H2O Last Extravaganza Night 1

The building is way too filled with fans, even if they are all wearing masks so off to a bad start, but I'm not one of the people there so whatever. One of the commentators starting the show by saying It's a packed house Covid be damned is also pretty stupid. Anyway time to watch guys get fucked up in a deathmatch tournament. A bunch of new wrestlers to get acquainted with so that's also a nice treat,

Mouse vs. Bam Sullivan vs. Connor Claxton vs. Eric Ryan vs. Aiden Baal

Some Deathmatches use the weapons to tell a story, sometimes it's a bunch of guys doing a bunch of cool shit and using weapons. This is the latter. The five man nature kind of necessitates that. We get some fun weapons as its vaguely kitchen nightmare themed and there are some tongs used, a board with a bunch of plastic forks on it and then more normal weapons. Including a Nerg Gun with a bunch of tacks on the bullets. Eric Ryan gets a short advantage and hits a bunch of cannonballs and face washes on everybody in the corners. The tables are turned and he gets beat up by everybody culminating in a tiger driver through the fork board. Bam Sullivan eventually gets the win with a spear through some kind of board for the three count.

A fine match, nothing special, but some good stuff throughout it. 4/10

Scotty Vortekz vs. Devon Moore vs. Lucky 13 vs. Drew Blood

This match starts off fast. Moore takes Blood to the outside then Moore stops a dive from Scotty in the ropes and Scotty powerslams him onto the apron whehn he charges at him. Lucky 13 charges and does a fosbury flop over Scotty to Moore on the outside. Both thumbtack strip boards have been broken already, but we've still got a barbed wire board and a barbed wire frame that's really going to suck. Blood and Scotty battle on the top rope and Blood gets the advantage and hits an air raid crash through the barbed wire table. A bunch of back and forth action from everybody that is some good hard hitting action including Moore hitting a great superplex on Blood. Scotty takes Moore out and hits a double knee on him and rolls through right into a cookie sheet shot from Lucky 13 who covers Moore for the win.

A fun and pretty damn good match between these four men. Would have been a good match even without the weapons which make it more fun. Only downside would be when Blood got thrown through the barbed wire frame he didn't really hit it very well. 6/10

Brandon Kirk vs. Orin Veidt vs. Alex Colon vs. Tim Donst

Colon and Veidt get tossed through doors in the corner to start it off then get up with the remains of the tables and smoke Kirk and Donst over the head then start brawling. We get a dive train that culminates in Colon hitting a suicide dive into a spinning DDT. Colon and Veidt are fighting over control of the door when Donst puts Kirk through it with a DVD. We get some back and forth action in the ring before we get a barbed wire board introduced. Veidt lifts Kirk up with a suplex and just chucks him through the board. Then he stops Colon on the top rope and carries him across the ring to hit an electric chair driver on top of Kirk. Donst and Veidt start exchanging chops in the corner. Donst superplexes Colon off the top rope and on top of Kirk. All four men grab a chunk of door and start going apeshit on each other in one of the coolest spots ever. Veidt climbs up the scaffolding next to the ring with Kirk draped over a door in the ring. Colon cuts him off with a door shot then climbs up and hits the flipping belly to belly off the platform through the table for the win.

This match was awesome. Just a great match between these four guys and a bunch of cool spots throughout it. They do a great job of managing the four people in the match and making it have a flow and story. Plus who doesn't love four dudes just beating the shit out of each other with broken doors? 9/10

Lowlife Louie vs. Mitch Vallen vs. Stockade vs. SHLAK

As the last match was a bunch of guys who are good at wrestling doing deathmatch stuff. These guys can't wrestle so they just brawl and do deathmatch shit. Mitch starts the match by beating the fuck out of Louie with different bats and busts him wide open. Shlak and Stockade both mess up piledrivers that they both no sell. Shlak pulls out a plastic bag and starts suffocating Louie then starts stabbing him with a baby railroad spike. Stockade hits a good German suplex. I didn't think he had it in him. Stockade sets up two chairs back to back then climbs up to the top rope and Mitch throws him off over the top of the chairs. Shlak grabs Mitch and hits a DVD through a chair then Louie smokes Shlak with a bat. Louie uses a modified La magistral to get the win.

