The Ins And Outs Of AEW Dynamite 5/20/20: Cowboy Stadium

Previously on the Ins and Outs of AEW Dynamite: The Inner Circle put out a hit on Matt Hardy’s favorite sentient drone, Mike Tyson was revealed as a special celebrity guest for Double or Nothing, and Sammy Guevara revealed that he has no neck. Well, he has no neck now.

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. You can keep track of all things All Elite here.

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And now, the Ins and Outs of All Elite Wrestling Dynamite for May 20, 2020.

In Your House: Floridian Stampede

Let’s start off the column for Double or Nothing’s “go-home” show with the biggest news of the week: The Young Bucks and Hangman Adam Page are back, just in time for Saturday’s “Stadium Stampede” match. It must be nice to have unfettered use of an NFL stadium, huh? It’s at least a good visual for when you need to shit or get off the pot with Blood and Guts but can’t do it any time soon with a plague on.

Last week the Inner Circle assassinated Vanguard-1 with a baseball bat, and it worked so well that this week they use Sammy Guevara’s main event match against Matt Hardy as a distraction to be like, “Hey, what if we do that bat murder to a PERSON?” With Hardy not being an official member of the group, Cody busy doing his Lance Archer thing, and the Bucks and Hangman off either dealing with injury or trying not to get sick, it only made sense to target The Elite’s Kenneth Ellen Omega. But it turns out that the Bucks and Hangman I guess scouted the Inner Circle’s plans and decided to lie in wait in various places around TIAA Bank Field to hatch a surprise attack while Omega got held against the goal posts and shit-kicked. Don’t think about it. The good news is that while we aren’t going to get a proper War Games match seemingly ever again, we confirmed that Jackson and Jackson are gonna dive off an empty stadium full of ledges and surfaces, and that Adam Page has got a hell of a hundred-yard dash:

Hangman came barrelling into the stadium like …

… or, if you’d prefer …

I’m sure somebody’s already put the Chariots of Fire music behind it. A Dynamite with the Bucks and Hangman is better than a Dynamite without, love them or hate them, and if AEW’s truly dedicated to having its promotion be the spiritual successor to World Championship Wrestling, I look forward to those three beating down Omega and Hardy at Double or Nothing and joining the Inner Circle.

(That’s a joke, by the way.)
(WCW really ruined me, you know.)

All In: Horse Vs. Snake

It’s not exactly a duel of DDTs in 1992, but we finally got to see Arn Anderson and Jake Roberts exist in the ring together at the same time. It’s a dream moment, for sure, and it’s all in service of adding more fuel to the fire for Cody Rhodes vs. Lance Archer ahead of Saturday. That rivalry already involves a new arriving star, a tournament for a new championship belt, the violent bloodletting of Cody’s brother, and dramatic vehicle entrances. Might as well let two of the best to ever do it do what they do and create compelling television from office chairs on either side of Tony Schiavone.

It’s honestly a shame that we can’t get these two in the ring against one another, at least not until Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud gets really into Being The Elite, books Full Gear in Riyadh, and needs a main event. I really hope Jake and Mike Tyson interact at Double or Nothing, though. Jake once more or less no-sold (or at least “pro wrestling” sold) several clean punches to the face from Muhammad Ali to keep his heat because Ali was only there for a night, so I’d love to see Tyson uppercut a 64-year old Jake Roberts flush in the chin only for Jake to calmly stumble backwards and lean against the ropes.

Somewhat In: Force Ten

In other top of the card news, AEW World Champion Jon Moxley wants to get his belt back from Longhorn Steakhouse The Monarch The Exalted One Mr. Brodie Lee, and tries to do so by leveraging the well-being of Brodie’s top henchman, “10.” You can tell he’s the best henchman because he doesn’t wear a shirt. No, I don’t know how they employ Shawn Spears and haven’t had him interact with 10 yet.

Anyway, Moxley defeats 10 in a lightly competitive match that presents Moxley with a “challenge” without it ever really being challenging, and performatively announces that he’s going to break 10’s arm if Mad Men Bray Wyatt doesn’t play ball. Brodie pops in on the video screen all, “I’ve known that guy for like three weeks you proletariat
scumbag, go ahead, break his arm, see if I even care.” Moxley, effectively called on his bluff, goes through with it. And he does it in that funny pro wrestling way where you hit an object with an object and that’s supposed to make it hurt more, like how WWE thinks putting a ladder on somebody’s leg and hitting the ladder with a chair hurts more than just hitting someone in the leg with a chair or ladder.

The match on Saturday should be fun. With Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, and Brodie Lee taken care of, which former WWE star will become number one contender next? Maybe they can get Bad News Barrett on loan from the NWA?

All In, And Then Oh My God All Out: Orange Cassidy Vs. Rey Fénix

Orange Cassidy versus Rey Fénix was absolutely my match of the night. I love both guys, am keenly aware of Orange’s low key wrestling excellence, and have missed Fénix looking at a basic in-ring scenario and thinking, “how can I make this as confusing and dangerous as possible?” It’s a great combination: a guy who will surprise you with his wrestling acumen against a guy who will surprise you by wrestling like he wrestles and living.

