AEW Dynamite Review - February 12, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

"Hangman" Adam Page def. Max Caster

This was another one of Caster's open challenges. Page went after him last week, so Page accepting the open challenge this week shouldn't have been much of a surprise. This was brief as it should have been. If it wasn't already apparent, Page is definitely back to being a babyface based on how he came off and how the crowd reacted to him here. Meanwhile, this is probably the best role for Caster at this point.

AEW World Trios Champions The Death Riders (Wheeler Yuta, Claudio Castagnoli and Pac) def. The Undisputed Kingdom (Kyle O'Reilly, Roderick Strong and Adam Cole)

For those unaware, this was the first AEW World Trios Championship match since November. That's completely ridiculous, but honestly, they can get the division back on track if we get more matches like this. As much as I despise the Death Riders nonsense, I had a lot of fun with this match and appreciated that they kept the pace consistent throughout. Daniel Garcia, Matt Menard and Angelo Parker came to Undisputed Kingdom's save afterward, which seemed like it was designed to be an another tease for Garcia vs. Cole more than anything else.

Samoa Joe, Hook and Katsuyori Shibata def. Jon Cruz, Aaron Solo and Rosario Grillo

Joe, Hook and Shibata work well as a trio and would be a nice addition to the six-man tag team division if they eventually set their sights on those Trios titles. This was a standard squash for them and the crowd was into their offense. Post-match, they challenged The Patriarchy to a six-man tag team match next week. Joe also referred to themselves as The Opps, so that might be their team name going forward.

Powerhouse Hobbs and The Outrunners Saved Bandido from ROH World Champion "The Learning Tree" Chris Jericho, Big Bill and Bryan Keith

The little duel that Bandido had with Keith during their match on last week's Collision was cool, but it was very typical of Jericho to attempt to recreate it and to make it very lame in doing so. That part of the segment was stupid, but the rest of it was perfectly fine, especially once Hobbs and Bill brawled to further their feud. My only other was, why wouldn't Bill follow through with the chokeslam to Bandido instead of stopping it because Hobbs' music hit?

MJF def. ROH World Tag Team Champion and ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion Dustin Rhodes

This was presented commercial-free. Although I'm not fond of AEW featuring so many older wrestlers so prominently as of late, there's no doubt that Rhodes can still go and I've liked his mini feud with MJF. This was a very good match from them and MJF winning clean was the right call. Plus, the crowd was hot for the post-match brawl between MJF and Page. I thought that matchup might be saved for All In, but it's starting to feel like we're going to get it at Revolution instead and I'm not complaining.

Megan Bayne def. Maya World

Bayne hasn't been "All Elite" for very long, but to the company's credit, they've showcased her very well so far. Granted, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about this match, but it was what it needed to be as it established her dominance. Consistency is key with new signings and AEW has been doing everything right with her, including getting her into her first feud (more on that in the next paragraph).

Kris Statlander def. Penelope Ford

As I've said before, it's impossible to take Ford seriously in any of her matches because she never wins when it matters most. Don't get me wrong, this was a decent match, but Ford is a glorified stepping stone at this point. It looks like Ford's alliance with Bayne might be official because they double-teamed Statlander afterward. I assume this is leading to Bayne and Ford teaming up to take on Statlander and Thunder Rosa, who they also attacked on last week's Collision.

AEW World Tag Team Champions The Hurt Syndicate (Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin) def. The Gunns

This was The Gunns' first bout back, but any other outcome than the one we got would've been the wrong one. The Gunns received their long-awaited rematch for the AEW World Tag Team Championship and were unsuccessful, so I had no issue with this whatsoever. It doesn't need to a full-fledged program, either. The match itself was entertaining and competitive. Murder Machines emerged afterward, so they appear to be next in line for a title shot.

Cope and Jay White Attacked The Death Riders

This was the culmination of a show-long storyline with Cope and White stealing Jon Moxley's briefcase with the AEW World Championship inside. Cope implying that he didn't care about the title was pretty dumb, but otherwise, this was a serviceable segment that not only built toward the tag team match at Grand Slam: Australia but also confirmed that Moxley will defend the title against Cope at Revolution.

Overall Show

I enjoyed this edition of Dynamite more than any other installment in many weeks. It had a strong structure, the crowd was excellent and everything mattered. The energy was way better than it's been recently and the final hype for Grand Slam was effective, particularly when it came to the pre-taped promos from Harley Cameron and Mariah May. Now the question if whether AEW can continue delivering shows of this caliber or if this was just a one-off.

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