Previously on the Ins and Outs of AEW Dynamite: All Elite Wrestling put on their Full Gear for a pay-per-view about the high flying prowess of a 63-year old southerner, the danger of putting broken glass in your opponent’s mouth during a match, and the sudden and inevitable betrayal involved when you choose CLEARLY EVIL GUY as your corner-man.
If you’d like to keep up with this column and its thinly veiled Best and Worst format, you can keep tabs on the Ins and Outs of AEW Dynamite tag page. Elle Collins is also covering AEW Dark for us, and you can keep track of all things All Elite here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter, where everything and everyone is terrible.
And now, the Ins and Outs of All Elite Wrestling Dynamite, originally aired on November 13, 2019.
All In: Omega Meets An Alpha
I had some pretty mixed feelings about the Ambrose Asylum match at Full Gear, but I adore the followup context.
The major stories coming out of the bout are that (1) Kenny Omega is rekt beyond belief but Jon Moxley is basically fine and already medically cleared, confirming Moxley’s claims of violent dominance and reinforcing that undercurrent of self-doubt Omega has that keeps him dabbling in dorky introverted hobbies and overcompensating by repeatedly calling himself the “best bout matchine” and the best wrestler in the world. And (2) that Moxley escalated things to a goofy and unnecessarily violent place full of barbed wire bed props and shit to make the point that if AEW keeps putting him in “unsanctioned, lights out” matches, he’s going to try to physically kill his opponent for real, so they better stop. Plus, by doing the followup and showing the effects the match had on Omega, it actually makes it seem “real” and important, and not just a “life-changing, career-threatening” Hell in a Cell type match where everyone’s 100% fine the second it ends.
Michael Nakazawa, of all people, decides that since he’s Kenny Omega’s friend, he’s going to step to Moxley one-on-one. He’s even throwing away his travel-size bottle of baby oil to make a point! It goes about as well for him as you’d expect:
The sad thing is that if he’d just put on the baby oil beforehand, he might’ve been able to slip out of that. Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a Paradigm Shift DDT. Anyway, I’m ready for AEW management to get the message, save those ultra-violent matches for extremely rare and extremely important situations, and keep Moxley on the path to reminding wrestling fans that he’s a surprisingly large bad-ass who can be physically engaging to watch and passionate on the mic when he’s not being asked to name a potted plant and hit people with hot dog condiments.
Also, if Kenny Omega’s friends are gonna stick up for him against Mox, are we gonna get Jon Moxley vs. Riho? Because even my catastrophic, nihilistic sense-of-humor brain is like, “strongest recommendation to avoid.”
All Out, Minus The Dinosaur: Order Up
The Dark Order win a tag team match against the Jurassic Express, and afterward are like, “You know who would make our faction of table-top gamers even scarier? An adult man who looks like he’s seven years old and does Fortnite dances in the ring.” Yes, EVIL UNO and his tag team partner … uh, “Stu,” … want to recruit Marko Stunt of all people to their Ministry of Dorkness. They should’ve ran this angle on Halloween and had Stunt dress as a low hanging piece of fruit.
The day is saved, of course, when the only person who looks like a pro wrestler in the entire scenario, the Luchasaurus returns to single-handedly dispose of the heels. You’ve gotta love that the only guy in this segment who looks like he belongs on a wrestling show is the guy dressed like a high-flying karate dinosaur.
To clarify, since it’s such a touchy subject they can’t stop referencing it on weekly TV, I don’t enjoy Marko Stunt’s … anything, really, but me not enjoying it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a place on the show. I think he works better as a Spike Dudley-esque “assist trophy” of sorts to the Jurassic Express — at best, the little third man who runs interference on the heels and gets a big showcase spot before disappearing again — and maybe that’s what he’ll be again now that the Express is back on track. I think I’d prefer him as a henchman with a name in the Dark Order, though, if we’re being honest. AEW doesn’t have enough random goths!
