IT’S WEDNESDAY NIGHT, YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!
Hey Folks! Big week in AEW this week! After last week’s AEW Dynamite, we rolled right into AEW Revolution on Sunday and AEW Dark last night. I don’t know about you guys but I am absolutely riding the high from Revolution. It was a fantastic show and really lived up to the hype, complete with big fight feel! If you missed it, here are the quick and skinny results. If you get a chance to watch it, I highly recommend it!
- Dr. Britt Baker D.D.S and Maki Itoh defeated Riho and Thunder Rosa by shenanigans in the Buy-In preshow match
- The Young Bucks retained their AEW Tag Team Championships against the Inner Circle after hitting a Meltzer Driver on Y2J
- PAC and Rey Fenix outlasted every other team in the Casino Battle Royale to earn a future opportunity at the Young Bucks’ AEW Tag Team Championships
- Hikaru Shida retains her AEW Women’s Championship by pinning Ryo Mizunami after a spinning heel kick in the face
- Kip and Miro beat Chuck and Orange Cassidy when Miro made Chuck tap out to the Game Over
- Hangman Adam Page demolished Matt Hardy with a Buckshot Lariat for the victory and all of Matt Hardy’s first quarter earnings in 2021
- Scorpio Sky won the Face of the Revolution Ladder Match by grabbing the proverbial (and very literal) brass ring to earn a future opportunity at Darby Allin’s TNT Championship
- In a truly shocking surprise, AEW’s newest signing was revealed to be…..Christian Cage!
- Sting and Darby Allin defeated Team Taz in a cinematic Street Fight after Sting Scorpion Dropped Starks
- Kenny Omega held onto his AEW Heavyweight Championship by beating Jon Moxley in an exploding barbed wire death match. In case you haven’t heard, the finish was….unexpected
Read those results and just imagine how awesome those matches were. Now multiply that by ten and you get a really good feel for how amazing the show was. Hopefully, they can keep that train rolling and um…explain what happened in the Main Event because they are getting absolutely EVISCERATED online. The IWC, amirite?
POP: The Definition of Catalyst
After a quick recap of the Bucks/Inner Circle title match, we get R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-ey Fenix (h/t Justin Roberts) vs black-haired Buck, Matt Jackson. Now that Fenix and PAC have won the Tag Team Turmoil match, they are up next for a shot at the Buck Belts. Don’t be surprised if we get blonde Buck vs PAC next week, if WWE has taught me anything. I don’t know about y’all but he’s an absolute star. This guy can GO. He and Matt complement each other very well throughout this match and have a great mixture of knowing when to go from mat fighting (not to be confused with Matt fighting, which is what Fenix is doing) to a high-flying, aerial showcase. Also, Matt hits back-to-back Canadian Destroyers (my favorite move!) on Fenix, one in the ring and one on the floor. Fenix is dead on the outside but PAC whispers sweet nothings in his ear and Fenix jumps back into the ring. These two have an incredible move sequence that ended with Matt superkicking Fenix twice, who hit the mat but went right into a kip-up and kicked Jackson in the face himself. It was amazing. Fenix comes out victorious after reversing a tombstone piledriver into a sitdown version of his own.
POP: For King and Country
Oh man, we go to The King and Mox sitting on a couch behind a fire-infused coffee table. Mox looks like he’s the star of the next Hangover movie. As he comes to, Eddie explains he was paralyzed in anxiety when he covered Moxley at the end of Revolution. I really appreciate them addressing it immediately. They even cover Kingston going after Mox a couple months ago by explaining “the world title does crazy things to you” before Mox makes fun of Kingston for taking his time saving Moxley. Eddie admits that it’s 1998 forever in his head and I just need more of these two. I don’t care what it takes, Kahn. GIVE IT TO ME.
BOTCH: Dream Squash
We get Cody Rhodes next, who might have the most overrated entrance in the world. He has a pay per view entrance just for him to come out and squash Seth Gargis. Who? Yeah, exactly. It takes about a minute so Schiavone gets in the ring to interview him. Randomly, Penta El Zero M and his translator pop up on microphones. Penta explains he’s a thousand times better than Cody and if Cody’s the Prince of Pro Wrestling (what happened to Balor?) then Penta is the Lord of Lucha Libre. Once Penta mentions Cody’s daughter, he loses his shit and attacks Mr. M in the stands. This comment also catches the eye of Mama Rhodes, which, frankly, a pissed off mother is way more terrifying than a pissed off Cody.
