AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/5/20

What Worked

-The tooth visual looked great. The usage of the tooth thing is down below.

-8 man was good, if underwhelming. Fenix had some typical Fenix impressive rope work, and I don't think I could ever tire of the way he leaps up to hit swantons or his great springboard dropkicks. The dive spots all came off big, Omega's snap suplexes looked good, this was all fine.

-I was not looking forward to the main event whipping, still think that MJF comes off like a tertiary bully from Boy Meets World. But Cody made this segment, and he made this segment pretty great. This segment wasn't going to work in the slightest with pulled belt shots. Those shots needed to land, Cody's body was going to need to show damage, and Cody's selling was going to need to be off the charts. And Cody made this work tremendously. It's weird, because if I was there live, and knew this was the final segment of the evening, I honestly probably would have just aimed to beat traffic. But I thought it came across as very compelling on TV. I especially loved the twist of handing a belt shot off to Wardlow, and how he delivered an absolute thundering shot for the 9th of 10 belt shots. MJF ending the segment with a nut shot and a hasty retreat through the crowd was icing, but this was all easily my favorite segment of the show.


What Didn't Work

-Best Friends and SCU are just not the teams I want to see featured. I've seen what they have to offer, I've been seeing it for years. It is hollow, it is empty, it gets This is Awesome chants and that's all that matters. Big moves happen as a way to lead immediately to a different big move, to be performed by someone who just took a big move. Rinse, repeat. Nothing ever comes off natural, it all comes off like a dance recital without dancers. There are always individual things that look good, here I liked Trent's spear after getting thrown into the guardrail, and Sky's dropkick into the sunset flip for the finish looked good, but the bulk of this stuff has not motive or meaning for me. It's all just movement.

-I was hoping they would bring in another tiny joshi worker who can't work well with Britt Baker, and this is a fed that gives me what I want. Sakazaki's diving lariat looked good, and the crucifix she won with looked like something that would be tough to get out of, but this was another Baker match with no flow and some ugly moments.

-Britt Baker knocking Sakazaki's teeth out of her mouth should have been played way bigger, it should have come off like a much bigger deal, and it should have been reserved for a much bigger moment. Sakazaki was the wrong person to put something like that over, as just sitting by the ropes holding your teeth in your open palm so the camera can zoom in and out on it with NYPD Blue camera work, just the complete wrong kind of energy and reaction for something that should have been a much bigger deal. Unless they're going to have Baker knock people's teeth out every week, this was a major wasted visual.

-Kip Sabian looked better this week than last, but this storyline has no chemistry from any of the participants. That's the way these love triangle storylines always seem to go, but this one feels especially blank. The kiss between Sabian and Penelope started out with a little bit of heat, but Sabian spoiled even that by constantly peeking at when Janela was going to get up.

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