Powell’s AEW Dynamite Hit List: Road Rager featuring the debut of Malakai Black, The Young Bucks vs. Eddie Kingston and Penta El Zero Miedo in a Street Fight for the AEW Tag Titles, Andrade El Idolo vs. Matt Sydal, Cody Rhodes vs. QT Marshall in a strap match

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By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

AEW Dynamite Hits

Malakai Black debuts: A big surprise for AEW’s return to the road. Sure, we all knew there was a chance that Black would sign with AEW once WWE released him, but the big surprise was that he showed up as quickly as he did. Well, at least it was a big surprise to everyone other than Excalibur, who knew Black’s new name. Anyway, this was a hot debut with a pair of great looking Black Mass kicks (or whatever they will be called) on Arn Anderson and Cody Rhodes. It will be interesting to see how live crowds respond to Black and Cody going forward given how hot this crowd was for Black. Was it a first night pop or do fans want to cheer him? Either way, it’s nice to see Cody involved in something that feels meaningful again.

Britt Baker promo: If you are going to insult the competition, then go for a knockout punch rather than throw little jabs. Baker threw a huge haymaker at WWE by accusing Tony Khan of taking blood money and then stating that next week’s Dynamite could be held in Saudi Arabia. Adam Cole might feel a little uncomfortable the next time he walks into the WWE Performance Center, but this was a gem of a line and one of the highlights of the night.

Dan Lambert promo: Dan F’n Lambert. The guy drove me nuts when Impact Wrestling started putting him all over their television show at one point, but his work improved and he most recently delivered some good promos for MLW while serving as the mouthpiece for King Mo. It all led up to Lambert playing the part of pro wrestling purist curmudgeon (I can relate at times) only to be roughed up by Lance Archer. Lambert has actually become a terrific talker. And while it’s certainly possible that this was a one-off, it would be fun if they had the right MMA fighter or even a wrestler in mind to pair with a revenge seeking Lambert to feud with Archer. Brock Lesnar is certainly at the top of the wish list, but I have no idea whether that’s even a realistic possibility.

Andrade El Idolo vs. Matt Sydal: A good match and a quality win for Andrade. I like the addition of Andrade to the AEW roster, but I’m still waiting for him to do something memorable. His debut was clunky and I’m still not sold on the idea of Vickie Guerrero serving as his mouthpiece. Andrade is a talented guy and I hope that Tony Khan can get it right with him like Paul Levesque eventually did in NXT.

The Young Bucks Eddie Kingston and Penta El Zero Miedo in a Street Fight for the AEW Tag Titles: A wild spot fest and garbage match all rolled into one. The Bucks retaining the tag titles was no surprise, but it will be interesting to see who they work with next. Penta and Kingston were the top ranked team followed by The Varsity Blonds, The Acclaimed, FTR, and Private Party. The Blonds seem to be the most likely candidates given that the other teams are heels, but we’re less than two months removed from the Bucks beating them clean on Dynamite.

Cody Rhodes vs. QT Marshall in a strap match: A solid match with a clean and decisive finish. I assume this was done to wrap up Cody’s feud with The Factory so that he is free to move on to the bigger program with Malakai Black.

Orange Cassidy and Kris Statlander vs. The Blade and The Bunny in a mixed tag match: The creativity of the finish won me over with The Blade appearing to be on the verge of winning following a brass knuckles punch on Cassidy, only for the referee to inform him she couldn’t make the count because the women were the legal entrants. It set up Statlander hitting her finisher and winning clean, while also creating the need for a singles match between Cassidy and The Blade.

AEW Dynamite Misses

Jake Hager, Santana, and Ortiz vs. Wardlow, Dax Harwood, and Cash Wheeler: AEW had been doing a very good job of setting the stage for the Santana and Ortiz vs. FTR showdown match. And while I’m sure they will still get to it, they would have been better off keeping them apart rather than going with this six-man tag match. Meanwhile, Hager recently defeated Wardlow in the MMA Fight, so it made Wardlow look weak when he had to be saved from tapping out to Hager’s ankle lock before he ended up stealing the pin. This sequence would have been fine for a lot of heels, but the company should be more protective of Wardlow’s monster status.

Chris Jericho and MJF: I loved Jericho saying that he would even go so far as to have sex with MJF’s mother if it meant he could get him in the ring for another match, taking a long pause, and then delivering the “again” line. My issue with the segment is that they spent all that time laying out the stipulations and I’m still not entirely sure if I understand how this will work.

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Readers Comments (10)

  1. Misses

    1) Interrupted promos

    2) Almost every match needing a run-in

    • 3) Booked by morons for morons

      4) Not correctly naming the show AEW: Crystal Meth

      5) Saying Baker’s promo “knocked it out of the park” when it just further solidifies AEW as a bad indie fed full of people angry they’re not good enough to work for WWE and funded by a money mark.

      • Well, I think I have more hope than you. I do enjoy some of the wrestlers on AEW and I really want an alternative to WWE, but I just can’t get over some of the terrible booking and pacing of the show right now.

        • You should find the interview QT Marshall did about how they book the show every week. It’s literally a billionaire’s kid who used to fantasy book on some of the early IWC boards putting together every show at the last second while QT, who has never done the job of laying shows out, tries to fit them altogether in a cohesive manner.

          I was excited about the idea of a serious, sports-based product where wins and losses mattered. Instead we got the worst promotion I’ve ever seen with a national TV deal.

      • In other words, stop trying to shoehorn your disagreeable opinions in with his.

  2. WWE could care less about BIMBO brittany baker’s “shots” at wwe.

    WWE will continue its LUCRATIVE MULTI MILLION DOLLAR DEAL with SAUDI ARABIA BECAUSE IT IS A GREAT BUSINESS MOVE FOR WWE.

    BIMBO BAKER WHO HAS AIR SPACE BETWEEN HER EARS should stop kissing the ass of tony con man for 2 seconds to realize that tony’s daddy shahid is a PAKISTANI MUSLIM who has MULTIPLE BUSINESS TIES TO SAUDI ARABIA and the MIDDLE EAST region.

    Here is a fact for the left wing liberals: SHAD KHAN and many other NFL owners who are REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVES DONATED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO DONALD J TRUMP’S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS.

    HYPOCRITICAL and IGNORANT wrestling fans love to “bash” the mcmahons for business decisions they make for the good of THEIR COMPANY but ignore that thousands of other business men would make those same DECISIONS if they were given the same opportunity.

    • Cry more, boomer

      • I am not “crying” about anything regarding pro wrestling. The bottom line is that WWE WILL CONTUINUE ITS BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH SAUDI ARABIA BECAUSE IT HAS MILLIONS OF REASONS TO DO SO AND THOSE REASONS ARE ALL GREEN AND THOSE REASONS ARE ALL THAT MATTERS IN THE REAL WORLD.

        WWE could care less if BIMBO BAKER takes a shot at its business deals. she will probably NEVER work for wwe anyway and one day wwe may fire her short, scrawny finacee and he can bum around with her in the minor leagues of aew and impact wrestling.

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