitely left things a bit more intense than they should have been considering they did get the victory.  This match continues up on that as it ends in typical tragic face fashion where Adam Page “ACCIDENTALLY” lands a Buckshot Lariat on Kenny Omega which opens him up for Pentagón’s finisher and subsequent pin; and now we have to wonder just how intentional Adam Page’s little screw up there really was.

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Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (12-11-19)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

If it was up to me, there’d be next to no wrestling from mid-November until January as it gets harder and harder to keep up with everything going on during this incredibly busy time of the year, and it can’t be all that fun for the wrestlers who have to travel the country instead of getting more time at home with their families, but if they can handle the stress of being on the road than I guess I can find some extra time in my schedule to watch them do what they do best!  Is this another great episode of AEW Dynamite, or is the pressure of the season getting to them as well?  Let’s find out!!

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Jon Moxley Vs. A Jobber

Right off the bat, the show starts with Moxley coming through the crowd to his music and he gets in the ring to face… some dude I’ve never seen before, and yeah this is an IMMEDIATE squash as the guy barely lasts ten seconds before Moxley gest the pin.  The point is that Jon Moxley is awesome and he deserves a chance at Jericho’s title which perhaps went without saying but it’s still fun to see him run roughshod over people even if it’s rather perfunctory.  Besides, the REAL point of this match is what happens afterwards where The Inner Circle comes out from the back and surrounds the ring as Jericho gets inside to have a little chat with Jon Moxley.  It’s a speech you’ve heard many times before if you’ve watched any amount of wrestling (I’m pretty sure Paul Hayman and Roman Reigns had this exact moment about a year ago) where the heel tries to get the good guy to join his side with promises of success and reminders of their contentious but ultimately respectful past with each other, though I wouldn’t exactly call Moxley a good guy as he’s just here to make people bleed, and it honestly felt a bit unnecessary if you ask me.  Jericho doesn’t have any great bits like he had with the Lexicon last week, and he comes off a bit TOO scared for a guy who’s already taken down Adam Page, Cody Rhodes, and Scorpio Sky; plus there’s not a single part of any fan that believes for a second that Moxley has any interest in joining forces.  It’s not a bad way to start the show, but it’s brought down a bit by one of Jericho’s more lackluster promos.

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Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (11-27-19)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

We’re back with even more AEW action on one of the few days of the year I really don’t feel like having AEW action!  I spent the WHOLE time this show was on frantically cooking things for today and I can’t imagine all the workers there were too happy to be doing this instead of spending time with their families, but maybe I’m wrong about that.  I mean that crowd was pretty good for a night before Thanksgiving wrestling show, and this particular holiday is kind of nonsense anyway, so maybe they’re exactly where they want to be!  In any case, I think we can probably cut each other a bit of slack here if I missed anything or didn’t fully grasp the DRAMA with what was happening, okay?  Let’s get started!!

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Chris Jericho’s Thanksgiving Thank You Spectacular

As announced last week after Jericho’s heartfelt apology, the episode started with a Thanksgiving Party in the ring that no one was invited to but we were all more than welcome to spectate as Jericho just chews up the scenery with more voracity than most people have eating the stuffing and creamed corn on National Turkey Day.  Before he even gets into the ring someone named Soul Train Jones (I’m pretty sure he was in one of The Inner Circle’s video packages) introduces Jericho who then comes down to the ring accompanied by a marching band because you don’t get Le Champion to do anything half assed.  The crowd is totally marking out for the guy with chants of THANK YOU JERICHO before starting to boo him the moment he starts speaking, and this really did add a lot to the segment; especially when Jericho offers them fifty cents off his T-shirts and they react like they won a car.  The inner Circle eventually comes in after Jericho has pimped out all his new merch, and they proceed to give him various gifts to show their appreciation for the dude who made them the biggest names in wrestling.  Sammy Guevara gives him a standee of the two of them hugging while Proud N Powerful give him a basket full of… stuff I guess.  Vicks Vapo-rub, a box of dominos, booze, basically everything you would need to survive in a fallout shelter once the bombs start to drop.  Even Jake Hager gets in on the revelry as he comes out with a very uncooperative goat named Chris Jeri-goat which is the second best name for a goat right after Benedict Cumber-BAAAAAA-tch.  I don’t know why any of this is happening and I hope that animal wasn’t TOO distressed, but it seemed to be all in good fun and Hager could not keep a straight face in the slightest.  The last gift however was the best one of it all because it reminded me of the only wrestler better than Jericho (The MIz) which turned out to be his dad who is a former hockey player and proceeds to hometown team; Like father like son I supposed.  I did like this segment, but I feel they should have cut it a bit shorter or made them more of heels throughout as they come off as fun loving and kind of dorky dudes celebrating how much they appreciate each other which is not exactly the image you want for your dominate heel faction.  I mean even if you wanted to argue that they were self-centered and cocky, it’s still not particularly THREATENING, and the one thing about all these guys is that they know how to cause damage when you least expect it; not just waste time giving each other pats on the back.  EVENTUALLY though, there comes a point where he has the ring announcer read a thank you note from TNT to the crowd, but the guy doesn’t read it in as nice a tone as LE CHAMPION would have wanted and so they Inner Circle curb stomps him.  FINALLY they start to act like heels but then out of nowhere three dudes in the marching band rush the ring, turn out to be SCU in disguise, and start cleaning house; INCLUDING knocking Soul Train Jones right no his ass!  I don’t know how much you can claim to be good guys if you’re clothes-lining dudes in their late fifties, but it did end the segment on a high note which is good enough for me.

