Literally until the last minute, minute and a half of last night’s AEW “Dynamite,” I was settled on not watching this weekend’s Ring of Honor “Final Battle” pay-per-view, for lack of general interest.
They still don’t deserve my dollars for the way they suckered me in.
We’re getting another FTR-Briscoes match on Saturday, this one a dog-collar match, so that’s the good news.
That it’s coming after FTR had to do a clean job to The Acclaimed in last night’s main event, and we didn’t even get an appearance from the Briscoes, whose inclusion on the pay-per-view was brought to us courtesy of a nonsensical cameo by the Gunn Club, is just another example of bad booking from one Mr. Tony Khan.
I had assumed going into the show last night that the FTR-Acclaimed match was going to be used to get us to an FTR-Briscoes match on Saturday, or at least that the match should be used to go in that direction.
(You don’t want to assume anything that makes sense with Khan at the controls.)
In line with that thinking, I’d assumed that Khan would have the Briscoes show up at the end of the match to do something to cause FTR to lose, making it logical that they’d have to settle things with a grudge match at “Final Battle.”
Or they could just do what they ended up doing, having FTR lose on a roll-up pin that made no sense at that point in the match – cue Jim Cornette saying, lazy booking – and then having the Gunn kids on screen for no reason to tell us that the Briscoes want a match with FTR.
It’s odd enough that the show on Saturday is airing at 4 p.m., because there’s a Manny Pacquiao exhibition boxing show on PPV at 8 p.m., and that one is seen as a bigger draw by the pay-per-view company – and to be honest, it probably is, as much a bad sign as that may be for Ring of Honor.
I mean, seriously, a friggin’ exhibition boxing match with a guy whose heyday was 10 years ago.
The rest of the card for “Final Battle” would make for a decent two-hour “Rampage”:
- Chris Jericho vs. Claudio Castagnoli for the ROH title, with Castagnoli having to join Jericho’s latest buddy group if he loses
- ROH Pure champ Daniel Garcia vs. Wheeler Yuta for the millionth time
- women’s champ Mercedes Martinez vs. Athena
- ROH TV champ Samoa Joe vs. Juice Robinson in the other match of the night
- Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee vs. Shane Taylor and JD Griffey
Basically what I’m saying here is, that show isn’t worth $39.99.
FTR-Briscoes alone is worth $39.99.
AEW News, Notes and Observations
- William Regal was formally written off AEW TV in an odd segment last night in which he revealed in an interview that we were told was taped two weeks ago that he helped MJF win the world title at “Full Gear” to put the target on MJF’s back, to teach one last lesson to his guys at the Blackpool Combat Club about needing to always watch their backs, and to get the BCC to realize that they didn’t need him. None of that made even a lick of sense. Seriously, it came across like Regal was reading a Mad Libs out loud.
- Backstage news on Regal: his release allowing him to return to WWE was a conditional release, Khan revealed in a pre-“Final Battle” media call on Wednesday. Meaning Regal can’t appear on WWE TV until 2024 at the earliest.
- The only good booking of the night last night: the MJF-Ricky Starks dueling promos segment. The back-and-forth highlighted Starks to a degree that hadn’t been done to date in his time in AEW, showcased him as a future star, and makes you actually look forward to their match next week at “Winter is Coming.” The usual script for throwaway AEW title matches is, just have the match, people will watch. It’s only one week, but this was an actual effort to get people to care. How about doing more of this?
- Samoe Joe defeated Darby Allin to retain his TNT title. First, to Darby Allin: kid, you’re not going to be able to walk at age 30 if you keep this up. (Allin turns 30 in January.) Cut it out with taking every crazy bump under the sun. We get it; you’re undead. But one day, you’re going to regret it, and that day ain’t far off.
- Next: Samoa Joe. Joe, as mentioned above, is defending his ROH TV title on Saturday against Juice Robinson. So why is Wardlow making the save for Darby Allin in the postmatch beatdown? Joe has a match to sell with Juice Robinson in three literal days. It’s almost like they don’t care if we give them money.
- The Jamie Hayter sit-down interview with Tony Schiavone. Did anybody else notice the several hard edits in what was otherwise a painfully short and uneventful interview? There’s a reason she’s been booked with Britt Baker, an elite-level heat magnet on the mic. Hayter looks the part, but she can’t talk the part. Whoever thought we needed her to complain her way into getting this sit-down didn’t do her any favors. (Depending on who that was, maybe that was the plan?)
- Jade Cargill: How about flipping the script and having Jade at the head of the world title picture, and someone else leading the field challenging for the TBS title? Jade looks the part more than any woman has since Chyna in the late 1990s, can talk her ass off on the mic, and she’s more over than any woman on the roster. The contrast with her and Hayter is glaring.