Reviews by Dave
By David E Houston II
Show air date: December 8, 2021
AEW uses so many Long Island-born or based wrestlers last night, I was looking for Bully Ray, Brian Myers, and Matt Cardona to do a run-in.
Punk Clearly Had A Lot of Fun with Segment
Maxwell Jacob Friedman’s entrance music hits and CM Punk comes out to a huge but mixed reaction (70-30 boos) from the Long Island crowd as it’s the hometown of MJF, a twist on an old heel trick. He then heels the Long Island crowd to great effect before shredding MJF and their NHL team. With the cheap heat and one-liners, he was MJF better than MJF. Punk clearly had a lot of fun with this. Fun segment.
Dante Martin and MJF are the Final 2
The MJF video? Cracked me up. He got me. Damn him. I’m just not into battle royals but 12 men Dynamite Diamond joint had some nice moments and face-offs (Wardlow/Hobbs was good).
Dante Martin eliminates Ricky Starks, making him and MJF the final two, and will face each other next week. Martin’s supposed Team Taz stablemate Starks immediately beats the hell out of Martin for his betrayal that brings back MJF, who joins on the beatdown (deflated the crowd a little bit).
Punk makes the save. They added more to Punk-MJF, but I was most interested in the Martin-Team Taz situation going forward. Little fast to pull the trigger on that, ain’t it?
Jurassic Express and The Varsity Blonds defeated The Acclaimed and 2point0
The most random 8 man ever saw Jurassic Express (JE) (Jungle Boy Jack Perry and Luchasaurus) teamed with Varsity Blands–sorry, Blonds–(Griff Garrison and Brian Pillman Jr with Julia Hart) to face The Acclaimed (Max Caster and Anthony Bowen) and 2point0 (Matt Lee and Jeff Parker with Daniel Garcia).
Christian Cage has taken JE under his wing and gave them some last-minute coaching that they didn’t seem to take to (probably warned them they would have to carry the Mullet brothers they’re teamed with). I honestly hit FF until I saw Eddie Kingston come out and get some payback for Garcia and 2point0 jumping him a couple of weeks ago.
Kingston was cutting a hot promo but wasn’t mic’ed when Lee, Parker, and Garcia ran up on him and Ortiz from Proud N Powerful (looking like a mime) and left them laying. Hot angle after a match I didn’t care about.
Great short backstage promo (I like these) from FTR and Tully Blanchard, hyping their upcoming tag title match with the Lucha Bros on Rampage Friday night.
The Young Bucks defeated CHAOS
In a “You’ll probably be able to see this on New Japan World” match, Matt and Nick Jackson–the Young Bucks–beat Chuck Taylor and Rocky Romero (accompanied by Orange Cassidy), giving us some old Bullet Club vs CHAOS nostalgia. This match felt like it went on forever as the Bucks had to get in all their shenanigans, and Cassidy had to get in his schtick. Did nothing for me.
What did work for me was the dramatic return of the other half of Best Friends, Trent? (after invading Jon Moxley’s closet), his mom, Sue, and her minivan. Big return with a full Best Friends reunion.
Slow-Motion Heel Turn for Cody Rhodes
The slow-motion heel turn continues as Cody Rhodes comes out at the start of what was supposed to be an interview with TNT champion Sammy Guevara and announces he has been given a title shot at the Christmas show. Then Men of the Year-Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky–become the first heels on the show to cut a heel promo in front of the live audience (thank you) with Sky channeling some Clubber Lang challenging Guevara to face him.
Riho defeated Jamie Hayter
Riho, the next challenger for Dr. Britt Baker and the Women’s World title, beat Baker associate, Jamie Hayter. Another match that did nothing for me and went too long. If you’ve seen one Riho match, you’ve seen this one.
Baker came in after and applied her Lockjaw submission on Riho. Angle was nice.
Aw shit. They’re going to send Hook on Rampage. I’m already bored.
The video packages on the Jade Cargill-Thunder Rosa TBS tournament match and the Serena Deeb-Hikaru Shida feud were both very good.
Malakai Black blew the black mist into the face of Julia Hart. LMAO!!! Ain’t got no business talking to them anyway.
Main Event: Bryan Danielson defeated John Silver
The Dark Order’s John Silver, another LI guy, tried to play spoiler, facing “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson one week before Danielson faces Dark Order buddy, world champion Hangman Page. Danielson continued his “Kick In Dark Order Heads” world tour, first beating Silver then commencing to stomp his head until Page ran down to save Silver. Good match. Silver looked good and competitive but fell to the superior wrestler.
A great fiery one-liner from Page as they went to black. It was okay. You would have to really love AEW to even suggest this was one of their better ones.
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