By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
MJF vs. ROH Champion Bandido for the AEW World Championship: A strong main event world title match that concluded with a clean finish. What’s not to like about that? They told a good story with MJF targeting Bandido’s bad shoulder, which eventually gave out on him while he went for his finisher. I don’t know what Ring of Honor’s actual purpose is these days, but Bandido is the ROH Champion, so it was a good call to have MJF praise him after the match.
Darby Allin vs. Pac: They opened the show on a high note with a wild pre-match brawl followed by a good match. Allin continues to take insane bumps during his matches. In this case, it was taking an overhead belly-to-belly suplex on the ring steps. I’ll never understand why he does it and why Tony Khan doesn’t step in and save him from himself. The story of the match was that Allin wanted to beat Pac so that he could say he had beaten every member of the Death Riders. Great. Now what? Can he finally move on? Allin performing a Coffin Drop to Pillmanize Pac’s ankle was violent enough that it came off like an injury angle. Is Pac going away for a bit?
Jake Doyle and Mark Davis vs. Young Bucks vs. vs. GOA vs. JetSpeed in a four-way for a shot at the AEW Tag Team Titles: A pretty good spot-fest and a big win for Doyle and Davis. It feels a little strange to see them put right into a No. 1 contenders match when they’d never teamed together before, yet it felt like the right call to have them win their first match as a team. The problem is that it sets up an odd heel vs. heel match with FTR for the AEW Tag Team Titles. It will be interesting to see how that goes and whether it will be laid out in a way that encourages fans to root for one heel team over the other.
Hangman Page vs. Bryan Keith: A soft Hit for a solid match. Has Keith ever actually collected a bounty in AEW? At this point, it feels safe to say that even Greedo (Han shot first) was a better bounty hunter. Big Bill’s interference helped keep things interesting, but it feels like he’s being wasted in this holdover alliance from the lousy Learning Tree faction.
Brody King vs. Jon Cruz: Another soft Hit for a quick squash match. Cruz is an entertaining enhancement act. While I have no idea why King’s matches are suddenly being labeled as standby matches, the latest Tony Khan booking quirk is far less annoying than the absurd prize money matches and his fetish for all-star eight-person tag matches.
AEW Dynamite Misses
Thekla, Julia Hart, and Skye Blue vs. Kris Statlander, Willow Nightingale, and Harley Cameron: The match wasn’t bad, but the live crowd clearly wasn’t invested. This was as quiet as the otherwise lively fans were all night. On the bright side, I like that Thekla pinned Statlander to set up an AEW Women’s Championship match. Statlander feels cold. She was given clean wins over Toni Storm and Mercedes Mone on back-to-back pay-per-views, which is as big as it gets in the AEW women’s division. Now it’s on her to make a stronger connection with the fans.
(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.)
SHOCKING! Another “hit list” about AEW by Powell and every “hit” has some type of negative comment.
Who woulda thunk it?!??
A new year and Angry Mike still hasn’t figured out what constructive criticism is. Here’s a very special Hit List just for you.
AEW Dynamite Hits: Everything!!!! From now until the end of time.
Happy?