Pantoja’s AEW Dynamite Review 8.24.22

AEW Dynamite

August 24th, 2022 | Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio

Hey, everyone! I attended my second ever live AEW show last night, so this review will be more about the experience there than just match ratings and recaps.

We opened with Dark: Elevation and I won’t spoil anything but this was fun. They didn’t bring a ton of people I wanted to see here but these matches move along quickly and were enjoyable. That is important because the BIGGEST problem AEW live shows have is that they are horribly paced. After Dynamite, the crowd died for the overly long Rampage that didn’t really have any matches to fully hook the audience. Nearly 4.5 hours for a taping is too much.

Dynamite began with the big face-to-face between Chris Jericho and Daniel Garcia. As the crowd sang “Judas” I shouted that the song isn’t good and someone responded with, “I know but I’m gonna sing it anyway.” Respect. The promo came off well with the crowd totally into Garcia. He nailed this segment, showing a ton of emotion and confliction at between torn between Danielson and Jericho. I was stoked to see Bryan Danielson, who I hadn’t seen live since his final ROH match in 2009. He only appeared backstage at the other shows I’ve gone to with him on the roster. This segment culminated with Garcia shoving Jericho and Danielson laughing. After Garcia left, Jericho and Danielson traded barbs that set up a match at All Out and saw Jake Hager jumped Danielson from behind. I can’t wait for Danielson vs. Jericho in a Custody of Daniel Garcia match. This was great stuff.

Dax Harwood (46-16-1) vs. Jay Lethal (19-6)

Jay Lethal sucks the life out of everything. I heard some rave reviews for this but I didn’t get that. There were some good things in here and Dax was on his game as usual. The chops he dished out echoed throughout the arena. The problem was that a lot of what Jay did looked pretty bad from my seat. Lethal Combination looked sloppy and his Lethal Injection attempt just came off so poorly. Like you could tell he was setting himself up to get countered. It’s the little things that separate the greats from everyone else. They also overdid the Figure Four/Sharpshooter attempts. I get it but there are diminishing returns there. Like I said though, there was some good stuff here but it peaked at the Jay Lethal ceiling of 6/10. Lethal won with a rollup and a handful of tights in 12:47. Good but far from great. [***]

Post-match, Sonjay Dutt announced that Jay will team with the Motor City Machine Guns at All Out. Let me tell you, I lost my SHIT here because MCMG are legitimately my favorite tag team in history. They teased them appearing but they didn’t, which was weird and upset me. Also, imagine teaming the awesome Guns with Jay Lethal of all people. Yikes. Plus, it feels pretty random, especially since they’ll get a babyface reaction. But the thought of FTR/MCMG is WILD.

Thunder Rosa told us backstage that she is hurt and must step down so we’ll get an interim champion. The rumors of what happened backstage recently with Thunder make this interesting. Also of note, AEW not doing this in the ring like they did for Punk shows how they don’t view the women on the same level as the men.

Billy Gunn vs. Colten Gunn [57-9)

Max Caster’s rap was great. The Acclaimed was absurdly over. Daddy Ass is easily Billy’s best gimmick ever and he got a ton of chants for it. I don’t have much to say about this match as there wasn’t much to it. Billy is past his prime and Colten isn’t lighting it up in singles competition. They just had a basic match that Colten won after Stokely Hathaway attacked the Acclaimed in 6:16. [*½]

Billy and the Acclaimed got jumped after the match until Swerve in Our Glory made the save and ran them off. They showed respect to The Acclaimed afterward.

Backstage, the Trios guys were interviewed and PAC threatened to murder Willy Ospreay. Hell yeah.

Britt Baker (37-13) vs. KiLynn King (1-2)

This doesn’t feel like it belongs on Dynamite. King got a pop for being from the area but otherwise, nobody cared. The crowd was more interested in chanting about the Browns and Steelers than anything happening in the ring. We found out that it’s a four-way for the title at the PPV between Britt, Hayter, Storm, and Shida. So, that’s fine but it feels random. Shida hasn’t been relevant in months and Hayter has a very unimpressive win-loss record. The rankings literally are Toni, Britt, Athena, Anna Jay, and Rose. Athena will likely be busy with Jade so why not Rose and Anna in the match if the rankings are meant to be taken seriously? Sorry for the rant. Lockjaw ended this in a bland 3:55. [*]

Post-match, Britt cut a promo about wrestling as champ with a broken wrist and called out Toni Storm. Before they could fight, Hayter jumped her, which triggered the arrival of Shida to basically replace Rosa in this feud. She chased off the heels. Britt also had a Terrible Towel with her because 85% of her personality is “I’m from Pittsburgh, guys.”

