All Embarrassing Wrestling

I'll admit, I was late getting onto the wrestling bandwagon. Heck, some would say I've boarded the train just when many were getting off.

It was the summer of 2018. I'm the artist type- I have a fictional world that I write about, so I have a natural tendency to want to "create".

Anyway, in June 2018, my brother noted to me that in the video game WWE 2K18 you could create wrestlers, with a pretty expansive creation suite. That was enough to hook me on to the game, and, lo and behold, I did wind up spending countless hours creating wrestlers, arenas and wrestling shows.

Then it came to us that since we enjoyed the game so much that maybe we should give this wrestling thing a watch. We had tried before- because we have friends who are big wrestling fans- but every time we'd try to watch World Wrestling Entertainment we kept seeing a show that was sophomoric and stupid ("sophomoronic" is the word I like to use), plus the whole "it's a fake sport" was a major turn-off.

...but, this time, my brother and I said, "we enjoyed the game so much that maybe we should give it another chance". So we did.

After giving in- the first day was June 18, 2018, the day after that year's Money In The Bank- we were hooked, because we realized that, despite the flaws WWE had, they really knew how to put on a good show.

Since that year and change, my brother and I have been "students of the game", trying to soak up as much as we could about the industry and its history that we hadn't been exposed to. We soon came to realize that we'd been too dismissive of the industry and that when wrestling is at its best, it can be an entertaining and creatively fulfilling adventure.

Why do I mention all that?

Because I feel I need to provide some context before I write about what was supposed to be "wrestling's next chapter" and that is the debut of All Elite Wrestling's weekly show, AEW: Dynamite.

I don't think there's been a more anticipated debut than that of Dynamite, as the talk surrounding AEW is that it was seen as the first "real" competitor that WWE had since World Championship Wrestling in the late 1990s. The talk was more than just hyperbole- just like WCW had the likes of Sting and Ric Flair and loads of other high profile acts that cemented its legitimacy, AEW was led by Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks, who were seen as the darlings of the non-WWE wrestling universe, with Omega often hailed as the best wrestler outside of WWE (if not the best wrestler, period).

Personally, I was ambivalent towards the company. Sure, I too began to think the WWE could benefit a "real" competitor- its TV ratings were stagnant and, once the novelty wore off, I too began seeing how "stale" WWE programming had become- but I also didn't think another "major" wrestling promotion was necessary. After all, I felt the WWE already had other competition in the form of other forms of entertainment, and while there may not have been another "major" promotion, with the Internet, it wouldn't have been hard for wrestling fans to find something else- at least not as hard as it would be in the 1990s.

...but, hey, competition is good, right?

Unfortunately for AEW, as soon as they began promoting themselves, I began to sour on them. Right from the outset, the AEW guys mastered the PR art of talking big without providing any substance. They'd always talk about how they'd have "this next big signing" or that they have this "really great deal lined up" without ever once mentioning specifics. The rumour-loving wrestling media ate it up, but I wasn't fooled.

Still, I said that the company still deserved a chance because even if the people who ran the company were a bunch of blowhards, if they put on a good show then all that won't matter.

Besides...Omega is very talented wrestler, and AEW did manage to snare the erstwhile Dean Ambrose (now known as Jon Moxley).

What could go wrong?

Turns out, on opening night, all of it.

Right from the get-go you had a presentation that screamed "we're too full of ourselves", with an ostentatious but clearly cheaply made stage and an even worse designed ring.

I mean, AEW didn't even try to mask the fact that the ropes were actually bungee cords. At least in a WWE ring they look like actual ropes.

So, OK...stage looks pretty bad. What about the announcers?

Well, if your idea of a quality commentary team is an ancient has-been in Jim Ross, a shameless company man in Tony Schiavone and a luchador who's only there so AEW can say they have a "diverse" team, then the AEW commentary group is for you.

If you were looking for actual broadcasters who knew how to be professional and give you insightful commentary on what's happening in the ring, look elsewhere.

All right...but that's just semantics, right? What about the storylines and the booking? The buns on the AEW sandwich?

Apart from an engaged and impassioned delivery from the still very young Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF) during his promo, the "story" you got from AEW offered very little of anything.

