By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
Kenny Omega’s AEW World Championship celebration: The best part of the segment was when Omega and Will Ospreay kicked off the official build to their Wembley Stadium main event. Kevin Knight challenging Omega for the AEW World Championship feels like a nice Dynamite main event. They have some work to do when it comes to making Knight feel like he belongs in the Redemption main event. That said, it will be interesting to see if Knight can gain something in defeat beyond praise for match quality. The most intriguing moment of the night was when Jon Moxley told Omega, “Some people are who they are and can’t pretend to be anything else, even if they try.”
Kyle Fletcher vs. Komander for the AEW International Championship: A hot match with Komander’s flashy offense and near falls popping the live crowd. As much as Komander held up his end, I love the way that Fletcher makes his opponents shine in a way that makes fans believe they might see an upset. The sudden friction between Fletcher and Kazuchika Okada over the AEW International Championship was an interesting development.
Adam Copeland and Christian Cage vs. Daniel Garcia and Wheeler Yuta: A soft Hit for a decent opening match that overstayed its welcome. It was a bit much to dedicate most of the first half hour of the show to Copeland and Christian beating the low men in the Death Riders, and the post-match angle with The Dogs and Bang Bang Gang that will probably set up some giant tag team match that won’t appeal to me.
Andrade vs. Jake Doyle: A soft Hit. They followed up the opening tag match with another match that went needlessly long. Andrade is over, so the live crowd had fun with it. While I like Mark Davis and the match should be entertaining, it’s hard to be excited about Andrade challenging for AEW’s least prestigious singles title after he’s shown interest in the AEW World Championship.
Bandido and Brody King vs. Nick Comoroto and Aaron Solo: It took an hour and 40 minutes, but AEW finally had something happen in the ring that didn’t overstay its welcome. A soft Hit for the squash match.
AEW Dynamite Misses
ROH Champion Bandido challenges AEW International Champion Kyle Fletcher: This has the potential to be an excellent match. But if you are a “world champion” and you keep challenging other champions for their titles and they show no interest in challenging for your title, then your world championship is worthless.
“The Painmaker” Chris Jericho: It seems like Jericho cares more about his Painmaker persona than fans do. Finn Balor spends hours being painted when he uses the Demon persona. Jericho looks like he spends five minutes doing his own makeup and comes out looking like the love child of Alex from A Clockwork Orange and King Diamond.
Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage: A soft Hit. I wish Cage meant something in AEW. It doesn’t matter how jacked he is or that he’s in the Callis Family. Cage’s history in AEW shows there’s no reason to view him as a serious threat to beat someone as high on the food chain as Darby. I don’t think the ten-minute match would have bothered me had some of the previous matches not overstayed their welcome. It will be interesting to see if there’s a storyline reason for going with Darby challenging Kevin Knight for the TNT Title next week when they could have had the match determine Omega’s challenger at Redemption. There would have been more mystery regarding the outcome. Furthermore, Knight could have used the boost that would come from beating Darby, and it would have added more juice to their rivalry had Knight avenged losing to Darby in May.
Mercedes Moné, Megan Bayne, and Lena Kross vs. Willow Nightingale, Maya World, and Hyan: A minor Miss. The match was fine, but Mercedes working in Boston wasn’t enough to make it feel like a worthy television main event. It would have helped had the company cut the length of even one of the needlessly long matches and given that time to properly present the women’s trios match as the television main event throughout the show. Rather, they just threw it out there and then went with the most obvious finish by having Mercedes beat Hyan. Under different circumstances, one of the babyfaces could have pinned one of the champions on the heel team to set up a title match. But this was the first time Mone teamed with Bayne and Kross, and it would have been foolish to have such a dominant trio lose their first match together. Perhaps they should have faced a different team, as it feels like World is quickly losing the momentum she gained from her run in the Owen Hart Cup tournament.
(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.)
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