What is there to be said about AEW Dynamite right now? 2023 has been a killer year for a company that’s only four years old. We’re only three months into the year and AEW has put together numerous stretches of shows that could be ranked toward the top of Dynamites ever. Furthermore, AEW Revolution is one of the best PPVs they’ve ever done. It’s only getting better as talent becomes healthier, the roster expands, and the future is as bright as the surface of the sun.
This episode had a lot on it. Let’s talk about it!
- Dynamite was supposed to open with a grudge match between Juice Robinson and Ricky Starks, but AEW decided to do something it doesn’t do very often – a ‘no contest.’ Ricky Starks barely made it to the ring before Switchblade Jay White made his AEW return. Both Jay and Juice beat up Ricky Starks. The Bullet Club now has two members in AEW. Is something brewing here? Regardless, that was a fun surprise!
- Chris Jericho was backstage up next and wanted to explain his reasoning for interrupting Adam Cole’s return celebration last week. He felt like the showmanship of the celebration insulted Daniel Garcia. Keith Lee returned with an awesome gray look to challenge Jericho next week. Jericho isn’t intimidated by anyone and it was funny to watch him back away from Keith.
AEW Trios Championship: House of Black (c) vs. Best Friends & Orange Cassidy
Despite not being the first billed match, the actual first match of the evening was the Trios Championship between House of Black and Best Friends. This was a fun trios match to continue the House of Black’s awesome reign of terror. But first, let’s not bury the lede here. There was one more surprise as both teams were being introduced.
Trent’s mom, SUE, made a surprise appearance by dropping off the Best Friends with her white van. This lady got a huge cheer from the crowd and me. She’s so over!
The match itself was exactly as expected. The AEW Trios division is fantastic, and this match was constant action. Best Friends had great tandem moves, Orange Cassidy was his perfect blend of talent and comedy, and The House of Black kicked all the butt.
It was just move after move after move as Best Friends almost stole the match after an impressive Trent Baretta piledriver onto Brody King. Buddy Matthews then finished the match with a curbstomp onto Chuck Taylor for the victory. Good match! The ending was a little out of left field, but fantastic stuff once again from out trios champs.
3.5/5
- Christian Cage made his first appearance post-Revolution with a quick backstage segment. He was in front of a red room as Luchasaurus walks through in a terrifying new outfit. He looks amazing! Almost as if Kane became Kirby and sucked up a dinosaur. How many surprises/returns is that now? Five? Dynamite cranked it up to eleven this week.
AEW Women’s Championship: Jaime Hayter (c) vs. Riho
After all of the insane surprises and high octane action of the first thirty minutes of Dynamite, it was nice to slow down with a fantastic singles match between Jaime Hayter and Riho. Hayter is on a roll right now and Riho is amazing. These ladies put together a slobber knocker of a match based on Hayter’s strength versus Riho’s moxie and drive. They killed this match as it easily took home the match of the night honors.
Riho matches up well against anybody, but Jaime Hayter’s strength could take advantage of her smaller stature. Jaime took advantage after giving Riho a nasty uranage onto the ring apron. The inaugural champ would never stay down, however, as she survived neck breakers and lariats galore.
Riho almost became a two-time champion after a huge double knee strike, but Hayter eventually prevailed after hitting the Hayterade to retain her title. This was an amazing match that felt a lot longer than twelve minutes. Great stuff here.
4.25/5
Match of the Night
Segments:
- Outcasts were backstage with Renee Paquette immediately following Hayter’s win over Riho. They are on a mission to separate Jaime Hayter from her AEW Women’s Championship. Renee points out that there are three Outcasts, which they brush off. Good point Renee!
- Daddy Magic Matt Menard and the other goons of JAS officially invited the Acclaimed to join their faction. Max Caster raps their denial of the invitation, but Cool Hand Angelo Parker got them a match on Rampage as a four-way team anyway.
- When someone is incredible at whatever they are doing, it’s apropos to just sit back and enjoy the show. That’s what MJF Day was – perfect. In all honesty, that’s how I would describe Maxwell Jacob Friedman as a professional wrestler. He’s too good at this. He had the Long Island crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. There was singing, and a band, and Max made another speech about his childhood. Jungle Boy surprised Max and attacked him to end the segment.
