AEW Dynamite Review - June 7, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AEW All-Atlantic Champion Orange Cassidy def. Swerve Strickland

The streak of excellent Orange Cassidy openers/title defenses continues. This was top-notch stuff from these two. Cassidy feels like one of the hottest wrestlers in any promotion right now (that's bound to be a polarizing opinion, I know) and I'm happy Strickland got a chance to show what he can do. Strickland was my pick to win, so for as great of a reign as Cassidy has had, I was really hoping this would be where Strickland picked up some gold. Cassidy, Darby Allin, Sting and Keith Lee will face The Mogul Embassy next week.

Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley, ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta) def. CHAOS (Rocky Romero and Best Friends)

For those who missed it (and I'm not sure how you could have), Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada is official for Forbidden Door, and we got a cool little video package promoting it before this bout. CHAOS is obviously a New Japan Pro-Wrestling stable, so this served as a nice preview of what to expect at Forbidden Door. This was the quality, well-wrestled outing you'd expect from these six stars. We found out afterward that Blackpool Combat Club will face Adam Page and The Young Bucks next week on Dynamite, so it made sense to give Blackpool Combat Club another win before then.

AEW World Champion MJF Accepted Adam Cole's Challenge

This was a strong segment. It was reminiscent of the first verbal exchange between CM Punk and MJF from late 2021 with all of the jabs and callbacks. Although MJF clearly cut the better promo, the mic work from both men was terrific and exactly what I was hoping for out of them. MJF hit on a lot of understandable criticisms of Cole and it's going to be important for Cole to live up to the hype. They'll have an Eliminator match next Wednesday night and I have to assume Cole will win to set up a rematch for the title at a later date.

Jungle Hook def. La Faccion Ingobernable (Dralistico and Preston Vance) in a Texas Tornado Tag Team Match

Was it really necessary for this match to have a Texas Tornado stipulation? And was it really necessary for it to be a bloody brawl? Don't get me wrong, this was fun and the live crowd sure enjoyed it, but it felt like I missed multiple chapters of this story to justify it getting to this point. They gave it a hell of an effort, if nothing else. Hook really needs to do something more meaningful and Jack Perry turning on him could be mutually beneficial.

Konosuke Takeshita def. Damon Ace

Takeshita and Don Callis came out to no entrance music and only boos for the second week in a row. I don't think I've seen that since Tommaso Ciampa did it in WWE NXT five years ago, so I really like that they're taking that approach. I legitimately thought Shawn Spears was Takeshita's opponent until the commentators said otherwise. He looked exactly like him! This was a straightforward squash, but the focus was on the post-match promo from Callis and Takeshita, where they addressed Kenny Omega to another chorus of boos. They've got a great thing going and it's going to be a big moment when Omega eventually confronts them.

AEW TBS Champion Kris Statlander def. Anna Jay A.S.

I like the idea of Statlander being a fighting champion and ensuring the title doesn't become an afterthought (which I feared it would after Jade Cargill lost it). The open challenge gimmick has been done to death in wrestling and Jay was hardly a credible contender because of how she hasn't done anything of note in forever, but this was a decent television match. Taya Valkyrie was again shown frustrated backstage afterward.

Jay White def. Ricky Starks

Juice Robinson and FTR were banned from ringside, which told you someone else would interfere on White's behalf to aid him to victory. I figured it would be Samoa Joe (since he'll be teaming with White on the first Collision), but instead, it was The Gunns. That made for a flat finish and the crowd seemed disappointed as well. The match itself was entertaining up until that point, even though their original encounter was better.

Overall Show

This was another really good edition of Dynamite, even better than last week. Strickland and Cassidy kicked the night off on a high note, Cole and MJF delivered in their first face-off, and there was other solid wrestling throughout the show. We also found out that the Collision main event will be CM Punk and FTR vs. White, Robinson and Samoa Joe, which definitely has me excited. AEW appears to be picking up the pace again now that Double or Nothing is in the rear view and that should bode well for the summer ahead if this episode was any indication.

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