Another "AEW Dynamite" has come and gone. Darby Allin's road to Double or Nothing has been anything but easy. Allin defended his AEW World Title once again, this time against Brody King. You can read all about it on the results page.Now, it's time for the Wrestling Inc. Staff to get into their feelings and decide what worked and what very much didn't. There was plenty to love tonight, like the main event, and there was plenty to hate, like Kris Statlander's general devolution to the midcard. As always, the opinions are ours, and ours alone. If you disagree, just make yourself heard in the comments section.Without further ado, here's the best and the worst from April's last edition of "AEW Dynamite."
I thought tonight was a strong episode of "Dynamite," but I also found it to be kind of oddly paced. With four title matches on the show, it all seemed a bit rushed, but that didn't stop Tony Khan from booking quite a few backstage promo segments, both live and pre-recorded, as well as two shorter squash matches. While "Dynamite" didn't have a crazy overrun tonight, I still didn't love the fact that the two non-title, shorter matches felt kind of shoehorned in just to get the talent and more matches on TV.I say that as someone who likes Rush and would like to see him pushed more on "Dynamite." Nothing against the Brawling Birds, but their match against two independent talents could have easily been cut from the show to make room for a longer Rush match against a more noteworthy opponent.Sure, Alex Windsor and Jamie Hayter are stacking wins to get a shot at the AEW Women's Tag Team Championships sometime soon, but we already had a strong match for those titles contested tonight. More women's matches are always needed on Wednesdays, but their match felt like it barely counted tonight.I kind of knew it was going to be a bit of a strange night when the opening match, which I really enjoyed, pitting TNT Champion Kevin Knight against MJF, ended, then AEW World Champion Darby Allin came out, followed by his challenger in the main event, Brody King, after Allin's argument with MJF over the latter's rematch for the gold. The entire post-match angle after a longer (yet good) opening match almost set the tone for a kind of strange night.I suppose if AEW is going to have all these championships, they might as well be defended on weekly television. It just makes regular matches, as we saw with Rush and the Brawling Birds tonight, feel kind of crammed in there. It just felt sort of strange that no other matches for Double or Nothing were set in motion tonight, outside of the inevitable Allin and MJF rematch. There's certainly enough time between now and the pay-per-view to get matches booked, but after a short turnaround between Revolution and Dynasty, the pacing for things in AEW just feels a bit off to me.Written by Daisy Ruth
After basically abducting the "Aerial Assassin" during last week's show, this week allowed us to figure out what it is the Death Riders wanted with Will Ospreay. As it would turn out, Jon Moxley has made his Continental Championship challenger his new pet project.To what end is yet to be determined, but it yielded an enjoyably intriguing segment with Moxley outlining what he expects from Ospreay moving forward. He was fond of the loyalty Ospreay has to his United Empire boys, but wanted him to shed that obligation and leave everything at the door there was no door, but go with it.One would guess that this is going to have something to do with Ospreay's World title ambitions, but there were layers to the entire segment, even as short as it was compared to the rest of the show. PAC very clearly was not a fan, even after Moxley poked at his stomach to try and get some emotion out of him.On the understanding that Ospreay is now an honorary member of the Death Riders and in training camp with them, there is something to be explored between the PAC and Ospreay tensions moving forward. It was something Moxley took note of in the segment itself, and surely will play out in some form of tag match going forward, which just sounds awesome in concept alone.Fundamentally, it's cool to see more of Ospreay than what he can do in the ring and the mythology of that alone; he is dejected after losing time and time again since returning, physically and mentally beaten. And Moxley being the one to guide him through that is a solid way of positioning him for that push, presumably for All In.Going further than that, and this is entering fantasy booking territory, but such is the intrigue and opportunity of this budding storyline, this could ultimately prove to be the catalyst for the Riders turning on Moxley. If his pet project runs the risk of jumping the rest of the group, then there is more than enough precedent in the world of professional wrestling to guess what happens. As said, the segment did just enough to hook me for the next chapter, thinking about what this could turn into, while also entertaining in the moment.Written by Max Everett
AEW has a problem booking its women's division. The sky is blue, water is wet.I don't want to sound like a broken record that everyone seems to have been playing for the past seven years, but for as good as Divine Dominion vs. Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida was in a vacuum, something needs to be said about what has happened to poor Kris Statlander.This is being written immediately after the April 29 episode of "AEW Dynamite," meaning that I can technically say that it was only last month that Statlander was the AEW Women's World Champion. She was defending her title in a two-out-of-three falls match on pay-per-view, she had beaten both Mercedes Mone and "Timeless" Toni Storm, and she looked to have finally managed to incorporate her original alien gimmick into her current character, which made her even more interesting. Now she's in the midcard, again, like seriously, what the hell happened?Don't get me wrong, I understand that Megan Bayne and Lena Kross need challengers because right now they have precisely no one to feud against. Giving them two former world champions who kind of get along but not always is credible enough to make them look strong, but the whiplash on what has happened to Statlander in particular is just crazy. I'm not saying they shouldn't have given the belt to Thekla because she's doing a great job, but Statlander is a classic case in AEW's women's division of when you don't have a belt, you're just there. Look at Willow Nightingale, she is on TV every week again, because she has a title. If Thekla drops the world title to someone at Double or Nothing, she'd probably disappear as well, as would Divine Dominion.You can say the same thing for Hikaru Shida as well. First woman to hold the AEW Women's World Championship three times, and she's plodding around in the midcard wrestling like a babyface but acting like a heel, give her something to do. Give all these fantastic women something to do that doesn't involve titles, and with Storm and Mone still out, Statlander and Shida are perfect candidates to build the division around, but instead, they're doing this.Statlander, in particular, is one of the most naturally gifted athletes in AEW. She is someone who can be THE face of the women's division, but the level of disrespect in her booking (which includes some of her title reign as well) is ridiculous. Hopefully something comes of this because if it doesn't, I'd suggest Statlander look for a new place of work. Do better, Tony Khan, it's getting exhausting now.Written by Sam Palmer.
