AEW DYNAMITE HITS & MISSES (11/29): Danielson on commentary, MJF’s serious promo, Toni Storm’s gout, Censorship Fail, Swerve vs. White, more

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If there was ever pressure on AEW to right the ship, it is now. Whether C.M. Punk succeeds or fails in WWE should be irrelevant to them, and I hope Tony Khan and the wrestlers on the roster just move on and put all of their focus on making their product as good as it can be. On Wednesday night, the Continental Classic continued with some intriguing matchups while the MFJ-Devil storyline and the Christian-Copeland programs are expected to continue. Let’s get to it!

HITS

DANIELSON ON COMMENTARY

While I usually like the commentary on AEW programming as it is, adding Bryan Danielson to the desk for the Continental Classic matches was a genius move. He knows exactly what to get across to the audience and adds an element of authenticity and importance to whatever he says due to his track record in the sport.

PROMOS FROM TOURNAMENT WRESTLERS

I was very pleased to see some of the promos from the wrestlers showcased on Dynamite to further elevate this tournament. Eddie Kingston’s was amazing (as usual) and it allowed Danielson to respond to the promo to set up that match. Great job by Danielson showing fire as well. Just fantastic stuff there. I see Kingston crawling out of an early hole to at least make the semifinals.

MARK BRISCOE

Credit to Rush for an exceptional hard-hitting battle, but Mark Briscoe continues to impress me as a single. He really has the feel of a guy who can build into a big babyface star with the way he sells and the way he fights back despite losing. Plus, I’ve never seen any wrestler lose chewing gum on the mat then just suck that baby right back up – with his mouth.

TONI STORM’S GOUT

They are keeping the Toni Storm segments short and sweet, which is a good decision and another first for me with the mention of a wrestler suffering from gout. First time I’ve thought about gout since Adam Sandler’s lunch lady land sketch on SNL. (Available on YouTube — RIP Chris Farley!) Taz throwing out a “that gout can be rough” was a nice touch.

MJF’S PROMO

Best, most serious, and most intense promo from MJF in a long time. He checked every box in what you want to do in a promo to set up a big PPV match. As for the Devil’s minions, it was a little sloppy as it seemed like there were some technical issues, but I got the gist of it and it was nice to see MJF declare he was going to go after the minions rather than allowing them to keep causing problems week after week. I’m curious about what’s going to happen next week.

SWERVE VS. WHITE

It was a very enjoyable main event between Swerve and Jay White. Both guys are exceptional talents and the way this was booked had me going back and forth thinking each guy was going to win multiple times. It took me on a ride and, when you add in Danielson’s commentary, you have a memorable main event.

MISSES (LIKE, LITERAL MISSES)

JULIA HART’S MISS

There wasn’t much that I would call a “miss” from this show, but I suppose “missing” on your finisher counts as Hart placed Sakura too close to the corner to hit her moonsault fully. Credit to Sakura, the veteran, for trying to move herself into a better position to help Julia look better, but it still suffered and the crowd didn’t pop as you would have expected had it been clean.

THE CENSOR’S FINGER

Ah yes, yet another miss was the sensor’s finger when Adam Copeland dropped the F-bomb. Can’t think that was intentional!

MISSING PROMO’S

As mentioned above, Eddie Kingston’s promo after his loss in his first match in the Continental Classic was fantastic, but there were other promos that were on the YouTube preview show that absolutely should have been shown on Dynamite. Brody King and Daniel Garcia were also great as they spelled out why the tournament means so much to them. SHOW THESE!!

What I loved about this episode of Dynamite was there was no nonsense on the show. The matches were serious. The promos were serious. It had an important competitive feel to it. This is what I want from a wrestling show at this point in my fandom and I got it on this episode. Last week, it seemed like they felt the need to offset the serious tournament matches with “sports-entertainy” stuff. This week, they did not and it was a much better show for it.

I’m looking forward to further discussing this show along with all the happenings in AEW with Joel Dehnel (who attended Dynamite in Minneapolis) on Friday’s edition of The All-Elite Conversation Club. Look for it on the PWTorch Dailycast’s podcast feed!

OR CHECK THIS OUT AT PROWRESTLING.NET: AEW Dynamite results (11/29): Powell’s live review of Jay White vs. Swerve Strickland, Mark Briscoe vs. Rush, and Jon Moxley vs. Jay Lethal in Continental Classic tournament matches