After a spectacular All In, AEW really threw in the towel with Wednesday’s episode of “AEW Dynamite,” and this women’s $100,000 Four-Way Fight did not help matters. Queen Aminata, Willow Nightingale, Thekla, and Kris Statlander all locked up to contest a ridiculously large sum of money that I, honestly, think is too generous a prize for a match this quality.

I don’t like speaking ill about the women’s division in AEW, because they’re pretty good. It was just this match — and maybe there was something in the Chicago air, because every match on “Dynamite” felt like this — that was so painful to get through. Everything clunked together like a bunch of gears that are fine on their own, but just are not fitted together. They creak and groan, and sometimes the machine that is their wrestling match skips. It just does not work together, and during an already stale episode of “Dynamite” (one that pales in comparison to the glory of All In), it was just another nail in the coffin for this week of AEW programming.

I know they’re building a feud based on Queen Aminata and Thekla’s alleged heat, but those two just did not have chemistry. I felt like Aminata and Thekla were just not in sync; their strikes and spots did not flow together like they should have, if they connected at all. They are also just not good enough to support each other. While Aminata has been in AEW for a hot minute, she’s mostly been used as enhancement talent before her recent exposure. I know Thekla is renowned for her STARDOM run, but even then, I don’t think she is a strong enough performer to hold up a match between her and a relatively green (or struggling) Aminata. Hopefully the two of them can get some extra hours of practice in to really fine tune their craft, because watching them wrestle felt less like beautiful, choreographed violence and more like two toddlers awkwardly smacking each other.

Maybe this was just an off-night for Statlander and Nightingale, or maybe they’re fatigued from their performances at All In. Regardless, they were not operating at their prime either in Wednesday’s match. While they were more watchable than Aminata and Thekla, something just felt off. They did not move with their typical strength and confidence; it almost felt like they were tiptoeing around the entire match. This sucks, because Nightingale is not in a position to be having bad matches — she is barely getting a push from Khan as it is, and we quickly could be seeing a Daniel Garcia situation happen to an otherwise bright and powerful performer.

Some have speculated that this is the emergence of the AEW women’s tag team division, and if that is the case, there needs to be some serious reconsideration. This was among the worst women’s matches in the past week, if not *the* worst. Building a tag team division off of *this* is a laughable prospect. Rough night all around.

Written by Angeline Phu