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Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (11-20-19)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

With the last episode doing a lot differently and doing it well in my opinion, I’m pumped to see how AEW follows up on it and hope they continue to try new things going forward, because if I’m being honest here there’s been a lot of great stuff but it’s been a lot of the SAME great stuff for weeks now; all of it still good, but a little variety never hurt anyone (unless you have a hereto unknown allergy) and even if they go back to some of the same stuff in this episode they at least have the ideas set up last week to make it all feel fresh again!  Let’s get started!!

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Nick Jackson Vs. Rey Fénix

Following the brawl from last week, it seems that Matt Jackson (in storyline at least) has been injured and so Nick is fighting in his first singles match since AEW began against Rey Fénix who ALSO hasn’t had a singles match since AEW began!  Sure, it’s Young Bucks vs The Lucha Bros yet again, but at least they’re mixing it up again by making it one on one which, if nothing else, means they won’t even have a CHANCE to fail to tag correctly!  I actually did manage to get into this match a lot easier than I had with other Young Buck Lucha Bros matches even though they’re both still doing basically the same thing.  There are a billion moves pulled off between the two of them, but the fact that they don’t have someone to tag with makes each move feel like it has more impact because they can’t switch out once they get tired to recuperate.  They clearly start to get tired after a while and the moves become more simplistic while the flashier ones come fewer and further between.  Contrast that with some of their tag team matches where that sense of progression and (degradation?) just never came across even when it was time to come to an end.   Speaking of endings, Rey Fénix eventually gets the pin when he does this terrifying looking pile driver thing where he carries Nick on his shoulders, drops his head down and drives it right into the mat.  They don’t REALLY set anything up at the end of this as Rey Fénix refuses to shake Nick’s hand in a show of good sportsmanship, but The Lucha Bros being cocky heels is about as surprising as the sun rise.  The match went on maybe a bit TOO long and maybe a bit TOO hard for an opening match (I’m also starting to get annoyed with just how often they use hard hits on the apron), but it’s still a lot of fun and certainly got the crowd going!

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Super Wrestling: AEW – Full Gear

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWFULLGEAR0

Full Gear and all the images you see I this recap are owned by All Elite Wrestling and Shahid Khan

While technically being the fifth AEW PPV (sixth if you count All In which was basically AEW Zero), this is the first one since they’ve gotten the TV series and have started to focus more on long term storylines.  Not only that, but it’s coming off of a MASSIVE amount of success from Dynamite which has consistently beaten NXT in the ratings, so there’s a lot of hype and high expectations surrounding this PPV which is always a double edged sword as it means more people are interested in seeing it but that they’re also much more easy to disappoint.  Can AEW continue their streak of high quality wrestling action with their latest PPV?  Let’s find out!!

