AEW Dynamite Review - November 18, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AEW World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks def. Top Flight

This was a fun first title defense for The Young Bucks. Top Flight recently debuted for AEW on Dark and were impressive. They had a breakout performance here, and although I never actually thought they would win the titles, they came close on a few occasions. This was a very enjoyable opening match with Top Flight looking great in defeat. It looks like they'll be used again soon considering The Hybrid2 attacked them afterward. I'm all for TH2 being in the tag title picture, but they need to pick up a few more wins before they can be taken seriously as threats to those tag titles.

Orange Cassidy def. Kip Sabian

Has there been any update on when Sabian and Penelope Ford are getting married? We haven't seen Ford manage Sabian on Dark in a while, so that's what made me think of that. This was a nice little match, but Sabian just isn't interesting and Cassidy feels like he's lost momentum since beating Chris Jericho twice over the summer. Best Friends sent Sabian and Miro packing afterward, so expect those teams to clash sometime soon.

Kenny Omega Signed the Contract for His AEW World Championship Match with Jon Moxley

First and foremost, congrats to Moxley and his wife (the former Renee Young from WWE) on the news that she's pregnant, which I'm sure came as a shock to everyone watching. Speaking of Moxley, he was attacked before he had a chance to come out to the ring and sign the contract. That was disappointing because I was looking forward to the verbal back-and-forth between him and Omega, but the bigger focus was the question who ambushed Moxley. Omega would be the most obvious guess if he's indeed turning heel as has been teased with his transformation back into The Cleaner lately. Either way, the build to their bout on December 2nd should be interesting.

Pac def. The Blade

I can't think of any other singles match The Blade has had on Dynamite, so there was no reason to think he could beat Pac in his return here. Despite that, this was a quality contest. I just wish it was a bit more straightforward for Pac in that it shouldn't have taken as long as it did for him to win. Post-match, The Death Triangle officially reunited, so Blade and The Butcher will battle The Lucha Brothers next week.

NWA Women's World Champion Serena Deeb def. Thunder Rosa

The first match these two had a few months ago on Dynamite was fantastic, so I knew this would be equally entertaining. Sure enough, it did not disappoint. They were given plenty of time and had no problem stealing the show. Britt Baker interfered to cost Deeb the title and the brawl that ensured between them afterward was excellent. That's a strong feud for the women's division and I'm stoked AEW is keeping Rosa around even though I don't believe she's officially under contract with the company.

FTW Champion Brian Cage and Ricky Starks def. AEW TNT Champion Darby Allin and Cody Rhodes

Rhodes and Allin work just as well as partners as they do as opponents. They had a top-notch main event with Team Taz and it was cool how there was never a dull moment. Cage pinning Allin should earn him a future shot at the AEW TNT Championship, while Will Hobbs joining Team Taz was the most logical move to make. This was an effective piece of business all around that made Team Taz look stronger than they have at any other point so far.

Overall Show

The segments with Inner Circle invading Las Vegas were a blast on the whole, even though they didn't really progress anything. This was a superb show that wasn't light on exciting action and notable developments with the in-ring return of Pac, Hobbs' heel turn, Bucks putting their gold up for grabs, Deeb and Rosa killing it and Omega inching closer and closer toward turning heel (assuming he hasn't already). The two hours were jam-packed and lived up to the hype. I'm looking forward to seeing what else AEW has in store in the remainder of the year.