AEW Dynamite 04/29: Rhodes Bros Edition

AEW DYNAMITE 04/29/20

Cody vs. Darby Allin

They do the 50/50'ish babyface vs babyface work well w/ their own little touches, and it's pretty good stuff. I liked Darby going after the knee after Cody clutched it when trying to get up from Darby's early pin attempt, but I did think it was a little confusing when Darby started going after the other knee as well -- I mean, I CAN understand it, but he also only did a few moves to the right knee, while maintaining the bigger focus on the knee Cody originally seemingly hurt aka the left one. It shouldn't be that confusing, but I just thought it was. It felt like a legit mistake rather than a pro-wrestling gameplan of weakening the man by going after both knees. Feels extremely picky to mention that, but it's what I remember the match most for, so. The finish was pretty weak, but I understand why they went for it & the actual stretch leading to it was neat w/ Cody trying to go for Darby's signature Coffin Drop, only for Darby to say "eat shit", counter it & do it himself. All in all, a solid match as always with these two, but I do think it's easily the weakest of their 1-on-1 meetings thus far. **1/2

Dustin Rhodes vs. Lance Archer

Archer is a dominant monster of a man & Dustin is an older babyface looking to show that the veteran still has a few tricks up his sleeve to go and get that victory. On paper, that dynamic sounds SO GOOD, and I was genuinely excited to see how the match went, and while by the end it was solid, I was disappointed in it. I really wanted to LOVE it, but the reality is that it just wasn't that interesting. Was it bad? No, not even close, but it also wasn't anything to write home about, really. Archer wasn't at his most compelling form, doing slow, methodical work on top for most of the match, and I really didn't care for most of Dustin's comebacks either. It felt like they were trying to go for the narrative of Archer being a real vicious monster, but most of his work left me cold, as it felt like generic TV-heelwork rather than the Mark Henry 2011 hype he was given by the commentary. Even the blood didn't really add anything either, at least not until the last few minutes w/ Archer exposing that turnbuckle & smashing Dustin's face. Everything after that ruled -- looooved the drama increasing when QT, Cody & Arn came out, but that's only a few minutes of a 20-something minute match. **1/4