This is like the classic bad old style of deathmatches where everybody just starts beating the shit out of each other with lots of blood. Granted Louie bleeds a lot which helps add to that kind of match and we get some cool spots. It's not my cup of tea, but I know it works for some people. 3/10

Ryan Redfield vs. GG Everson vs. Dylan McKay vs. Austin Luke

A fast paced match between these four guys with a lot of pinfall attempts and break ups early. GG gets the first advantage hitting McKay with a huge sitout spinebuster then a couple of cannonballs in the corner. Redfield and GG work together for a bit until Redfield breaks up a pinfall attempt from GG. Redfield wrecks McKay with a motherfucker of a lariat. McKay gets the advantage and hits a corner dropkicks on GG then Redfield and Luke hits a coast to coast dropkick on McKay as he finishes the dropkick. Redfield hits a rock bottom then a springboard moonsault on GG who does the laziest kickout ever. McKay and Luke teamup to hit a double stomp tower of London on Redfield. Dylan McKay throws Luke off the platform onto Redfield and GG taking everybody out then hits a shooting star press off the platform for the three count.

Can definitely tell these guys are still students and new at this stuff. They've got some good stuff they can all do, but it's not a very well put together match. There are a few botches and really awkward stuff, but promising from some young talent. 4/10

Jeff Cannonball vs. Kit Osbourne

Kit fails to move Jeff with a shoulder tackle so Jeff hits im with one and sends him through the stack of cinder blocks. Then puts one on Kit's back and breaks it with another brick. Then he crushes Kit's hand the same way. Kit makes a comeback targeting the leg of Jeff, but it evens out again. Kit then dropkicks a cinder block into Jeff's head then grabs a gusset plate for revenge and rakes his forehead. Jeff's draped over the middle rope and Kit slams a cinder block across his back breaking it. Kit starts using a bunch of the carpet strips as weapons and goes to town on Jeff's back. He then puts a block on Jeff's chest and hits a double stomp on it. Kit sets up a chair in the corner and climbs to the top rope, but Jeff pulss him off into a slam onto it. Jeff hits a sitout piledriver for a two count then pulls out some of the blocks from the corner and hits a second piledriver on them for the three count.

Good match from these two. It's the obvious story of a big wrestler against the smaller underdog, but it works really well and both of these guys put in the work here. Not sold on carpet strips as weapons, but I love the use of cinder blocks.7/10

Frankie Pickard (c ) vs Marc Angel vs. Sean Henderson vs. Xavier Cross vs. Steve Sanders vs. Jimmy Lloyd

This match is a mess. Which makes sense with how many guys are in the match. A lot of people flying out of nowhere to hit somebody and some standing around as some people aren't in the right spot at the right time. Once the ring clears out we some we get some good spots in the match. Sanders hits a piledriver off the top through a table. Lloyd sets a door up between the ladders and hits a spinning suplex through the door. He sets up another door over the some tables and Henderson comes in with a superkick and yakuza kick to stagger him then Henderson climbs the ladder and Lloyd follows him up. Henderson hits some punches then hits a Canadian Destroyer off the ladder through the table, but can't capitalize as he's hurt too and Pickard comes in and covers Lloyd for three.

Too many people and not enough idea of what they want to do with this match. There's some cool spots, but its nothing special. 4/10

Matt Tremont vs. Rickey Shane Page

RSP goes to the lighttubes early in the match and within the opening minute Tremont is busted open and gets wipped into the barbed wire and tubes. RSP breaks a lighttube in Tremont's mouth, disgusting. RSP keeps control and breaks a ton of tubes over Tremont. He sets some on the ground and hits a powerslam then grinds the remnant of a tube into Tremont's forehead. Tremont finally counters an Irish whip and sends RSP into the barbed wire. Tremont trips RSP into the tubes and goes to the outside. RSP tries for a tope suicida onto Tremont through the tubes, but Tremont moves. It's all Tremont now and he takes RSP to lighttube hell and just keeps smashing them across his head, chest, and back. RSP escapes a powerslam attempt and chokeslams Tremont onto a lighttube bundle. Tremont's wife comes in to stop RSP and kicks him in the balls then breaks a lighttube bazook over his head. The lockerroom comes down to stop 44OH from interfering.Both men are on their knees and exchanging lighttube shots, but RSP dodges both of Tremont's attempts. Tremont eats a ton of lighttubes, but counters when RSP goes for a move and hits an Angle slam onto a bunch of lighttubes. They both go up to the platform and brawl and RSP throws Tremont off through a stack of lighttubes, pane of glass, and barbed wire board. RSP covers and gets two. RSP then starts chucking all of the lighttubes at Tremont and mixes in all of his big moves and finally gets the three count with a DVD.

