Didn't expect THIS to be my first post of 2020...
Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back once again for something I haven't done in...over 3 years, damn dawg. Anyway, it's time for some wrestling talk! This past Wednesday, I attended AEW Dynamite in Atlanta, and I'm here to give my thoughts on my experience at the show in the State Farm Area and of the show overall. Without further ado, let's jump right in!
Before I even made it to my seat to watch the show, I caught something that did make me laugh: that was the spokesperson for the Dark Order along with one of the creepers handing out fliers to Join the Dark Order. If you've ever been out in the city walking around and you've seen a person reciting verses from the bible from their megaphone, it was basically a parody of that and it was great.
After that, I found my seat, which was a lot closer than I thought it'd be. I was on the floor with the ring being a good 30 or so feet from me. Problem with that is I'm a pretty big dude, and there were some equally big dudes seated next to me which did make me feel a little cramped at times, and made things a little tough to see sometimes.
But the show kicked off not with Dynamite, but with a match for AEW Dark: Jimmy Havoc vs Marko Stunt. With Marko, you got the whole Jurassic Express coming to the ring, and we folks here in Georgia LOVE Luchasaurus, and for good reason: he's a giant dinosaur man who wrestles, it's the best. As for the match itself, it was a fun little opener with nothing too crazy and Jimmy Havoc picked up the win.
After we saw Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone make their way to the commentary booth, Dynamite started proper with the tag team battle royale; and this was just a grand old time to watch. It set up a new feud between Best Friends and The Butcher and The Blade, it furthered the SCU/Dark Order story and it told a solid story of Matt without his partner Nick (who was eliminated earlier in the match) overcoming Inner Circle Interference to pick up the win and make The Young Bucks the new No. 1 contenders for The AEW Tag Team Championships. Overall, a great way to kick off the show.
Next up, we had Kris Statlander vs Shanna: a Dragon Ball Cosplayer vs An Alien in a decent little match. The crowd was quiet at the start but as the match went on, we got more and more into the match. Shanna tried to gather energy from the crowd in a Spirit Bomb-esque fashion to deliver a double foot stomp to Statlander (I'm dubbing it the Spirit Stomp). Unfortunately for Shanna, Statlander wasn't even in her final form, and pulled out a win using her cradle tombstone.
After that, we got a promo from the new Women's Champion: Nyla Rose; and if there was any downside to this show, it was this. Now I thought Nyla's delivery of the promo was good, it was just that the content was kind of hit or miss. The lines about the fans being bees buzzing around was something I felt was content that shouldn't be coming from Nyla. But her talking about breaking bitches when she's hungry, how her belt represented power, that was great and her delivery matched it. So, more of that, and less of the bees.
While Nyla was still in the midst of her promo, Kris Statlander walked out and made it clear that she wanted the title, and she wasn't the only one as Big Swole came out as well. Setting up two new potential challengers for the women's title. It's no big secret that the women's division was been AEW'S weakest link. But after last week's great match that led to Nyla winning, this new angle, and all the stuff with Britt Baker, the company is making steps in the right direction with the division. Hopefully, they can keep this up.
Following that match is Jon Moxley vs the debuting Jeff Cobb. I got to admit, Moxley's entrance has always been cool, but seeing him make his entrance live and hearing Justin Roberts announce him really makes it feel that match bigger. Before the match starts properly, Chris Jericho arrives with ticket in hand and accompanied by Sammy Guevara and Jake Hager. Boy oh boy, while my voice was incapable of hitting the higher notes of "Judas" I still had a ball singing along with the rest of the crowd.
As for the match itself, it was pretty solid, Jeff Cobb got to do all his suplexes and usual power spots, having Moxley barely able to squeak out a win by capitalizing on Cobb's cockiness and pinned him after Cobb him a superplex. A good contest that protects Jeff Cobb. After the match, Jericho and his boys jumped Moxley. Running to help make the save was Dustin Rhodes to set up his match with Hager and the return of my favortie edgy Skater Boy, Darby Allin. There were a lot of moments in the show that night that I would describe as deafening, Orange Cassidy popping up, everything Luchasaurus did, but the return of Darby was definitely one of the biggest ones.
