AEW Dynamite #289 - Spring BreakThru - Day 1 - 16/04/2025
Non Title Owen Hart Foundation 2025 Women's Tournament Semi Final Match: Athena vs. Mercedes Mone
The Boston crowd was hot for Mercedes Mone which is natural as this is her hometown and it's a packed house. Athena has been a favourite of the crowd that watches Ring of Honor which adds to the appeal. The match began with a quick and rough lock up that somehow ended up to the stage, where they ended up pointing to the trophy they are fighting for, and established a lovely pace that they managed to keep up. There were a lot of sweet sequences that they managed to chain together from a small package exchange into a great looking handspring front elbow by Athena. Mone’s reputation of being clumsy wasn’t on show either. She was very fluid and matched Athena for precision. This eventually settled into a slightly slower pace, but they kept up the intensity, instead bringing more high spots into the match, including a brutal double knee gutbuster on the top ropes. They got ambition doing tombstone reversals which didn’t really work as they struggled for leverage but to their credit, it didn’t derail the match at all, rather the fans sort of willed them to try again which speaks to the connection to the crowd they had. The match does sort of lose me as they go into the finishing act, but there are some sweet moments like a scoop slam by Athena through the ropes which I recommend seeking out for visual clarity. But they did manage to land the actual finish with a good flash pin counter to the Eclipse (if that’s still its name) even if the rhythm building to that was off-kilter. The match was excellently done for the majority. I think they managed to keep the competitive and exciting feel for the majority, except for the last 5 minutes where they sort of lost me and the momentum of the match before concluding the match with a good spot.
Owen Hart Foundation 2025 Men's Tournament Semi Final Match: Konosuke Takeshita vs. Will Ospreay
Bare with me, like this match, this is a string of thoughts that might not fully connect as a cohesive piece.
They took an interesting and unusual approach early on, doing knuckle locks and classic arm wringer spots., being deliberate in their approach. Continuing that Takeshita slowed the pace down even more with a head and chin lock, with Ospreay trying to create some momentum with a few explosive flurries. The crowd didn’t know too much about what to make of it at first, first not reacting with much noise and then chanting fight forever at an unearned moment in the match, which isn’t the first time the crowds have done that with Will Ospreay’s matches.
Then Ospreay is able to gain first in-roads with a counter off the top rope and before hitting an Oscutter on the outside ramp adjacent to the ring where Ospreay sells the impact on the ramp well too. A stunning sky twister gets a two count and an oscutter gets a second two count. Takeshita responds with a wheelbarrow suplex which was neat. This leads to a reset, where they begin with a strike exchange which transitions into Ospreay throwing three crescent kicks before Takeshita hits a blue thunder bomb. They followed up with a series of 1 counts where their selling is pretty bad (the only point in the match) before Ospreay hits a wheelbarrow which Takeshita pops up from to hit a hidden blade - an okay sequence that got the crowd to finally respond to the match they are having.
And while they are well executed in isolation, there is a severe lack of consequence to them because of how quickly they are able to sell the damage before moving onto the next sequence. The commonality between the spots are that they are usually bookended by long pauses where both wrestlers collapse in an attempt for a rest bite and selling. And that doesn’t do it for me, personally. I don’t buy that approach where you can withstand a flurry of high-impact moves but then collapse at the end. It feels too inauthentic and gimmicky. It’s certainly a trope that is heavily relied upon here, done at least twice.
Additionally, it leads to sequences like the one towards the end where Ospreay is able to land on his feet from a move from the top rope and hit the hidden blade - an extraordinary spot - and they aren’t able to get anything out of it because Takeshita sells the move only for minimal sequences before he returns to his feet to hit a high knee. That spot got a big reaction but there is no depth because it’s only one part of a larger sequence. Why use the Hidden Blade in that case? Why not a big boot? Why allow the Hidden Blade to be treated so whimsically?
And of course, there is another exchange of moves before Ospreay wins with the stormbreaker. That got a pop as well. Great for the paying crowd. I just wanted a little more artful consideration from these two great wrestlers. All I hear is how wrestlers see the sport as more art today than previous generations did, but this had more of a popcorn fun approach than anything else, considering the odd structure and the lack of care for smart transitions from one act to the next. And considering their first match managed both to take their kinesthetic and high-impact styles and craft a match within a careful structure with better selling and more consequence from spot to spot, I’m a little disappointed with this. I was ready to praise this match from its first act with its different approach and good contrasting performances, but they opted for popping the crowd with sequence after sequence that could’ve been chopped and changed for anything else. ***
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