AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 12/4/19

What Worked

-Opening trios would have had to be abysmal to feature the return of tasseled babyface Dustin and not make it up into the top part here, so obviously it's up here. Dustin and Guevara are really great counterparts in this one; they couldn't be more different as wrestlers and personalities, and that's perfect for something like this. Dustin works fast paced AEW style better than anyone in AEW, more than just sequences of moves, but with heart and sympathy in spades. Guevara is the perfect brat punk, and I love twerpy loudmouth heels and he's absolutely thriving in the role. Guevara's 630 looked fantastic, all the big spots from everyone looked sharp, they hit a nice sweet spot on runtime, real nice opener. This was actually an AEW match that I was hoping would go longer, but that could be me just wanting as much Dustin on TV as possible.

-Dark Order recruiting incels to join their cult is some pretty great stuff. It's important to show the cult leaders actively recruiting cannon fodder, and I dig the idea of Evil Uno as the powerful fat guy that internet fat guys look up to.

-Jake Hager has the round face and dim eyes of Hank Venture, acts like one of the silent gestating clones of Hank Venture, but now has the full speedsuit of Rusty Venture.

-Both big talking segments worked well as breaks in the wrestling action. Cody's was more traditional and although it's setting up a match I'm not very interested in, it at least took me more not interested to slightly interested. Jericho's was funny, and I like how he's able to play 100% to the crowd with references while immediately shutting them down any time they try to share the joke or reference with him. Making Luchasaurus an educated dinosaur is far more amusing than him just growling, and "Marko Stunt is small for any age" got a legit laugh out of me.

-There was an ad for Joe Pera Talks With You during the Daniels/Pentagon match, advertising the new season that starts THIS WEEK, meaning there was actually something of value during a brutally bad Daniels/Pentagon match!

-I am a sap for nostalgia, so I appreciate Chris Daniels honoring the memory of his Nitro appearance by again completely botching a moonsault.

What Didn't Work

-Guevara live blogging and eating a double superkick was a funny idea, though I don't actually know who he was trying to hit with that shooting star press. The camera was in tight and he clearly looked before leaping, but nobody was in sight when the cameras went wide. It's tough to make purposeful misses actually look like genuine misses on these complicated spots, but it certainly makes them better when it happens.

-Fenix vs. Trent was my least favorite kind of match in this style. Long set ups for payoffs that are immediately shrugged off to do more long set ups with payoffs that don't get paid off. The things they are doing are dangerous, and they sell them until they don't, but this was one step away from them just walking into position and waiting for the other to do a move. Trent has to wait an eternity standing "tied" in the ropes while Fenix climbs, points, yells, rope walks, and punts Trent...which of course just allows Trent to stumble into position to hit a lariat. The things they tried to chain together were silly, but most of the offense was not chained at all, just a series of guys waiting around for a dangerous move that wouldn't get treated as dangerous. Big piledriver? Won't stop Fenix from springing around seconds later; Trent eats a face stomp on the apron? That will be a distant memory in seconds. Trent hit a nice spear on the floor. I liked that, but this was trash.

-Nyla Rose squash was okay, but she really left Leva Bates out to dry on that knee off the top. Are people in AEW passing around old Scoot Andrews tapes are something? And they seem to be building multiple monsters in the women's division all at once, with Leva Bates as the only one who will seemingly sign up to fight them.

-I was excited for Statlander/Shida but this was not the best Statlander I've seen. I have no idea why she was so rolly and flippy but I thought all of those parts looked rough. And I really don't like the weird cult leader Brandi stuff. We already have a cult filled with chubby dudes in masks, I'm not interested in one lead by someone who was shown at home worried about her husband within the month.

-Absolutely cero química between Daniels and Pentagon, Pentagon so lazy and sluggish he can't even bother to make his kicks touch any part of Daniels, but at least he kept with the running theme of the night and made Daniels hang on the ropes for awhile before doing something that sort of connected. Never on the same page, this was B-A-D.

-Janela/Moxley came off pretty flat, really capping off a dull 2nd hour of Dynamite. Big DDT on the ramp, tope, put him through a table, didn't really matter as Moxley never acted like he was taking damage. Not that a lot of Janela's stuff looked very damaging, so I guess maybe Moxley worked him properly? Moxley looked twice the size of Janela and looked like he hit twice as hard, so maybe this was the right way to work this? Still dull as hell though.