AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 7/15/20

What Worked

-While I was disappointed in the match itself, I thought Cody did a fantastic job against Kiss. There was a LOT of stuff that wouldn't have worked nearly as well without Cody setting it up and finding plausible ways to get where he needed to get. The set up on the axe kick in the corner was masterful, the way he hung up in the ropes until Kiss hit that axe kick to the stomach. Cody set up the Matrix headscissors really well, caught the rana, naturally took any combo Kiss did, had awesome timing to catch the handspring slap in a full nelson, and never looked like a goof taking overly complicated things. The vertebreaker was perfectly executed, the superplex looked good, the slam on the stage looked good, etc. Cody turned in a great performance in an okay match.

-Angel Ortiz hilariously flopping in orange juice for 20 seconds felt like something Chris Candido would have done, and I laughed at Jericho unexpectedly calling Cassidy a "piece of shit". I was a big fan of their match last week, not sure what they could do in a rematch that would top it, but they have my interest for sure.

-Didn't love the trios match, but Jungle Boy had a strong standout performance. I thought his headscissors and flying looked better than normal, and I thought it was cool that the Young Bucks basically took a backseat and let him run wild the whole match.

-The Nightmare Sisters tag was kept short and Kenzie Paige bumped nicely for them.


What Didn't Work

-I was really excited on paper for Cody/Kiss, but it had plenty of rough patches. Kiss seemed off in several spots, didn't get up for a suplex (that Cody wisely bailed on), didn't get his leg up high enough on a few kicks, bumped way early on the disaster kick, and really just came off like a guy who would be much better in tags. There was plenty of stuff he did well in the match (I love his axe kicks and stomps), but the match also went too long, didn't really need several close kickouts with Kiss, and really should have ended after the awesome vertebreaker.

-Can't think of many on paper matches I wanted to see more than FTR/Lucha Bros, but it just didn't deliver. The face/heel dynamics were all wack, there was a lot of sloppiness at the beginning and end, and a lot of dumb little choices that made no sense within the match. The dumbest thing was Dax going for a superplex on Pentagon, with Fenix literally *touching them* in their corner, and Fenix opting to just tag in instead of, you know, STOPPING THE SUPERPLEX. He was just as close to Harwood as he was to his brother, but he chose to just tag, instead of decking Harwood and then tagging in. Plus, the whole tag spot was completely forgotten the moment the superplex hit anyway, as Fenix flew in and caught knees, then just rolled to the floor. FTR were the de facto faces, building to a hot tag that was well executed by Harwood, but couldn't even get a decent reaction from the people who are literally there to just react. Fenix had some great looking spots, loved that dropkick off the apron and a couple of his spinkicks, but they were clearly working babyface while also setting up FTR to be the babyfaces, and it made things feel messy and lead to quiet reactions. There was a lone, sad, This Is Awesome chant that didn't pick up steam, and that's always a bummer. Cash hit a great powerslam to set up a near tag, the DDT tope is a crazy spot that mostly worked, but the structure of the match didn't hold up to the match they kept weirdly switching into and out of.

-Kenny wearing that XXXL t-shirt on the apron like a fat kid at the community pool was a harbinger of doom for that trios match. It dipped in and out of being good or being not good, and I liked how Jurassic Express basically took 80% of the match, but there were too many things that fell short (no Marko joke intended). Marko and Jungle Boy had nice follow through snap on their ranas and headscissors, but I am getting genuinely tired of Luchasaurus. He works like Lance Archer working like Jungle Boy, with a slow and shoehorned stand and trade and thigh slap spot jammed into every single match. Most of his offense (especially his kicks) looks bad and Stunt/Boy's timing always gets bogged down by it. The snap dragons for everyone spot was cool, and I love the different ways Marko folded on both of his, and the alley oop rana by Marko from the floor to the ring looked great (well, the rana itself, the timing of getting him up to the rana stuttered a bit). But Marko needs to hit everything real flush for it to make any kind of sense, you can't just whiff entirely on a 450 and then go for the pin anyway. At least when Kidman would botch the shooting star it would end with him kneedropping a guy in the balls. 

-Well Cage/Moxley certainly stunk. Moxley worked the match like he was shot full of tranquilizers, and Cage came off like another large AEW guy who works shitty combo sequences instead of JUST BEING BIG. Moxley looked so bored taking every piece of Cage offense, that even stuff that should have looked punishing just came off bleh. Moxley took two hard bumps on a guardrail and a suplex through a chair, but he sold all of Cage's offense as if he was annoyed that he got called into work. Cage always has impressive spots, but he strings them together so quickly that he forces Moxley to undersell a lot of it, which just makes Cage look like a goof. It's the Kurt Angle curae of laying out a match so that your signature offense never actually looks like it is damaging your opponent. Nothing in this match had any kind of consequences, no kind of move was treated as if it had any effect on either of them. It was a smart strategy for Moxley to work an armbar, since Cage always looks one movement away from a triceps tear, but this match stunk. Cage worked hard, if misguided, but Moxley was not interested and it made both look bad.