AEW Dynamite 5/15/24: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," the show that opens with brutal BCC brawls, features a man getting mugged for his wedding ring by metalhead goths, and furthers the storyline between HOOK and Chris Jericho that for some reason has been going on for two months now! What do all those things have in common? We're not covering them in this column. No, we here at WINC have other fish to fry — deeper fish, more emotional fish! For the no-frills-attached rundown of Wednesday's show with everything included, check out our "Dynamite" results page; this space is for our opinions!

As always, those opinions can go in either direction, but they're always strong. Did we struggle with the dark turn taken by the Swerve Strickland vs. Christian Cage storyline? Did we appreciate Willow Nightingale looking like a star in the contract signing with Mercedes Mone? And most importantly, is Darby Allin replacing Eddie Kingston in Anarchy in the Arena a massive downgrade, or just a regular downgrade? Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 5/15/24 episode of "AEW Dynamite."

On more than one occasion, I've been handling news coverage during a WWE event, when suddenly, news of WWE stars being released come flooding into the various channels from which we aggregate news. It's an odd, cold decision to release people while your paying customers are enjoying the show, and on Wednesday, The Young Bucks made a pointed reference to this woeful habit.

The Jacksons, fresh off of delivering a Tony Khan Driver to one of the talent relations executives who is said to have helped break up their fight with CM Punk back in 2022, fired said executive, Christopher Daniels, on live television. The Bucks then thanked the fans and tried to get an "AEW" chant going before promising that there was much more show to come. It was cruel; it was relevant; it was everything that has been working about the Jacksons' current characters. They are the worst habits of wrestling executives made manifest, and they have been stellar in the role.

I hope this isn't the end for Daniels, because it also feels like this storyline has breathed new life into the longtime staple of independent wrestling. A journeyman hero, his dreams shattered just as he'd reached the big time — there's a lot to root for with Daniels now. It almost feels like everything The Bucks touch turn to gold lately.

Written by Ross Berman

I hated on this feud when we first found out that AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland would be taking on Christian Cage, of all people, at Double or Nothing, but in the weeks following the initial reveal, I think I'm coming around to it. The dark nature of this week's segment was something I really loved. Usually, I'm not one for blood on my weekly wrestling shows — I wouldn't call myself squeamish or anything, but I do think sometimes AEW over-utilizes the crimson mask on its weekly programming, so it feels less dramatic when it shows up on pay-per-views. But on Wednesday night, I found it extremely effective, and it did make me slightly squeamish. The camera angle that caught the blood gushing from Strickland's forehead after Nick Wayne clocked him over the head with a glass-framed picture of Strickland's family was just incredible, catching a gush that was perfectly timed and getting an audible reaction from me.

When Cage came down to the ring and grabbed the picture, I knew where things were going, but the line "Tonight, I took your blood, Swerve. In two weeks I'll take your championship," was a home run. With Cage smearing Strickland's own blood on the picture of his wife and daughter, this feud is turning much darker, and while I don't necessarily love the family angles that Cage is known for in AEW, this one is working for me. That might be because the feud needed something — anything — to get a little more heat behind it, because I'm not sure any AEW fan expected Cage to be challenging for the title out of the blue. And when you're wiping a man's own blood from his head on a photo of his family ... man, that's some brutal, heavy stuff. It cements the fact that Cage is willing to go anywhere to get in to the new champion's head.

This also leads me to wonder where this will go next week. There's still one more "Dynamite" left before Double or Nothing and two episodes of "AEW Collision." Is Cage going to somehow break into Strickland's house and harass his wife and daughter in some video segment, with Strickland looking on hopelessly from the middle of the ring? AEW seems to go to that well a lot, but again, in this case, I don't mind it, because we're getting somewhere with this feud.

This is Strickland's first big challenge as champion, and I think he'll handle Cage quite easily in Las Vegas, but it's the lead-up to the point of him becoming unhinged when he gets Cage in the ring that's exciting. I'm a big fan of Strickland as champion, and I think he does his best work when things are darker and a bit more brutal. I wouldn't want to be Cage at Double or Nothing if this feud goes where I think it does and involves Strickland's family even further next week, but I do want to be watching. At the moment there's only one major problem with this feud for me ...

Written by Daisy Ruth

... which is that it's not the main event storyline.

Again, I love Swerve Strickland as AEW World Champion. His match against Samoa Joe at Dynasty was part of the reason I bought the pay-per-view, the first and only PPV I've purchased so far in my adult life. However, even back during that match, I didn't think Strickland got enough of a celebration when he defeated Joe. I remember commenting, only partially joking, that there needed to be more confetti. Now, I'm not joking anymore — there needs to be a hell of a lot more than just confetti for Strickland right now. He's not even getting in the main event of "Dynamite." There have been six episodes of "Dynamite" and "Collision" in Strickland's championship reign thus far, and he's been in the main event of one of them. A single main event. For AEW's first Black world champion. Make it make sense! I'm usually not one to negatively comment (publicly) on Tony Khan's booking choices, but this is getting egregious.

As you've seen, I have grown to love the Christian Cage angle with Strickland, when I wasn't sold on it before. Wednesday night, the angle that involved an extremely cool (I'll go as far as to even say "artistic") camera shot of Swerve's blood absolutely could have been slotted in the main event, the show going off the air with Cage holding up the bloodied picture of Strickland and his family. I understand that Darby Allin returning off his extreme run of various misfortunes was a big deal in itself, especially since he's replacing Eddie Kingston as the fourth member of Team AEW for Anarchy in the Arena; maybe I wouldn't be so upset if Strickland was booked in main event segments prior to this. I also think the Allin reveal is something that would have been even cooler on next week's "Dynamite," right before the PPV. Since that's not the case, Strickland absolutely deserves that spot next week, whether it be kicking the crap out of Cage or another dark twist when it comes to his family.

