AEW Dynamite 10/2/24: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," the first show following the announcement of AEW's new media deal with Warner Bros. Discovery! Also the show that apparently just lasts until 10:30 now sometimes, but hey, we're not going to complain too much about Danielson vs. Okada on free TV, followed by WHEELER YUTA DRAMA. We do have a lot to say about that match, however (and the Wheeler Yuta drama) both positive and negative; we similarly have more than the usual amount to say about Britt Baker's match with Serena Deeb. Lots of other things happened on this episode, and we'll refer you to our "Dynamite" results page for all the rest of it — don't worry though, we will make some time for Will Ospreay vs. Ricochet and the return of "Switchblade" Jay White. As for the AEW debut of Shelton Benjamin, just pretend each of us wrote the words "we marked out" 50 consecutive times.

In other words, as we move into a new era of AEW, we're more excited than ever to bring you the opinions of the WINC staff, and only the strongest ones. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 10/2/2024 episode of "AEW Dynamite."

Wednesday's five-year anniversary edition of "AEW Dynamite" started off with a bang, as Will Ospreay defended his International Title against Ricochet in the night's opening match. The match was full of flips, finisher kickouts, and callbacks to their iconic NJPW match (you know, the one that is always captioned "if wrestling is fake, explain this"). It was either a must-see match, for those of us who live for the high-octane athleticism of wrestling, or a must-not-see match, for those of us who prefer the more classic mat-work side of wrestling (this is a safe space for both types of fans). That is to say, this match was unapologetically itself, and it was a coherent performance, for better or for worse.

This was a coherent performance.

AEW has a really bad habit of overcomplicating things, and when you really think about it, starting off the five-year anniversary episode of "Dynamite" with an convoluted Tony Khan booking is a beautiful return to form. Will Ospreay went in for a pin on Ricochet during their highly-contested, back-and-forth contest, but...slipped a little bit off of Ricochet, so that his shoulders were also pinned on the mat. Any sane referee would have just counted the pinfall in Ospreay's favor, and we would've been done with the match. Any sane referee would have just given Ospreay the win, and we wouldn't have had to run fifteen minutes overtime.

This referee looked so confused. To be fair, I was equally confused when this referee began counting...both men's pinfall? Ricochet was nowhere near being on top of Ospreay. What?

Thus began fifteen minutes of pure shenanigans that led to the match getting called a draw, getting restarted, and then being robbed of a cathartic finish *anyway* because of Konosuke Takeshita. Perhaps I don't understand Tony Khan's genius, but it's just very odd to add a good chunk of time onto an otherwise perfectly solid match just to arrive at a disqualification finish. If you wanted to book Takeshita interference...just book Takeshita interference. We don't need to go through all the hoops and obstacles associated with an odd referee call, and we certainly didn't need the bumbling attempts by Ospreay and Ricochet to generate enough applause for a restart, like some odd "please validate us" encore.

AEW is at its best when its campy, but campiness needs to be purposeful in its absurdity. If it is unorthodox for the sake of being unorthodox, it just becomes an unpleasant product to watch. Think about it for two more seconds: would you rather watch the ring announcer fumble through his words as Khan announces a rematch, or would you rather have that time dedicated to more high-stakes wrestling? That whole odd pinfall to match restart sequence didn't even do anything to protect Ricochet, since anybody with half a brain cell's worth of wrestling knowledge can see that Ospreay was pinning Ricochet. This was nonsense.

There's some merit to take the scenic route. Unfortunately, this match finish drove by a dumpster fire.

Written by Angeline Phu

Ever since All Out, there seems to be a distinct hole left in AEW's main event scene. Swerve Strickland is taking time away, MJF is being cast in movies, and that has left someone like Hangman Page to float in the middle of that hole with the story of "I haven't forgotten about all the people that got in my way." That's fine, but outside of Jeff Jarrett, who he seems to be done with, the only person really got in his way once he came back was Bryan Danielson, and the Blackpool Combat Club have got the AEW World Championship picture all tied up right now.

