AEW Dynamite 08/02/23: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s peerless and unassailable review of "AEW Dynamite!" It's the show's 200th episode, and Tony Khan had a special card lined up, including Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks vs. Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal, and Satnam Singh; Jon Moxley vs. Trent Beretta vs. Penta El Zero Miedo in an Anything Goes match; an ROH tag team title defense; Chris Jericho and Konosuke Takeshita vs. Sammy Guevara and Daniel Garcia; and a women's world title match between Toni Storm and Hikaru Shida. Plus, appearances were scheduled from Jack Perry, who was intent on confronting former ECW star Jerry Lynn, and AEW World Champion MJF, fresh off his tag team title loss alongside Adam Cole.

That's quite the lineup, and this was quite the episode. We didn't love everything — there were things that caused us to react in clearly the wrong way, things that relied heavily nostalgia, to which we are tragically allergic, and things that we just didn't care about, like anything with the letters "ROH" involved — but we loved a lot. Go elsewhere for your cold, emotionless facts (our live coverage, specifically). Here, it's our pleasure to provide you with three things we hated and three things we loved about the 8/2/23 episode of "AEW Dynamite."

There are a lot of things about AEW's TV product that we don't always love, but we will say this: It seems like a pretty cool place to work, and it seems like a lot of AEW talent love working for Tony Khan. And while the AEW CEO's unabashed passion for pro wrestling might at times lead him astray (at least in our opinion), let it never be said that he doesn't remember and value the people who made his company what it is today.

Such was the case for AEW's 200^th episode, whose line-up consisted primarily of people who wrestled or appears on the very first AEW show, Double or Nothing, in 2019: Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, Jack Perry, Jon Moxley, the Best Friends, Penta, MJF, and of course, The Elite, fresh off their brand new contract extensions. The Best Friends even announced a reprisal of their Parking Lot Fight from 2020, this time against the BCC.

And then, of course, there was Hikaru Shida, another wrestler who was there from the beginning and who held the AEW Women's World Championship for more than a year from 2020 to 2021, anchoring the fledgling company during the chaos and upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vast majority of Shida's first title reign took place in empty arenas; now, after defeating Toni Storm in the main event of AEW's 200^th episode, she'll presumably get to defend it at Wembley Stadium in front of one of the largest crowds in wrestling history. Did her win feel slightly random? Yes. Was there any kind of story going into it? No. But for once, we don't care. Shida winning the title for a second time just before All In rules, and while it doesn't do anything to assuage our larger concerns over how Khan books the women's division, it was still a classy move from AEW's owner, and we appreciate the show of respect.

The only match on Wednesday's card that didn't involve an AEW original was Aussie Open defending their Ring of Honor tag team titles against El Hijo Del Vikingo and Komander. The match was fine, and Vikingo is always a treat to watch perform — if you're just here for spectacle, you probably liked this a lot, and that's okay. For us, though, the fact that this match was happening made zero sense, especially on the 200th episode of "Dynamite," where everything else was at least in some way tied into AEW history (via the performers involved) and its current storylines. All these wrestlers are great at what they do, but that doesn't change the fact that we forgot about this match immediately after the bell rang.

We know he doesn't want to hear this, but at some point, Tony Khan is going to have to decide what, exactly, ROH is, and what its relationship with AEW should be. This thing where ROH champions just pop up to defend their titles on AEW programming every so often is not working.

The only other segment on this episode that didn't directly involve original AEW loyalists (though it did indirectly involve one) was the taped segment that saw the newly-formed duo of Swerve Strickland and AR Fox invade the Buddy Wayne Academy. Aside from the ring, which might as well be his natural environment, Swerve is always at his best with this kind of cinematic supervillain stuff — see also his torture of Billy Gunn — and this was the peak of the form, from his delightfully crude opening line ("What up, turds?") to smashing Nick Wayne's face open with a portrait of him and his dad. Forcing Wayne to unlock his phone so they can call Darby Allin to threaten him is classic psychotic villain stuff; lines like "We're the ghosts of your past, and we're here to haunt you" are simple but effective, especially with Swerve's pitch-perfect delivery.

Fox's stated justification for joining up with Strickland and the Mogul Embassy is a little thin, but that doesn't really matter. This combination has the potential to be a major force on AEW programming if its allowed to be, and this Allin/Wayne feud is hopefully just the beginning.

