AEW DYNAMITE HITS & MISSES (6/11): Swerve vs. Hangman in a 30 minute draw, Okada and Omega contract signing, Cold Open with Daniels and Hangman

It’s another four-hour marathon for Summer Blockbuster! For this column’s purposes, we’ll break down the first two of them and continue along the road to All-In with the contract signing for Omega-Okada and what should be a hell of a match between Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland that I expect to end with an interference finish? Let’s see how it went!

HITS

THE COLD OPEN

What a great way to start the show! After the quick entrance of Toni Storm, we got a fantastic scene between “Hangman” Page and Christopher Daniels. Daniels’s pep talk put us in storyline mode immediately. He gave Hangman something to think about and then you see Jon Moxley hiding in plain sight and just a nod to the Death Riders had them stalking Hangman as the opening theme played. This was a fantastic way to get viewers engaged right away.

SWERVE VS, OSPREAY

This lived up to all of my expectations. I was hoping for a memorable match and we sure got one. First, the two showed some respect for each other at the start. The bloody nose suffered early in the match set the tone and opened up a storyline for the match that made it more compelling. The match had some amazing spots including the Hidden blade through the ropes, the missed hidden blade and Ospreay’s head/shoulder into the turnbuckle which included great selling by Ospreay on the left arm/shoulder injury. Plus, Swerve using Hangman’s dead-eye turned into a great false finish.

It was very smart for Excalibur to mention the time limit as the match got longer. I assumed that was meant to be a red herring as they’d never mention it that much if they were going to end up with a draw. But that made the false finishes much more effective. I was worried before the show that we would get a great match with some frustrating interference by the Death Riders at the end to ruin it, but making the match a draw and then having it look like they were going to continue made the predictable appearance of the Death Riders a heat magnet for the heels.

The return of the Young Bucks made sense as we hadn’t seen them since Swerve got the better of them in Anarchy in the Arena. The beatdown of a handcuffed Swerve was bad, but seeing Ospreay take the bullet (or the tack-filled shoes) of the Bucks furthered this great storyline. Ospreay sells so well that you really can buy into the seriousness of what he was going through. I felt the first 40 minutes of the show was brilliant.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

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HANGMAN FOLLOW-UP

I was a little worried after the solid cold open to the show that they were not going to follow that up smartly, but when Hangman did not come out to save Ospreay earlier, I had a feeling they were going to pay it off. Seeing Hangman tied up and beaten mercilessly built upon the start of the show, and Jon Moxley did his usual great job on the mic to calmly set the stage for the title match at All-In.

The Opps making the save made sense and proved Christopher Daniels right that he does have some allies in the back. My only issue with the segment was how quickly Hangman recovered after what was supposed to be about an hour of beating so he could run after the Death Riders. I would have sold that beating more as there will be plenty of time for him to talk as the weeks go on.

OKADA-OMEGA BUILD

This was a home run. What a stellar video package they ran to explain the history of Okada vs. Omega. It was long, but compelling and completely necessary to help viewers understand what came before. I should have seen the Don Callis involvement coming way earlier since they used his commentary so much in the video package.

While rumored, it was nice to see they are truly combining the titles into one new belt instead of having the winner walk around with two.

Okada played his part very well, being genuine at first but becoming vicious later without any comedy whatsoever. The blood spurting from Omega’s mouth may have been a little over the top, but I thought it was very effective and will be something that is replayed often over the next few weeks.

I assume this also gives Omega the excuse to be away for a couple of weeks so they don’t burn out this build, which was also very smart.

All in all, mission accomplished to make this match a huge deal at All-In.

QUICK HITS

– The Hurt Syndicate continued their complete heel turn and it remains to be seen how it’s going to work out, but the group looks like a strong force and MJF did solid work with Mistico to set up their match next week. Interestingly, I thought Blake Christian stood out more in his quick match with Mistico than the former Sin Cara did.

MISSES

This was a solid first two hours of the show and I did see any clear “Misses.” I think they did exactly what they wanted to do to give the fans some quality/amazing wrestling with storyline progression and some memorable moments.

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