We bump into Chuck and Orange Cassidy in the arcade. OC is sitting at the Fast & Furious game, puts the game in park and stands up. He and Chuck challenge Miro and Kip to some sort of Arcade Insanity match where Chuck will be Miro’s butler forever if they lose. This can’t possibly go wrong. Honestly, instead of fighting and breaking all the arcade games, they should have a arcade video game tournament amongst the four of them!
Schiavone finds Sting so he can kiss his ass about his match at Revolution. Sting starts praising Darby but gets cut off by Lance Archer and the homie, Jake Roberts. Archer says he’s going to take the time since “they” won’t give him any time. Jake takes the mic to say “Bye Stanger!” and they leave. Weird way to start a Sting/Archer feud but honestly, I’m here for it.
BOTCH: The Day the Music Came Alive
QT Marshall and Big Shotty are interviewed prior to Shotty’s match with Ethan Page. Dasha asks QT about bailing on Dustin Rhodes during the Tag Team Turmoil match. As he finishes his answer, some random background sounds overtakes the audio. I’m not sure if everyone else had this problem or if it was just me (and apparently AEWs Twitter) but it was really bizarre. It sounded like a movie soundtrack was playing in the background mixed with a basketball game mixed with a rehearsal for a concert. Very weird. It’s really too bad too because it overshadowed the commentary and really took away from Page’s first match on Dynamite. For a guy named All Ego, he better be pissed the background noise took away from his debut! He finishes Shotty with the Ego’s Edge, which is just a version of the Razor’s Edge where he throws the guy instead of slamming him. Not sure how that hurts worse but here we are. He starts stomping the proverbial mudhole in Shotty. QT doesn’t do a damn thing but walk away as Dustin hits the ring. The slow burn of QT getting kicked out of the Nightmare Family continues.
Alex Marvez catches up with Hangman Adam Page outside. Page rolls up on a Snapper Pro lawnmower that he used with Matt Hardy’s money after their Big Money Match. Not only did Page buy the mower, he bought six bottles of whisky, a brand new saddle, all of Dwight Yoakam on vinyl and gave most of it to the Jacksonville Education Fund. Dark Order jumps onboard the mower and they take off, nearly tipping it backwards in the process. Five is left off because there’s a weight limit even though when it totters backwards, we clearly see Colt Cabana bail. Five needs to be quicker! He really missed his shot there.
While Tony is hyping up his interview with Christian Cage, he’s interrupted by the Sweeper Girls! Oh, and Kenny Omega’s here too. He’s flanked by The Good Brothers and his Good Dad I guess. They brag about Kenny’s victory on Sunday. They call out Eddie Kingston for draping his body over Moxley’s and dry humping him while four sparklers went off. Eddie comes out and in true gangsta fashion, counts the four of them and puts his back to the ropes/turnbuckle so he can’t get jumped from behind. Kingston’s been in some real fights, y’all.
They dress him down and give him a large 10 second countdown on the big screen referencing the countdown at Revolution. Kenny grabs the mic and lays on the ground. He tells Don to “69 me Don, 69 me!” and Don….obliges. They squirm head to crotch until the countdown is over. Kenny says Kingston is a joke and points out he’s outnumbered. Kingston gonna Kingston so he punches Kenny in his smug, stupid face. Omega learns that KO stands for knockout and not Kenny Omega. The Brothers jump Kingston and Moxley comes out to make the save and return the favor. Christian Cage’s music hits, which somehow wakes up Omega. They go face to face and Kenny offers his hand in friendship before trying to punch Cage. Christian ducks it and gets Omega in the Unprettier or the Outworker (or whatever he’s calling it now) but Callis pulls Kenny out of the ring. Cage grabs the belt and sets up Kenny’s next feud for that big, beautiful golden baby.
BOTCH: Worst Friends
The Doctor of Dentalomics, Britt Baker and her partner, Nyla Rose, enter the ring and wait for their third teammate. Maki Itoh comes out and starts singing her K-Pop on the ramp. Hikaru Shida, Thunder Rosa and Ryo Mizunami jump the two in the ring and the fight is on. Maki Itoh is the Kevin Owens of AEW. Coincidentally, right when her song ends, Shida attempts to attack her. Itoh smartly decides to use the microphone as a weapon and gently bops Shida on the head a few times. Not going to lie, it was adorable. During all of this, the announce team can’t stop laughing. Same here, fellas, same here.
I haven’t seen Maki before but I will say, she has a very face-like entrance. It was chintzy and fun. Pretty much vintage pro graps. How she was teamed with the Native Beast and the good doctor I’ll never know. At one point, Thunder Rosa took out everyone with a Cancun Tornado, which, before commentary told me that, I was going to call the spinning Coffin Drop. yeah, Cancun Tornado sounds better. Rebel and Vickie Guerrero get involved multiple times. Rosa had enough and spikes Itoh on her hard-ass head to get the win. Baker jumps in and hits Rosa with Rebel’s crutch. She then cinches in the Lockjaw while Rebel scrapes the crutch on Rosa’s forehead while Vickie….lightly spanks her. This match was full of cute boppy boppy, tappy tappy violence.
