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Good Morning!
Welcome back to Let’s Watch Some Wrestling! I want to go over WrestleDream, which I just caught yesterday after an incredible weekend. But, I’d also like to go through the ELEVEN (!) films I watched over the weekend at the Telluride Horror show with a few of my very favorite people.
So, let’s get into it. We’ll do the wrestling first, since Dynamite will be starting in just a few hours and pro wrestling is kinda the whole point of this blog. I’ll take notes on Dynamite itself too, pop them in after the WrestleDream recap, and post this here blog.
But then we’ll make the switch from Let’s Watch Some Wrestling to Let’s Watch Some HORROR, and write up some spoiler-free movie reviews for the weekend’s post. Since I have yet to catch up with Raw, SmackDown, OR NXT, we’re going full AEW around here this week. Which is fine, since I’m thinking about removing the Saudi shows from my viewing rotation, and that’s what most of the Fed’s current build is leading up to. I’ll still do a preview, since speculation is probably my favorite part of pro wrestling, but I’ll maybe just do something else that weekend.
The Let’s Watch Some Wrestling AEW WrestleDream Recap
To start us off, here’s the preview image I posted to BlueSky prior to the show:
I managed to avoid spoilers for nearly every match on the card all the way through Tuesday by avoiding both Twitter and BlueSky. But then a screenshot on Facebook -- which I felt obligated to pop onto to thank everybody for the kind birthday wishes -- ended that run. Fortunately, that was a spoiler for the result I wanted the most -- a title victory for my sweet Cinnabon son, Konosuke Takeshita. That match was incredible, and you could really tell that both Ricochet and Will Ospreay made the decision to make Takeshita look like a real superstar on the night. Take’s elbows looked like death whenever he hit either opponent, and that brutal move he used to put Ricochet through the table was nasty looking.
Jay White and “Hangman” Adam Page over delivered, and was a great re-introduction to the suplexes and the skill of the Switchblade. I was a little worried while watching that White couldn’t take the loss, and that really Page could absorb the L because he’s dealing with some stuff that is making him act in a way that shouldn’t earn him wins -- but then Jay White reversed Hanger’s Buckshot Lariat into his Blade Runner and that was that.
Willow Nightingale and Mariah May put on a hell of a match to follow that opener (they should have been the opener, honestly) and I’m starting to think that Willow might be the best thing about AEW’s women’s division. The Ace, if you will. She’s got everything you need to hold that prestigious moniker -- talent, looks, personality, and the ability to get the best out of any opponent. Mariah May is great in the ring, but this title reign has been a little weak. Still, Willow worked great with Mariah, both in the build to this match and in the match itself. She’s going to be a great champ one day, but for now she’ll have to settle for making everyone else look amazing. Let’s just hope that AEW remembers the work she’s putting in now, and rewards her for it.
And you know what? That’s about it for highlights of the show for me. I didn’t hate anything else, but the rest of the undercard matches didn’t really move the needle for me. I didn’t like the finish for Shibata vs Perry, and hated that Perry instantly recovered and was able to attack Shibata, although the introductions of Daniel Garcia, MJF, and Adam Cole covered up Shibata’s uncharacteristic mistake that led to his loss.
Hologram/THE BEAST MORTOS, Bucks/Private Party, and Briscoe/Jericho were all good, but not super memorable. I think the Bucks would like to build Private Party up over the next few months, and then pass the tag team titles off to the younger team, but I guess we’ll have to be patient for that.
Darby defeated Brody King in another good, not great, match, but the finish seemed more important after the show went off the air. It seems like Darby is going to be the main character of AEW going forward (non-Mox edition) and so having him earn the respect of the monstrous Brody King meant a bit more in hindsight.
And then there’s the main event. Not Danielson’s best, but not terrible either. The finish felt appropriate, and while the post-match beating and melodramatic injury angle felt a little heavy-handed, I understood that AEW was trying to show us that a change has arrived, and Danielson represented the old ways and therefore had to be dispatched, violently.
The match wasn’t the point, though. I think a lot of people, myself included, assumed Danielson wanted to retire in his home state, and I’m sure he had a lot of say in who would be ending his career. Personally, I think Moxley was a boring choice. I don’t love the current version of him, and I don’t like that Danielson was retired by a guy who won’t gain much from it. But I also generally enjoy Moxley’s work, and I love that it looks like WrestleDream was the start of a big sea change for All Elite Wrestling. Maybe the Moxes and the Elite will form a group that’s trying to hold new talent down, and that will lead to fresh faces earning more TV time. But all we can do right now is be optimistic!
The Dynamite Review
Opening the show with 20 minutes of promos certainly was a choice. I get it, though -- we’ve established a new champion and a new faction in charge in John Moxley and nWo mOx, and the new direction of the show is clearly going to be a reflection of the events of this past Saturday. So we had Mox shoot a promo from inside a van, and we’d see the group two more times before the end of the show.
Moxley’s crew attacked during the trios match between the Elite and members of the Conglomeration, and that brawl led to the Elite stepping away from the fight and a few other trios stepping in (and getting run over.) So it looks like the Young Bucks, Jack Perry, and Kazuchika Okada won’t be getting in the way of whatever Moxley has planned, but Dark Order, Top Flight, the Conglomeration, and Daniel Garcia all seem to be on Moxley’s hit list.
Other developments on Wednesday included Adam Cole challenging MJF, Chris Jericho challenging Mark Briscoe again (the Jericho Vortex is real), Private Party teasing a break after challenging the Young Bucks for yet another title match (they declined), my son Konosuke Takeshita issuing an open challenge for his International Title on Collision, and Jay White losing a really good match to Christian Cage after interference from Kip Sabian (unintentional) and “Hangman” Adam Page (very intentional).
It all went by quickly, and it felt like new storylines are popping up everywhere. I overlooked some stuff in that block of text -- Mercedes Mone had a pretty decent showing against Queen Aminata, Lio Rush lost to Shelton Benjamin, who has lost a step but still appears to be refusing to age, and FTR defeated Jericho’s pals and celebrated with the Outrunners afterward. All in all a typical Dynamite from a wrestling standpoint, but the storyline developments were put front and center for this one.
And that’s it!
I’m excited to see where these storylines are going, even though I’ll admit that I don’t love the nWo mOx storyline. I do like that name though, and it’s better than the Poochie joke that keeps popping into my head when I see that crew on screen.
My problem, as I said on BlueSky, is that these things always start the same -- you run down the young new guys and the established guys look dominant, but you believe it’s because the young guys will give the baddies their comeuppance. However, it’s often not the case, either because of abandoned storylines, injuries, or those established guys deciding they won’t be giving the kids their spots, actually.
However, I will give Moxley and his buddies the benefit of the doubt because they’ve never acted particularly selfishly, and because despite me not being the MOST online guy you’ve ever met, I haven’t heard anything particularly galling about any of the Mox crew’s behavior backstage.
Next post will be our Telluride Horror Show recap, where we’ll do some synopses of both the festival and the films I watched. I’m excited to try my hand at film review, and have been reading reviews by real writer types in anticipation of this. We’ll see how it goes! I should have that up in the next few days or so, as I’m also working on a pitch for SlashGear. After that, I'll catch up on WWE's stuff and we'll be back on track.
Thank you so much for reading. If you liked what you saw, consider telling your friends, mentioning Let’s Watch Some Wrestling on social media, or even buying me a hot cup of coffee using the Ko-Fi button. Have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next time, dear reader. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!
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