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It is Wednesday and it’s time for AEW Dynamite, coming from the Save Mart Center in Fresno CA. Our commentary team is Excalibur, Tony Schiavone, and Taz.
The show starts with a graphic for the passing of Jay Briscoe.
Orange Cassidy (AEW All Atlantic Champion) vs Jay Lethal
Lethal’s crew, Jeff Jarrett, Sonjay Dutt, and Satnam Singh are banned from interfering, but they have ticket and come down to sit at ringside through the crowd before the match starts. As the match starts, Danhausen comes to check their tickets and when he sees they have tickets, he waves over Trent Beretta and Chuck Taylor to sit down next to them.
The match goes on while all of the shenanigans are happening, and Cassidy isn’t doing his normal stuff in the ring as he and Lethal have a straight up match. The first Cassidy stuff is when he slowly rolls out of the way of Lethal leaping onto him, making Lethal have to go to a different corner, but Cassidy keeps rolling.
As the match goes on, Jarrett keeps trying to go over the barricade, and Dutt stops him, saying that if he goes over the barricade, Dutt will get fired. The end of the match is that Danhausen takes the guitar from Jarrett. Danhausen curses Lethal, Lethal chases him around and then into the ring where Cassidy is able to hit the Orange Punch for the pin and the win.
Winner and still AEW All Atlantic Champion: Orange Cassidy
Afterward, Dutt has to keep Satnam and Jarrett from attacking Cassidy. Cassidy does the soft kicks on Dutt, and he loses his cool, only to be held back by Lethal. The match itself was just OK, but it was just a backdrop for all of the storyline and shenanigans, which were well done. Dutt has grown into his role, and Jarrett is a master of these old school style stuff.
Top Flight vs the Young Bucks
This is a pure bullet point spot fest, and AEW rolled right into it after the opener without a break. These two teams have similar styles, and this time Dante gets to have a spotlight as the babyface in peril. It’s a pure spot fest, but the spot where Dante flips over Nick to try to get the tag and Matt pulls Darius off the apron at the exact right time was an impressive move.
After a fight through a commercial break and a lot of the crowd chanting this is awesoem for the spots, The Bucks go for the BTE trigger and Darius ducks out of the way so that the Bucks take each other out, and he gets the surprise roll up for the pin and the win.
Winners: Top Flight
Top Flight gets a clean win in the middle of the ring, the Bucks are the over confident, arrogant heels with over the top facial expressions, and a “greatest hits” match for the Bucks. This won’t change anyone’s minds or opinions about either team, but a well worked match for what it was supposed to be, and Top Flight getting the win does a lot for them.
The Gunns come to the ring and grab a mic and we are told this is The Acclaimed time. Tony, Excalibur and Taz are having fun tonight playing off each other. The Gunns take credit for The Acclaimed’s success. The Gunns shout over their music, so Max tells them to shut the Gunns mic off and he gets his rap in.
When they get to the ring, everyone attacks, but Billy Gunn separated them. He tells his sons to quit acting like spoiled brats, and he tells The Acclaimed to act like tag team champions. He has two words for them.
Family Therapy.
Oh boy.
In the back, Renee is with Adam Page, and he says with beating Jon Moxley, he earned his word back. Renee says that Mox says that Page pushed him to be a better wrestler. Page says that he knocked Mox out and he would do it again if he has to. Page then says he will be mending fences that have needed mending for a long time. Page asks Renee how he’s doing, so they are going to start on those stories.
Jake Hager vs Ricky Starks
Jericho joins commentary and is in full heel mode.
Hager is now wrestling with the purple Gilligan hat. Ricky take st the hat and when he puts it on, he does the walk on the ropes, but this time Hager pulls him down like people should be doing. The story they are telling is that Starks is shot out of a cannon and trying to get revenge, and Hager is working from strength, trying to slow him down and beat him down.
Starks looks good when he has his explosive attacks. A table to is set up at ringside during the picture in picture. Starks is able to get a clean pin in the middle fo the ring after a spear.
Winner: Ricky Starks
Ricky takes off through the crowd as he sees the rest of the Jericho Application Society runs to the ring,, and in that one gesture, made him seem smarter than most of the people who just allow themselves to get attacked by Chris Jericho, since he’s been doing so since the first episode of Dynamite.
We get a video package about the return of Adam Page last week.
We then get a backstage segment of Jericho, Sammy Guevara, and Daniel Garcia. Jericho challenges Starks and Action Andretti to a tag match. After he says Sammy will be his partner, Garcia says he wants to team with Jericho. Sammy says he is proud of Garcia and says if he wins on Friday, he will be the one to tag with Jericho.
