Bert Ogden Arena, Edinburg, TX
Commentary – Tony Schiavone, Kevin Kelly, Nigel McGuiness
Proving Ground Match
Eddie Kingston vs Bryan Keith
Who the hell comes up with this stuff? proving ground match? For a start they present Keith as unimportant, he doesn’t get an entrance, he loses every time and even when he is in a tag or multi man match he is the one that is pinned.
Eddie Kingston is the worst offender for the Japanese style, you chop me and then I’ll chop you and wait for you to chop me again spot, it looks silly and if you are a guy like Keith who is fighting for a title shot why would you let your opponent hit you? Ridiculous.
Kingston ended up winning the match which went for nearly 18 minutes, yes it went that long. I think the mentality in AEW is if you have a long match and made a good showing of yourself then that elevates you, it doesn’t at all.
Winner – Eddie Kingston
Character above all else elevates you and at some point you have to win some matches and receive an entrance at the very least otherwise Bryan Keith will always be looked at as unimportant if he is presented that way.
Tony Schiavone comes into the ring, Kingston doesn’t seem to be interested in talking and passes the interview on to Keith, Tony Schiavone announces that Keith is “All Elite” and is now signed to the company, maybe now they will present him as important on the show.
Bryan Danielson comes out and lifts Keith’s hand up like he is a winner, Keith looks a little confused by this, Bryan’s opponent tonight Hechicero is seen watching at the monitor.
A recap of Dynamite is shown of Jon Moxley getting ambushed by the stars of CMLL. A backstage promo from after Dynamite with Moxley plotting revenge on those resposible for attacking him, his Blackpool Combat Club teammates are coming for them.
Singles Match
Bryan Danielson vs Hechicero
It seems like Danielson is just getting to wrestle whoever he wants in his last year of wrestling in his career, one minute he wrestles NJPW legend Yugi Nagata now it’s CMLL’s Hechicero.
Hechicero is known in CMLL as a great technical wrestler, we already know Danielson is the world’s best technical wrestler so this went how you would expect with lots of grappling and counters.
The crowd were hot for this one, this was a great contest for wrestling purists. Hechicero pushed Danielson to his limit in this one. This was another long contest, the finish came after a bunch of pins and counters until Danielson finally wrapped up Hechicero for the three count.
Winner – Bryan Danielson
Hechicero was mad after the pin and attacked Danielson after the bell until Claudio Castagnoli made the save with Hechicero retreating.
Lexi is backstage with Daniel Garcia and FTR, Lexi asks if this trio is a permanent thing, all three men agree that it’s a good thing and seem like these guys will remain a trio.
2 on 1 Handicap match
The Outrunners vs Hook
Hook is fighting 2 men now, he is just so miscast in this role as a killer. The team of Outrunners are much bigger men than Hook. They have an old school look about them and would probably fit in Billy Corgan’s NWA really well.
Basically Hook threw these guys around the ring and ended up winning by submission. I don’t buy this at all, it looks unrealistic to me.
Winner – Hook
Tony Schiavone invites Jay Briscoe out to talk to him regarding last weeks match where he assisted FTR and Daniel Garcia to beat House of Black in the Cage match.
Briscoe put over Tony Schiavone and how much it meant to him to be interviewed by him. He talked about having his hand held high after helping his friends Daniel Garcia and FTR.
House of Black came on the screen with Malakai Black saying how much he loves magic and especially the magicians that make people disappear, Black said that’s what they were going to do to Jay Briscoe.
A package played of Adam Copeland and his Cope Open as well as his feud with his former best friend Christian Cage.
Singles Match
Serena Deeb vs Queen Aminata
Poor Queen Aminata, she is another talent on the roster that gets constantly beat and kind of has the same thing going for her as Bryan Keith from earlier on, she loses but has a match where she takes her opponent to the limit but always tastes defeat.
Even the commentary team try to talk up Queen Aminata, if she is coming close but loses every time, this isn’t going to do anything for her but make her matches very predictable
Tonight she had the returning Serena Deeb. This went exactly how I expected with Aminata coming close but unable to win with Serena Deeb winning via Submission.
Winner – Serena Deeb
Tony Schiavone calls out Swerve Strickland to the ring as he is one of the contenders for The AEW World Championship.
Prince Nana comes to the ring with Swerve with his trademark dance which never gets old. Tony asks about his upcoming match with Hangman Page.
Swerve ignores the question and brings up Black History Month, dropping names like Ron Simmons, even Kofi Kingston and ROH Women’s Champion Athena.
Tony gets back to the question about Hangman Page, Swerve says he is a man that’s in his way and after he beats him for a third time he will be Black History. Swerve asks Prince Nana for no interferences on his match with Hangman Page on Wednesday.
Toni Storm has a backstage promo from after Dynamite, she asks Luther for a match to show her technical ability to perhaps upstage Deonna Purrazzo who claims she is the best.
Singles Match
Red Velvet vs Vertvixen
Red Velvet normally finds herself in a similar role to Queen Aminata but tonight she is facing Vertvixen who has no entrance and is clearly enhancement talent so this looks like her luck is about to change.
Red Velvet wins with one of the weakest looking spin kicks, it didn’t even look like it connected. As soon as the match was over it was announced that she will be facing Toni Storm on Dynamite so now we know why Red Velvet was given the win tonight.
Six Man Tag Team Match
Christian Cage, Killswitch and Nick Wayne vs FTR and Daniel Garcia
Christian hasn’t been featured on the show lately which I don’t understand, he is the most entertaining performer on the show and a few weeks without him on the show has made the shows just seem like wall to wall wrestling with not much else going on.
Nick Wayne did the heavy lifting for his team early on in this match, getting chopped and beaten by FTR, all 3 men of FTR and Daniel Garcia did the Garcia Dance which infuriated Christian.
Garcia took punishment from all three men until he made a hot tag to Cash Wheeler who took it to Nick Wayne, Killswitch made the save trying to fight off FTR.
Christian and Co continued to use dastardly tactics behind the back of the referee all match to maintain control. Just as you thought FTR and Garcia were going to win it, Christian’s experience of being a heel would get them back in it.
AEW seems to be really pushing Daniel Garcia at the moment with him picking up wins weekly and playing the underdog role, I still find him very bland as a character. It came down to Garcia and Wayne in the ring with Garcia getting a sneaky pin to win the match for his team. It’s looking like Garcia will be the next one in line for a title shot at Christian Cage.
Winner – Daniel Garcia and FTR
Kev’s Thoughts – The last match match was long at around the 25 min mark, although entertaining, with that plus the other long wrestling matches on this show, I would ask the question, could you not back off on how long the matches are and invest that time into making the viewer care about the performers?
We are getting very little to zero storyline or anything to build a connection to the performers outside of a backstage interview with pretty much 90 percent of the time the promo is about beating the opponent.
I’m finding myself weekly getting frustrated at the show because it could be so much better but it seems to be doing the same thing week in week out, it’s not hard to see why the show can’t pull a rating.
