Powell’s AEW Dynamite Hit List: Swerve Strickland vs. Jon Moxley vs. Jay White, and Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston in Continental Classic semifinal matches – Pro Wrestling Dot Net

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

AEW Dynamite Hits

Jon Moxley vs. Swerve Strickland vs. Jay White in a Continental Classic semifinal match: Let’s get the negative out of the way. I wasn’t crazy about both semifinal matches having no disqualifications or count-outs. The tournament was pushed as straight forward pro wrestling and I wasn’t a fan of that changing in the semifinals. But it wasn’t nearly enough to ruin the strong and suspenseful three-way. I really thought the tournament was going to be a crowning moment for Swerve, but it became pretty obvious through the booking over the last week that they had another plan in mind. And I’m okay with that because while Swerve wasn’t booked to win the Triple Crown Championship, all signs point to bigger and better things ahead for the company’s fastest rising star.

Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson in a Continental Classic semifinal match: Another top notch match. I like that Moxley winning the three-way match didn’t telegraph the outcome of this match, as both men were compelling opponents for Moxley. Kingston coming back from a poor start in the tournament and advancing to the finals was a nice story. I would hope that he’s going to cap that off by winning the tournament, as there’s just something about Moxley winning that seems like it would feel uneventful. Either way, I am really looking forward to Kingston vs. Moxley and I think a strong case can be made for going with that match over MJF vs. Samoa Joe in the main event of Worlds End.

Christian Cage and Adam Copeland: It wasn’t the most eventful night and I was actually hoping to hear mic work from both men. But the pull apart brawl was a quick and effective way to showcase the feud while also capturing the intensity of the feud.

Toni Storm and Riho: The brief segment accomplished what it needed to by making the challenger look strong heading into the AEW Women’s Championship match at Worlds End.

AEW Dynamite Misses

MJF vs. The Devil’s henchmen for the ROH Tag Team Titles: The Devil and his crew are really starting to come off like the dreadful Retribution faction that went nowhere in WWE. It feels like there’s no end in sight. There’s some suspicion that they could pay this off at Worlds End, but one would think that they would have openly stated that all will be revealed on Saturday if that’s the plan because paying off the mystery would drive pay-per-view buys. The Devil’s henchmen winning the ROH Tag Team Titles felt flat, in part because those titles feel meaningless.

Sammy Guevara leaves the Callis Family: Another turn? Already? I’d actually be fine with it if this was a course correction that made sense. But the problem is that the fans never seem to take to Guevara as a babyface for long. Perhaps this time will be different. Either way, Guevara acting pissed about the standard baby painting representing his child was an eye roller. I did get a kick out of Guevara calling out that fans have forgotten Powerhouse Hobbs and Konosuke Takeshita’s big wins over Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega. Those should have been game changing wins for both wrestlers. Rather, they are still spinning their wheels and spend most of their time standing around while listening to Don Callis talk. The eight-man tag team match announcement felt underwhelming, especially considering that this could be Sting’s penultimate in-ring appearance on pay-per-view.

Kris Statlander vs. Skye Blue: A Hit from a match quality standpoint. Unfortunately, the storyline continues to be a hot mess. Blue’s strange path to teaming with Julia Hart has been baffling. And the expectation of fans to know what’s going on with Stokely Hathaway and Statlander is too much given that Hathaway spent all of his time behind the ROH paywall before randomly popping up on last week’s Rampage.

Harley Cameron: I’m fine with her being aligned with Saraya, but the butcher knife moment was really campy.

Rampage lineup: With no Collision this week and the pay-per-view on Saturday, it felt like they should have loaded up the Friday night show to serve as a strong go-home edition. On paper, it’s just a standard edition of Rampage.