AEW needs to throw something and someone at Strickland that's going to elevate him and the World Championship back to the main event-level status both champion and belt deserve. You have a historic champion right at your fingertips, Tony Khan, someone the fans were absolutely behind heading into Dynasty, and he deserves to be booked into a higher, more memorable spot every week.

Written by Daisy Ruth

There's only one edition of "Dynamite" left before Double or Nothing, and with the pay-per-view event right around the corner, now is the time to be putting the finishing touches on storylines and generating as much excitement as possible for all the matches on the card. But Toni Storm and Serena Deeb's match for the AEW Women's World Championship has been given a limited build by the company and hasn't had much storytelling behind it, especially in comparison to the vast majority of the other matches announced for Las Vegas.

Wednesday night was the exclamation mark on that point, with absolutely nothing being done to get fans invested in the match apart from Deeb watching Storm defeat Harley Cameron from the top of the ramp. That would normally be fine, but it would normally be something that happens earlier on in the storyline rather than on the show two weeks before the event.

One of the constant criticisms of AEW over the past several years has been the lack of television time women get — maybe 10-15 minutes on every show. To be fair to AEW, they did have more than one segment involving women this week, but while Willow Nightingale vs. Mercedes Mone is a major match in and of itself, Storm and Deeb are battling it out over the top title in AEW's women's division. It should have a much bigger feel to it than it has as of writing, and instead of doing something to aid in that endeavor this week, AEW opted to do something boring that was in no way helpful in resolving the issue.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Should whoever made the decision to debut Mercedes Mone in AEW two months before she was actually cleared to wrestle be fired? Yes. Does that include Tony Khan? Also yes, but more so. But on Wednesday night, Willow Nightingale powerbombed Mercedes Mone through a damn table, and that long-awaited moment of physicality was a reminder that we're almost there, we're like 10 days away, Mercedes Mone is going to wrestle on an American wrestling broadcast for the first time in two years in less than two weeks, and it is going to absolutely rule.

When Mone hit her finisher at the end of her debut episode, "AEW Dynamite: Big Business," it was taken by many as a sign that she was cleared to wrestle and would be doing so imminently. As time went on, however, it became clear that this notion was premature. So I'm not saying her getting put through the table is an obvious sign that she's been cleared — it's just a sorely-needed reminder that that day is rapidly approaching. I also can't help but notice that, while the excitement for Mone has cooled as a result of her being limited to promos, i.e. her primary area of weakness as a wrestler, the feud with Mone has done fantastic work in elevating Nightingale. The AEW fan base has been begging to get behind Willow for a while now, and her consistently strong performances, including her response to Mone this week, and finally given then license to voice their full-throated approval (it helps that "The last time we wrestled, I walked away a champion, and you didn't walk out at all" is a line that goes extremely hard). The TBS Championship, which has had some rocky times in terms of prestige since the departure of Jade Cargill, has also been elevated, and with Toni Storm punching somewhat below her weight in her current feud with Serena Deeb, the two women's titles feel almost equally important at this point.

As for Mone, the contract signing also offered some evidence that she might achieve her natural heel form in AEW sooner rather than later. One reason the fans have gotten behind Willow so loudly, I think, is because Mone beating Willow at Double or Nothing seems obvious, and if that happens, Willow's title reign will have lasted barely over a month. For that to happen to one of AEW's home-grown rising star babyfaces, at the hands of someone who made her name in WWE and has only just entered the company, would be a bad look, and I think that's a recipe for a heel Mercedes no matter how the company tries to present it. Mone's promo this week was her usual brand of not great, but she did come off more heelish than she has previously. Slapping Nightingale after the aforementioned "you didn't walk out at all" comment doesn't necessarily disqualify Mone for fan favorite status, but trying to then hit her with the title belt was a bridge too far, and babyfaces generally don't put fellow babyfaces through tables at a contract signing — if this wasn't a Mone heel turn, it was the prelude to one. And now, if Willow wins, it's an incredible crowd moment, and if Mone wins, it can be through heelish tactics, writing the inevitable cascade of boos into the storyline rather than having it seem like a fan rebellion.

It hasn't been perfect, but we got through it, and it looks like we're heading toward Mone wrestling her first AEW match as a heel, which was always the ideal scenario. The 26^th can't come soon enough.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

One of the most iconic images of Anarchy In The Arena is from the 2022 match: Eddie Kingston, soaked in blood, carrying a can of gasoline, ready to burn Chris Jericho alive. This year's Anarchy In The Arena will simply not have that live wire element that Kingston brings to such a lawless match. To put it very simply, Kingston is the "anarchy" in Anarchy In The Arena, and he's been replaced by the unluckiest man in the world in a massive downgrade.

Darby Allin, fresh off being hit by a bus, will team with the also oft-injured Bryan Danielson, creating what could be the most injury-prone, unluckiest team in Anarchy In The Arena history. Danielson has already spent months on the shelf following that same match that saw Kingston wielding a can of gasoline, and now Danielson enters the match again, once again tempting fate. It's very hard not to be deeply concerned about the prospects of this match.

It is always possible for Kingston to hobble down to the match, a can of gasoline or a similarly volatile substance in hand, but it's not likely. Considering Kingston started the year as a Triple Crown Champion before losing all his title belts, one by one, before June, this latest setback comes at the exact wrong time. Everyone loses in this scenario.

Written by Ross Berman