AEW Dynamite Review - February 7, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

"Hangman" Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland in an AEW World Championship No. 1 Contender's Match Ended in a Time-Limit Draw

Unsurprisingly, this was another excellent outing between these two that was absolutely on par with their other encounters. This may have actually been my favorite of the three because it was a straightforward match and didn't have a hardcore stipulation. You had to know this was going to last until the time limit once it reached a certain point, but the action was fantastic and the crowd was into everything they did. Going the number one contender's route at Revolution was expected but necessary. What's interesting is that Page came off like a heel afterward, so we might be getting a double turn from him and Strickland.

AEW Women's World Champion "Timeless" Toni Storm def. Red Velvet in an AEW Women's World Championship Eliminator Match

Velvet picked up a minor credibility boost over enhancement talent Vertvixen on last week's Collision, but she was still no threat to Storm here. This was basically a glorified squash match with Velvet scoring some offense but the outcome not being in any real doubt. It was fine for what it was. AEW continues to kill time with Storm and Deonna Purrazzo ahead of Revolution. The event's not for another month, so I'm not sure what more AEW can do with these two before then that they haven't already done.

Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli) def. Volador Jr., Mascara Dorada and Hechicero

The CMLL stuff doesn't do much for me, personally, and I can't imagine a majority of the AEW audience is invested in this angle, either. That said, we've gotten some quality matches out of it so far, including this one. It was well wrestled and Blackpool Combat Club won as they should have. There will be at least one more match between AEW and CMLL with other AEW stars making the save for Blackpool Combat Club afterward.

Konosuke Takeshita def. Chris Jericho

As desperately as this Jericho vs. Don Callis Family feud needs to end, I thought this was Jericho's best singles match in recent memory. His matches are hit or miss at this point, but this fell in the former category. They worked hard and produced a very good match. The screwdriver stuff from Callis continues to be ridiculously dumb, but I'm glad Takeshita went over and having him tap out Jericho was a nice touch.

Sting and Darby Allin def. Ricky Starks and Big Bill in a Tornado Tag Team Match

Small side note: Why was the tag match that Sting and Allin had with The Don Callis Family called a Texas Tornado match and this was just a Tornado match? Neither happened in Florida and both had no disqualifications. Stupid nitpicking aside, this was a very fun main event. Sting is still a madman, there were some really cool spots and both teams worked wonderfully together. Sting and Allin vs. The Young Bucks is all but confirmed for Revolution, so I thought Young Bucks would cost them the titles to set up that match. Thankfully, that didn't happen and their attack on Sting and Allin was saved until afterward. It was very well done with Sting's kids taking a beating, too.

Overall Show

As expected, Tony Khan's "big announcement" was that the first-ever Big Business edition of Dynamite will emanate from the TD Garden in Boston on March 13th. Obviously, that will mark the debut of Mercedes Mone, but could Kazuchika Okada arrive as well? As for this episode, it was easily the strongest edition of Dynamite so far this year. The opener and main event delivered, the tag titles changing hands and Khan's announcement were newsworthy, and the stuff in the middle was solid.

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