Powell’s AEW Dynamite Hit List: Swerve Strickland and Bryan Danielson, MJF and Will Ospreay, Kazuchika Okada vs. Claudio Castagnoli for the AEW Continental Title

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

AEW Dynamite Hits

MJF and Will Ospreay: The best of the three big verbal exchanges. Ospreay was over big with the UK fans, and MJF drew good heat. Very little of MJF’s heat seemed to stem from his fake American patriot routine, which feels like more trouble than it’s worth because the fans recognize it as the cheap heat stunt that it is. Fortunately, MJF is the best heel in the game and Ospreay has quickly emerged as the top babyface in the company. I could really do without these two and others claiming to be best in the world then they’re not fighting for the AEW World Championship, but the overall segment did increase my already high level of interest in their pay-per-view match. I also liked Bryan Danielson approaching Ospreay later in the show and encouraging him to use the Tiger Driver 91 finisher.

Swerve Strickland and Bryan Danielson: More good than bad. The story of Danielson needing to rediscover his mojo in the weeks leading up to the match was disjointed, but his final promo was solid for the most part. Swerve talking about the possibility of Danielson considering a return even if he loses the match felt counterproductive. Yes, viewers know that wrestler retirements rarely stick, but the goal of this promo should have been to establish that this truly could be Danielson’s final match. It felt like this was the time for Danielson to really do a deep dive by referencing his career highlights in ROH, WWE, and AEW while asking the fans to join him one more time for what could be his last ride or his crowning achievement in AEW. It would have given the sense that Danielson was feeling nostalgic because he knows the end could be near. Rather, Danielson mostly came off like he was delivering a standard go-home promo as opposed to truly selling the idea that he might end up leaving his boots in the ring on Sunday. Swerve and Danielson sold me on their match, but they failed to really drive home the potential retirement stipulation.

Mercedes Mone and Britt Baker contract signing: Both wrestlers showed confidence heading into the match and the babyface came out of the final verbal exchange looking strong. They made good use of Kamille by having Baker attack her while staying true to the agreement of no physicality between her and Mone. Baker taking a cheap shot at Kamille with the microphone was the right move in that it gave Kamille and out and helped her maintain her monster status despite the fact that she did nothing but sell during this segment.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Claudio Castagnoli for the AEW Continental Title: A good match that fell below my admittedly high expectations given the two wrestlers involved. A 20-minute time limit for a secondary title match felt odd, and the draw didn’t really work in terms of leaving me truly anxious to see a rematch. The Young Bucks rejecting the fans pleas for five more minutes was paint by numbers material. Despite my complaints about the match, it was still the best match of the night.

Toni Storm vs. Saraya for the AEW Women’s Championship: I have no idea why Saraya’s character did to earn a title shot, but this was a good win for Storm heading into All In. The post match attack by Mariah May was pretty basic, but they have done a nice job of setting the table for the AEW Women’s Championship match at All In.

FTW Champion Chris Jericho vs. Tommy Billington: A solid match with the British underdog getting some offense before the heel stole the win with a little help from his friends. The post match angle with Hook and Jericho was decent. I wasn’t a fan of Hook being punked out so easily by Big Bill, but one can only assume that Hook will get his revenge when they face one another on Collision.

Host venue: WrestleTix listed the venue as being set up to hold 4,236 fans and the company billed this as a sellout. This needs to become the norm. There’s just no good reason to justify putting Dynamite in NBA and NHL sized arenas when the company fails to sell even a quarter of the tickets it would take to reach capacity. The smaller venue approach creates a much better atmosphere both in-person and for the television audience.

AEW Dynamite Misses

Hangman Page and Evil Uno: The segment was ruined by the laziness of having Uno walk through the small space behind Page and Renee Paquette during a live interview. This just wouldn’t happen. It was such an easily avoidable moment that made the entire segment feel contrived. Something as simple as Page spotting Uno off-camera and calling him into the shot would have been better than the weak approach that they took. By the way, I was pleased to see that Perry made his own alterations to the TNT Title belt and it wasn’t another example of Tony Khan creating yet another new title belt.

Darby Allin and “FTR” Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler vs. Jack Perry and “The Young Bucks” Matthew Jackson, and Nicholas Jackson: Good action from bell to bell and a crowd pleasing win for the babyface trio. If you’re a viewer who just wanted a good six-man tag match, then you probably came away satisfied. The reason the match landed in the Miss section is that it failed to create more excitement about either of the two pay-per-view matches that it was meant to preview. The post match angle with The Acclaimed also failed in that regard. The All In tag team title three-way match feels cold and they would have been better off doing more to spotlight the Allin vs. Perry coffin match for the TNT Title.