It’s time for another edition of the AEW Dynamite review this week! After a few down weeks, could All Elite Wrestling spark another fire to build more heat on the road to Double or Nothing? This week’s episode featured some seriously heavy hitters on the AEW card. Obviously, everyone was ready to see Omega and Moxley duke it out one more time, but Claudio and Rey would light it up too!
Let’s talk about it!
Double Jeopardy match: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Rey Fenix
Our opening match started immediately as the show began. Rey Fenix and Claudio Castagnoli were in a “Double Jeopardy” match where the winner received a title match of the other’s belt. That is an awesome stipulation that should be used more often. Why wouldn’t champions want more gold?
This match just set the tone for the entire evening; it was nonstop intensity. Rey Fenix constantly attempted flying moves that Claudio kept catching. He even walked the barricade to deliver a cool hurricanrana. It’s difficult to come up with new stuff in this day and age, but Rey definitely did it.
However, Claudio’s strength is always surprising. The Swiss monster would not go down, regardless of how many big moves Rey would use. The match came to a head with Claudio pulling out something else that I had to look up – The Burning Hammer. He hit that and then the Ricola Bomb for the victory. Claudio and a BCC teammate were the proud winners of a Ring of Honor Tag Championship match. This was fantastic.
4/5
Segments:
- HE’S BACK! Miro made a backstage appearance and then barged into Tony Khan’s office.
- The Pillars of AEW took turns with vignette promos this evening. First up, the AEW Champion, MJF. He talked about how good he is and how the other Pillars needed to catch up. No lies detected.
- FTR was out to the ring next. They owed an apology to Mark Briscoe, but Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal interrupted instead. They had been close to a brawl when Mark Briscoe announced that the two teams will be facing each other at Double or Nothing, but that he would be the special guest referee. Jeff Jarrett proceeded to spit alcohol into Dax Harwood’s face, which in turn caused Dax to blindly spike piledrive Mark Briscoe. This was incredibly well executed.
- Renee was backstage with Chris Jericho, who was still mad about the “unprovoked attack” from Adam Cole last week. Jericho got Cole banned from the building, except Cole isn’t a lone wolf anymore. Roddy Strong was looking for a fight and challenged Jericho to a Falls Count Anywhere match with the JAS banned from the building too. That should be fantastic too!
- Renee had her running shoes on this week, as she returned to Tony Khan’s office looking for Miro, but found a returning Thunder Rosa instead.
- Another Pillar vignette followed that; this one with Sammy Guevara. Same stuff from Sammy here. He talked about hard he’s worked and wants to be a main eventer. Good luck Sammy.
- Tony Khan made an appearance himself following that. He announced an announcement for next week. Interesting…
AEW International Championship: Orange Cassidy (c) vs. Daniel Garcia
It’s getting into broken record territory talking about Orange Cassidy’s reign as International Champion. Simply put, it’s an elite reign (no pun intended). This week’s match against Daniel Garcia made it twenty-one straight successful defenses. That being said, the Freshly Squeezed reign will be coming to a end very soon with any more matches like this.
This match was mostly one sided. Daniel Garcia said that he would attack Cassidy’s multitude of injuries, and that he did. He targeted the hand, knee, and added the low back to growing list of injuries for the champion. It was punishment to the tenth degree with nasty submission after nasty submission. Unfortuneately for the wrestler turned sports entertainer, his opponent is crafty.
It was all but certain that Cassidy was about to tap out to the Dragon Slayer sharpshooter. Commentary even thought he tapped out! Somehow, some way, Orange Cassidy snuck out of the submission to mouse trap Garcia for the victory. That was literally stealing the victory from the jaws of defeat. Great stuff here!
3.75/5
Segments:
- Outcasts were looking for Hikaru Shida, who had left for Japan already. Britt Baker and Jaime Hayter then spoke for Shida as they had accepted the trios match challenge from the Outcasts.