This match was fucking insane. They broke so many goddamn lighttubes in this match and it is all spectacle in this one. Halfway through the match every step they take is kicking away broken glass and sounds insane. Some deathmatches use good wrestling and spots to tell the story and sometimes its just a dude about to retire who's refusing to stay down against an asshole who keeps chucking lighttubes at him. Tremont plays the underdog against the guy on the indies everybody wants to see get their comeuppance. This has some fucking crazy spots that looked awesome and Tremont's never say die attitude in this match was dope. 10/10

There are a lot of pretty whatever matches on this show. All those multi-man matches aren't really the easiest matches to make work so its not really surprising to me. But the two matches that are really good are fucking awesome. Honestly everything on this show could have sucked except for the main event and it would have been worth it. It's a spectacle in the best way and has a great story behind it. If you like deathmatch wrestling at all you should watch this show.

AEW Dynamite One Year Anniversary Review and Year One thoughts

 

Dynamite is celebrating its one year anniversary of being on the air. AEW has been a breath of fresh air to the wrestling world and has delivered a lot of quality wrestling and entertainment during that time. It's not all sunshine and rainbows on the show though. Even without the pandemic messing things up there have been issues with AEW's booking in certain areas. The anniversary show is packed with every champion defending their title. I'm going to do a quick review of the anniversary show then do an overview of the first year of Dynamite.

Best Friends vs. FTR

Some back and forth in the beginning of the match and then Trent gets beat up by FTR for a bit as that's what he's best at. Trent hits Wheeler with a big clothesline, but Wheeler gets a tag and Harwood cuts Trent off before he can get the tag then gets him on the top rope and hits a huge avalanche belly to back suplex. Wheeler tags in for a two count then goes for a splash and Trent gets his knees up for a hot tag to Chuck. Chuck clears the ring then hits a big somersault plancha over the top onto FTR. Tully Blanchard interferes and FTR tries to get the advantage, but Trent comes in and makes a save for Chuck then they hit the Soul Food half and half suplex combo for a two count. Harwood takes Chuck off the apron and they double team Trent with an assisted powerbomb for two. Best Friends hit the Strong Zero and Wheeler barely breaks up the count at two for the save. Wheeler hits Chuck with a sick brainbuster on the outside and Trent hits a diving dropkick through the ropes sending Wheeler to the outside. Harwood ends up in front of an arcade cabinet and Trent charges and breaks through it. Wheeler carries Trent into the ring and Trent counters a shatter machine with a DDT. Rick Knox dodges out of the way and doesn't see Wheeler hit Chuck with the belt and Harwood rolls him up for a three count. Very good match between these two teams. I haven't been a fan of FTR in AEW so far, but they're definitely starting to fit in more and work with all the other teams better. The finishing segments were a little rough with some weird timing, but the idea of it was good. Definitely a great way to start the show. 9/10

Miro and Sabian beat up Best Friends after the match for breaking the arcade cabinet.

Miro & Sabian vs. Sean Maluta & Lee Johnson

Miro is just beating the shit out of both men. Sabian hits a splash then Miro locks in a camel clutch to get the submission victory. It's a whatever squash. 0/10

Miro and Sabian complain about Best Friends breaking the arcade cabinet and call them out. Then we cut to Archer beating up Moxley in the back.

After the commercial break MJF is out to make an announcement and brings out the Inner Circle.

We then cut to Britt Baker getting a massage alongside Schiavone who is interviewing her. We get her hyping up her comeback match and mocking Schiavone.

Cody Rhodes vs. Orange Cassidy

Cody knocks Cassidy's glasses off and Cassidy goes into the match pretty seriously with a tight lockup. Cody uses some amateur wrestling to take the advantage, but Cassidy uses some lucha rollups to get some close two falls. Cody hits a big front suplex and starts to bully Cassidy as we go to PiP. Cody hits a big hiptoss that sends Cassidy over the ropes to the outside. Cody gets mad at Cassidy's lazy kicks and shoves him back and gives Cassidy enough space to hit a real superkick that sends him to the outside. Cassidy hits a suicide dive that sends Cody near the Dark Order section of ringside and Silver steals the TNT title to hit Cody, but Cassidy stops him and the Dark Order get thrown out. Back in the ring Cody rolls through a crossbody block then sets Cassidy up for a cross rhodes, but he blocks it with a roll up. Cody hits a low dropkick then drags Cassidy to the corner and slams his leg against the guardrail. Cody hits a huge reverse suplex off the top and covers for two. Cassidy counters a ringpost figure four then climbs up to the top and hits a diving DDT for two. Cassidy hits a brutal Michinoku driver for a two count. Cassidy's knee gives out as he tries to lift Cody up and Cody grabs the leg and locks in a figure four. Cassidy rolls enough times to get to the ropes and break the hold. Cassidy lifts Cody up and hits an air raid crash on the apron. They get back in the ring and fight back and forth and Cassidy hits a bunch of his big moves, but can't get a pinfall before the time limit expires. A good match between the two men. I kind of started to lose interest when they showed Darby was getting a title shot at Full Gear and kept cutting to him in the stands because he has unfinished business with Cody and I figured Cody wouldn't lose the belt. Being the big powerhouse taking it to the smaller indy guys isn't really a style that suits Cody a lot, but it was okay here. Although it was also them seeming to go back to heel Cody that was teased in the initial title run then kind of went away when he started feuding with Brodie. 7/10

Moxley attacks Archer backstage to get revenge and let us know he's still good to go for the title match.

