On the November 9th episode of AEW Dynamite, The Acclaimed teamed with FTR to take on Swerve In Our Glory and The Gunns. The bout saw frenetic action from everyone involved as well as plenty of interference. In the end, Anthony Bowens pinned Colten Gunn after Gunn was subjected to both The Arrival from Bowens and a Big Rig from FTR.
While many fans praised the match, legendary wrestling manager Jim Cornette wasn’t a fan of the way the AEW Dynamite bout portrayed its tag team division.
Jim Cornette Says Tony Khan Is “Burying” Tag Teams In Multi-Man Matches
Speaking on The Jim Cornette Experience, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Cornette criticized the eight man tag team match as one that “doesn’t do anything for anybody.”
“So on this program here come The Gunns, The Ass Boys. They’ve got Stokely and William Morrissey in their corner. And then here comes Keith Lee and Swerve and they don’t do a fist bump. Keith Lee will not bump Swerve’s fist, and the announcers made sure to make note of that.
“And then here comes FTR and they get a huge ovation for the most buried hidden tag team in AEW, and then here comes The Acclaimed with a ton of applause and a big ovation because they’re incredibly popular now, so we got to figure out a way to do something about that. And they figured out a way to do something, but they’re gonna have an eight man tag team match that doesn’t do anything for anybody.”
Continuing, Jim Cornette accused AEW President Tony Khan of burying his top teams in these sorts of multi-man matches.
“And to make sure that we know that Billy Gunn is still mad about being kidnapped and having his fingers cut off apparently with pliers by f*cking dipsh*ts Swerve, Billy Gunn runs out and tackles Swerve before the match starts and BJ Whitmer comes out and kicks Billy Gunn out of ringside. Again, they’re burying these teams in eight man tags. I guess Tony’s statistics fixation, they can say well, here’s another match in the win column or whatever the f*ck but it does nothing for anybody.”
Jim Cornette went on to explain what the teams involved should be doing instead, saying that the younger teams should be working with experienced wrestlers in order to improve their craft.
“It makes no sense, there’s multiple issues going on here. The Gunns and The Acclaimed should be working tag team matches with FTR to learn something, along with every other young tag team in AEW. They should be working tag team matches with FTR whether on TV or on YouTube or whatever, and FTR should be winning every single one of them, except for The Acclaimed obviously, right now. And at the same time, these young teams could be learning something.”
According to Jim Cornette, most of the performers in the eight man tag team match have an upside, but the match format isn’t the best way to highlight anyone, and it also doesn’t help younger talent learn how to perform their roles more effectively. The WWE Hall of Famer recounted the rest of the match’s action, explaining why he doesn’t believe it made sense.
“But when you get an eight man tag and FTR are trying to be the wrestlers, and The Gunns are animated heels, and they’re just green but they got a ton of potential. FTR is flawless at everything. Swerve is pretty good. The Acclaimed are green as grass, but they’ve got size and personality, and Keith Lee is off and on.
“But this was the closest thing on the program to a wrestling match, for the first part of it, and then they got some heat on Dax, so that was good because he knows how to sell. Then he hit a hot tag that was actually a fairly hot tag on Bowens. And then we started going over the hump because, and I’m not knocking Bowens, but how long have they been babyfaces? And I would imagine that he hasn’t made that many baby face comebacks at a high level.
“But it was odd, he’s doing the looping right punches and then the backhands like Sting and too many strikes and not enough bumps by the heels. He’s just windmilling the guys and they’re just staggered around, and then the heels took back over. And somehow The Gunns hit a Big Rig out of nowhere for a 2 count, FTR’s move, the Big Rig, and then they have a four on four face off and started an eight way and the referee was Mrs. Ed [Aubrey Edwards], so of course she was just staring, and it got sloppy and everybody took a lot of bumps the floor.
“And then Keith Lee and The Acclaimed tried something where it ended up with Keith Lee kind of powerbombing Bowens onto Caster who was bent over and for it because they got too fancy and it looked too phony. And then Lee and Swerve double teamed Bowens and dove to the floor on everybody. And then basically then they go crazy and Dax superplexes one of The Gunns onto the pack on the floor off the buckles and everybody lays there all the momentum of the matches gone.”
In conclusion, Jim Cornette believes the match devolved as it went on and he accredits the messiness to the company allowing performers to do too much in their matches.
“So now they went from a big six way or a big eight way to everybody else disappeared so DAX and Austin could go one on one in the ring and then everybody else ran back in, in front of Ms. Ed. And then Caster hit an elbow on the off the top rope on one of The Gunns, FTR hit their finish on the other Gunn. Bowens pins the first Gunn, and I’ll be goddamned if I could ever even figure out at that point if Bowens or the first Gunn were the legal guys. And it should have happened, I couldn’t even tell.
“The first half was a wrestling match, second half was a mess, which usually happens in his company, because they try to give everybody seemed to do whether they’re capable of it or not.”
AEW World Tag Team Champions The Acclaimed will defend their titles against Swerve In Our Glory at AEW Full Gear on November 19th. Ahead of the bout, Paul Wight’s alter ego Captain Insano made his AEW debut in a music video alongside Anthony Bowens and Max Caster.
If you use any quotes from this transcription, please credit The Jim Cornette Experience and link back to this article with a h/t to Inside the Ropes.