AEW Dynamite 5/8/24: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved
Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," the show where nothing says "anarchy" like a power struggle between corporate executives! Yes, the feud between The Elite and All Elite Wrestling continued Wednesday night, and we here are WINC have things to say about it! Good things? Bad things? Who knows, what matters is that we have strong feelings about it, because that's what this column is about: our strongest opinions. In case you wandered in by mistake, this is not the place for a comprehensive "Dynamite" recap, but there is a place for that, and you should go there!
Anyway, what did we think about prominently-positioned matches like Orange Cassidy vs. Trent Beretta and Adam Copeland vs. Brody King? Did we appreciate Swerve Strickland finally being separated from Mogul Embassy? And most importantly, have you been the target of a vicious beat-down in a wrestling ring? You may be entitled to compensation — even if you were saved by a babyface run-in! These are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 5/8/24 episode of "AEW Dynamite."
Loved: Orange Cassidy and Trent Beretta evolve as characters
I honestly wasn't expecting to love this Orange Cassidy/Trent Beretta feud as much as I do, mainly because I'm not really familiar with all the Best Friends lore that I'm sure would make it a richer experience. Still, the thematic stuff happening here is so clearly expressed that you don't really need to know the details to understand what's going on. Trent has been feeling overshadowed for ... months, at least? Maybe a year now? By Cassidy, specifically, who has made a name for himself in AEW and had legendary title run and built himself into something resembling a main-eventer, while Trent and Chuck Taylor have ... not done that. So Trent turned on Cassidy in an attempt to escape him and was ultimately driven so far over the edge that he (seemingly) ended Chuck Taylor's career.
With that in mind, you'd think the logical thing to do once Trent and Cassidy got in the ring together would be to have Trent go over, because most of the time (for somer reason) fans think about wrestling from a business perspective, and since its in AEW's financial interest to make Trent a bigger star, you give him the win over the more popular Cassidy. That's not what happened here, though. Cassidy isn't just being used as a launching pad for a heel Trent push; he's a character in his own right, and he has agency, too. Beretta's betrayal and the injury to Taylor have driven Cassidy to a place we haven't really seen him before, and it plays perfectly into the finish of this match, in which Cassidy wins by blatantly exposing the turnbuckle and throwing Trent into it. It's an extremely heel way to win a wrestling match, and it leaves Beretta even more screwed up mentally than he was before, because this was supposed to be Trent's heel turn, this was supposed to be Trent coming out of the shadows with a fresh new take on his character, but he drove Cassidy so far over the edge that now Cassidy is doing heel stuff and Cassidy is doing new and interesting things with his character, and Trent has been overshadowed by Cassidy again. That's why Trent attacks Cassidy again after the match — he can't believe Cassidy would stoop so low as to even take this away from him.
It's just really impressive storytelling, and the kind of thing I wish AEW did more often. I'm not completely thrilled by the Don Callis of it all, but there's basically nothing more heelish an AEW character can do right now than join up with Don Callis, so I appreciate the move for really hammering home that Cassidy is, at the very least, displaying heel tendencies. More importantly though, there's a lot of fine detail work going on in this feud — for example, Cassidy vs. Beretta happens in the opening match of "Dynamite," which for a good while was generally treated as a dedicated high-workrate Cassidy International title defense, thereby playing directly into Trent's reasons for turning. I love it. I didn't know I loved it until this week, but it turns out I do. And there are so many places it could go, from Rocky Romero choosing one side or the other to Cassidy actually pulling off a fairly significant gimmick change, which he'd have to do in order to really turn heel. Would he start talking more as a member of the Don Callis Family? Would he dress differently? Would he stop coming out to "Jane?" Lot of moving parts. I'm intrigued, and I'm looking forward to the next chapter in this story, hopefully next week.
Written by Miles Schneiderman
Hated: Too many dudes in The Patriarchy
The Patriarchy has managed to keep itself from getting stale thanks in no small part from the once-in-a-century star turn of Mama Wayne. The fact that the unit still works is simply a credit to the pieces within it, which is why I am clutching my figurative pearls over the idea of adding Gates of Agony and Brian Cage to the group.
