AEW Dynamite Review - March 12, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AEW International Champion Kenny Omega Addressed the Audience

This was a fine way for Omega to recap his title win over Konosuke Takeshita at Revolution while also previewing the AEW International Championship Eliminator Tournament that kicked off a little later on. He didn't say anything out of the ordinary, but the crowd was happy to see him. If nothing else, it's nice to see him hold a singles title in AEW for the first time since 2021 when he was AEW World Champion (his IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship reign in 2023 was so forgettable that I'm not counting it).

The Opps (Katsuyori Shibata, Samoa Joe and Hook) def. Vinny Pacifico, Eli Theseus and Gabriel Aeros

This was a weird choice for the first match on the show. Squashes can be fine, but this was so short that it's not even as if it was a fun squash. Rather, it solely existed to give Shibata a win before he has his quarterfinal match against Ricochet in the AEW International Championship Eliminator Tournament. Plus, it was a quick showcase for The Opps, who should be in line for an AEW World Trios Championship opportunity soon.

Powerhouse Hobbs and Hologram def. Dralistico and Brian Cage

This was so random that I thought I was watching an episode of Collision. I have to imagine Tony Khan had something more significant planned and scrambled to come up with a match that made more sense to fill this spot because I have no clue what purpose this was supposed to serve. It was well wrestled, but it seemed designed to kill time more than anything else.

Megan Bayne Attacked AEW Women's World Champion "Timeless" Toni Storm

Can there really be any argument that the Hollywood Ending match should've headlined Revolution? At any rate, this was the usual quality promo from Storm as she recapped the finale to her feud with May and addressed her future. I'm glad Bayne attacked her because now we know that's who's next for Storm, but I do question rushing Bayne into the title picture so quickly considering she's still in the process of being built up.

"Speedball" Mike Bailey def. The Beast Mortos in an AEW International Championship Eliminator Tournament Match

Bailey was rumored to be coming to AEW for months and it was confirmed via a vignette on Collision a few weeks ago. Thus, him being revealed as the wildcard of the tournament here was hardly a surprise, but it made for a cool moment and it sounded like most of the crowd knew who he was. This was a hell of a debut for him and Mortos was the perfect opponent. This was a very entertaining outing despite the predictable outcome.

MJF Denied MVP's Services

I thought MJF and Adam Page would immediately resume their rivalry after Page beat MJF clean at Revolution, and they still could, but it looks like MJF will be busy with The Hurt Syndicate for the time being, which is an interesting direction for MJF to go in. I enjoyed this exchange between MJF and MVP and they did an effective job of establishing their history. I have no idea where this is going, but I'm intrigued. 

Konosuke Takeshita def. Max Caster

Caster's open challenge is usually a good spot for a babyface to accept and pick up an easy win, so Takeshita accepting it was unexpected. He kept it short and sweet by destroying Caster almost immediately, so he was able to rebound a bit from his loss of the AEW International Championship at Revolution. That said, I have no idea why he isn't involved if he presumably wants his belt back.

Willow Nightingale def. Penelope Ford

Now that Nightingale is seemingly done with The Death Riders (we never got that match between her and Marina Shafir and I'm not complaining), it looks like she can continue her story with Kris Statlander. It feels like it's too soon to be going back to them being friends, but I know they've been teasing it for months. Nightingale vs. Ford was serviceable and the post-match angle sets up Nightingale and Statlander vs. Ford and Bayne for one of these weeks.

Tony Schiavone Interviewed Will Ospreay

This crowd sure loved Ospreay, but a majority of his promo was him energetically rambling about his wife and the bump he took from the top of the cage. It wasn't until the very end that his promo got interesting when he hinted at wanting to enter AEW World Championship contention and teasing that he'll win it at All In. Obviously, that isn't for another few months, so we'll see what he does in the meantime.

Orange Cassidy def. Hechicero in an AEW International Championship Eliminator Tournament Match

I'm honestly stunned this is what AEW decided to have headline the show. Then again, I don't know what else from this episode would have gone on last, but it certainly shouldn't have been this. That's not to say it was bad by any means, but it definitely didn't deserve to be the main event considering it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, especially since Cassidy is all but guaranteed to win the four-way finals next week.

Overall Show

Much like most people, I expected a hotter post-pay-per-view edition of Dynamite coming off the excellent Revolution show. I joked about that tag team match feeling like it belonged on Collision, but you can make the case for this entire episode feeling like an episode of Collision. Trust me, there have been far worse Dynamites this year, but this was nothing special on the whole. I have to imagine most of the roster was banged up (as had been reported) and that's why we didn't get bigger matches. We did find out that we're getting Jon Moxley vs. Cope again in a Street Fight for the AEW World Championship next Wednesday. Oh, joy.

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