Here’s how we rated this week’s Dynamite from El Paso. Curious how we rank matches? We’ve got a rubric for that.

Show Highlight—

Danielson vs. Rush. Yet another MOTYC for Danielson on his bid to challenge MJF. Wrestling fans are nothing if not fickle. A week prior Mox’s blading was gratuitous, but seven little days later Danielson made it into a thing of beauty. Flicking his hair back mid-bump so the blood sprayed on the camera brought violet artistry to the ring like he was bringing his own form of the drip technique to his canvas. Rush was a brutal sociopath here, showing he’ll get over more by his in-ring intensity as opposed to any of the silly stable-building and wheeling and dealing Andrade-lite shit he’s been doing.

What Worked—

MJF. Your vantage point may differ based on what your thoughts were of his promo later on in the show, but this Dynamite was heavily MJF-centric, which I appreciate from AEW, typically because their world champions going into PPVs have a tendency to come off a bit like a lame duck. More often than not, for a title change to logically feel “right,” the challenger seems to have much more of the momentum and storyline focus building to the show to create an artistic payoff. To see MJF get more screen and ring time only brings more hype to the Iron Man main event and helps create uncertainty in the outcome. Oh, and gotta love that he sells the knee all night after that awesome powerbomb move, too!
The Elite. Another superb trios match. Not sure where they will go from here, as seemingly that whole thing about the Elite being erased seems to be um, erased, but there’s no reason to bitch about them churning out 4 star matches with young talent on free tv. The team they should drop the belts to are obviously House of Black, but maybe that’s being saved for Double or Nothing to give that a longer build.

What Didn’t Work—

MJF’s road head follies. Isolated to another time and this promo would have landed better and been money, but a storyline device centered around a car crash is in bad taste this soon after Jay Briscoe’s death. That being said, never thought I’d see pantomiming fellatio on national wrestling TV like that. You wonder how much of his habitual line stepping goes undetected by the WBD suits or if they actually just fucking love MJF at his most MJF. Hot takes on bad taste aside, MJF posting a picture of himself with the car was gorgeous trolling.
Jericho/Starks. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. The chorus of fans online—and rightly so—is that this storyline is just a badly disguised rehash of old tropes already done by Jericho. And while Jericho might get defensive over the perception that he’s being a succubus of young talent’s heat, he’s too smart to let himself get Cody’s 2021 nuclear-heat and will read the room and reinvent himself again.
The Daddy Ass allegiance is Ass. In storyline, why the fuck would Billy Gunn all of a sudden want to help his sons after all that’s happened? Why was that the tease coming into this match? Hinting at an illogical swerve for the sake of fearing that there will be a dipshit swerve is too much of a chore for the audience to ride, especially with such a undesirable outcome as this conclusion had.

Show Cringe—

Kevin Dunn Jr. I’m officially starting to get freaked out. The camera work was more like WWE than being an alternative. Whomever this new guy is that was supposed to be the heir-in-waiting to Kevin Dunn isn't separating himself stylistically. In particular, the over-the-shoulder camera facing away from the ramp was fucking abrasive all night. Zooming mid-shot, shakiness, capturing bad angles in general: it was a distraction from the action all show. Ironically, the same shitty, jittery camera was shooting a guy with a Steadicam at one point! Use those!
Every wrestling fan not drinking the Stamford Kool-Aid will attest to the production truck run by Kevin Dunn is one of the more off-putting aspects of the product that makes it literally a headache to watch. Why AEW doesn’t make a stark visual difference I’ll never understand. Do people like the way wrestling is shot in North America or is there just a begrudging understanding that if you watch wrestling, that’s just something you have to deal with?

AEW Dynamite 2/8/2023

AEW Rampage 2/10/2023