Powell's AEW Dynamite Hit List: Kazuchika Okada vs. Dax Harwood for the AEW Continental Championship, AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland vs. Brian Cage in an eliminator match - Pro Wrestling Dot Net (2024)

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By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

AEW Dynamite Hits

Willow Nightingale and Mercedes Mone contract signing for Double Or Nothing: The characters are finally cast properly with Willow being the likable babyface that she plays so well while Mone reverted to her natural heel persona. It’s been a bumpy ride at times, but it feels like the build is starting to click as we get closer to their match at AEW Double Or Nothing.

Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley vs. Jeff Cobb and Kyle Fletcher: A predictable, yet well worked match. I could write something similar about every match on this show and the latest three-hour block from this past Saturday night. As such, this match benefitted from being in the opening slot before the concept was run into the ground throughout the night. On a side note, Claudio Castagnoli disagreeing with Danielson taking part in the Anarchy in the Arena match was one of the only interesting storyline developments during Saturday’s three-hour block. That’s something that really should have been recapped on Dynamite, especially given the sad state of viewership for AEW’s weekend television shows.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Dax Harwood for the AEW Continental Championship: A Hit for match quality, but this did not feel like a big main event despite the title being on the line. As good as Harwood is, fans who watch consistently know full well that Harwood loses singles matches to the stars. So much like every other match on this episode, there was zero sense of mystery regarding the outcome no matter how hard the wrestlers tried to make it seem like that wasn’t the case. The post match angle with the other Elite members roughing up Harwood and eventually Cash Wheeler and Bryan Danielson only for Darby Allin to make the save was nicely done. But AEW really should have played up the reveal of Eddie Kingston’s replacement in the Anarchy in the Arena match more than they did. Allin was a great payoff because the fans love him and it was truly surprising to see him return so soon from his injuries.

AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland vs. Brian Cage in an eliminator match: A soft Hit for a well worked match. This would have meant more if AEW actually practiced long term booking and took the time to build up Cage and the Gates of Agony before they turned on Strickland. Cage is good in the ring and showed that he can be a player throughout his run as the Impact World Champion. In AEW, he’s a guy who performs a lot of big moves and loses every meaningful match he’s in outside Ring of Honor. It didn’t feel like an accomplishment when Swerve beat him as much as it felt like a foregone conclusion. The post match angle with Christian Cage and his crew effectively put more heat on Christian heading into his title match with Swerve at Double Or Nothing.

Hook vs. Sebastian Wolfe: A soft Hit for a simple squash match win for Hook in his return to the ring. The post match angle with Chris Jericho was good. Jericho’s seems to be having a lot of fun with his new Learning Tree gimmick and it’s encouraging to see him leaning into the negative crowd reactions after he tried to go against the grain as a babyface. Hook’s backstage segment with Katsuyori Shibata and Samoa Joe was fine until Joe got under the skin of Hook, who came off poorly after Joe pointed out the obvious about how bad Jericho is making him look. This led to Hook losing his cool and petulantly yelling that he would fight Joe. Perhaps next time Joe can also point out that Hook is obsessed with regaining an unrecognized title belt that belongs on his father’s mantle and not on a show where there are far too many recognized titles.

AEW Women’s Champion Toni Storm vs. Harley Cameron in a grudge match: A soft Hit for a decent showcase match for Storm in Dynamite’s morally obligated women’s match of the week. Here’s hoping that the single match count changes once Mercedes Mone starts working television matches.

AEW Dynamite Misses

The Young Bucks fire Christopher Daniels: They raised the stakes by using their power to fire someone as opposed to simply dishing out meaningless storyline fines. The problem is that viewers have to turn off their brains to play along with the storyline. The story is that the Bucks have a clause in their contract that allows them to run the show if Tony Khan is incapacitated. The idea that they cut the feed the first week was an acceptable stretch. Yet here we are weeks later and we’re still supposed to believe that the only way Khan can run his company on show night is through some direct feed that the Bucks are able to shut down. We’re supposed to ignore the idea that Khan could simply use one of many fallback options such as FaceTime, Skype, or even by simply calling in his orders via his cellphone. The firing of Daniels begs the question of why Khan can’t simply reverse the firing. And perhaps his character eventually will, but I really wish they would have closed this massive storyline gap by claiming that Khan must attend the shows in person or the power shifts to the Bucks. Even then, it doesn’t explain why Khan can’t reverse the firing of Daniels or even giving Christian Cage a title match.

Roderick Strong and Will Ospreay: The backstage bickering between the two was was decent, but there’s nothing that they can say or do that will make this viewer get excited about watching Ospreay chase the lowest strap on the totem pole of officially recognized AEW title belts. Orange Cassidy did a great job of making the belt feel relevant, but it was clearly a case of the man making the title because it feels meaningless when he’s not in the title picture.

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