AEW Dynamite On 34th Street 12/25/2024: 3 Things We Loved And Hated

"AEW Dynamite" presented a special Christmas edition of the show, featuring the final block competition matches of the 2024 AEW Continental Classic. The show was a mix of ups and downs, as it ever is. In this article, we will not discuss what happened on the show, as that's what the results page is for. I wrote the results this week, and I am not writing them again.

From the pacing to the commentary to the booking of the TNT Championship, there was plenty to dislike. From Ricochet's ascension, the overall outlook of the tournament, and Toni Storm's continued success in her "rookie" year, there was also plenty to love. Without further ado, here's the loved and hateds for the Christmas Day episode of "Dynamite."

It's not every day that a star like Toni Storm gets to repeat their rookie season. It's technically impossible, but thanks to the magic of brain damage or amnesia or whatever is going on with the former AEW Women's World Champion, Toni Storm is reliving the halcyon days of 2018, when she was one of wrestling's big up-and-comers. And why shouldn't she? 2018 was a great year. I wasn't in my 30s. My back didn't hurt all the time. I had the energy and vigor of a 28-year-old. It was a great time, and while I will never be the man I was back then, such is the nature of time and the body horror of aging, Toni Storm is doing an entertaining job of reliving her past.

I don't know where the story is going and it's the kind of unbalanced idea that can go teetering off the rails at any moment, but for the moment it's a refreshing bit of creativity in the boringly catty women's division. Taya Valkyrie also did a great job on Wednesday of big-timing Storm like a veteran to a rookie, playing into Storm's odd roleplay further.

Written by Ross Berman

At the time of writing, Daniel Garcia has been the TNT Champion for 33 days, having won the elusive first singles title in AEW at Full Gear in November; he has yet to defend the title, instead entering the Continental Classic with the goal of winning yet another title, and I am left asking what it really did to cement him as champion. By and large, the Continental Classic has been an enjoyable set of matches and generally speaking the results have helped to cement the competitive nature between each participant. But the idea of being the champion is that you are a cut above that, and that wasn't really on display with Garcia at all. The tournament actually started excellently for Garcia, pushing Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada to his limits for a time-limit draw – he arguably would have won the title had it been just a minute longer. That was followed by a relatively par-for-the-course win over The Beast Mortos, but then suddenly followed by a clean loss to Mark Briscoe, a survival over Shelton Benjamin, and then on Wednesday night he lost – again, relatively clean – to Kyle Fletcher to confirm not only his elimination, but a final positioning at fourth in the Blue League.

The TNT Champion was fourth best in his group and scored joint-fifth in final points total for the entirety of the group stage with Darby Allin. Briscoe, Claudio Castagnoli, Will Ospreay, Ricochet, and Kyle Fletcher all racked up more points than a newly minted champion with a title that feels subzero as it is, and while I do look at that list of names for the most part and agree they deserved to be in contention, it just feels like a bad decision to put someone with their own championship in the tournament, to begin with. The time could and probably should have been spent on building stories around the title reign, with someone else entering the Continental field; it's certainly not like the roster isn't large enough to have picked someone else. It's just yet another decision that scraped more of the dwindling legitimacy away from the TNT Championship, a belt that once had the likes of Cody Rhodes and Brodie Lee treating it as a major cross to bare, rounding out a year of pretty middling booking around it.

Written by Max Everett

Within its own bubble, the Continental Classic has provided a steady flow of interconnected matches over recent weeks, spanning the entirety of AEW's weekly programming schedule and giving a platform for the likes of Kazuchika Okada and Claudio Castagnoli to do what they do best. Wednesday night's show saw the conclusion of the round-robin stage, laying the foundations for the finals at Worlds End in a way that benefited more than just those advancing. The semi-finals this Saturday will be Will Ospreay against Kyle Fletcher and Okada against Ricochet – who himself has a new sheen via his recent heel turn – and not only does that in itself promise three potential barn-burners but also provides the logical next step (hopefully, the last one) in the Fletcher-Ospreay feud. All going well, it even sets up an Ospreay-Okada final, which is personally the way to go.

Nevertheless, it was how everyone qualified, with no one taking a sizable lead in either group and thus creating a photo finish finale; Fletcher won the Blue League, notably ahead of the reigning Continental Champion in Okada, while Ricochet cheated his way to a Gold League win and Ospreay just snuck his way in as runner-up having the tie-breaker over Castagnoli. It was a night for upsets, with stand-in Komander securing his only points to beat Castagnoli, Ospreay himself barely surviving Brody King (himself losing a last-gasp opportunity at advancing), and Ricochet literally ticking off the Hammerstein crowd to cheese a time-limit draw out of Darby Allin. That just helped to cement the highly competitive field and if continued can prove to be the foundation for everyone's paths in the next year. While I understand it is certainly not everyone's cup of tea, I have appreciated the recent weeks for the constant flow of great matches under the sports presentation. That's not to say the creative has been perfect by any stretch, but it cannot be disputed that every man in the tournament left it all in the ring and gave a good showing to close 2024. Worlds End should prove an excellent culmination of that.

