Month: May 2026

Live Review of AEW Dynamite (5/13/26, Asheville NC)

Live Review of AEW Dynamite (5/13/26, Asheville NC)

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound as it hits the ground?

If you fly in a wrestler for a television show, and he or she appears on the show as a background characters, or window dressing, does it count as a booking?

This was the question my brain pondered as I left Asheville on Wednesday night, following a very entertaining live episode of Dynamite. This was my second live AEW event — the first was a Dynamite in Knoxville in January of 2025. The show in Asheville was much more entertaining. The main event was a legitimate match of the year contender and the opening match was fantastic.

Still, the number of people who appeared on the show but did not wrestle was glaring. The list included:

  • All the Death Riders (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC, Wheeler Yuta, Daniel Garcia, and Marina Shafir)
  • All of The Demand (Ricochet, Toa Liona, and Bishop Kaun)
  • Roderick Strong, Kyle O’Reilly, Willow Nightingale, and Mark Briscoe of The Conglomeration
  • The Opps (Samoa Joe, Katsuyori Shibata, and Anthony Bowens)
  • Mark Davis, Andrade, Rocky Romero, Clon, and Trent from The Don Callis Family (there are a lot of groups in AEW…)
  • Thunder Rosa
  • Mina Shirikawa

That’s 23 people. Granted, the Death Riders did a video segment with Will Ospreay before his match — and came out after his match when The Opps confronted Ospreay. Willow, Thunder Rosa, Mina, and Clon all made run ins. Still, to fly in that many people? For interviews or just to stand silently in the background? In this economy?

You can also count MJF in the “appearing but not wrestling” category, but he was part of the major show-closing contract signing segment, rarely wrestles on TV, and has his highest value for AEW as a talker and personality.

This event was a step up in almost every aspect. Parking was right outside the venue, and when doors opened, the line to get in moved at a brisk pace. That can’t be said of the Knoxville event, where the line moved slow … on a cold January night, no less. There were multiple concession stands available, and they took cash as well as cards. Lines for the merchandise table were massive both before and after the event, but when we checked it out following the broadcast, that moved rather quickly as well.

Once the cameras went off, Tony Khan came out and addressed the crowd and said that AEW would return to Asheville. Based on my overall experience and the quality of this show, I would come back.

Let’s get into this entire event from top to bottom.

DARK MATCHES

Satnam Singh vs. Warden: Warden, who works the North Carolina independent circuit regularly, got a nice reaction from the Asheville crowd who cheered him and booed Singh throughout the match. This was short, and an almost total squash. Singh, who is gigantic, got booed vigorously after finishing Warden with a chokeslam.

Steven Borden & Kiran Grey vs. Elijah Drago and Tyler Shoop: Borden is one of Sting’s sons. Shoop was trained just down the road from me in Knoxville by Tom Prichard. This was also his 250th match, according to his social media:

I’d never seen Grey, Borden’s tag partner before. He was very active — maybe a little too active — with hops and jumps. Drago is ridiculously built and athletic as well. These four combined to put on a solid little tag match. The entire match built around giving the hot tag to Borden, and they did a good job teasing it. I especially liked one moment where Drago used a bear hug to cut off Grey when he was mere feet away from making the tag. Borden has a lot of presence and good execution for someone who’s had so few matches. He stacked both goes in their corner for a Stinger Splash, to the crowd’s delight — and mine. Nifty finisher ended it: a variation on Total Elimination with Borden hitting a standing dropkick as Grey delivered a legsweep kick.

DYNAMITE

Young Bucks, Adam Copeland, Christian Cage & Orange Cassidy vs. FTR, The Dogs & Tommaso Ciampa

I knew from the moment Rick Knox came to the ring to referee what was coming. The Bucks specialize in this type of wild multi-man match and this was a great one. It was a fantastic experience live and I look forward to watching what made TV to see how it compared. Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler both live in the area so they got the hometown reaction during introductions, then leaned hard into their position as heel champions once the action started. Copeland, another Asheville guy, got a monstrous reaction from the fans. He’s such a better fit in the tag division, or in matches like this, than he was when he first came to AEW as a singles main eventer. Remember the feud with Moxley that seemed to never end? Dark times for the Rebellion, dark times …

This match started with a brawl involving all 10 men — Matt Jackson and Clark Connors fought their way into the section next to us — and kept up a non-stop pace until the finish. The final stretch was rapid-fire and flowed differently than the usual cascade of moves in a multi-man match, where one wrestler hits a move, then gets taken out by the second, who gets wiped out by the third. All of that happened here but it happened so fast as to make it more memorable. The hometown guy Copeland finished Connors with a spear and the Asheville crowd rejoiced. I enjoy how Christian is still the same miserable grump he’s been in AEW for years; he just wrestles with fan favorites as his allies now.

Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Westbrook

A very quick squash. Westbrook is BK Westbrook, a regular on the Southeast independent scene. He had a funny spot where he got tangled up in the ropes that looked designed rather than accidental — in a good way. Speedball’s partner Kevin Knight, the current TNT Champion, was ringside, which led to…

TNT Title Open Challenge

Knight’s challenger was Brian Cage, part of the Callis Family, and wrestling his first AEW match since March of 2025 after tearing his quad and undergoing multiple knee surgeries. I was not expecting that. This was a pretty good match but it never hit that next gear. There was a wonky spot leading to the finish. Still, AEW has got something in Knight as a high-flying good guy.

After the match, both men got some microphone time and Bailey challenged Darby Allin for the World Title next week. Bailey has a smarmy quality to him that I think would make him a fantastic heel.

Will Ospreay vs. Ace Austin

Before this match we got a Death Riders training video from what looked like the top of a parking garage in Asheville. The scenery was nice. I’m still not really understanding the story; Ospreay was out for blood on Moxley just a month ago and now they’re training partners?

I’m the outlier on this match, which I saw getting high praise online. In terms of technique, it was very good — maybe great — but it went too long. Ospreay started out doing some gnarly arm work on Austin, then drifted away from it so both of them could hit all their greatest hits, before finishing Ace with an armbar. I liked the start and the finish; they just took the very scenic route to get there, seemingly so both guys could get in all their signature moves. The fact this match got the “This Is Awesome” chant, overdone as it might be, and the opening 10-man tag did not, is slightly bonkers. I much preferred the tag match.

After the match, The Opps — led by Samoa Joe, who faces Ospreay at Double or Nothing next week in the first round of the Owen Hart Cup — came out to confront Ospreay but the Death Riders made the save. I wasn’t expecting to see Shibata in person, but it would have been nice to see him do something besides menacingly stand there.

Hikaru Shida & the Brawling Birds vs. Triangle of Madness

I’m into the heels trio of Thekla, Julia Hart, and Skye Blue. They’ve got some good team maneuvers and use the frequent tags, bending the rules, and breaking them when needed — Thekla got disqualified for smashing one of her opponents in the head with her title belt. This was my first time seeing Thekla live, and while she didn’t do a ton given the nature of the match, she stood out in this match to me. Skye Blue is also much improved.

Main Event

Darby Allin defends the AEW World Title against Konosuke Takeshita

The best match that I’ve ever seen in person took place 20 (!) years ago at the first Supercard of Honor: the Blood Generation vs. Do Fixer six-man tag that set the standard for that style, on this continent at least.

It’s also the only match I’ve seen in person that was better than this one. Darby and Takeshita destroyed one another in one of my favorite matches of 2024 at a Dynamite and, with higher stakes, they topped themselves here. Darby has been the epitome of a fighting champion since he dethroned MJF last month. The build has centered on a rematch with MJF at Double or Nothing — only if MJF agrees to put his hair on the line — but Darby has been defending the title every chance he gets. Allin’s been a favorite of mine since AEW first started. He’s a tremendous underdog and takes a beating like no other. He’s incredibly small but makes his lack of stature work for him. Rather than throw bigger opponents with power moves that defy the laws of physics, he uses his speed and willingness to turn his own body into a projectile. … Not to mention a high pain tolerance and seemingly zero regard for his own safety. The way he just hurls himself at his opponent on a suicide dive? That’s Darby’s style in a nutshell. The champ launched himself at Takeshita in this one, time and time again. Coffin Drop after Coffin Drop, until finally it was enough to put down Takeshita. These two also combined for one of the damnedest moves I’ve seen in more than 40 years of watching wrestling:

I can’t remember ever seeing a German suplex like this from the top, where the one delivering the move hangs on all the way to the mat. What else should we have expected, given Darby’s willingness to push the envelope and Takeshita’s past academic study on it, considering he actually wrote his college dissertation on the German suplex. At first, Darby was slated to defend against Kazuchika Okada on this card. I was disappointed I didn’t get the chance to see Okada wrestle in person, but I don’t think there’s any way that hypothetical match could have completed with the sheer spectacle of this one. The end result was fantastic, aside from a spot where Callis slipped Takeshita a foreign object while Clon had the referee distracted; this had an element of theatrics that felt unnecessary.