So what better time for someone like "Switchblade" Jay White to return to AEW? Gone for two months due to injury, White was the man who bloodied Hangman up in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, giving this return a sense of purpose and meaning. But what this return, and by slotting him straight into a big match with Page is it gives White the opportunity to truly cement himself as a main event star in AEW in the absence of people like Strickland and MJF.

People have moaned since the day White arrived in AEW that he wasn't being treated like the former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion that he should have been, and outside of the dismal MJF feud that led to their dismal match at Full Gear last year, White hasn't been given the ball to run with. However, the ball is completely free, and people are ready to see Jay White ascend to the heights everyone knows he can reach. Go back and listen to the reactions he got from the crowd, first from his music, and then from his arrival, the AEW fans are all in on Jay White and so should AEW.

A Hangman Page/Jay White feud is exactly what the main event scene in AEW needs right now, and with this organic swell of support behind him, let's hope now is finally the time that the "Switchblade Era" finally dawns on All Elite Wrestling.

Written by Sam Palmer

Obviously we're in the era of "smart" wrestling fans who are mostly all aware of the alleged drama that goes on behind the scenes of AEW, but I still like to see things explained to me in storyline, whether I know someone was suspended and off the road or not. I'll also begin this off by admitting my bias, as I am also from Pittsburgh, like Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, but that's beside the point when I want my wrestling to make sense. Baker made her return to AEW television, after being off the road since she competed against Mercedes Mone at All In in London, way back on August 25. We know she was allegedly suspended (because of course Tony Khan wouldn't say anything or even confirm the many times he was asked about her in various media opportunities) following a backstage altercation with MJF and Alicia Atout, but that was prior to All In.

So, if I was a wrestling fan who didn't know about all the backstage drama, I would be pretty darn confused about where the heck Baker has been since London. There was no mention of her around All Out, but it was expected she'd be around for AEW's big anniversary show in her hometown. The fact Baker wrestled in Pittsburgh for this big show is where things stop making sense to me. "The Doctor" received absolutely no mic time before or after her match with Serena Deeb. Not that Baker would have much to say about Deeb, I would assume, but even just acknowledging she was happy to be home on such a historic night for "Dynamite" and the fact she was the first woman to sign with the company would have sufficed. I've heard it before, but I'm shocked I didn't hear it Wednesday night. It's also interesting because one of the last few promos Baker has cut was about her terrifying health issues, as she suffered what she referred to as a "mini-stroke." If I wasn't queued in to the backstage goings on as I am, I would have been concerned something happened to the star in between All In and this week.

While Baker hasn't been the strongest in the ring following her return from her medical issues, she is always strong on the mic. So, even giving her a little victory celebration alongside the rising star of Queen Aminata would have helped this entire portion of the show for me. With what we saw this week — or rater, what we didn't hear — I don't think the backstage saga or whatever drama is going on with Baker is fully over, and though I'm sad to say it, I bet the rumors of goings on backstage are far from through.

Written by Daisy Ruth

We're coming to the edge, running on the water, coming through the fog, AEW has finally gotten to a place where the women's division feels like more than a pair of title divisions held together by string. On Wednesday's "Dynamite," Britt Baker wrestled Serena Deeb in a perfectly cromulent wrestling match. At the end, Deeb attacked Baker, only to be runoff by Queen Aminata, who has been reservedly aligned with Britt Baker as of late. While Baker is certainly trying to get back in AEW TBS Title contention, and Deeb and Aminata are both obviously motivated by the idea that they could someday hold gold, none of these women are champions. The feud is not about a title. This is simply three women in pugilistic positioning. This is the sign of a healthy women's division that many have been looking high and low for on AEW programming.

The feud continues the trend from Jamie Hayter's feud with Saraya, also refreshingly not title-centered. AEW has finally begun focusing on the middle of the pack when it comes to the women's division, which is a necessary step in strengthening the foundation of the division itself. Mariah May and Mercedes Mone have time to rest, recuperate, and dare I say, make people miss them so that when they return for more than a cameo in the crowd or a backstage interview, it will actually mean something.

Who knows? Maybe it will even mean that someone like Queen Aminata will be able to actually build her star power, instead of being forced to hit the ground running like so many title contenders who have been thrown to the wolves.

