10 Wrestling Moments That Had No Right Being THIS Good
2. Brandi Rhodes Proves She Can Go
...against a very green prospect amid a pandemic (!).
Brandi Rhodes cultivated a quite dismal reputation in AEW. She was a very talented promo who always seemed to want to cast herself in roles that didn't flatter her. Gothic amateur thespian; action figure braggart; heel antagonist to Dan f*cking Lambert: the memories of her excellent, vengeful supporting role in the Cody Vs. Shawn Spears programme receded when AEW arrived on television.
As ugly as some of the thinking was behind that loathing, it would be generous to state that she was an asset to AEW onscreen.
It really is a shame, because Brandi has talent. It just wasn't unlocked - with the superb exception of her Saturday Night Dynamite banger against Anna Jay in September 2020.
Brandi properly laid it in, and never seemed to recall what it was she was meant to do. She just did it, working a fiery unvarnished scrap in which the struggle was meant to happen, and not the immersion-breaking byproduct of inexperience. This was a motivated performance that grasped the all-important tone of a grudge match - which is significantly more impressive than solid, soulless choreography. Brandi on the mic and in the ring was a good, secondary player.
Why did she insist on playing heel?!