Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," the show that's all about setting up matches for Grand Slam: Australia even though nobody knows quite how late it's coming on! Wednesday's episode was headlined by a damn entertaining match between Swerve Strickland and Ricochet, but unfortunately, if you want to read about that match, you'll have to do so via our "Dynamite" results page. Again, it was good, but it didn't provoke the depth of feeling necessary for a segment to make this column. That honor is reserved this week for things like the Death Riders opening segment, the return of Mark Davis, and Mariah May (as portrayed by "Timeless" ToniStorm).
What made the WINC writing staff want to tap out, and what lit up our faces like Kenny Omega's promo pyro? Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 2/5/25 episode of "AEW Dynamite."
When it comes to professional wrestling and life in general you can stand and fight or you can cut and run, and the Death Riders have been doing too much of the latter and not enough of the former.
A Death Riders segment usually involves Jon Moxley quoting Plato or Mussolini or Dwight Schrute, and then the group rushing to the exits as the babyfaces attack. It's not that I have anything against the traditional "chicken-s***" heel," it's just that chicken s*** heels don't usually talk about how blood lubricates the gears of history or have grand plans to burn down a promotion and build a shining city on the hill out of the ashes. There has been a hollowness to the group, thanks to their unwillingness to fight for the future about which they can't stop talking.
On Wednesday, the show opened with Jay White musing about the Death Riders, and the gang appeared. They didn't talk. They didn't run. They fought, brawled, and otherwise squabbled throughout the arena in College Park, GA. While the fight didn't reach the insane heights of Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay's recent fisticuffs with the Don Callis Family, it was a refreshingly kinetic segment from the usually stoic, talky Death Riders. The group might not be any closer to bringing their vague, violent plans to fruition, but at least it was fun to watch.
Written by Ross Berman
It's always good to see a wrestler return to television when they haven't been featured on television for a while and see them be given an opportunity for them to remind fans what they're made of. That being said, there should be a solid reason for their return and it shouldn't feel completely random or out of the blue. I don't necessarily know that can be said for Mark Davis' surprise return on "Dynamite" tonight.
In pretty much any other circumstance, it would make sense for Davis to join The Don Callis Family as the newest member of the stable given his extensive history as the tag team partner of Kyle Fletcher. AEW had made such a big deal of Fletcher's betrayal of Davis a handful of months ago though, and him joining the group basically felt like them needlessly retconning a storyline for absolutely no reason at all. Yes, virtually no one expected Davis to be revealed as the new mystery member, but it also felt strange to see Davis and Ospreay suddenly be rivals when they had been rivals not that long ago. It was completely out of place, and was a swerve for the sake of including a swerve in a storyline that didn't need one at all.
Written by Olivia Quinlan
It's been a hot topic of discussion for some time, not just on this site, but in the wider wrestling community that occupies the internet, AEW's tag team division...it's been a bit mid.
The Young Bucks did their best with the belts in 2024, but it was clear as day that there was no real threat from a division that used to be one of the key selling points of the company. FTR has been and gone more times than people can remember, The Acclaimed faded away thanks to Max Caster being Max Caster on Twitter, and after all was said and done, Private Party got the titles and then nothing happened. However, since the turn of the new year, things are beginning to change. To start, we have to shout out the current champions The Hurt Syndicate, and the returning Austin and Colten Gunn who will likely have a fun match on TV in the next few weeks. However, the true sign of healing came in the form of The Don Callis Family vs. The Hounds of Hell.
Before I talk about the match, thank the lord AEW has gotten over the fact that Malakai Black is leaving and that the rest of his House no longer serve a master, we get it guys, he's not coming back. With that out of the way, man this match ruled. Four of the best workers in AEW right now for four completely different reasons putting on easily the tag team match of the year for AEW up until this point (I know we are only in the first week of February but you get my point).
Brody King continuing to be one of the most over big men in the company looking like a monster, and Buddy Matthews looking the most locked-in he has been in quite some time is the shot in the arm the AEW tag team division has needed. Both men have been in the company for three years now, but throwing them into the tag team division feels fresh and exciting somehow. It's hard to nail down what it is as AEW fans know how good Buddy and Brody are as workers, but they look like they have a new lease of life as a duo, and more importantly, they look like they could be a legitimate threat to The Hurt Syndicate, who are already established as THE threat in the division. Then there's Takeshita and Fletcher, and while these guys have got bigger fish to fry as singles stars, these two could easily run the tag division as well.
A truly excellent match from start to finish, with one small blemish in the form of Kazuchika Okada's music playing to distract Buddy ahead of their match in Australia as Buddy didn't really get distracted by it. With that said, AEW prided itself on being the home of tag team wrestling, and this match is true reminder of that sentiment. Let's just hope this trend can continue.
Written by Sam Palmer
I was excited to see that "Hangman" Adam Page would be speaking live tonight on "Dynamite," despite not always needing that announced on social media in advance, however, because it dawned on me once the show started that we didn't get any explanation last week as to why Page was looking for mortal enemy Swerve Strickland backstage. We didn't get any answers this week, but that's not what I was annoyed about on what I thought was generally a pretty decent episode of "Dynamite." I'll admit outright that I can't stand Max Caster's character, but this "Best Wrestler Alive" gimmick makes him absolutely insufferable, and I hate the fact he's anywhere close to "Hangman" and his complex character.
