Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," the show where we briefly interrupt/supplement the build for All In 2025 with the build for the 300th episode of "AEW Dynamite," now featuring Kota Ibushi vs. Kazuchika Okada and Mercedes Mone vs. Mina Shirakawa! We say "supplement" because both those matches are natural beats along the road to Okada vs.Kenny Omega and Mone vs.ToniStorm, respectively, and because we also found out the number one entries in both All In Casino Gauntlet matches, learned the All In challengers for the AEW tag titles, and saw Will Ospreay lay out a big-time proposition to team with Swerve Strickland against the Young Bucks in creative that was definitely never meant for "Hangman" Adam Page. As for Page himself, he defeated The Beast Mortos in the main event, but ended the show on his back after being laid out yet again by the DeathRiders.
We're talking about all that stuff here in the column this week, which represents the majority of Wednesday's episode we are admittedly ignoring everything that happened with Ricochet and AR Fox. If you need to know about that stuff, check out our "Dynamite" results page. If you want to know what the WINC staff thought about the show, this is the place to be. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 6/25/25 episode of "AEW Dynamite."
I didn't have much I disliked about tonight's "Dynamite," so this is going to be yet another "hated" slide of mine that may seem a bit more on the nitpicky side, because things are going really well, at least in my humble opinion, for the company ahead of All In Texas. The builds for the matches already announced are solid and the bouts seemingly getting added to the card are also strong, but tonight, there was just a few little things that bothered me.
Though the build for the AEW Women's Championship match where "Timeless" Toni Storm will take on TBS Champion Mercedes Mone has been great so far, tonight, after the initial cold open attack by Mone on the champion, neither woman was to be seen anywhere else throughout the show. Mone was decked out in some really cute cowboy-looking gear, so I expected an in-ring promo from her at some point throughout the night. Or, honestly, even a backstage interview segment with Renee Paquette would have been fine.
Mone gloating about taking out Storm would have transitioned really well into Mina Shirakawa challenging her for the TBS Championship on the 300th episode of "Dynamite" next week. I believe it was just announced by commentary or via graphic following the attack where Shirakawa came to Storm's aid, but the women going face-to-face, even without Storm coming out again, would have made a lot more sense and gotten the stars of the AEW women's division a little more screen time. I'm not a big fan of when championship matches are just kind of announced by commentary, and AEW does that more often than not.
Perhaps on the less egregious side, but something that still bothered me, was the lack of Kenny Omega tonight when Kota Ibushi had his first "Dynamite" match in forever. I know Omega was attacked and hit right in the diverticulitis and stretchered out of the arena, but that was two weeks ago. I know that sounds harsh, but for whatever reason(which is possibly due to all the wrestling I watch per week that makes things seem like they were a million years ago when they really weren't), but his presence is missed on Dynamite. As someone who is not too familiar with Ibushi and Omega as The Golden Lovers, an Omega appearance, or at least a video package or something explaining things more, would have been nice.
I'm well aware that Omega's return is going to happen next week when Ibushi takes on Kazuchika Okada, so I have a lot of hope there, but it just felt kind of off tonight. Maybe it's the fact I was used to seeing Omega every week, or at least more consistently, since he's come back, that maybe this hate is just disappointment. AEW had plenty of star power tonight, pretty well placed throughout the show, but something still felt a bit lacking to me.
Written byDaisy Ruth
When Will Ospreay made his entrance with tape still around his hands and his wrestling boots unlaced, I knew "AEW Dynamite" was going to be silly. I didn't expect this.
The Young Bucks flexed their collective executive arm by unceremoniously pushing Ospreay and Swerve Strickland's match from "Dynamite's" second hour to Wednesday's opening match, and by the time Ospreay and Strickland forced the EVPs to flee to the backstage area in a post-match charge, the two men found themselves with interesting plans for All In. As of writing, Ospreay and Strickland are expected to go toe-to-toe against the Young Bucks in tag team action in Texas, with the Bucks' EVP titles on the line.
The idea of Ospreay even existing in proximity to an executive position is so funny to me, but that is not a compliment. Take one, good look at Ospreay and tell me that he is even head of HR material. This is not intended to be derogatory Ospreay is one of my favorite wrestlers (as a girl who grew up on "Naruto," I quite like his insane flips and tricks) but come on. He is so goofy, so carefree, that anything even close to responsibility simply clashes with his persona. He's lovable, but I wouldn't trust him to look after my cactus for a week. Strickland as an EVP is a sort of believable concept, but that in and of itself is a stretch. Ospreay as an EVP is complete lunacy. It's fun lunacy, but still lunacy.
