AEW Dynamite 8/31 kicked off with AEW World Champion Jon Moxley cutting a passionate promo about Punk getting injured again and offering an open contract to anyone who thinks they can take on the epitome of professional wrestling.
Mox’s promos have been upper echelon for the past few months. He’s always ruled a microphone, but ever since he came back the promos get better and better, tonight was one of the best.
Following the promo Mox getting booed now… Ace Steele, Punk’s best friend ran into the ring to retrieve the open contract. This is going where we all think it’s going.
Backstage, Daniel Garcia pledges loyalty to Chris Jericho, telling him he looks up to Jericho and as “the Lionheart” Jericho should not rely on underhanded tactics to win.
Bryan Danielson defeats Jake Hager
Better match than I expected. Hager provided the power wrestling, the brawling, and the ground and pound. Danielson provided the TNT to ignite the live crowd with every move he made. Honestly, Danielson could have used nothing but Bodyslams which would get cheered. Great wrestling exchanges, resulting in a number of submission attempts, none of which resulted in victory. Danielson scores with the Psycho Knee for the win.
Man, I am hyped for Jericho/Danielson. Garcia might play a role, but I hope we get a clean finish.
Post match, Menard and Parker rush the ring, but are intercepted by Claudio and Yuta. As the four brawl away, Jericho rushes the ring with a chair, but is STOPPED BY DANIEL GARCIA! Garcia pulls the chair away, which allows Danielson to connect with the Knee as well. Garcia seems upset, but also dismayed Jericho once again resorted to underhanded tactics.
Garcia is clearly being pushed heavily. He’s got major wrestling talent, right up there with Danielson, Malenko, Jericho, Angle, and the list could go on.
Next up, The Wingmen are out complaining about being forgotten. Out comes Morrisey, who destroys JD Drake, “Pretty” Peter Avalon, Cezar Bononi, and Ryan Nemeth. Stokley hands him a card, which is accepted. Tony Schiavone attempts to get a word, and Stokley loses his cool, but Schiavone fires back some verbal shots of his own! YEAH SCHIAVONE! Stokley says he’s got a plan which we aren’t going to hear about.
Hikaru Shida and Toni Storm defeated Dr. Britt Baker, DMD and Jamie Hayter
This was a great match, and my MVP award goes to Shida for bringing the fire to this one. If this tag match was any indication, the four-way to crown a new Women’s (Interim) champion is going to be fantastic. Shockingly, Baker took the pinfall loss to Shida.
Backstage, Don Callis seems to make nice with Will Ospreay.
CM Punk comes to the ring and is openly disheartened about losing, not walking into Chicago as AEW World Champion. Punk shares the injury and it seems Punk’s apologetic tone may be leading to further disappointment, until Ace Steele returns to the ring, contract in hand, cutting one hell of an impassioned promo about the length of their friendship, training Punk decades ago and were together as part of the Second City Saints. Steele fires Punk up, using Chicago as the backdrop for hometown love, to which Punk loses his damn mind and delivers one of the best promos to date. He finished his promo IN THE CROWD.
It’s Punk vs. Mox II, and no matter who wins, we are in for one hell of a wrestling match.
Back from commercial, Mox returns to the ring to deliver a short promo (due to a mistiming of his music hitting) about promising a hell of a main event in Chicago. Despite some booing, Mox still rallies the crowd.
FTR and Wardlow defeat Rhett Jones, Vic Capri, Silas Young
Backstage, Evil Uno reveals he will be taking the place for Preston Vance. They are approached by Andrade who offers money to Uno to work for him. Uno refuses, and gets beat up for it. Andrade takes the crutches from “10” and breaks them over Uno.
Guess Uno’s out… that means one thing… and we know what this is. Later on, backstage, John Silver and Alex Reynolds are approached about the Trios Tourney, and who strolls up? One “Hangman” Adam Page who tells them he’s always been there, and he’ll be there again. The Good, The Bad, and The Hungee are back together!
My one slight gripe… they should not have revealed Hangman as Dark Order’s partner tonight. Evil Uno should have gotten injured on Rampage, and then reveal Hangman. This makes Friday’s match way too predictable. Grants, it’ll get views for Friday for sure, and now we wonder if there’s going to be a turn or some shenanigans come Sunday.
AEW Dynamite 8/31 Main Event: Trios Tourney Match – The Elite vs. Will Ospreay and Aussie Open
After a rundown of the full card, including the pre-show, we get our main event with a hilarious intro from Justin Roberts about Kenny Omega’s successes over Will Ospreay. Notice, the Elite all come out from the face tunnel, including the scumbag, Don Callis.
What a main event match. A-game from everyone, with plenty of mind games between Omega and Ospreay. Even Don Callis sounded fairly neutral on commentary.
So many close calls which made this match believably go either way.
Dynamite was a fast two hours. I couldn’t believe how fast the time went by tonight, I couldn’t believe it was main event time by 9:40pm. So much action throughout the night with a solid build-up for Sunday.
Just enjoy the wrestling folks, stop reading too much into the clickbait.
AEW Dynamite 8/31 is now streaming on the TBS app and on demand via your local cable operator.
Punk’s promo had me fired up for sure. He flipped the switch during that segment 🔥