AEW Dynamite Review - February 15, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AEW All-Atlantic Champion Orange Cassidy, The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn def. Jay Lethal, Jeff Jarrett, Satnam Singh and Sonjay Dutt

R.I.P. Jerry Jarrett, who passed away on Tuesday. Major respect to Jeff for competing anyway under the circumstances. This match was set up last week on Rampage with The Acclaimed and Gunn coming to Cassidy's aid, if you were wondering why Acclaimed were facing Lethal's cronies again. Speaking of Rampage, this felt like a main event on that show, and that isn't a good thing. It was completely inconsequential and accomplished nothing other than to give Acclaimed a rebound win following their loss of the AEW World Tag Team Championship last Wednesday night.

Blackpool Combat Club (ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli and Jon Moxley) def. La Faccion Ingobernable (Rush and Preston Vance) in a Texas Tornado Match

I have no clue why this needed a Texas Tornado stipulation other than the fact this show emanated from Texas. Hell, I have no clue why this match happened at all. They played up Moxley's history with Vance, but that was ages ago. At the very least, this was the usual entertaining brawl from Moxley and Castagnoli. Rush also continues to kill it regardless of who he's in the ring with. I'm glad Castagnoli is still appearing on Dynamite despite Ring of Honor being in limbo for the time being (though it's been announced that ROH TV starts back up against on March 2nd on HonorClub).

ROH World Tag Team Champion Mark Briscoe def. Josh Woods

Apparently these two met in singles competition twice before in Ring of Honor and both bouts took place in 2019. There was nothing special about the match, but I'm glad Tony Khan didn't forget about Mark after he faced Jay Lethal in the main event of Dynamite three weeks ago. In fact, he was announced as "All Elite" after the show and will continue to be a part of the Ring of Honor roster as well, which is excellent news. The only random thing about all of this was The Lucha Brothers helping Mark fend off Ari Daivari and Tony Nese. I'm not sure what the connection there was.

Bryan Danielson Saved Christopher Daniels From AEW World Champion MJF

By MJF standards, this was pedestrian stuff from him. That isn't to say it was bad by any means, but his level of intensity didn't come close to the promo he cut backstage last week. That said, I liked the involvement of Daniels in this segment as he obviously has history with Danielson from ROH. Danielson making the save was predictable albeit logic. This was standard build for the AEW World Championship match at Revolution.

"Jungle Boy" Jack Perry def. ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion Brian Cage

Perry already beat Cage back at Winter Is Coming in December, so I'm not sure what the reason for this rematch was, unless Khan is simply trying to get the most out of Cage while he's still under contract. Either way, it was solid stuff that merely served as a backdrop for Perry being attacked afterward by the returning Christian Cage, who we haven't seen in months. He pulled his arm out of the sling, so I'm assuming he's been cleared and will finally face Perry at Revolution. It's long overdue, so I'm looking forward to that as they have the potential to have a terrific match.

"Hangman" Adam Page def. Kip Sabian

Sabian, The Butcher and The Blade attacked Page backstage earlier in the episode, which was designed to make viewers think he had a chance of winning. Spoiler: he didn't. I had forgotten until Excalibur mentioned it that Page and Sabian first went one-on-one at Fight For The Fallen in 2019 (and it was nearly a 20-minute match looking it up now?!). Sabian has since become a stepping stone on this roster, but this was a well-wrestled affair while it lasted. Post-match, Blackpool Combat Club confronted Page, who was then backed up by The Dark Order (how anyone can possibly care about that group at this point, I have no idea). They set up a Texas Deathmatch for Revolution between Moxley and Page. Moxley had no reason to accept Page's challenge to a rematch, but at least they'll be blowing off their feud on the big stage with a big gimmick match.

Ruby Soho def. Britt Baker and Toni Storm in a Three-Way Match

The women getting the main event slot was cool, but this was hardly a main event-level match. It was well worked but forgettable. The story they're telling is that Soho doesn't know which side to pick, but why does she have to pick a side at all? The biggest shocker was that she won, so it looks like she might be the one to challenge Jamie Hayter for the AEW Women's World Championship at Revolution. The heel stuff and spray paint crap from Saraya and Storm is still not working. This was another flat ending to Dynamite.

Overall Show

In addition to everything listed above, Renee Paquette had a sit-down interview with Adam Cole that was pretty much a waste of time, but the Jim Ross' sit-down interview with Wardlow was one of the highlights of the episode. I didn't love last week's episode and thought this week's edition was significantly weaker. The first hour was a lot of nothing and the second hour didn't have much buzz, either. On the bright side, more matches were announced for Revolution, so the two hours weren't totally pointless. The pay-per-view is coming up quickly and I'm just hoping they don't rush certain storylines and give us an overloaded card with matchups that don't matter.

SEE MORE: Dynamite Reviews