Written by Gino Lewis
Location Little Caesars Arena, Detroit MI.
Dynamite comes to us tonight from Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. It should be an electric crowd for what is a huge card tonight. This is the fifth episode I’m covering and is by far the biggest. Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley in a steal cage is one of the biggest matches the company can put on. The rest of the card is stacked too! With that said I expect ratings to suffer tonight being pitted against two elimination NBA Playoff games including Warriors vs Lakers. That’s no concern of mine though. Let’s get to the action!
Claudio Castagnoli def Rey Fenix – There is a big stipulation for our opener. It’s a Double Jeopardy match. That means the winner will get a shot at the other’s title sometime down the line. AEW doesn’t book champions to lose often. I think this would be a good spot for an upset from Fenix. Loud A-E-Dub chants to open the show. The action was fast paced early. Claudio gained control after a spinning Back Breaker. The crowd is on fire for Fenix as he hits a pair of dives. Claudio catches him on the third dive attempt and tosses him into the barricade. Rey with an awesome Hurricanrana after walking the barricade. WOW! Justified “This is awesome” chants. Castagnoli pressed Fenix and tossed him over the barricade into the crowd area headed into break.
Claudio is still in control back from the break. Danielson and Yuta are watching backstage on a monitor. Fenix hit a Moonsault to the floor and then ate an uppercut after a springboard back into the ring. Code Red from Fenix. Rey hit a Superkick and then fell into a 2-count for the first near fall of the match. Claudio nailed Fenix with an awkward looking slam for another near fall then a cross armed Power Bomb for the win. Excellent match. This was the best match I have covered since starting this 5 weeks ago. The action was fast paced and never really slowed down. Almost everything connected and all the moves looked good. The crowd loved it. Grade 4 *
Tony Schiavone billed the show as a PPV on TV as Miro returned out of nowhere! Great to see him back. Renee Paquette couldn’t get a word out of him as he walked directly into Tony Khan’s office. Interesting! MJF has a vignette about the Pillars 4 Way match. This was mainly MJF touting his accomplishments and putting down his opponents. As a heel should do. This was good. After the break we have a video package hyping up the main event. Good production so far tonight.
FTR came out to a loud ovation to answer Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal’s challenge for a Tag Team Title match at Double or Nothing. They call out their challengers. FTR says Lethal and Jarrett are using Mark Briscoe which brings him out to a good pop. Briscoe makes the match official. Furthermore, he is going to be the special guest referee. Mark says they need to make a toast. He passes around paper cups for a shot. The heels spit liquor in the faces face and attempt a beatdown until Briscoe restores order. Dax is blinded and hits a piledriver on Briscoe. Uh Oh! The crowd chants “You fucked up”. This drives a wedge between FTR and Briscoe and it wasn’t bad to continue the build up to their match. This is a solid storyline.
Chris Jericho is backstage with Renee after a replay of how he got punked twice last week. Jericho calls Adam Cole a coward then shows that he has a court order banning Cole from any building he is in. Brilliant heel work there. Roderick Strong shows up and challenges Jericho for a falls count anywhere match next week. Jericho accepts. Then Strong shows Jericho he also has a court order banning the Jericho Appreciation Society. Brilliant savvy babyface work from Strong. The crowd booed because the match is next week and they aren’t getting it in Detroit. That shows it’s a match people want to see. Renee went over the paperwork with Chris with a smile on her face.
Paquette is standing outside of Tony Khan’s office trying to get the scoop on Miro. Thunder Rosa returns! Say What!! 2 bigtime unannounced returns. I love seeing it. Thunder says it’s a good night to talk to Papi Khan and walks into his office. I’m not a huge fan of Tony but I like this development a lot.
After the commercial break there is a video package for Sammy Guevara. These are good at hyping up things to come but let’s get to another match! Nope it’s Tony Khan himself teasing a huge announcement for next week. He said TNT so maybe Dynamite will be on TNT next week. It’s probably the new show Collision and streaming service that has been reported. It really is a huge announcement if that’s what it is. OK, finally we are getting to another match.
