AEW Weekly BreakDown 5/20-5/25

 Dynamite 5/22/2024 

The go-home episode of Dynamite going into the Double or Nothing pay per view this week showcased some strong matchups with talents that will be featured on the show. Let’s jump into the BreakDown of the show 

The opener was a tag match between 4 wrestlers who will be competing in the undercard at Double or Nothing. The classic babyfaces VS the heels tag team match. Orange Cassidy and Will Ospreay clashed with Trent Beretta and Roderick Strong, but the numbers game played a major factor. The Kingdom, primarily Wardlow, would get involved and attack Cassidy on the outside of the ring, leaving Ospreay open for a brutal attack by the Kingdom. The busted open Ospreay, and Roderick Strong taunted him holding the title in his face. 

In the second segment The Bang Bang Gang came out to cut an insulting promo on Pac. I feel like the crowd is beginning to grow restless with the booking of Jay White. He seems to cut the same promo every night. Some of the imitations of Pac were pretty funny. It looks like we’re going to get a trios match at the pay per view between the Bang Bang Gang and the returning Death Triangle. The pop for Death Triangle coming out and fighting with White and The Gunns was a strong reaction. I just think that there isn’t a person in the crowd that wouldn’t rather have Pac VS Jay White in a singles match. Pac and Jay White are two guys that should easily be main event players. I don’t know if it’s a legal thing, but please go back to Bullet Club Gold and drop Bang Bang Gang. 

The following match was the triple threat for a shot at Chris Jericho and the FTW title. The match was quick, and didn’t have any rhythm to it. The finishing spot wasn’t very believable, as soon as hook put the submission on him he was tapping. This led to Chris Jericho taking a shot at all the people who’ve criticized his need for the spotlight, and Tazz saying “that’s a shoot.” You know, for a company that complains so much about podcasters and influencers being overly critical of the product, they sure do play into them a lot of national televised programs. I get that to Jericho it might seem like he’s being edgy, but it just comes off old and bitter. I love Jericho. I just hate to see him give this audience the satisfaction of seeming bothered. It’s only going to make it worse. 

Takeshita ran through Matt Sydal pretty quickly. Takeshita is an impressive athlete when you look at him compared to Sydal. Jon Moxley came out and had a mic like he was going to cut a promo and just punched him in the face with the mic. It actually was a pretty stiff moment and a pretty great moment for Moxley. I love that we’re getting the IWGP World Title defended the same night the AEW Title is on the line. 

Swerve Strickland was next, and what an excellent match! Nick Wayne is so great for his age, and this match felt personal. Also, AEW creative must have been listening to Jim Cornette. On The Experience, Jim Cornette ranted about how they basically buried their champion. Well tonight, Swerve looked really strong by fighting off the entire Christian posse. This should be a good match to put Swerve over for whoever is after Christian. 

Kyle O’ Reilly and Malachi Black were next. Most of the match was picture and picture and Kyle got buried once again. He’s looked great since returning, they’ve just booked him terribly. Adam Copeland runs through him, Roderick Strong runs through him. This was a very highly regarded talent, and he’s not winning matches. Send him to ROH if you want to slow cook him until he’s fully healthy instead of him losing to contenders for a mid-card title. The finishing spot of Black having blood dumped all over him like Carrie was overkill. How many times is Copeland going to imitate the Brood in this farewell tour of his. He was doing it in WWE before he was told nobody remembers The Brood (as said on the Chris Van Vleet podcast). It’s not that nobody remembers, it’s just that nobody really cares for vampire gimmicks in 2024. 

The next was Toni Storm & Mariah May VS Sarayah & Harley Cameron. Good to see Sarayah still works for the company. Harley Cameron is great in the ring, somebody tells her she doesn’t have to dress like a private stripper to get over. The final moment really caused my blood to boil. Serena Deeb has spent weeks trying to get the sympathy of the crowd. And Deeb comes back to get her flag, interrupting a Toni Storm striptease and the crowd turns on Deeb because they’d love to see a naked Toni Storm. And then Deeb locks in a submission using a chair, and walks off like she’s a baby face. That was as heel a segment as you can cut, and you just killed 3-weeks of trying to build her as a babyface. 

And then the main event which ended up being a shit show. You had Danielson come out and get thrown around by Satnam Singh. Danielson finds a way to lock in a submission and he’s attacked. But the fourth members is revealed as Darby Allin, who wielding a fucking flame thrower. All it takes is a slip and he’s lighting something or someone on fire. And Jack got in trouble for wanting to use real glass. 

The final word on this show is that the booking is just all over the place still, and it’s very hard to follow these bipolar storylines at times. The quality of the matches are there, I just think they have to revamp some of their writing styles, and they need to commit to characters being faces or heels. They jump around too much with that. How are people going to invest in a wrestler when they change face every match? 

