Jade Cargill & Red Velvet vs Kiera Hogan & Skye Blue

Great Action. Confusing Storytelling.

With all the fantastic matches on this episode of Dynamite from Seattle, I worry this match may get overlooked. If you were to isolate this match on its own though, outside of a couple mistimed spots very early on, I thought the in-ring work was very solid to good. For Jade Cargill especially, I felt she had a flawless match and her star power has elevated noticably. With that being said though, without a good story being told in the match, the action can feel like “just a bunch of stuff that happened”. And even though, at a micro level, the story within the match was pretty cogent, the over-arcing story has me scratching my head. And being the pedantic nerd that I am, I had a hard time overlooking that during the match.

Early vibes

First off, let me just say that this new Dynamite set really makes the wrestler’s entrances pop visually. I thought Kiera Hogan’s tron made especially good use of the layered screens. For Jade’s entrance though, I felt we didn’t get to see the full effect but for good reason as her entrance was used as an early storyline device by having Red Velvet leave a bemused Jade and fellow Baddie Leila Grey standing on the ramp posing while Red just power walked to the ring.

I had mentioned in my summary about “a couple mistimed spots very early on”, well right off the hop, Red Velvet whips Skye Blue into the ropes and then commits to a dropkick even though Skye has already clearly hooked her arms onto the ropes to halt her momentum. I’ll just get the other rough spot out of the way because the execution in the rest of this match was very solid. Kiera Hogan goes for her step-up leg drop where she jumps off a bridged Red Velvet and then leg drops the back of her neck, only Red Velvet begins falling to the mat before Hogan ever touches her. It’s entirely possible no one else even noticed these but, like I said, pedantic nerd.

Solid, Solid Work

The Hogan/Blue team isolate Red Velvet early, during which time Red & Blue have a fluid quick exchange of duelling pinning maneuvers, and then on their second encounter, Red Velvet sells a Skye Blue DDT that just looks like death. There’s been a few occasions over her time in AEW where Red does something and you’d swear she has a slinky for a spine.

Funnily enough, during this DDT of devastation, Jade Cargill is on the apron, arms folded, looking irritated with Velvet, and not at all concerned that her neck is now sand. Once Jade tags herself in though, she’s just in kill mode and the crowd is lapping up everything she’s serving. I just want to highlight where Jade hits a very impressive looking pump handle rotating front slam. What makes it all the better is she hits this as a counter after ducking a kick while having wrist control, this sets her up perfectly for this move. She’s not just going out there, doing a kick to the lower abdomen like it’s the Attitude Era to setup her move. The action leading up necessitates this move being done.

storyline confusion

Despite the great work put in by these four, I have to ask: Why was this match booked in the first place? We’ve seen that Jade Cargill runs a tight ship and fired Kiera Hogan from The Baddies for mere negligence. But Red Velvet in the previous weeks has gone from subtly undermining Jade, to overtly disrespecting her, to physically getting involved in Jade’s match when she prevented her from slapping Kiera Hogan on last week’s Rampage.

• Why hasn’t Jade fired Red Velvet? She fired Kiera for much less.
• Why would Jade trust Red Velvet to be her tag team partner? After all, Red has been elevating her disrespect of Jade week by week, what’s to stop her from costing Jade Cargill her undefeated streak by throwing the match?

I’d say the whole thing sets up Jade to look like she’s not intelligent enough to foresee Red turning on her mid match except it’s even worse than that because Red Velvet already did turn on Jade Cargill mid-match! I just don’t understand why Jade is being made out to look this dense? Also, where are we at with the whole Bow Wow thing?

Great Action

So let’s just power through the story despite the logic gap. Jade has 4 modes in this match:

1. Being unimpressed on the apron at Red Velvet failing
2. Rudely tagging herself into the match
3. Kicking all the ass
4. Demeaning Red Velvet

When I wasn’t feeling gaslit by the storytelling, I was purring at Jade Cargill’s offence. Beyond the pump handle move I mentioned earlier, Jade delivered some snug Athena-esque forearm shots, her Eye Of The Hurricane, and her Pump Kick, which is so over. This crowd really lit up when Jade first got tagged into the match and even broke into a “Jade’s gonna kill you” chant.

Kiera Hogan and Skye Blue didn’t get much offence in on Jade but luckily they had Red Velvet selling for them. I must figure women love going to work on the days when they’re facing Red Velvet because they know she’s going to make their stuff look really good.

The Finish

Jade tags herself in and obliterates Kiera Hogan with a Pump Kick, Pump Kicks Skye Blue in the head sending her flying off the apron, and then punctuates everything with her new chokeslam. I love that Jade has added this move to her repertoire.

For the first time in this match, Jade appears to take a softer approach with Red Velvet, attempting to fire her up to come in and win this match. Instead Red hops down off the apron as Jade goes for the tag. As Jade watches Velvet back away, Kiera goes for the rollup but only gets two.

Immediately erasing any drama, Cargill Pump Kicks Hogan and pins her for the win. As “47-0” is on the tron, Red Velvet is cocking off to Jade on the ramp who is pissed.

I’m a guy who is pretty lenient with letting things play out but this storyline exhausts me. I cannot comprehend why Jade hasn’t already kicked Red Velvet to the curb weeks ago and why would she then go and put her trust in Red when her undefeated streak is on the line? It’s not even about making it make sense at this point. It’s too late for that. Just right the ship. At the risk of sounding like an over-protective “Jade Stan”; At a bare minimum, to defend her character’s intelligence, Jade Cargill needs to acknowledge that she’s been too naive about Red Velvet. Maybe it came from a good place, that Jade sees enormous potential in Red and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But don’t let me think Jade Cargill was simply fooled by the woman who physically put her hand on her the week earlier.

Jade Cargill ain’t no dummy.