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.
In Moore House Wrestling 