Reviews by Dave
By David E Houston II
Show air date: January 19, 2022
AEW Dynamite on TBS kicked off welcoming back Jon Moxley. With some new hair, he still comes out to the lesser version of “Wild Thing.” But it was great to see him and the DC live crowd gave him a huge ovation and “Welcome back!” chant (except one guy who got what he deserved and AEW needs a 7-second delay). Great and emotional promo.
Wardlow gets his pay docked for his loss to CM Punk last week. A good segment really with one of the better Maxwell Jacob Friedman promos.
Sign of the night: You Should Unionize.
Dr. Britt Baker, DMD and Adam Cole defeated Orange Cassidy and Kris Statlander
Women’s champion Dr. Britt Baker DMD and Adam Cole beat Orange Cassidy and Kris Statlander in a mixed tag match. This started off slow since they had to get all the OC shenanigans in but after the commercial break, it became a good, hard-fought match.
Did Cole really think he was going to pin OC with a Panama Sunrise? It’s a piledriver, bruh. AEW wrestlers do not get beat with piledrivers. This should be over as Cole and company have dominated this feud with Cassidy and Best Friends. It’s not. They’re going to do another one next week.
THAT’S RIGHT!! Don’t let that clown pop off about your boy, Eddie Kingston!! Santana and Ortiz put “Le Insurrection” in his place. The best part of the show.
CM Punk defeated Shawn Spears
CM Punk didn’t take long to put Shawn Spears to sleep. I’m glad they didn’t spend a lot of time with this or the MJF interaction after the match.
The Gunn Club–Billy Gunn with his sons, Austin and Colt–made a big statement whooping on Christian Cage, sending a message to Cage’s allies, world tag champions Jurassic Express. I loved it.
Never Say “Turn Heel” on TV
Lineal TNT champion Cody Rhodes came out to give a long, rambling promo to put himself over. Bast almighty, a talent should never say “turn heel” on TV. After an odd State of the Union no one asked for, he announced a ladder match for the TNT title with champion Guevara next week. If you aren’t the world champion, your title is secondary. Relax, Codes.
Malakai Black and Brody King defeated The Varsity Blonds
Malakai Black and Brody King had a successful debut as a tag team, just smashing the Varsity Blonds. They gave a little story of Brian Pillman Jr maybe having confidence issues but that boy could see himself as the new Stone Cold Hulk Flair and still got beat to death. PAC Magoo pops up on the screen. Let’s get this Prince of Darkness match out of the way and give all parties something good to do.
Lance Archer defeated Frankie Kazarian
Lance Archer vs world champion Hangman Page makes no sense but Jake the Snake is back so I’m good. Archer takes out Frankie Kazarian pretty decisively (TNA! TNA!). A bit long. Too long for what should be an exhibition for the next world title challenger. Page gets the best of Archer in a post-match brawl. I don’t think he should have. Let Archer keep getting the heat on him.
So noooowww Matt Sydal has been a brother to Dante Martin. Wasn’t saying that Lio Rush was there. Impressive short promo from Ricky Starks and Powerhouse Hobbs.
Serena Deeb defeated Skye Blue
Serena Deeb took out the second-best performer I’ve seen named “Skye Blue” (giggity). Deeb has been awesome since her turn. AEW’s starting to be heel-heavy in their women’s division.
Page vs Moxley should be good but damn. Men of the Year cannot be serious threats if they never win.
Matt Hardy has sold controlling interest of the Hardy Family Office to Andrade El Idolo. I guarantee he got that on the clearance rack. This doesn’t seem like something that helps either except gives Andrade some young boys to take his losses.
Main Event: Sting and Darby Allin defeated The Acclaimed
In his first TBS match since 2000 and first in DC since 1999, Sting teamed with Darby Allin to defeat The Acclaimed–Max Caster and Anthony Bowens–in the main event. The Acclaimed jumped their opponents before the bell, taking Allin out and forcing Sting to go it alone to start the match.
A story of two handicap matches with the first Sting holding off Caster and Bowen and as he was falling behind, Allin came back and he fought the Acclaimed on his own. Sting flashed back to 1987 with a big dive outside on Caster through a table while Allin pinned Bowens with the Casket Drop splash. Not a great match but a fun and entertaining one and that’s pretty good. Time to talk title matches for them.
I thought this show was notably better than the January 12 episode of AEW Dynamite.
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Reviews by Dave is the best wrestling review on the internet! It’s written by David Houston II, who writes about WWE NXT 2.0, AEW Dynamite, and IMPACT Wrestling.
