Pruett’s Pause: 10 Thoughts on AEW Dynamite – Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega bring their best with Renee Paquette, Jon Moxley brings out the best in Jay White, Kevin Knight blows up Darby Allin to introduce Lil’ Stinger

By Will Pruett, ProWrestling.net Co-Senior Staffer (@itswilltime)

I spent the last week pretending to rough it in a California beach city enjoying a sleeping bag and some time away! Now that I am back to sleeping in a real bed, it’s time to think about AEW Dynamite as the Road to Wembley continues…

– Overall this show gave us our best build yet to Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay at All In outside of the series of post-pay-per-view conversations this story began with. The conversation with Renee Paquette backstage delivered the best character work both Omega and Ospreay have done in this feud. It gave us a reason to cheer for Ospreay, even against Kenny, and showed us Kenny at his prick-ish best (like 2016 Kenny Omega reborn). This was followed up at the end of the show with one of the weakest segments in this build yet. Kenny Omega went from the calm, confident, cocky champion to an over-the-top scream villain. It felt false, while the earlier work from Omega felt true to his character in AEW. I understand that the goal is to get Ospreay cheered at Wembley Stadium and that leaving no doubt about who to cheer is important, but Omega has been a feel-good hero in AEW for the past month. Why change this now?

– It is no mistake that most wrestlers seem at their most confident and ready to perform while sitting next to Renee Paquette. Since joining AEW in 2022, Paquette has been a consistently great on-air performer. She brings great reactions when there is overwhelming chaos around her and can hold her own in verbal segments like the two on this show where seriousness is needed. Renee has been an asset to AEW and it’s felt on shows like these. The build to All In (or likely any major AEW show) would not work as well without Paquette.

– Jon Moxley and Jay White had my favorite Jay White singles match in AEW on this show. Moxley has been brining out the best in every opponent he meets in the ring in 2026 and White finally seemed game to have a great match. This was my pick as the Continental Cup Tournament’s final match and, after seeing this, I will consider almost any other tournament final a mistake. White really could have used this boost on a memorable AEW pay-per-view and honestly could probably use a big win over a star like Moxley.

– With Jay White out of the Continental Cup running the Nigel McGuinness advancing, I am now wondering if this tournament is about getting McGuinness to Wembley Stadium for a major match against Moxley in an “against all odds” sort of build. The injury McGuinness is working with (or working) adds more to the stacked odds against him. I wish a soft build of Nigel would have began three months ago instead of being sprung on us at the last minute. At the same time, this build for Nigel will be very satisfying as he enters Wembley. AEW is lining up their hometown stars to look very strong at Wembley Stadium.

– Mercedes Moné and Willow Nightingale are delivering consistently entertaining and compelling segments in their build to All In. I wondered if there was still meat on the bone of their feud after their past matches in AEW and I am happy to look foolish for that. Moné is a great natural counterpunch to the relentless positivity of Willow and Willow can stand up to the strong character and personality of Moné beautifully. This feud is super compelling and will lead to some great action at Wembley.

– Konosuke Takeshita returning on this show to once again be a thorn in the side of Kazuchika Okada (who delivered an amazing promo early in the night) and Kyle Fletcher was wonderful. This feud has been built and has felt natural for months. We are treading watch going into this match, but not in a negative way. This threeway could easily steal the show at Wembley Stadium.

– I don’t understand why Maya World is challenging Willow for the AEW Women’s World Championship on Saturday night on Collision. Did someone watch an old Dynamite and notice Willow making a promise to Maya and decide to fix a continuity error? I don’t love this, mostly because I want to see Maya have her own story for All In and get her own time delivering compelling promos and in a compelling feud.

– The AEW Trios Championship picture looks both very weird and a little bit obvious going into All In. It seems like multiple teams will challenge Hangman Adam Page, Brody King, and Bandido, but will this be one giant Trios ClusterMatch or a gauntlet of some sort? Did this show need another match meant to get all of the men on the roster on the show after the Casino Gauntlet Match? Swerve Strickland has already indicated interest in this one. Will we get another chapter of Hangman vs. Swerve? Will this chapter involve Kofi and Austin Creed debuting for AEW? I am absolutely into this idea.

– Kevin Knight blowing up Darby Allin then hitting him with a chair-assisted coast-to-coast was a nice addition to their feud. Darby has promised to be honorable and play no tricks while Kevin continues to be an evil man with friends who run pyro. Using this feud as a soft launch of Steven Borden Jr. (Lil’ Stinger) should lead to a fun moment at Wembley when Sting and his son take out some assorted Don Callis Family members while a Metallica song plays.

– I am always in favor of seeing Kenny Omega team up with The Young Bucks on AEW television, even when those matches are essentially squash matches against overmatched midcarders. This match had the bonus of making me realize how fun a Kenny Omega vs. Mark Davis match could be. I pray we see a weird serious singles match between these two wrestlers, so Omega can face off against everyone’s favorite Australian Beefy Boy.

Those are the thoughts! We just have one of these standing between us and All In (which starts at 10:00am Pacific Time, which feels so weird)! Hopefully AEW has saved their most compelling build for their last week.

Will Pruett writes about wrestling and popular culture at prowrestling.net. To see his video content subscribe to his YouTube channel. To contact, check him out on Bluesky @itswilltime, leave a comment, or email him at [email protected].