By Will Pruett, ProWrestling.net Co-Senior Staffer (@itswilltime)
It happened. I finally missed a week of thoughts on Dynamite last week. Alas, we are back and thinking hard again!
– The main story of AEW is Will Ospreay’s two dads and their own in-fighting. Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley are both treating Ospreay like a little brother they can push around and dominate for their own reasons. Moxley wants Ospreay to believe that Ospreay owes him for all of the basement training and neck-toweling with the Death Riders. Omega and Ospreay have their long-established relationship. My worry with this story going into All In is that Ospreay is a pawn between these two longer-tenured legacy stars and not his own man. If the goal this Summer is to crown Ospreay as the major star and standard-bearer of AEW, making him the little brother does not accomplish this. Ospreay needs to be his own man before All In.
– Kevin Knight did not get a lot of promo time on this show before challenging for the AEW Men’s World Championship against Kenny Omega on Sunday. Omega did not talk much about this main event match either. While I don’t hate the story of dissension continuing within the Don Callis Family, it took precedence over selling a pay-per-view main event for this coming week. While Knight’s TNT Championship defense against Darby Allin was a nice start to the evening, we needed to hear more from the already weak challenger for Omega and his World Championship.
– “The Painmaker” Chris Jericho is the dumbest and worst thing happening in all of wrestling right now, and I am saying this while a major company has made encroaching fascism their actual brand. First of all, Jericho looks absolutely awful in this gimmick. The clown paint and the dumb hat look terrible. Second, Jericho seems to believe his dumb accessories make him look tough. He is presented as a frightening badass, but he is just a weird old man. It is disappointing to see a wrestler once believed to be among the most creative in the industry fail so spectacularly on a weekly basis. While Jericho’s comeback started inoffensively, it has quickly morphed into the lowlight of each week of AEW TV.
– I loved the segment between Thekla, Willow Nightingale, and Mick Foley. This was an excellent use of Foley and some of the best mic work we have heard Willow deliver. This match was the best built-up part of AEW Redemption. Willow has emphasized the importance of the Women’s World Championship to her repeatedly in some really great promo segments.
– I am not convinced that Thekla losing the AEW Women’s World Championship should happen at AEW Redemption. She has a lot left to do as champion, and I would rather see Willow’s crowning moment happen at All In. The problem is Mercedes Moné is already supposed to get a title shot on that show. This feels a lot like Eddie Guerrero winning the WWE Championship a month before WrestleMania XX, in that it’s a cool moment, but it could have been so much cooler. Will they find a way to get to Mercedes vs. Willow vs. Thekla at All In? I rarely advocate for a Triple Threat, but this is one I could get behind.
– Two matches on this show had an opponent ducking in a tag match and a tag team partner getting hit (Moxley taking a V Trigger and Fletcher taking Kazuchika Okada’s Rainmaker). These were both major moments in the matches we were meant to remember when they ended. Why does AEW often use the same plot device multiple times on the same show? This reminded me of Revolution 2026, which saw multiple one-count kickouts after pin attempts. AEW agents need to talk to each other more to diversify the in-ring stories being told.
– I enjoyed Lena Kross and Megan Bayne vs. Julia Hart and Skye Blue for what it was – a plunder match between two tag teams. What I don’t understand is who the protagonist is supposed to be in this match and feud. What, as a fan watching, am I supposed to be rooting for? The match was big and bold and exciting, with these two teams delivering in AEW’s hardcore women’s wrestling format. The story was muddled. Who are the big babyface challengers for Devine Dominion? Where are the babyface tag teams?
– I will always love Bandido and Brody King tagging together. Brodido might be my favorite team in AEW. I also love perfect comedy wrestler Kazuchika Okada making silly faces after doing something wrong. I also love Kyle Fletcher. This tag team match was a ton of fun.
– Jay White vs. Clark Connors did more to bore me than to excite me. This entire Dogs vs. Bang Bang Gang feud is not working for me, and the sooner we get White into the singles title scene in AEW (there are five of them to choose from), the better. He is being wasted in a bad comedy feud.
– Adam Copeland and Christian Cage have done almost nothing since winning the AEW Tag Team Championship other than get attacked backstage. Where is the original storytelling or the fun around them having a run as tag team champions? It feels like we are just hanging out until they can have a match with The Young Bucks. I did not believe we would be treading water with Cope and Cage this quickly.
AEW’s got a B show pay-per-view this weekend, and I am unusually excited for what I believe will be some absolutely great matches! I’ll be back Monday with 10 thoughts on that show!
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.
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