Powell’s AEW Dynamite Hit List: Orange Cassidy vs. Matt Taven in a Texas Death Match, Adam Copeland vs. Daniel Garcia for a shot at the TNT Title, Young Bucks vs. Top Flight, Jon Moxley vs. Dax Harwood

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

AEW Dynamite Hits

Samoa Joe, Swerve Strickland, and Hangman Page: A good verbal segment to continue the build to the AEW World Championship match at AEW Revolution. Joe is thriving as the confident champion, and Swerve continues to be over with live crowds. Hangman is playing his heel part well, but it feels like it’s time for him to go all the way with it by turning on the fans for cheering Swerve despite all of the heinous things his character has done. Speaking of which, I don’t like that Swerve and Page can share the ring without getting physical. Swerve broke into Page’s home and spoke to his unattended child, and then Page actually drank Swerve’s blood during their last war. The feud has reached a level of intensity that there should be security keeping them apart or some storyline reason that explains why they don’t start fighting the moment they see one another.

Jon Moxley vs. Dax Harwood: Dynamite peaked from an in-ring standpoint with a top notch opening match. The post match angle set up next week’s tag match with Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli facing FTR in a traditional tag team match. Here’s hoping that FTR gets back in the main tag team mix and stays away from the dead end trios division.

“The Young Bucks” Matthew Jackson and Nicholas Jackson vs. “Top Flight” Dante Martin and Darius Martin: A solid tag match with the predictable outcome as the Bucks rack up wins to move into the top contender position in the rankings. I’m not really sure why they can’t use their EVP status to give themselves a tag team title match. Unfortunately, no one has bothered to explain what power the Jacksons have beyond issuing fines. I really liked Darby Allin’s hard hitting post match promo. I have no idea how he legitimately feels about the things he ranted about, but he had a believable intensity and did a nice job of leaning into the things that critics of the Bucks say about them. That said, it was very odd that he opted to put over Cody Rhodes as being the only EVP with a brain.

Wardlow vs. Barrett Brown: A soft Hit for Wardlow’s latest squash win. More than anything, it was good to see him back in the ring after his recent knee injury scare.

AEW Dynamite Misses

Orange Cassidy vs. Matt Taven in a Texas Death Match: If a Texas Death Match just for the sake of having having a Texas Death Match appeals to you, then you presumably liked this a lot more than I did. Yes, the Undisputed Kingdom took out Cassidy’s buddies and hit him with a spike piledriver. But they never did anything to make the situation feel personal between Cassidy and Taven specifically, which made the match feel somewhat random. Both wrestlers worked hard and it was an entertaining spectacle, but Taven has been a comedy sidekick and felt out of place in the main event despite having the talent to be there.

Adam Copeland vs. Daniel Garcia for a shot at the TNT Title: A good match until the cheap finish that saw Christian Cage and his crew interrupt and then take out Copeland with a Conchairto. Copeland has taken too many of these beatings going back to his WWE run, so it just didn’t pack a punch to see him laid out again. Are they really going to rush him back from selling a Conchairto to put him in another match with Cage at Revolution? Will they ever cut to the chase with wherever this strange pairing of Garcia and Matt Menard is going?

Willow Nightingale vs. Skye Blue: The babyface got the win because her heel manager (or whatever Stokely Hathaway is) distracted the referee. This would have come off so much better had someone interfered on behalf of Blue and it became a case of turnabout being fair play. I’m still not sure what they are going for with Hathaway, Willow, and Kris Statlander despite following their oddball storyline on all three of AEW’s weekly television shows. Worse yet, the company doesn’t seem to be doing anything to set the table for the arrival of Mercedes Mone in terms of building up meaningful opponents for her to work with.

The Bang Bang Scissors Gang: Their segments are never as funny as they seem to think they are. This continues to be a massive waste of Jay White.