And Speaking Of Random Goths
Darby Allin wins a triple threat against everyone’s favorite, The Librarian, and Shawn Spears. Spears gets attacked by Joey Janela, drawing him out of the match, leaving Allin free to Coffin Drop The Librarian (OVR rating of 0) to death and take it. Afterward, he announces his intentions: accepting Jon Moxley’s challenge to have big enough balls, outside of your wife’s purse, to step into the ring and face him. So next week we’re getting Moxley vs. Allin, and that is gonna be something else. Skateboard covered in thumbtacks or bad faith dirt bike, who ya got?
Really wish we’d gotten a full Tully Blanchard interacting with Leva Bates segment, though.
Continuing To Speak About Random Goths
Or,
All In: Allielite!
Allie, more or less the biggest and most widely known female star signed to AEW who hasn’t actually been on TNT yet, finally makes an appearance for a brief interview with Tony Schiavone. Any time AEW says, “Britt Baker?” to themselves, they should follow up with, “or Allie?” and then just use Allie. Not that I don’t like the ongoing jokes about a dentist winning wrestling matches by pulling people’s teeth. Did you know that Britt Baker is a dentist?
Anyway, the interview is brief because Allie’s quickly interrupted by the goth magic and improper haircare duo of Brandi Rhodes and Awesome Kong, who are still weirdly stealing small clumps of hair extension from people they aren’t beating in wrestling matches. Is Kong not cleared to actually wrestle anymore or something? Why would a wrestling promotion keep someone around who never wrestles wrestling matches and also keeps attacking people with a knife? Are they working a Tank Abbott gimmick?
It’ll be interesting to see who finally steps up to Kong (and hopefully, you know, wrestles her) once she’s done mining the bottom of the women’s division for shampoo samples.
Jobbers Who Don’t Moonlight As Librarians Of The Week
Stepping into the ring against The Native Beast Nyla Rose is Long Island’s Dani Jordyn, an AR Fox student who calls herself “The Real Mean Girl” and knows how to spell her name for maximum copyright. If you want to get signed by WWE and wrestle under a specific name, you should just spell it as wacky as possible while you’re on the indies so when they bring you up, they’ll “change it” to a natural spelling.
Jordyn does as well as could be expected, but makes the mistake of slapping Rose and gets powerbombed into the Earth. I suppose you can say that Jordyn still has miles to go.
All In: Don’t Talk To Me Or My Son Ever Again
“It’s almost like your parents got horny when they were watching me beat up Juventud Guerrera 25 years ago on WCW Saturday Night, and 9 months later your little twerp ass popped out.”
It’s the first annual meeting of the Cody Rhodes Haters Club, featuring Cody’s Full Gear opponent, Chris Jericho, and Cody’s Full Gear corner-man, a guy who is exactly like Chris Jericho but like 30 years younger. Seriously, Cody really should’ve looked at his friend who always wears a scarf, comes up with silly nicknames for everybody, and keeps almost turning heel on him all the time and thought, “maybe I’ll get Dustin instead.” But no, here we are, with MJF and Jericho doing a brilliant duck season/wabbit season bit where Jericho will only let MJF join Inner Circle if he says he wants to, and MJF will only join if Jericho says he wants him to. And also they’re already friends, because they’re evil dickheads who like to fuck with people.
Did we just become best friends?! pic.twitter.com/Uhgx7wkFFI
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) November 14, 2019
Cody shows up and tries to get some sweet facial scar vengeance on the duo when he’s unexpectedly attacked by WARDLOW, who literally looks like someone put MJF into that machine they used to create Captain America. Wardlow is what MJF sees every time he looks in the mirror. Also, I can’t stop calling dude WALDORF.
In the style of true southern wrestling pathos, Cody gets choked out by his tie — the Justin Roberts Special — and hung out on the ring apron. The New Nexus now has their own Mason Ryan, and assuming they’re both members of the Inner Circle now and not just heel outliers, the IC’s growing more and more like the New World Order by the day. I’m already counting Soultrain Jones as a member, too, I hope they add so many people to the team they’ve gotta split it up and call all the second-tier guys the Outer Circle.
All In: PAC It In
In my favorite moment of the night, PAC makes up for that loss at Full Gear by literally stomping the back of Adam Page’s head until he’s passed out, hitting a Black Arrow on his unconscious corpse, and then squeezing him in the Brutalizer while Bryce Remsburg frantically tries to prevent him from committing Actual Murder. This is how every PAC match should end, if we’re being honest.
