This episode of AEW Dynamite had one major highlight, that being a terrific closing segment with Kenny Omega and The Elite. The opening segment and Jericho/Shibata were also messy but fun, and there were good small advancements to stories in places throughout the show. The rest of the show was broadly fine, but suffered in the rating from far too many structural and storytelling faults, as well as a really poor crowd. Certain matches and segments felt aimless and despite a killer bookend to the show, the middle structure felt sadly bland, not helped by a crowd entirely unwilling to pick up the slack if they weren't interested. Most of the show was a passable way to fill 2 hours, but outside of the closing segment you wouldn’t be missing much to skip this weeks offering.
Tonight on AEW Dynamite, Kenny Omega returns to AEW Dynamite for the first time since being fired from The Elite. Swerve Strickland will also find out who his World Championship Opponent will be for Double Or Nothing. Elsewhere on the card, Adam Copeland will face one member of the House Of Black, Serena Deeb takes on Mariah May and we hear from Orange Cassidy. Lets get at it!
In a really fun show open, The Young Bucks hijack a Tony Khan announcement of his health to announce they run the show now. They then play a funny remix of the Dynamite package just containing just The Elite.
GREAT Swerve Strickland/Christian Cage Promo
This segment begins with some basic, yet nonetheless charismatic words from Swerve doubling down against the EVP’s. The Bucks appear on screen to announce Swerves next challenger as…Christian Cage. Context aside, this is a super fun feud for Swerve and I love Cage’s promo on Swerve. His motivations make just enough sense, revenge for All In and not forgetting Nick Wayne, while still being a hypocritical heel, but The Bucks motivations don’t. Cage should’ve come out first and attacked Swerve, before the Bucks made the match. Because the Bucks choosing Christian Cage as an opponent feels very odd given Cage just lost the TNT Title. It’s a great match for DoN, and even if the structure was a touch lazy, it’ll still be a fantastic feud. Good segment in isolation, just didn’t really make complete sense for the Bucks’ motivation.
David Sheldon WR Star Rating – 3.5 Stars
GOOD Adam Copeland vs Buddy Matthews
This is interesting match that I expect will prove divisive. This is a very long match that I can nicely call methodical. It took until a midsection injury to Matthews for the match to get going, and before that I was losing the will to live. However, once the injury happened, I got a much more invested, as whether the injury was real or not, the sense of danger was exploited and led to some quite interesting sequences towards the end of Copeland preying on Matthews injured stomach. The post match was a bit silly and I’m not all that interested in an ‘Embrace The Hate’ style storyline with Copeland, but I did think a relatively dull match got significantly more interesting once Matthews began spitting up blood, and I don’t know how morbid that makes me sound.
Result: Adam Copeland by Pinfall via Spear
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.25 Stars
SQUASH Samoa Joe vs Isiah Kassidy
As a squash, this was ludicrously entertaining, in the manner every Samoa Joe squash is stupidly entertaining. Kassidy was amazing, Joe was hilarious and the match did it’s job really well. However, this is Joe’s first appearance since losing the title, and what I missed from this match was any real sense of anger at losing the title until right at the very end. Hilariously fun match, but I wanted a bit more from Joe in the means of furiosity here, rather than the usual Joe formula.
Result: Samoa Joe by Pinfall via Muscle Buster
Too Short To Rate
ABOVE AVERAGE Orange Cassidy Promo
A basic promo segment here which set up Cassidy and Trent for next week. Cassidy saying Chuck will never wrestle again is rather dumb, and Callis and Cassidy is an interesting, if slightly nonsensical story. Curious about where this goes, but it didn’t go anywhere.
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 2.5 Stars
GREAT Chris Jericho vs Katsuyori Shibata
So, to get the negative out of the way first, this was clumsy from a storytelling perspective. The commentary began setting up a narrative that was immediately undermined, and I think there was more both men could’ve got from their characters. With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the in-ring action of this, to the point it might be my favourite Jericho match in a little while. Campy and silly with some super fun high spots, I enjoyed Jericho and Shibata’s commitment to hitting each other very hard, and the ending was just the right amount of deflating, furthering the story between Jericho and Big Bill. In my humble opinion the most memorable match of the night
Result: Chris Jericho by Pinfall via Interference
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.5 Stars
GOOD Brian Cage vs Claudio Castagnoli
Big beefy men doing big beefy things. Absolutely no story to speak of here, just Claudio and Cage hitting each other very hard with big moves before Claudio submits Cage with a sharpshooter. Why was this on the show? I have no idea. Did I enjoy myself? You bet I did
Result: Claudio Castagnoli by Submission via Sharpshooter
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.25 Stars
GOOD Serena Deeb vs Mariah May
Another good but not especially impactful match here heavily focused around the submission game of Serena Deeb. Toni throwing in the towel was a nice tough for Mariah and the action was well performed, I just wanted more story mined from this to really make it feel like a true advancement of the womens title feud.
Result: Serena Deeb via External Forfeit
David Sheldon WR Star Rating- 3.25 Stars
MUST WATCH Kenny Omega Promo
This feels like a one off promo for the time being, a way for Omega to provide an update on his health, while continuing The Elite angle. Yet, it is honestly one of the best promos of Omega’s career. Speaking entirely from the heart I really felt his emotion and wish him the best in his recovery from such a horrid illness. The staredown with Okada was excellent and the beatdown genuinely maddening in just the right way. It was a little structurally clumsy, but nonetheless it was by far the best part of the show, fitting given it is currently the hottest angle on TV.
David Sheldon WR Star Rating – 4.5 Stars
Overall…
This episode of AEW Dynamite had one major highlight, that being a terrific closing segment with Kenny Omega and The Elite. The opening segment and Jericho/Shibata were also messy but fun, and there were good small advancements to stories in places throughout the show. The rest of the show was broadly fine, but suffered in the rating from far too many structural and storytelling faults, as well as a really poor crowd. Certain matches and segments felt aimless and despite a killer bookend to the show, the middle structure felt sadly bland, not helped by a crowd entirely unwilling to pick up the slack if they weren’t interested. Most of the show was a passable way to fill 2 hours, but outside of the closing segment you wouldn’t be missing much to skip this weeks offering.
Matches: 0.5/1 Stars
Show Structure: 0.5/1 Stars
Atmosphere: 0.25/1 Stars
Storytelling: 0.5/1 Stars
Production/Theme: 0.75/1 Stars
Overall Rating: 2.5/5 Stars
Photo Credit: All Elite Wrestling – May 1st 2024
For inquiries about the rating criteria check out the article announcing the new system here:
