AEW Dynamite – 8/26/2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Just one episode of “AEW Collision” separates us from All In in Wembley Stadium. The last “Dynamite” before the big show was heavy on wrestling showcases, and even moved a couple of storylines forward for Sunday. You can read all about it on the AEW Dynamite 8/26/2026 Results Page.

Now, it’s time for the Wrestling Inc. Staff to look back on the Glasgow show and decide what was good, and what very much wasn’t. There was plenty of good, like the main event match between Swerve Strickland and “Jungle” Jack Perry, or the semi-finals of the Continental Challenge Cup. There was also plenty to hate, like the fact that American fans had to sit on our hands all afternoon and pretend we didn’t know what was going on, as well as how short-changed the Women’s World Title felt tonight. Don’t worry, I’ve kept the comments section open, in case you want to continue the conversation.

Enough of my bloviating though, let’s get into the best and the worst from this week’s Dynamite. Starting with the worst.

I have been spoiled by the European WWE broadcasts. There’s something so nice about a “Raw” that ends by dinner time. While I understand the realities of TBS’s reliance on AEW in that Wednesday night slot, this is an age of instant gratification, and I want my wrestling when I want it.

There was something less-than electric about the pre-taped nature of the shows. Some of the matches were good, but that live spark is such a necessary ingredient for me, personally. I get it, some people can lose themselves in the spectacle, but I do appreciate the communal aspect of live television.

I’m hoping that somewhere down the line, AEW is afforded the afternoon broadcasts that WWE has been. Especially in the age of social media, it can be painful for North American fans to be sitting on their hands, waiting for the broadcasts as videos, and pictures, and spoilers trickle out. Again, I understand the restrictions of television contracts. Maybe, when the daytime perambulations of the baseball season is over, and the usually nightly basketball season is underway, there will be room on HBOMax for an episode of AEW from across the pond.

Written by Ross Berman

Last week, I was bent out of shape that MJF and AEW National Champion Andrade weren’t in the same arena leading into their face-off as entrants one and two in the Casino Gauntlet match at All In on Sunday. In his pre-recorded promo from his hot tub, MJF said he wouldn’t be seeing “Andrew” El Idolo until Wembley, but thankfully that wasn’t the case, and the two nearly came to blows in a pretty good segment tonight.

Andrade’s music hit to the delight of the Glasgow crowd, but when he didn’t emerge from the back, MJF’s music took over. He heeled it up for the crowd, calling them worthless alcoholics, and let them know Andrade wasn’t even in the building, despite him being the one to say last week he wouldn’t be present. MJF said he could do Andrade’s entire schtick, including taking a picture with a beautiful woman at ringside, but said one would be hard to find in Scotland. He found one girl in the front row and continued to run down the entire crowd before telling them he had one question.

That question was, of course, going to be “how you know?” but before MJF could get the words out himself, Andrade popped up behind him and the woman. He said his own catchphrase, and you could see MJF’s face fall in real time, which was a nice touch and a good little bit of acting. Andrade then threw him over the barricade and tried to get him into the ring for a beatdown. He set up the DM, but MJF got himself out of there as quickly as possible.

It was a simple little segment on tonight’s show, but after thinking we weren’t going to see these two interact before All In, I enjoyed it. It didn’t take up too much time on the show, on an episode that flowed very well overall. Andrade emerging from the crowd behind MJF for the “how you know?” was really cute, and it popped me. MJF vs. Andrade is one of the most interesting feuds going into the pay-per-view, so getting to see them interact tonight was nice, despite the segment’s simplicity.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Cast your minds back to the first “AEW Dynamite” after the AEW Retribution pay-per-view, where Willow Nightingale had one of the best in-ring segments of the entire year as the Detroit crowd showered her with love and spewed so much hatred at Mercedes Mone that she almost lost track of her own promo. That was a fun night, wasn’t it? So fun, in fact, that coming out of that show, if you made the argument that Willow and Mercedes actually had the hotter feud out of the two world title matches, I wouldn’t argue with that. The same can’t be said now.

While Will Ospreay has been cutting promos week after week, and so he should, he’s in the main event at Wembley Stadium. The ladies have not had the same fortune of having too many segments in front of the crowd. Hell, even last week, when they brawled all over the arena, that started backstage and looked like “AEW Rampage” trying to make a low-key comeback. Here in Scotland, fans thought they were going to see Willow in person, but she was once again attacked backstage, and that was kind of it. Your big AEW Women’s World Championship match that had everyone begging to see it just a few weeks ago is now just being built in backstage segments; well done.

Full transparency, I understand that they’ve had interactions in front of the audience on episodes of “AEW Collision,” and will most likely have something this Saturday since Mercedes is wrestling on that show. However, for as credible as “Collision” is, “Dynamite” is the main show; it’s the show that is used to build the biggest matches in the biggest ways imaginable. Just look at Darby Allin getting blown up last week, a big angle. When you separate the feuds and stick some on “Dynamite” and some on “Collision,” even without meaning to, you make some feuds feel lesser than what they should because they are on the show that is viewed by fewer people. Willow and Mercedes have somehow fallen into that trap, and to be honest, it’s kind of criminal how that’s been allowed to happen.

No disrespect to The Brawling Birds and Divine Dominion, or Maya World and Persephone (who aren’t even on the All In card by the way), but have your trios match on Saturday and let the biggest women’s match of the year for AEW take center stage. You could, of course, have both on this show, but that’s not how AEW operates, and it will likely never change. It’s just a shame to see such a hot angle have cold water being poured on it to the point where the go-home show has one segment that people don’t get to see with their own eyes.

