11 Ups & 5 Downs From AEW Dynamite (Oct 9)

10. Recovery Job

Britt Baker and Bea Priestley had a lot of ground to recover last night.

The AEW Dark tag match pitting Baker and Allie against Priestley and Penelope Ford was a clunky, disappointing plodder for which the feuding duo were most culpable. The 10-minute runtime felt like at least triple that. It was therefore imperative that Dynamite's tag bout delivered at a higher level, and while Priestley and Emi Sakura vs. Baker and Riho was no home run, it was a marked improvement on Dark's disarray.

Sakura proved herself a strong show-woman in the early stage, grinding down on trainee Riho with veteran efficiency. That she was able to hoss the AEW Women's Champion around despite standing at just 5'2" was impressive. Upon tagging in, Bea went straight after Britt on the apron and they brawled on the outside, with Baker's Thesz Press drawing a decent response from the crowd before the heels wore her out, leading to the inevitable Riho recovery.

Riho looked good offensively and defensively and her opponents worked well as a team, executing flurries of convincing tandem offence. Baker tapping Emi out, meanwhile, secures her a Women's Title shot for next week. That could be fun, though there's still work to be done if the Priestley feud is to heat up.