Factions are a delicate thing, they can very easily tip over, especially in a situation like The Patriarchy's, where Christian Cage was already the most substantive member of a quartet, which is now seven wrestlers wide. Even with the addition of Toa Liona, Kaun, and Cage (Brian), Christian remains the most substantive member. Maybe the former ROH Six-Man Tag Champions can find their way back to the glory they had as the Six-Man Tag Champions of ROH, whatever that was worth, but as it stands, it feels like three more guys for Cage (Christian) to carry.
The fact that this is the first feud of Swerve's young AEW title reign is also unnerving, as Swerve is threatened to be drowned in all the other nonsense going on around him, especially as the ineffectual babyface underdog he's currently presented as.
Written by Ross Berman
Loved: Anarchy rules at Double Or Nothing
As a self-proclaimed agent of chaos, I love all crazy match stipulations AEW has to offer, from ridiculous exploding barbed wire death matches to the concept of the Stadium Stampede match, and of course, Anarchy in the Arena. I believe this will be at least the third time the company will have run one of these matches, and I'm very excited for it with what we're currently seeing on TV. The stipulation also makes a ton of sense with the Young Bucks' never-ending feud with FTR, but in this case, Dax Hardwood and Cash Wheeler have every right to be upset at the high-on-power EVPs, having just lost their AEW World Tag Team Championships to them at Dynasty.
When Kenny Omega appeared from a hospital bed after being brutally attacked back in the ring and backstage by the Bucks, Okada, and Perry last week, I was a little bummed. I thought Omega was going to be at the arena and live on "Dynamite," despite getting the crap kicked out of him, all while suffering from diverticulitis. Probably stupid on my end, but AEW didn't exactly do much to say Omega was still in the hospital. But, when he made the announcement for Anarchy in the Arena, I was ecstatic. With the match stipulation's rich history (which sounds pretty amusing when it comes to the concept of professional wrestling) at Double or Nothing, it's the perfect thing for these two teams to go at it once again, in a chaotic atmosphere, all around the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Omega said he wasn't sure who Wheeler and Hardwood would find to be their partners in the match, but he was certain that would reveal themselves later on in the night. And reveal themselves, they certainly did. I had no idea who to expect, as some of us here at WINC were expecting the debut of the Motor City Machine Guns, but when Eddie Kingston's music hit, I thought that made a lot of sense. When Bryan Danielson's music followed, man, did that get me hyped up even more. With Kingston's brutal style and Danielson's veteran skills, not just in the ring overall, but with Anarchy in the Arena matches, I think they're brilliant picks for Team AEW.
The announcement of Anarchy in the Arena finally got me excited for this pay-per-view in less than three weeks. I was extremely excited for Dynasty last month, with Will Ospreay versus Danielson, and Swerve Strickland becoming AEW World Champion, so the lead-up to Double or Nothing hasn't been too thrilling for me. This announcement, however, made me even more invested in the storyline with the Young Bucks. Do I believe they're going to get their comeuppance in a match type with no rules? Absolutely not. Am I still bummed that Omega is on the shelf for this? Absolutely. But, this match is probably going to be the highlight of the pay-per-view for me as someone who likes all things chaos in my wrestling, and when Team Elite inevitably wins, it's only going to make for good television throughout the rest of the summer.
Written by Daisy Ruth
Hated: Better write this quick before anybody's music hits
So after the Orange Cassidy beats Trent Beretta in the opening match, Beretta attacks Cassidy and Kris Statlander eventually runs out to help separate them. Totally fine, no problems here. Only then, after Mariah May beats Harley Cameron in the second match, Cameron and Saraya attack May, and Mina Shirakawa runs out to save her. And then after Jay White beats Rocky Romero in the third match, White and the Gunns attack Romero, and PAC runs out to save him. And then after Adam Copeland beats Brody King in the fifth match, King attacks Copeland, and Kyle O'Reilly comes out to save him. There was literally one match on the show that did not follow some variation on this specific post-match formula, and that was the Big Bill vs. Local Talent squash match that was significantly shorter than the Chris Jericho promo that followed it. Everything else was post-match heel attack + babyface run-in, over and over and over again.
