5 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Dynamite (April 24 - Results & Review)
1. Will Ospreay Highlights Best Match Of The Show
The Casino Gauntlet match was the in-ring highlight of the show despite the usual contrivance. What if somebody simply...won within five minutes before each scheduled wrestler filtered to the ring?
The Casino ladder match is dumber than this, because at least in the Gauntlet, nobody was announced. It was much easier to buy the false finishes. Jay White was fantastic here. He initiated it with Penta El Zero Miedo, and, knowing that a horde was set to fill the ring and take the shot, that first sequence was urgent and thrilling, worked like sudden death. The match took on a Royal Rumble-style layout as more wrestlers entered and worked a sequence with whomever held the advantage at that given moment. Not to seem like a bad faith and idiotic concern troll, but the rules and the gist could have been better explained. Even the commentary team seemed nonplussed by how this new, unadvertised type of match was meant to function.
In terms of action and nothing else, this actually smoked anything from January, with the exception of the incredibly suspenseful final show-down between CM Punk and Cody Rhodes. Jay White was the ideal choice to enter first and thread the match. His demeanour and ring IQ positioned him as the ideal scavenger. Lance Archer was fun as the ass-kicking difference-maker - Will Ospreay took a terrifying header to the outside when taking an awesome variation of the Blackout - and Komander crafted a Holy Shit moment by unexpectedly taking Archer out with a hurricanrana through a ringside table. The idea to use the surgically-repaired Kyle O'Reilly as the wrestler on whom Ospreay was reluctant to use the Tiger Driver '91 was the sort of clever extra detail that epitomises peak AEW.
Ospreay won by pinning Komander following a fantastic white-knuckle sequence. Ospreay was a supernaturally great base. When he took a hurricanrana, he basically headbutted the canvas at 90mph and flipped over faster than a click of the fingers. That is barely hyperbole. The man is not human. This match, as thoughtful as it was exciting, highlighted a show that nobody will ever agree on.
That's just what AEW needs after almost two years of constant debate.