AEW Dynamite Review - September 22, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Scorpio Sky def. Ben Carter

Although I assumed it was taped on a different night, Carter is fresh off an excellent match with Lee Johnson on an episode of Dark that aired earlier in the evening. That helped a lot in showing people how great Carter is and why it was believable for him to take Sky to the limit. I never actually expected Carter to win, but as a match, this was excellent and saw both guys have strong showings. Regardless of whether AEW signs Carter or not, I really hope to see more of him on their shows.

Anna Jay def. Brandi Rhodes

The bad blood has been brewing between these two since The Dark Order laid out The Nightmare Family late last month. I personally haven't cared about the program at all, but if nothing else, it's nice to have another feud in the women's division outside of the title picture. I feared the worst for this match as Jay is still a work in progress and Rhodes just isn't very good at all, but to their credit, they exceeded my expectations with a pretty solid match. Granted, it had its fair share of awkward moments, but I was glad it was kept on the shorter side and resulted in a win for Jay.

Shawn Spears def. Matt Sydal

Spears has been undefeated for months now and I don't believe Sydal is officially signed by AEW (at least not yet), so while I figured Spears would win, that didn't hinder my enjoyment of their encounter. This was a fun main event with Sydal looking much better than he did in his debut at All Out and Spears have a quality performance as well. AEW is desperately trying to get over that loaded glove gimmick for Spears as that's what he won with here. Sky and Sydal established a friendship beforehand backstage, so it made sense for Sky to make the save for Sydal afterward and I'm sure we'll be getting Sky vs. Spears soon.

Overall Show

There was no way I was watching this at almost 1 in the morning, so I caught it after the fact Wednesday morning and didn't have to deal with the commercials. AEW definitely should have aired this before Dynamite on Wednesday night instead of late Tuesday night, but that's merely nitpicking as this was an awesome abbreviated version of Dynamite with three well-wrestled matches as well as hype for Wednesday's show. Chris Jericho was entertaining on commentary, too, but I can totally understand others finding him annoying/overbearing. This is exactly what Dark should be: three all-action, storyline-significant matches with minimal filler. That would make Dark much more worthwhile in my opinion, because the current format is completely missable and way too long.