It's so weird to me how Tony Khan sometimes gets stuck on the same idea for an entire show, like the time he had three matches revolving around whether or not a babyface would use a foreign object at Full Gear 2022. How does this happen? Is nobody else going over the rundown? Is there nobody in an editorial capacity to be like "Tony, you're doing the same post-match bit every time, maybe change it up a little"? It's far from the most damning criticism in the world, but it was getting really noticeable by the third time. I get the sense Tony Khan wants to be known and recognized as an amazing booker, and it can't help his cause that he occasionally books like one of the buttons is stuck on his controller.
Written by Miles Schneiderman
Loved: Copeland goes extreme
When I was in high school, WWE said it would be reviving Extreme Championship Wrestling. Initially, they said the emphasis would be on "extreme." I was young and naive, so I was excited. Outside of a few bloody matches, we never did get the actual ECW revival we were promised in the waning days of the Bush Administration.
From Nick Gage cutting open Chris Jericho with a pizza cutter to Wednesday's bloody TNT Title match between Adam Copeland and Brody King, AEW is often at its best when it is fulfilling the promises of the ECW revival. In fact, for a company that invokes WCW at many turns, AEW is often better when it's channeling its more extreme influences. Wednesday's No Disqualification Match was brutal and bloody in a way many TV matches have historically avoided. King bled buckets as he fought the TNT Champion, with the match culminating in both men crashing through a table at ringside. The table exploded in a satisfying pop.
The Cope Open often suffers from pacing issues, with matches often stretched way past their expiration date. This was not the case on Wednesday. Copeland and Brody paced the match perfectly and built to a satisfying conclusion. From bell to bell, it was a simple and effective show of violence from the two men.
Written by Ross Berman
Hated: Let's commit to a Young Bucks takeover!
After the monumental success of last week's absolutely delusional hijacking shenanigans, courtesy of The Young Bucks, one would assume that AEW would go all-in (pun intended) on this chaotic new order. It is not only positively entertaining, but The Elite's takeover and this internal civil war that's occurring is arguably the best feud on AEW programming at the moment. Not only is it entertaining, but for the most part, the booking is consistent and the story beats consistently make sense. Every week, the stakes keep increasing, more people are being sent to the hospital — this storyline is the whole package.
So, when Adam Copeland brought up Tony Khan as an executive player in AEW booking, I got confused. Then, the "Elite"-ified opening to "AEW Dynamite" played, and I got even more confused. Who is truly calling the shots around AEW?
Granted, last week's explanation by the Bucks makes this current executive situation sound less of a coup d'etat from the Young Bucks, and more like a temporary assumption of power. They are really only in charge because Khan cannot physically be in-house. However, literally everything else — from the "Elite"-ified opening to the post-match conversation with The Patriarchy to the upcoming Anarchy in the Arena match's advertisement as "Team AEW vs. The Elite" — implies that this is not a temporary situation, and that the Young Bucks are, in fact, attempting to assume power over AEW. However, it looks like Khan still has some administrative pull within the booking side of things, as multiple talent referenced Khan and his approval during the show. The likelihood of multiple people — especially a professional like Copeland — slipping up and crediting Khan by accident is unlikely, and a peaceful division of power between the Young Bucks and Khan is even less so. It really feels like AEW cannot decide who is the top of the chain.
I know that last week, I praised AEW for being so unserious and so committed to producing just for their fans, and for the audience that gets it. This week, I'm imploring AEW to continue to commit — either Tony Khan is in charge, or the Young Bucks are. You cannot have both.
It's so disappointing to have this stain on what is otherwise a very entertaining storyline, because AEW creative does not fully want to cede power to Khan nor The Young Bucks. Regardless of who you might want to be in power, both options can be done very easily. So, there is little to no reason why AEW cannot commit to the idea of either Khan or the Young Bucks in power. It feels cheap, it feels like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, and it is a factor that does not need to exist, but stinks up the feud anyway.
However minor the booking failure was, AEW still fumbled Wednesday because they could not get their story straight. In this writer's humble opinion — put it all on the Young Bucks. They are playing up their dastardly and apathetic heel personalities beautifully, and they are more than capable of being the evil authority figures on their own. Trying to somehow weave Khan into the story as some kind of "neutral" figure when the Bucks literally put him in a neck brace takes too much time and credibility away from them. AEW can commit to being unserious and fun for their viewers, so there should be no problem committing to a storyline decision.
Written by Angeline Phu