After the match, MJF came out for a contract signing with Allin to officially put his hair on the line for next week’s pay-per-view.

Final Thoughts

AEW is not a perfect wrestling product, if such a thing even can exist. There’s still much of everything. Too many titles. Too many people on the roster. Matches that would be more effective if they were shorter. That said, watching AEW is a breath of fresh air compared to WWE for me. I had a very good time watching this show, and it stoked my interest to stay caught up with their shows. That’s not something I could have said after my first live experience with AEW, last January in Knoxville.

Brother Azriel Interview

Brother Azriel Interview

Brother Azriel had felt sick for more than a week. When he started throwing up black liquid in the locker room at a show, he knew it was time to go to the hospital.

It was January of 2025 and Azriel ultimately received a diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis. Scary, but manageable. Still, he chose to take a couple of months off from the ring.

Recently, Azriel — the current Kraken Pro champion at Kraken Pro Wrestling — discussed his health scare, his background, working for Kraken, and more.

“I didn’t have that thought, about not ever coming back,” Azriel said. “I knew I was taking a break. As soon as I got from the hospital and the doc they said he can go back to regular activities. But with my wrestling mind, I thought, ‘It’ll be a cool pop if they know I’m OK but don’t know when I’m gonna come back and I show up outta nowhere.’

“I kept it low key. On my Instagram story, I had a little video of Goku in the hyperbolic chamber and put different songs to it. Until I came back at Pro South.

Azriel made his return last spring, more than a year ago. Since then, he’s won the top singles titles for Pro South Wrestling in Alabama and, as of March, the Kraken Pro Title in Kraken Pro Wrestling.

“A promotion that puts any title on you, thats a stamp of approval,” he said. “It’s, ‘This is our guy. He’s gonna have the workrate to put on good matches and tell good stories.’ “

Azriel turned heel at the event where he won the title, aligning himself with Justin Kayse and The Business. Standing alongside Kayse, who is without question the man that Kraken fans love to hate, immediately makes Azriel one of the top villains in the promotion. He’s good with it.

“Everyone wants to see him get punched in the face,” Azriel said of Kayse. “You don’t have that many guys around who are ready and willing to do that type of work.”

After playing football — offensive line, which will surprise no one given his build — Azriel has been involved in wrestling for about a decade. He bounced around with a few different trainers at first but credits Spinebuster Championship Wrestling for giving him his true start: “I honed in on my skills after that. After that I went out and did different seminars to get a lot better.”

The Azriel character manifested after he learned how Finn Balor drew his name in WWE from Irish legend and mythology. Azriel wanted a similar character, derived from African folklore. The only problem: most of the names he found, he felt, would be too difficult to pronounce. Then he found “Azrael”, the African spirit of death, or angel of death, depending on what source you find.

Azriel, the fifth Kraken Pro champion in the near two-year history of the promotion, has been part of the Kraken roster since its first show. He’s seen the audiences and the support grow as Kraken has moved from one venue to another to accommodate its crowds. Actually, he’s been part of Kraken since before it officially debuted; Kraken promoter Sam Hanson was an early training partner.

“He kinda told me the idea of Kraken actually before it was even a thing: the logo, everything, before he started it. I was in the know before it was even formed.

“Being there at the beginning, seeing it get as big as it is, it’s very grassroots,” he added. “All of us are out there promoting. We work on the social media. Somebody works on editing the videos, doing the graphics for the videos, the motion videos, the SmackDown vs Raw type stuff. Guys are sharing the posts, making their own promos to share as well or just helping out any way that they can. It’s us. Doing as much as we can. Make it as big as we can make it.”

