AEW Dynamite 1/28/2026: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," the show that just added former WWE star Tommaso Ciampa to its already stacked roster! We will definitely talk about that here, because we have feelings about it, just like we have feelings about the TNT title match, the tag title match, and (sort of) the women's world title match! As for Swerve Strickland vs. Andrade, come on now. Who didn't have feelings about it?

Yes, this is the loved/hated column, where we only weigh in on the matches and segments that gave us the strongest feels! As always, if you missed the show and/or want to read about the parts we're not discussing, you can do that over at our "Dynamite" results page. On the other hand, if you're interested in the WINC crew's opinions on all the proceedings we cared about the most, strap in — these are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 1/28/26 episode of "AEW Dynamite!"

One does not expect title changes every week but when a show has three different title matches, none of them in the main event, and there's not a single title change then everything feels a little bit flat.

El Clon was challenging for the TNT Championship held by Mark Briscoe, and that was a brilliant match that saw Briscoe retain; it would have been cool for Clon to get the win and keep his undefeated streak going. Obviously Briscoe then laid out an open challenge answered by Tommaso Ciampa, which I'm definitely not going to complain about because that was pretty awesome.

Thekla was challenging Kris Statlander for the Women's World Championship, which definitely should have been the main event – it being for a purported World title and all that. Once again, very good match, and Statlander retained. This very easily could have been a title change to cement Thekla and the Triangle of Madness as a little more than a heel gatekeeper trio. But Statlander is presumably being eyed to drop the title to one Mercedes Mone when the time is right, so again she must continue her reign – not in itself a bad thing, we will get to that.

And FTR defended their Tag titles against Jake Doyle and Mark Davis, which... Yeah I was ready for FTR to lose the titles as soon as they won them. But of course, I am writing this as a Hated so they retained the titles, thanks to help of Death Rider interference; interference continues to be the bane of modern pro wrestling. Once again, it could have been a statement victory for the new tag team, something to help them stand out from the myriad of duos in the company.

The specific issue I have with the lack of title changes isn't actually the lack of title changes on the night. It's the fact that there doesn't seem to be any spontaneity in lieu of very clearly mapped out trajectories. That can be immersion breaking, and flat out undermines the value of putting the titles on the line to begin with.

Written by Max Everett

It's been a while since I watched an AEW show, and while some things were different, one thing remains completely and irrevocably the same: I hate eliminator matches.

Just to run this down, there are three things an eliminator match can lead to. First, and most often, the champion wins the eliminator match, in which case, it could have been a title match. Second, the challenger wins the eliminator match (or we get a time limit draw) but loses the title match, in which case, the first match could have been a title match. Third, the challenger wins the eliminator match (or goes the distance) and then wins the title, in which case, say it with me, the first match could have been a title match! Adding an arbitrary step to the process accomplishes nothing. If the champion wins the eliminator, there was no reason to have the eliminator; if the champion loses the eliminator, it's just lazy storytelling, tacking an extra week onto a storyline instead of actually doing something interesting. Nothing encapsulates the concept better than commentary beginning to sell the idea that Ace Austin might take Moxley to the time limit draw, only for Moxley to then almost immediately win — the pro wrestling equivalent of "Ah! Well, nevertheless."

But of course, Tony Khan found a way to stretch things out even more later in the episode, when MJF and Brody King did a promo segment to build to an eliminator match, because now we can get three weeks of programming out of this concept! I just don't understand why we can't book Max to defend the title against King at "Grand Slam" and then just do Pro Wrestling Storytelling in the meantime. You'd think this was rocket science. Is it really that hard to make a match and then promote it without throwing in "Brody King has pinned the world champion"? What are we doing here?

Anyway, I'm sure I've ranted about eliminator matches in this space before, and I will probably do it again. The thesis remains the same: Jettison them into the sun.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

If El Clon's TNT Championship match against Mark Briscoe from this edition of "Dynamite is anything to go by, then I'm more than willing to bet that there are some very bright things ahead for him in the future.

Considering that this was his first match on "Dynamite" and the first time that many fans (including myself) have seen him wrestle, this was an absolutely excellent first showing for him. Clon showed off his incredibly creative offense throughout the entire contest, with several unique spots including the multiple spend bends and Clon landing on his feet when Briscoe went to hit the J-Driller showcasing just what he was capable of doing between the ropes. He also kept up with Briscoe throughout the entire contest, making for a fast paced, high energy, and exciting bout that was engaging to watch and stand out on a show where there were several notable good matches in my opinion. While Briscoe may have retained the TNT Championship and emerged as the victor at the end of the day, Clon was still a winner in his own right and established himself as a potential major player going forward.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

It takes a lot to surprise me these days when it comes to anything in professional wrestling, but tonight, I was caught off guard, in a good way, when Tommaso Ciampa made his "Dynamite" debut. I think I had convinced myself he was going off to work in Japan after leaving WWE, so I really didn't expect to see him tonight. Well, good news, because he likely still can work in NJPW, since he's officially All Elite just days after being moved to WWE's alumni section.