The show started with a rudimentary promo featuring the two combatants of the opening match- Sammy Guevara and Cody (no last name now). Sammy was seen working out and delivering some tired lines about how he'll win, and Cody was in a mock interview where he claimed he wasn't looking past Sammy towards his scheduled title fight against Chris Jericho next month (as Cody would lose that opportunity if he lost to Sammy).

Basic stuff...even for WWE writing.

The rest of the promos weren't any better. They were your standard heel fare, the tired trope of "you fans suck/your city sucks", and all it were versions you've heard much better before. They also were painfully overacted and stilted, as it was clear none of the performers had ever learned that a "natural" performance is the only one that actually feels real.

OK...all except MJF. He had his delivery down to a tee, reacting well not just with the crowd but to them as well, plus he was very good at ad-libbing. He sounded very much like a seasoned actor, commanding his presence like the best performers, and I don't just mean those in AEW or even WWE. If wrestling doesn't work out for MJF- and I believe it will, because I'm sure the WWE will nab him- he's got a few Oscars with his name on it.

Hey, the man's this good at just 23. Think of the potential.

Having said that...seeing how good MJF is makes me wonder how much he should put up with the clowns of AEW. Like Omega, he's clearly wasting his talent in AEW and you'd think at some point he'll actually want to be a big fish in a big pond.

So, the promos were bad...but, what about the booking?

I think all you really need to know about the booking here is the Sammy-Cody match. Here was an opportunity for Cody to really put over a young up-and-comer (Guevara is only 26) and prove that, even though it's Cody's company, that no one is "bigger" than the company.

Fine...I get that Cody needs to win the match so that he can keep his match-up with Jericho...but at least Cody could have done it in a way that makes Sammy look good.

Instead, we got a spot during their match where Sammy is outside of the ring and Cody attempts a suicide dive onto Sammy. During that spot, Sammy sees Cody's attempt (too soon by my estimation) and steps aside, pulling Cody's wife, Brandi, into Cody's path so that Cody hits her instead of Sammy.

Well you can guess what happens next- the chorus of boos. Sammy was buried, because at that point there was no way the crowd was going to get behind him and not cheer on Cody. It also meant that Sammy's loss in the match was inevitable, and, given that he's a heel now, he's probably doomed to being a midcard jobber because the audience didn't get behind him nor sees him as a threat.

Granted, such booking isn't bad per se- but Sammy's opponent was no regular opponent. It was Cody freaking Rhodes, one of AEW's corporate executives and arguably already one of the promotion's biggest stars. Cody didn't need any boost in the crowd's eyes- he's already near the top in their eyes- so why Cody decided to book the match where only Sammy could look bad is beyond me. I guess there's the whole "underdog" thing, but it's hard to label a top star as an underdog.

This was Cody's ego taking control of the promotion, and it's not a good sign.

As for the rest of the booking...well, we had multiple brawls and assaults, including Jericho assaulting Cody after the latter's match. None of them were particularly exciting or engaging, as they didn't do anything except the fake fisticuffs you see too much in wrestling anyway. Maybe some fans like this kind of stuff, but I find it boring. Wrestling is fake fighting, and fake fisticuffs never look right. Bottom line, if you're going to book a brawl, throw in some moves or something to at least make it somewhat watchable.

The only brawl that had a noteworthy moment featured two performers who know a thing or two about how to sell a wrestling match in general- Omega and Moxley, two veterans of the business. That one featured an amusing spot where Omega whacked Moxley with a mop (I guess Omega is "mopping the floor" with Moxley?) and another spot where Moxley threw Omega into a "glass" table. They still did it at half-speed and looked kind of botched, but at least it broke the monotony of the other "fake fights" that looked so bad, no action film would ever use them.

All right...so the booking and storytelling is bad. So what? It's the matches themselves that count, right?

Except...what were the matches we got from Dynamite?

I should mention before I get into the actual specifics that AEW has long presented themselves as wanting to have more of a "sports" feel than WWE. It's akin to the winning strategy of WCW, which pioneered the cruiserweight division as well as more athletic, high-flying acts that the WWE had ignored before WCW came around. Of course, helping WCW in that regard is that they had a very young Rey Mysterio, Jr. plying his trade for the company, a man who'd go on to revolutionize wrestling as a whole.

Unfortunately for AEW, they have no Mysterios in their midst. They don't even have anyone close...or anyone revolutionary, for that matter.

