By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
MJF and William Regal: One of the best verbal exchanges of the year. MJF’s story turned Regal into a heel in the eyes of seemingly everyone in the building. Regal never flinched and managed to turn the fans back in his favor in record time. The storytelling in the segment was terrific in terms of Regal’s words causing MJF to announce that he intends to cash in his AEW Casino Ladder match chip without taking a shortcut. Of course, his character is known as The Devil, so the new mystery is whether he was actually shooting straight or if his character will take a shortcut.
Toni Storm vs. Hikaru Shida for the Interim AEW Women’s Championship: A good, physical match with some believable near falls for both women. The only thing working against the match was the lack of a stronger build. Former champion Shida challenging current champion Storm should have felt bigger than this did. The post match angle that saw Saraya get the better of Britt Baker followed by the pleasant surprise of Riho returning was well done.
“Death Triangle” Pac, Rey Fenix, and Penta El Zero Miedo vs. “Best Friends” Orange Cassidy, Trent Beretta, and Chuck Taylor for the AEW Trios Titles: The big spot fest opener was a good follow-up to last week when Cassidy defeated Pac to win the AEW All-Atlantic Championship. I like the development of Fenix stopping Pac from using the ring bell hammer as a weapon. They ended up hugging after showing some post match friction, but I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this story.
Chris Jericho vs. Dalton Castle for the ROH Championship: An entertaining match with a clean finish. Castle looked good in defeat and his act feels fresher on AEW television than it did over his last few years on ROH television. The post match angle with Jericho taking out Jerry Lynn furthered the story of Jericho showing no respect for ROH, it’s history, or its legends. I’m still not convinced that there are enough fans that feel passionately about ROH to justify doing this on AEW television, but it should work well in front of the audience that still cares enough to purchase ROH pay-per-views.
FTR, Keith Lee, and Swerve Strickland: Finally. FTR established their goal of regaining the AEW Tag Team Titles and even set up a traditional tag team match with Lee and Strickland to determine the No. 1 contenders. Indubitably! Indubitably! Indubitably!
AEW Dynamite Misses
None: Jon Moxley and Hangman Page were having a strong title match before Page suffered a fluke injury. This wasn’t a case of a wrestler taking too much of a risk. Best wishes to Page in his recovery from the concussion that he suffered. The AEW medical team has been rightfully criticized over some questionable calls in the past, but the referee and the ringside physician did a great job of stepping in and calling off the match in this case.
From an overall show standpoint, this was my favorite edition of Dynamite in recent memory. The Title Tuesday approach was a good one in the head-to-head battle with NXT, and I wish that AEW would load up its Battle of the Belts specials with the type of high level title matches we had on this episode. There were better video packages on this show and the addition of Renee Paquette to the broadcast team has already produced stronger interview segments.
Regal is so effing good. I cannot wait to see where they are going with this. I am pretty sure it ends up with MJF as champion, I just hope it’s as a heel.
FTR as wrestling in a tag-team match!!!!