AEW Dynamite - 7/3/2024: 3 Things We Loved And 3 Things We Hated
Another edition of "AEW Dynamite" is in the books and it was a strikingly solid episode of television. Fresh off of Forbidden Door, AEW has a clear direction heading into All In and this week's episode was a chaotic bit of table setting, as the company nudges the roster towards Wembley.
As always the Wrestling Inc. Staff had plenty we liked and even some stuff we didn't like so much. From a stellar closing angle to the return of Britt Baker as a conquering heroine, the highs were quite high, while the lows were mainly centered around more of Jericho's...well, Jericho-ness and the overall lack of focus on the upcoming Blood & Guts Match. There won't be much discussion of what happened, that's what the results page is for.
Here are the highs and lows from last night's show.
Loved: The Scumbag is a bad guy again
MJF is a bad guy. Period. A villain, if you will. The weird, insult comic act he's been doing since his return at Double or Nothing hasn't been as endearing as the crowd reaction would have you believe, and something always rings false about MJF as a smiling babyface. Even when he's a good guy, he has to call his fans "poor" and say that his opponents are talentless hacks. The charade is done. Our long national nightmare is at long last at an end. MJF is once again a heel.
After a couple of weeks of teasing some kind of alliance with Daniel Garcia, MJF not only cost Garcia the AEW International Championship, but also beat Garcia to a bloody pulp after the match. It was an unequivocal statement from the former AEW World Champion, friends are for suckers and MJF isn't just the "Wolf of Wrestling" he's now the Lone Wolf of Wrestling. It adds a personal and visceral bit of heat to MJF's proposed All In match with Garcia, which bordered on a rote exhibition match before Wednesday's bloody affair.
Garcia losing seems to be a recurring motif in AEW, but for the first time, he lost and was beaten down further, in a way that truly says he's due for revenge and possibly even glory on an international stage. The end of "AEW Dynamite" was a tremendous end to a tremendous episode of television.
Written by Ross W Berman IV
Hated: The Learning Tree Needs to Be Uprooted
I have to admit, I really enjoyed this episode of "Dynamite" and actually didn't hate too many things about it at all. Heck, even this little "hated" portion of our humble article penned by me isn't too strong of a hate. More of a suggestion from an armchair booker, I suppose. There are some weeks that I'm among the crowd chanting "Please retire!" to Chris Jericho, and then there are some weeks I find myself amused by the "HEY GUYS!" This week was somewhere in between the two following Forbidden Door.
"The Learning Tree" (I still hate the nickname, or rather, a description, no matter what, but that's beside the fact here) teamed alongside "The Redwood" Big Bill (okay, I admit that one is clever), and Jeff Cobb to take on Samoa Joe, HOOK, and Katsuyori Shibata. While it made sense for a six-man tag, what I didn't like about that match is the fact it left Jericho still holding the FTW Championship. I think the end goal for this all is to get it back on HOOK, so this feud is continuing. And personally, I feel like it's losing steam, especially following a pay-per-view match better suited for an episode of "Dynamite." We're once again headed for a HOOK versus Jericho match, probably at All In, which sucks, and we still have weeks to go. Tonight didn't do much to further the storyline following the six-man tag match at Forbidden Door, with Jericho just on commentary for HOOK, Shibata, and Joe to take on Cage of Agony. The only thing that furthered it by just a centimeter was Jericho getting Taz kicked off commentary for the night, by the order of the Young Bucks. But that wasn't enough for me.
While I love the combination of HOOK, Joe, and Shibata as a team, it's time for Jericho to drop the FTW Championship back to the "Coldhearted, Handsome Devil" and move on with the Learning Tree gimmick. It does have some "go away" heat for me, especially from what we can all hear on the broadcast from the various crowd chants, but there are some weeks that it works. I want this title off Jericho, the feud with HOOK to end, and I want to see more Learning Tree storylines with other factions on the roster. Their short-lived work with Private Party was fun and I want more things like that, but smaller little feuds best suited for "Dynamite" rather than a pay-per-view match. I don't think The Learning Tree needs to be involved in anything big until Big Bill hopefully splits from Jericho, which is another story you can tell without HOOK once he has the championship back.
All of that to say, The Learning Tree needs to dump the gold and move on from HOOK, Joe, and Shibata, who are all absolute stars on their own. They need to get out of the Jericho Vortex. And fast.
Written by Daisy Ruth
Loved: Willow Nightingale and Kris Statlander Put On A Classic
It's always a good time when any wrestling promotion runs a friends-turned-bitter-rivals storyline, but it can be hard to keep the concept fresh when it's been done so many times over the years. Willow Nightingale and Kris Statlander managed to do that in their match tonight and gave some rejuvenation into the Owen Hart Cup Tournament with the volume of matches AEW has been running for it across its programming over the last few weeks.
