AEW Dynamite 3/6/24: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," the show where there is suddenly a significantly increased chance of rain! And yeah, you're damn right we're talking about that in this column! We're actually covering a decent chunk of the show this week, as our opinions took us to several distinct segments, but we still can't by any means talk about all of it. For more detail and less subjectivity, you should check out our "Dynamite" results page. This column here is about the WINC staff's thoughts and analysis, and we can only go where our feelings lead!

So, what did we think of the confrontation between Will Ospreay and Bryan Danielson? Does the prospect of Samoa Joe vs. Wardlow have us excited for "Big Business?" And most importantly, is there anyone HOOK won't team up with at this point? Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 3/6/24 episode of "AEW Dynamite."

The Undisputed Kingdom has been walking a rocky road from minute one, largely because The Devil storyline was fumbled and the two men who are supposed to be feuding (MJF and Adam Cole) are both injured. At AEW Revolution, an attempt was made to heat up Wardlow as he won the all-star scramble to become the number-one contender for the AEW World Championship, but tonight he was a complete afterthought.

The fact that his title match is happening at "AEW Dynamite: Big Busines" makes it very predictable to begin with, but the least AEW could do would be to try and make him seem like a threat to Samoa Joe. Instead, he felt like a side character in the overarching issue between Joe and Swerve Strickland. It was the latter who had the big promo segment to tease a possible future match, and while that's likely to come at AEW Dynasty, the least AEW could have done would've been to make Wardlow seem threatening.

Undisputed Kingdom interrupted Joe and Strickland, and Cole then got obliterated in his segment against Strickland, despite being the faction leader. Mike Bennett and Matt Taven were then soundly defeated by Joe and Strickland, continuing to make the faction look weak and meaningless, all while doing nothing to protect the ROH World Tag Team Championships. Meanwhile, Wardlow did nothing other than walk down the ramp and take his shirt off while Joe choked out Strickland.

AEW has been stop-start with Wardlow for far too long, and the ship has certainly sailed with him. However, the complete lack of effort on this show to make him seem like a possible challenger was disappointing after a few positive weeks for him. It leaves question marks over what is next for him and this group generally, as they certainly don't feel like a dominant faction. No wonder Kyle O'Reilly isn't interested in joining.

Written by Matthew Wilkinson

The Adam Copeland vs. Christian Cage feud hasn't exactly been everything I wanted it to be, speaking as a fan of both men, but it's about time to end the thing, and what better place could there be to do it than Toronto?

Generally I'm not a big one for wrestling nostalgia, especially when it's papering over things I don't really enjoy or understand — like why Copeland vs. Cage is blowing off via an "I Quit" match, or the fact that Cage is still TNT Champion. But Edge was my original favorite wrestler when I first became a fan in the early 2000s, and Christian was never far behind him in my personal power rankings. Assuming this is the last time they'll face each other in the ring (the 30^th time altogether, if Cagematch is to be believed) it absolutely had to happen in their hometown, and this is the rare instance of me not caring about storytelling or narrative logic or any of that. I just want to hear that Toronto crowd pop.

And hey, maybe after that, Christian will ditch the Patriarchy and do that last tag run Copeland wanted! Nostalgia for the win!

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Man, HOOK has really mastered the art of having random tag team partners, from "Jungle Boy" Jack Perry to Danhausen and now Chris Jericho.

HOOK hasn't defended the FTW Championship since December on the AEW Worlds End Zero Hour Pre-Show, and has been involved in matches and storylines not related to his title. Having him defend the title is a relatively considerable deal, especially against someone who he has a whole history with such as Brian Cage. Cage (who side note, should ditch his gear and go back to what he had before) and HOOK are former stablemates in Team Taz, and there's a whole lot that could've been used to build something up between them, but that's not the case.

I know that Jericho has a whole history of wrestling Taz in both WWE and ECW, but this whole thing with HOOK feels like a way for Jericho to book himself for the sake of being on television and appearing on weekly programming more than anything else (given that he was the one who was more prominently featured in the backstage promo and made the save when The Gates of Agony beat down HOOK post-match). It's just an odd and strange pairing, unnecessary, and another new storyline in AEW on a show already filled with them.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

English-language wrestling fans might not always be clued in on the intricacies of Japanese wrestling but Kazuchika Okada is kind of a d***. He spent the better part of his last year in New Japan Pro-Wrestling putting over nobody and he was integral in making young upstarts like Kaito Kiyomiya look like a pale imitation. He's basically the franchise face of Japanese pro wrestling and would move heaven and earth to protect that position. So when AEW debuted him as a corporate-friendly heel on the side of the Young Bucks, I was giddy with excitement.

