It's Dynasty, baby! Tonight is the night Swerve Strickland saves us all from the doldrums of Jon Moxley and Death Riders. This has dragged on far, far too long and it's time to catch the wave of momentum AEW has been on recently and strap Swerve up for the second time.

I can't imagine Moxley holding the belt until All In to face the winner of The Owen. That's just too long to keep flopping that old corpse around. Moxley and Death Riders desperately need to be doing something else away from the World Title to refresh themselves. I don't think I can make it until July with Mox on top.

The Owen kicks off

Kevin Knight continued his Very Good Month by having an excellent show-opener against Will Ospreay. Ospreay, of course, picked up the win but this was yet another sensational showing for Knight in his third official AEW match. They've truly rolled out the red carpet to make sure Knight has been presented as a huge deal with enormous potential.

Knight's run comes at the expense of a Jay White injury that took Switchblade out of the tournament completely, and I have to wonder where Knight would have found himself on the card had Jay not gone down to injury. Whatever the original plans were, this has been a great rebound for Knight and I only hope Jay has a similar rebound once he's back.

Mercedes Moné snuck a win out of Julia Hart in a match that was a little rougher than I was expecting. It felt like whenever some momentum was building, some miscommunication caused things to slowdown and take me out of the match. It wasn't a sloppy mess of botches or anything, just rough enough around the edges to not keep me completely hooked in.

In one of the most ridiculous matches I've seen in... well... since the last AEW PPV, I guess, Kyle Fletcher beat Mark Briscoe in opening round action. The match started hot with Fletcher diving onto Briscoe as he made his way to the ring and it didn't let up until the three count. These guys just absolutely make magic together whenever they're in the ring. This is the fourth time they've wrestled in AEW/Ring of Honor and their matches honestly get better every single time out.

Fletcher is just making his case, over and over again, for why he's the future of AEW and a future World Champion. He has it all and gets better every single week.

Briscoe, of course, is great every time out as well and one of the most consistent guys AEW can put in the ring. The guy deserves a run with one of the many men's singles titles at some point. He's somewhat unassuming; you kind of forget he's as good as he is sometimes – or just assume he's not going to wrestle the style he does because of the way he looks and promos. There's like a baseline good you expect his matches to be, because you know he never phones it in, but then he always over-delivers. He's just great.

FTR stands for Fuck The Rated R Superstar

In the Trios Title Match, Death Riders retains the belts over Rated FTR when that little shit Wheeler Yuta, basking in the boos of the hometown Philly crowd, pinned Dax Harwood after a Busaiku Knee – and a forced collision between Harwood and Adam Copeland.

The match itself was great! As a long-time Death Riders non-enjoyer, I'm not one to mince words when I'm feeling bored by and/or tired of Death Riders bullshit. This was not one of those times. If these guys were out there defending the Trios Titles every couple of weeks like this, I'd hold them in such higher esteem.

While the match was great, the post-match was on the same level. Cash Wheeler and Copeland helped Dax to his feet then all embraced. As Cash left the ring, Dax delivered a piledriver on Copeland to the shock and chagrin of Cash. I joked to myself, "he's pissed because they were supposed to spike piledrive him together!"

Well, I was kind of right! Dax set Copeland up for a Conchairto but Cash stopped the proceedings. Instead, the duo laid Copeland out with the Shatter Machine, then the Spike Piledriver, then a pair of Conchairtos from Cash himself.

As Copeland lay unconscious in the ring, Cash stole the neckbrace from the medical staff rushing to the ring and then threw himself on the stretcher at ringside to a chorus of boos. What a couple of glorious shitheads.

FTR have officially turned heel and it was perfect in every way. They are so much more interesting this way, and I imagine we'll get a huge marquee match at All In out of it – perhaps FTR versus a freshly reunited Adam Copeland and Christian Cage?

Megan Bayne has "it", but "it" isn't the World Title... yet

I was at odds with what should happen and what would happen between Toni Storm and Megan Bayne in the World Title match. It certainly makes sense to send Toni Storm into All In as the World Champion considering she has consistently been the most popular woman in the company for a long, long time. At the same time, it would have made sense to strap the rocket to Megan Bayne and solidify her monster push with the World Title.

Bayne dominated Storm throughout most of the match not only with her offense but with her resilience. After Storm hid a quartet of hip attacks in the corner followed by the Storm Zero piledriver, Bayne kicked out at one. She than ran through Storm like shit through a goose with a handful of power moves leaving Storm flat on her back after a powerbomb.

Bayne setup for Fate's Descent but took a little too long in delivering it, leaving herself open to a counter from Storm in the form of a small package for the three count and win.

In defeat, Bayne looked like an absolute monster – just as she has since debuting in AEW. This was likely her longest match in the company (sorry, I don't keep a stopwatch nearby and yell out match times) and she proved that she can hang with the World Champion. If anyone had a question about whether or not Bayne was a main event wrestler or whether or not she belonged in there with the World Champion, she answered those people tonight.

