6 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Dynamite (10 April - Results & Review)
4. Adam Copeland Vs Penta El Zero Miedo
AEW
This latest Cope Open Challenge for 'The Rated-R Superstar's TNT Championship took a little while to get going, but was yet another example of the tremendous job the booking and Copeland himself are doing with this run.
Keen to ensure a slate of weird and wonderful matches actually happen before contracts expire, Tony Khan has been nowhere near as stingy with the combinations when it comes to the WWE Hall-Of-Famer, and though the result was never in doubt, the match hit an improbably exciting tone in a final third loaded with strong counters, psycho Penta spots and Copeland coupling his cheesy grit with actual fighting spirit.
It was all far more gripping than it had any right to be, as was the pape-flogging post-match. When Copeland fell victim to a House Of Black sneak attack, Willow Nightingale's save folded in yet more new faces for the former Edge to bounce off of. That continued backstage, where odd throuple Copeland, Mark Briscoe and Eddie Kingston were established alongside a mixed tag against Julia Hart and Brody King for 'Cope' and Nightingale as a curtain-raiser. It wasn't the best promo to get them all there but even that had a sense of realism that tethers Copland's work to something more palatable than his crazy-eyed worst.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett
