DYNASTY, Season 2 - 4/6/2025

[Cobra Commander]

so between Copeland/FTR, the impending Christian/Patriarchy split, and Jericho with the Learning tree, will they align the three old Canadians to take on FTR, Wayne, Killswitch, Big Bill and Bryan Keith in a 3 on 6 doomsday cage match

[just drew]

Boy, it’s like that ending was designed specifically to piss me off. Like TK sat there and thought “what’s the one thing I could do to get Drew to hate this Death Riders angle?” And voila, there it is. Still really enjoyed the show, though. Other than Adam Cole. I don’t understand that decision at all.

 

FTR fucking murdered Cope. Like, Wheeler should probably catch his second strike on that beating.

[Kevin Wilson]

Toni Storm is hilarious but I love TK's reactions. NSFW!

 

[Curt McGirt]

1 hour ago, tbarrie said:

And one thought: I'm amazed so many people are complaining about poor booking in the main event, when earlier in the night they put a singles title on Adam Cole.

Trust me: We can complain about that too.

[southofheavy]

9 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I can't take credit...it's early and I'm still working on coffee #2.  I just Googled "Marvel heroes not in Endgame." 

Darby started as Wolverine, now he's slowly morphing into some faux edgy Leifeld shit.

Let's not get carried away here. Darby has feet. 

[HarryArchieGus]

12 hours ago, For Great Justice said:

Absolutely dreadful, viewer-repelling ending.

This is going to lead to Hangman and Swerve vs the Bucks. Who wants to see that?

I do. I love this Swerve-Hanger story, and look forward to each of the story beats that take us to a partnership and feud with the consistently great Jacksons. Further, I loved this ending and the return of the Bucks. I sometimes wonder if I too would hate the Bucks if I’d ever seen any of their pwg era work or regularly watched lame bte. All I know of the Bucks is their fucking awesome AEW run.

[Curt McGirt]

"YOU get a ladder match! And YOU get a ladder match! LADDER MATCHES FOR EVERYBODAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!"

[DreamBroken]

5 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Forbidden Door is in August this year, after All In in July.

I fell most of the way asleep during the show and missed most of Jericho-Bandido, Garcia-Cole, and the three-way. I saw the results though. (I then paused the show and went to bed, watching the main event this afternoon.) Are any of those three matches worth watching when I already know who won?

I would say yes on the three way. A couple times during the match I would remember Omega can't lose with the impending Okada match, but still bit on a couple near falls. 

[twiztor]

i must have not been in the right mindset while watching this, because while i didn't find any match BAD, i also didn't think any match was GREAT. Admittedly, i was distracted during Toni/Bayne, so won't comment on that, plus i skipped Jericho/Bandido and Garcia/Cole. Enjoyed the main event match, and seeing Swerve backed up by asskickers and finally taking the title off the unstoppable Moxley was fantastic. Excellent feel good moment to close the show............What's that? Moxley retained again due to outside interference? well that's just dumb.
but i guess we need to have the big Blood & Guts match pretty soon, so Swerve+Hangman+Opps vs. Death Riders it is.

i definitely bit on the FTR split/turn. very well executed and i look forward to them murdering some dudes. is this really going to culminate in FTR-E&C?

Imagine being someone like Brody King or Takeshita. no match. no run-in. no interview. But they flew you in so that you could stand in front of a monitor. why?

[Cobra Commander]

"You get to watch a great card for free!"

(Honky Tonk Man appears out of the mist to yell "You fucking mark!")

[AxB]

I liked how Adam Cole wore brown gear, thus symbolising how every time he's feuded with a champion in AEW, their title reign has turned to shit. He not only marred Hangman's World title run, he ruined MJF's World title run (and both times the feud was overextended way too long, despite the first big match underwhelming in the ring).

As far as Moxley goes, he has a similar disconnect in his career to that which Mick Foley had; What he's most proud of, and what the fans love him for, are two different things. With Foley, he very much saw himself as primarily a storyteller. He's gone into detail in his books about how he envisaged his matches not a series of moves that are sold, but as a series of story beats, as one character interacting with another, within the context of a wrestling match. But a lot of his fans, they didn't really get that. For most of his career, and now in his post-career legacy, he's widely thought of as Mr Blood and Mayhem. Mr Death Bump.

Now Mox, it's a similar thing, but not exactly the same. He did want to be a Blood and Mayhem guy, early in his career. And then he signed for WWE before he'd fulfilled his ambitions in that direction, and spent years frustrated that he had to portray the PG version of a Deathmatch wrestler (meaning, he had to be kooky). Then he got out of WWE, and was finally able to fulfil those Deathmatch yearnings, on a far bigger stage than he would ever otherwise have been able to do... but times change and people change, and it seems like he's a lot less in love with blood nowadays. Seems like he's a lot more in love with technical wrestling and his Jiu Jitsu classes, and he wants his matches to feature more shoot(ish) grappling. Which is not what the fans want to see from him* (and some of his opponents *COPE* can't really keep up with him at the tekkers either, which compounds the issue). So between that and the very WWE-ish Heel Champion booking he's getting, it's no wonder his performances are being considered so unsatisfactory.

* There is also the issue that he's not actually that good at it. I mean, he was never going to move like ZSJ or Gresham in there, but he's not a guy who moves fluidly, he's a guy who moves stiffly. Needs to watch WoS HEAVYWEIGHT matches, doesn't he? More Pete Roberts, less Johnny Saint.

[Shartnado]

Only up to Zero Hour at this point, but: the trios match rocked and people were SO into AR Fox again, holy shit!

I have a feeling that if this was the pay-off for Max Caster's open challenge, then he's just about done. Now, Bowens looked great, the new theme was awesome and the match followed the same structure as all of the previous open challenges. If Max did all of this just to really put over Bowens, then he is a really good guy and great friend, but this deal needs to end now, as beating Caster means nothing at this point. AEW had better make it count with Bowens for Jannetty-ing Caster this fucking hard! Even, and I stress this, EVEN if all of this would have been Caster's own idea (which I don't know).

[twiztor]

Bowens' outfit gave me very strong He-Man vibes. that's a plus IMO.

[stuntmanc]

The pop for Bowens was otherworldy and his presentation was awesome.  I really can't wait to see what happens from here.

[Technico Support]

47 minutes ago, twiztor said:

Bowens' outfit gave me very strong He-Man vibes. that's a plus IMO.

Tonight, Caster, you battle the mighty SCISS-OR!

[NikoBaltimore]

Bowens on the press conference made it pretty clear he's done with Caster and is moving on.  I can see Max having a crisis as the post-show YT exclusives had him barely hanging on after most losses.  Who knows what comes out of it though.  Also, fuck yeah for Bowens coming back.  The guy is incredible and with how he is with the media my hope is the further he's pushed the more visible he becomes.  Him at the conference showed it.

Also on the conference TK explaining the main was some serious EWR shit.  I kind of loved it to be honest.

[Go2Sleep]

On 4/8/2025 at 2:39 PM, twiztor said:

i must have not been in the right mindset while watching this, because while i didn't find any match BAD, i also didn't think any match was GREAT.

Kinda feel the same way. Fletcher/Briscoe was probably the best (and even that probably ran 5 minutes longer than necessary), and Toni brought the character work really leaning into the Rocky aesthetic, but overall it was a card of "high floor low ceiling" matches that all ran together. I thought the triple threat was a lot more epic than it needed to be, but I'll give Kenny and Ricochet props for that finish. I can't remember a damn thing from the trios title match, but the FTR turn was great.

In a way, it felt like show where everyone felt pressured to justify their spot on the card, rather than everyone working together for tight, cohesive show.

[DMJ]

- I think folks are really underplaying Storm/Bayne. That match was phenomenal. Easily the MOTN to me and even a potential MOTY for AEW in my book. I think with every other match on the show, you could point to this or that element not working or a bad booking decision or a lack of crowd engagement, but I found no such issues in the Women's World Championship match. Great storytelling, great character work, a bunch of awesome sequences and good signature offense out of Toni and a genuine "Oh Shit" moment in Bayne kicking out of the Storm Zero at 1. I guess maybe one could've asked for a more unique finish/pinning combo, but that feels a bit nitpicky.

- The commenter above who noted Moxley's Jiu-Jitsu boner is spot-on. I guess one could argue that Moxley's offense matches his character as he transitioned from a brawler to a someone who wants to "punish" and grind his opponents down and, as a heel, him boring the audience with that style draws heat. But to pull that off, you have to be a real top-level worker and storyteller capable of planning and executing a match that features enough hope spots and cut-offs, enough twists and turns, and enough crowd interaction to make a 20+ minute match work. Moxley is not that worker. 

