AEW: Dynamite Review - June 30th, 2021

AEW Dynamite

June 30th, 2021

Daily’s Place - Jacksonville, FL

Commentators: Excalibur, Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross, & Chris Jericho 

All I can say is damn… it feels GOOD to be back on Wednesday night. It’s truly where Dynamite belongs and feels at home, plus, we are LIVE. And it’s the end of an era sorta.. 

Daily’s Place has been the sole home of AEW for the past year and some change due to the pandemic, but starting next week, AEW returns to the road. The commentators note this early and say there will be a video package later to highlight the best moments from the past year in Jacksonville. 

Chris Jericho gets his grand entrance with everyone singing along to start the show as he makes his way to the commentary booth for the night. This was a nice touch considering he and his song have been such a centerpiece weekly during the past year at Daily’s. 

1) The Young Bucks (w/ Brandon Cutler) vs. Eddie Kingston & Penta El Zero Miedo 

Eddie & Penta are out first and Eddie looks as mean as ever. I ain’t gonna bring up the elephant in the room because the old loser talking shit about Eddie is just grasping at relevancy straws, but man that shit just made me love Eddie even more. Bucks are out next and they are sporting mustaches.. dear fucking lord. Nick has a full on handlebar stache which looks literally insane. Matt has a simple pornstar stache. Which leads to the quote of the night five minutes in…

"They look like a couple of pornstars..." -Tony Schiavone

So, yeah, the rest of this pretty much wrote itself with the Bucks being as despicable as ever and Eddie being the most popular person on the entire roster. Eddie got some phenomenal babyface fire and fighting spirit spots. The Bucks cut the ring off on multiple occassions. This just fucking ruled and we get the happy ending for once as Eddie and Penta get the victory !!!! Penta got the pinfall also which he DESPERATELY needed as I mentioned in last week's review. Yes!!! This checked all the boxes. Rematch next week at Road Rager with the titles on the line!

Match rating - ***3/4

Christian is backstage with Jungle Boy. He says that he learned something from last week and so did everyone else.. Jack can hang with Kenny Omega and not only hang.. give him a true run for his money. Christian then says Jungle Boy should focus on tonight, now though because he will be champion someday, but tonight he has the chance to be the first wrestler in AEW history to have 50 singles wins if he beats Jack Evans. Luchasaurus walks up and thanks Christian for having Jungle Boy’s back while he was away. Luchasaurus says dinosaurs are very loyal so now he has back. Christian thanks him and says he’s actually a quarter cosmoceritops on his mom’s side of the family LMAO. They walk off together to discuss the matter, this was a fun segment. 

We get an amazing promo from Ethan Page next on why he wants the coffin match with Darby. He wants to cripple Darby mentally and physically and make him think of him every time he goes for the coffin drop in the future. Sting shows up with Darby inside of a coffin. Sting takes out Scorpio Sky whilst Darby takes out Ethan Page, digging into his eyes for an extended period of time. Page retreats and says the coffin match next week is CANCELED and it won't happen until Darby keeps his hands off him for an entire work. Lordy. 

2) Jungle Boy vs. Jack Evans 

This was an easy watch. It doesn’t go long and they don’t even go into a spotfest like the mark in me hoped. They flip around a little before we go to commercial. Back from commercial, Jack goes for a german off the top, but Jungle Boy lands on his feet. Moments later, he locks Jack in the snare trap for the submission victory. 

Match rating - **

Post match, we get a huge brawl involving the Hardy Family Office, Jurassic Express, and Christian Cage. Christian and the baby faces stand tall. Christian stares down Matt Hardy with his music playing.

Backstage, ANDRADE EL IDOLO WANTS MATT SYDAL (or as he calls him “something”) next week at Road Rager in Miami!!! Let’s goo!!!

Tony Schiavone brings out the AEW World Champion Kenny Omega. Omega says he woke up this morning feeling like a king. He says he’s beaten everyone there is to beat so he’s going to be taking a leave of absence. Dark Order comes out. Omega says none of them are ranked anywhere near high enough to face him. Uno says he knows they aren’t, but they know someone who is. Ohhhhh man. I did not expect the Hangman/Omega build to start tonight, but it fucking did and it felt even more special than I thought it would. I love that they don’t even mention his name, but you know everyone knows who they’re talking about. Kenny says the person they’re referring to doesn’t have the guts to face him and deep down knows he doesn’t have what it takes to hold the AEW World Title, so if they have nothing else worthwhile to say, he will be leaving. Man, this segment rocked. That slow build to Hangman’s moment has BEGUN!!!

