AEW Dynamite Review - February 12, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AEW World Tag Team Champions Kenny Omega and "Hangman" Adam Page def. SCU

The Dark Order once again teased the upcoming arrival of The Exalted One beforehand, leading to Christopher Daniels running to the back and not being seen again. Daniels being revealed as The Exalted One seems way too obvious, so I hope they hold out until Matt Hardy becomes contractually available or go with someone else more interesting. At any rate, this was another excellent opener between these two teams. They worked a very fun pace and Omega and Page holding onto the gold was the right call. The post-match brawl between all the teams set the stage for next week's number one contender's Battle Royal.

Dustin Rhodes def. Sammy Guevara

These two originally faced off a month ago on Dynamite in Jacksonville and Guevara picked up the win, so this was Rhodes' shot at redemption in his hometown. The crowd was super behind him and this was an enjoyable encounter. I could do without Rhodes doing the Canadian Destroyer, though. It never looks good whenever he does it. Rhodes vs. Jake Hager has been built up for months and is a logical addition to the Revolution card.

Tony Schiavone Interviewed Britt Baker

These two have had a great dynamic in recent weeks with Baker acting nice toward Schiavone only to turn on him. She's been generating amazing heat and seems much more comfortable in the heel role. Her matches still need work, but at least she's doing a lot better in this role than she was before. I wouldn't be surprised to see her get back involved in the AEW Women's Championship picture sometime soon.

Nyla Rose def. Riho to Win the AEW Women's Championship

Riho beat Rose to become the inaugural AEW Women's Champion on the debut episode of Dynamite, but the match wasn't anything worth writing home about in my opinion. This rematch, however, was a vast improvement. It was a bit unbelievable that Riho would kick out of some of the stuff she did toward the end, but other than that, this was well wrestled and it had a hot atmosphere. I'm not a Nyla Rose fan, but I think she'll be better off as champion than Riho, who rarely made appearances and hasn't had any interesting feuds.

MJF def. Jungle Boy

We don't see nearly enough of MJF in the ring, but he's going to need to wrestle more often if he's going to be considered a threat to Cody at Revolution later this month. It helped that Jungle Boy was over big time and MJF was a fantastic foil for him. They made the most of the time they had and I didn't mind MJF hitting Jungle Boy with the diamond ring for the victory because of how it protected Jungle Boy in defeat and sent the message that MJF will do anything to win.

Jon Moxley def. Santana

For those curious, the "Eye For an Eye" tagline wasn't anything more than that, which is what I expected. The outcome was never in doubt, but they worked well together and I liked how they started off brawling in the crowd before taking their fight to the ring. Even better was the sit-down interview Jim Ross conducted with Santana earlier in the evening. The post-match beatdown from The Inner Circle on Moxley was well done and words cannot describe how thrilled I am that Jeff Cobb is in AEW. I'm very excited for Cobb vs. Mocley next week.

Overall Show

Between Cobb's debut and Rose taking the title from Riho, I'd certainly say this was a newsworthy edition of Dynamite. The two hours were very entertaining on the whole and flew by. It felt like the layout was much tighter than usual with less filler (a.k.a. anything involving the Joey Janela vs. Kip Sabian feud) and the hype for upcoming episodes of Dynamite as well as Revolution was terrific. This was one of the stronger all-around shows AEW has put on in recent memory. Now they just have to confirm the rest of the card for Revolution on the next two episodes and they'll be as good as gold.