Azriel’s story continues Sunday at the Kraken Classic, when he defends the Kraken Pro Title for the first time against Dominic Stuckey, the man he defeated for it. The execution of that title change was a double turn that hearkened back to the days of classic territorial wrestling. Stuckey ran afoul of Justin Kayse, and Azriel, who had a championship match any time he wanted after successfully defending Kraken’s Cash In Hand Title three times, came in, waylaid Stuckey, and quickly beat him to claim the title and join The Business.

“That was one of my favorites,” Azriel said of the angle surrounding him becoming champion. “I was in the [earlier] match, the Cash In Hand Scramble, and I was down getting stomped and the fans were chanting my name. I thought, ‘This is gonna be a good one tonight.’ “

After his health scare, becoming Kraken champion and headlining the promotion’s biggest show of the year, means a little bit more.

“It’s like a second opportunity. It just makes me more concentrated to put in more work and have the best performance I can.”

Editor’s Note: Hope you enjoyed the first of what will, hopefully, be many interviews here on the site. If you like the content here, or you’re here for the first time to read, please follow us on social media. If you have a WordPress, you can also join our subscriber list and every new article will be sent directly to you via email.

Review the Kraken: Teams and Alliances

Review the Kraken: Teams and Alliances

Context matters.

Last month I got the chance to attend a Kraken Pro Wrestling event in person, which also happened to be the go-home show for the Kraken Classic, also the second anniversary show for the promotion. Meanwhile, in this review series, it feels like the first anniversary show just happened. Knowing where things end up provides a whole different perspective as I continue these reviews.

My goal is to be caught up this summer, so let’s get to it.

Here’s all the episodes that came out of this taping:

Episode 57

Donnie Harris and Diamond Duke do the opening in Gray Ghost Comics, a local business that sponsors Kraken. Duke is wearing a “Spaceballs” shirt, which earns him a grace period for complaining about slow counts and double teaming for, um, at least this episode. They hype up the Tides of War tag team tournament, which is set to play out over the next eight months. That’s an insane amount of time for a tournament, but not only did they pull it off, but they did it without any replacement teams brought in from outside, which is a huge achievement for an independent promotion.

The structure is round robin, with teams getting 1 point for a win, 2 for a submission, and three for a DQ victory. A pinfall loss costs a point, with a submission loss -2 points, and a DQ loss -3 points. This comes into play during this taping.

Kraken episodes are usually quick and short on talking segments, but the in-ring promo with The Business is the tentpole of this episode, as Josh Breezzyy gets added to the group and Jay 2 Strong gets added, Clever staging on the entrance, with Jay opening the ropes for everyone else in the faction. Breezzyy seems like an odd fit in The Business — and, after watching live, still does — but we should have known he was a heel at heart with the extra letters in his name. Justin Kayse does a roll call and Jay is conspicuous by admission. That sparks a beatdown initiated by Dom Stuckey because, as Kayse said, “We only have room for winners.” To me this made Breezzyy an even more curious choice since he hasn’t won really anything of note to date in Kraken. Nevertheless, this was a good bit of wrestling TV. Kayse carried this. He’s improved so much as a talker since Kraken first began.

First match on the card is for the Cash In Hand Title, with Joey Hyder defending against Kevin Kantrell, ERC, and JP Harlow. There’s a solid backstage interview with Harlow leading into the match that made me want to see more of him but I’m not sure if he ever comes back. This is probably the best scramble Kraken has done aside from the Ultimate scramble back at the Kraken Classic. Harlow followed up an entertaining introductory promo by being entertaining in the ring. ERC stays his sneaky self, and there’s some excellent camera work on his running hip attacks. Hyder eats a forearm while in the middle of a standing moonsault in a wild bit of timing. Kantrell and Harlow have a slick exchange before Kantrell taps him.

Last match on this episode (does it classify as a main event if it’s last?) puts Joe Black against Kassius King. This fell in the “Fun Squash” category for me. This is just the second appearance in Kraken for Joe, but he already feels like a big deal because of his general presence, his ability as a talker, and the excellent match with Kantrell back at the Kraken Classic. King gets a little offense in but mostly sells for Black — and sells well, especially on a lariat that wraps things up.