Ever since his first match with Cody, I thought Darby could be a guy that could be the company's champion and Dynamite only proved it. Anyway, he and the rest of the babyfaces clear the ring out and send The Inner Circle packing., along with Darby getting the last word in...via cue cards, vowing to take out not only Sammy but the Inner Circle at Aew's PPV next Sunday: Revolution.
Up next, my favorite match of the night: Kenny Omega and Hangman Page vs The Lucha Bros for the Tag Team Championships. My lord where do I begin with this? First of, Hangman Page is awesome. Ever since his character changed into a functioning alcoholic, he's become one of the most interesting characters in AEW, and he felt like a mega star when he came out. Kenny's great, I don't know what can be said about him that hasn't been said. As for The Lucha Bros, there's watching the lucha bros; and then there's watching the Lucha Bros live. Pentagon has this unreal swagger to him when you watch him in the ring, and Rey Fenix is out of this world between the way he runs the ropes, and him hitting this unreal hurricanrana to the outside, it is nuts.
This entire post could just be about all the insane stuff that happened in this match, like Kenny hitting Fenix in the face with his knee, this step up Canadian destroyer that Pentagon pulled out. But I'll end it with Page and Omega hit their Buckshot V-Trigger finisher and retain their titles, meaning they'll face The Young Bucks at Revolution.
Up next we got an ad for AEW action figures coming later in the year. I only brought this up because for me, a guy that's watched Being The Elite for years, to see this silly little Vlog series morph into this: An actual wrestling company with action figures coming out, it makes me feel happy for Cody, Kenny, and The Bucks, like I knew them personally.
Speaking of Cody...
And finally, there was the main event: Atlanta's own Cody vs Wadlow in a steel cage. The cage had been hanging above the ring all night, and from that position it didn't look that big. Then it lowered and revealed itself to be freaking huge. The match itself had a real big fight feel to it with Cody bleeding relatively early in the match and Wardlow just tossing him around and doing really simple power moves and an impressive swanton off the top rope. Something I appreciated was the fact that escaping the cage wasn't an option for winning the match. The idea of a cage match should be that 2 wrestlers who hate each other go in this cage as the only means to end their rivalry, but only one can leave. So adding a condition that you can win by getting far away from the other person and the cage dampens the impact of it.
Outside the cage were MJF, Brandi Rhodes, and Arn Anderson. The former playing support to Wardlow while the latter two were support for Cody. Each person played their role beautifully with MJF being a great little dirtbag and Brandi and Arn cheering Cody on. This played into the match where later on Arn teased hitting Cody with the cage door with MJF goading him on, only for Arn to slam the door in MJF's face for a huge reaction from the crowd.
Back in the ring, Cody hit Wardlow with MJF's diamond ring (MJF snuck it to Wardlow in the match) and hits the Crossroads for a two count. I gotta give AEW credit, while there's a fair complaint that their matches consist of a ton of big moves that only get a two count, they've protected their finishers. Private Party's Gin and Juice, Kenny's One Winged Angel, and Jericho's Judas Effect to name a few. Which makes it that much of a bigger deal when wrestlers do kick out of a finisher.
With no other option, Cody hits a giant moonsault off the top of the cage to get the win. There's a fair complaint here over making Wardlow lose in his first match, but they did everything to protect him and make him look good, so I'm willing to forgive it. With that Dynamite ended, and once the show went off the air, Cody gave a very passionate promo about what Atlanta means to him and how he decided he wanted to be a pro wrestler. It's great stuff and it reminded me that Cody Rhodes is the best babyface in wrestling today.
AEW Dynamite is only the second wrestling show I've ever attended, but even so, it was fantastic from start to finish. If there was one complaint I have towards it is that I wish they used more of the screens they had. They have two screens showing the Dynamite logo and only one in the top left corner showing the wrestling. Use those big two screens more guys.
But other than that, the wrestling was great, the promos were good to great, the energy from the crowd the entire night made a great show even that much better and the two hours flew by. I would love to attend Dynamite next year if they come by Atlanta again. But that's all from me folks, til next time, I'm The Shaman of Animation and hopefully next time, I'll be doing something actually related to animation.
Take Care...
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