AEW Weekly BreakDown July 8-14

 Written By: Danny Albers 

Things are starting to take form for All In, as some of the feuds that will run until the end of the summer are beginning to heat up. Mariah May made a massive statement that was a year in the making. Will Ospreay answered MJF and laid out a challenge for Dynamite 250. Something to keep in mind, Death Before Dishonor is coming up at the end of the month, and we’ll need to have some promotion for that show as well, which we’ll likely get on Dynamite and Collision. FTR returned from injury to bring some intrigue into the tag team division. Let’s break down the action from all 3 shows this week.  

Dynamite 7/10 

Just like that, AEW is back. After a great show last week they followed it up with one of the best episodes of Dynamite in its 5-year existence. So much happened on this show, and some feuds are building for what should be an awesome All In pay per view. Kicking the show off was Will Ospreay. Will had some very harsh words for MJF. This was the first time I remember someone really digging the knife deep on MJF. Ospreay said the bidding war of 2024 didn’t go as planned, because Tony Kahn would rather spend money on someone who will elevate AEW, not destroy it. He basically said he’s worth more money than MJF in this statement, and from what was reported of Will’s contract, that might be true (although I’m sure MJF is getting paid handsomely). But it was a really great mix of reality and story. He also called MJF insecure, which I think is probably more aimed at the MJF character than the person. It was a great showing and promo for Will who’s connecting, and this MJF and Will feud should carry AEW through the entire summer. 

The Next match that we got was a match between Bryan Danielson and Hangman Page. I didn’t know who was going to win this match, as both men made sense winning the Owen Hart Invitation. Hangman and Swerve have history, and Swerve VS Danielson would be a great title match and help elevate Swerve to a higher main event status. I think they got it right. Plus, this match was a bloody battle. Hangman and Danielson have given some incredible work to this company over the years. The involvement of Jeff Jarrett, helping Danielson win, was an excellent addition. It was a good continuation to the excellent match the two had in the previous round. Directly after the match, Swerve came out and briefly discussed his match with Danielson, and the history between the two. But he wanted to remind Danielson that this is a different Swerve. It felt a lot like Roman’s “I’m in God Mode” promo with Seth Rollins. This should be a fantastic match. With how vicious Swerve has been, I wonder if they will play this into him and Danielson’s story. Almost allowing Swerve to isolate Danielson’s injuries and have him coming out looking more “heelish” than baby face. 

To harp on the baby face promo, the Acclaimed made a rap song attacking The Young Bucks and Okada. This is the first time in a long time we’ve seen them show up with a music video. The Acclaimed seem to be targeting the tag titles, and using a lot of the public criticism of the Bucks to fuel their promo’s. Calling them “toxic”, and “overrated” in this video the Acclaimed didn’t hold back. The Young Bucks are in a tough spot. They’re trying to play out as the top heels on the show, but the results haven’t really translated to the ring. They’ve won matches, but no in the fashion you’d expect from the Bucks and Okada. People are struggling to take them and this angle seriously. The Bucks need to make an example of The Acclaimed. I want to warn AEW that if the Acclaimed beat the Bucks, you will never successfully push this EVP heel authority storyline. 

We followed that action with a match between Chris Jericho and Samoa Joe. It was an all out street fight as Joe looked to avenge Hook who was burned at the hands of Jericho and The Learning Tree. Joe and Jericho had a pretty stiff fight in the ring before going backstage, where the members of The Learning Tree got involved. Jericho won the match and drove Joe through a wall while Joe was laid out on the forks of a forklift. This was better than the last couple Jericho segments I’ve seen, but still not hitting the mark for. Jericho seems like a bitter old man these days. I’m not sure how many times we’ve gotten to see Samoa Joe and Chris Jericho wrestle one-on-one, so it was interesting to watch how the two worked together. Not good, but not bad. After this match, we went into a fatal 4-way match between Claudio Castagnoli, Kyle Fletcher, Tomohiro Ishii. I’m not positive if the announcing team foreshadowed a Continental Championship match for Pac, who won this match by submitting Kyle Fletcher. They mentioned that PAC will be featured in his home country at All In, and even dropped that he would be challenging for the Continental Title in the future. Before the main event match started, Mercedes Mone came out to celebrate being double champion. She had security, and went full heel calling herself “the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be,” obviously mocking the Canadian crowd by quoting Bret Hart’s saying. Britt Baker wasted no time in running down, taking out the security, and chasing off Mercedes. 

