Powell’s AEW Dynamite Hit List: Kenny Omega vs. El Hijo del Vikingo, The Gunns vs. Top Flight for the AEW Tag Titles, Hook vs. Stokely Hathaway in a No DQ match, Sting, Darby Allin, and Orange Cassidy vs. Kip Sabian, The Butcher, and The Blade, Toni Storm vs. Sky Blue, Jon Moxley vs. Stu Grayson

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

AEW Dynamite Hits

Kenny Omega vs. El Hijo del Vikingo: An outstanding main event complete with a clean finish. Vikingo shined on his biggest American stage to date with his breathtaking acrobatic style. We see a lot of that style these days, but he takes it to another level. While I applaud the attempt to tell a story with Don Callis doing his best Slippin’ Jimmy bump to swerve Omega into thinking that Hangman Page got physical with him, it’s a situation that requires Omega to simply watch a replay to see what actually transpired. We’ll see if there’s some acknowledgement of this next week, but in the moment I fear it’s one of those angles that requires viewers to turn their brains off. Nevertheless, the main event stood out as special and truly memorable in an era where there are so many great matches that most are quickly forgotten.

Jon Moxley vs. Stu Grayson: A good match. Moxley is making the Dark Order wrestlers shine before beating them. Everything about Blackpool Combat Club’s recent actions scream heel, so it’s really time to come up with a replacement for Moxley’s crowd pleasing “Wild Thing” entrance theme. It’s something they can always bring back for his next babyface run, but it feels counterproductive with the faction going for heat.

Hook vs. Stokely Hathaway in a No DQ match: It’s a shame that Hathaway didn’t generate more heat leading up to this match. He went above and beyond to make this work by taking some big bumps for a non-wrestler. And it did work on some level, but Hathaway getting his comeuppance should have felt so much bigger than it did.

Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn vs. “Top Flight” Dante Martin and Darius Martin for the AEW Tag Team Titles: A solid match with a interference from The Kingdom to presumably set up their tag team match with Top Flight for ROH Supercard of Honor. Meanwhile, the post match angle with FTR putting their AEW careers on the line for a shot at the AEW Tag Team Titles felt rushed and yet was an interesting development. Whether FTR are staying or going, I like they way they are playing into the speculation.

Sting, Darby Allin, and Orange Cassidy vs. Kip Sabian, The Butcher, and The Blade: This was nothing special from a match quality standpoint, but there was enough star power on the babyface side to make it enjoyable. Allin staring at the Double Or Nothing sign afterward surprised me and not just because AEW should avoid having their wrestlers do this during WrestleMania season for the obvious reasons. I assumed that last week’s Four Pillars segment was setting up a television title match given that the Double Or Nothing pay-per-view is over two months away. Please tell me that it’s not going to be yet another storyline that has MJF making his challengers jump through a bunch of hoops to get a shot at the title.

AEW Dynamite Misses

QTV: Is there actually a point to these TMZ spoofs? The best thing I can say about the second installment is that at least Powerhouse Hobbs got to sit this one out.

Toni Storm vs. Skye Blue: The match was fine. Okay, so I could have done without Storm chopping the ring post when Blue moved out of the way, only to sell a hand injury for a few seconds before going right back to punching and chopping Blue with the same hand. But the Miss is really about the inability of The Outcasts vs. AEW Originals story to maintain any sense of momentum.