AEW Dynamite Aug. 4, 2021: Listing three things they got right

Another week, another quality episode of All Elite Wrestling (AEW): Dynamite. The Aug. 4 edition of the young promotion’s flagship broadcast — which emanated from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Fla. — featured plenty of fun matches while also advancing a few key stories as we get closer to the All Out pay-per-view.

As such, there are plenty of good things to discuss. For the sake of brevity, we’ll go through the top three decisions they made throughout the show.

These are the three things AEW got right on the Aug. 4 episode of Dynamite.

Malakai Black gets put over strong by Cody Rhodes.

AEW and Cody Rhodes clearly had one goal in mind with this match against Malakai Black: put the former NXT Champion over as definitively as possible. Considering that Black hit Rhodes with the Black Mass and pinned him with one foot on “The American Nightmare’s” chest, they fulfilled that mission to perfection.

If that wasn’t enough to certify Black as a big deal, him striking Rhodes with a crutch while the former ROH World Champion gave what sounded like a long-winded retirement speech cemented him as a mainstay at the top of the card.

This main event accomplished everything it needed to when it came to Black. As for Rhodes, this loss won’t affect his standing in the eyes of the fans one bit, and credit to him for putting Black over as strong as he did before he likely goes off to film the Go Big Show. We’ll probably see more chapters get added to this story in the near future, but it will be interesting to see where they go with Black in the short term.

Red Velvet gets an AEW Women’s World Championship match.

Following Britt Baker’s successful AEW Women’s World Championship defense over former champion Nyla Rose, the promotion had a full cache of credible babyfaces available to determine who would next challenge “The Doctor” for her title.

It didn’t take long to figure out who that next babyface would be: Red Velvet. The match will take place a week from Friday on the debut episode of AEW: Rampage. It’s great to see Velvet — who has more than proven herself in the ring and on the microphone in the months following her star-making effort in that big tag match with Cody Rhodes, Jade Cargill, and Shaquille O’Neal — get this spot on a show that will receive a great deal of hype. Also, it a cool to see them bring up Baker’s past victory over Velvet, as it established the story of Velvet showing how far she’s come since losing what was essentially an enhancement match.

Velvet probably won’t win — that episode of Rampage is taking place in Pittsburgh, Baker’s hometown — but for someone who is sure to become one of the women’s division’s top babyfaces, this will be another step in that direction for her.

Leyla Hirsch will challenge for the NWA World Women’s Championship

This week’s Dynamite featured “Legit” Leyla Hirsch taking on The Bunny to determine who would face NWA World Women’s Champion Kamille for the title. While the match featured some extracurricular activities (mainly a staredown between Kris Statlander and Nyla Rose to set up a match between the two next week), this was about the work these two ladies put in.

Hirsch and Bunny’s efforts manifested into an entertaining match that picked up seam during the closing moments. Ultimately, Hirsch applied her cross arm breaker to secure the submission victory and a title shot against the Strictly Business member at NWA EMPOWERRR.

With Kamille entrenched as a heel in the NWA, it made sense to have the babyface go over here. Plus, it will be fun to see what sort of match the technically sound Hirsch can have with the impressive but green champion. Given how the post-match staredown between the two played out, we’ll likely see a “big wrestler/small wrestler” sort of match where Hirsch fights from underneath against the imposing titleholder, which would make for a compelling story.