Finally, the main event pinned Mariah May against Willow Nightingale to see who would win the Women’s Owen Hart Tournament. This was a great match, and the chaos did a really good job protecting Willow. They also didn’t give anything away in the match, and it built for the shocking finish. Mariah May stayed in character as the bubbly student to Toni Storm. As she and Storm ran up the ramp to the tournament prize, May took the custom Owen Hart tournament belt and blasted Storm with it. She busted open storm, and used the heel of Storm’s shoe to open Storm up. She stood holding a likeless, bloody Storm, posing for the cameras showing off her brutal work. It was seriously unexpected, and the brutality was something I didn’t even know Mariah was capable of. A shocking end to what was a great show. 

Show Grade: A+ 

Rampage 7/13 

Rampage opened up with a competitive match between Kings of the Black Throne and the Premiere Athletes. I was expecting this match to be a quick squash match, but the Nese and Davari gave Malachi Black and Brody King problems. King and Black came out victorious, and it will be interesting to see if they continue to target Christian Cage and the Patriarchy. Following this, Roderick Strong came out and took on a jobber who was quite a bit bigger than him. After the jobber made a too small gesture to Roddy, Strong destroyed him. After the quick squash match, we went into a random 4-way match titled “high flying 4-way.” There was no reason to have Rey Fenix, Angelico, Komander, and AR Fox out there wrestling each other. The match looked more like a gymnastics meet. Rey Fenix was the obvious favorite to win the match, which he did pretty quickly. We did get one women’s match on the show. Thunder Rosa faced Rachel Ellering. The daughter of wrestling legend Paul has made appearances on the promotion before, but has been featured more on ROH television. Thunder Rosa won, and before the two competitors could show their respects, Deonna Purraso came running down and attacked Rosa. Ellering came in to help Thunder Rosa. This feud between Deonna and Rosa seems like it’s reached its boiling point. Deonna is up 2-0 on Rosa, so I’m guessing the next time they meet, Thunder Rosa will get a big win to exact some revenge. The night ended with Action Andretti taking on Shane Taylor. There was a big size difference here that Action had to find his way around. It was a really good match and great effort, but Shane Taylor’s size and power was too much for Andretti in the end. 

Show Grade: D

Collision 7/14 

The show opened with an incredible match between Konosuke Takeshita and Tommy Billington. For those who don’t know, Tommy is the nephew of The Dynamite Kid. They definitely should have promoted this kid a little bit more so people didn’t think that a jobber was working over Takeshita. Konosuke got the win, and the Don Callis family jumped Tommy. But the Calgary would erupt when FTR returned to make the same. After this exciting segment, The Bang Bang Gang came out and ran through some jobbers. Christopher Daniels came out and stripped Bang Bang Gang of the belts. However, he put them in the title match with Christian Cage and The Patriarchy for the Belts. Christian argued that they should just be crowned without having to wrestle for the titles. I’m not sure if I agree with stripping Bang Bang Gang of the belts all because Jay White stepped aside from trios matches. But at least it’s a good way to set up a match between these two teams which has been brewing for a couple weeks now. 

Roderick Strong faced off with Dalton Castle. Castle got a huge reaction from the crowd. The winner would get a shot at the ROH world title in 10 days at the Death Before Dishonor. Castle tried to even the odds by bringing The Outrunners with him, but Roderick Strong would pick up the victory. It will be Roderick Strong VS Mark Briscoe at Death Before Dishonor. Nyla Rose would face off with a local talent named Ava Lawless. Rose would run through Lawless pretty quickly, moving us straight to the trios match of Top Flight and Shane Taylor Promotions. This was a bit sloppy as it was a huge difference in wrestling styles. Top Flight, more importantly Dante Martin has been getting some significant facetime and has been built as a prominent baby face on the show. This is the most significant victory for Top Flight as a team in a while. We’ll see if this leads to the high flying trio getting featured in the Trios Championship race.

The last two matches of the show finished things off strong. Skye Blue strutted down to the ring in a Stampeders Outfit. It’s seeming like she’s going through another character change. This match is your typical “for the sickos” match that Tony Khan loves. Harley Cameron and Skye Blue wrestling is like porn to the die hard incels that are loyal to the brand. Neither woman is very good in the ring, and the match didn’t make sense because they’re both heels. It’s just too obvious when they do shit like this. If your fanbase is that horny, give them a promo code to pornhub premium and be done. I shouldn’t feel like I have to turn wrestling off when someone else comes into the room. The show ended with The Kingdom defending their ROH Tag Team Titles against Kyle O’ Reilly and Orange Cassidy. The in-ring action was pretty decent. I think it was pretty good booking as well. I like that they’re building up the Death Before Dishonor pay per view with some veteran presence like Kyle and Orange. The show seemed to have a heavy ROH presence being that a lot of the top AEW talent was getting ready for Little Rock on Wednesday for Dynamite 250. 

Show Grade: C+