-Yikes. Ok, I don’t like starting with negativity, but what the hell was with that opening contest this week between MJF and Kevin Knight? Look, the match was good … until it wasn’t. And when it wasn’t, it was real, real bad. Why is Kevin Knight using a low blow to beat MJF? I know, I know, he was fighting fire with fire. Why? Knight is an up and coming babyface that the audience has really started to get behind in the last month and half. He’s cheating to win? There are some lines that can’t be blurry in pro wrestling and this is one of them. There isn’t a scenario in which a babyface like Knight should beat a heel MJF the way he did. Knight cheated. How does that finish help him become a bigger star or a more over TNT Champion? Answer? It doesn’t. Sometimes the basics are necessary and this was one of those cases. Either book Knight to win straight up like a babyface should, or don’t do the match at all.
-A quick squash for The Brawling Birds this week. Simple, but effective. This short segment was the best one of the night at just getting an important act more over.
Babyface Thekla
-If Thekla keeps calling other women in AEW “dumb bitches,” I swear she’s going to turn herself babyface. Another promo for Thekla and another memorable moment on the show. Looking at the lay of the land in the AEW women’s division, if I’m Tony Khan, I’m going with Thekla vs. Mercedes Mone at All In this summer.
-Kazuchika Okada vs. Ace Austin was a solid match for what it was, but given the circumstances around Okada, it simply couldn’t be much of anything at all. Okada and Konosuke Takeshita are colliding for the AEW International Championship at Double or Nothing. That reality rendered all drama useless in this match. There just wasn’t a believable story out there where Austin getting the win was at all reasonable.
From The Takedown on SI
-I feel like I’m missing something. When did Swerve Strickland and Bandido start feuding? Is this stuff in the old west vignettes built on a foundation they laid? Does it all exist just because they want to do this match? Seeing that I’m having to ask both of those questions, the storyline isn’t clicking the way it should for one of the top company guys like Strickland.
Will Ospreay is forgetting something
-Speaking of missing something, Will Ospreay is just training with The Death Riders now? After they tried to kill him, he gets abducted by them and then seeks them out for legit training a week later? What the hell are we doing? Moxley had a funny tone to this promo, but none of it made a lick of sense.
-Adam Copeland and Christian Cage vs. The Don Callis Family in a tag match was fine, though Cope and Cage probably gave Rocky Romero and Trent Beretta a little too much on offense. I’m a fan of the Cope/Cage vs. FTR tag team “I Quit” Street Fight that is scheduled for Double or Nothing. In on that for sure. AND. Cope choking out Beretta with a piece of a metal chair seemed a little overboard. Punishment didn’t fit that particular crime.
-Thumbs up to the women’s tag team championship match this week. Strong action and a match that accentuated the size and dominance of Megan Bayne and Lena Kross as champions.
-I can get behind an FTR and Tommaso Ciampa trios team. It’s totally out of the blue, but there’s a lot they could work with.
Darby the storyteller
-Another excellent main event championship match for Darby Allin. This week’s opponent was Brody King and the match went exactly the way you thought it would. Allin took an absolute beating, but overcame and retained the AEW World Championship. A really good match without surrounding context, but an even better match when you factor in the long story Tony Khan is telling with Allin. These title defenses will catch up to him and cost him his world title at some point. Allin articulates that exact story with the violent and physical matches he’s been having.
What did you think of this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments!
Subscribe to the Brass Ring Media Newsletter HERE.
Follow Zack Heydorn on Bluesky @zackheydorn.bsky.social.