That lunacy brings me to a more serious point. There is no way the Young Bucks don't win this match at All In. I'm not even saying that from a prediction standpoint, where, despite my relative confidence, there is still a "what if" scenario where the unlikely becomes reality. That is a straight-up, airtight, swear on my mother claim. It is not a prediction, it is a spoiler. That spoiler is disappointing, not because Ospreay and Strickland are my favorite wrestlers, but because it robs us of the imagination. The fun we have by hypothesizing the joy in being kept on the edge of our seats by all the possibilities is dashed by the absolute absurdity of the situation. The EVP titles would add an unbelievable amount of nothing to Strickland and Ospreay's characters so much so that it is a completely unfathomable outcome. I say this because I love Strickland and Ospreay's characters; they are so unfit for the EVP position that I know, for a fact, that they are taking a loss come All In.
The crazy thing is that if I'm wrong and they do win at All In and I'm not predicting anything, because I genuinely do not believe this will happen the EVP titles would feel like suffocating neckties on the both of them. There is too much that can go wrong with EVP Ospreay for us to even entertain the idea of an All In win, and that stolen potential is very disappointing.
Written byAngeline Phu
It simply can't be ignored that there was much concern over whether Kota Ibushi had given everything he had physically to professional wrestling over the past few years, wrestling as a shell of himself and seemingly falling apart whenever he looked to get going again. It's still really early to say whether or not that is the case, given he came back to AEW on Saturday and had his first match with the promotion in almost two years on Wednesday, but either way for seven minutes he moved much like the Ibushi fans had come to revere against Trent Beretta to establish the real test in just a week's time.
There are a few names on the roster with the kind of history and chemistry with Kazuchika Okada on the level of Ibushi. One of them, Kenny Omega, is due to face him for the Unified Championship at All In Texas, and the other, Will Ospreay, is due to challenge Okada's friends in the Young Bucks for the prestigious EVP Championship. If either of those guys had been booked for a match on free TV against "The Rainmaker" it would be rightly treated as a huge deal, so the very fact that next week's 300th episode is going to feature Ibushi and Okada's first match outside of Japan is in itself not to be taken lightly.
But part of the reason why some will be meeting this match with nervous anticipation is exactly why it's coming at the right time; Okada is someone who works a very good match even when he himself isn't really in the mood for it, and he is going to be locking up with someone he shares a very lengthy history with and a dance partner that has so often brought the best out of him. It's coming at a time when Omega is surely expected to return after the bout to pick up with Okada, and thus at the optimal time to assess whether Ibushi literally has the legs to continue in a way his name calls for. If by some cursed tome they don't manage to have a good match, then at least it can be folded into the existing tale between Okada and Omega.
On the other hand, and this is my personal favorite timeline, Ibushi and Okada tear the house down like they have done several times before, and there is the opportunity to totally expand on the "Golden Star's" involvement in the storyline, deliver the Golden Lovers reunion (again), and maybe even build to the much-awaited Omega-Ibushi rivalry renewal. In any case, the fans win with Ibushi and Okada coming just weeks before the latter steps into the ring with yet another of his greatest foes of all time. Let's just hope it works out for the best for Ibushi after a rough half-decade.
Written byMax Everett
I'm still chuckling at Mark Briscoe telling MJF he has a "teeny-tiny Kosher pickle," highlighting the psychosexual underpinnings of MJF joining The Hurt Syndicate. However, if the interaction was any indication, AEW is teasing a feud between Briscoe and MJF, one that is American professional wrestling's bread and butter.
Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes, Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon, S.E. Hinton's seminal novel The Outsiders, people love a roughneck and a rich guy fighting each other. It is the sturdy backbone of a million Westerns, and also those '80s comedies where local teens have to save the community center from an evil tycoon. Briscoe's "Salt of the Earth" reputation, and MJF being ... well ... MJF is exactly the kind of high-class/low-class battle that has made legends.
Briscoe is at an interesting point in his career. Initially barred from WBD programming, he has become one of AEW's chief babyfaces in the wake of his brother's death. Briscoe has had some notable feuds, especially with the likes of Chris Jericho, but there is something about MJF that makes him the perfect opponent for Briscoe, one that could define Briscoe's legacy, should the feud go properly.
