Reviews by Dave
Show air date: August 12, 2020
This was not a great Dynamite. Not terrible, but it just lacked energy for a lot of the show. Tag Team Appreciation Night looked more like Elite Appreciation Night.
The Young Bucks defeated The Dark Order (Evil Uno and Stu Grayson)
Matt and Nick Jackson–the Young Bucks–beat the Dark Order originals of Evil Uno and Stu Grayson in a match that proves if you’ve seen one YB match, you’ve seen them all.
The DO had three guys with them, attacked the Bucks before the match, and still lost. Fine.
MJF Gives Another Campaign Speech
MJF gives another campaign speech, and it was cool. I think it was slightly better than the first as he’s preparing for his world title match against Jon Moxley at the All Out pay-per-view. Mox sets up a distraction that sends all of MJF’s entourage one way and he sneaks up on the youngster and plants him with the Paradigm Shift DDT. It was fine.
Lukewarm backstage interview with Matthew Hardy.
Cody (c) defeated Scorpio Sky for the TNT Championship
CODY successfully defends his TNT Championship against Scorpio Sky in a good but underwhelming match considering who was in it. Why TF did Cody need to bring down his whole damn family? Triple C was on one this week. Time to really give Sky a singles run.
Mr. Brodie Lee makes it clear he’s targeted Cody and the TNT title.
Kenny Omega and Hangman Page (c) defeated Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy and Luchasurus) for the AEW Tag Team Championship
Kenny Omega and Hangman Page beat the Jurassic Express in a world tag title match that was also fine but if someone was to guess how it would play out move for move, it would look like this. Marko Stunt should always wear a shirt, even in the shower. My wife really wanted to know why that little girl was walking around with no shirt on. No big match intros for the tag title match on Tag Team Appreciation Night?
Santana and Ortiz channeled their inner British Bulldogs, throwing the clothes and gear of Best Friends in the shower and dousing it with bleach. BF didn’t have a match, where TF were they? The boys looked good here.
Hikaru Shida defeated Heather Monroe
The women made a cameo as champion Hikaru Shida beat the debuting Heather Monroe in an IIconics time limit match–3 min.
AEW did a superb job of promoting all of their YT content for a change. Keep it up.
Good locker room promo from Lance Archer and Jake Roberts.
A Melee That Looked Like Some Kids Stopping Their Dads Fighting at a Cookout
The best part of the show was FTR and the Young Bucks paying homage (in that way that they put themselves over too) to the Rock N Roll Express and Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. Thank Blanchard for stopping the self-praising and bringing the full Tully Blanchard to the show. He talks his shit, gets in Arn’s face, and triggers a 1987 flashback in Ricky Morton, who slugs him. In the melee that looked like some kids stopping their dads fighting at a cookout, FTR sneaks the Express and spike piledrive Morton, giving us the turn we’ve been waiting on. Loved it.
Main Event: Orange Cassidy defeated Chris Jericho
Orange Cassidy got the biggest win of his career, beating Le All Lives Matter Chris Jericho in a good enough main event. They started hot and I think maintained it well until they got all goofy with the Mike Chioda shenanigans and then the Inner Circle and Best Friends got involved. Very Raw 98 finish. Eh. OC with the most awkward looking roll-up which Taz called a Mouse Trap. Jericho looked like it was the first time anyone ever used it on him.
It was okay overall. The energy dies pretty fast like this was the last set of tapings after a long day of them.
