Cash vs Dax was the highlight of this weeks Dynamite to absolutely nobodies surprise, a fantastic match with some nods to the greats and the feel of a genuine contest that kept me guessing until the end over which way it would go, possibly my favourite match of the year so far.
Punk was on commentary for the match and it was announced afterwards that he'd be facing Hangman Page for the AEW title at Double or Nothing and Punk cut a strong promo walking around the ring as he did so engaging with the fans.
From here it was mostly downhill with a number of mediocre matches and a couple of weak promo segments, the House of Black in particular are flat as a pancake at this point and Jericho fireballing Kingston was oldschool but an odd fit with his sports entertainer gimmick, I do like the way they are mimicking the 80's WWF "worldwide leader in sports entertainment" intro but are just adding a week on each time.
Wardlow vs Archer was a solid powerhouse match that didn't last too long, Wardlow busted out a very impressive flying headscissors and senton bomb, these aren't things he should do very often but given Archer is bigger than him they worked in context here. I'm guessing it's former NXT choad Big Cass that he's facing next week, I can't remember what name he's using now but he sucked in the ring last time i saw him on Impact, Wardlow needs to mow through him.
I was pleased to see Starks & Hobbs challenge Jurassic Express and I'm sensing that Christian will turn on Jungle Boy soon leading to a singles program between them, unfortunately Starks & Hobbs were back feuding with Swerve and Lee on Rampage.
Serena vs Shida was a solid street fight, they didn't go over the top and just kept it an intense, physical fight, beforehand I thought Shida would win as this is the feud ender but as I was watching I thought about who was feasibly the next challenger for Thunder Rosa and sure enough after Serena won clean with the cloverleaf we see Thunder watching the match backstage, this could be good and hopefully is booked for Double or Nothing.
The ladder match was a mess, Sammy seems hellbent on killing himself on live TV, that ridiculous bump he took early on clearly concussed him and he's lucky if that's the extent of the damage. His eyes were glazed over for the rest of the match yet they plowed on awkwardly through a few contrived spots including 2 awful looking sequences with Tay and Paige, their punches were Shane McMahon level and then the guys climbing up the ladder with each lady on their back was daft, AEW are dangerously close to blowing any potential Paige VanZant has and why did Scorpio go over the hot new heel? I don't think anyone is clamouring for Scorpio vs Kazarian.
There was nothing much on Rampage, i hate them using Hook with dumbhausen but Tony Nese isn't a bad stepping stone opponent for him. The women's tag match was disappointing in being just a squash, I think they could do more with Willow Nightingale and Skye Blue.
The one shining thing on Rampage was Joe vs Trent, Joe is such a badass and he pretty much beat the stuffing out of Trent, he fed him a few hope spots but ultimately it was a dominant win for Joe, as it should be. The aftermath will hopefully see Giant Gonzalez 2 segway into feuding with the Gooftroop and Joe can focus on Lethal, I'm hoping to see them face off for the ROH TV title at Double or Nothing.
