AEW Dynamite Review - May 10, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli def. ROH World Tag Team Champion Rey Fenix in a Double Jeopardy Match

The winner would earn a shot at the loser's championship, so Castagnoli will challenge for the ROH World Tag Team Championship at some point (presumably with Wheeler Yuta). This was an excellent opener as expected given the level of talent involved. I don't know why viewers who don't regularly watch Ring of Honor would care about the stakes here, but from an in-ring standpoint, it delivered.

Mark Briscoe Declared Himself Special Guest Referee for AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR vs. Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett

While I haven't been high on Lethal and Jarrett being back in the tag title picture yet again, last week's video package from the Briscoe compound was actually entertaining and got me more interested in a potential championship clash than I was previously. This segment was well done with Lethal and Jarrett refusing to admit they've been using Briscoe to get a tag title shot, which led to Briscoe making himself special guest referee for FTR vs. Lethal and Jarrett at Double or Nothing.

AEW International Champion Orange Cassidy def. Daniel Garcia

Cassidy's streak of strong title defenses continues. He has quietly made the International title the second most important title in the company behind the AEW World Championship with how frequently he's been defending it in top-notch matches. It's going to be a big deal when he eventually loses it, and Garcia was not that guy. Despite my lack of interest in Garcia as a character these days, the guy can go and thus it was unsurprisingly that this was a very well-wrestled match.

Tony Schiavone Interviewed Christian Cage

Cage gets Dominik Mysterio-level heat and it's tremendous. He plays the heel role so well and this was the usual quality mic work from him. I didn't like where the promo was headed when he mentioned something about An Anderson missing a son, but it seemed like he was only talking about Brock and Wardlow (how Arn sees Wardlow as a son) and not his other son who passed away relatively recently. This was an effective way of furthering his feud with Wardlow. I have to assume their title match will be saved for Double or Nothing, right?

Julia Hart def. Anna Jay A.S. in a No Holds Barred Match

I'm all for non-title stories in the women's division (and that goes for all companies), but I truly have not understood the purpose of this program or what incentive the audience has to cheer for either of them. Both were heels the last time I checked, and their storyline has played out almost entirely on Rampage up to this point. It just felt out of place on this show. That said, they worked hard and it had to be the best match I've ever seen Hart have. Maybe she'll challenge Jamie Hayter for the AEW Women's World Championship, even though she still doesn't feel like much of a threat.

AEW World Trios Champions House of Black (Malakai Black, Brody King and Buddy Matthews) def. Bandido and Best Friends in an Open House Rules Match

Bandido being buddies with Cassidy and Best Friends is such a strange pairing, but hey, whatever gets him on television consistently, I guess. The Open House Rules are cool and made this an enjoyable outing. I didn't think House of Black would lose, but Bandido and Best Friends gave them a good fight. AEW really needs to build up their trios division in order to justify having these belts. There hasn't been a whole lot of variety since they were created last year.

Jon Moxley def. Kenny Omega in a Steel Cage Match

This was one of AEW's first feuds back in 2019, and considering they went on to feud over the AEW World Championship in 2020 and 2021, this felt like a big-time main event. The Steel Cage stipulation was a nice touch, though I could have done without all of the weapons they introduced. Cage matches are better when kept simple, or at least in my opinion. All in all, it was a memorable main event with a big angle at the end with Don Callis betraying Omega. Callis is much better in the heel role, so if he was going to stick around, he had to ditch Omega. Moxley was actually the one Omega beat the night the Omega and Callis partnership was born, so the story has now come full circle.

Overall Show

Tony Khan heavily hyped this show all week long as a pay-per-view-caliber edition of Dynamite and it ultimately did not disappoint. The quality of Dynamite continues to be inconsistent from week to week, but I did think this ended up being one of the better episodes all year with how most of the matches and segments felt important and the overall flow of the show. Miro and Thunder Rosa returned in backstage segments, which seem to be leading to announcement of Collision (the rumored new Saturday show for AEW) next week. Hopefully that leads to more talent getting television time and more shows with this kind of vibe.

SEE MORE: Dynamite Reviews