Caster interrupted Page's backstage interview with Renee Paquette, where he was asked about Strickland and what went on last week, and then about retiring Christopher Daniels. Caster just had to poke his nose in where it didn't belong, and it really felt like a weird place for him to attempt to further his feud with Anthony Bowens, by asking Page if he'd like to brutalize Bowens. This led to Page kind of chasing Caster out to the ring a bit later during MJF's promo. I didn't mind the fact that MJF and Page teased a hopefully upcoming feud once again, but I can't stand the fact it seems to be Caster of all people Page is going to face next while MJF is doing whatever with Jeff Jarrett.
Overall, it just felt weird to me that Caster would be hanging around anywhere near Page backstage, almost asking for his help before getting shut down, because I just think Page is a much, much more deep character than Caster, and it just doesn't fit. The Caster and Bowens feud needs to be a thing of its own for now, and attempting to add even the slightest bit of "Hangman" into it just feels so strange. I think it boils down to Page being such a brutal character, from the Texas Deathmatch with Daniels, to burning down Strickland's home, then seeming to need him again, and Caster just being a more superficial gimmick. Whatever this was didn't click for me tonight, and I'm STILL curious as to why Page needed Strickland. Between that mystery and whatever he's going to have going on with MJF, Caster just doesn't fit in there, even for a segment or two.
Written by DaisyRuth
Yet again going against the very grey grain of "AEW Dynamite" was the ongoing feud between Mariah May and Toni Storm, with the Women's World Champion emerging first to provide commentary over her Grand Slam: Australia challenger's match against Queen Aminata. Normally, she is full of quips, sexual innuendos that make Tony Schiavone stammer like George VI, and a generally dismissive attitude towards her contemporaries. But tonight Storm immediately rented space within her head and we got a different side out of "The Glamour" in more ways than one.
Over recent weeks Storm has gone from Timelooped back to Timeless, initially feigning that she had gone back to her rookie years and didn't even know who May was, before revealing herself to have been undertaking the performance of a lifetime to get back at her rival. It is stupendous to look at that in writing but that's somewhat indicative of the pantomime fighting we watch of a week, and it was amazing to see Storm add to her IMDB page the role of Mariah May herself. Confused I was as I heard May taking her seat at the commentary booth, only for her music to hit for Storm's entrance not an all too uncommon thing in AEW, all things considered. But that delivered the hilarity in the realization, here was Toni Storm dressed exactly like her rival mismatched extensions included with everything including the mannerisms and eventually the finisher.
The match itself, as one might expect from Storm and Aminata, was very good even if fairly short, as one might expect from AEW, and ended with Storm hitting the May Day, securing the pinfall, and prompting an enraged champion to confront her in the ring. Unlike the last performance, however, Storm had May scouted and left with the undoubted psychological advantage as we head into Grand Slam. It's segments like these with an honorary shout out to Harley Cameron and Mercedes Mone's little backstage exchange that continue to underline the continually untapped potential within the women's division. As said, this is a storyline that on paper reads like a psilocybin trip, but it's the way that it has been delivered by Storm and May, as well as those on the peripheral, that have made the angle such a fun departure from the norm of a few people beating a few people up. It's walking the line of absurdity and physicality well, with the pay off bound to be a thrilling match in itself, and there is a tangible level of animosity between them, and yet they're willing to go above and beyond to get underneath one another's skin. Again it just makes for good TV, with characters that are fun to follow and generate a sense of wanting to see what's next. What's not to love?
Written by Max Everett
Zero. The answer is zero.
Okay, I understood why Chris Jericho branded himself as "The King of New York" at the end of 2024. He was wrestling Matt Cardona, who is from New York, at the Hammerstein Ballroom, which is in New York, and even though he is a very proud Canadian, he was also born in New York. It's a silly, harmless heel gimmick that built to a title match at ROH Final Battle. Was it good? Of course not, but the whole thing wasn't overbearing and if it had been left in 2024 there would be no issues here whatsoever. Now let me check the year that we are in real quick...oh that's right, IT'S 2025 AND THIS GIMMICK IS STILL GOING?
For a man who claims to be the master of reinvention, Jericho has become so consistently bad at reading the room that it's almost impressive. His stubbornness is rotting whatever creative mindset he had away, he is still doing the "King of New York" gimmick, his match with Cardona at Final Battle happened nearly two months ago, and he is still giving people a "New York Minute?" Why? There are literally ZERO AEW events coming up that will be taking place in New York, so the whole idea of getting under the opponents skin by being all "I was born there so that makes me more from New York than you" doesn't work. He isn't facing anyone from New York, his biggest rivals at this point are Powerhouse Hobbs from California, and Bandido from Mexico, you can't get less New York than California and Mexico.
While we are on the subject of his opponents, poor Bandido and Powerhouse Hobbs. Bandido was literally being built back up with vignettes that were cool and he would have been someone who, with some simple rivalry that would allow him to have good weekly matches, could have been a major player in 2025. Instead, he's feuding with Jericho at the lowest point of Jericho's career. Then there's Hobbs, who challenged for the AEW World Championship three weeks ago, and now he's in the vortex as well with no escape in sight. I will give this whole segment one major plus point, Hobbs and Bill is shaping up to be a chaotic meaty brawl and it will most likely be one of the most entertaining matches of the year if all goes according to plan.
Yes, it is easy to hate Jericho at this point, but for the love of all that is good and pure it could be fixed so easily, just go away for a bit. His ideas are in the toilet, he doesn't know when to stop, he is drags the stock of everyone that's around him down, including his own stable, he just needs to go away for a bit honestly. Hopefully this all ends with Bandido winning the ROH World Championship and Jericho going on tour with Fozzy for eight years, because if it doesn't ... help me.
Written by Sam Palmer
