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AEW Dynamite Highlights – Nightmare Collective, Lexicons, And Dinosaurs, Oh My! (12/04/19)

AEW Dynamite

With so much to buy into with this week’s AEW Dynamite, it is hard not to find at least one moment to love from the evening. Crazy singles matches, a helluva tag team opener, more stables being formed, and the women’s division finally getting some proper focus. It is more than fair to say this week’s Dynamite was like a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers: a little bit of all of the best things the previous event had to offer. Here are all of the highlights.

AEW Dynamite Highlights – (12/04/19)

Young Bucks (And An Old Buck) Ignite The Fuse

AEW Dynamite

Returning from an injury suffered at the hands of Jake Hager several weeks ago, Dustin Rhodes was red hot to the Champaign, Illinois crowd from the entrance to the pinfall. Starting with some brilliant crowd-popping moments to open the show including some impressive aerial exploits by “Uncle Buck”, Dustin quickly began being showered with “you’ve still got it” chants. And with the electricity this match delivered, who would argue with them?

Aside from the nice spots, which can always be expected from Nick and Matt Jackson, there was quite a bit of nice storytelling going on here as well. After having suffered so many beatdowns by the Inner Circle over the past weeks, it looked as if Matt was going to suffer a similar fate. But thanks to a well-timed hot tag to “Goldbuck”, Dustin began power slamming his way through the opposition. Despite an old-man breath break, Dustin was looking in phenomenal shape here and was tearing through Ortiz, Santana, and Sammy Guevara with a look of a man with revenge on his mind. And with Dustin now behind them, it is looking like much more stormy waters for what has been mostly smooth sailing for Le Champion’s clique.

Playing into this and seeing the momentum leaving their side, the second-most famous pro-wrestling sock weapon (this one filled with baseballs and not on Mick Foley’s arm) made another appearance. Guevara then followed up with a beautiful 630 splash for a convincing near fall, but “One Hundred Buck” Rhodes kicked out. Guevara’s antics would later go on to cost the trio, as he tried to vlog his way to victory but instead videoed a shooting star press into a shoe. Then his camera captured a triple superkick party that lead to a beautiful double Meltzer Driver and senton combo for the three count, giving the “Goldbucks” trio the win here over their rivals in an awesome and thrilling opener.

Cody Wants MJF To Name His Price

Calling back to when Ric Flair was feuding with his father Dusty Rhodes in WCW for the World Heavyweight Championship in 1987, Cody cut another promo rich in both wrestling history and also in creating new wrestling history all its own. After MJF’s post on Twitter declaring he would not face Cody, he said that he would not accept that as he “does not deal in absolutes”. Offering up the keys to his 2019 Ford F-150 Black Ops, one of only 500, a ridiculously expensive watch from Tony Khan, his red bottom Louis Vuitton shoes gifted to him by wife Brandi (who had an interesting night of her own), and $50,000 in cash brought in the ring via a briefcase by Justin Roberts. To verify the authenticity he even gave a hundred dollar bill to a young fan in the front row. All to show proof of his desperation to get his hands on Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

He also said he would take on his attackers from last week,  The Butcher and The Blade with a partner of their choosing for him whenever they’d like. Later in the evening, it was announced they would choose the winless QT Marshall for next week’s Dynamite. But regardless, the focus remained on MJF and rightly so as he would also reveal himself to be behind buying the services of this mysterious trio via social media as well.

This promo had the audience captivated, and although it may have ran a bit longer than necessary the presence Cody has on the microphone in AEW has been phenomenal to watch. MJF and Cody duelling on the mic and of course eventually in the ring will be a hugely entertaining story and feud to keep an eye on and this promo has done a great job of planting more seeds in that already growing garden. Now we just get to watch it continue to grow and build as the weeks go on.

Lexicon of Le Champion Delivers The Laughs

Much like last week’s Thanksgiving celebration, Chris Jericho continues to prove himself as one of the most entertaining wrestlers in the world despite approaching his third decade in the industry. Chastising the pops from the crowd, he brilliantly plays off his own popularity to garner the negative attention he so beautifully has mastered. Playing off the 12,000 bottles of “little bit of the bubbly” sold already, he made sure to mention he was in Champaign, Illinois. This, of course, got the home town of Tony Khan to do the cheap pop which he shot down and said nobody worth anything ever came from Champaign. Hilarious stuff and the crowd ate it up.

He also mentioned the fact that he was contractually obligated to defend his title one more time in 2019, so he had written up a list which also garnered a huge response from the audience. Jericho scolded them once more, saying it wasn’t 2016 anymore. Wonder what big wrestling company he keeps referring to all the time? Anyway, he then busted out the “Lexicon of Le Champion” which had a million names of people he wouldn’t face in a hilarious fashion that only Jericho could deliver so brilliantly. Young Bucks, Papa Buck, Joe Buck, Scorpio Sky, 2 Cold Scorpio, The Scorpions, Kenny Omega, Kenny Ortega, Kenny from South Park (almost Marty Scurll) and many more made the “lexicon”.

