{"id":190818,"date":"2025-01-09T13:52:33","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T19:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=190818"},"modified":"2025-01-11T19:43:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T01:43:51","slug":"aew-dynamite-hits-misses-1-8-kenny-omegas-return-ospreay-vs-matthews-casino-gauntlet-mjf-jeff-jarrett-exchange-hurt-syndicate-womens-three-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2025\/01\/09\/aew-dynamite-hits-misses-1-8-kenny-omegas-return-ospreay-vs-matthews-casino-gauntlet-mjf-jeff-jarrett-exchange-hurt-syndicate-womens-three-way\/","title":{"rendered":"AEW DYNAMITE HITS &#038; MISSES (1\/8): Kenny Omega&#8217;s return, Ospreay vs. Matthews, Casino Gauntlet,  MJF-Jeff Jarrett exchange, Hurt Syndicate, Women&#8217;s Three-way"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3929390184\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>Wow, what a packed show this was. Coming off a fun weekend of shows in Japan and a little over a week after Worlds End, I was looking at this episode as a great opportunity to set in motion all of the storylines that will build up over the next couple of months. I was very intrigued about the return of Kenny Omega and how he would present himself. Let&#8217;s see how it all worked out.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>HITS<\/h3>\n<p><strong>OSPREAY VS. BUDDY MATTHEWS OPENER<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was a great idea to open the show with the best entrance the company has. After a week without Will Ospreay, it was nice to see him back. He had a heck of a match (as usual) against an opponent who has been slowly gaining momentum over the last couple of months, especially with the fans. After the match, Ospreay grabbed a mic to put over Buddy and nothing else. I thought this was another great sign that Ospreay is not only being portrayed as the company&#8217;s number one babyface, but a leader in the locker room.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Check out the latest episode of the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post-show covering the latest episode of Dynamite: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreaker.com\/episode\/aew-dynamite-post-show-1-8-keller-kuester-talk-kenny-omega-s-return-and-what-worked-and-what-s-still-needed-hobbs-s-big-win-more--63621762\">CLICK HERE<\/a> (or search \u201cwade Keller\u201d on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?episode_id=63621762&amp;theme=light&amp;playlist=false&amp;playlist-continuous=false&amp;chapters-image=true&amp;episode_image_position=right&amp;hide-logo=false&amp;hide-likes=false&amp;hide-comments=false&amp;hide-sharing=false&amp;hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>CASINO GAUNTLET<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of star power that entered this match in the first two-thirds or so. It was legitimate high-on-the-card stars for the most part and made the match feel important since it was for a World Title shot. Now, they chickened out a bit at the end by putting mid carders in there, but Tony is gonna Tony so what can you do!<\/p>\n<p>I did love the surprise winner being Powerhouse Hobbs. It&#8217;s perfect for a TV main event title match and it adds the aura of unpredictability to matches like this moving forward.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KENNY OMEGA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was hoping throughout the show that when Kenny returns, we would see the Kenny I saw in Japan over the weekend and not the silly &#8220;Being the Elite&#8221; version that we saw in AEW for years prior. I was relieved to see that he was serious and there was no attempt at trying to be clever or jokey.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-816921513\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>I thought it was smart to have him call this a new &#8220;version&#8221; of Kenny Omega who was not concerned with money, power or revenge, which will be important when the Young Bucks return. I do think they&#8217;ll need to handle what happened the last time they interacted, but that&#8217;s for another show.<\/p>\n<p>I loved that when Don Callis came out, Kenny immediately looked around and knew it was a set-up and figured he&#8217;d get as many shots in at Callis before he was overwhelmed. It was also nice to see Will Ospreay be the one to help to solidify Kenny being a babyface if it wasn&#8217;t already obvious!<\/p>\n<p>I would definitely recommend seeking out the 4-5 minute post-show video of Kenny addressing the crowd that is on YouTube. It was actually a little better than his promo because you could tell he was speaking from the heart. It&#8217;s worth a watch.<\/p>\n<p><strong>QUICK HITS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; If the Hurt Syndicate does not have a major, top of the card storyline ready for them, it makes perfect sense to me that they go after the tag team titles. I like Private Party, but if Lashley and Benjamin hold those titles, they immediately get an upgrade and you can look forward to some great tag matches moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; I don&#8217;t mind MJF being in a (hopefully short) program with Jeff Jarrett. It made perfect sense for MJF&#8217;s character to try and find an easy way to regain the championship and offering to help JJ and then take advantage of the guy. It is just so &#8220;MJF.&#8221; If JJ ends up pinning Max in a match, then we can revisit this, but I doubt that&#8217;s going to happen. I like having MJF on TV so I&#8217;m fine with this as long as it&#8217;s short-lived.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The women&#8217;s three-way for the #1 entry into next week&#8217;s Casino Gauntlet was fun. It makes such a difference when there are stakes and I had no idea who was going to win it. I have a feeling we are towards the end of the Toni Storm amnesia angle, but I assume she will have a feel-good win next week to get into the main event in Australia and after a week or two, perhaps we see the real Toni return.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>MISSES<\/h3>\n<p>So here is the situation with &#8220;misses.&#8221; I have written this column for a year and a half and I always promised myself I would not force a &#8220;hit&#8221; or a &#8220;miss.&#8221; I&#8217;m not going to come up with one just to come up with one.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-2369115224\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>There may have been things on this show that were not perfectly done or may have benefited from some tinkering, but I truly felt there was no real &#8220;Miss&#8221; on this episode. If there was something you readers felt strongly about that stunk, please write to the email below and I&#8217;ll be happy to talk about it on the podcast with Joel Dehnel this week.<\/p>\n<p>This was a solid episode of Dynamite with a lot packed into two hours. I&#8217;m looking forward to seeing how all the storylines shake out.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t forget to check out the weekly free podcast I&#8217;m part of, &#8220;The All Elite Conversation Club&#8221; that typically drops on Fridays the PWTorch Dailycast lineup. Joel Dehnel and I have a great time breaking down all things AEW! Search &#8220;pwtorch&#8221; on your podcast app to subscribe. Send questions and comments to <a href=\"mailto:allelitecc@gmail.com\">allelitecc@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Wade Keller Post-show - AEW Dynamite w\/Wade Keller &amp; Dan Kuester\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9xJlWkxYvPE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-3425115853\"><div id=\"pwtor-3829124168\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Wow, what a packed show this was. Coming off a fun weekend of shows in Japan and a little over a week after Worlds End, I was looking at this episode as a great opportunity <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2025\/01\/09\/aew-dynamite-hits-misses-1-8-kenny-omegas-return-ospreay-vs-matthews-casino-gauntlet-mjf-jeff-jarrett-exchange-hurt-syndicate-womens-three-way\/\" title=\"AEW DYNAMITE HITS &#038; MISSES (1\/8): Kenny Omega&#8217;s return, Ospreay vs. Matthews, Casino Gauntlet,  MJF-Jeff Jarrett exchange, Hurt Syndicate, Women&#8217;s Three-way\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":190819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,52,28,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2025\/01\/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-1.50.22\u202fPM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190820,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190818\/revisions\/190820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}