Powell’s AEW Dynamite Hit List: Mark Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal, Darby Allin vs. Buddy Matthews for the TNT Title, Bryan Danielson vs. Brian Cage, Ricky Starks and Action Andretti vs. Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara, Toni Storm vs. Ruby Soho, “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry and Hook vs. Ethan Page and Matt Hardy

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

AEW Dynamite Hits

Mark Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal: In the interest of full disclosure, I had this match pencilled in as a Hit before the show even took place. Mark could have put Lethal in a 59-minute headlock and won by submission and it would have been a Hit in my book. The fact that Mark opted to work this match on his late brother Jay Briscoe’s birthday, just eight days after Jay tragically passed in a car accident, is truly inspirational. Hats off to Lethal for his part, the production team for the tremendous video package on Jay, and kudos to the Warner Bros. Discovery executives for coming to their senses. Most importantly, God bless Mark and the entire Pugh family.

Bryan Danielson vs. Brian Cage: An entertaining match. The creative forces made the right call in making this match more about Cage trying to injure Danielson, because they weren’t going to convince anyone that Cage was actually going to win given the stipulation that Danielson much win all of his matches to earn a shot at the AEW World Championship. The post match attack involving MJF was well done, and I like that Konosuke Takeshita made the save. The logic of Danielson stating that he’s going to wrestle with a bad shoulder regardless of what the trainer says felt like a big stretch, but it was a really well delivered promo and we’ll see what the follow-up is.

Darby Allin vs. Buddy Matthews for the TNT Title: Allin consistently delivers in the ring. Even so, I have been underwhelmed by the way Matthews has been used in AEW. It hasn’t been as a frustrating as most of his WWE run, but it’s still been disappointing that he lacks a distinct personality and comes off like the third guy in the House of Black. All of that worked against this match, as I just didn’t buy into the possibility of Matthews winning the TNT Championship. That said, the match also served as a reminder of how good Matthews is in the ring. Here’s hoping that he finds the right persona and gets a meaningful singles run someday. Meanwhile, the post match angle with Samoa Joe indicating that he’s not finished with Allin sets up what should be an excellent rubber match with Allin. It felt like Allin vs. Joe and especially the Hangman Page vs. Jon Moxley matches that are advertised for next week could have used one more week of build and yet I am looking forward to both matches.

Ricky Starks and Action Andretti vs. Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara: A quality opening tag team match. It felt like it went a couple minutes longer than it needed to and the baseball bat finish was off, but there was still far more good than bad. Jericho and Guevara are a fun heel team. Starks continued to shine, and this was the best outing Andretti has had since his upset win over Jericho.

“Jungle Boy” Jack Perry and Hook vs. Ethan Page and Matt Hardy: The late spot where Hardy was on the verge of hitting his finisher on Perry only to be called off by Page worked for the going storyline between Hardy and Page, but it also made it seem like the young sensations duo of Perry and Hook were actually on the verge of losing this match. Ultimately, the right team went over and there was more good than bad.

AEW Dynamite Misses

Ruby Soho vs. Toni Storm: This was a Hit from a match quality standpoint. Both wrestlers brought it, and the Storm hip attacks continue to stand out in a big way. The Miss goes to the cheap distraction finish that left me feeling like it was Monday or Friday night. Putting that aside, it’s interesting that Soho seems to be staying on the babyface side rather than joining the former WWE wrestler side with Storm and Saraya.