Let's start with the "sports feel" thing- in actual sports, there are actual rules and regulations that state that when a performer does a certain thing, it has a certain consequence. Like how in basketball if a player throws the ball out of play it goes to the other team- no exceptions.

Now, I grant that wrestling, being scripted, can ignore or follow the rules as they need to. The WWE has "rules" for their matches, but they're not always uniform, depending on the story. That said, the WWE still tries to maintain some semblance of continuity with its rules, being pretty consistent with things like outside interference or introducing weapons into a "regular" match leads to disqualification. The rule that says performers can only spend 10 seconds outside of the ring gets haphazardly applied and tag matches can become circuses as who's "legal" becomes unknown, but, for the most part, you can follow along with a WWE match and know how it's supposed to work.

AEW? Omega's tag match with his team and Jericho's team was interrupted by Moxley, who pulled Omega out of the ring so they could "brawl", which would normally lead to a disqualification but the referee paid no heed to it. Nyla Rose could bring out scores and scores of chairs out on to the floor during her match- and even intend to throw her opponent, Riho, on to them- but the referee was indifferent, only casually telling Rose she can't do that.

Stuff like that makes me wonder if there are rules in AEW...and if they're going to be this haphazardly applied, that certainly doesn't make them very "sporty" does it?

Of course, if the in-ring action was great, it can make up for all the spotty refereeing we saw...and we didn't even get that.

Not once did a moment in a match take me out of my seat or even make me pause to take notice...everybody was slow, contrived and lacked any kind of cohesiveness. Yes, there probably were nerves about putting on a good show but if they're professional athletes, they should be able to handle that pressure and do it anyway. Not only did none of the AEW guys manage to handle the pressure, few of them looked like they belonged in a wrestling ring, let alone show they had some kind of actual wrestling talent.

I'll give Omega and the Young Bucks here a pass because their match was cut too short, but that's it- the moves you watched in a AEW match paled in comparison to the free-flowing, eye popping gracefulness that you'd see when wrestling is actually at its best.

Nowhere was AEW's lack of talent more apparent than in the Rose-Riho match. I've gotten this far without mentioning that Rose is the first openly transgender wrestler in known history, and I did that because I don't think her being transgender really matters. This isn't actual competitive sports where issues like biology could actually matter- it's a scripted fight, after all.

It also shouldn't make her more "special" than other wrestlers, as AEW's promotion seemed to suggest. She's just a human being, and I bet she wishes the "transgender" stuff would just go away so that people could see her as a wrestler, period.

Even then...well, she may have made history but watching Rose shows me she's not much of a wrestler either. No, diving off the top rope and landing on top of your opponent on your belly is not an athletic move.

Not when you see the likes of Samoa Joe doing a roundhouse kick or Keith Lee- all 320 pounds of him- doing a backflip over the top rope.

Criticize the WWE all you want about how they rely on "big guys" too much...but once you see what those "big guys" can really do, you realize how special an athlete those guys truly are.

There is, frankly, nothing at all athletic about Rose, who did nothing except be an obstacle for Riho. So much so that it sure felt that Riho was wrestling an actual wall.

I'm not going to take Riho off the hook either. She moved...she was fast. Agile. Was very acrobatic. She probably does have some athletic ability in her, but as far as wrestling training goes, she's got a long way to go. None of her moves really made her stand apart, and her style made me think she's very much a "second-rate Kairi Sane". Not a "poor woman's Kairi Sane"...a talent that says "we couldn't get someone of Kairi's calibre, so we got her".

If she's AEW's women's champion- and Rose deemed her best challenger- what does that say about how good the rest of the division is?

I could go on...there were plenty other things that were wrong with Dynamite that I didn't get to, but this post is long enough and my point has been made. Through watching the program, I honestly felt I was watching the worst of the WWE when I tried to avoid it- minus the tawdriness. The AEW people had no charisma, no spectacle, were poor storytellers and had no idea how to run a match.

This was a trainwreck through and through.

Sure, it's just the first episode and things could get better...but given how much AEW's executives were pompous jerks who believed they've already won the war with WWE, I don't hold out much hope that it will get any better because I doubt they truly see what's wrong with their product.

...and that just might be the real shame tonight.

-DG