Matt Hardy is interviewed by Schiavone and we see Sammy Gueverra burning some pictures of Matt so that feud is still going on.

Schiavone is in the ring with Bryce and Paul Turner and a spinning bucket to determine the four teams in #1 contender match next week. Private Party, Silver & Reynolds, Butcher & The Blade, and The Young Bucks are the selections. Unsurprisingly all four teams start fighting.

Hikaru Shida vs. Big Swole

Match started with some technical wrestling between both women that looked really good. We get the action to spill to the outside and Swole gets a short advantage shoving Shida into the cameraman, but she quickly turns the tables and drops Swole over the guardrail and hits a jumping knee off the chair to Swole. Shida suplexes her over the guardrail to the floor then the action gets back into the ring. Swole misses a sunset flip powerbomb but shoves Shida off the top to the ramp and hits an ace crusher off the bottom rope then rolls Shida into the ring and hits another one for a two count. Shida hits a sloppy straight jacket german suplex then hits a falcon arrow and Swole kicks out at two. Shida hits some strikes then Swole blocks and hits a ripcord elbow for two. Shida ducks out of a second attempt and hits a big knee then a couple other sliding knees to get the pinfall. These two were a bit sloppy at times and the intensity was there, but not the execution. It was also noticeably shorter than the other title matches tonight, weird. 5/10

Jon Moxley vs. Lance Archer

Mox hits a quick DDT for two, but Archer is fired up and takes Mox to the outside. Mox fights free and rolls into the ring to hit a suicide dive. A bunch of brawling outside they go back inside and Mox hits a bunch of strikes and Archer shrugs it off to hit a Pounce that sends Mox to the outside. Archer sets up a pair of tables on the outside. Archer dominates for a while with some hard strikes before Moxley makes some space and hits a release german suplex then gets a chair and clobbers Archer. He sets up two chairs facing each other and Archer chokeslams him through the chairs. Archer takes Mox to the apron and sets up for a move, but Mox hits a low blow then hits a double arm DDT off the apron through the tables. Mox gets him inside and hits a paradigm shift for two. Archer escapes the bully choke and hits a DDT of his own for two. Archer gets Mox in the corner and hits the Blackout for a two count and Mox rolls him up on the pin for three. I hate this finish and AEW has used it a bunch of times already. I don't really love this kind of slugfest match and have never been much of an Archer fan. If you're going to do a no-dq brawl I need more reason for it to be no-dq than a few chair spots. 6/10

After the match Archer attacks Moxley, but Kingston has the Lucha Bros come in and make the save and starts cutting a promo about how great Moxley is. Then of course hits a backfist to the future and starts choking Moxley out. Lucha Bros stop the refs from coming into the ring so Kingston can choke him out.

The show started awesome and trended downward from there. I'm always going to be sad when Best Friends and Orange Cassidy aren't getting wins though. Sadly the women's title match was pretty sloppy and the main event was more of a slugfest than I like. A bunch of the segments throughout the show seemed pointless and could have been used to give future storylines some juice. A Nyla promo or some of the competitors in the number 1 contender tournament would have been a good idea.

The Elite are the bookers of the promotion and have made themselves important factors in the company. As you would expect from the people who were the biggest names in the indies and in the company when they started the promotion. Kenny Omega coming in as the biggest deal in wrestling has kept a pretty low profile beside being the tag champ for a good chunk of that first year. He's had some great matches in the company and as the tag team relationship with Hangman started to fall apart the fact that he was AAA Mega Champion started to get highlighted more and he had a couple of defenses of that title on Dynamite. Hopefully he starts to become more of a factor in the singles scene as he's one of the best wrestlers going today.

Obviously Hangman Page has had a similar role as Omega as the other half of the tag champs, but his status as an up and comer has really been helped by the tag run and has led to some good singles pushes for him and has also let him showcase his charisma outside of the wrestling ring with his angles. Like Omega, I'm hopeful he'll be moving further up the card in the singles run.

