The Forbidden Door Delivers
The Debuts of Keith Lee and Jay White on Dynamite
Jay White and The Elite (courtesy of allelitewrestling.com)
Poor Christian. Legendary wrestler. Fits perfectly in any role. Overdelivers with whatever material he’s given. But Holy Hell did he ever make for a shitty surprise.
If there’s one thing we definitively know about Tony Khan, is that he wants to have surprises on his shows. Tony Khan’s excitement for his own surprises are so huge, you can practically feel his tweets radiating with self-pride and giddiness for when we’ll find out the big shock. The problem is, meeting fan’s expectations can’t always be met. Individual wants can’t be addressed en masse. Surprises will continue to get harder to top. And dream signings and dream matches are all in the eye of the beholder.
But holy shit, this was exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it to go.
I loved the reveal of Jay White first. Jay White—while one of my favorite NJPW wrestlers—is not everyone’s cup of tea by a long shot and isn’t someone that would match Tony’s frothing hype. White is a masterful true heel in the vein of MJF (albeit a different shade on said spectrum). White can be the wedge between the Elite and the Undisputed Era or whatever iteration of the Bullet Club copyright laws allow them to be. And if given time, White can sleepwalk through at least a 4.5 star match with Kenny Omega.
During his carnival barking for the last night’s Dynamite, Tony Khan promised a new signee that would satisfy fans, but show that he’s listening to his audience. Keith Lee was the most logical guess, and the pop when he came out showed the fans thought this was a satisfying payoff.
If there’s one thing that is common amongst all the differing tastes and tribes of wrestling fans, is that we want the human beings behind our favorite performers to be happy, healthy, sane people. From that standpoint, Keith Lee looked better than he has in years. The realization that he was wanted and that fans see him as their guy was impossible to miss off his shit-eating grin. And that’s what makes Keith Lee the obvious choice. He appeals to so many demographics of fans. Whatever background or identity you have, you can project Keith Lee’s you, too. To that degree, Keith Lee is unfuckupable unless you’re an idiot or Vince McMahon.
The past is the past, but now Keith Lee gets the shot to be the guy that wrestling fans saw he could be when he went up against Brock Lesnar in Royal Rumble 2020. That brief showdown, aided by Brock treating Keith Lee like he was a big deal, was the validation that this guy is a license to print money. But it got botched. Even Lee’s being a double champion in NXT later that year seemed to be an afterthought. He got sent up to the main roster, and like clockwork, nobody knew what to do with him, told him he couldn’t work, gave him an unnecessary shitty new name, and released him after he was on hiatus from suffering with Covid.
Last night he debuted on national stage and was delighted in heaving the hell out of poor Isiah Kassidy halfway across the ring. I didn’t get the pairing of him with Kassidy at first. Maybe a tease for the inevitable debut of Jeff Hardy. But when I heard Kassidy’s cowardly squeal when he ate Keith Lee’s finish I knew they picked the right trooper.
I imagine Keith Lee has some confidence to rebuild, he’ll need to work on his cardio to do a main event style match after Covid complications and heart inflammation. It’ll come. Having him positioned as the first entrant in the Face of the Revolution Ladder Match was a stroke of accidental genius as now the fans will also accept him as the winner and next heir to the TNT title.
When we went to the Cleveland show a few weeks ago, we expected Johnny Gargano to sign with AEW. Was that the reason why Danhausen debuted that night? My guess is so. It’ll be harder to deliver on surprises in the future. And conditioning fans to not always expect surprises on PPVs will eventually have to become a practice. But it worked in this circumstance to all its glory. When AEW delivers like it did last night, it’s not unlike reading a good novel; you feel personally addressed.
Brock Lesnar and Keith Lee (courtesy of wwe.com)