It’s all well and good until the ending, which is a pier-six brawl and at least 75% of a donnybrook involving the competitors in Saturday’s “casino” ladder match. On paper, it’s an excuse for a bunch of cool high flyers to hit high-flying moves. In practice, it’s kind of a damn car wreck. There’s a whole pod of people at ringside brawling, and they can’t seem to catch ANYBODY. The worst is Fénix, possibly because of the high degree of difficulty. Who needs hips and a tailbone, anyway?

If that’s not bad enough, Colt Cabana tries to follow it with an Asai moonsault of his own and ALSO gets more ground than bodies. Then Orange Cassidy and the Best Friends do the Ant-apult from Chikara*, and Orange almost overshoots the entire group. If not for Kip Sabian’s shoulder he probably would’ve smashed into the ground, too. It’s so bad the title of the video is, “ORANGE CASSIDY VS FENIX AND THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR.”

*👀 (also, Chuck Taylor participating in an Ant Hill just seems wrong)

Note: I don’t think it’ll happen at Double or Nothing or anything, but I sure hope AEW jumps on Drew Gulak’s free agency and gets the Gentleman’s Club back together. Not that I want every former WWE guy to show up in AEW, but we need to know what Orange thinks about the most recent several Fast & Furious movies.

All Out: Dental? Damn.

Continuing the theme of accidental injuries, Nyla Rose teams up with Dr. Britt Baker DMD to take on Kris Statlander and apparently eternal number one contender Hikaru Shida in a tag team match. In case you missed it, Statlander and Shida decided to do a blind, double-team Death Valley Driver to Rose ONTO Britt Baker in the corner with their backs together so they can’t communicate or see what the other person’s doing, and … it didn’t go well.

That’s 200 pounds of Nyla Rose falling sideways and getting slammed onto Baker’s leg (and kicking her in the face, for good measure). She’s able to get out of there pretty quickly and sits out the remainder of the match, but the damage is done. The early reports are a “pretty serious knee injury,” which is heartbreaking, especially considering what an MVP Britt’s been to the show during quarantine. If she ends up missing any time, I hope they let her keep doing character vignettes, if only for a scene where a dentist mandible-splains her own knee injury to an orthopedic surgeon because she’s also a doctor, thank you very much.

Also On This Episode

MJF defeats Marko Stunt, who manages to get through an entire episode of Dynamite without being thrown to Hell by a giant. He does get punched in the face with a diamond ring, however, and has to be bailed out by a dinosaur. Marko’s so small he makes MJF look like Wardlow, and makes Wardlow look like Lance Archer. Note: MJF is billed at 6-feet tall and Wardlow’s billed at 6-2, making them a living version of the “6-foot versus 5-foot-11” meme.

MJF will have to face Jungle Boy, literally a friend to big and small, at Double or Nothing. What happens first: Marko Stunt scoring an upset over someone three times his size, or Jim Ross getting through an entire Jungle Boy appearance without calling him “Jungle Jack Perry?” He’s going to get that name changed or he’s gonna die trying. Boomer Jack Sooner.

Darby Allin is still expressing himself through student film. My favorite AEW character is the nihilistic skateboard kid who can only communicate via Mirror Father Mirror.

Randy News Network senior numerology correspondent Shawn Spears sends in a video to announce that Dustin Rhodes has retired, and that he’s challenging him for Saturday, which is how retirement works. He also makes fun of Dustin’s past drug addiction, which is pretty out of nowhere. Who let Shawn Spears have his own news network? Is Tully Blanchard the only one who watches it? I’m not even sure Tully’s watching it at this point.

PAC is back, thank God, and sends in a video promo from Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae’s dining room. I’m hype for him to show up in the Casino ladder match unannounced, take his Death Triangle mate’s spot due to a particularly nasty case of broken lower half, and win the next shot at the AEW Championship. “PAC” is the answer to the earlier question. It’s also the BEST answer!

All In: Top 10 Comments Of The Week

The Real Birdman

“Yayyy!” – Dark Order Member 11

AddMayne

United States Presidential Debate (2020)

BigD_TVF

Being able to kip up with your hands in your pockets just ain’t right.

Some of us can’t even sit up from the floor without rolling over and grabbing onto at least 2 sturdy pieces of furniture.

mikeybot

TIL – In AEW if you fail your sneak attack roll, you lose you entrance music

Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer

MJF is the best 1980s heel remastered for 2020.

Clay Quartermain

Spears does have that basic cable blandness down pat

Pdragon619

I’m the same age as Sammy Guevara, I like to believe that we both helped contribute to making this one of the greatest generations of wrestling ever. Him with his infinite potential, and myself with my infinite nitpicking pushing these athletes to be even better.

Endy_Mion

Dark Order’s human furniture store gonna get a stimulus check anytime soon? Or is our government truly that out of touch with what the people need as essentials?

SexCauldron

Seeing the Butcher and Blade in street clothes is like seeing a teacher outside of school

Mr. Bliss

I do need a commercial from the Dark Order letting us know they think essential workers are heroes.

That does it for this week’s column. Thanks for reading about Dynamite! Leave us a comment below, give the column a share on social media, and make sure you’re here this weekend for Double or Nothing, featuring:

• action-adventure husband Jon Moxley taking down an incel cult
• Bloodless and Gutsless
• a TNT Championship Tournament finals in which everybody dies
• Hikaru Shida hopefully doing something with her four months of number one contendership
• a ladder match in which nobody gets caught, ever

… and so much more. See you then!