Written by Ross Berman

Many fans across the world had to be sat down and talked to as if they were six years old when it came to the stipulation attached to Bryan Danielson's match with Kazuchika Okada. Both the AEW World and Continental Championships were on the line for the first 20 minutes of the 60 minute time limit, as that is the standard time for an AEW Continental Championship match on television, and if 20 minutes goes by, only the AEW World Championship is on the line for the rest of the match. Once it was explained, those same fans then asked if it could be broken down to them as if they were five years old.

However, while some people had a problem understanding the stipulation, my biggest problem was the use of it. Hate is a strong word to describe this match, but out of the three matches Danielson and Okada have had with each other, this is easily the weakest, and the stipulation is a big reason for it. The first 20 minutes of this match should have been the most frantic period, Danielson should have been throwing himself around the arena attempting to get Okada down who should have been doing everything he could to get away from the 'American Dragon.' Okada was defensive I'll give him that, but the match never felt urgent, it never felt like there were two championships at stake, and the fact that Danielson didn't seem to have any desire to finish the match in the first 20 minutes makes the Continental Championship feel like afterthought.

It was only when Justin Roberts announced that 19 minutes had passed did Danielson go 'OH YEAH!' and in one minute, he showed a flurry of offence that he should have had the entire match, only for Okada to roll out the ring, and then it was just another world title bout. It just didn't land for me, it felt like two different matches had been stitched together to create this Frankenstein's monster of a bout that was, in the second half at least, entertaining, but didn't seem to connect at all. It's very hard to connect with a match when the match itself doesn't feel like all of its own parts are connected to begin with.

Overall, this match didn't feel like the fitting conclusion to a trilogy of matches between two of the generations greatest performers. It felt long for the sake of being long (did this really need a 30 minute overrun really? Come on now), it felt clunky and disjointed, and its ending was there to hype up a match with more hype and build around it. Danielson/Okada 3 isn't the worst match in the world by any stretch, but personally, it's less of a "Toy Story 3," and more of a "Godfather: Part 3."

Written by Sam Palmer

Bryan Danielson and Kazuchika Okada locked horns in the rubber match of their saga during Wednesday's show and it was — as could be expected — a masterclass in professional wrestling, with the added twist that one title was on the line exclusively for the first 20 minutes of the bout. This set the pacing for the bout, with Okada deliberately playing to his obnoxious character and dragging his heels in the opening, narrowly escaping a title loss with cowardice tactics and cunning. Until those 20 minutes were up, then "The Rainmaker" truly began to pick up the pace and go on the offense, it was now his time to push on Danielson.

The back and forth dynamics between them Wednesday night truly encapsulated what a title vs. title match should feel like, and the stipulation served to provide a narrative flow for the match in the ring. The difference in the rule sets for the titles on the line shaped how the match was fought, and it added to the otherwise apparent break on the road to Danielson's WrestleDream match against Jon Moxley; case in point: the BCC and Moxley showing up at the finale of the match, influencing its outcome (albeit indirectly).

Danielson, likely nursing a bit of a migraine after a tantrum-induced Rainmaker from Okada following his back-slide win, was powerless to resist as Claudio Castagnoli and PAC restrained him for Mox to approach. Only for him to be saved by Wheeler Yuta, the seemingly torn young boy of the BCC not quite on board with the ejection of his mentor. This was just the latest step in a great angle with several characters taking central focus, and there is the scope for development in the narrative between now and WrestleDream. For example, Yuta and Danielson are scheduled to face Castagnoli and PAC next Tuesday; could Yuta turn on Danielson then? Is he really going to give up being the Trios Champion as part of the BCC for someone looking to retire and leave him?

It was noted by commentary that Claudio didn't attempt to hit Yuta, playing into their own dynamic as long-time student and teacher tag partners. And these are just little sub-plots within the wider angle between Moxley and Danielson heading to the venue that the "American Dragon" had himself said he would like to be his last show previously. Add that into the fact that Moxley was mentioning that he wasn't the one pulling the strings here, and there is just so much potential for this angle that continues to be paid off with well-worked and logical steps. That certainly should be the case if this is indeed Bryan Danielson's final countdown.

Written by Max Everett