So, I wonder if this means that Sammy will turn on Garcia and sabotage him.
Bryan Danielson vs Bandido
Lots of chants for Bandido. Bryan and Bandido is a nice mix of styles as both work a lot of submission holds. They start with the hold and counter hold work early, and there is one move where Bryan traps a legs and then rolls over to put Bandido into a high stack that I have never seen before.
Every time they hook up, they move into submissions and counter holds with different variations of breaking out of submissions. In between, Bandido gets high flying leaps to get an upper hand. Bryan counters those moves with his stiff kicks and strikes. The mix of styles and how they are working this match is a great way of using those differences to tell a story.
The crowd is getting a lot of different wrestling matches tonight, as well as a mix of sports entertainment and matches like this, which is simply fantastic ring work. They then work a sequence where Bandido goes for a stalling vertical suplex, but Bryan tries to lean his way out of it, forcing Bandido to pull him upright again before the suplex. They next work a Labell lock where Bandido can’t see the ropes, but when Bryan switches to trap Bandido’s arm, Bandido is able to twist his body to get a foot on the rope.
This is what was meant by Gordon Solie when he said it was a game of human chess.
Bryan doesn’t win with a submission as he has been doing, but instead hits the psycho knee and covers for the pin and the win.
Winner: Bryan Danielson
We then see MJF on the screen and says that he thinks people have forgotten who he is and how he became champion. He even uses the Fickle bit that Bryan used to use. MJF says that everyone has been dealing with the masked MJF, but his mask is starting to slip off, and while Bryan may be a dragon, he’s a monster.
This match was fantastic, and could have easily been a main event. Well constructed, well worked, and a story was told by their battle.
We have a video of Saraya, Toni Storm, and Hikaru Shida, moving the issues between them forward, and Saraya says that Shida needs to stay in the back.
Brian Cage and Prince Nana are with Renee, and MJF holds a huge envelope of cash to break Bryan’s arm next week. MJF then slaps Cage and when Cage grabs him, Nana tells him to let go. MJF says that Cage needs to use that hate to motivate him next week.
MJF here is a TERRIBLE businessman when he gives the money before the job is done. I did that with an artist once, paying them the entire sum before the art was delivered. I think you know hwo that story ends.
Toni Storm vs Willow Nightingale
Odd choice for opponents, since both are baby faces.
As they go through their paces, Shida comes to ring side with the Kendo stick in hand. Saraya has come down to ringside during the break. The match is OK, 50/50, with Storm showing some slight heel tenancies. After a near fall, Saraya gets up on the apron, and Storm rolls her up with a handful of tights.
Winner: Toni Storm
Saraya attacks Willow after the win and Ruby Soho runs down to make the save, and Shida stays completely out of it.
Saraya is a MUCH better heel than a face, so I like this shift. It also will make the feud with Britt Baker more complicated.
We then get a video to build Ethan Page for his match with Jungle Boy on Friday.
In the back, Takeshita is with Renee and she asks how he feels after his match last week. He said that he learned a lot for Bryan, but he doesn’t trust MJF. He speaks Japanese for a bit and when Renee asks him what it meant, he says it means MJF is an a$$h0l3.
Darby Allin (TNT Champion) vs Kushida
I am looking forward to this, but I am about as sick of the phrase “dream match” as Dave Scherer was of “Forbidden Door”.
They start with arm bars, waist locks, headlocks and then mat wrestling, showing that Darby is skilled at that style even if he rarely uses it. When they move to the second phase of the match, Kushida starts working on Darby’s arm and the announcers let us know that he is doing it to prep for his hoverboard lock.
As the match goes on, it also reminds me that Darby is so much better when he is working with people close to his own size so that he’s not just being tossed around until he gets a fluke win. As we go to picture in picture, they start to brawl on the floor and work with more strikes and kicks. Kushida starts working the shoulder and arm more as the match goes on, and even thought Darby is fighting back, it does make it seem like Darby is fighting from more and more of a disadvantage.,
Darby sets Kushida on a chair on the floor and tries a shotgun drop kick, but Kushida is able to lock on an arm bar from the kick. They then move to the top and Kushida does a suplex from the top using Darby’s shoulder as the pivot point. This leads to the hoverboard lock, and Sting has a towel.
Sting finally drops the towel, he won’t throw it in. Darby is able to work out fo it, gets a Texas Cloverleaf and leaps back to pin Kushida for the pin and the win.
Winner and still TNT Champion: Darby Allin
Darby and Kushida shake hands and Kushida asks for one more chance at the title as we are desperately out of time.
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