AEW Dynamite Review - September 7, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Jon Moxley Interrupted MJF

The show started with Tony Khan announcing that both the AEW World Championship and the AEW World Trios Championships have been vacated after what happened after All Out on Sunday night but made no mention of CM Punk and The Elite. There was no confirmation on their respective statuses, either, so an on-air explanation would have been nice. The rest of this segment was strong. MJF has certainly been missed on this show and Moxley continues to kill it on the mic. This seemed to foreshadow that it will be these two fighting for the AEW World Championship at Full Gear, and if that ends up being the case, why wouldn't it be Moxley vs. MJF from the get-go? Having Moxley run through an entire tournament seems wildly unnecessary.

Death Triangle (AEW All-Atlantic Champion Pac and The Lucha Brothers) def. Best Friends (Orange Cassidy, Trent Beretta and Chuck Taylor) to Win the AEW World Trios Championship

This match was always scheduled to take place on this show because of the two trios' history dating back to early 2020. The tag titles were added once The Elite were stripped of them. It was a fun match, but I feel the wrong team won. Don't get me wrong, Death Triangle were a solid second choice, but unlike all three members of Death Triangle, none of Best Friends have won anything in the last three years. This would have been the perfect role for Cassidy, but oh well. We'll see if the All-Atlantic title will remain relevant or become a prop now that Pac is a Trios champ.

AEW Women's World Championship Toni Storm def. Penelope Ford in an AEW Women's World Championship Eliminator Match

I'm glad the women weren't put in the death slot this week (a.k.a. right before the main event), but it's painfully apparent that more work needs to be done with the women's division. Why didn't we hear from Storm on a live mic coming off her title win? Instead, she was put in a match with someone who hasn't wrestled on Dynamite all year and what we got was mediocre at best. The fact this was practically the only thing we got from the women all night (aside from a quick video from Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter backstage) was also inexcusable.

AEW World Tag Team Champion Swerve Strickland Interrupted The Acclaimed

Max Caster's rap was one of the most anticipated things coming into this show in light of what happened on Sunday night. Honestly, I thought Swerve interrupting it before Caster could get past his opening line was genius since they're trying to turn Swerve heel, anyway. This was meant to hype the upcoming AEW World Tag Team Championship rematch for Grand Slam in two weeks. I'm looking forward to it and hope Acclaimed win, but from a storyline standpoint, I would love to know what earned Acclaimed this opportunity seeing as how they lost clean at All Out. And no, the "valiant performance" excuse isn't enough.

AEW TNT Champion Wardlow def. Tony Nese

This was basically every Wardlow squash we've seen this year in that it was short, sweet and straight to the point. The problem is that he should be working against more established talent by now on a weekly basis. I mean, he had that terrific match with Punk at the beginning of the year, squashed MJF at Double or Nothing, took the title from Scorpio Sky and defended it against Orange Cassidy the next week, so why has it felt like he's taken a step backward? On the bright side, he acknowledged afterward he's lost momentum and intends to get back on track, so that's an encouraging sign.

Bryan Danielson def. "Hangman" Adam Page in a Grand Slam Tournament of Champions Quarterfinal Match

I completely forgot that these two previously waged war over the AEW World Championship late last year/earlier this year. They have wonderful chemistry and this was a top-notch match, but I didn't want to see either of them lose. Danielson already lost to Chris Jericho at All Out and Page hasn't won anything of note in ages. Of the two, Danielson had to win to set up the rematch with Jericho for next week, though I have no idea where Page goes from here. He was in the midst of a storyline with The Elite, who are now all gone for the time being, so who the hell knows.

Stokley Hathaway's Group Attacked a Stagehand

I legitimately don't know how to refer to Hathaway's group because I don't believe they have a name yet. What's worse is that whatever alliance they have with MJF was not explained. Maybe it will be, but I don't have a ton of faith because we've been in this same situation with AEW before and it simply gets ignored. I realize Hathaway and MJF have history from the independent scene, but did MJF pay him and his new clients off in storyline or something? And what happened to Hathaway being with Jade Cargill and The Baddies? None of this makes any sense.

Daniel Garcia def. Wheeler Yuta in a Pure Rules Match to Win the ROH Pure Championship

Garcia is a Buffalo native, so between that and Westside Gunn performing during his entrance, it was pretty obvious who was winning here. However, it was the right result and the crowd was very much behind him throughout. The match itself was very good as you'd expect, and although I've never been the biggest Garcia fan, it was cool to see him get his moment. I continue to hope the endgame of this angle with him and Bryan Danielson and Chris Jericho will be him leaving Jericho Appreciation Society, but seeing is believing.

Overall Show

Obviously, the main talking point coming into this episode was the embarrassing situation involving The Elite and CM Punk and how it would be handled. As of this writing, we don't know what exactly is going on or what will happen, and it's not too shocking nothing was addressed directly on this show potentially for legal reasons. That said, they put together a decent show. The best parts were the opening and closing segments, so that helped. There's not much known about virtually anything else or where AEW goes from here, so it's a wait-and-see approach from me. I still don't see the purpose of doing a tournament if the endgame is Moxley vs. MJF, but maybe they swerve us and we get Danielson vs. MJF instead. Either way, Grand Slam should be interesting.

SEE MORE: Dynamite Reviews