Written by Max Everett

Excalibur sounded like he got kicked in the throat before the show got on the air and then had to struggle through the injury for two hours. It cannot be an easy job to broadcast over two episodes of "Dynamite," and I imagine the strain on Excalibur's voice was tremendous. This empathy does not change the fact that it was difficult to listen to Wednesday's episode of "Dynamite."

The exhaustion might not have strained his broadcast partners's voices as much, but Tony Schiavone and Taz's slaphappy commentary did little to liven up the proceeding. The show was not lacking in in-ring action, more on that in a second, it was simply lacking in any kind of electricity from the commentary team. There was little difference between the audio on "Dynamite," and the audio on a late-night WrestleMania weekend indy show. It did not have the gravitas that one might expect from a night of competition that crowned four semi-finalists in the AEW Continental Classic, a tournament that I am told this company wants people to see as a big deal despite...[gestures broadly at the rushed nature of both tournaments].

Again, I am trying to write this as empathetically as possible, as I know that my voice would sound like I'd gargled rusty nails and whiskey if I were in the same position, and someone else would be valid in writing these very same words. Such is the kaleidoscopic nature of the critical eye.

Written by Ross Berman

On the December 18 episode of "Dynamite," there was a bit of concern about Ricochet being made to look like a fool. I mean, getting absolutely dunked on by the Hurt Syndicate *and* Swerve Strickland in the span of two hours isn't great for the ego, and to the sympathetic viewer, his antics last week could very well have read as the beginnings of a burial.

I'm proud to announce that Ricochet not only is going to Worlds End semifinals, but he is going to Worlds End semifinals as the 2024 Continental Classic Gold League's winner, with ten Classic points.

While I understood (and continue to understand) that Ricochet's clownish persona was not becoming of the serious threat we hoped he'd be once he jumped ship to Jacksonville, I think that — in this situation — the match results speak more to a company's faith in a performer than their creative vision. If this clownish creative handling of Ricochet was truly a burial, then I don't think Tony Khan would've put Ricochet over veritable AEW draws like Claudio Castagnoli and Will Ospreay. He definitely wouldn't have trusted Ricochet to go toe-to-toe with Kazuchika Okada, who is not only the reigning Continental Champion but is widely considered to be one of the best in the professional wrestling sphere. Sure, Ricochet might sound a little bit too much like Drake right now, but he is being booked to win matches. He is being booked to win matches that have championship implications.

I will say that Ricochet's time draw finish against Darby Allin is a bit disappointing, and it does come off as a bit weird considering his (however dubious) pinfall victory against Ospreay on the December 21 episode of "AEW Collision." I do kind of wish he had been allowed to finish out his performances in this year's Gold League with a dominant finish, much like Kyle Fletcher did with his whopping total of twelve points. If you're going to have Ricochet win, why not do it by a larger margin? That criticism, however, becomes less pertinent when you consider the big picture: Ricochet is getting this monumental opportunity after he was made to look like a bumbling idiot just seven days ago. We should be glad that he is being given an opportunity he, arguably, has never had before on mainstream Western wrestling programming.

Do I think that Ricochet is going to best Okada come Worlds End? While I want to remain hopeful, I don't think that is a realistic prediction. However, even if Ricochet is snubbed of gold come Saturday, you can't deny the quality of his performances in this year's Continental Classic. His first match in the Continental Classic ended in a clean loss to Castagnoli, and he has risen from the ashes to win the entire thing. Even if Ricochet is being booked as a heel, it is still inspiring and almost wholesome to see him bounce back.

Next order of business: getting rid of last week's awful graph paper suit.

Written by Angie Phu

I have been in Tony Khan's shoes before. 

You have talked up yet another big essay to your professor. The ideas you have are solid. The scope may be a little bigger than you can handle, but no one ever accomplished anything by not being ambitious. Then the essay is due in 24 hours and you are nowhere near as close to done as you should be. You cram, you rush, you shuffle, you move some things around, you crank yourself up on as much caffeine and whatever else as possible and you turn that great idea into a pretty mixed final product. It is the nature of of the beast.

The Continental Classic is now on year two of feeling like a half-thought product. The block competition has been so rushed, with TV episodes so overstuffed with matches, that nothing has been able to properly land for me, and that came to a frustrating head on Wednesday. The show featured a number of great matches that all blurred together, with no time for any result to land in a cohesive or coherent way. Will Ospreay getting a rematch with Kyle Fletcher felt like an afterthought. Darby Allin assisting Kommander in screwing Claudio Castagnoli out of the semi-finals was so convoluted that I actually have to respect it in an odd way. It was a show so stuffed that I nearly choked on tournament matches.

Hopefully next year the tournament gets the breathing room it deserves and Tony Khan finally does what I never managed to do in college: figure out how to manage time better.

Written by Ross Berman