The Young Bucks have been really low key in most of their work in the company. They're always there and having good matches, but haven't been the focus of much except the feud with the Inner Circle. Currently they're feud with FTR has seen them attack somebody backstage and throw some money at AEW officials to pay their fine. Like Omega they also haven't had as much focus and chance to have great matches as I'd expect although their feud with FTR has been stretched out as it seems they're hoping to have fans for their inevitable confrontation. The biggest downside of that to me is the effect it has had on the Best Friends and their ability to win the belts. Best Friends have had big feuds, but they're not the biggest and they don't seem to have much chance of winning the belts as that's a minor issue in the bigger picture feud.

Cody Rhodes has had a lot of attention with big feuds and has been very over during his promos. I'm not a huge fan of Cody, but I can't deny that his work on the mic is very good and his work in the ring is good, but not something I'm a huge fan of. His style is largely like the WWE's that he left. Which isn't surprising, because he never changed much while working the indies or NJPW. He has wisely not put himself in a main event position and that is smart, and the crowd reactions to him justify his heavy usage. His big matches generally live up to the hype as he knows how to utilize bleeding and theatrics to make the matches work.

Outside of the Elite there are some talent I love that aren't being utilized as much as I'd like that I'll get to later, but the biggest problem with the promotion so far is the way they woman's division is booked. This obviously isn't a new observation about the company, but it needs to be stated. The women's roster started pretty strong, but a lot of the top tier talent are now stuck in Japan because of the pandemic and have left the company pretty devastated. However that's not a great excuse when there is a ton of great talent on the indies they can bring in and have started to do now. Hikaru Shida is one of the my favorite talents out there so I was excited when she won the belt, but her run as champion has been pretty uninspired despite having some really good title defenses against Penelope Ford and Thunder Rosa that kind of came out of nowhere. The matches have been good, but many of the storylines leading up to them have been lackluster and there only seems to be one feud focused on at a time for the the division. Nobody really has much experience running a promotion and a lot of the other divisions have been booked pretty half heartedly, but have a bigger roster that they have managed to make work with longer match times and better talent. WWE has done a great job signing the best talent they can find and Impact has an strong Women's division as well. AEW will have to spend a lot of time building up younger talent and they haven't really managed to do that yet.

Undeniably my biggest disappointment with AEW's booking is that the Lucha Bros are just a random midcard team. Part of that does seem to be due to the pandemic as they were set to team up with PAC and probably be a bigger factor, but they have always been on the periphery and haven't seemed to come back from that at all. They are two of the best workers with Pentagon being an amazing brawler and Fenix is probably one of the best all around wrestlers and the preeminent high flyer and rope worker right now. I'd have built the company around them so pretty much anything AEW did was going to disappoint me with them.

As I previously mentioned the Best Friends seem to be in a holding pattern along with Orange Cassidy. The Best Friends have been built up as big deals in the tag division and gotten their title shots only to be shunted aside for other feuds. First with FTR showing up in the company and now with the inevitable Young Bucks vs. FTR feud over the titles taking precedence. Their popularity has continued to grow and don't get their title run. It's a similar move to WWE where you have a very over group of wrestlers and you know you can just keep them near the top and the crowd will always pop for them whether they win the belts or not. It will work for awhile until they've just never won anything for long enough and the crowd gets embittered by it.

The World Championship has been booked really well. Jericho was a good idea as a first champion since people know who he is and Moxley as the second champ is an even better choice as he has been on fire in the ring and on the mic since leaving WWE. I don't always love his challengers and the matches they produce, but a lot of good stuff has come from the run so far, especially the recent hm Moxley since he didn't give up title match from Moxley since he didn't give up title match from Moxley since he didn't give up.

MJF is getting a push and I don't care for MJF so that sucks. I guess a lot of people really enjoy him so I don't really have a problem with it, but I just like to point out that I don't like MJF.

They do seem to like bringing in ex-WWE guys in too much and aren't really pushing the younger indy wrestlers they've signed enough. Kind of a weird complaint after talking about them pushing MJF, but it is what it is. Joey Janela, Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus, and Sonny Kiss have gotten stand out matches, but no real push despite a bunch of fan support. Cody's TNT title defenses against random indy people was cool as well as showcasing the less pushed talent on the show.

AEW is a good promotion and their shows have a lot of good wrestling on them and have produced some great matches in its first year. Maybe my expectations were too high, or were just different from what AEW was going to deliver. It's my second favorite promotion behind NJPW right now so it's in a good place, but it hasn't really gone the way I'd hoped and hasn't hit the heights I wanted just yet, but there is plenty of run left in AEW to improve.