Back in the saddle again with another Dynamite, this time with less than a week to go before AEW Dynasty in Philadelphia. Tonight we get a Tornado Tag Match with Jon Moxley and Marina Shafir against Swerve Strickland and Willow Nightingale just days away from Swerve saving us all from Jon Moxley and Death Riders once and for all.

Ahead of her title match against Megan Bayne, Toni Storm wrestles Penelope Ford. Ford and Toni had one of the all-time great shots in AEW history on Collision with Toni, bathed in a spotlight at the edge of the ring, had her head taken off by a Penelope Ford kick coming in from off-screen. Just beautiful stuff.

Also Cope wrestles Claudio Castagnoli. It's fine. It seems like we're on some sort of breaking point with Rated FTR that could come at Dynasty. Is a split for FTR on the horizon? Is FTR going to turn on Cope after setting their own goals on the backburner for far too long? Will we see something more unexpected like Copeland beating FTR to the punch and turning on them first? Who knows! As long as Copeland stays out of the World Title scene, I think I'm okay with whatever comes.

A little intergender wrestling, accidentally

Intergender wrestling has always been a thing teased but not done in AEW. Or, maybe more accurately, intergender physicality moreso than an actual intergender match. It's never been more teased than with Willow Nightingale and Marina Shafir being involved in and around Death Riders for the past several months.

Tonight, the Tornado Tag Match saw a bit more intergender action than usual but it was mostly woman-on-man which is the go-to for AEW. Most of the time, the intergender spots in AEW rely on a woman beating a man's ass on purpose or a man accidentally hitting a woman.

We got more of that tonight, as well as the classic "man teases he's going to hit a move on a woman but gets interrupted" trope. In the finish, Marina shoved Mox out of the way to sacrifice herself by taking the full brunt of Swerve's House Call kick.

Following up on this, Willow shoulder blocked Mox off of the apron and through a table before finishing Marina off with the Babe with the Powerbomb.

Post-match, Moxley drilled Willow with a Paradigm Shift before vacating the premises with Marina. They annoyingly sold this like death for Willow which really bugged me. Why is Willow's neck more susceptible to damage from a DDT just because a man does the move? She's been in some brutal fucking matches in AEW but one DDT from Mox is enough to almost kill her?

It felt like total cheeseball stuff and unnecessary. Sell it like she got sneak-attacked and hit with someone's finisher like normal; don't amp it up just because it happened to be a man's finisher.

Introducing: Kevin Knight

Kevin Knight's debut on Collision came out of nowhere but was a good one! He had a great singles match with Jay White and Tony Schiavone revealed, rather nonchalantly on commentary, that Knight was "all elite." This was followed with a post-match promo from Jay putting Knight over and an official graphic on the socials.

With Jay injured, Knight was slotted into his spot in the Owen Hart Tournament. Knight will face Will Ospreay in the first round and tonight they teamed up against Blake Christian and Lee Johnson who have just recently popped up on AEW TV after spending months and months in Ring of Honor.

I hope that Blake & Lee are here for the long haul and that they're not just in AEW for a few months to eat some losses. It's nice to have the people who have been working hard in Ring of Honor get bumped up to AEW. It freshens up the show quite a bit.

It was announced that Knight and Ospreay would have their first-round match in the tournament at Dynasty. What a welcome for Kevin Knight! I'm curious as to what the plan for him would have been had Jay White not been injured. Everything that's happening with Knight feels so natural that it's hard to believe he's a replacement.

If you were going to plan someone's first few weeks in the company, you couldn't plan a better one than this: wrestling Jay White one week, teaming with Will Ospreay the next, and then a PPV match with Ospreay a few days later. I don't see Knight beating Ospreay in the tournament, but his performance could make him a made man in AEW on Sunday night.

The women's main event trend has been broken

The last three shows were main evented by the women's division and it kicked ass! The matches were fun, the storyline hooks were cool, and it was nice to just have women's main events without it being made into a big deal. Just do it sometimes!

Tonight, Adam Copeland versus Claudio Castagnoli were in the main event and it was fine. I've not been shy about my displeasure for the whole Death Riders thing especially when it concerns the whole Copeland feud. It's all felt so boring and samey to me.

I'm okay with Copeland being involved if the feud is with the Trios Champions instead of the World Champion, but I can still only be so interested. The real story of the Trios Titles match at Dynasty is whether or not Rated FTR can make it through the match without blowing up on each other.

It seems increasingly likely that FTR will either split (low percentage) or turn on Copeland (higher percentage). What becomes of Copeland in that case? Well, with The Patriarchy seemingly dissolving before our very eyes, could Copeland find unexpected solace in his former partner Christian Cage?

I sincerely hope that whatever happens, we get heel FTR. They're more interesting than babyface FTR and the promo work Dax has been doing the past couple of weeks has been really good in selling him as a weird, self-absorbed, "everybody is against me but I'm trying my best" jerk of a heel. Let's get more of that, please.

NATURE IS HEALING

It was brief but it was beautiful. At the end of the show, Swerve Strickland was stomping around looking for Jon Moxley. Instead, Hangman Page found Swerve Strickland.

The two got into a shouting match with Swerve shouting "YOU BURNED DOWN MY HOUSE" and Hangman replying "YOU DESERVED IT" to which Swerve replied "I KNOW!"

Hangman staggered. He asked what Swerve had just said and Swerve repeated himself. Hangman, visibly conflicted and unsure of what the hell was happening in anybody's brain let alone his own, staggered off into the distance only for Moxley and Death Riders to find Swerve alone and lay a beating on him.

Bonus points because my favorite indie tag team Violence Is Forever were security guards in this segment. Please sign them, Tony. Sign them today.

Wrapping Up

We learned during the show open that Jay White had been "attacked earlier today" by Death Riders and would not be cleared to compete in The Owen Hart Cup. It looked like Jay was favoring his wrist at the end of his match with Kevin Knight on Collision, so I'm assuming something is broken in ole Switchblade's wrist.

I hope that a) Jay's injury isn't super serious and b) he comes back deranged and as a heel with The Gunns and Juice by his side ready to fuck everybody's shit right up. I don't know why The Gunns showed up for two weeks and then disappeared again, and I don't understand why they haven't been paired on-screen with Jay despite commentators still talking about Bullet Club Gold/the Bang Bang Gang. It doesn't make sense!

Congratulations to The Hurt People and The Learning Tree for getting through two whole segments without anyone calling someone a bitch! Maybe the roster got a little talking to about the overuse of "bitch" as an insult, and hopefully a further talk about why telling a guy that his tag partner is a woman and his girlfriend is stupid bullshit that nobody wants to hear anymore.

We got both brackets for The Owen tonight and they're looking good! The biggest surprise is maybe that they'll be giving away Mercedes Moné and Athena in the semi-finals of the tournament, which possibly means a Billie Starkz/Moné final to see if Billie can redeem herself from her recent loss to Mercedes? Honestly, lots of possibilities in both tournaments this year which is nice!