AEW Dynasty Thoughts

The first AEW PPV I ever ordered was AEW Dynasty last year, and was in the building for it this year.  Like most of the AEW PPVs I’ve watched it was a tale of two shows – there’s the first two thirds where thing tend to move quickly, and then the final third where the matches start running longer and thing can get bogged down.  That final third is usually what determines how I grade the show; most of the time those first two thirds are good to great on their own. You know what, screw it. I’m not doing a match by match breakdown. We’re gonna keep it simple.

THE GOOD

Will Ospreay vs Kevin Knight

Excellent opener. Will is well, Will, and Kevin Knight is an excellent young talent. Match was the perfect length (13:50), both guys got their stuff in, and they closed well. Knight is a guy you should be looking for to do some good thing down the road. Will is on his way in the Owen Hart Tournament with the win, and I suspect he’ll be winning it and the AEW World Title at All In.

The Hurt Business Syndicate

I am one of the many who is upset that The Hurt Business never met it’s full potential in WWE, so it’s good to see Bobby, Shelton, and MVP in a good spot now. It’s also good to see Big Bill doing so well after some of the struggles he was having a few years ago. This match was a good exhibit of big guys vs another big guy, and I always marvel at just how big a dude Shelton is in person. We’ll see where the MJF angle goes, but so far so good with these guys.

Sing along with Adam Copeland

It’s now customary for live crowds to sing along with the second verse of Metalingus when Edge Aam Copeland Cope comes to the ring. This was my first time getting to do it, and it is every bit as fun as it looks on TV. And it’s great to see how much he enjoys it; given how his career was seemingly over 14 years ago I don’t doubt that he sees every chance to get in the ring as a blessing. (Just for fun here’s his big return at the 2020 Royal Rumble)

The post match angle where FTR laid him out and put him on a stretcher will no doubt give us the Edge & Christian reunion sometime soon and that will be fun too.

Timeless Toni Storm

When you add everything up – ring work, character/gimmick, promos, and storylines – Toni has been the best woman in wrestling for the past year and a half. Her pre-entrance video alone -a Rocky inspired training montage complete with the grey sweatsuit – was excellent. Wearing a Rocky style black and gold robe while her manager/butler Luther was dressed like Mickey was aces as well. No woman in wrestling has mastered presentation like Storm has in 2024 and 2025. And the match delivered as well!

Megan Bayne is a towering physical specimen and threw Storm around like a giant sized opponent should. Toni’s matches are always good but I found this one more entertaining than anything other than her matches with Mariah May. Toni working from underneath as the scrappy physical underdog having to figure out a way to survive made this a lot more interesting. And Storm didn’t water it down by getting all her stuff in, she took the beating in convincing fashion. Bayne played the monster role well, shrugging things off when it was time and selling when it was the right. Toni escaping with the inside cradle pin was the right way to get a win without making Megan look weak. Great work all around.

Ricochet the heel

Look, I don’t think any of us saw this coming from Ricochet. When he left WWE I assumed it was so that he go back to working full tilt in the style he’s perfected. Boy was I wrong. The idea of him doing any kind of character work, especially as a hell, seemed ridiculous to me but man is he doing it here. Having basically taken his extremely online real life interactions with trolls and made it into his onscreen persona has given him a whole new angle to his career. The guy has taken the big joke that people make towards him on Twitter (why you bald?) and turned it into a bit that gets worked into every match and even a chant when he’s getting beat up.

Oh yeah, he was in a match! The triple threat between him, Kenny Omega and Speedball Mike Bailey was the match of the night and everything you would expect from those guys. It’s great to see Kenny back in action after missing so much time from diverticulitis and injuries. Speedball is a welcome addition to the AEW roster and 100 percent made the right call to come there. Afterwards we got the entrance of Kazuchika Okada and another face off between he and Kenny as they head towards an inevitable clash at All In this year.

The Hangman Run In

OK, I know a lot of people were pissed off and outright deflated at the finish of the main event. But there was a moment where it was going really well! Hangman coming to the ring, seemingly to do some more damage to his mortal enemy Swerve, getting attacked by the Death Riders before he can do anything, and then Samoa Joe and the Opps taking all of them out to even up the odds was exciting as hell. And it put just enough hope into the air that Swerve might actually beat Moxley for the title. Up to that point the match and everyone in it had done their job of making us (or at least me) believe that the title might be changing hands. Ultimately that’s the job of everyone in a title match and they nailed it up to that point.

THE BAD

Jericho vs Bandido

The finish was convoluted as hell. Can we please stop with the baseball bat shots to the head? Bandido or anyone should have been at least knocked out cold for the night, if not dead. But besides that, to have Jericho pin Bandido and then a second referee come out to order a restart……why don’t they do that every time a heel cheats to win? Just stupid all around.

The Main Event finish

OK so everything was going well with the main event and then the lights went out. And then Matt and Nick Jackson appeared to inexplicably help Moxley win another one. Sigh……. OK guys, a heel champ retaining his title on a B PPV through cheating is not some horrible thing. But doing it this way, on a show where a referee literally overturned a dirty win by a heel champion just because, is dumb. Then there’s the fact that this company was founded on the premise that doing run in finishes is not what good modern day wrestling is supposed to be about. Now I have never subscribed to that line of thinking but I do recognize that the core fanbase of this company, of which I admittedly not one of, absolutely do and that as a result this kind of thing should only be done as a departure and not the norm. But it is has been the norm for Moxley’s title reign and been getting more ridiculous as it goes on. Ok this wasn’t as bad as the ending at Revolution but following that dumpster fire with is just….yikes.

THE JUST FINE

Mercedes Mone vs Julia Hart and Adam Cole vs Daniel Garcia were fine. They could have been done on Dynamite or Collision, though, instead of stretching the run time of this PPV to four hours.  I didn’t see Mark Briscoe vs Kyle Fletcher.  I made the mistake of using that match for break time other than Jericho vs Bandido.  Major error on my part.

OVERALL GRADE: B

There were some skippable matches, and the main event finish was wack, but overall it was a good show and was a lot of fun to experience in the building. Definitely worth the ticket price and a short train ride to Philly.  I get why people hated the ending.  Other than the Jackson Boys being involved (personal preference that’s all) I’m fine with it but I get why y’all hate it for AEW.