- Christian Cage had an in-ring promo with Tony Schiavone up next. I don’t know what he said to this Detroit crowd that enraged them so, but it was LOUD. Cage discussed that he never needs to ask for title shots, then proceeds to verbally attack Arn Anderson for replacing his son Brock. One hell of a promo from Christian Cage.
- Another Pillar vignette followed that. Darby was at home and explaining how and why he has been unafraid of anything. Both Sting and Darby’s father discussed how proud Darby made them. This was a great vignette.
No Holds Barred: Anna Jay A.S. vs. Julia Hart
Up next was a good match between Anna Jay and Julia Hart in a No Holds Barred match. It wasn’t the wildest hardcore type match ever, but it was good. These ladies are still very new to the wrestling world and put on a good show.
Anna attacked Julia from behind with a steel chair before the bell rang. And once the bell actually did ring, the action mostly stayed outside it. Julia was a recipient of a nasty face buster onto some chairs, and the House of Black member wasn’t same afterward. Julia’s hip seemed actually injured after it.
They fought for a while, it was a little awkward, but they did a great job for what they had. It’s important to remember how inexperienced these two still are. Anna has a lot of expereince on Julia and she’s only been wrestling for less than four years.
Despite a hurt hip, Julia was able to hit a superplex and lock in the submission victory. Julia gets her biggest win to date!
3/5
AEW Trios Championship: House of Black (c) vs. Best Friends & Bandido
This “Open House” Challenge is perfect. The new rules, lighting, and aura are perfect for the House of Black. Rules were simple – No DQ or rope breaks, countouts are twenty instead of ten, and the challengers pick one stipulation to “even the odds.” Love it. Absolutely love it.
The Best Friends didn’t know about that last rule, so they picked “all witches banned from ringside” to get Julia away from the match. A very silly rule because Julia rarely plays any part in the House of Black’s matches, but funny nonetheless.
The match itself was fine. A little shorter than expected, in all honesty, but the champions had their way with the challengers for the majority here. Bandido had a fun hot tag, but House of Black in the Dante’s Inferno for the victory.
3.25/5
Kyle Fletcher attacked Orange Cassidy!!!
- The camera cut backstage immediately following the match to a knocked out Orange Cassidy. Freshly Squeezed had been watching and recovering from the back when he was attacked by Kyle Fletcher from United Empire.
- One last vignette. This one was with Jungle Boy, who talked about where he’s been and who he’s faced. This one was cool because Christian Cage was the mentor talking about what Jungle Boy had become. Despite their hated rivalry, Cage and Jungle Boy have respect for one another now.
- Next week is Ricky Starks and Jay White. Oh yeah!
Steel Cage: Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley
And it finally happened. It’s been years and years of Don Callis being a smarmy scumbag. He’s gone too far now. Dynamite’s main event between Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley was yet another great match in this storied rivalry. Unfortunately, the ending was stolen from everyone’s favorite Cleaner.
This match was intense and fairly nasty, but a little tame by Moxley standards in all honesty. The Elite and Blackpool Combat Club neutralized each other before the match even started. All the carnage could begin once the bell rang, and there was carnage.
As a surprise to absolutely nobody, Jon Moxley started bleeding two minutes in (yes, I timed it). There was a chair wrapped in barbed wire, an entire turnbuckle, and a lovely bag of broken glass. The truly scary part was when the cage wall broke after Omega hit a V-Trigger against it. Moxley had a nasty fall and Omega is lucky he wasn’t seriously injured.
In the end, the infamous screwdriver made another appearance. Don Callis saved Omega from the screwdriver only to use it himself. Not on Moxley, but on the man he called his family. Moxley won the cage match after a true betrayal of epic proportions.
4.25/5
Match of the Night
Overall
And that was Dynamite for this week! What did everyone think?
This episode returned to the magical theme of 2023. It was a great episode from start to finish with great matches, stories, and a truly evil villain coming out on top. Those betrayals make memorable stories.
Verdict: 4.5/5