AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/4/20

 What Worked

-The strong AEW tag opener is becoming a decent staple for them and has a higher than average success rate. This was worked around an extended Sammy Guevara hot tag and some really cool understated arm work on Ortiz, with MJF continuing to show that he's way more interesting working the little things into his matches than when he's just working "big reaction wrestling". He had a lot of subtle ways he would work Ortiz's arm, no big hammy arm attacks, just cool things like bending and trapping his wrist in painful ways while tagging in Wardlow. I didn't even know it would turn into an arm work match because he wasn't acting like it was a specific attack, and instead was just using it as a smart way to neutralize an opponent. Wardlow had nice little moments too, like the way he leaned into Sammy's big leaping hot tag knees or the way he delivered a nasty forearm to the back of Sammy's head to break up a pin. MJF and Wardlow are still bad at catching dives, both missing Sammy on consecutive flip dives (although Sammy was running through things so fast that it was genuinely difficult to tell where his landing spot would be, so plenty of people could have missed these), and Sammy figures out how to work around MJF's weak catching skills by later hitting a huge 450 lariat to the floor, and the lariat landing looked great. 

-I still don't understand any step of the Young Bucks/FTR build, but I liked the Bucks/Private Party tag. Private Party should be used as a team that has a couple nice spots before getting run the hell over, and that's what happened here. I enjoyed the way Matt worked in his tweaked knee (you know except they are heels and a heel working an injury in a match literally ALWAYS leads to crowd confusion), loved how Nick Jackson hit a superkick that stayed glued to the side of Marq Quen's face, and the BTE knee comes off - to me - like a way better finisher than the stupid years long setup Meltzer Driver. Confusion about the tag title build below. 

-Eddie Kingston. Live mic. Building the title match that he is in. Is there a safer bet in pro wrestling history? Incredibly, I thought Moxley brought just as much to this as Moxley. Eddie was going to bring the color, the emotion, and the emotional body language, but Moxley got under his skin without resorting to cheapness. Moxley bringing up King's mother was a great move, as it wasn't Moxley taking a cheap shot to trap Kingston into touching him, it was Moxley using a cruel weapon: a mother's disappointment. I've heard more than enough about Eddie Kingston's mother (how many times has Kingston sworn on "his beautiful mother's eyes"?) to know how big a deal it was for Mox to bring her up, and I loved this segment. Cannot wait for this match. 

-Butcher and the Blade backstage beatdown on Dustin/QT looked great, not many ways to build much more excitement for a match in 10 seconds than they did here. Butcher handled that cane like a samurai sword. 

What Didn't Work

-Not buying Miro as a singles guy at this point but I can't really blame them for trying. He had something at one point, and the jury is still out on whether he still has that something. The parts of this that worked felt like they worked because of Trent crashing when he was supposed to crash. I can't actually say that Miro looked good, although I would have thought he looked good if this was his second year. But he still comes off like a green monster who needs big bumpers. The finish looked great, as I loved a blown spot (intentional or no) leading to a finish, and Trent made his rope slip look really good, right before eating a big kick. I have zero insight into the popularity of gamer streams, so for all I know Miro the Twitch Streamer might be the biggest wrestling star by 2021. I'm not seeing it though. 

-So can someone explain FTR/Young Bucks to me? Young Bucks have been heels for over a month, but now FTR attacks them with their backs turned and Matt Jackson is going into the title match with a knee injury? I think the match has potential to be pretty great, and I think it can work great with either face Bucks/heel FTR OR heel Bucks/face FTR. But both teams as heels? Both teams as babyfaces who get cheered by acting like heels? Workrate faces who are just playing heels? None of that shit works and will tank a potentially good match. 

-I should be into Nyla Rosa squashes, but I am not. Something is missing. I always end up liking her opponent more in her squash matches, as it always feels like they are more responsible for whether her segments are a success or not. Red Velvet had a cool leg splits corner choke, and got driven super hard into the mat on a delayed sitout powerbomb. Again, Nyla's matches always just make me want to see more of the person being squashes. Also, Nyla's strikes over the guardrail on Shida post match, the final shots that are to lead into their big title match, looked incredibly bad so...

-I wasn't feeling Billy Gunn's kid so I opted to stop watching Dynamite tonight and watch 1993 Raw instead, which happened to feature Billy Gunn. Then I wondered how many guys in 1993 WWF are still wrestling as frequently as Billy Gunn in 2020 and...I guess PCO? Probably just PCO?