[tbarrie]

1 minute ago, DMJ said:

- I think folks are really underplaying Storm/Bayne. That match was phenomenal. Easily the MOTN to me and even a potential MOTY for AEW in my book. I think with every other match on the show, you could point to this or that element not working or a bad booking decision or a lack of crowd engagement, but I found no such issues in the Women's World Championship match. Great storytelling, great character work, a bunch of awesome sequences and good signature offense out of Toni and a genuine "Oh Shit" moment in Bayne kicking out of the Storm Zero at 1. I guess maybe one could've asked for a more unique finish/pinning combo, but that feels a bit nitpicky.

Toni beating Megan with a package roll-up reminded me of Cena beating Umaga with a school boy in their first match. And based on Dynamite it seems Megan Bayne's title aspirations remain intact. So if this is leading to a Texas Death Match between them at Double or Nothing, I say hell yeah.

[AxB]

As far as Anthony Bowens' new theme goes, I was going to say that it was nice that Jane's Addiction were back on good enough terms with one another to agree to license a song. But then I remembered that Perry has a 62.5% vote share of everything the band does (and earns), so it doesn't actually matter if Dave, Steven and the other one weren't up for it.

I did see a rumour that the reason Anthony Bowens was at the LA premiere of The Last of Us Season 2 was not simply because he's a HBO Max performer doing some cross promotion, but in fact because he's actually an actor in the show, but I'm not sure it's true. It seems something that would be talked about, rather than something that would be kept quiet for the surprise pop.

[Technico Support]

13 hours ago, AxB said:

As far as Anthony Bowens' new theme goes, I was going to say that it was nice that Jane's Addiction were back on good enough terms with one another to agree to license a song. But then I remembered that Perry has a 62.5% vote share of everything the band does (and earns), so it doesn't actually matter if Dave, Steven and the other one weren't up for it.

I did see a rumour that the reason Anthony Bowens was at the LA premiere of The Last of Us Season 2 was not simply because he's a HBO Max performer doing some cross promotion, but in fact because he's actually an actor in the show, but I'm not sure it's true. It seems something that would be talked about, rather than something that would be kept quiet for the surprise pop.

Hopefully it’s an actual part, not just 5 seconds as a clicker under heavy makeup.

[Shartnado]

Main event still to go, but:

Kevin Knight did not look out of place against Ospreay, probably because he is brand new, fresh and not tarnished yet. Great action to kick things off.

Tag title match was what it was and you got the feeling that if Bounty Apple gets caught alone in the ring, this one is done! He did, and that's what happened. MJF may or may not regret this one, we'll see!

Mercedes vs Julia wasn't exactly a PPV match, but by the end of it, Julia fought like hell and ended up in a pinning combination, not a finisher, so she looked strong in defeat!

I slept through most of Jericho-Bandido but saw the false finish and restart. Then I thought why is Hologram here and then realised it was Gravity! Great for Bandido, I need to watch this again.

Toni Storm vs Megan Bayne told a great story and Storm escaped by the skin of her teeth due to finally figuring out a counter to Bayne's finisher! She was totally shocked that she was successful here! A possible rematch later on whenever, may have a different outcome!

Fletcher vs Briscoe was nice to get on PPV but now they are even, so the one huge thing Briscoe had done as a single is now gone.

Rated FTR vs Death Riders was good action, the result was not really in question, but the aftermath was actually pretty shocking once Cash got in on the action as well! Seems like Cope needs a partner, if he doesn't require a wheelchair for a little bit after that! Too bad there's really no one around to fill that spot with Jay White out with the arm injury and stuff!

The International title 3-way was spectacular, while not very similar to the Kenny v PAC v OC that I will obviously compare it to, but still very entertaining in its own way! "That's not going to work" *runs* "BAM!" *gets blasted with a crane kick* Awesome!

Main Event maybe later on tonight?

Ok, interesting to see mat/submission wrestling to start the world title match. I'm definitely ok with it. It was decent of them to have Swerve bleeding without any weapons (up to that point). Some stuff made it look as if Swerve came in with a really shitty strategy. Hangman coming in, being conflicted and eventually doing the right thing was really good. Even better, when doing the right thing still ended up with Swerve not becoming the champion (as Young Bucks pointed out at Dynamite, and took credit for). Marina had some pretty decent body language and emoting(ish) in her Terminator-ish way here. Mox survived another night and everyone is happy. Well, at least The Opps are now in the picture. They won't be the ones to take out Moxley, but all other Death Riders (or will it be The Elite Riders soon?) should be within their paygrade.

Edited April 12, 2025 by Shartnado
edited for more