Megan Bayne is the real fuckin' deal and made her mark as the monster of the women's division tonight. Now, at All In we'll see Toni Storm defend against the winner of the Owen Hart Cup and my best educated guess is that we'll see Megan Bayne and Penelope Ford wrestle a reunited Willow Nightingale and Kris Statlander. 2025 could and absolutely should be Megan Bayne's year.

Adam Cole has suddenly regressed

Adam Cole and Daniel Garcia have had some good matches in recent weeks. And that's coming from me, a staunch Adam Cole disliker! I find his matches boring, plodding, and uninspired. His offense uninspired, awkward, and not impactful. His overall vibe just stinks.

So tonight, instead of having a third good and fun match, they decided to go out there and stink up the joint with one of the slowest, laziest matches I can remember coming out of Daniel Garcia. For some reason, they decided to (sort of) have Cole sell his corpse-bone ankle while Garcia worked heel despite not really working like a heel at any point in recent weeks.

Then, of course, Adam Cole won after a couple of shitty looking Panama Sunrises and a running knee to the back of the dome.

Truly a bad, stinky, out-of-place match on an otherwise very good show. And, the wrong decision! Adam Cole should not be a singles champion! He should not have been the guy to beat Daniel Garcia! If anything, Undisputed Kingdom are better suited for Trios Titles because with Cole as a singles champion, Roderick Strong and Kyle O'Reilly are just going to fade even further into the background.

This feels like a major setback for Daniel Garcia and the wrong person for him to lose the title to. Big miss for me.

Dear Tony Khan, do you know what horseshit is?

You had it in your main event, my guy! Jon Moxley continuing to hold the AEW World Title hostage is the, as they say, drizzling shits. It's boring. It's played out. It's the same Death Riders interference spots over, and over, and over again. Even on commentary they lamented that "Well, this is what they always do" as Death Riders interfered to stop Hangman Page from (possibly) helping Swerve Strickland win the World Title.

But alas. It was the fucking Young Bucks who returned, hitting Swerve with the EVP Trigger allowing Moxley to retain.

Why do they give a shit? Why do they want Moxley to have the title at all? What benefit or connection to Swerve or Moxley can they explain away that will make any bit of sense?

In all, it was yet another tarnished ending to an otherwise good-to-great night of wrestling.

I love The Young Bucks. But, Young Bucks – please go home.

At this point, I think it's time to just turn off the show before the World Title stuff starts happening because I could not care less about the World Title while it's in the Death Riders orbit.

Dynasty (mostly) felt like a look into AEW's healthy future

Almost every match on the card tonight featured someone who is either relatively new to AEW or a younger wrestler with a lot of years ahead of them (knock on wood). It's not something I thought about much in the lead-up to this show, but watching match after match made it incredibly clear to me.

Let's just think about it – Zero Hour featured CRU, Nick Wayne, Top Flight, AR Fox, Max Caster, and Anthony Bowens. Eight guys who are easy to build the future of your company around in every division and for every title up and down the card.

And on the main show? Let's go back by match – Kevin Knight, Bryan Keith, Julia Hart, Megan Bayne, Wheeler Yuta, Ricochet, Mike Bailey, and Kyle Fletcher. And that's not including wrestlers who have been positioned as top-of-the-card wrestlers or veterans already like Mercedes Moné, Will Ospreay, FTR, Toni Storm, and Swerve Strickland who should all have many successful years ahead of them.

AEW has been riding a lot of momentum lately, in my opinion, and tonight was validation of that. With just two massive, glaring exception (Cole/Garcia, Moxley/Swerve), the entire show felt fresh and hot. Like a Little Caesars $5 Hot & Ready!

Wrapping Up

Tonight, Zero Hour more than delivered in-ring. The trios match of CRU & Nick Wayne vs Top Flight & AR Fox was an incredible show opener with Fox over as fuck from bell to bell. CRU & Wayne stole the win via interference from Mother Wayne, but hopefully that just means we're not done seeing AR Fox on AEW TV.

Nick Wayne is heading to the Best of the Super Juniors in New Japan which is excellent news. Kevin Knight will be joining him, and I only wish we had more constant AEW involvement in tournaments like the BOSJ and 5* Grand Prix. I love the way NJPW operates with its various tournaments throughout the year, and STARDOM's annual round robin tournament is always a delight.

In a surprise to nobody, Anthony Bowens returned to squarsh Max Caster. Bowens returned with new gear and new music, but sadly still with Billy Gunn by his side. Two out of three ain't bad, I guess. Bowens is running with his "Pride of Pro Wrestling" moniker which is very sweet, as was the wind up right hand he used to turn Caster's lights out.

It seemed like we got the first steps toward the (very lightly rumored) unification of the Continental and International Titles tonight when, after Kenny Omega successfully defended the International Title against Mike Bailey and Ricochet, Kazuchika Okada made his presence known.

Okada simply entered the ring and Omega decided to disengage and head to the back, but it would seem that the stars are aligning for an Omega/Okada showdown at All In Texas.

Let's not gloss over that International Title three-way, though. It went a little long for my tastes, but it was fucking incredible. It's so clear that Ricochet and Mike Bailey can easily be positioned as top guys in the company at the drop of a hat. They both connect with the crowd in vastly different ways and turn it on once the bell rings in ways not everybody on the roster can.