Not mentioned, however, were Jurassic Express whose music hit and they made their way to the ring to interrupt Le Champion’s hilarious wrestling reference fest. He quickly made sure to tell Luchasaurus that dinosaurs were on his list, which leads to a great exchange with the masked big man. Luchasaurus started off with a roar as if he was straight out of Jurassic Park, but instead said that was a stereotype and that he had a Master’s Degree. Talk about depth of character, the man is a luchador dinosaur with a degree who does chokeslams, roundhouse kicks, and standing moonsaults. The guy is a walking create-a-wrestler from a wrestling video game.

Luchasaurus then went on to say it wasn’t a match for him that he was intending. This made Chris switch focus to the smaller Marko Stunt. He quickly made the typical small jokes like “he is small for any age”, but Luchasaurus popped the crowd by saying he was still more man than Jericho would ever be. But despite that, he wasn’t looking for a title shot either. This made Le Champion laugh, and point to the final conclusion, Jungle Boy.

Basically saying it couldn’t possibly be him, the silent and skinny mute of the group, Jungle Boy simply responded by saying he will kick Jericho’s ass. Despite Jericho’s claim that he wouldn’t “last more than 10 minutes” with him, it will be very interesting to see how this pans out on December 18th when Jungle Boy and Jericho face off. With so much history already between Hager and Luchasaurus, one has to wonder how much the Inner Circle will factor into the outcome.

Janela And Moxley 2: The Rematch

A bit cramped compared to their grand Fyter Fest affair, this main event still showed a lot of what makes Joey Janela and Jon Moxley so compatible in the ring. Telling the story of having this match count on the wins and losses and being a sort of redemption for Moxley and his numerous lights out victories that have gone “unrecognized” by that system.

Starting off the match with a bit of mat wrestling, Moxley still showed his grungier side as he kicked the smaller man’s legs to gain leverage for a fireman’s carry takedown. This sort of simple ring psychology tells the story of the type of wrestler Moxley was always meant to be, even when he was stuck as the watered-down Dean Ambrose.

This quickly devolved into a chop-fest brawl with both men exchanging noise across the arena and relishing in the pain being the sadists that they are. This then spilled out to the ramp, which to further sell Moxley’s crazy almost saw him try to kill Janela with a Paradigm Shift on the steel that was countered over the ropes and into a tornado DDT of Joey’s own. This type of fluidity and counter wrestling is worth noting, given that people don’t give these two enough credit for their skills in that department.

A bit of hardcore wrestling was brought into it as well with the landing, and this ramp was the same one that left the scar on Cody’s forehead. Hardcore would return later in the match as well, with Janela driving Moxley through the time keeper’s table in a very NJPW style spot. Trying to capitalize, Joey rolled him into the ring but couldn’t get the finish with a flying elbow. This would lead to an opening for an avalanche Paradigm Shift, and one more in the center of the ring for good measure to pin Joey after some good back and forth wrestling action although seemingly a bit rushed for time.

Then much like Moxley did last week, Jericho’s music hit and he emerged from the crowd to end the night. A sort of funhouse mirror version of the visual of Moxley, he had all of the Inner Circle behind him and carried his belt over his shoulder. He may not be looking to face Moxley in 2019, but AEW is certainly looking to build some big hype for this big-name bout in 2020.

AEW Dynamite Of The Night: Fenix vs. Trent

Quietly proving himself to be the most consistent member of AEW’s roster, Rey Fenix put on an absolute clinic this week with Trent in the second match of the night. A pair of tag-team specialists, this was a masterful showing of two wrestlers who both got their start by being solo to start their careers.

A fast-paced, non-stop pace that has become a constant for Fenix he continues to innovate and reinvent upon his ever-expanding arsenal of crowd-popping moves. Trent also played his role perfectly here hitting a good mixture of powerful offense and some aerial moves of his own keeping pace and hitting all the right complementary notes in a beautiful wrestling duet.

Another example of a match that could produce writer’s cramp to jot down and tie your tongue to try to breakdown move by move, this one is simply worth taking the time to enjoy move by move and spot by spot for all of its original glory. And that is something that is becoming a constant with Fenix. If AEW had bonuses for match of the night like they do in MMA, Fenix would certainly be walking around with some heavy pockets from his time here so far. And I think Tony Khan would be happy to write those checks.

Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch AEW Dynamite every Wednesday night at 8:00 pm Eastern, 6:00 pm Pacific on TNT and internationally on AEW Plus on Fite TV

Zach Perez

Zach Perez

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