By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
Darby Allin vs. Konosuke Takeshita for the AEW World Championship: An excellent match that managed to create suspenseful moments despite there being no reason to suspect that Takeshita might win when both wrestlers already have pay-per-view title matches scheduled. It’s still a shame that many fans have suspected that Double or Nothing would be the end of Allin’s reign since the moment he won the championship. If this reign came at a time when there was no likely end date, the great title matches he’s had would have been so suspenseful because fans would have bought into the possibility of him losing. While I doubt it will happen due to the hair stipulation, Allin’s title matches could reach that level of suspense if he actually were to go over at Double or Nothing.
Darby Allin and MJF contract signing: MJF’s great line about the shortcomings of men from North Carolina left me feeling like I should move there to be with my people. Er, um, never mind. Anyway, MJF did a good job of showing hesitation due to the stipulation. He also reacted to the fan taunts in a way that showed the fans were getting to him, while doing it in a low-key manner rather than risk being too comical by going with a hammy over-the-top response. MJF nailed it when he said Allin looked rabid while standing across the table with a string of blood hanging from his mouth. As much as the title vs. hair stipulation feels like it makes the outcome predictable in this case, it’s always been a great stipulation because the fans are pretty much guaranteed to see a title change or a wrestler have their head shaved.
Kevin Knight’s vs. Brian Cage for the TNT Championship: It was good to see Cage back after a long injury layoff. It’s also a big positive when companies deliver a nice surprise in open challenge situations, rather than going with a wrestler who is a regular on weekly television. The match was entertaining, and this was a nice win for Knight. Thank goodness for the Don Callis Family that Cage is back. With Kyle Fletcher sidelined, the Callis Family only had like eight more active wrestlers than every other AEW faction. Okay, seriously, what is the actual point of having so many wrestlers in the Callis Family when they could trim the fat and have one hell of a faction?
Adam Copeland, Christian Cage, Orange Cassidy, Matt Jackson, and Nick Jackson vs. Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler, Tommaso Ciampa, David Finlay, and Clark Connors in a ten-man tag: A live crowd-pleasing, all-action opener. The ten-man tag matches are typically trivial from a storyline standpoint, so I always suspect that they are more pleasing to the live crowd than to most television viewers. In this case, the star power, the satisfying finish, and Christian’s fun antics all helped this match land in the Hit section.
Jamie Hayter, Alex Windsor, and Hikaru Shida vs. “Triangle of Madness” Thekla, Julia Hart, and Skye Blue: A soft Hit. The babyfaces going over because Thekla was disqualified for hitting Hayter with the title belt wasn’t the most popular finish with the live crowd, nor was it meant to be. This wasn’t a cop-out finish. It’s not like AEW has shied away from having Hart or Blue lose matches. In fact, Hayter pinned Blue in a singles match last week. The goal was to put heat on Thekla, and it worked. I liked that Shida walked away rather than save her tag team partners from a post-match attack, even though she was holding a kendo stick. At this point, any AEW babyface character who doesn’t recognize Shida’s heelish behavior will come off like an oblivious moron.
AEW Dynamite Misses
Will Ospreay vs. Ace Austin: An AEW Special in that the match went long despite there being no mystery regarding the outcome. I can usually look past that if the match quality is strong, which it was in this case. Ospreay took fifteen minutes to beat a wrestler who hasn’t won a singles match on AEW television since last October. Austin’s victory over Bryan Keith is the only singles match he’s won in AEW (ROH does not count). And every wrestler who beat Austin in an AEW singles match did so in less time than Ospreay. I would make a crack about Death Riders’ training not paying off, but I liked that Ospreay used a submission hold to get the win.
Mike Bailey: I have no problem with Bailey winning a quick squash match. Rather, it was Bailey’s verbal segment after Knight’s win that felt flawed. It felt like they were about to set up Bailey challenging Knight for the TNA Title, but instead it turned out to be Bailey saying he’s got next as far as the AEW World Championship is concerned. So that’s how this works now? Wrestlers just have to declare they are the next challenger, and it actually results in a title match? What’s next, wrestlers place quarters on the ring apron as if they are calling the next game at a pool hall? And then there’s the issue of Bailey losing an eliminator match just six weeks ago. Granted, he lost that match to then-champion MJF, but it still feels too soon for Bailey to be getting another shot at the 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.)
The biggest Miss of this episode was Renee Paquette’s glasses.
And Ricochet’s obnoxious laugh!