HEYDORN’S AEW DYNAMITE RECEIPT 5/31: Don Callis brings heated promo, elevates Konosuke Takeshita

This week’s episode of AEW Dynamite has wrapped. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and relive some of the madness.

-Overall, I really liked this episode of Dynamite. It was a tight episode that furthered stories in a mostly logical way. Talent was framed nicely throughout coming out of Double or Nothing.

-Blackpool Combat Club are an anomaly right now. They are written as heels, but totally are not heels. There is resistance from the fans and it seems to have cooled the entire group, but especially Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson. Wheeler Yuta gaining the victory makes it two in a row for him — something to watch as it seems like its purposeful.

-A Young Bucks promo? I guess that was a pig flying overhead. This was good though, so it proves they can do it.

-Adam Page was really good here too, but we’re still doing this Dark Order gimmick? Look, this goes one of two ways. Page stays friends with Dark Order, which is bad. The other is Dark Order turns heel and while interesting, I don’t think it can work with the current crop of guys involved in the group. Just be done with that relationship. It’s over — or should be.

-See what happens when you give Jay White a microphone? This was a very nice promo work by White. He can carry segments and brings it like a top star should. Great stuff, but we need to see more of it on a bigger level.

-I’m excited for White & Robinson vs. FTR. It’s a good match for FTR in particular and though White and Robinson will likely lose, White gets a solid top tier opponent to work with. He needs this. On The FTR side of things, AEW just doesn’t have the robust tag team division it once had and you can thank the worthless World Trios Championship for that. Given that reality, this works to get them a suitable opponent.

-Really good follow-up with Kris Statlander and the end of the Jade Cargill winning streak. Statlander probably can’t take a big enough advantage of that win because of her position on the card compared to Jade’s and the fact that the TBS Championship is the secondary title. Still, when major things happen on shows, it’s important to frame them right and they did that on the show this week.

-Are they going with Swerve or not? He’s been in this middle ground position for so long. Get moving with him already.

-Holy Don Callis heat. THAT’S heat, folks. A to the point promo was effective in being just that. Callis let the boos do the talking and reaped the benefits. Konosuke Takeshita did as well. He looked like a star out there and took full advantage of the framing Callis gave him by not doing too much. Takeshita has a ready made major match with Kenny Omega on the horizon and this promo made that feel huge. Great stuff.

-Darby Allin and Orange Cassidy are tag team partners? Why? Seems a little strange and like a demotion for Darby in particular. Something to watch. The match was fine for what it was.

-Poor Hook. The dude was hot and with momentum behind him and now he isn’t and doesn’t. Jungle Boy doesn’t help him get back either.

-Kris Statlander won a championship, so of course her first title defense is against Nyla Rose. This was fine, though very obvious in terms of an outcome.

-A good main event this week. AEW didn’t overdo it with the Adam Cole and Britt Baker relationship and it played better than normal. They looked like partners who genuinely cared about one another and nobody had to beat the audience over the head with the fact that that was true. That’s two wins for Cole over Jericho. My prediction is he has a date with MJF and the AEW World Championship lined up for later this summer. That’s one of the biggest matches AEW has right now.

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