Sammy Guevara vs. Komander
Another pillar, Sammy Guevara, subsequently had a match following that amazing MJF segment. Sammy was facing Komander in what was sure to be a match mostly spent in the air. That’s exactly what we got.
The whole match revolved around Sammy trying to ground the high-wire act of Komander. The Lucha sensation kept attempting to run the ropes, except he went to the well a few too many times. It was Komander’s downfall as Sammy hit a nice cutter into the GTH for the victory. This was a fine match that could have been longer. More Komander is always better.
3.25/5
- Afterward, Tony Schiavone was in the ring to interview Guevara about the AEW champion. Sammy claims that MJF has never worked for his status as a pillar. He cut a decent promo, but the content of the promo wasn’t the best. MJF literally just went 70 minutes in an Iron Man match. Max doesn’t wrestle often but proves himself every single time he does. The Long Island crowd hated it too, obviously.
FTR Championship: Hook (c) vs. Ethan Page
Up next was the FTW Championship match between Hook and Ethan Page. ‘All Ego’ wanted revenge for what Hook did to Stokely Hathaway a couple of weeks ago, but now Ethan Page will want revenge on someone else. This match had the beginnings of something cool until Isiah Kassidy distracted the referee to allow Matt Hardy to use the FTW title on Ethan Page. Hook uses the RedRum to pass out Ethan Page.
2.25/5
The Ethan Page and Matt Hardy story has been underrated because it mostly happens on Youtube shows.
Segments:
- And finally, we reached THE announcement segment. This surprise might have eclipsed the five previous of the night. Newly signed Nigel Mcguinness was backstage with Tony Khan to announce the first ever London AEW show, the returning “All In.” They also announce that this show will be taking place in Wembley Stadium! That place holds close to one hundred thousand people. That’s downright insane!
- Blackpool Combat Club quickly destroyed three random guys and then Bryan Danielson grabbed a microphone. He talked about going home to spend time with family, but he loves the Blackpool Combat Club and professional wrestling too. Danielson believes that nobody in the back can hang with this group of professionals. Hangman decides to run to his demise as they gang up on him.
Titles vs. Careers: The Gunns (c) vs. FTR
ANNNDDD NEWWWWW!!!
And finally, it was main event time as The Gunns faced off against FTR for the AEW Tag Team Championships in a grudge match. To everyone’s surprise, FTR won! Dax Harwood worked everyone in his attempt to convince people that FTR was leaving. The match was pretty good too, although the crux of the story was a little backward.
There was a lot riding on this match. It was titles against careers and they revolved the whole match story around that in a clever way. FTR held the advantage for a while until The Gunns did what they do best – cheat. After the Ass Boys figured out they couldn’t beat FTR in any standard way, they decided cheating was the way to go. “What’s different about this? They do that all the time” you may ask. Well, they were cheating right in front of the referee to get disqualified. Commentary sold this like FTR wouldn’t have won the titles, so their careers would be over. I thought this was clever at first, but in retrospect, it was backward.
When someone gets disqualified, the other person wins. With that in mind, wouldn’t FTR have won after Austin Gunn used a low blow right in front of the ref? Dax and Cash might not have gotten the titles, but they wouldn’t have lost either. With all that being said, it was still a clever way to construct a match.
The ending felt a little awkward and overbooked as well, but in the end, FTR pulled it off. Dax and Cash did a simultaneous sunset flip pinfall to win the match and become two-time AEW Tag Team Champions.
3.5/5
OVERALL
And that was Dynamite for this week! What did you think of the show?
This episode was high on life. The number of surprise returns, debuts, and insane announcements truly made this week’s episode the proper way to make a big show fallout. It was the Raw after Mania that never happened. It was also one of the rare occasions where the segments and non-wrestling outshined what happened from bell to bell. Jaime Hayter and Riho won the match of the night, but that was the only match that stood out.
In the end, an amazing episode of Dynamite. The AEW blaze is going strong in 2023, and it doesn’t feel like that momentum is slowing down any time soon
Verdict: 4.5/5