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LOOKING AT AEW DYNAMITE, MARCH 21, 2024.
This will hopefully be a new regular column here on PWInsider where I give some thoughts on the good and bad of various weekly TV episodes. It won’t be a full TV review, and every inch of the show won’t be covered. It will focus on a handful of topics coming from the show, and depending on the week or the show, they will likely vary in length.
This week’s AEW saw them with a three hour live block of TV with Dynamite, followed by a special live edition of Rampage. We were told the Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto, Canada was sold out, and it certainly looked full, which was a great thing coming off last week’s huge crowd in Boston. A smaller full building is a much better look on TV than a large empty one. So let’s get into some of the notable talking points from AEW Dynamite.
ELITE RAINMAKER
Kazuchika Okada is coming across like a star that matters. This presentation of The Rainmaker is harkening back to the early days of the character in New Japan, and a version of him we haven’t seen in years. Arriving at the building in a Ferrari, and another good backstage segment with The Elite bullying poor Alex Marvez did a good job of establishing who he is. Tony Khan appearing on camera with The Young Bucks backstage was not good. It was extremely awkward, made very little sense and was completely unnecessary. So is Tony a heel boss? Does he support The Bucks abusing their power? Why doesn’t he stop it if he doesn’t? It felt very out of place here. This took away from an otherwise good presentation.
A decisive win over Eddie Kingston in a really good match and Okada is the new Continental Champion. I would have liked to have seen a much longer build for this match, and Okada’s first big singles match in general. The longer you make people wait, the more hype, the more build, the better the pay off.
The Continental Crown was created in December, consisting of the ROH Championship, the NJPW Strong Championship and a new belt awarded to the winner of the Continental Classic Tournament. If you weren’t paying attention last week, you would have missed the very quiet announcement that this match was to be for ONLY the Continental belt and not the other two, even though they have been defended as a unit since its creation in December. Presumably this was done to keep Okada away from what is essentially a NJPW mid card belt and Kingston is to defend the ROH belt on its own at Supercard of Honor. So what value or prestige does the Continental belt have on its own?
In my opinion, not much, as it was essentially the trophy awarded to a tournament winner and it is adding another belt to the AEW universe, as we would often see the ROH and Strong Championships defended on their own before the Continental Crown was created. My head is spinning trying to write about this, so I would assume the viewers are feeling the same. This all seemed very badly thought out from the beginning and not well explained.
If any man can build a championship into one that matters, however, it is Okada, and Kingston’s win over Bryan Danielson at Revolution had done a lot to establish the Triple Crown as a top level title, but that was when it was a three championship unit. It looks like Okada's first defense will be against PAC, which I’m all for.
NEW TNT CHAMPION
Adam Copeland is the new TNT Champion. This was an excellent main event, in front of a red hot crowd, back where it all began for Copeland and Christian Cage. The audience singing Copeland’s theme song, only for Christian’s music to interrupt it was great stuff. We saw some very fun hockey inspired action, an attitude era style brawl around the building and some classic ladder spots revisited between two of the best furniture match wrestlers ever. If AEW are to feature blood, this is where it should happen. A big time grudge match after months of build to get there. It made sense for Daniel Garcia & Daddy Magic to get involved, but I would have preferred for it to have come down to just Cage & Copeland, if this was the blow off to this part of the story, and it probably is, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a ladder match between them at the next PPV. Great stuff from two men that were completely retired not too long ago and are now doing some of the best in ring work of their careers, particularly Christian.
WILL OSPREAY
What a great promo from Will Ospreay. He was extremely over with the Toronto crowd and again, came across as a fresh star on this show. Promos are an area where Ospreay has drastically improved in recent years, but this was even better than I expected from him. This did a great job of setting up Ospreay vs Katsuyori Shibata next week and gave you a reason to care about the match, while also furthering the story between him and Bryan Danielson. Ospreay saying that Danielson’s shoes were too small for him to fill was a great line.
A FRESH FEELING
Dynamite has a fresh coat of paint. The new show intro, stage and look of the show was badly needed. This along with some new production elements, such as showing some of the main characters on the show arriving at the building (although very similar to a recent WWE addition), and I loved Renee Pacquette appearing at the bottom of the ramp before Eddie Kingston’s entrance to give a rundown of his thoughts going into the match. It gave the show a much needed sports presentation and I really hope we see more of this.
THE CEO
Mercedes Mone continued where she left off last week. She came across as a huge star yet again, and the high quality video package only added to this. AEW need a lot more of this kind of thing. Make the big stars feel like big stars, especially to those that don’t already view them in that way. Presentation matters. We seem to be heading towards Mercedes vs Willow Nightingale in some fashion, which is a good thing for Willow and they certainly did a good job of establishing the story between these two and how it relates to Mercedes' injury. Now, with Stokely Hathaway involved, is this leading to a Willow heel turn? I really hope not, because Willow is one of the most natural babyfaces on the roster. Statlander, however....
JERICHO
Chris Jericho vs Hook. It started out well, with Hook suplexing Jericho so many times I lost count, and I was thinking, “this is over delivering”. Then once Jericho made a comeback, it went downhill fairly fast. Hook, at this stage of his career, as cool as he is and even with a certain IT factor, still needs to be carried in long matches. Jericho is not the guy to do this anymore. We saw Hook almost land on his head from a bad suplex attempt, which was very scary. Hook dominated the match, but still only won when Jericho slipped on a banana peel. Jericho has become a master at losing matches without putting anyone over. Jericho needs to disappear from TV for a long period of time, because he feels extremely stale right now and anything he tries, isn’t really working, and at this point, anyone that is attached to him for a sustained period of time, ends up worse off.
I can be reached at matthewmacklin90@gmail.com.
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