We've generally been on board with this storyline involving Don Callis and the Jericho Appreciation Society, but we don't think this week's installment was supposed to be as funny as we thought it was. A pretty damn good opening tag team match between the teams of Chris Jericho and Konosuke Takeshita and Sammy Guevara and Daniel Garcia ended with Callis interfering behind the referee's back, followed by Jericho looking just completely shocked that a heel wrestling manager would do such a thing. Seriously, it was like Jericho had never even conceptualized the possibility of interfering in someone else's match and using a weapon when the ref wasn't looking, as though Jericho himself hasn't been a heel for his entire AEW tenure and has consistently surrounded himself with minions who interfere on his behalf. Just completely (and, we suspect, unintentionally) hilarious. Also not the best look for Garcia, who stayed down for the final three count despite Jericho taking a long time to stare down Callis before finally covering his opponent.

We like the idea here in theory, with Jericho hesitating before taking the cheap win over his compatriots, but that hesitation should be because of like, character reasons, like he's trying to decide if he actually wants to cross that line, not complete blank-faced shock at Callis doing a relatively mild version of something managers have done for decades. And Matt Menard confronting Jericho backstage and saying they were having a mandatory JAS meeting next week was similarly baffling. Didn't they already do that? Isn't that something they've been doing? Why is this story moving backward instead of forward?

Anyway, there's still plenty of time, and we'll probably get back on the bandwagon next week, but this chapter in the story was far from the best.

To be clear: We love Rob Van Dam. We're big fans going back a long way. We popped when "Walk" hit as hard as anyone (keep spending all that money on music licensing, Tony). We even loved the backstage interview where RVD called himself a retirer of belts and said he'll retire the FTW title after winning it, which helps us get invested in the outcome, since otherwise it would be hard to imagine Van Dam actually winning. What we don't love is wrestling nostalgia acts, especially in companies with massive talent rosters full of people just waiting for the opportunity to feud with someone like Jack Perry. As much as we love RVD, in 2023 we're much more interested in the wrestlers of today than the wrestlers of yesteryear, and this is just spending time and money on someone who presumably won't be sticking around very long (for the record, we also have an issue with nostalgia acts who do stick around, like Jeff Jarrett — though we actually really enjoyed his insanely dumb schmozz-fest trios match with The Elite this week).

More than that though, after 20 years, we're just tired of ECW. This whole Jerry Lynn, RVD thing smacks of Perry kicking off a run where he wrestles a lot of former ECW guys, and we're really not looking forward to it. It's actually crazy that this one wrestling promotion that was only around for a few years and at times exemplified the absolute worst parts of the 1990s has been lionized so thoroughly that now, more than two decades after it went out of business, we're still dragging these guys out on stage (to their ECW music, no less) so fans can do the "ECW" chant. Again, nothing against Van Dam himself, but this entire concept is a non-starter for us.

We don't traditionally go for MJF's "I was bullied as a child for being Jewish" promos, mainly because for the entirety of his AEW career, he's played a staggeringly unlikeable character. Having a heel in the MJF mold cut those kinds of promos to explain his actions and general way of being theoretically helped deepen the character, but none of it ever felt like it really mattered, because he would always follow it up with some kind of despicable thing or another. At a certain point, the stories began to feel cynical, to the point that we became cynical about them in turn — we never believed, for example, that MJF was actually turning face before his championship win at Full Gear.

This time, though, the promo felt more authentic and more important. This felt like MJF officially announcing himself as a babyface — which, to be clear, he has absolutely become during the Adam Cole storyline — without compromising his character. It was a synthesis of the MJF character as we knew him before with the character we've seen recently, and it makes perfect sense. The result is a character who feels fully realized and entirely three-dimensional in a way the wrestling medium rarely achieves.

"Wow," we thought to ourselves, as the AEW World Champion talked about the importance of vulnerability and how he's learned that not everyone is terrible. "It's going to be so horrible but also so amazing when Cole turns on him."

And then we thought, "Oh no, Cole, is turning on him tonight, isn't he?"

But then a funny thing happened: He didn't. Cole came to the ring, praised MJF for becoming the man he was always meant to be, and signed the contract MJF offered him for an AEW World title match in the main event of All In at Wembley Stadium. That's it. Nobody turned; nobody even teased a turn. They just talked, gave each other compliments, and hugged. It was amazing. We loved it so much.

We didn't get the chance to write about last Saturday's "AEW Collision" main event, but for the record, we thought it was awesome. Everything in this storyline has been awesome, and it's only fitting that MJF and Cole — who consistently took a back seat in terms of card placement to the BCC/Elite feud right up through Blood & Guts — are going to main event AEW's biggest-ever show. 100% the right decision, and we honestly have no idea how that match will go. Does Cole turn heel toward the end of the match when he realizes he can't beat MJF? Does he lose clean and turn afterward? Does he just not turn at all? There are lots of possibilities, but only one at this point that would be completely unacceptable: MJF can't turn on Cole. That ship has sailed, Tony. He's our scumbag now.