It was no surprise that Nightingale and Statlander were able to put on a fantastic match that was fast-paced and intense, and while the match itself was nothing to be slept on. However, what made it so great was progressing the storyline without even needing them to say a single word to one another. Having them brawl on the ramp was the perfect way for them to show that there's no love lost between them anymore, and for them to get their hands on one another right out of the gate. They couldn't have chosen a better finish to the match, either, with Statlander and Stokely Hathaway trying to get the better of Nightingale by using a chain only to have their plan thwarted by Nightingale when she saw Statlander coming.
Written by Olivia Quinlan
Hated: The ROH Champion is Team AEW
ROH really is just meaningless at this point. I'm sorry but it's true. ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe stands around with the title on his shoulder but with each appearance on AEW programming, he feels more and more ingrained in the AEW side of things, culminating in him being the very first man to declare himself a member of team AEW for the upcoming Blood and Guts Match. ROH exists on Thursdays, but otherwise, the ROH champion is AEW through and through for better and for worse.
Mark Briscoe is a delight and every week he is the best promo on AEW programming. Every week I clap with joy when Briscoe cuts one of his unhinged, upbeat promos and then I never seek out a single second of ROH programming. Apologies to that very talented crew.
Shifting the belt to someone who can actually represent ROH on AEW Television, akin to how Eddie Kingston and Claudio Castagonli were presented, might be a good bet. I don't have an actual solution. I just feel like the promotion that once could've been AEW's NXT has instead turned into AEW's version of WWE ECW, a zombie brand that exists solely to keep the bloated roster working.
Written by Ross W Berman IV
Loved: Babyface Britt Baker
I'll start this one off with a disclaimer: Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. is a Pittsburgh girl, and so am I. We're actually from the same little hometown, so I will admit my bias here, but I did really miss her in the ring, and I especially missed her on the mic. It just felt like something was missing in her absence, and that is never a good thing when it comes to the often-lacking AEW women's division. After learning what she's been through with what she explained in her promo tonight, I'm glad she's back, healthy, and doing what she loves to do, especially now being involved with Mercedes Mone. We don't often get to see Baker as a babyface, but it absolutely works for me right now after her story of recovery from a mini-stroke, and Mone works best as a heel with her "CEO" gimmick. Baker helped build AEW from the ground up at the start and Mone is just now coming in, thinking she'll take over with this boss character, and it's just a perfect story heading into All In.
The way they confronted each other tonight was a well-told story. Baker had just spilled her heart out in the middle of the ring, talking about resilience and reconnecting with the fans who missed her, before her promo led her back around to talking about showing up at Forbidden Door and stealing a bit of Mone's spotlight after she became a two-belt champion. It was well played, with Mone's arrival being shown on the tron, the Young Bucks greeting her, and then Matthew and Nicholas Jackson telling production they needed to set up Mone's championship celebration with Baker still in the ring. The pair's confrontation around all the balloons and fanfare was well played.
Baker telling Mone that she wrestled last year at Wembley when Mone was looking like a "broke a** b****" on the side was a great line. Baker challenging Mone also made sense, and I don't think it's Baker jumping the line. Again, potentially my bias and my love for Baker as a character here, but she has done so much to build AEW and has worked her butt off, I think a big match against such a huge star as Mone would be excellent for her. It's not the main women's championship in AEW, of course, but Baker's not involved in the Owen Hart Cup to go directly after Toni Storm, and I like this story much better for her upon her return. There will always be time for Baker to go after the top women's championship, but for now, I want to see her mix it up with Mone in the ring. I imagine the match will be made official for All In sooner rather than later, and if that's the case, it's definitely one of the top matches that would sell the show to me. There is so much potential in both the story and in-ring between these women, it's certainly exciting.
Written by Daisy Ruth
Hated: Just Who Exactly Are The Elite Facing In Blood & Guts?
Blood & Guts is just a mere three weeks away, and while there isn't a ton that needs to be done from a storytelling perspective given that much of the match has already been built up with The Elite exerting their power and Team AEW pushing back against that on behalf of Tony Khan. From a marketing perspective, though, it seems about time to make more than one member of Team AEW official with the match growing closer and closer.
The Elite are already a built-in team as a stable, and keeping their fifth teammate a secret keeps some of the intrigue surrounding the match. To AEW's credit, they did have at least one member of Team AEW become official in Mark Briscoe and seemingly revealed some of his teammates by having Kyle O'Reilly coming to the aid of Briscoe while Jack Perry was beating him down and The Acclaimed provide a helping hand themselves when The Young Bucks joined Perry and Kazuchika Okada. It would be an odd choice if they weren't three of the four men to join Briscoe in the match, and would've been very easy to make O'Reilly, Anthony Bowens, and Max Caster official members of Team AEW either after the beat down when they were the ones left in the ring or in a backstage segment later on in the show.
Written by Olivia Quinlan