AEW Dynamite – 4/2/2025

By / / Television Reviews

The final Dynamite leading into AEW Dynasty gave us the unveiling of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Brackets, a mixed tornado tag of Swerve Strickland and Willow Nightingale vs. Jon Moxley and Marina Shafir, Brody King vs. Lance Archer, Toni Storm vs.Penelope Ford, Will Ospreay and Kevin Knight teaming for the first time, and Claudio Castagnoli vs. Adam Copeland. 

Highlights:

  • The brackets for both the men’s and women’s Owen Hart Foundation Tournament were released leading to some impromptu tag matches on both Dynamite and Collision. Both brackets look stacked with intriguing first-round matches and some potentially great second round matches. 
  • Later in the night we got Renee interviewing Mercedes Moné about her first-round match against Julia Hart and her upcoming tag with Harley Cameron against the team of Hart and Athena on Collision. Great to see Harley and Mercedes back together again and that tag should be quite fun.
  • The segment was followed by a tag-team match featuring Owen Cup members Will Ospreay and Kevin Knight taking on Blake Christian and Lee Johnson. Great high-speed action that really helped sell Knight taking the injured Jay White‘s place in the Owen as Will’s opponent (which we learned will be taking place at AEW Dynasty).
  • The night’s opening match was the mixed tornado tag featuring Swerve Strickland and Willow Nightingale tacking on the Death Riders’ Jon Moxley and Marina Shafir. Lots of action here with no tags and all four competitors getting time together including Willow’s cannonball of Moxley and Stickland hitting the House Call on Shafir leading to a Willow pin. Immediately after the faces’ win, Moxley hit Willow with a Paradigm Shift adding a bit more heat to events heading into the PPV. Later in the night we got a backstage medical update with Willow being looked at by the medical staff and Swerve swearing to Renee that he would get his hands on Moxley before the end of the night. 
  • In a non-title matchup, Timeless Toni Storm took on Penelope Ford getting some revenge from Ford’s sneak attack on Collision.
  • We got an in-ring segment with MJF interrupting Bobby Lashley and MVP to properly introduce himself to “Bob” ending with MJF deciding he would “prove himself” to Lashley. Following MJF’s exit we got Big Bill and Bryan Keith hitting the ring for their match against a pair of jobbers and starring down MVP and Lashley. Due to weather, Shelton Benjamin wasn’t at the venue.
  • In the night’s “meat matchup” we got Brody King defeating Lance Archer. Nice change up pace to follow the more high-flying Ospreay match which proceeded it.
  • The night’s main event featured Cope taking on Claudio Castagnoli heading into Rated FTR taking on the Death Riders for the Trio Championships at Dynasty. Copeland got the win and left ringside. Jumping backstage, we got Swerve looking for Moxley leading to an unexpected run-in with Hangman that left the cowboy speechless. Moxley and Pac would find Swerve, drag him out to the ring with Castagnoli leading to an in-ring beatdown and slam into glass ending the night with an enraged Swerve looking for revenge.

Less Notable:

  • Backstage segment featuring The Opps looking for future opponents.
  • Recap of the after-match shenanigans from the Dax match on AEW Collision was followed up with a backstage segment featuring Dax paying his $10K fine and attempting to make peace with Cash (with mixed results).
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