AEW Dynamite 3/11/26 comes live from San Jose, California. The final Dynamite before Revolution presents a stacked show of singles, tag, and trios matches tonight. Momentum on the line for participants heading towards Sunday.
Ian Riccaboni joins Bryan Danielson and Tony Schiavone on commentary tonight.
Past go-home shows have been hit-or-miss; some elevated the hype whereas others felt lacking. Will Dynamite live up to the hype?
Spoiler Alert: It did.
The Death Riders (Mox & Claudio) defeated The Don Callis Family (Takeshita & Hechicero)
Golly gee, which match should kick off the show to fire up the live crowd and thrill the fans at home? It’s this one! Claudio and Hechicero go hold for hold and twist for twist while Mox ad Takeshita unleashed hell on each other. Kicking off a show where there was no way to predict the winner is the absolute right call. Hechicero came off as the MVP, while Takeshita is presented as an unstoppable force. Claudio resorted to cheating to win. This didn’t devalue the Death Riders, but it did show desperation to achieve victory.
Mox vs. Takeshita is going to be absolutely nuts come Sunday. Let’s book Claudio vs. Hechicero again. Best 2-out-of-3 Falls.
Backstage: Two segments of interest. TBS and Tag Team Champion Willow Nightingale and CMLL Women’s World Champion Persephone discuss how each of them beat Mercedes Mone for their respected championships. Respectful banter hypes their encounter tonight.
MJF and Kyle Fletcher have a tense conversation, where MJF wants Fletcher to cripple Speedball. Fletcher rebuffs “Maxwell,” stating he does things on his terms. MJF then cautions Don Callis about how his people talk to him. Does MJF have some influence on the DCF?
Kyle Fletcher retains the TNT Championship against “Speedball” Mike Bailey
Welp, this match was outright insane. Probably their best match together in AEW. Their incredible match during the Continental Classic was memorable, but tonight’s encounter blows it out of the water. It was completely believable Bailey could have won the championship. Both wrestlers looked absolutely fantastic. Bailey was on an absolute tear, hitting Fletcher with two Poisonranas, one of which was off the top turnbuckle.
A ridiculous number of near falls, so many of them where it seemed impossible for the match to end.
With just minutes to spare, Okada and Davis rushed out to interfere, allowing Fletcher to cheat to gain advantage, hitting the brainbuster for the win.
I questioned why they opted to give the Trios Championships to Davis, Fletcher, and Okada. I would have picked Davis, El Clon, and Lance Archer to give other members of the Family some championships to hold onto.
Tragically this was not the result fans wanted. It was so close to a draw, I have no doubt fans would have appreciated that ending rather than another cheating finish. Had this been a non-title match, it would have been 100% believable for Bailey to win.
Brody King defeated Unnamed Jobber in a “standby match”
This served simply to bring out Swerve Strickland to attack after the match, but King was ready and able to defend himself, overpowering Swerve, sending him a clear message before their encounter on Sunday.
Gabe Kidd and David Finlay defeated Darby Allin and Orange Cassidy
Woof. The Dogs brutalized Darby and OC. While Darby seemed to relish the fight, Cassidy appeared to feel out of his element, taking punishment while helpless to defend himself. Added help from Clark Connors gave The Dogs the advantage to win. After the match the beatings continued until Roderick Strong reappeared! Lost no more! He motions to the Dogs, but instead of attacking Cassidy, he strikes! Roddy and Darby chase the hounds away.
Roddy is back and things are going to get crazy. While Darby and Cassidy seem like huge underdogs against… The Dogs. With Roddy added to the mix they may have a chance at surviving.
Willow Nightingale defeated Persephone
A fun match with two strong women delivering some hard-hitting action and amazing agility throughout. Willow missing a beautiful looking moonsault was unfortunate. Persephone is freaking strong, lifting Willow for a crucifix bomb, but she was unable to hit it as Willow countered into a rollup for the pinfall victory.
FTR and Tommaso Ciampa defeated Mark Briscoe and the Young Bucks
High impact and fast paced. FTR slows down the flow when they take control, but leave it to Briscoe to turn up the crazy in order to pick things up again. Ciampa is presented as a main eventer. From an awesome intro to ring presence. FTR and Ciampa have tons of history, they work really well as a trio together. The match breaks down as the fight goes to the floor and the announce table is destroyed. FTR and Ciampa’s cohesiveness proved to be too much, getting the win over Briscoe and the Bucks.
After the match, Ciampa opted to lob Briscoe off the top with an Air Raid Crash through chairs. Ouchie.
Briscoe vs. Ciampa is going to be awesome.
Press Conference hosted by Bryan Danielson with “Hangman” Adam Page and MJF
This was, uhm, interesting. The Q&A session was a bit subpar, and yes, you could hear the chants of “boring” from the live crowd despite this taking place backstage. Inevitably they would brawl out to the ring where security attempted to break up the fight. Hangman dodges a ring-brandishing MJF, planting him with the Deadeye. It gets better as he brings a board with barb-wire on it, but MJF runs away.
Well, aside from the final segment, the Go-Home Dynamite was an excellent two hours of wrestling. Consider Revolution hyped.