Episode 58

A pretty skippable episode. The highlight for me was the amusing backstage interview that kicked off this installment with Kay talking to Quick Drip: Nick Quick and Dante Dripp. They go on to lose to All Star Special in the first match of Tides of War that also felt like a foregone conclusion. Dante gets knocked out cold during this contest.

We also get the first match for Jaz Jones since she joined The Business against Alicia Love. Alicia has the upper hand and starts talking trash to Justin Kayse at ringside for some reason that eludes me and gets rolled up and pinned. Speaking of “Spaceballs” …

At least she didn’t get distracted in the middle of the match by someone’s music playing. That drives me crazy.

Episode 59

More Tides of War action, as The Business, represented by Breezyy and Stuckey, take on the Saturday Night Temptations. This is a decent little tag match. Duke uses up his mulligan with me by complaining about the double team. The Business win after Karl Hager takes a low blow and Dom hits his finisher on CJ Shine. We also get a rock-solid promo by Joe Black, which just adds to what I was saying about his strong presentation.

Charlie Kills faces Travis Ray in the episode main event. Charlie has his red mask and singlet again, continuing to give Spoiler vibes. The regular disclaimers by the announcers about Kraken being anti-murder in Charlie Kills matches consistently amuse me. Charlie gets the win with a reversal in a match that didn’t connect with me, or the crowd, as I would have hoped.

Episode 60

The two best matches of this set of episodes happen here. First up, Noir face Don Haylo and Jayy Wells in the Tides of War. Noir have really grown on me since they debuted in the early days of Kraken, and I’m still curious to see the journey from hated rulebreakers here to really strong fan favorites by this year’s Kraken Classic. Meanwhile, I’ve sung the praises of Haylo and Wells consistently in these pieces, so making them a regular tag team gets a big thumbs up from this corner. Vice Cream have a good energy, and a pleasant dynamic in interviews that makes them easy to like. Mrs. Wright is conspicuous by her absence. Mr. Wright has really sharpened his game in recent outings and that continues here. He even busts out a swank Bret Hart-style running clothesline. There’s a good battle between Haylo and Ehren Black, where Haylo even levels the much bigger Black with a running shoulder tackle. Haylo and Wright have a somewhat awkward exchange down the home stretch, but they make lemonade from lemons, as the result just made Haylo look like more of a powerhouse. Clever finish; Will Huckaby and Sam Hansin interfere and attack… Haylo and Wells? This disqualifies Noir, putting them in a three-point hole early in the Tides of War after the heels shaved Hanson’s head at the last taping. Clever.

In the main event of the episode and the taping, Trever Aeon defends the Kraken Pro title against Lamar Diggs of The Business. Diggs got a guaranteed title shot by winning the Kraken Classic a couple of months ago. I’ve written before about big-fight feel adding to the ambiance of matches, and some very good introductions by Kay go a long way to creating that aura. Kayse continues to show how far he’s come, fanning Diggs with his loaded briefcase early in the match when The Business’ big man powders out to the floor. Aeon has some slick moments here; see how he lured Diggs into a triangle choke while seeming to reel from previous offense. Still, this was the Diggs show for me for much of the match. He busts out a standing dropkick that’s impressive for a guy his size but my favorite was when he hits a fallaway slam that chucks Aeon to the floor, turns to the ringside fans, and bellows “He’s all yours!” Love it. Love everything about it. Aeon puts together quite the comeback, hoisting Diggs for three back drop suplexes. Chaos reigns at the finish. Kayse pulls Referee Clark out of the ring and whacks him with the briefcase before Clark can call for the DQ or eject Kayse from ringside. That brings the rest of The Business to the ring, but wait! Aeon, who teases he’s got reinforcements on Episode 58, gets that help when Eric Silva and Austin Towers, a/k/a the Left Hand head for the ring. The Path clean house, during which Towers, who’s enormous, Sparta kicks Jaz halfway to Alabama. Aeon hits his Kiss Kiss Bang Bang finisher on Diggs, which was an impressive sight, and the champ retains.

One complaint on commentary in this episode: Donnie refers to both Ehren Black and Diggs as “a wrecking ball in wrestling boots.” That was a phrase Donnie previously used just for Brother Azriel, who’s absent from this taping. I preferred it that way; referring to any big man on the roster by the same phrase, even if it’s clever, diminishes the impact of the phrase.

Miss any installments? Check out the index of Review the Kraken entries.