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Britt Baker Vs. Bea Priestly

AEWFULLGEAR1

The only match they had on the pre-show for Full Gear was this match against Britt Baker and Bea Priestly which I GUESS is supposed to be the blow off to a feud, but they never HAD a feud to begin with.  They had one match all the way back before they got on TV and I think they were on a tag team match a few weeks ago, but at no point did they interact in any meaningful way to sell this supposed rivalry between them.  There’s a video package before the fight where Britt talks smack about Priestly and I just don’t think it works because Britt brings up stuff we’d NEVER heard of until now about her being possibly injured in the Fight for the Fallen match and it’s also completely one sided as Priestly doesn’t even show up in the video, so for all we know she’s just out there doing her thing and being respectful towards everyone while Britt is off to the side seething for no good reason!  Now all that having been said, when the two of them actually DO get in the ring they are fighting like this match means something.  Britt is definitely all scowls and fury which is a far cry from the babyface she often portrays, and Priestly is definitely relishing just how much she’s gotten under her skin.  The moves as well are less coordinated and flashy as they are just slugfests and pain clinics which is how you definitely want to pay off a feud even if this particular one still didn’t feel properly set up.

AEWFULLGEAR2
“How many fingers am I holding up?  HOW MANY!?”

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Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (10-16-19)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

We’re back with even more AEW action!  With Chris Jericho’s stable running roughshod over the AEW locker room and the Tag Team Tournament well underway, AEW already has a lot of balls in the air to keep track of this early into its run.  Can they keep up this balancing act while continuing to put on great matches?  Let’s find out!!

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SCU (Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian) Vs Best Friends (Chuck Taylor and Trent Beretta) – Tag Team Tournament

You may be wondering why I listed Scorpio Sky as a competitor when he made it clear he would NOT be in the match last week.  Well before the match can even begin, SCU gets jumped by The Lucha Bros before they can even make it to the ramp.  Christopher Daniels gets injured badly enough that Scorpio Sky has to sub for him.  I’m sure I made this clear before, but I really don’t like injury spots on wrestling shows.  It’s VERY clear here that it’s a work and that Daniels isn’t injured, but I really don’t think it makes for good television to have a guy being dragged out on a stretcher like this.  Sure, if you’re REALLY goofing it up you can get away with it, but it just feels too real in an industry where that kind of thing can ACTUALLY happen.  The match itself is as solid as AEW tag matches tend to be.  SCU is one of my favorite teams there and their presence alone is enough to overcome the utter apathy I have for The Best Friends.  The former team definitely come off as the underdog considering Kazarian was attacked just before the match and Scorpio Sky wasn’t prepared to fight tonight, and sure enough the get the hot tags and then ear falls while The Best Friends are the somewhat incompetent heels (Chuck Taylor dives right on top of Trent Beretta by accident) and it ends with SCU going to the next round of the tournament.  While I would have preferred a straightforward match with Daniels instead of putting him out of the tournament so early (at least save it for round two!), it was the ending I wanted and I’m glad that we’ll see more of SCU in the coming weeks.

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Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (10-02-19)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

Last night AEW finally made the leap to weekly television with DYNAMITE; a name that conveys a clear purpose of intent to blow away everything we know about wrestling and rebuild it for the modern age! That or they just wanted a word that was catchy and sounded cool. In any case, let’s take a look at the inaugural episode!

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Cody Rhodes Vs. Sammy Guevara

The very first match on AEW’s new show (and the first wrestling match on TNT since 2001 as the announcers helpfully point out) is a pretty straightforward affair. The deal is that if Cody loses this match he loses his chance against the current AEW champ Chris Jericho at the next PPV, but really it’s just an exhibition match between two talented wrestlers. Now this isn’t a problem since you don’t really need any buildup for matches on regular TV the same way you expect for PPVs, but the problem I just keep having whenever Cody shows up is that I have no idea what his place is in all of this. Sammy Guevara is simply a young wrestler looking for his big break, but Cody? He’s the Executive Vice President of the company, he’s friends with the most heelish of heels MJF, and Brandi ends up interfering in the match. It sounds like he’s tailor made to be a bad guy, and yet it never feels like we’re supposed to boo him. Perhaps it’s the fact that he still comes off as an underdog when compared to Vince and the WWE, but within AEW it feels like his character is a bit muddled. He eventually wins the match which gets a respectable pop from the crowd, but then Chris Jericho jumps in to beat the crap out of Cody and assert his dominance in the AEW hierarchy. I was actually pretty down on Jericho being the AEW champion considering how much great new talent they have which is being overshadowed by a guy THIS deep into his career, but he actually looks a lot better than he has in a while and this is the kind of jerk move that a heel champ should be pulling, so kudos to that guy for turning it around so quickly for me!

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