By Will Pruett, ProWrestling.net Co-Senior Staffer (@itswilltime)
It’s time again for a very limited number of thoughts about a very long show! Let’s discuss AEW Dynasty.
– MJF’s second AEW Men’s World Championship reign is off to a very good in-ring start, but I am now questioning what the story of MJF having this title is. Every defense of the championship has focused much more on the challenger than the champion. While MJF is certainly playing a role, these feuds are not at all about him. You could substitute MJF for generic heel No. 4 in any of these feuds and they would go the same. You could not pull MJF from the matches – where he has been performing at an otherworldly level against some game opponents.
– Kenny Omega, Adam Copeland, Christian Cage, Chris Jericho – This is the list of Canadian wrestlers who lost on this show, a rare AEW pay-per-view from Canada. If it weren’t for the return and victory of Kyle O’Reilly, this would have been a show devoid of any Canadian wins. I was surprised to see Copeland, Cage, and Jericho lose, as this was a comeback show for each of them. For Copeland and Cage, I saw a Tag Team Championship win leading to a match with The Young Bucks at Double or Nothing (and an eventual big dumb ladder match down the line). For Jericho, this makes me more interested in his comeback. He’s purposefully leaning into nostalgia, which makes me think he will reinvent himself and find something new to do.
– Darby Allin and Andrade El Idolo had one of the best matches on this show and proved to have insane chemistry together. Allin is an amazing performer when he is in the ring (or around the arena) with a wrestler he clicks with. That click has been missing since Allin returned at All In, and we finally saw it again on this show. Darby Allin pivoting immediately to a match with MJF on Wednesday night makes his current booking fascinating. I don’t see Allin winning the AEW World Championship, but I also couldn’t guarantee he won’t. He hasn’t been talking about the title for long enough, in my view, but AEW has been booking with bold choices and more confidence than we have seen lately.
– My other favorite match on this show was The Young Bucks vs. Kazuchika Okada and Konosuke Takeshita. This was Matt and Nick Jackson doing what they are the very best in the world at. No one has fast-paced, frenetic tag matches as they do, and it’s a marvel to watch them continue to work at this high level. Okada was his traditional “comedy wrestler trapped in the body of an ideal world champion” self in this one, reveling in the chance to be both serious and humorous across from The Bucks. This was a great chapter in the ongoing (perhaps for too long) feud between Okada and Takeshita and in Matt and Nick finding their way back to the Tag Team Championship scene.
– Kevin Knight was the ideal human being to win the TNT Championship Casino Gauntlet Match. This was another match that prioritized my own personal joy, with some beautiful exchanges between opponents we have not seen together (Pac, Speedball, and Bandido forever!). Kevin Knight has been emphasized in AEW booking for the last six months, using his opportunity in the Continental Classic to launch a star-making run in 2026. I am really excited to see more Kevin Knight singles matches on Dynamite and Collision and see Knight become a great champion. We will look back on this as a star-making moment and year for Knight.
– Jon Moxley vs. Will Ospreay was a very good match, but the near falls down the stretch got to be a bit much. With the story of this match being Ospreay getting too cocky and letting the Continental Championship slip away, he is set up with a nice comeback path through the Owen Hart Tournament and into the main event of All In. Ospreay needed to face Moxley in his return from injury, but it was a confused build with Moxley being more of a babyface now and Ospreay being out for vengeance. Now, with the opportunity to move on, hopefully Ospreay can execute the biggest and most important build of his career.
– Jamie Hayter and Thekla had a very good match for the AEW Women’s World Championship, but I cannot get over how haphazardly booked this story was going in. Hayter never delivered a solid promo seeking the world title. I know she was a substitute challenger, but AEW’s booking showed us they did not believe in her or this match with Thekla. Both women overperformed their spots on this card and their build.
– AEW needs to work on their women’s division storytelling now that Toni Storm is out. She was the main character of the division, and despite some good character work being done by women like Willow Nightingale, Thekla, Marina Shafir, and Hikaru Shida, there still feels like there is a void in this space on the card.
– FTR are having one hell of a reign with the AEW Tag Team Championship right now, and it’s really fun to see. I expected them to lose both last month at Revolution and last night at Dynasty. Now we have Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood (with Big Stoke) surviving each challenger and looking truly dominant. AEW is doing a really nice job with their tag division right now.
– I get a little bit sad watching modern Kenny Omega matches. He is a generational performer who is still very good at what he does, but when it is time for a major match, my mind still wants to view him as 2017 Kenny Omega, and that performer just does not exist anymore. In this main event match, I kept waiting to see Omega find that gear that only he has possessed in wrestling history. I know this is an unfair expectation and that the mileage on Omega’s body – even pre-diverticulitis – was likely not worth the cost. I can admit this, but it still pops into my mind with every big Kenny Omega match (this one and the Kazuchika Okada All In match come to mind). Omega performed excellently on this show.
For an AEW pay-per-view, this was a B effort, but if this kind of show is a B, AEW is in truly great shape.
Will Pruett writes about wrestling and popular culture at prowrestling.net. To see his video content, subscribe to his YouTube channel. To contact, check him out on Bluesky @itswilltime, leave a comment, or email him at itswilltime@gmail.com.
Does AEW actually refer to it as the Men’s World Championship? I’m not trying to be a dick. I haven’t watched AEW in a long while and only started watching it last night when I saw the PPVs came with my DAZN subscription. But I was exhausted and didn’t make it to the title match.
Darby vs. Andrade was match of the night for me. Great to see Kyle O’Reilly back, especially as it meant that the ‘surprise partner’ wasn’t Ishii.