AEW Dynamite: Maximum Carnage Review - January 15, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Kenny Omega def. Brian Cage

Cage has been hyping this up as a dream match of his all week long, so I'm glad he got it. Granted, the outcome was never in doubt, but I enjoyed it for what it was and it was a nice return bout for Omega. Will Ospreay attempted to make the save for Omega afterward, but both of them were laid out by The Don Callis Family. Omega specifically went at it with Konosuke Takeshita and I'm down for them finally having their rematch, but how do you finish their feud without having Omega win Takeshita's AEW International Championship?

Swerve Strickland Fended Off Ricochet

For the first time in a long time, I was actually looking forward to hearing from Ricochet coming off his attack on Strickland a few weeks ago. He seems to be a lot more comfortable as a character as a heel, but it wasn't long before he was interrupted by Strickland's music and hit from behind with a chair by Prince Nana. This was simple stuff to further the feud and build toward their match in three weeks on Dynamite.

The Hurt Syndicate (Shelton Benjamin, Bobby Lashley and MVP) def. AEW World Tag Team Champions Private Party and Mark Briscoe)

The commentators mentioned that this was MVP's first match in almost two-and-a-half years and I thought he looked just fine. It helped that it was a six-man tag team matchup and he didn't have to be in there for too long. This was solid and the win gets Hurt Syndicate closer to challenging for the AEW World Tag Team Championship soon. Unfortunately, Private Party do not feel nearly as important as they should despite being the current champs.

MJF Confronted Jeff Jarrett​

MJF and Jarrett had a good verbal exchange last week, but this one didn't measure up. Neither of them had any strong lines and Jarrett's mic work in particular was weak. MJF brought up Owen Hart to get Jarrett to go after him, but thankfully, he didn't mention Hart's tragic fall (probably because his widow works with the company and that'd be pretty shitty). Why not do something different this week with these two?

Hook def. Christian Cage by Disqualification

As I've said many times in these reviews in recent weeks, I have cared less and less about this feud the longer it's gone on. There was a window for fans to be invested and AEW missed it completely. You could tell based on the quiet crowd reaction this received. The Patriarchy interfering for the disqualification finish was lame because it means the rivalry will resume, but hey, at least Samoa Joe finally returned afterward and got a great pop.

Toni Storm Won an AEW Women's World Championship No. 1 Contender's Casino Gauntlet Match

Before last week, AEW hadn't held a Casino Gauntlet match since September, but I do question doing them on back-to-back episodes. I'm happy we finally got one with the women, especially given how deep the division is, but did we really need one last week, too? This was going well before the abrupt ending. They weren't given nearly enough time, so it felt slightly rushed as a result. The action was entertaining, though, and Megan Bayne debuting was a cool surprise. We'll see if AEW actually uses her for more than a few weeks.

AEW World Champion Jon Moxley def. Powerhouse Hobbs

A small part of me hoped AEW would switch things up by shockingly putting the belt on Hobbs (if only because this Death Riders garbage is dying on the vine and Darby Allin reportedly won't be back for a while), but obviously, that was not the case. Nonetheless, this was a quality contest and I appreciate that Hobbs was made to look credible defeat. I could've done without all of the interference and shenanigans down the stretch as we tend to see it in every Moxley match at this point and it's tiresome.

Overall Show

On the whole, this was a thumbs-up show, but for a special edition of Dynamite, it certainly didn't feel special, largely because of the abysmal atmosphere in the venue they ran. Look, I applaud AEW for running smaller buildings, but the tepid crowd reactions throughout the show were damn depressing. The bigger matches delivered and Maximum Carnage was one of Dynamite's better offerings in recent memory, but the general sense of apathy toward a majority of the product remains, primarily in the main event scene.

SEE MORE: Dynamite Reviews