3) Miro (c) vs. Brian Pillman Jr. - TNT Title Match 

Pillman tries, but is inevitably choked about by the man himself, our reigning TNT Champion, Miro. Thanks for coming king Pillman. 

Hangman Page confronts Dark Order backstage about them speaking up for him against Kenny Omega. Page enters the room yelling only for him to get quiet when they call him out on being afraid of failure. They say they believe in him and Uno reminds him how he was the one to lift him up when he lost his TNT Title match with Miro. They all leave the room as Hangman stands there in thought. Alex Reynolds is the last to leave and tells Page that it’s his time and that he’s waited long enough. 

Backstage, Taz is with Hook and Powerhouse Hobbs. He says there has been a lot of tension within Team Taz lately and that will be settled in two weeks in Austin, TX when Brian Cage defends the FTW Title against Ricky Starks because sometimes two family members need a good old fashioned fight to hash things out. 

4) Britt Baker & Rebel vs. Nyla Rose & Vickie Guerrero 

Rebel gets hurt at some point in this. Britt remains a tremendous champion and subsequently gets the win for her team after a few minutes. That’s all I really remember from this besides the post match where Nyla gets pissed and gives Britt a NASTY powerbomb off the apron through a table. I’m assuming their match for the title will have some sort of stipulation now which is fine with me because I was not interested in a standard rematch between the two anyways. 

5) MJF vs. Sammy Guevara 

These two get the final 30 minutes of the night. It’s a pretty well built match although it has lost a little steam considering things got redirected to another 5 on 5 then to MJF/Jericho and Shawn/Sammy. None the less, these two have had beef for months since Sammy hated MJF for being in the Inner Circle even leaving the group for a little while because of it. Now we circle back to this issue along with some more shit tacked on to make it relevant again. This is also positioned as big because many see these two (along with Darby Allin, Hangman Page, Orange Cassidy, & Jungle Boy) as that first class of homegrown AEW stars. A group of talent that were good-great before, but were thrust by AEW into the national spotlight and succeeded greatly by catching on extremely well with the fan base. This is a match between two guys everyone sees as the future and them getting more time than anything on this show displays that. Now, was that the best move as far as match quality goes? I’m not sure. But did it need to happen? Yes. One thing that I always used to gripe about with WWE is them not giving young guys enough experience in main event situations. Even TV matches. So, to me, this is a big win for all involved because these guys need that experience so they can get better in delivering in those circumstances. With that, though comes some situations where a match may not hit the level you want it to or hope/expect it to. It’s hard for me to complain about this, though because it wasn’t terrible. In fact, it delivered several gasp worthy moments and spots that will definitely be in highlight reels for months and years to come, such as the Guevara dive from the ring over the railing to the floor and MJF's piledriver from the second rope. However, this wasn’t the best match on the show as it was positioned to be. Things dragged a little bit and seemed to lose focus at points making this feel like a performance more than a grudge match. They did have some nice stretches in this thing, though, and all in all handled a match out of their normal range pretty well. Some of the false finishes were a little much, but not enough to throw me off, in fact, I got a lil RILED UP down the stretch. A lot of people didn't like all the interference at the end, which I understand. It didn't bother me that much, though. None the less, what a wonderful showcases for these guys. Shawn Spears shows up and basically screws Guevara out of the match which was a great way to get their feud ignited even further since that seems to be the singles direction they’re going. Show closes with a brawl and next week we get FTR/Wardlow vs. Santana, Ortiz, & Hager. 

Match rating - ***1/4

Oh, and how could I forget the amazing video package recapping all the best moments from the last year and a half at Daily's place. Almost got me emotional, especially during the Brodie Lee portions.

This was a fantastic way to close this chapter of AEW and of course.. Jim Ross shits all over it with his closing line "There's nothing else like experiencing a live WWE Dynamite.." Man.. I'm just gonna leave that shit there cause y'all already know my thoughts. Goodbye, see y'all next week for ROAD RAGER!