By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
“FTR” Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler vs. Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli: The show peaked from an in-ring standpoint with a terrific opening tag match. The match going to a draw created the need for a rematch at AEW Revolution. AEW recently had Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page fight to a draw on Dynamite, but it doesn’t feel like they have gone overboard with that finish yet.
Sting and Darby Allin: Most importantly, condolences to Sting and his family for the loss of Sting’s father. The promo work by both men was strong with Sting showing legitimate emotion over his father’s death while also displaying good fire while talking about the Young Bucks attacking his sons and the upcoming match at Revolution. The segment with a slighted Ric Flair telling Renee Paquette that he thought he would have been more involved in the build to Sting’s retirement and then meeting with the Young Bucks was intriguing. My best guess is that Flair is playing the Bucks, but I suppose we can’t entirely rule out the possibility that this is leading to Sting hitting his longtime adversary with a couple of Stinger Splashes after the retirement match concludes.
Wardlow promo: This was the best mic work of Wardlow’s career. He was intense and believable in making the argument that he’s been overlooked for AEW World Championship matches. Either we’re supposed to forget that his character actually chose to go after the TNT Title or this was meant to be more of a shoot style promo given that he also blamed people backstage for is lack of title matches. Either way, the follow-up is always the key and I guess only time will tell whether whatever the hell “Meat Madness” is will give him a boost. All of that said, it is tough to care about Wardlow not getting title matches when the storyline is that he intends to win the world championship and then give it to Adam Cole.
AEW International Champion Orange Cassidy vs. Mike Bennett in a non-title match: I’m not sure why they went through all the trouble of explaining that Trent Beretta was supposed to face Bennett when the match was never advertised. After all, Cassidy beat Matt Taven last week, so it seemed only natural that he would eventually beat Bennett on the road to his TNT Title match with Roderick Strong at AEW Revolution. Despite the awkward prelude, Cassidy and Bennett produced a well worked, crowd pleasing match.
Christian Cage and Daniel Garcia: The dark humor in Cage bringing up the late fathers of his adversaries still cracks me up. Garcia’s promo was solid and he reacted in a believable manner after Cage brought up his mother and late father.
Samoa Joe, Swerve Strickland, and Brian Cage vs. Hook, Hangman Page, and Rob Van Dam: A soft hit for an awkward main event with heel Page still teaming with babyfaces, not to mention Joe teaming with Strickland a little over a week before they all meet in a three-way match for the AEW World Championship. Joe choking out Van Dam made for a good finish and was better than the usual approach of having Cage take the pin. Hopefully Page is doing okay given the way he was limping after the match.
AEW Women’s Champion Toni Storm vs. Sydni Winnell in a non-title match: More of an in the middle for a brief spotlight win for Storm.
AEW Dynamite Misses
Deonna Purrazzo vs. Madison Rayne: A lousy match even before the ugly spot where Rayne took a bump on the top of her head. Speaking of which, I still can’t believe they went with that frightening spot for the sponsored “move of the night” clip.
I will add another miss for the referee frantically calling for the whole locker room to empty in order to brake an even brawl between two teams, while later on nobody bothers to do the same thing when one man/woman is being beaten down by multiple people. So infuriating.
Not only did Wardlow do the best mic work of his career, arguably Daniel Garcia did too. His last line about putting Cage in the ground next to his Dad was an excellent one. This kind of stuff will be more important for getting Garcia over long-term than his dance move.
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