Ready for more AEW?! AEW Dynamite 9/18/24 brought some very interesting twists and turns heading into next week’s Dynamite special episode, Grand Slam.
The show kicks off with a pretty good match featuring Orange Cassidy defeating Chris Jericho. A fun opener with some unexpected table-breaking spots. Cassidy sold so well, I believed he was going to lose. Thankfully, Cassidy intercepted Bryan Keith who tried throwing a roll of quarters to Jericho but Freshly Squeezed caught and used it to gain the win.
I really, really, really hope this finally ends the feud. I’m not sure why this feud restarted in the first place. Sure, we got some comical moments from the Conglomeration which I will never complain about, but let’s move on, yes?
Hook defeated JD INK
JD Ink represents his name well… He’s 80% tattoos if you couldn’t figure it out. Roderick Strong was on commentary, had some good banter with Taz, looking on as Hook suplexed his way to victory.
Video package narrated by various wrestlers hyping the potential non-title match between Nigel McGuiness and Bryan Danielson should the AEW World Champion be officially cleared to compete.
Queen Aminata and Yuka Sakazaki defeated AEW Womens’ Champion Mariah May and “The Professor” Serena Deeb by DQ
Very good match. All four women are solid wrestlers and put on an enjoyable match. Sakazaki is fun to watch, she’s just so happy and joyful. Mariah brings the viciousness, while both Deeb and Aminata put on the technical masterpieces. The sequence of German suplexes was a nice touch. In an interesting turn, May intentionally got her team disqualified by clocking her soon-to-be challenger Sakazaki with the title belt, and then beat her senseless with it.
We haven’t see Sakazaki in months, so it’s nice to see her featured again. Sadly, I believe she will serve as another title retaining win for May.
Backstage: The BCC cuts a promo essentially telling Wheeler Yuta to get over what happened and to tough it out. He’s got a job to do next week, which is to defend the Trios championships next week at Grand Slam. The promo was very well crafted, painting BCC as a tough love, tell it like it is stable, but also being dismissive of weakness and do not want weakness from Yuta.
Yuta is shown in another area, still distraught as evidenced by him forgetting his title belt, mixing up pay-per-view names and is straight-up out of it.
I like it. BCC playing no-care baddies, with Yuta angry and emotionally conflicted. I’m guessing Yuta is going to cause the BCC to lost the trios titles at some point.
Backstage: Christian Cage talks about his inevitable cash-in and belief of becoming the next AEW World Champion. He also says Nick Wayne is going to being his journey towards singles titles. No mention of poor Luchasaurus.
BCC made their way through the crowd as they headed to the ring, only to get blindsided by Private Party. But Mox and Claudio no-sell every inch. Zay is throwing fists at Mox who acts like Darkseid against the Justice League. Not even a flinch. No acknowledgment. Mox, Claudio, and Shafir completely maul Zay and Quen, and even an attempted save by Komander is simply swatted away.
Holy crap. Mox and Claudio have become Mad Titans.
Ricochet defeated The Beast Mortos
Amazing contest. Watch this one. I have to put over The Beast Mortos. He kept up with Ricochet and his overpowering of some of the high flying attempts were phenomenal. Catching Ricochet or stopping a dive, Mortos lives up to the namesake. The one downside is that until Ricochet faces someone truly threatening, there’s no suspense or believability of him losing.
Wait. Backstage, Ospreay approaches Ricochet. We find out on the October 2nd episode of Dynamite, the anniversary show, Ricochet will face Ospreay for the AEW International Championship.
“Hangman” Adam Page comes out to be interviewed by Tony Schiavone
This doesn’t go well for Tony. Page promised he would go after anyone who supported Swerve Strickland after everything which happened, and that includes the commentary team. Schiavone is about to meet his maker when Jeff Jarrett appears and a brawl breaks out.
Never would have had a Jarrett/Page feud on any bingo card, but here we are. I also never thought I would see babyface Jarrett being getting babyface crowd pops either.
Strange times we live in.
Kyle Fletcher, Konosuke Takeshita, and Will Ospreay defeated The Elite
Again, a fun match. These are the types of shows I enjoy the most from AEW. Was it spotty with some silly flippy and planned spots? Yes. But it doesn’t take away from the fun. Not in my opinion anyway.
MVP goes to Konosuke Takeshita. Once again the guy shows off how much of a monster he can be. Just pull the trigger, have him go on every week, or at least every other week and tear it up with a worthy opponent. It is clear they are slow-building him to be a big deal. I just hope they don’t wait too long and lose him to another company.
Another enjoyable episode of Dynamite, appropriately building suspense, tension, and worthy hype for Grand Slam next week.
It’s going to be good. As a fan of Ring of Honor from the early-2000s, potentially seeing Nigel McGuiness vs. Bryan Danielson again is absolutely thrilling.
Those tag team spots were unreal! The pacing, the teamwork, and the creativity—everything was on point. Best tag match I’ve seen in a while!