Powell’s AEW Dynamite Hit List: The best of the three Continental Classic matches, and a channel-changing segment

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

AEW Dynamite Hits

Kyle Fletcher vs. Kevin Knight in a Continental Classic tournament Gold League match: My pick for being the best of the three Continental Classic tournament matches. Knight looked good before Fletcher ultimately put him away. Fletcher is a main event player, and Knight continues to show upside potential. The key for Knight will be character development, because it doesn’t feel like viewers have learned much of anything about him on AEW television.

Jon Moxley vs. Claudio Castagnoli in a Continental Classic tournament Blue League match: The match got better as it went on. Castagnoli going over was clearly the right call for the story they are telling with Moxley’s unstable leadership role in the Death Riders. While I enjoyed the match, it was frustrating to have two stablemates facing one another, yet not hear from either man beforehand.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Pac in a Continental Classic tournament Gold League match: A soft Hit. The bulk of the match was good enough that I can’t put this in the Miss section. That said, the lack of psychology was disappointing. I typically cringe when a standard brainbuster doesn’t lead to the finish, so I found it absurd that a top rope brainbuster not only didn’t win the match for Pac, but Okada hooked him into a pin and got the win just moments later.

Samoa Joe and Eddie Kingston: This was more of an in the middle than a Hit or a Miss. I was looking forward to the match going into this segment, but I can’t say that their verbal exchange increased my level of interest, nor did they sell me on the possibility of Kingston going over.

AEW Dynamite Misses

“The Opps” Powerhouse Hobbs, Hook, and Katsuyori Shibata vs. “Dark Order” Evil Uno, John Silver, and Alex Reynolds: The Dark Order’s return to Dynamite was about as welcome as when I woke up this morning to an internet outage. It was no surprise to hear only a smattering of cheers when the Dark Order made their entrance, but it was interesting that the live crowd was even more subdued during the Opps’ entrance. The match didn’t last long, but it had channel changer written all over it.

Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa vs. Marina Shafir and Megan Bayne in a Holiday Deathmatch in an AEW Women’s Tag Team Title tournament semifinal match: A minor Miss. The added hardcore stipulation for a tournament bout felt unnecessary, and the match had some clunky moments. I really enjoy the Storm character, and I like Shirakawa, but I’m surprisingly down on them as a tag team. In fact, I was hoping to see the powerhouse duo of Shafir and Bayne go and then win the tournament.

(Jason Powell, founder and editor of ProWrestling.net, has covered pro wrestling full-time dating back to 1997. He hosts a weekly podcast, Pro Wrestling Boom, and also appears regularly on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. Reach him via email at dotnetjason@gmail.com and on social media via @prowrestlingnet.bsky.social or x.com/prowrestlingnet. For his full bio and information on this website, click here.)