Mostly In: A Night Of Total Heel Dominance
In other “sucks to be a good guy” news, Santana and Ortiz continue putting the fear of God into the Young Bucks by beating them within an inch of their lives. Brandon Cutler — wearing a lanyard with his name on it, so people know he’s a wrestler and not some random guy who wandered up onto the stage — tries to help, but can’t. A group of referees angrily pointing and waving their hands like they’re throwing out a touchdown are also largely ineffective, surprisingly. Only when Private Party shows up do the beatings stop, presumably because morale improved.
To recap, this episode of AEW Dynamite features:
- Kenny Omega being injured and embarrassed
- Michael Nakazawa sticking up for his friend and getting his ass kicked in
- Allie getting her hair cut by Awesome Kong for existing
- Cody Rhodes being hung bloody and humiliated by a guy we’ve never seen outside of vignettes before
- MJF and Chris Jericho teaming up because they both can’t stop laughing about Cody Rhodes
- PNP breaking a Young Buck’s leg with their sock of doom and powerbombing the other one through the stage
- even The Dark Order briefly triumphing before being eaten by a dinosaur
Not a great night to be on the side of the angels. Oh, and if you thought that “Inner Circle is the nWo” bit is too much of a stretch, check them out already adding spray paint to their gimmick. Tony Khan’s gonna end up being the leader of the group and the mastermind behind it all, watch.
I’m guessing all of this happened all in a row so you’d go into Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara vs. SCU for the Tag Team Championship thinking of course the Inner Circle’s gonna win, and then being happily surprised when they don’t. The problem, at least for me, is that SCU are easily the most uninteresting “top guys” in the company, especially outside of Being The Elite, and that I haven’t even bought their previous two victories. I dunno. Just not my thing. Them turning “this is the worst town I’ve ever been to” into a positive catchphrase like they’re Kurt Angle reacting to “you suck” chants has never seemed earned.
Jericho throws a classic temper tantrum to end the show, and presumably this is gonna set up Scorpio Sky getting a title shot? I can’t say I vibed with this, but thankfully there was enough else for me to enjoy on the show that it’s not make-or-break. Jericho taking his first AEW loss to Scorp of all people is pretty interesting. Although honestly, I’d be way more interested to see Christopher Daniels vs. Chris Jericho one good time. Maybe they’re giving Sky something to do so Daniels and Kazarian can Freebird the tag straps and continue their beef with the Lucha Bros.?
All In: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer
You folks are all going to feel super silly for thinking Brandi & Kong are heels when it’s revealed they’re collecting the hair to give to children with cancer.
PAC is Gollum if all his stats were 100
AshBlue
In terms of backstage fight appearances, Orange Cassidy >>>>>>>> Clangy Poles
CFCarboni
I wonder if Jericho has ever botched that move and hit someone with a low blow. In other words, has he ever delivered a Chode Breaker?
Baron Von Raschke
JR: PAC HAS SNAPPED!!!!
Excalibur: How can you tell, JR?
Pdragon619
PAC and Hangman are 2 fights away from forming the most True Grit tag team of all time
The Real Birdman
Justin Roberts just had a PTSD flashback watching Cody get choked with a tie
SexCauldron
“Marko, wrestling is all well and good, but wouldn’t you rather be an armrest?”
Mitchinerd
I have such a big, dumb smile on my face watching this duel of the promos.
Jeffrey Allen
Next time my wife isn’t in the mood, I’m uploading WWE Network and putting Jericho / Juvy on.
All In: Agent Orange
Study question: Was Orange Cassidy randomly standing in the bathroom like that because he was waiting for a hookup, or is that just how Trent and Chuckie T store him when they aren’t wrestling?
Thanks for reading about Dynamite, as always. Drop a comment down below to let us know what you thought of the show — and to answer my study question above — and give the column a share on social media to get more eyes on it and help us out. Too many people still think Raw and Smackdown are the only wrestling shows. And hey, make sure you join us again next week for Private Party vs. Proud and Powerful in a battle for the letter P! See you next time!
