AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/3/21

What Worked

-I was most excited for Britt Baker/Thunder Rosa, and I thought it was worked exactly like it should have been. A lot of AEW women's stuff just turns into a series of iffy timed spots with minimal face/heel alignments, and it made this stand out more. Rosa should have dominated the match while Baker was reeling, and that's exactly what happened. Some parts went on a bit too long, some segments looked off (Rosa had a kick combo sequence where none of the kicks hit), but this was a good layout for them. I liked how Baker stumbled around ringside while taking her beating, liked the idea of whipping her hand into the ringpost to possibly affect her Lockjaw attempt later, and thought the Death Valley driver on the ramp looked mean. I wish Rosa would drop some of the iffy combos and stick to things like dragging Britt around in a cravat, and my favorite part of the match was Baker paying back that cravat, yanking Rosa's head into some nasty knees. Or was it Rosa's dropkick in the corner that Britt covered her mouth for when she saw how hot Rosa was coming in. Either way, more of that. 

-Hardy/Page tag was what it should have been. Luther missed a cannonball off the apron and hit an amusing avalanche (squishing Serpentico in the process, while Serpentico was waving his hands going no no no). Hardy was moving really well, thought his strikes in the corner looked great. Page still has the worst pescado, but Serpentico got wrecked by his spinebuster and lariat. 

-That wedding segment was far more entertaining than I expected. A lot of the inside jokes actually landed, and for what it's worth Sabian and Ford looked really nice. 

-Eddie Kingston is obviously a guy who is going to be great in a lumberjack match. They weirdly didn't have enough lumberjacks (Dynamite is swarming with wrestlers, how do they only have 10 people out there?) but Kingston makes use of the stip and kept throwing Archer out to his boys, and then caused a big ruckus one of the few times he was thrown out. The way Kingston got rolled back into the ring by Billy Gunn, then just scrambled back out to punch someone looked like King doing a Ronnie Dobbs tribute. Archer was pretty clunky setting up his offense here, but all of King's stuff looked killer. He was throwing these wicked knuckle punches and hard kidney shots, his Saito suplex looked monstrous, and I dug the backfist while Archer was preoccupied with Bunny. Archer didn't bring a ton to this, though I liked when he ran himself into the ringpost like a goof. 

What Didn't Work

-Battle royal was pretty uninspiring, hate the new battle royal style of 20 guys hugging the ropes so someone can run spots in the middle. Luchasaurus stood in place slapping parts of his body while guys ran into his limbs, then couldn't lift Stu Grayson on a chokeslam elimination. John Silver really flew on his elimination, and Jericho's Judas Effect elimination on Darius Martin was timed really well and Martin really flew. But most of this was guys not really knowing how to fill time before most decided to leap over the ropes within one 2 minute stretch. 

-I'm still not quite sure how this Sting stuff is supposed to make me feel. I don't know if I understand the payoff here. There are several 60 year old luchadors I like who wear face paint, but they all bleed in dirty rings. There's a high bar for 60 year old wrestlers right now. 

-Main event was a real mixed bag, filled with some big spots and tons of big misses. All of the throws looked really great, especially that German suplex Pac gave to Omega after running him into the ropes. And a lot of the timing on big spots was great, but the execution on strikes was poor throughout the entire match. Fenix incorporates speed and cool spots into matches better than most, but every single kick he threw came up inches short. Omega's kicks had the same kind of curse, just no kind of contact, and that's been Moxley's game for a few years now. Gallows and Anderson not only can't catch dives, and they're even worse at getting into position for dives. At least KENTA showed up and missed a G2S by a foot. Fenix's tope con giro was the highlight of the match, but this was a match that had a lot of good highspots. It was all of the stuff tying the spots together that looked awful. Still, would probably make a cool 2 minute highlight video.