Matt Hardy is at the bar in the back having a private party with erm… Private Party. He tells the fellas he’s going to need to bring in more money by adding a new unit to the Matt Hardy Empire. He introduces PP to…..Butcher, Blade and Bunny! He tells the four men they’re going to beat up four dudes at Elevation and that collectively, the Matt Hardy Empire will demolish the Dark Order.
POP: 2 Cold, Scorpio
Fresh off his victory in the Face of the Revolution ladder match, Scorpio Sky comes out to challenge Darby Allin for his TNT Championship as promised. Man, these AEW folks waste no time living up to their match rewards. Darby comes down showing no signs of wear and tear after that non-spinning Coffin Drop from the scaffolding on Sunday. Let’s be clear. I didn’t want Scorpio to win at Revolution but if it gives me another Darby Allin match, I’ll take it. Plus, both of these guys absolutely delivered.
The ongoing theme throughout was Scorpio having an anger problem. They started with a handshake and sportsmanship but throughout the match, Scorpio would get frustrated and shove Darby and other little cheap shots. Darby sprained his ankle about midway through the match and sold it heavily the rest of the way. Darby knocked Scorpio to the outside and then went for a bottom rope Tope Suicida. The only problem for him was that Sky was waiting to greet him with a cutter. That looked great but only got him a two count. He tried to hit the TKO on Darby but Darby wriggled that little body all the down from the Sky and got the three on a sneaky roll-up. Scorpio may be the face of the Revolution but Darby is still the face of TNT. Naturally, after the match, Scorpio attacks Darby from behind and locks in a heel hook on the hurt leg until it gets broken up by officials. What a dick.
POP: MJF minus the Jacob
The Inner Circle comes out for their War Council following MJF and Jericho’s loss at Revolution. Jericho acknowledges that the Inner Circle has been having a rough go at it and suggests maybe it’s time to introduce a new member to the Inner Circle. MJF immediately counters and says maybe it’s time they let someone go. Bah God! That’s Sammy Guevara’s music! The Spanish God hits the ring lookin’ like Justin Bieber. Jericho immediately begins to get on him for showing up. Sammy cuts him off and tells him to watch the video he secretly recorded in the back. Santana, Ortiz and Hager are shown chilling and MJF comes in and tells them they’re going to cut the head off the snake and get rid of Chris Jericho. MJF tells the three of them to get Jericho. They slow approach and then turn around and face MJF. He’s grossly outnumbered.
Jericho tells him to shut up and pushes him to the mat. Jericho does his best Vince McMahon impression and fires MJF’s ass. I wonder if the rest of him is still in the Inner Circle. MJF says he doesn’t want to take over the Inner Circle because he was too busy building his own. The lights go out and when they cut back on, FTR, Tully, Wardlow and Shawn Spears are in the ring. Dax crax Hager in the head with a little bit of the Bubbly. Spears kicks Sammy face-first through a chair propped in the corner and his face went through it beautifully. As MJF watches from the top turnbuckle, the cowards handcuff Santana and Ortiz behind their backs. Tully and FTR hit a double spike piledriver on Pride & Powerful.
Wardlow holds up Jericho and MJF crushes him in the face with the Dynamite Diamond. Jericho is split open! He goes to grab his bat but MJF steps on his hand and Tully grabs the bat and hands it to Max. As Jericho slowly climbs up him like a Money in the Bank ladder, MJF levels him in the dad bod and then the face with the bat. They carry him up the ramp and Wardlow powerbombs him off the stage as The Outer Circle celebrates on the ramp. What a way to end the night!
I haven’t been doing this terribly long but this was the best Dynamite I’ve covered so far. AEW is touted as having something for everyone and tonight proved that. Even though they were coming off a great pay per view, they didn’t lose momentum at all. They built stories, stayed exciting and everything made sense. I love it. This is the shit that made me fall in love with wrestling. Hell, it has some of the same guys from when I was a kid! Yeah, I see you Jake and Tully. There’s nothing I love more than being so excited about what I saw that I’m already looking forward to next week. AEW is truly doing the Lord’s work.
Enjoy your week everyone! Feel free to leave a comment below (good or bad, I’ll answer them all!) and share the column with your friends, family and followers. And seriously, join the Discord for good talk with good people. Wrestling united!
