AEW DYNAMITE HITS & MISSES (4/24): The Elite beat up Tony Khan, Casino Gauntlet, Jericho’s Learning Tree, Willow and Mercedes, Kyle Fletcher vs. Swerve, Audio Issues, more

Well, there’s a new World Champion… a new “Match of the Decade/Century”… a new “Scapegoat”… and a new “most-hated legend” in Chris Jericho. Considering all of this, I was expecting a very interesting episode of Dynamite this week. It’s another opportunity to draw some eyes to the product after a newsworthy Dynasty PPV. Let’s see how they did.

HITS

PACKED FIRST SEGMENT

Regardless of your feelings on the storylines and/or decisions of content, before the first commercial you saw:

• The Elite arriving with Jack Perry
• Orange Cassidy storyline advancement with Chuck backing OC
• Jon Moxley using his exceptional promo skills to promote the main event
• Swerve Strickland walking out and fighting Kyle Fletcher

If they continue to do things like this week after week, it’ll give viewers a taste of what’s to come on the show and build anticipation.

SWERVE VS. FLETCHER

This was a great match, but the star of it for me was Kyle Fletcher. The guy is a masterful seller and he made Swerve look like a million bucks. I also appreciated the subtle storytelling of Don Callis calling a “play” for Fletcher who ignored it, opting to fight fair instead of getting a weapon. This could be a nod to Fletcher eventually leaving Callis and joining up with Will Ospreay as babyfaces.

MERCEDES AND WILLOW

Last week I wrote that the Mercedes Moné segment was a slight improvement. I have to say this week took an even bigger step forward. This was one heck of a segment. Willow was great explaining herself and how far she’s come and Mercedes came out and was far less robotic. She spoke like a normal person and everything they talked about made sense. Adding in some levity from Stokley Hathaway made this a very entertaining segment to watch. Mercedes could fit right in umpiring games at Yankee Stadium after mistakenly identifying Willow as the person who grabbed her and let her have it! It was a great start to the build for their match at Double or Nothing.

THE CASINO GAUNTLET

It was weird. It played loose with the definition of gauntlet. But this match was fun as hell, in my opinion. Once Will Ospreay came out, it became a poor man’s Royal Rumble for me where I had no idea who was coming out next. It had some fun moments with interesting match-ups including a nice back and forth between Ospreay and Kyle O’Reilly that featured a callback to Ospreay being tentative after what happened with Bryan Danielson at the end of their match at Dynasty. It was a nice touch and a hint at a story beginning to be told.

With Ospreay’s win, will he become AEW’s next “belt collector”? Might not be a bad thing if he wins a bunch of them and consolidates a few! It is an interesting way to keep him away from the World Title for a bit to allow Swerve the freedom to build a legacy with the belt.

THE LEARNING TREE

I don’t know why, but I like this gimmick. The jury is still out on whether it will move the needle and be another one of Chris Jericho’s successful reinventions, but he’s played this perfectly. He’s taking everything fans are saying about him and doubling down on it. I have always been a fan of Big Bill and I think it’s a great idea to have him be the “heavy” for Jericho. Three weeks ago, I wanted him off my screen and to go away for a long time. Now, I’m intrigued about this mid-card story.

MISSES

NO CELEBRATION FOR SWERVE

While I praised the opening segment, I thought it was a mistake not to give Swerve his love after winning the AEW World Title. A better option would be for Swerve to come out for a quick promo and then have him challenged to an eliminator match by Don Callis who brings out Fletcher. This would have made the opening segment even better and allowed Swerve to share his excitement for winning the title and how much it means to him to have done so.

AUDIO MIXING ISSUES

Most of the technical issues AEW has suffered through over the years have been eliminated, but it was quite annoying for the first half of the show to have the mixing of the audio so out of whack. Their insistence to make sure the crowd noise is audible during backstage promos made it difficult to hear and that hurt a number of segments like the Thunder Rosa interview. Here’s hoping they continue to focus on making sure these things do not continue to happen.

INCOMPLETE

ELITE BEATS UP TONY KHAN

I’m really torn on this. I like that they sensed the fans were starting to get behind Jack Perry and the Elite and they did something drastic to try to change that. I like that they are trying something that we really haven’t seen in AEW to this point with a heel authority faction that can break the rules with no ramifications. These stories are usually successful when you have a true babyface that the fans can get behind who will try to take down these heels. If you don’t, you end up with the NWO squashing everyone for three years. How the crowd responds to them next week in Winnipeg will tell us a lot on whether this worked, but either way, they need to add someone who can turn this into a must-see weekly narrative.

This was a solid show giving us a lot to talk about and look forward to. We will do just that on this week’s All Elite Conversation Club on the PWTorch podcast lineup on Friday. Joel Dehnel and I have a great time breaking down all things AEW and appreciate those who have listened! Check out the latest episode HERE.

Send questions and comments to allelitecc@gmail.com.