(C) Orange Cassidy def Daniel Garcia – The crowd is a little quiet to start the match. There was a long lull between the in-ring action. Cassidy put his hands in his pockets and got the crowd back. Daniel went after Orange’s bad hand to get the advantage which drew loud boos from the crowd. Garcia Curb Stomped Cassidy after the break. That looked nasty. They botched a Stun Gun Millionaire attempt. The crowd is still really into it with loud “YAY”, “BOO” chants as the combatant's exchange strikes. Cassidy hit a Beach Break but didn’t get all of it. It was good enough for a 2 count. Garcia has been working on the knee and hits a low dropkick.
There was some good submission and mat wrestling with Garcia in control most of the time. Garcia is really working on Cassidy’s injured hand and knee. Orange won with a roll up after some good back and forth mat wrestling and pinning attempts. Another really good match. They had good chemistry. The outcome was never in doubt. It would have helped the match if there were a few times where it seemed like Garcia could have won. Grade 3 ½ *
After the match we got a replay of Shida’s return last week. They showed a video package setting up a triple threat match between Shida/Britt Baker/Jaime Hayter and the Outcasts next week. Shida adds an interesting element this rivalry needed. Setting up a 6 woman tag next week is a smart way to move the story forward.
Christian and Luchasaurus are out for an in-ring promo with Schiavone. Wardlow and Arn Anderson are not there. Christian calls Detroit the worst city in the United States. He’s getting such huge heat for that. He might be the most hated wrestler in AEW right now. Christian is talking about Wardlow having daddy issues and Arn is helping with that since his son Brock is nothing like Wardlow. Christian is getting absolutely annihilated by the audience with the loudest “Shut the Fuck up”, and “Asshole” chants. Christian is a complete pro for getting through that. He tells the crowd to kiss his ass to end it. Phenomenal promo from Christian. He’s getting as much heat as anyone in the business right now.
Now there is a video package for Darby Allin. Sting hyped up Darby for the Pillars match. Always good to hear from Sting. I think we’re going to see amazing things from him in the next 6 months. These are all very good. The show is getting a bit promo heavy for me. Luckly this time we are going straight to another match. Julia Hart is out for her No Holds Barred match against Anna Jay. Yes! I love her entrance. Aww Shit! Anna broke it up before it could even get started in true heel fashion. I will say I’m enjoying Jay’s ring gear tonight. My wife...not so much as she wailed “I’d rather see Julia’s entrance over Anna’s bunk ass booty straps”. LMAO! Yes, that actually happened.
No Holds Barred: Julia Hart def Anna Jay – They start out the match getting right to the weapons with the crowd chanting “We want tables”. The action has been pretty good with Julia having the advantage going into break. Back from the break Jay smashed Hart on a stack of chairs on the outside. It looked like Julia’s timing was off on a near fall. Jay is in control with weapons and her offense looks good. Julia hit a Superplex near a bunch of chairs that Anna Jay set up. They missed the chairs. The move itself actually looked good. You can’t miss that badly there. Hart slapped on the Hartless submission for the win. The match was decent. I would have given it another half star or more if they hit the chairs before the finish. This should be the end of this rivalry. I think it elevated both performers. Grade 2 ¾ *
Paquette is backstage with Best Friends, Bandido and Orange Cassidy. Best Friends get to name the final rule in the House Rules match for the trio’s title. Do the challenges get to make the final rule in these matches. That rules if they do. They make it a no spooky witches match referring to Julia Hart. OK, I guess. Not what I would have picked.