Written by Sam Palmer

This week’s main event saw a first-time clash between Swerve Strickland and Jack Perry, and it did nothing to disappoint.

The match worked well to position Strickland as the A-side, putting Perry in the underdog role he so often thrives in. Strickland relied on his severe strength advantage, immediately making that discrepancy clear and forcing Perry to find space through feats of agility and ingenuity in equal measure.

So often in the bout, Strickland became the relentless aggressor dotted with moments of arrogant boasting, providing pockets of space for Perry to come back, however brief that wound up being. In the end it was a question of whether Perry could hold on and sneak a victory, or Strickland was finally going to be able to keep his opponent down for the count.

The latter wound up to be the case but not before Perry made a habit of turning Strickland’s attempted finishers into his own, catching his feet at the Swerve Stomp and turning it into a Snare Trap as just one example.

At times the match felt less like wrestling and more akin to Beyblade, fast-paced to the extent that just one touch carried enough momentum to cast an opponent outside the ring. At other times it felt like a wrestling game of Twister, each finding pockets to exploit joint manipulation or simply cast the other away from them.

Then the closing stretch captured both elements so well. Where it had been Perry reversing Strickland’s offense for much of the time leading up to it, it was Strickland who got the last laugh by turning Perry’s poisonrana attempt into Big Pressure to win.

Strickland continues to be one of, if not the, best wrestlers on the roster and thus the world. Perry continues to be on the cusp of greatness and one of the more consistent younger guys on the roster. It seems like basic arithmetic for their match to be perfectly serviceable at the very least. And it just so turns out that the math checked out this time around.

Written by Max Everett

While I’m certain we’re going to get a ton of surprises (all my fingers and toes are crossed for Kofi, Austin Creed, and whatever name Ilja Dragunov may go by) at All In on Sunday, I really wish that AEW would have kept the rest of the entrants into the Casino Gauntlet match a surprise. It’s by no means a big deal in the grander scheme of things, both on tonight’s episode of “Dynamite” and for Sunday’s big show, but I thought AEW was onto something with only announcing MJF and Andrade as the first two competitors, since they’re the only men guaranteed to be in the match.

Tonight saw Chris Jericho announce himself for the match, and Don Callis let the world know that former AEW National Champion Mark Davis will also be on deck to hopefully get his chance to get in the ring. Both men were announced in pretty stale backstage segments that didn’t get much of a pop from the crowd. Callis, on behalf of Davis, and Jericho said they were gunning for the AEW World Championship, and that was about the extent of it.

They’re not the biggest names, but in checking to make sure I hadn’t missed anyone for the news coming out of tonight’s show, I realized Tommaso Ciampa and Komander also called their shots before the match. While I’m a much bigger fan of those guys than Jericho and Davis (sorry, Dunkzilla), I still wish they would have been kept as surprises. Especially Ciampa, as hearing his music hit and the Wembley crowd react would have been a bit more fun not knowing he was slated for the match.

I’m not big on surprises overall in life, but I do love them in my professional wrestling, and AEW is honestly pretty good with them compared to the competition. With the main event of All In having probably the most obvious outcome in company history, the show needs all the surprises it can get. Again, I don’t doubt there will be quite a few, but if I had to be nitpicky about tonight’s “Dynamite,” as well as the previous announcements I just found out about, I would have kept everyone’s involvement in the match quiet, and just kept rolling with the fact it’s MJF and Andrade kicking things off.

Written by Daisy Ruth

16 men started this tournament with the goal of leaving Wembley Stadium with the AEW Continental Championship. An extra 17th man was thrown into the mix thanks to Eddie Kingston being pulled from the competition, and everyone who has competed has been left battered and bruised, but now we have our AEW Continental Challenge Cup Final: Jon Moxley vs. Nigel McGuinness.

The semi-final matches that took place on the August 26 episode of “AEW Dynamite” were both excellent in their own way. Another all-Death Riders affair saw Moxley try and overcome the behemoth that is Claudio Castagnoli, who actually beat Moxley back in the Continental Classic in December. There has always been this vibe surrounding these two that Castagnoli might actually have Moxley’s number, and the champion keeps him around to avoid crossing paths with him, and you can see why because Castagnoli was on fire here. It’s a crying shame that he was never going to be getting to Wembley, all things considered, but his tournament campaign has been great, and there were times he had Moxley shaken tonight.

However, Moxley is the perfect AEW Continental Champion and was absolutely the right choice to go through. Is it sad knowing this was probably meant to be Moxley vs. Kingston? Yes, but Eddie needed to take care of his mental health, and that’s fine. Besides, when you really look at it, no one should really be beating Moxley at this point anyway. He’s just that good, and he will hold that strap until the Continental Classic in the winter, and it will be wonderful.

On the other side of things, Nigel McGuinness was the most logical choice to win in his match with Kyle O’Reilly, where both men were spiritually fighting to prove who had the more Irish-sounding last name. Keeping O’Reilly in the tournament for this match was a great piece of match-by-match booking. McGuinness hurts his ankle against Katsuyori Shibata, it gets worked over heavily by Hechicero, and now he has to wrestle a guy who constantly beat Moxley with an Ankle Lock of all things in 2025. He’s literally the last person McGuinness would have wanted to face. Smartly, McGuinness wrestles a match where he keeps O’Reilly from getting near his ankle, eventually giving him a huge mouse on his face with all the strikes.

McGuinness gets the win, and even though it does seem like a charity match, to say he got a true Wembley moment (I take it All In two years ago doesn’t count then), Moxley vs. McGuinness was absolutely the match to make, and it will be a sleeper hit this Sunday. Mark my words.

Written by Sam Palmer