The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 07.12.23

The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 07.12.23

Live from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Well sort of. I’m not going to bother with a full review of the TV version tonight, but I’ll see if I can pull together enough from memory and fast-forwarding through the DVR.

First up, yeah, the crowd was really small. Tickets dropped to Buy One Get One this afternoon, at $15 each, and I think they ended up with about 2500 people in the building. As you might have seen from my pictures on Twitter and Instagram, the entire hard camera side of the arena was empty and most of the lower bowl opposite the stage as well. Watching it back a little bit tonight on TV, I think they actually did an impressive job of making it look reasonably full for TV with the lighting and camera angles.

The merch stand was the usual subpar selection that they had in Winnipeg and I already had both Canadian tour shirts and I was explicitly forbidden from buying the Scissor Me Daddy Ass shirt EVEN THOUGH I WANTED TO, so I went home empty-handed. I literally have 20 or 30 AEW shirts from the All Elite Crate anyway, but for a t-shirt company they need more t-shirts at the shows.

I was actually sitting in the first section beside the empty hard cam side, behind the sound and light board, which as it turned out was filled up with people acting as seat-fillers. So when they needed more plumping of the crowd on the camera side, a PA would wrangle a bunch of people and send them over to the camera side until it was basically just me and my family left in the area. Fine by me, I hate people. Before the show my friend Donovan texted me wanting to know if I would like to sit with him front row on the camera side (he’s the guy in the white ball cap on the left hand side of the front row) but I felt it was more important to be there for my daughter so that she’d know what to do when Adam Cole did his thing. It’s an important responsibility as a father to teach a child the right time to go “BOOM!” in time with the music.

Dark matches were Taya squashing some local geek and Kip Sabian squashing another local geek, and I think he was the same geek who also worked Dark Elevation for the Winnipeg taping.

Winnipeg was definitely a louder atmosphere and a bigger crowd and nothing on tonight’s show could touch that three-way trios title match, but this was a fun time and I didn’t feel particularly burned out by the end of the show, and neither did the rest of the crowd. Everyone actually stayed for Rampage and the energy was pretty good all the way through that as well.

Chris Jericho v. Komander

Kind of a weird match, in that Jericho was a huge babyface to start and the crowd was actually kind of quiet, but during the first PIP commercial break he completely heeled on the crowd, prompting a “Winnipeg Sucks” chant that was a recurring theme through the night. I don’t disagree. Before the match, I told my wife that she’ll like Komander, and that proved true, as once he started flipping and ropewalking all over the ring, she was sold. And although I was getting worried that Komander was going to slip on the ropes and break his damn neck a few times, Jericho sold a ton for him and they ended up having a pretty good match before Jericho put him away with the Walls. I’d go *** or so.

Don Callis and his magnificent douchebag droning “music” was of course booed out of the building, although the footage of the Bad News Allen stuff from 1995 was nice to see. My daughter liked his sparkly shoes, though.

The Hook/Jungle Boy thing was weird and no one really understood what happened with the car. Did they explain it on TV at all? It just looked like Jungle Boy left the car and then it drove off. Do these people not know how to get in and out of cars?

The skit with Adam Cole and MJF got over huge in the building, especially MJF’s pathetic “You need to have friends to play multiplayer” lament. He was CRAZY over as a babyface and I still think they should run with it while the iron is hot.

Darby Allin & Orange Cassidy v. Daniel Garcia & Sammy Guevara

Another fun match! Felt like more of a showcase of Darby Allin, since Orange will be occupied with other things shortly, and of course SNEAKY SWERVE hits Darby behind the ref’s back and the JAS advances. A perfectly serviceable but ultimately forgettable tag match that seemed like **1/2 or so. The series of cradles at the end was great fun but there wasn’t much to this one and really you need a heel team in the finals. Also I was hoping to finally get to see Sting live because this is probably the last chance for it, but not tonight.

Big Bill & Brian Cage v. MJF & Adam Cole

This was such a good match in the arena. Everyone was going nuts for MJF’s bodyslam storyline, once again showing that sometimes less is more and you don’t need to go over the top with every match. Even as a sarcastic and (probably) insincere babyface, MJF is tremendous in the role and BY GOD we are all waiting for that double clothesline whenever it happens. Adam Cole’s entrance is another bit of surrealness in the half-empty arena, as it looks normal on TV but it’s bizarre to see him doing the whole routine to literally no one but the camera operator and some crew members. I guess it’s like when actors have to react to a green screen in James Cameron movies or whatever. This wasn’t the BEST match of the night, but it was by far my favorite, with a simple formula and storyline that works, and Adam Cole gets progressively further into the dark side while MJF gets progressively further into the light side and something’s gonna give next week. I’d give the match *** and I hope Cage and Bill stick together for a while as a team.

Jake Hager giving up his purple hat because he’s so upset with Jericho was a surprisingly deep cut that I had to explain to my family (“You see, he really loves that hat…”) but given that Jericho ultimately didn’t choose Callis, it seemed like empty world-building. Maybe it’ll pay off though!

Ruby Soho v. Skye Blue

This wasn’t hugely over in the building or anything. It was fine and my wife liked both competitors. My daughter, who is 12 and has a Tik Tok attention span, was getting burned out on the show by this point.

Harley Cameron’s rap lesson was…there.

Swerve Strickland v. Nick Wayne

Nick Wayne unsurprisingly got over HUGE in the building, with people way into him by the end and “this is awesome” chants. The ending spots with the poison rana into the springboard cutter were incredible and Nick made himself into a star here before losing to the JML Driver. Swerve is of course great and there’s no shame in losing to him here, although now they really need to do something with Swerve. I’d go ***1/2

And finally for Dynamite, Kenny Omega let himself get beaten down to I guess build up more suspense for the reveal of the Golden Elite team, although clearly Kota Ibushi is far too beautiful to be seen in Saskatoon. And Kenny gave us a bonus good night and bang after the show went off the air. Pac is a completely sensible addition to the BCC as well and fits in perfectly.

Overall as a show this was perfectly fine and felt like a nice placeholder episode before all hell breaks loose with Blood & Guts next week.

Rampage was…Rampage. Keith Lee and Dustin had a decent match with 2.0 and Dustin was beloved by the crowd as always. Taya squashed another geek and set up a title match with Toni Storm at Battle of the Belts as she’s suddenly switched back to babyface in Canada. Takeshita mostly destroyed a local guy who was apparently Kenny Omega’s training partner. The crowd was pretty sick of seeing Don Callis by that point. Lance Archer mostly ran through Trent and the crowd was pumped to get a surprise appearance by Jake the Snake at ringside, and that set up another title match for Battle of the Belts. We did not in fact hear from the Dark Order as promised by Excalibur so I assume they’ll put something into the show before airing. And Willow had a good match with Athena to end the night.

A thumbs up show for me, which felt very mellow and laid-back for a wrestling TV show, and I do actually hope that they stay out of Canada for a while and build up some demand for the next time they come through. This was too much too soon and I would have been fine taking one trip to Edmonton or Calgary for a more important show. Saskatoon is only 330K population and the building is too big for something that’s not WWE, if we’re being honest. But it was nice to get a TV taping here and I’m very grateful for AEW coming here so I can say that I’ve been there twice now.