Powell’s AEW Dynamite Hit List: Thoughts on Tommaso Ciampa’s debut, whether Andrade belonged in the main event, the AEW world title picture

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

AEW Dynamite Hits

Tommaso Ciampa debuts after Mark Briscoe vs. El Clon for the TNT Title: Another fun title defense for Briscoe followed by the big Hit of Tommaso Ciampa’s AEW debut. I like that the company is wasting no time by going right to Briscoe vs. Ciampa on Saturday’s AEW Collision. It’s a strong hook for the Saturday night show. Hopefully, it’s a sign that the company intends to make Collision more than a missable B-show now that they won’t have football competition for six months.

Swerve Strickland vs. Andrade El Idolo: The match didn’t stand out as an obvious main event, especially on a show with three title matches. And then the live crowd’s flat reaction to Andrade’s entrance was a bit concerning. But Andrade and Swerve came through with a strong outing that was worthy of closing the show. Andrade may not have won clean, but he was clearly elevated by pinning Swerve. In fact, some of the same fans who were quiet during his entrance were chanting Andrade’s name when he confronted MJF at the end of the night.

MJF and the AEW World Title picture: The MJF and Brody King verbal segment set the table nicely for next week’s match. As down as I am on AEW going with too many eliminator matches rather than simply booking title matches (more on that later), the logic behind this one made perfect sense. The post main event angle with MJF being confronted by Kenny Omega, Andrade, and Hangman Page was an effective way to showcase the current title picture while also making it seem like MJF could be vulnerable with such a deep pool of challengers. It’s especially impressive considering they didn’t even include Swerve Strickland and Samoa Joe in that mix this week. Most pro wrestling companies tend to focus on the champion and a single challenger unless they are working toward a multi-person match. I suppose this could be leading to a multi-person title match, but I am hopeful that the goal is to set up MJF with several strong singles matches for the championship. Either way, it’s good to see the championship is the center of AEW’s storyline universe.

“FTR” Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler vs. Jake Doyle and Mark Davis for the AEW Tag Team Titles: It’s a shame that Doyle was injured. This was a quality match until the awkward finish of Jon Moxley hitting Mark Davis with a title belt, which set up FTR going over. I get that it plays into the feud between the Callis Family and the Death Riders, but I’m not a fan. It’s babyface Moxley and his heel stablemates facing a heel faction that has more members than all but one of the ten smallest towns in the United States has citizens. Why wouldn’t Callis have his faction take full advantage of their three-to-one advantage over the Death Riders? Anyway, the one positive about the finish is that the new powerhouse team of Davis and Doyle didn’t take a clean loss. They should pick up right where they left off once Doyle recovers.

Kris Statlander vs. Thekla for the AEW Women’s Championship: The only thing I didn’t care for was the outcome. The match was entertaining from start to finish, and we’re far enough into Statlander’s reign that there was some mystery regarding the outcome. The live crowd’s mild reactions to Statlander continues to be concerning. She’s beaten Toni Storm, Mercedes Mone, Jamie Hayter, and now Thekla, yet there’s just no indication that Statlander is any more over than she was before those major victories. I can’t help but wonder how over Willow Nightingale would be had the company strapped the rocket to her instead. On the bright side, Thekla is in a better place now than she was before they started to build her up for this title match. Here’s hoping there’s a plan to have her bounce back after taking this clean loss.

Kenny Omega vs. Rocky Romero: There was no mystery regarding the outcome of the match, so it was a nice call to have Omega go over quickly and decisively. It helped get the show off to a good start and set up the verbal segment that followed.

AEW Dynamite Misses

AEW Continental Champion Jon Moxley vs. Ace Austin in an eliminator match: The match quality was fine. My ongoing issue is Moxley being lazily booked in throwaway eliminator matches. It would have made sense for heel Moxley to be a hypocrite who wanted to have eliminator matches to avoid defending his title. It makes no sense that today’s version of Moxley isn’t a fighting champion who insists that his title be on the line against all comers. If El Clon got a TNT Title match after two wins, and Tommaso Ciampa is getting a shot at the same title in his AEW debut match, then there’s no reason Moxley can’t put his title on the line against anyone. Instead, we’re just over a month into his title reign as Continental Champion, and Moxley has had three eliminator matches and has yet to defend his title.

(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.)