On Saturday night, we saw another unbelievable PPV from All Elite Wrestling. We had incredible matches, a new #1 contender for AEW title was determined, both the women’s title and the tag team titles were successfully defended, and the big one, we have a NEW AEW world champion in Hangman Adam Page. With everything that went down on Saturday, we now look to tonight’s episode of Dynamite to kickstart all the new storylines. We already have 5 matches announced for Dynamite, including the #1 contender in singles action, a couple of tag team matches where a big New Japan wrestler makes his AEW debut, the first quarter-final match in the TBS tournament, and the TNT title will be defended against a long time ROH star who will be making his in-ring debut as well.
Orange Cassidy & Tomohiro Ishii vs The Butcher and The Blade
This was a match that was announced at Full Gear, and when the crowd realized that it was Tomohiro Ishii in the graphic next to Orange Cassidy, the crowd went nuts. This is a big step in the relationship between NJPW and AEW. Ishii is a big fan-favourite of the North American fan base, and the hype for this match is real. When it was announced that the Best Friends joined Chaos, Ishii and Okada are the big players from that faction that a lot of AEW fans hoped would come over. We’re already getting one of the two…
Standing across from the OC and Ishii, will be the Butcher and the Blade. I think that this match will be very good, but I hope that after this, the Best Friends and HFO go their separate ways. I think this match is a fairly easy to call, and I expect Cassidy and Ishii to come out the winners here.
Sammy Guevara vs Jay Lethal – TNT Championship Match
One of my favourite things about the Cody Rhodes TNT title reign, is that he was taking on all challengers from all promotions. It led to to signings like Ricky Starks and Eddie Kingston. The Sammy Guevara TNT title reign has been similar to that run already, and his reign has been under 50 days. Sammy’s first defence of the TNT title was against the debuting Bobby Fish, and now he’s latest challenger is another newly signed, but very established wrester in Jay Lethal.
It’s been a couple weeks now since Ring of Honor had to release all their wrestlers, as they are going through a rebuilding process as a company. That lead a lot of big name wrestlers now being free agents. The first big name to sign with AEW, is Jay Lethal. Lethal has been wrestling for 20+ years, and is yet another established wrestler to join the AEW roster. Unfortunately for Lethal, I don’t think that his debut will be a successful one, as I see Sammy Guevara earning his 3rd title defence.
Hikaru Shida vs Nyla Rose – TBS Tournament Quarter-Finals
This is an interesting match up, because of the recent results leading up to this match. When Hikaru Shida beat Serena Deeb, but Deeb attacked the leg of Shida, I thought that would be a way to protect Shida if she lost to Nyla Rose in the TBS quarter-finals. Not only has Hikaru Shida seemed to have already recovered from that Serena Deeb attack, Shida got the pinfall win over Nyla Rose on the Buy-in match for Full Gear.
With Shida having almost all the momentum, the two things that Nyla Rose still have in her favourite, is outside help, and how the TBS bracket is shaping up. The outside help I’m referring too, is her Manager Vickie Guerrero, and it seems like Serena Deeb isn’t finished with Shida just yet. And for the TBS bracket, the winner of this Shida/ Rose match, will face the winner of the Statlander/ Soho match, with both those women being babyfaces at the moment.
I think we see Hikaru Shida lose to Nyla Rose on this occasion, because of some interference from Serena Deeb. I think there’s more in the trilogy match for Shida/ Deeb and I think it makes more sense to have a face/ heel battle in the semi-finals.
Two other matches have been announced for this show, with Lio Rush and Dante Martin taking on The Acclaimed, and Bryan Danielson takes on Dark Order’s Evil Uno in singles action. Last but not least, we’ll be hearing from the new champ, Hangman Adam Page, who will probably get a nice homecoming, as Dynamite is live from his home state of Virginia.
All this and so much more can be seen on TNT (TSN in Canada) every Wednesday night at 8PM EST.
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Here is the latest episode of the Chtib and Zhang show, where the boys will be talking UFC 268. Did their predictions hold up? Find out below.