Adam Copeland and Christian Cage are tag team legends, but so were their opponents tonight. Having Edge & Christian facing Roppongi Vice is the kind of bozo-brained 2010s dream match on which AEW was founded, and I walked away pretty happy.It wasn't exactly a PPV extravaganza but it was a damn fine match between two veteran teams, and I'm not sure how many chances the two teams will have to face each other in the future. I do not want to put the pairing on the level of Bryan Danielson facing Kenny Omega, but from a certain "impossible in 2016" point-of-view -again, the founding principle of AEW- it was still an important moment, and one I am not going to take lightly.I'm not sure I believe that Cope and Christian will be calling it quits any time soon, but I'm old enough to accept that I shouldn't take it for granted.Written by Ross Berman.
There are some matches that I simply don't like because of the quality or the talent involved. There are other matches I simply don't like because there wasn't really any point to them, or they were used as a means of giving a talent a win heading into a bigger match. In the case of the International Championship match between titleholder Kazuchika Okada and Ace Austin, the latter proved to be true for me.I actually thought that Okada and Austin put on a really good showing. The problem for me came in how predictable the outcome of things was with Okada retaining his title heading into his International Championship match against Konosuke Takeshita at AEW Double or Nothing. There wasn't really much point to having Okada defend his title against Austin aside from just having Okada get another win, given that Okada and Takeshita is a marquee match for Double or Nothing.Okada's International Championship match against Austin was also a last-minute addition to this edition of "Dynamite". There were already three title matches taking place on the show, and while some people may have liked the addition of another one, I just didn't think that AEW needed to add this one to the card. Overall, I felt like this was a way to kill television time and add an extra win to Okada's record as he prepares for his Double or Nothing match.Written by Olivia Quinlan
Last week, Darby Allin successfully defended the AEW Men's World Championship against Tommaso Ciampa in what was one of the best matches of the entire year so far. Those who were critical of the idea of Darby being the champion went a little quiet because of how good that match was, but I will give those people the benefit of the doubt because everyone can have a good match every once in a while. Maybe it was just a lightning in a bottle type of match, maybe it was just the right pairing of Darby and Ciampa, or maybe, just maybe, it was a sign that this reign is becoming something truly special and we are witnessing it in real time.Darby Allin vs. Brody King is a tried and tested formula in AEW, where it's David vs. Goliath, only with more tattoos and more bumps, where you go, "Come on, lads don't do that." However, this was that formula with elevated stakes, and with it came an elevated level of intensity because my word was was this match was stiff. Half of the chops in this thing sounded like explosions, and the fact that Darby didn't come out of this looking like Ciampa's head from last week is a testament to how tough he really is.The great thing about this match was that it was completely different from what we saw seven days ago, and that's what is great about this reign because Darby wrestles everyone else's match as well as their own. It's why he has chemistry with so many people. He plays to everyone else's strengths, like in this one, it was all about making Brody look like an unstoppable monster that could only really be taken down if he made a mistake, or if Darby worked hard enough to create just enough space to get him out of trouble, and that's what happened here. The cannonball through the guardrail, the powerbomb on the floor, Brody beating the referee's count only to be met with a Coffin Drop immediately, just a wonderfully told in-ring story.Long term, you can already see some storyline wrinkles showing. Much like last week, Darby looked exhausted at the end of this, sitting there with a look of "I don't know if I can do this every week." His problem is that he's agreed to run until he can't run anymore, and when his legs don't work, he sees Kevin Knight in the crowd as "The Jet" is next up for a title shot. It's two for two in great title matches for Darby, and this reign is already better than some that have happened in the past, but I'll let you figure out which ones.Written By Sam Palmer.