There are a number of wrestlers in AEW who entered the company known as "The Greatest of All Time," but in being "The GOAT" there is often an ego that comes with it, but that often doesn't usually come through in the buddy-buddy AEW. Even the angry, priggish Bryan Danielson is still somewhat likeable, so it's nice to see a GOAT-level attraction who is simply here to make money and keep people down. Debuting Okada as a heel is a good decision and opens him up to a million opportunities in AEW, but turning him heel by having him attack Eddie Kingston is a great decision and one that made the entire moment that much more effective. In the "shades of gray" storytelling of AEW, there are few true-blue babyfaces and Eddie Kingston is one of them. There is literally no misunderstanding about a wrestler putting their hands on Eddie Kingston unprovoked, Okada is a villain through and through.

Written by Ross Berman

I honestly don't know what you do if you're Jay White at this point. We're coming up on a year since his official AEW debut, and not only has his degree of stardom been thoroughly eclipsed by the arrivals of people like Adam Copeland, Will Ospreay, and Kazuchika Okada, but AEW can't seem to make up their minds what to do with him.

It felt like White's full-time AEW career got off to a shaky start, but then he and Juice Robinson had a Match of the Year candidate with FTR, the addition of The Gunns breathed life into the concept of Bullet Club Gold, and all of a sudden, White is being booked as a top singles star. He feuds with Kenny Omega and pins him at All In; he feuds with MJF and main events Full Gear in a world title match; he makes it to the semifinals of the Continental Classic. Everything seems to be coming up Switchblade.

And then, after Worlds End, boom — it all evaporates. Bullet Club Gold turns babyface for no reason whatsoever, win the ROH Six-Man Championship (in the running for AEW/ROH title Tony Khan cares about the least), and form the Bang Bang Scissor gang with The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn. He went from main-eventing Full Gear to working an eight-man tag at Worlds End to working a 12-man tag on the Revolution pre-show. That drop is precipitous. And yes, some of us may have seen this coming based on how the MJF match went, but it's been even worse than I'd initially expected. And now he's fighting Darby Allin in Darby's last match before he leaves for Everest and potentially dies. Gee, wonder who's winning that one?

All that was bad enough before the actual White/Allin promo segment Wednesday night, which saw White awkwardly attempt to straddle the line between his current babyface status and his previous heel personality, That did not work. The character at this point is entirely confused and barely belongs in the midcard title picture, let alone the world title. And unfortunately, the midcard might just be White's destiny in AEW. With the top of the card so crowded, it would be hard squeezing your way under the best of circumstances, and the last year of Tony Khan's booking has left White very much without those. This is a guy who looked like a potential superstar four months ago, but if AEW doesn't sit down and actually decide on a direction for him instead of going back and forth, he's never getting to that level again — at least, not in this company.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

I will admit up front — I have only ever seen bits and pieces of Will Ospreay matches on YouTube, but I was well aware of the hype behind the former New Japan Pro-Wrestling star well before he signed with AEW. Tonight, I was super excited to finally see him wrestle live on my TV because he certainly won me over with his promo work on last week's episode of "Dynamite." And holy cow. I honestly can say I think Ospreay is now my new favorite star on AEW. He hit moves with such grace I have never seen before in the ring, and I'm certain the fact he was wrestling an actual friend in Kyle Fletcher helped him out quite a bit in his "Dynamite" debut as a full-time AEW star. Ospreay's heel kicks are a thing of beauty, and the poisonrana was also great. I could sit here and write out quite a few spots that had me gasping out loud from my couch. The one thing I will say is I'm not too keen on Don Callis and the "family," but I really think that's not going to be a thing for Ospreay much longer, even with the little I know about that, so I can't say that it's bothering me too much. Tonight, despite Callis on commentary, it wasn't too terribly egregious.

And I can't go any further without writing about the ending of "Dynamite." When the opening notes of "Flight of the Valkyries" hit, I almost came up out of my seat. I may not be the smartest person when it comes to NJPW, but even I know that Ospreay versus Bryan Danielson is one hell of a dream match. It's something I want, and I'm sure all AEW fans want, before Danielson himself is no longer a full-time wrestler. That's definitely not a free match on TV, so it's time to start saving some dollars for whatever pay-per-view it ends up on.

As I scrolled social media following the match, I saw a handful of posts saying things like "Imagine thinking Will Ospreay isn't the best wrestler in the world." Well, I know I've only seen one full, live match of his thus far, but I'm keen to agree. I can wholeheartedly say Ospreay made a fan of me tonight, and he may have moved up to being my favorite star on AEW's roster. While I'm not sure he necessarily needs a championship right off the bat with these dream matches Tony Khan could set up, I'm really excited to see him on Wednesdays moving forward. I like his work so much already, I'm already thinking of finally shelling out AEW pay-per-view costs, something I haven't been able to say before. Khan made the absolute right move in signing Ospreay, and I'm so happy he brought his talents to America.

Written by Daisy Ruth