Written By Gino Lewis
Before I get started, I’d like to ask you to follow me on X/Twitter @GeenoEvel86 and join my Facebook group AEW Wrestling and a Few Beers https://www.facebook.com/groups/218288257645536
Location North Charleston Coliseum in North Charleston, South Carolina
TNT Championship: (C) Christian Cage def Dustin Rhodes – Rating ****
Gino’s take – Superb opener for Dynamite! You don’t see many matches with storytelling at this level in AEW. Announcers Taz, Excalibur and Ian Riccaboni who was sitting in for a sick Tony Schiavone did a wonderful job pointing out how the two veteran wrestlers knew each other’s repertoire so well. Nick Wayne did a nice job distracting referee Aubrey Edwards. They played key roles in the story of the match. Killswitch fka Luchasaurus was also with Christian. He didn’t do as much as Wayne.
There were a couple nice near falls mid match with Christian hitting a Frog Splash and Dustin hitting his signature Destroyer. Cage winning was the obvious result. The match was so well put together that there was actually a time I thought Dustin might win. The crowd bought into him as a threat. Awesome near falls late with each wrestler kicking out of the others finisher Cross-Rhodes and Killswitch. Christian also hit a Spear to set Rhodes up. It looked over at that point. Dustin kicked out of one Killswitch but succumbed to the second. The crowd on fire all match.
Swerve Strickland cut a terrific promo backstage. He has improved so much as a talker. Swerve said he’ll be watching the title match and has nothing to prove to Hangman Adam Page.
Chris Jericho talked backstage with Renee Paquette. He’s pissed off at Konosuke Takeshita for costing he and Sammy Guevara their Tag Team Championship match at Battle of the Belts Saturday. Matt Sydal challenged Chris to a match. We’ll see that on Rampage.
Orange Cassidy and Trent Beretta def Penta El Zero Meido and Komander – Rating *** ¼
Gino’s take – Good thrown together match. It didn’t serve any purpose as far as long-term booking. Rey Fenix and Alex Abrantes were in the luchadores corner while Chuck Taylor was with Cassidy and Trent. Good to see Fenix back. Hopefully he’ll be back in the ring soon. Apparently, it’s the first time Orange and Trent have tagged together. Komander stood out by using some good mat wrestling moves to get two near falls on Trent. Orange hit his finishers with everyone in the ring illegally. That allowed Trent to put him away with his inverted package piledriver type finisher. I would have preferred to see an upset so the match would have mattered. I wish AEW would book Penta better too.
Roderick Strong came out with The Kingdom Matt Taven and Mike Bennett. He challenged Orange Cassidy to a match at Revolution in three weeks. I like that they set up the match with plenty of time to build it up. This wasn’t the strongest way to do it. Roddy has gotten a lot better on the mic. I don’t remember him getting a lot of in ring promos in the past. It showed here. He’s still not the best talker and it went a bit long. Just like Collision I thought it was strange Bullet Club Gold and Acclaimed didn’t come out to attack the hated heels. It seems like they have gone away from that angle. I don’t think that’s good booking.
Renee Paquette is backstage with Hangman Page. Adam says he doesn’t care about Swerve. Only the AEW World Title. This storyline has been excellent. It’s moving at a perfect pace.
Mark Briscoe came out to the stage for a beautiful tribute to his late brother Jamin or Jay Briscoe. Mark said his nieces were never supposed to walk again then invited them to walk out on stage with him. I’m not crying, you’re crying! There was also a tremendous vignette in remembrance of Jay. Bravo AEW! This was incredible.
Young Bucks Sit Down Interview
Gino’s take – Renee Paquette has been busy tonight. This appears to have been taped earlier though. The Bucks did great here. They are clearly going to be heels moving forward and played the role perfectly. From their new look with mustaches, wanting to be called Nicholas and Matthew and being arrogant about their EVP roles, everything about this worked for me. AEW has a lot of cool heels that the fans love to cheer. That won’t be the case with the Bucks. They said they wanted to rid AEW of Sting and all the older guys that weren’t in the company at the beginning. They will use their powers as EVPs to do so. There was actually a lot of truth to most of what they said. Matt asked Renee to thank them for her paycheck which was the best line out of this.
ROH Six-Man Championship: Bullet Club Gold (Jay White, Austin & Colton Gunn) def (C) Mogul Embassy (Brian Cage, Toa Liona & Bishop Kaun with Prince Nana) – Rating *** ¼
Gino’s take – Another good match that left me feeling a little flat. My main takeaway from the match is how far and fast Jay White has fallen. He was in the main event of Full Gear just two months ago and has now won a Title in the lowest division in AEW. I don’t think there are any titles that mean less. Colton Gunn had a nice flurry of offense before being taken out with a powerbomb from Cage and Air-raid Crash from Kaun. Anthony Bowens stopped Prince Nana from making a distraction allowing Jay White to pin Bishop Kaun after Bladerunner.
Bullet Club Gold had new entrance music. My wife Amber thought it was OK but liked their old entrance better. I agree with that. The crowd had been loud up to this point. They lost a little steam during this match although they did react favorably and loudest for Jay. That’s a good sign if he’s turning face. I don’t remember him being a face in New Japan. Perhaps now that Acclaimed and Daddy Ass fulfilled their promise to BCG by helping them win gold, they will remember they hate The Undisputed Kingdom. Another thing I can see coming from the title change is a unification match for the AEW Trios and ROH Six-Man Championships. AEW/ROH does not need two sets of trios titles.
