By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
Will Ospreay and Kevin Knight vs. Lee Johnson and Blake Christian: This felt more competitive than it needed to be after Kenny Omega plowed through Christian in a few minutes last week. But there was good action and working with Ospreay helped get Knight over with the live crowd. Knight is off to a nice start in AEW. Can he gain something in what will presumably be a loss to Ospreay at Dynasty?
Brody King vs. Lance Archer: A solid showcase win for King over a Callis Family member heading into King’s tournament match against Konosuke Takeshita.
Big Bill and Bryan Keith vs. CJ Esparza and Gaige Noonan: A strong squash win with Bill and Keith destroying a couple of enhancement wrestlers while Bobby Lashley and MVP watched from ringside. At the very least, Esparza and Noonan deserved a name graphic for taking that ass kicking. I wouldn’t even know their names if they weren’t listed on Cagematch.net.
AEW Women’s Champion Toni Storm vs. Penelope Ford in a non-title match: A soft Hit for Storm beating Megan Bayne’s sidekick heading into Sunday’s match between Storm and Bayne. There was no mystery regarding the outcome, but Storm is one of the most over acts in the company.
Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page: As much as I’ve enjoyed their feud, my reaction to Hangman yelling at Swerve about how he would never let him win the AEW World Championship was “not this again.” So it was a welcome development when Swerve caught Page off guard by conceding that he deserved it when Page burned down his childhood home. Okay, so it would take saint-like qualities to actually forgive the things that these two have done to each other, but the story is taking a turn at just the right time.
AEW Dynamite Misses
Jon Moxley and Marina Shafir vs. Swerve Strickland and Willow Nightingale in a mixed tornado tag team match: The actual match was an entertaining Hit, but there were plenty of negatives that moved this into the Miss section. I have no idea how the production team completely missed the shot of Willow knocking Moxley off the apron and through the table on the floor. I’m even more baffled by the production team’s decision to repeatedly show closeup shots of Swerve’s back, revealing that he didn’t have a single scratch after being powerbombed on glass during the show-closing angle, but I digress. Swerve unintentionally kicking Shafir was fine, but the intentional male on female violence spot of Moxley hitting the Paradigm Shift on Willow was a questionable call, though at least Moxley’s character reacted in a way that made it seem like he didn’t realize it was Willow even though the setup for the move was clunky and told a different story. Perhaps my biggest gripe about the segment is that there should have been some indication in a storyline sense that the company doesn’t condone this type of behavior. The broadcast team members did a fine job of expressing outrage, but there was no talk of Moxley facing any type of punishment from the company. And from a pure logic standpoint, any broadcast team member other than Renee Paquette should have been sent to ask Swerve for his thoughts on her husband DDT’ing Swerve’s female tag team partner.
Dax Harwood gives referee Paul Turner a check: Just when it seemed like AEW referees couldn’t look worse… I get what they were going for by having Harwood try to make amends for getting physical with Turner on AEW Collision. But the idea of a referee being allowed to accept a $10,000 check from a wrestler is absurd. This is something that one might expect to be written by someone who isn’t a sports fan, not from a guy whose family owns two major league sports franchises. Stop asking fans to turn their brains off and give them the sports-like product that was promised when the company was launched.
Adam Copeland vs. Claudio Castagnoli: A minor Miss. Good ring work, but it was a struggle to maintain interest in this low stakes main event. Oddly, it was heel Castagnoli who was in search of revenge for Copeland giving him a Conchairto. When the match was over, I didn’t feel differently about either wrestler and it failed to increase my interest in the AEW Trios Title match at Dynasty. To close on a positive note, it was refreshing to see the referee check on Copeland before calling for the bell as opposed to rewarding Castagnoli for attacking him before the match.
Cody was the one who promised the ‘sports like’ promotion & he’s long gone. It’s silly to keep harkening back to a throwaway comment somebody made 6 years ago & which was never an officially stated direction of the promotion by Tony Khan.
“AEW will be a real sports based product.” – Tony Khan in 2019.
Tony has mentioned it dozens, if not hundreds, of times. Here’s one where you can go find the podcast and listen to him say it.
This is from January 3, 2023:
“Speaking to Sports Guys Talk Wrestling, AEW President Tony Khan was asked if he could provide any more insight into the new design.
“It’s a sports-based presentation and that’s what we always go for. It’s a great pro wrestling show and we wanted to change the set to reflect a new era, and I think it’s going to be a great look. It’s a great set. It’s still going to be the same great wrestling with new matches and new stories and a lot to look forward to,” he said before plugging AEW Dynamite.”