Briscoe and MJF may not have had a lot of time together on Wednesday, but what they were able to accomplish in their pithy back-and-forth was leaps and bounds better than the usual AEW patter. It's very possible that I'm putting the cart before the horse, but count me in for MJF and Mark Briscoe bringing out the best, and the worst, in each other.
Written byRoss Berman
Cast your minds back to the summer of 2024. The AEW American Championship was a thing, Hologram debuted, and Bryan Danielson hadn't been murdered in front of the entire world. It was a strange time, but it was also the time where Kris Statlander had arguably her most interesting character development yet, turning heel on Willow Nightingale and aligning herself with Stokely Hathaway. After their brutal war at All Out, Statlander decided that she was done being a heel, for some reason, and turned face again, for some reason. She had a pair of great matches with Mercedes Mone for the AEW TBS Championship, and despite always wanting to move forward, she has been spinning her wheels until very recently.
Her on/off friendship with Willow, combined with Willow being the only woman in AEW who seems to care about Marina Shafir holding the AEW World Championship in a briefcase all the time, has led to Statlander having a few interesting interactions with The Death Riders as of late. Wheeler Yuta, who Statlander has a long history with, has tried to sweettalk her, and even Jon Moxley has tried to give her some friendly advice, but the biggest development do date came at the end of this great four-way match to determine the number one entrant in the women's Casino Gauntlet match at All In Texas.
Joining Statlander in the match was the aforementioned Willow, Thunder Rosa, and ROH Women's World Champion Athena, who all played a part in this being one of the sleeper hits of the night for this week's "AEW Dynamite." It's been said a million times over, but someone please tell Tony Khan that Athena needs to be on TV every week, like come on! Thunder Rosa, while having a few moments where she seemed to lose her place, brought a high octane energy that was nicely balanced with the power and strength of Willow and Statlander, who continued to show why they are one of the most interesting pairings in AEW.
Athena and Rosa were able to continue their feud from Ring of Honor, beating lumps out of each other and throwing themselves off the ring steps to the floor for the sheer love of the game, allowing the real story being told to get its moment in the sun towards the end of the match. The Death Riders aren't really the type of group that scouts people, after all the clue is in their name, you ride or die with Moxley, so for them to actively get involved in Statlander's match and help her win sets her up for something potentially very important later on down the line.
Right now, Statlander looks like the favorite to win the Casino Gauntlet, and considering that sets her up for either a trilogy match with Mercedes Mone, or first-time ever singles affair with "Timeless" Toni Storm for the AEW Women's World Championship which she should have held by now, maybe the Death Riders aren't so bad after all.
Written bySam Palmer
If one has been paying even a fraction of attention towards the Death Riders' reign of mediocre, then chances are one has seen them close the show by mugging a talent or two before being foiled by however many babyfaces as the show fades to black. From Bryan Danielson to Cope, everyone who has had an issue with Jon Moxley's outfit has felt the sting of thenumbers game and been beaten with a weapon of some shape or form before someone else emerges to run the bad guys off.
It's been boring every other time they have done it, especially as they've been doing it on shows where every other heel faction is doing the same thing. And it was just as boring as it was used to build "Hangman" Adam Page's challenge against Moxley at All In Texas. Page had just beaten The Beast Mortos, with commentary reasoning that he had taken the match "because he believed in the future of AEW" ad nauseam throughout the contest, before the lights went out and the Young Bucks were revealed to be in the ring holding Page for the EVP Trigger. Because the Bucks are still working with the Death Riders for reasons unknown.
After they had done so, Moxley and co. made their ambling entrance to the ring to continue the beatdown and choke Page out with a chain; this went on for a while before The Opps finally realized they could do something, prompting Will Ospreay to come to the same realization a few seconds later before Swerve Strickland finally completed the set of guys running in to make the save. Per the usual, the Death Riders and the Bucks made their escape as Moxley talked to the camera about being the "Real World Champion" as the show went off-air. But why? Why not have solo promo time between Moxley and Page, maybe getting a little bit deeper as to why this is important? Why not book a match between Page and one of the Death Riders? Why not do anything remotely different to what has already been done with almost 260 days of a title reign? There is such a disconnect between the purported importance of Page-Moxley and the actual creative put in place. It's almost like the match was booked with no actual grasp on what will fill the time in between.
Written byMaxEverett