Adam Cole is with Wardlow for a backstage promo. Honestly, this was dumb. Cole has been talking about how Wardlow is going to destroy everyone until the only one left is AEW Champion Samoa Joe. He’s said the same thing three weeks in a row. There hasn’t been a match yet. Move it along already. Undisputed Kingdom is already losing steam for me. Wardlow said Boom to end it.
Deonna Purrazzo def Anna Jay – Rating ** ¼
Gino’s take – Not even the brilliant Deonna Purrazzo came overcome AEW’s formula of a six-minute women’s match with three minutes taking place during commercial. In the 9:23 timeslot. It was disappointing to see them go backward with Deonna so quickly. On Collision she had basically the same match with Red Velvet. It much better just by not having the commercial interrupt it. Anna Jay is a more credible opponent than Red. I would have liked to see them go ten minutes here. Toni Storm was on commentary which still made it entertaining since Toni is so good. She was flirting with Ian Riccaboni the whole match acting as if she thought he was a good-looking Tony Schiavone. Toni told Ian she didn’t know what he was doing with his feet under the table but do it harder. I laughed hard for that.
Renee continued her busy night by coming to the ring to interview Deonna. Purrazzo had words for Storm saying they used to be like sisters. Toni as she’s prone to do pretended like she didn’t know her. I think Toni told Deonna she was going to punch her in the box. Alrighty then. The post-match angle was better than the match. It should lead to Purrazzo challenging Storm for the AEW Women’s Championship. It will most likely happen at Revolution. I have high hopes for the match and feud.
Private Party (Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen def Top Flight (Dante & Darius Martin) – Rating ** ¾
Gino’s take – Decent match that I thought would be much better. The crowd was quiet for a lot of it. It was a stronger card earlier in the show. There was a surprisingly slow pace at the start. Marq Quen understandably looked a little slow and rusty. He did have a spot where he fired up the crowd a bit with four straight dives plus a 450 splash. Quen got the pin on Darius after grabbing the ropes. The finish was well done as I couldn’t tell if Marq meant to cheat or just rolled into the ropes.
Even though this wasn’t a great match, I’d like to see the program between the teams continue. Let’s see each team win a couple matches on Rampage or Collision and do the match again after Quen has shaken off some of the rust. Maybe around Revolution. Zero Hour sounds good. AEW could make it a #1 contenders match if they build the teams up instead of rushing to another match or having them sit on the sidelines.
There was a very cool short vignette from Sting and Darby Allin. Darby said it’s time for them to become tag team champions and showed Champions Ricky Starks and Big Bill. Very interesting considering we know the Young Bucks are likely Sting’s final opponent at Revolution. It looks like Sting and Darby will head into that match as AEW Tag Team Champions. I like it if that’s where it’s going. It would add drama to the match and make it feel like the Bucks have a better chance of winning. That would be great for their new heel gimmick.
AEW World Championship: (C) Samoa Joe def Hook – Rating ****
Gino’s take – A complete contrast to the amazing opening match but just as good! It was similar to a Brock Lesnar match which worked. Hook came out on fire showing the desperation it would take to beat a monster like Joe. He took a hell of a beating after that. Joe absolutely destroyed Hook with a Urinage on the announce table then a powerbomb on the apron. Those moves had to have hurt badly. Taz left the announce table while the doctor checked on Hook. Outstanding drama. Joe hit a Muscle Buster and only got a one count. I’ve seen that spot criticized heavily online but Joe took about five seconds to cover Hook so it was really more like a seven count. Hook got a little offense after that until Joe made him pass out in the Coquina Clutch.
After the match Hook wanted more asking Joe if that’s all you got? Joe kicked him in the groin and hit another Muscle Buster. Hook still wanted more. Samoa Joe was going to give it to him until Hangman Page came out for the save. Swerve Strickland was also ringside. Like I said earlier, AEW has done a terrific job building to what looks like a 3-way match for the AEW Championship between Samoa Joe, Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland. That’s likely our Revolution main event. Hangman tried to get Hook back in the ring to raise his hand. Hook refused. Fitting for his character. It could be a star making performance for Hook. However, one thing AEW has been terrible at is capitalizing on young wrestlers with momentum. Daniel Garcia and Wheeler Yuta come to mind.
Overall Rating for Dynamite – 7.75/10
Final Thoughts – The opening match and main event were awesome! There was a lot of pretty good to average stuff sandwiched in between. The tribute to Jay Briscoe was very nice. Nothing on the show was bad but it was disappointing to see Anna Jay and Deonna Purrazzo only get about three minuets of TV time without a commercial. I get wanting to make Purrazzo look dominant. AEW missed an opportunity to give them ten minutes in my opinion. Deonna could have given Anna the best match of her career and still came out looking dominant. One thing to love about where AEW is at is the build for Revolution. There seems to be at least four programs going that should end in matches at the PPV. We don’t always see long term vision like that from the AEW creative team. I really enjoyed Dynamite there was a lot more to like than not. Still, a show with two four-star matches should get a rating above 8.
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