The road to Double or Nothing barrels on, and it rolled right through tonight's "AEW Dynamite." With a three-hour "Dynamite" and an even bigger PPV on the horizon, this week's show was something of a muted affair, which you can read about on the 5/13/2026 Dynamite Results Page.As always, there was plenty to love and plenty to hate, and the Wrestling Inc. Staff simply cannot wait to tell you about it. There was the incredible match between Will Ospreay and Ace Austin, there was yet another pointless Darby Allin title defense, and all the things in between.Enough of my bloviating, let's get into the best and the worst from "Dynamite."
This week's show kicked off with a five-on-five pitting Tommaso Ciampa, the Dogs Clark Connors and David Finlay, and the AEW Tag Team Champions FTR against the Young Bucks, Orange Cassidy, Adam Copeland, and Christian Cage. And while I do get the whole notion of throwing a bunch of people babyface and heel who are feuding with at least one person on the other side is hardly new to wrestling.It is hardly new, and AEW especially has a penchant for throwing people together and saying, 'Now wrestle.' Which is fine in itself, it can set the stage for a really enthralling and chaotic match. But again, AEW does it a lot. And AEW also does what it can to tell stories and book around stories, for better or worse, so sometimes these matches feel like a massive waste of time and space in lieu of some substantial storytelling. It's been weeks of "You can't touch me, but here's a match where you can" booking between FTR and Cope-Cage. The Young Bucks are there because, between this and the Stadium Stampede match they're involved in, there is nothing for them to do.They're just sitting on the periphery of the FTR-Cope-Cage picture. There are other teams in the company, and once upon a time, they wrestled for future opportunities at the titles. The Dogs have yet to establish what it was they actually want aside from beating people up, which, if that is the goal, then it can just be said at the very least. Tommaso Ciampa has aligned with FTR, but why has yet to be really explored. Orange Cassidy was representing the Trios Champions because Ciampa and FTR are feuding with them.It's kind of obvious why they were thrown together, but it doesn't really make sense in storyline why each member would agree to a match like this, or what, outside of storyline, any of it does for each story. The match itself was fun, or at least would have been if it hadn't just blurred into the memory as a match in the long line of matches AEW can be relied on to deliver. It can be and normally is a positive, but on a show that really did well to advance things across the board, this just felt like a letdown and could have been something better.Written by Max Everett
Sometimes, it's really incredibly easy to predict which wrestler or wrestlers in a match will emerge as the victors based upon how they've been booked or their placement on the card of any show. I generally find that it can make things less exciting to an extent, but that isn't always the case, and doesn't mean you can't get a great match from those performers. If you need any proof, look no further than the match between Will Ospreay and Ace Austin.For a match that had a predictable winner in Ospreay and didn't really have any stakes, this was surprisingly really good, and the thing that caught my eye the most on an episode of "Dynamite" that I would describe as pretty mediocre. It was engaging, fast-paced, interesting, and fun to watch once the two men found their rhythm. I also really enjoyed the ending, with Austin tapping out almost immediately to a Fujiwara Armbar that Ospreay had cinched in on him. It put a spotlight on the bigger storyline at play in Ospreay's training with The Death Riders and showed the influence of Jon Moxley's teachings on Ospreay without having to do too much or anything over the top.Written by Olivia Quinlan
Kevin Knight is a very good TNT Champion, but I can't help but feel like his Fajita-obsessed partner is hanging around a little too much. Knight and Bailey already had a match in the Continental Classic, but it certainly feels like Speedball is hovering around the TNT Title.Sure, Bailey staked his claim to a World Title shot, but it feels like AEW is delaying the inevitable JetSpeed TNT Title match, likely for All In, and that means we are stuck waiting. It feels like AEW doesn't know what to do with Knight or the TNT Championship, which makes the unwillingness to pull the trigger all the more glaring.Hell, is there really any reason Bailey needs to wait around and wrestle Darby Allin on a random TV show? Get Bailey in a match with Knight at Double or Nothing and stop wasting my time.Written by Ross Berman
