AEW Dynamite 4/1 moved from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida to an “undisclosed location” and surprisingly delivered a pretty damn good show.
Yes, we’re grading AEW Dynamite, just like RAW, Smackdown, and NXT right now — on a curve. Due to the situation in the world today with COVID-19, we’re not getting the apex of AEW could be offering us. Hell, last week I was supposed to be sitting watching Blood and Guts in Newark. Instead, we had an empty arena in Florida with a scaled down crew. And to be frank, last week was a bit of a whatever episode from AEW. It wasn’t their fault. The matches had obvious endings, and outside of Sammy Guevara versus Kenny Omega, the show didn’t feature anything blowaway.
Yet, this week, things changed. AEW delivered an unexpectedly good show, given their limited roster, small confines, and scarce crowd (of rostered talent). Everything was makeshift, and patchwork, but somehow and someway, I was locked in on the show. It was way better than expected, which is ironic because if you look at the card, it had all the trappings of a arena-filled Dynamite we’d have seen last month.
Kenny Omega vs. Trent was an absolute knock-down, drag-out. It was on the level, if not better than their match in New Japan. These two knocked the crap out of each other, and when Kenny powerbombed Trent into a pole, I audibly gasped. It was a pretty intense moment. I have to say the two of them battling down to the final minute of the time limit, and both men desperately trying to score the win was a really nice touch and something I appreciate about AEW (especially since this is something they stated they’d do from the beginning).
Hikaru Shida vs. Anna Jayy was just okay. Shida is a star for AEW, and I loved her interaction with Britt Baker, who reminded everyone (after a few weeks off) that she’s a very effective heel. It’s saying something that Shida and Baker had more chemistry than Shida and Jayy. Jayy definitely is still young and had some decent moments, but overall these two never gelled. Shida got the obvious win, and I look forward to the eventual Nyla Rose vs. Hikaru Shida match.
The video package for the Jon Moxley and Jake Hager was one of the best promotional pieces I’ve seen about Jake Hager, maybe ever? This built him into a legitimate threat more than we’ve ever seen him. This makes me give this feud more care than I would’ve two weeks ago. Also, I loved the Jericho line about how he’d be proud of Hager if he won the title, because he’s part of the Inner Circle.
Lance Archer versus Marko Stunt was the insane squash match you’d expect it to be. Marko bumped like Spike Dudley in his prime, and that’s who essentially Marko is. Archer looked amazing here, and I like how he built his match with Colt Cabana (who did a great job on commentary) coming up while beating up Marko.
The Brodie Lee video has placed The Dark Order in a weird spot. It’s not a cult anymore, but a knock on Vince McMahon? Lee is terrific in the role, but I don’t get where this is all going right now, and if they go too hard on the Vince jokes, it could turn people off for sure — just like it did early in AEW’s run.
The Natural Nightmares (QT Marshall and Dustin Rhodes) made quick work of The Dark Order’s foot soldiers #8 and #9. The Natural Nightmares have been a nice team to mix into the deep division — a division that is also currently hamstrung due to travel restrictions. Dustin facing off with Brodie Lee will be a nice quick feud especially since Uno and Stu, and SCU are all grounded during this time.
Chris Jericho delivered yet another hilarious and brilliant vignette. From pouring a glass of the bubbly then opting to drink from the bottle, to wearing long pants in a hot tub to offering Vanguard 1 a tiny Inner Circle t-shirt, Jericho is absolute gold. However, the “release the hounds” moment where a bunch of cute dogs ran after Vanguard was the icing on the cake.
In the main event Shawn Spears returned to Dynamite to team with perennial main eventer Sammy Guevara (seriously he’s always there) against another perennial main eventer Darby Allin and Cody Rhodes. This match was way better, way longer and had way more intensity and psychologically than I thought it would. Not that I expected a bad match, I just thought this would be a fun little match, and not an edge of your seat encounter. Really thought Spears shined the most here, and he needed to as he’s facing Cody in the TNT tournament in a week or so. I loved the finish where they used the chair as a distraction and Darby ate the pin in order for Cody to not get cracked in the head again with a chair. Post-match with Darby being furious at Cody was a real nice touch.
AEW did a really good job this week with limited resources and they’ve built up good matches for the coming weeks on. TNT.