Trio’s Championship (C) House of Black def Bandido/Best Friends – Bandido and Malakai Black start the match. The lights are out in the crowd. This looks cool. The crowd is chanting “let’s go Black”. My wife wonders if this is one of Malakai’s ideas that had been shot down in the past by other companies or before in AEW. She might be right. It’s a different presentation for sure. The crowd is loud for it. No complaints from me so far headed into commercial. Trent and Buddy are in the ring after the break. Baretta gets a near fall after a Super Kick. Bandido is tagged in and fires up the crowd with his high-flying high impact offense. Buddy Matthews, who is the best striker in AEW in my opinion, nails Bandido with a knee leading to Brodie King hitting his finisher on Chuck Taylor for the win. The ending was chaotic and there was some serious no selling. It was an excellent match other than that. This is another match where the predictable outcome hurt it a bit. I’m hoping with the addition of Collision we might see teams like Best Friends win some matches to make them seem more formidable. Grade 3 ¼ *
Backstage Kyle Fletcher from Aussie Open in New Japan has laid out Orange Cassidy and says “Ausie, Ausie, Ausie”. That sets up another title defense for Orange. Jungle Boy gets his vignette for the 4 Pillars match. Christian puts over Jack which is good booking. Excaliber does the run down for Rampage and next week on Dynamite. Jay White vs Ricky Starks is on Dynamite next week. They both have video packages hyping up the match. I thought they might save that match for Double or Nothing. I’m wondering if they might not make the card. That would be disappointing for both performers but let’s see what they have in store. They are lowering the cage for the main event!
Steel Cage Match: Jon Moxley def Kenny Omega – The entrances were cut short. The wrestlers start brawling before the match starts. The Blackpool Combat Club jump Omega which brings out the Young Bucks. Multiple people are being thrown off the ramp as the Bucks confront Bryan. Nick Jackson hits a huge dive off the stage which likely wipes out everyone other than Danielson on commentary. The match finally officially starts with huge chops. The crowd is on fire. Kenny pulls out a barbed wire wrapped chair about 2 minutes into the match. That feels a bit soon, but we know Moxley likes to bleed. He is after Kenny stomps the chair into his back. Danielson says Moxley doesn’t wake up until he starts to bleed. Funny. Might be true. The action is amazing early. Both men are bleeding all over their bodies and hands. This feels a bit rushed though.
Moxley Superplexes Omega onto the barbed wire wrapped chair as we get back from break. Ouch. “You sick fuck” chants. Kenny is bleeding badly from his back. Moxley pulls out broken glass. Kenny hits a move close to the glass before slamming him onto the glass drawing “holy shit” chants. Kenny hits the V-Trigger. The crowd is going nuts. There seems to be a few different chants going as the wrestlers exchange legit strong style open palm strikes. Kenny Omega nails Jon Moxley with a V-Trigger through the cage. HOLY SHIT! That was amazing.
Mox actually gets up first and rolls Omega back in through the part of the cage they broke. He also grabs a screwdriver before re-entering the ring. Don Callis entered the cage and grabbed the screwdriver from Moxley apparently saving Kenny. Omega dominates Moxley hitting all his signature moves and had him defeated and covered. 1-2-thre....NO! Callis with the screwdriver to Kenny breaking the count. Moxley covers Omega and gets the win after the screw job. Or should I say screwdriver job! My wife screamed “NO, NO, NO, NO” when this happened. I don’t blame her. This was brutal, a well-timed turn of Callis. If you’ve been reading my column, you know I’ve been predicting this for weeks. It went over perfectly. A tough way to end a great show but this creates even more heat on the BCC headed into whatever is planned for DON. Grade 4 1/4 *
After the match Callis held the screwdriver over Omega as he bled. He doesn't hit him but whispers something in Kenny’s ear. That’s good drama. You have to imagine what Don says to Kenny is very painful considering their relationship. The crowd hated this as they should. This was incredibly effective at getting heat on BCC and sympathy on Kenny Omega. An excellent main event with a memorable ending.
Excellent show. The biggest show I have reviewed so far and I delivered. It was promo heavy at times, but it was good at setting up the 4 Pillars match and even better at developing the story between BCC and the Elite. This was also the best show I have covered as far as in-ring action. I gave the opening match and main event 4 stars. Two other matches got 3 ½ and 3 ¼ star ratings. The match quality matched the storyline development this week which made it easy for me to give it the highest score I have so far.
Overall Grade 8.5
2023 Overall Grade 7.85
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