AEW has hyped of plenty of segments for this week’s (Apr. 29) episode of Dynamite, and Tony Khan can barely contain his excitement for what the promotion has to offer:
For my money, the best episode of empty arena wrestling that I’ve seen in months was Dynamite’s first such episode on Mar. 18. On that night, AEW was working with a mostly full roster and delivered surprise debuts for Brodie Lee and Broken Matt Hardy. Their shows have suffered since then due to taping with a severely limited roster. There are only so many weeks in a row of Shawn Spears matches that one can withstand. All wrestling shows are much worse off for not having a live crowd. WWE filled time on Raw and SmackDown prior to WrestleMania 36 by replaying old matches, and since then they have increased the number of squash matches; aside from seeing Aleister Black’s finisher, WWE’s squash matches usually aren’t very interesting. What I’m trying to get at is that it’s difficult to put on a great pro wrestling show without a live audience and when rosters are not operating anywhere close to full strength. But next week’s episode of Dynamite is already taped, and it’s clear that Tony Khan feels great about what AEW has in store for wrestling fans. The current advertised lineup includes Cody Rhodes vs. Darby Allin, Dustin Rhodes vs. Lance Archer, Brodie Lee vs. Marko Stunt, Best Friends vs. Jimmy Havoc & Kip Sabian, and an appearance from Jon Moxley. And hopefully Chris Jericho will be back on commentary. Does that sound like the best episode of wrestling television in months?