AEW Dynamite 7/17/24: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," the show that will give you an hour-long title match the open the show and close it with a DQ finish in the main event! Yes, it was "Dynamite 250," which happened to fall a week before "Dynamite: Blood & Guts." This may have contributed to the feeling that the show's 250th episode mostly consisted of just the lengthy MJF/Will Ospreay International title match, while the second hour just felt like it was throwing out some slapdash "Blood & Guts" build. We have some more to say about the pacing here in this column, but we're also going to hit Ospreay/MJF, Mercedes Mone vs. Nyla Rose, and Swerve Strickland vs. Will Ospreay, because when one match takes up an entire half of the show it's much easier to cover the entire show in this column.

Still, we don't quite get to everything, so it's still probably a good idea to brush up on our "Dynamite" results page if full coverage is what you need. Beyond that, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 7/17/24 episode of "AEW Dynamite."

Will Ospreay and MJF spent 58 minutes of precious television time stretching their AEW International Championship Match to its near breaking point. About 36 minutes in, I called that it was paced like a likely draw. I was kinda bored — and then MJF hit Will Ospreay in the jaw with a diamond ring and pinned him, the camera over Bryce Remsberg's shoulder as he counted the third fall with just seconds left on the big clock. It was, for lack of a better way of putting it, the only finish that could actually shock me. I was lulled into the idea of a 60-minute draw and the flash ending, with the final shot conveying so much complicated visual information, that I couldn't help but respect it. I probably respect it more than I love it, but this feels like a situation where that's splitting hairs.

It's the kind of hare-brained finish that many people talk about being cool but no one ever attempts for many reasons. That the two men went for it and pulled it off in such technically sound fashion was a genuine thrill. The match itself was frustrating — like Bob Dylan's mini concert tour with The Grateful Dead, it felt like two lost artists, desperate to recreate the magic that their combination could've created just a couple of years previous. Much like that period of the Dead and just most jam bands in general, the notes were a little too long, the pacing a little too slow. It felt like slogging through the high muddy water with the heat rising in your eyes — but that sublime, wrestler-brained finish made the journey worth it.

Written by Ross Berman

Will Ospreay and MJF are two of AEW's biggest draws, and it makes perfect sense for them to have a lengthy match. However, giving them a whole hour of a two hour show to have a match that would be better suited for a longer show such as a pay-per-view made the second hour "Dynamite" feel totally rushed and much like an afterthought.

Mercedes Mone defending the TBS Championship against Nyla Rose and two champions in Swerve Strickland and Kazuchika Okada colliding in singles action are both major matches that deserve to have been given more than 10 to 15 minutes. Mariah May's promo was so good that it easily could've (and should've) gone on much longer than it did, and while "TV Time With Chris Jericho" didn't need a ton of time as it was intended to set up the FTW Championship match between Chris Jericho and Minoru Suzuki, it was a decent enough segment as is. Regardless of whatever the segment was, dedicating one hour of the show to one single thing threw off the pacing of everything else and made it almost less enjoyable to watch because of that.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Mercedes Mone vs. Nyla Rose for the TBS title was a perfectly cromulent match that wasn't terribly interested in Rose as a performer, but really only existed to further the Mone/Britt Baker feud anyway (and honestly it was just nice to see Rose make TV again). To that end, while Baker's post-match attack was fine, it couldn't hold a candle to Mone's late-match attempt to beat Rose with Baker's signature hold, the Lockjaw.

I'm a long-time fan of the wrestling trope where someone uses their rival's finisher, only to find it slightly less effective because they don't know the precise way to deliver it. This Mone/Rose match had what might be my new favorite variant of this trope: Mone putting Rose in the Lockjaw, only for Rose to bite down on her hand, because, as commentary explained, Mone doesn't have the proper dentist training necessary to safely and effectively apply the submission. In other words, the Lockjaw is a move than only Baker can really use, BECAUSE TO USE IT YOU HAVE TO LITERALLY BE A DENTIST. Perfect. Brilliant. 10/10.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

I have zero nostalgia for WCW or the 1990s in general, so I understand that I'm not AEW's target demographic, but Tony Schiavone has been a net negative for AEW programming lately and he was actively bad this week. He added nothing to Will Ospreay vs. MJF, frequently stepping on Excalibur and Taz' toes with his exaggerated "Boy do I ever hate this heel" schtick; he called Mariah May a b**** during her promo, which hits a LITTLE different when it's a man actively using it as an epithet for a woman instead of Okada swearing in English for cheap comedy points; he flubbed several lines, including one where he encourage the audience to NOT stay with the broadcast during the overrun; and his attempt to transfer the energy of his iconic "IT'S STING!" call to Darby Allin by yelling "IT'S DARBY!" was absolutely cringe.

If you're horrified by my lack of respect for an institution like Schiavone, I don't actually care. I don't need him on commentary any more than I need the 2024 version of Jim Ross. You want to keep him around as an interviewer, fine, but he needs to get out from behind the announce desk. In fact, how about no more three-person announce teams, ever? Just let your two guys cook.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

I won't lie: I hated the vast majority of this episode of "Dynamite". It just wasn't for me, and felt like it was all over the place, thus making it forgettable and not worth watching. The one saving grace of it and the one thing that is worth watching, however, was Mariah May's promo talking about her vicious attack on Toni Storm last week.

There's a good reason that they call May "The Glamour," as she somehow managed to pull this segment off perfectly. This segment did everything that it needed to, from establishing that it was May's intention to betray May the entire time to showcasing May's abilities as a heel. There were so many small details from May that cemented just how good of a fit she was for this character and this role, whether it was the cadence or choice of words, or having her come out to Storm's music, dressed just like her. And having her final words be "it's all about Mariah" to cap off a story arc explicitly based on "All About Eve" was the icing on the cake.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Kazuchika Okada and Swerve Strickland were, as the kids like to say, cooking on Wednesday. The surprisingly well-paired wrestlers were having barnburner champion vs. champion match, when The Elite and Team AEW decided to storm the ring, force a DQ and make the whole thing for naught. I get it, that's the point, but it certainly feels a little on-the-nose for AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland's main event on the 250th episode of "Dynamite" to just be an excuse for The Elite to be The Elite and Darby Allin to be the Wish.com version of Sting.

Strickland's title reign has been constantly overshadowed by The Elite, to the point that it has become a running joke amongst wrestling fans and even the Wrestling Inc. Staff. He's largely been forced to defend his title in the middle of shows or cut promos on "Collision," and overall feels like he's been a second-class champion despite being a first-class talent. There's still time for this to all turnaround — Swerve can lead Team AEW to victory, he's heading to a title defense in Wembley — he just needs to pull himself out of The Elite's shadow at Blood & Guts.

Written by Ross Berman