AEW Dynamite 02/26 Review

Matches:
1.Ironman: Omega vs PAC ****1/4
2.Inner Circle(Guevara,PnP) vs Jurassic Express ***1/4
3.Best Friends vs Butcher & Blade ***
4.Yuka vs Shida vs Shanna vs Big Swole ***

Thoughts:
Admittedly, I was actually really hoping they'd open with the ironman match. I just didn't expect it, though. I still think it's a missed call to not include the AAA Mega Championship on AEW television at all. Anyway, this was a ppv level encounter between two top shelf talents. The Bastard used the stip well to build extra heat with his DQ spot, the near-falls were all nice touches, the spots were pretty insane at times, the storywork was great, and the entire thing was simply awesome. I love that they had a sudden death finish, too.

This was arguably the best thing Omega has done is an AEW ring, which is saying something, and I applaud him for working such rough matches so frequently lately. He even dug into his bag of tricks and dusted off some classics.

AEW has been giving us the heat! This time, they started with it. A statement match reminding all that AEW is the HOTTEST promotion in the states and a borderline MOTYC well worth seeing.

Hopefully PAC won over a lot of fans, too. Dude deserves far more love than he tends to get. A match with Orange should be fun...

The second contest of the night was a good trios outing with a nice enough layout. Add a minute and a cleaner finish and it'd have hit recommendation levels, but for a follow up with some slight plot filler moments it worked as a nice way to keep the show moving.

Up third, another good (though skippable) match and the Orange/Bunny encounter as well as the finish was pretty fun. The Butcher & The Blade need to stop being booked to take the L, though.

For the last match, we got a good, short four-way highlighting the women's division a bit. Note how much better things are without the Brandi angle? Yea, props again to AEW for dropping it (largely, at least). I was especially happy to see Yuka back as well as Shida getting a win that'll hopefully be the start of her getting more movement even if I was certain Swole was winning. Keep 'em on their toes, right?

The Dark Order package was a nice teaser and I hope people have followed the crumbs properly. A backstage sitdown segment with JR interviewing Page, Kenny, Matt, and Nick ahead of Revolution was a nice touch, too. More than nice, really. I actually loved both.

Archer debuts next week, apparently. I actually expect him to be involved in some way at Revolution, though.

Closing the show, Mox and Jericho had their weigh-in ahead of Saturday. Ending the show on chaos is always a fun choice and they delivered that here for sure. "For the love of God, stay away from the Dippin' Dots" is a new favorite line of mine, by the way. They did well here to give a last minute sell for Jericho/Mox, Dustin/Hager, and Darby/Guevara. Pretty damn good way to close a show.

Sure, the show peaked with the opener, but it was an awesome match that took up basically the first half of the show. Also, everything else was still good, even if it was skippable and all of the segments worked very well. This is how you handle a go home show before a ppv!

Overall Rating: 80/100%