AEW Dynamite 4/3/24: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

AEW has what many have called a cult following, and as someone who's seen plenty of movies and documentaries about cults, both fictional and historical, there's a certain story beat that every cult hits. The authorities are closing in. The rations are running short. Some of the more innocent members have fled or died or worse. The followers can start to feel the real world infringing on the paradise they'd made for themselves and the group. The thrill is gone and the despair is thick. At this point, the fearless leader will often get up in front of the congregation, and with a manic, angry, panicked grin, say how much fun they are still having. A bomb blast will rattle the foundation of the compound and, with dust falling into people's hair, he will say that there are still good times ahead and good work to be done. The thrill will come back; the feeling will be restored, if people just believe. So he puts out a hand, and reaching for the beaten, hungry bully pulpit, he asks for people to believe just a little bit harder. And some of them do (or at least they try).

This was the tone Adam Copeland struck at the beginning of this week's "AEW Dynamite." Fresh off of CM Punk declaring AEW an unserious promotion that isn't interested in making money, which was followed by a sudden spat of layoffs from a "nice guy" boss who has often chided the competition for budget cut layoffs like the ones that claimed the jobs of Slim J, Anthony Henry, and other lower card AEW talent who found themselves unemployed, Copeland said that AEW was a fun place, full of fun matches and amazing wrestlers, and that there's plenty of fun to be had, and lives to be changed. All the while, he had the scared, angry look of David Koresh or Jim Jones or Marshall Applewhite. It was the opposite of reassuring — it was sweaty and desperate. It felt like Tony Khan speaking through Copeland, bragging about recent free agency signings like Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay just hours after telling a significant number of wrestlers to hit the bricks.

The really crazy thing is that federal authorities are literally closing in on AEW's competition at the moment. With the revelation that WWE executives like Nick Khan were well aware of McMahon's relationship with Janel Grant, as well as the announcement that WWE's parent-company's parent-company Endeavor would be going private, leaving TKO Group Holdings's stockholders to take whatever financial hit will come as more and more cultural rot at WWE is revealed (not to mention the ramifications of all of UFC's many legal woes), if any company is in actual, mortal danger right now, it's WWE. AEW could hang back and say nothing, let WWE smile and preen as the sirens get closer, but instead Tony Khan and company made a spectacle of themselves in a way that belies Khan's braggadocious claims about AEW and WBD's current relationship.

Copeland's promo on Wednesday was deeply unhinged and makes me worry about the company. The show had a lot of highs, and overall I enjoyed it, but it was hard to not shake the apocalyptic, Jonestown vibe of the opening moments. Any avid viewer of cult narrative knows that there's only one way this ends. Luckily, AEW isn't currently distributing any beverages of uncertain origin; pass me a can of Woooo! Energy, would you?

Written by Ross Berman

I'm old enough to remember when Jay White was wrestling for a world championship in a PPV main event, though to be fair, you only have to be like five months old to remember that. The former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion has officially been with AEW one year as of this coming Friday, and while he didn't exactly rocket to the top of the card the way some believed he would, things changed in November, when he became embroiled in a feud with AEW World Champion MJF. At long last, "Switchblade" was a contender, and while his Full Gear match with MJF was hilariously overbooked and made White look like he literally couldn't beat a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, he rebounded nicely via the Continental Classic, where he lost just one match and made the three-way final alongside Jon Moxley and Swerve Strickland. At that point, his record as a singles competitor in AEW (a company that ostensibly cares about such things) was 18-3; MJF, Moxley, and Strickland — two former world champions and one future world champion — were the only people who had beaten him.

As of Wednesday night, you can add 60-year-old Billy Gunn's name to that list. And yes, Gunn technically won via disqualification, but if you watched the match, you know how completely one-sided it was. After ambushing White from behind during his entrance, Gunn whipped him from pillar to post in a segment that lasted more than 15 minutes and consisted primarily of Gunn and White walking slowly around the ring. Inevitably, Gunn would throw White into something, White would sell, Gunn would pose and talk to the fans, and the cycle would continue. White barely got any offense whatsoever, and none at all until well into the contest. Instead, he spent most of his time begging for Gunn to stop, cringing away from him in fear, fruitlessly hiding behind security guards, and just generally acting completely pathetic. At one point during the picture-in-picture commercial break, White reached out to Gunn with his fingers in scissor position, trying to make amends with Gunn only a few weeks after turning on him. He looked like he didn't belong in a match for the 24/7 Championship, let alone a world title match.

Things only got worse at the end, when Gunn countered the Blade Runner and hit a pair of Famousers. He clearly could have pinned White at any time, but he went outside the ring for a chair instead. That's when his sons came down to the ring to plead with their father to spare White's life, basically. And then White hit Gunn with a blatant low blow right in front of the referee and got disqualified. But despite the fact that Austin and Colten had taken out The Acclaimed backstage, Bullet Club Gold didn't even get the consolation prize of a post-match beatdown, as Max Caster and Anthony Bowens miraculously recovered in time to make the save, after which they and Gunn beat up White some more (he tried to run away from them, but he even screwed that up; they caught him and dragged him back into the ring). The only thing White and The Gunns succeeded in doing was preventing White from being suplexed through the announce table and then booking it before they could get embarrassed even more. Your ROH Six-Man Tag Team Champions, ladies and gentlemen (they haven't defended those titles since winning them almost three months ago, by the way).

This honestly might be the worst "Dynamite" match in history. I have plenty of issues with AEW, but if there are two things you can usually rely on, they are (a) the in-ring action will be solid at the very least, and (b) big-name wrestlers they sign from other companies will be treated with more respect than they would in, say, WWE. This was 15 minutes of a guy who held a world title 18 months ago (in a promotion AEW is partnered) with losing the longest, slowest, most boring squash match ever to a guy twice his age who's never gotten close to a world title at any point in his career. That sucks, this feud sucks, and Jay White should get the hell out of AEW as soon as possible if he values his remaining career.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

This week's "Dynamite" started with what I took as a desperate, rah-rah, cheerleader-esque rant from Adam Copeland (of all people) following what he — or whomever put him up to the diatribe (gee, I wonder) — perceived as "a week full of negative BS," which included a random yet overt mention of all of the company's recent big name signings. It ended with an AEW World Championship contender jamming the same company line square peg about big name signings into a round hole promo against his adversary at the next pay-per-view that absolutely didn't need it, given the hatred that already clearly exists between the two.

This company continues to not understand its place in the world, wrestling or otherwise at this point, refusing to rest on its own laurels (of which it has many!) and paying way too much attention to the industry world leader, with whom it will never, ever share an even playing field. Yes, you signed Will Ospreay. Yes, you signed Kazuchika Okada. Yes, you signed Mercedes Mone, and yes, you signed the aforementioned Copeland. You also just let go of 10 others in one fell swoop. That most of those names weren't of the household nature doesn't matter. And by the way, this company has rarely missed an opportunity to punch up toward WWE, including during its own periods of mass releases.

If there's ever been a stronger indicator of the fact that this entity can't get out of its own way, it was Wednesday night. AEW has plenty going for it, but its greatest detriment continues to be the thin skin it has collectively inherited from its manchild of a figurehead. And it all trickles down. See: the latest utterance of "cry me a river" from EVPs who were once famously accused of not being able to manage a Target, which is becoming more and more believable a description by the day. All of this for a company who in the same breath has promised it is "moving forward" — forward, maybe, toward obscurity, if this trend continues.

Written by Jon Jordan