AEW Dynamite Review - July 26, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AEW International Champion Orange Cassidy def. AR Fox

Fox has gotten the occasional title shot on AEW TV since he signed but has primarily been relegated to ROH TV this year. I liked the mini profile package Fox got before this bout and the match itself was entertaining, not unlike most of Cassidy's title defenses throughout this reign. Fox always looks good in defeat, so I'm glad he finally snapped and attacked Cassidy afterward. Hopefully the heel turn gets him on AEW TV more in the future (and what we got from him later was an encouraging sign that'll be the case). As for Jon Moxley laying out Cassidy, I'm curious to see where that leads.

Jerry Lynn Confronted FTW Champion Jack Perry

It's only been a month, but I'm already loving heel Perry. I'm hoping he'll only grow into the role even more as time progresses, but his promos have already improved considerably. Unfortunately, he only trashed the FTW title verbally and not literally. His shots at ECW were what led to Lynn coming out and Perry challenged him to a fight (?) next week. Lynn has been retired for quite some time and I'm not sure he can wrestle a full-length match anymore due to past injuries/surgeries, so I'm guessing Hook will make the save for him.

Pac def. Gravity

For those unfamiliar, Gravity is the real-life brother of Bandido and has made all of two appearances in Ring of Honor this year. He lost his ROH TV debut but beat Komander at Death Before Dishonor last Friday. I assume this match was made because Pac was once The Man That Gravity Forgot in WWE, and if not, that's quite the coincidence. I don't know what purpose this match was supposed to serve, but it got Pac back on track following two losses last week and hopefully he remains a regular on AEW TV going forward.

Swerve Strickland def. Darby Allin

Strickland and Allin had an excellent match. In other news, the sky is blue. Seriously, though, they had wonderful chemistry together and it was hardly a surprise that this was as enjoyable as it was. I figured there was a chance Fox would cost Allin the win and align with Strickland given Fox's attack on Cassidy at the beginning of the show and I'm happy they went in that direction. The Mogul Affiliates don't win anything important, so Strickland winning here was appreciated. This is clearly leading to Strickland and Fox vs. Allin and Nick Wayne soon.

Britt Baker def. Taya Valkyrie

I'm glad Valkyrie has gotten more television time as of late, but as I've said before, she never wins whenever it matters most. She failed to win the AEW TBS Championship three times (twice against Jade Cargill and once against Kris Statlander) as well as the AEW Women's World Championship. I don't think there was much doubt she was losing to Baker, and I don't know how much Baker benefits from the win. Are there no storylines in the AEW women's division right now? Is it in a holding pattern until Jamie Hayter comes back to chase Toni Storm? Atany rate, I was looking forward to this match, but it didn't end up being very good.

The Lucha Brothers def. Best Friends and Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli) in a Three-Way Tag Team Match

This stemmed from the brawl that ensued with these teams following the ROH World Championship match at Death Before Dishonor. I'm glad that was recapped beforehand because this would have been even more random for anyone who didn't see that. It's hard to take Best Friends seriously at this point and it felt like they were only in there to take the pinfall loss, but this was a quality, chaotic main event, nonetheless. Why can't the tag team division get this sort of focus on Dynamite more often? Lucha Brothers have been underutilized this year, so them going over was the right call. It will be Trent Beretta vs. Penta El Zero M vs. Jon Moxley in an "AEW Originals" three-way match on next week's 200th episode.

Overall Show

I'd love to know if Tony Khan is making more of a conscious effort to produce episodic television with Dynamite and deliver more storyline-centric matches. On this episode alone, there was significant progression with the Allin/Wayne/Strickland storyline, the Jericho Appreciation Society tension, and the Adam Cole/Roderick Strong/MJF angle. The rest of the show wasn't all that eventful and it wasn't a strong follow-up to Blood and Guts despite some solid action. Also, you'd never know AEW has its highest-attended pay-per-view coming up in a month as All In was never mentioned. When will they start announcing matches for that card, or will they wait until the last minute per usual?

SEE MORE: Dynamite Reviews