I really loved the way that Ciampa debuted tonight. TNT Champion Mark Briscoe issued an open challenge for the gold, which is set to happen on "AEW Collision" this week. The only condition was that his opponent can't be a member of the Don Callis Family. While that certainly narrowed down his potential opponents, the lights went out, and for a while there, I was confused as to who could be debuting, not even thinking Ciampa would show up.

He had a really cool entrance, complete with his "Psycho Killer" graphics, fire, and what sounded like a really dope theme song on the first listen. He walked right down and got in Briscoe's face, accepting the challenge. I hope that doesn't mean that Ciampa is going to primarily be a "Collision" wrestler, but even if he is, his debut on "Dynamite" was big, and the right choice. I don't think it would have been as impactful had he just rocked up on a Saturday. I do hope he beats Briscoe for the belt in his first AEW match, however.

A big part of why I loved this was the fact we found out Ciampa isn't, at least for now, a member of the Don Callis Family. Outside of The Rascalz over on "Collision," it feels like every recently debuted, or in Andrade's case, returned, star has immediately aligned with Callis. Between that, his presentation making him look like a million bucks already, and the fact he immediately jumped into a championship picture, made me like this a lot. I have high hopes for Ciampa in AEW, and I hope we see him on Wednesdays often.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Coming into the January 28 episode of "AEW Dynamite," many people, including myself, saw the three title matches booked for the show and thought at least one of them would have changed hands. Mark Briscoe retained his AEW TNT Championship against El Clon, Kris Statlander defeated Thekla to keep hold of the AEW Women's World Championship, and that left Mark Davis and Jake Doyle of The Don Callis Family to fight it out against FTR for the AEW World Tag Team Championships. Unfortunately, FTR walked away with the titles, which feels like a bit of an uninspired decision.

The match itself was good, not great or an all-time classic, but good. Dax Harwood's chest donned the crimson mask after taking so many chops throughout the bout, Doyle had another good showing this time against a team that was a little bigger than JetSpeed or The Young Bucks, and it was a genuine back-and-forth affair. It did come off as a little clunky at times and there was a distinct lack of chemistry between the two teams in certain moments, but it was good enough to keep me engaged throughout the entire thing. Then the ending happened.

After being attacked by Davis and Doyle earlier in the night, Jon Moxley and the Death Riders came down to ringside, distracted the referee (sort of, Paul Turner could only say he didn't see the interference if he was legally blind), and assaulted Davis and Doyle. FTR quickly followed up with a Shatter Machine to get the victory, which made the whole match just feel a bit flat by the time it was over.

AEW has had a distinct problem of not striking while the iron was hot with certain people, and for me, this was a prime example. Davis and Doyle are a fresh team, an exciting team, they have such a high ceiling as a no-nonsense pair of brutes who can bulldoze anyone out of the way, but all it took was a little distraction and they were completely thrown off course. The company could have made a legitimate statement by strapping up Davis and Doyle tonight, but instead they kept the belts on FTR for what is likely to be another round with The Young Bucks, which will be fine if not a little old at this point, or even running it back with Adam Copeland and Christian Cage, which is only fun for select group of nostalgic fans.

What was my most anticipated match of the night turned into the biggest let down of the night. Again, the match in a vacuum is not bad, but the whole presentation left me feeling a little deflated, which is bad.

Written by Sam Palmer

For the past few weeks here in these loved and hated pieces, I have gushed about how exciting the AEW Men's World Championship picture is at the moment. MJF has to contend with the likes of Hangman Page, Brody King, Swerve Strickland, Samoa Joe and Kenny Omega, but now he has a different kind of problem, an ungovernable one.

It's been clear since his return to action in 2026 that there is a different level of fire burning underneath Andrade El Idolo. For years, everyone has known about how talented his is — that was evident when he was La Sombra, when he was in WWE, and even in his first run with AEW. The guy is main event level talent, he just had something missing. Whatever that something is, he has found it, or Don Callis has found it. Whoever has found it, Andrade is finally showing the world why everyone rates him so highly, and tonight's match on the January 28 episode of "AEW Dynamite" against Swerve Strickland was a prime example.

Swerve has made it very clear how much he wants his AEW Men's World Championship back, so when the match with Andrade was booked, it was met with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Everyone knew it was going to be good, but would it be the best idea having Andrade lose so early into his second run with the company? Absolutely not, and instead of taking the easy way out and having a non-finish, Andrade actually got the win. Sure, it wasn't the cleanest and he had to get a low blow in there to help get the job done, but Andrade beat Swerve, he beat a former AEW Men's World Champion, someone who is one of the faces of the company right now. That's huge!

The match itself was also great. Two guys meeting in the ring for the first time showcasing how freakishly athletic they are, while also portraying how much they want to be the top guy in AEW. Andrade and Swerve pulled out all the stops, every trick they could pull was pulled and it still couldn't get the job done. Back and forth, move for move, counter for counter; I didn't know what to expect from these two considering they're quite similar, but I was very pleased with what I got, and it ended with a surprising result that keeps an already exciting title picture even more interesting.

Andrade now gets to face Kenny Omega next week, but where does Swerve go from here? How does that impact Hangman's trajectory? Brody King has an Eliminator Match against MJF next week, will that change things? An excellent end to another very good show.

Written by Sam Palmer