AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 9/9/20

What Worked

-Eddie Kingston used a microphone, obviously it winds up here. I giggled every time he yelled at the Lucha Bros. to separate.

-I like Joey Janela when he is a Jericho punching bag.

-ALL ELITE HEELS IS REAL!!!!! I saw something about it on Twitter weeks ago and thought someone made a hilarious meme.

-Dustin match goes up here, but it was close. Brodie Lee looked really bad here, looking like someone who had no idea where he needed to be and couldn't think of interesting ways to get there. Dustin made this as salvageable as it was, so basically Dustin turning in a typical Dustin performance gets this up here. If I wasn't lazy I would write the Dustin part here and the Lee part down below, but let's call it at 55% good. Lee stumbled his way through things and looked lame enough through parts of this that it made me think there's a chance he is pulling double duty as Luchasaurus. Lee had a bunch of moments where he was just waiting to take moves, with no artistry whatsoever. He telegraphs all of Dustin's offense by just standing perfectly still and waiting for it, just horrible at occupying himself. When he took Dustin's drop down uppercut he literally just bent at the waist with his head up, watching Dustin the entire time while standing still. What a fucking idiot. He was at his best when he was Godzilla, throwing tables and barricades into Dustin while Dustin scrambled to safety, Dustin throwing punches while working to avoid him. But Lee has been bit by that really contagious Dijakovic bug, that makes him chain together a bunch of offense that looks like total rehearsed shit. He make Dustin's bulldog look like shit, and the finish was especially risible. The finishing lariat looked good, but making Dustin bounce back and forth between the ropes and his boot might have sounded like a good idea on paper, but it was hilarious in execution. Dustin keeps this here - barely - and Brodie Lee's stock has fallen every single week he's been in AEW.


What Didn't Work

-You know who stinks in AEW? Luchasaurus. That's a guy who stinks up a match. I really thought he had made strides in Lucha Underground, but he is pro wrestling poison in AEW. He always throws off the timing of a match, as everyone slows down to work in his spots and he does bad slow versions of cruiserweight spots. It wouldn't be SO bad if any of his spots looked good, but the thing is, none of his spots look good. Fenix looked great doing Fenix things, loved his rope work and his big dive into Luchasaurus down the finishing stretch (that Luchasaurus caught by falling over), but the finish of this was as putrid as anything Luchasaurus did. This was one of the more idiotically laid out finishes I've seen in AEW. Lucha Bros. hit a package piledriver on Jungle Boy, the Fenix hits the dive, gets back in the ring, but Jungle Boy is apparently Actually Fine from taking a tandem package piledriver just seconds before, and tricks Pentagon into giving Fenix a flipping piledriver. Incredibly, impossibly stupid.

-I guess I should be glad that they didn't work a physical angle with Hardy, but once I saw Reby there with their child I thought "Oh man Matt Hardy is gonna get fucked up". And I'm a monster because I am left disappointed by a man who clearly got a very bad concussion did not get nuked on TV a few days later.

-Jack Evans has just been on the roster, not being on TV? And he's not even wrestling tonight, just appearing at ringside? There are plenty of chuds on TV every week that should be replaced with Evans. Cassidy/Angelico (oh yeah, they still have Angelico too. I have not watched any episodes of Dark) was ehhhh. I liked Angelico's Jerry bump, but th Navarro sub looked like it was the first time he was trying it, and all of Cassidy's offense landed feather light. Then we end the segment with some Best Friends and this is firmly in the bottom half of the page.

-Not only do we get a segment showcasing Kip Sabian's comedy chops (and an unexpected Puf appearance), but Rusev/Miro is here and lemme tell you people, he's got something things to say about SOME PEOPLE UP NORTH. We know who HE'S talking about!! Get outta here. Bring someone in and do something other than that, ANYTHING other than that. Also, Miro is absolute wedding poison. Nobody should want him anywhere near an official role in their wedding. You'd think he wouldn't even want to be involved. THOSE PEOPLE UP NORTH had me do some stupid
wedding cuck angle. I'm going DOWN SOUTH to also then do a wedding angle.

-Boy, Hager/Sonny Kiss is an ugly style clash. Kiss has been great in trios matches, awkward in tags and singles, and Hager is not going to help him look good. I liked Janela's big bumps to the floor, liked Jericho getting run into a chair, but there was a lot of clunk in this tag.

-I did not anticipate FTR being this toothless in AEW. I'd rather see them Old School Tag Wrasslin on Main Event rather than these weekly talk segments and disappointing matches.

-You know what the women's division was missing? Someone with another awkward style that requires matches to come to a halt just so bad looking spots can be done. Well, they checked that box with Tay Conti! Capoeira almost always translates poorly to pro wrestling (I have been a fan of some Arturo Ruas matches, others I found his capoeira getting completely in the way). He submissions looked slow, her kicks looked bad. She hit one nice knee on the floor. And she's going to be a babyface? She feels like a natural heel to me, but hey, they seem to know what they're doing with this division.