The Owen Hart Foundation Tournament is almost upon us once again, with this year's tournament kicking off at AEW Double or Nothing 2026. The winners will receive AEW Men's and Women's World Championship matches at AEW All In London 2026 on August 30, hence why the tournament is kicking off a little later than last year. However, that doesn't mean the tournament will be any less exciting, and both the men's and women's brackets have some interesting narratives.Starting with the men's bracket, which in truth is the far more predictable of the two, the story is obviously Will Ospreay going for that Wembley main event everyone has been predicting he will get since he joined the company. He faces Samoa Joe, who has been trying to recruit him to The Opps over the Death Riders, and the winner of that will face Mark Davis or Jack Perry. On the other side, Claudio Castagnoli will have a meaty clash with Brody King, while Swerve Strickland returns to take on Bandido.Let's be honest, if it's anything other than Ospreay vs. Swerve in the final at Forbidden Door, I will be shocked. A face/heel dynamic between two men who have respect for each other but have gone down different paths in the past year. They also need their trilogy match after their first two bouts (the first one being at Forbidden Door two years ago no less), and while the bracket is predictable, it's also easier to get right. Get Ospreay in that Wembley closer.As for the women's bracket, where do I even start? SAREEE IN AEW? ABSOLUTELY! The women's bracket on paper looks so evenly matched and has so much potential. Athena and Sareee, on the same side of the bracket, could be godly if they make that happen. Persephone and Hazuki are a match I didn't know I wanted until right now, and there's the potential of having Alex Windsor go on the Wembley run, too. She has to take on Willow Nightingale in the first round, a terrible draw for both women, it must be said, as they could both have great runs in the competition.No disrespect to Windsor, but as nice as an Ospreay/Windsor couple's victory at Wembley would be a cute moment, I just think there is so much more you can do with that bracket. Give it to Athena, why not? It's not like she can stay in ROH forever. It's the least she deserves, but either way, it's going to be a great tournament. Whether or not AEW sticks the landings remains to be seen, but every match in this year's brackets has the potential to be a show stealer.Written by Sam Palmer
Darby Allin is having one hell of a run with the AEW World Championship, putting on banger after banger on multiple episodes of "Dynamite" and "AEW Collision," and he's writing his name in the company's history books for how many successful defenses over consecutive weeks he's had. But, I can't help but hate it, because it's all extremely predictable since they've officially booked Allin vs. MJF for Double or Nothing, in a pretty big stipulation match.Sure, Allin is having all these bangers, but we know that he's retaining the title, now over "Speedball" Mike Bailey next week, to get to MJF on May 24. The pair even signed the contract for the match tonight, and while AEW can say there's a clause or something in there if "Speedball" wins, we all know that's not going to happen. This hair vs. title feud is personal between MJF and Allin now, and that outcome is also arguably very predictable. There's no way Allin is dropping the title before the pay-per-view.I feel like this isn't the first time AEW has done something like this, either, setting a big title match for a PPV, then booking matches around the championship on its weekly shows, despite the outcome being obvious because of said PPV match. That's okay once in a while, but it's made Allin's entire title reign predictable. Maybe this is where "title eliminator" matches may make some kind of sense, as someone could face Allin without the gold on the line, and arguments about making Allin look weak aside, if the challenger wins, they get the future shot after Double or Nothing.Maybe this is just me being nitpicky and liking some unpredictability to my wrestling. Nobody can say that Allin hasn't had an exciting reign with how many great matches with even greater talent he's put on, but his run has seemed predictable from the start, from the second it was obvious MJF was going to fight for a big rematch. I guess you can't hate the reign overall, and I sure don't, but the predictability of the booking is something that AEW needs to work on.Written by Daisy Ruth
I am a simple man, who likes the way Mark Briscoe shouts nonsense. There have been many weeks without Mark Briscoe shouting nonsense, and those weeks have left me wanting. This week, however, had Mark Briscoe shouting nonsense, and so all is right with the world for another day.I enjoy The Conglomeration enough, though I think they've begun to Flanderize, as they lean into their sitcom-tinged meme existence, but Mark Briscoe shouting nonsense cuts through all the noise. I could not tell you a single word that Mark Briscoe said on Wednesday night, but I loved every single syllable. It made no sense. It was barely coherent. It was everything I want from a wrestling promo, in an age where everyone talks like an anime villain. I don't think Mark Briscoe is necessarily "real," but I don't think anyone else is bringing the right mix of shouting and nonsense like he is.Written by Ross Berman
