AEW Dynamite Review - December 23, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Inner Circle (Chris Jericho and MJF) def. Top Flight

I believe this marked the first time Jericho and MJF have teamed up by themselves and they're a far more compelling duo than Jericho and Jake Hager. Top Flight rose to the occasion against The Young Bucks and The Hybrid2 and once again had a strong showing here. Jericho, on the other hand, is probably best doing tag team stuff at this stage of his career with the way he moves around the ring as he stuck out like a sore thumb. On the whole, this was an enjoyable outing. Hager called out Wardlow afterward and they'll go one-on-one next week.

Sting and Darby Allin Aligned Against Team Taz

Sting has appeared on every episode of Dynamite since his debut earlier this month. I realize he signed a full-time deal with AEW, but I don't think it's smart to have him appear so often, especially if he's not going to wrestle regularly (and he shouldn't). It's going to make him feel less special real quickly. This segment continued the trend of him not explaining his motivations for coming to the company, and although I understand what they're going for by dragging it out, they have to progress the storyline somehow at some point to avoid it getting stale. Maybe the idea is that Sting and Allin will team up?

Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus and Marko Stunt) def. The Dark Order (Alan "5" Angels, Preston "10" Vance and Colt Cabana)

i feel like we don't see Jurassic Express compete in full form often enough, so this was a treat, even though the outcome was never in doubt because Angels, Vance and Cabana are arguably the three biggest losers from Dark Order. It honestly felt like it belonged on Dark, but at least they kept the pace consistent throughout and everyone got to shine. Post-match, Tony Schiavone teased Jurassic Express inching closer toward an AEW World Tag Team Championship opportunity, but FTR and Tully Blanchard interrupted them and challenged them to a match on the January 6th episode. That should be fun, but didn't we already see FTR beat Jurassic Express a few months ago?

Pac def. The Butcher

Pac beat The Blade in his first bout back last month and it was well-wrestled, but I can't say I needed to see him face The Butcher, too. Butcher and Blade bore me to tears as a team and are even less interesting on their own. Apparently the idea is that Pac has to work his way through Eddie Kingston's stable before eventually getting his hands on Kingston, and while the match was solid, there was nothing out of the ordinary about it.

Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford's Wedding Was Announced for Beach Break

There has literally been no update on the Sabian and Ford wedding since Sabian introduced Miro as his best man months ago. I wasn't looking forward to getting another wrestling wedding, but it'd be nice if they finally got it over with so Miro can move on from the "best man" crap. This was fine, but it didn't muster up much enthusiasm from me. I guess AEW didn't get the rights to Bash at the Beach again if they're calling it Beach Break this time.

Dustin Rhodes def. Evil Uno

I don't understand the point of this program. It feels like a needless attempt to drag on the Dark Order vs. Nightmare Family feud, even though it didn't have much juice in the first place. I enjoy Uno, but this was a fairly mundane match that just sort of existed. Dark Order attacked Lee Johnson and QT Marshall afterward, so expect that to culminate in a six-man tag team matchup no one will care about one of these weeks.

AEW Women's Champion Hikaru Shida def. Alex Gracia (Non-Title)

Gracia earned the opportunity to face Shida on this show after beating KiLynn King on Tuesday's episode of Dark. She's shown promise in some of the matches she's had but isn't someone that will make much of a difference in the women's division if she were to get signed. I didn't think this would last long and I'm glad it didn't. Following Shida's decisive victory, she was attacked by Abadon, who took a bite out of her neck. It gave me Shayna Baszler vibes from earlier this year and I don't mean that as a good thing. The Shida and Abadon feud continues to do nothing for me.

AEW World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks def. The Acclaimed

It's undoubtedly impressive that The Acclaimed only appeared for the first time on Dynamite a few weeks ago and are already in the main event. Of course, I don't think AEW should have rushed into this rivalry, but it was a great match and Acclaimed put in a hell of an effort. They came close to securing the victory and the titles on multiple occasions, but in the end, Young Bucks were the better team on this night. I question what's next for Acclaimed now that they've challenged for the championship and lost, as well as who will be next in line to go for the gold.

Overall Show

Dynamite has definitely fallen in quality since that huge "Winter Is Coming" episode earlier this month, but I think that's by design due to the holiday season or because they want to save their bigger stuff for the new year. It's also worth noting that this episode aired hours after it usually does due to the basketball game that preempted it. Maybe I'm just making excuses for them, but either way, this was a decent show that didn't move the needle for me whatsoever. It's nice they're building up several matches for the next few weeks, but only Kenny Omega vs. Fenix for the AEW World Championship feels special. Everything else is business as usual for the most part.