AEW Rampage 5/24 

Rampage has been pretty unwatchable the past couple months, and that continued this week. With a lot of the talent booked, we got a lazy compilation of stars on this show. Pac and Rocky Romero opened the show, and Pac pretty much squashed Rocky. Unless Pac is going to beat Jay White on Sunday, it’s pretty pointless to bury Rock Romero like this. You’re just telling people to turn the channel when Rocky is on because it’s going to be a fast match. Rush and Isiah Kassidy was a sad match. What the heck happened to Private Party? They were one of the most promising tag teams five years ago when this company started, and now this team is mainly wrestling in singles matches getting buried by expensive singles talent with no direction. Samoa Joe buried a local talent named Dom Kubrick. Crazy to think that man was a world champion a month ago. And the match closed with Kris Statlander & Willow facing Alex Windsor & Anna Jay. This was a good match, with Anna Jay getting a bit too much offense in on Willow. They just keep trying to push Anna Jay to no avail. Besides her look, she’s just not that good in the ring. Mercedes came out and attacked Willow, as the two had to be pulled apart. That was how the show closed, so it was nice to see them have something relevant to Double or Nothing.

AEW Collision 5/25 

The opening of the show was really exciting. The trios match featured Claudio Castagnoli, Daniel Garcia, and a surprise appearance of Tanahashi to take on The Righteous and Lance Archer. The fans were fired up about Tanahashi’s appearance. The appearance was much better than the match that got a little messy, and most of the match took place on the outside of the ring. It just was a bit of a mess. Claudio, Tanahashi, and Daniel Garcia got the win.

That moved us directly into the best match of the night between The Lucha Brothers and The Gunns. You forget how good the Gunns are when not following Jay White around. The Lucha Brothers are so smooth and their tandem move set has gotten so better. Five years ago, when AEW started, it’s hard to believe these two were mostly singles competitors. 

The middle of the show was filled with a ton of promos and backstage segments which is usual for go-home episodes. Chris Jerihco cut a promo on Shibata and Hook ahead of the FTW title. He’s continuing the fake nice teacher gimmick we’ve seen the last couple weeks, and there seems to be something brewing with him and Bryan Keith. Kyle O’ Reilly had a squash match with a competitor named KM. He’s beginning to look more like himself. He will probably benefit a bit from some more of these squash matches. 

Willow Nightingale cut a personal promo that saw her drop the happy and bubbly persona. Mercedes seems to have gotten under her skin, and it’s starting to boil over. This is beginning to get personal for the two ladies. A really strong promo from Willow to spice it up a bit and sell the match tomorrow. Probably a good choice because the crowd has started to turn on Mercedes a bit with some of the brutally bad promos she’s given. Better to put the mic in the hand of Willow. 

A four-way tag team match was next, featuring 3 teams that will be in action tomorrow. The Acclaimed, who came out and cut their usual promos, Gates of Agony, House of Black, and the Infantry. It was a pretty good match with a lot of fast paced action. House of Black won the match, but the purpose of this segment came after the match when the lights went down and Adam Copeland sent a sinister message to the House of Black. Copeland seems to be copying a lot of the sinister character he tapped into that birthed The Judgment Day at WWE. It’s been working and has been one of the more interesting storylines on Collision. It seems Adam Copeland is teasing a big reveal for tomorrow's show. 

Mariah May came out to face Leyla Hirsch. I was a little disappointed because both these women can absolutely go, and May was acting like a ditsy female competitor from 2007. Then she had Hirsch motorboat her which annoyed me. I don’t mind companies doing that as it’s always been a part of wrestling, but don’t get mad about the obnoxious type of fans that get drawn to your programming because of it. The humanity of the AEW fanbase is pretty disgusting, a lot of misogyny and a lot of pervs trying to get a look at Sky Blue’s ass. These types of matches just make these weirdos feel justified for being creeps. 

The main event featured Bryan Danielson and FTR taking on Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal and Satnam Singh. Danielson and Singh have had some physical meetings in the ring lately. Danielson and FTR worked very well as a team and looked unified heading into the pay per view. It’s also always a trip to see Jeff Jarrett in there with this generation's stars like Danielson and FTR. Billy Gunn gets a lot of credit, but Jeff Jarrett still looks great and moves very well in the ring. I loved how a lot of the matches on this show tied into Double or Nothing, which is tomorrow from Las Vegas. They did a good job in featuring a lot of the talent wrestling on the card. After this main event, the emotional FTR promo to close the show seemed to fire the crowd up for the Anarchy in the Arena match tomorrow. It was a well done ending to a go-home episode which is always challenging to keep fans engaged.