Backstage, Swerve in Our Glory challenged the Acclaimed to a title match at All Out since they’re ranked and they like them. The Acclaimed obviously accepted but also bit back at some of the words from the champs.

AEW World Championship: CM Punk [c] (20-1) vs. Jon Moxley [c] (56-4-1)

The crowd was very pro-Moxley here. There was a big fight feel here though putting it on in the middle of the show let us know something was up. Their opening exchanges led to Punk landing awkwardly on his leg. Moxley capitalized with elbows, a foot submission, and then two Death Riders to win in 2:59. 10/10 booking. [***]

I’m guessing Punk is still badly injured and will be out longer than expected so maybe they did this as a way to put Moxley over while he’s away.

Christian cut a promo on Jungle Boy in the back. They’ll meet at All Out.

Ricky Starks (someone I was PUMPED to see live) cut a promo in the ring about the Powerhouse Hobbs situation. He got emotional talking about how Hobbs went after his neck and challenged him at All Out. The crowd really was into this.

Jon Moxley stole the show further with a fantastic backstage promo about being THE GUY in wrestling. He’s not wrong.

RAMPAGE

· House of Black vs. Dark Order in the Trios Tournament (this was pretty good)

· Sammy Guevara and Tay Conti vs. Ruby Soho and Ortiz (the crowd was dead by this point)

· Wardlow vs. Ryan Nemeth (you know what this was)

· Jade Cargill speaks (we didn’t see this and it was infuriating. Jade was someone I really wanted to see)

· Dustin Rhodes vs. Claudio Castagnoli (no idea how this really was because we were all DONE here)

DYNAMITE NEXT WEEK

· Bryan Danielson vs. Jake Hager

· Toni Storm and Hikaru Shida vs. Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter

ALL OUT

· Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Jericho

· The Trios Tournament Finals

· Britt Baker vs. Toni Storm vs. Hikaru Shida vs. Jamie Hayter

· Christian Cage vs. Jungle Boy

· Jay Lethal and the Motor City Machine Guns vs. FTR and Wardlow

· Casino Ladder Match

· Swerve in Our Glory vs. The Acclaimed

· Ricky Starks vs. Powerhouse Hobbs

AEW Trios Championship Tournament Quarterfinals: Aussie Open and Will Ospreay (0-2) vs. Death Triangle (7-2)

You know, putting United Empire’s 0-2 record in AEW up is hilarious and shows they don’t belong in the tournament. During the break before Death Triangle showed up, United Empire posed with the Trios Titles. The crowd was totally into Will. I’m not going to recap this because it was absurd. It’s not typically my style of wrestling but it was a blast to see live. I had fun watching people who didn’t really know Will react to his stuff. I’ve seen Ospreay perform the backflip kick and land on his feet on a rana so many times but those new to him were in awe. That’s cool. Death Triangle is also fantastic. My issues here came with two things. One, there wasn’t much selling from anyone. I get that’s not the main gist of the match but people were popping up from stuff like nothing happened. Two, the bigger problem, is that I think this works way better on TV. When you’re there live, you can see the guys outside just patiently waiting for the next spot to get involved in while guys did stuff in the ring. That took me out of it at times. On TV, that stuff is usually cut out. We got another finish with interference as PAC, following a sick moonsault, got attacked by Kip Sabian and United Empire won in 25:18. [****]

The Elite came out for a face-to-face with United Empire, who they meet next week. After the show went off the air, Omega and Ospreay traded words about their careers in New Japan, Okada, and more. It wasn’t great.

As for my issue with the pacing of the show, the crowd was DEAD after this. Rampage was fine but it had nothing to bring the crowd back in. Dustin/Claudio isn’t that match. Their tapings are too long.

8.0

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

For whatever issues I had with the show’s length and layout, the Dynamite portion of it was great. We got a banger main event, a huge moment for Moxley, and some good promos. There’s a lull for Gunn/Gunn and Britt/King though.