Written by Brandon Hoffman
It’s Wednesday. You know what that means. AEW Dynamite aired tonight from the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas. Here’s how the action went down starting with a World Championship match.
MJF (c) v. Kevin Knight – AEW Men’s World Championship Match
MJF continued the bit of shoving his balls in his opponent’s face, a true class act of a World Champion. Knight was a best kept secret from the main event scene for a long time, but tonight The Jet proved he could hang. A Tope Con Clothesline from Knight connected beautifully in a move only he could hit. A false finish with an excruciatingly slow two count was the climax of this one, protecting MJF and further cementing his bastard-heel status.
A Heat Seeker from MJF ended this match and gave Max a title retention. The end result was never in doubt because of the upcoming MJF/Page title match at Revolution, sadly for Kevin Knight. After this one, “Speedball” Mike Bailey attacked MJF to prevent the retaining Champion attacking Knight post-match. This is most likely heading towards MJF v. Mike Bailey coming up before Revolution. That is going to be such a fun match.
Orange Cassidy & Darby Allin v. The Dogs (Gabe Kidd & Clark Connors) – Tag Match
The makeshift War Dogs teamed up to spear Cassidy through a table before the match even started. And this definitely wouldn’t be a Darby Allin match without him throwing his own wellbeing out the window multiple times throughout. The action simply didn’t stop with each combination ramping up the power shown from both sides. It’s very relieving to see that AEW is somewhat protecting “The Dogs” by letting them dominate a good portion of the match.
This match came to an end with Orange Cassidy pinning Clark Connors for the win after an Orange Punch. The Gabe and Darby feud continued on with the addition of David Finlay in the fray. The fears of him going to NXT can finally be laid to rest, because the Boss Dawg attacked Gabe and Darby with the shillelagh. He also aligned himself with The Dogs, forming a pseudo-Bullet Club in AEW. I cannot tell you how excited I was to see Finlay not go to WWE, it was a huge sigh of relief.
Brawling Birds (Jamie Hayter & Alex Windsor) v. The IInspiration (Jessie McKay & Cassie Lee) – Tag Match
The pacing of this AEW show suddenly became breakneck with this tag match not even lasting 90 seconds. The comedy characters got squashed by the Birds with both Hayter and Windsor pinning The IInspiration in one fell swoop. AEW did not do themselves any favors towards the women’s wrestling fans out there by presenting a short squash for The Birds. It was so quick we couldn’t even fully appreciate the screen time of everyone here.
“Hangman” Adam Page v. Marty Snow
You want to walk about quick match lengths? This one ended in ten seconds after a Big Boot and a Buckshot Lariat. Take that, Marty (not Scurll, thankfully). We moved right on to a call out promo from The Hangman. MJF came out initially to answer it, but then the Don Callis Family assaulted Hangman. The trio of Kazuchika Okada, Kyle Fletcher, and Mark Davis attacking Page brought out Kevin Knight and Mike Bailey with steel chairs to fight them away.
Then, everyone’s favorite prick Don Callis arrived to issue a challenge to the AEW Trios Champions. It will be them versus “Mark Davis and Protokada” for the belts in the main event tonight. I’d rather them be announced as “Okada and Aussie Open,” but continuity got screwed over for the sake of sticking it to Fletcher’s other boyfriend, Konosuke Takeshita.
FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) and the Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) sat down backstage earlier in the day for an interview with Renee Paquette. They reiterated their no-contact clause and the Bucks really wanted to hurt FTR. The segment ended with Dax punching Brandon Cutler in the face. For a follow up of a rivalry where FTR beat up the Bucks’ family this past Saturday on Collision, it was very underwhelming. Neutering heated feuds with no-contact clauses are ridiculous anyway, but going from super personal to Brandon Cutler was even more so. Why can’t this be just a story of “may the best team win?”
Jon Moxley (c) v. Hechicero – AEW Continental Title Eliminator Match
Mox walked down the stairs like his Shield days. This one contained the most technical wrestling out of anything else on this show. My god, Hechicero has still got it. His age is unknown but he’s got to be in his 40s, and he still moves as smooth as ever. The submission transitioning from both men really sold the struggle of winning, and Moxley sold a ton for The Sorcerer. Lovely stuff, making the less-known members of the Don Callis Family look like threats.
Ultimately, Moxley beat Hechicero with the Death Rider and continued a silent streak. Moxley has defeated a member of the Don Callis Family every week on Dynamite for the past three weeks. It creates for a who’s who of the bloated AEW roster to feature unused names on television every week. But at the same time, Moxley winning every singles match feels a bit stale at this point.
Brody King stomped to the ring and called out Swerve Strickland, and Prince Nana obliged with bringing him out, featuring lots of evil laughing. Swerve then attacked Brody from behind with a big chain. Hanging him up in the ropes, Swerve challenged Brody for a match at Revolution. What a perfect filler match featuring big names for the pay-per-view. There is no reason for this match to be happening other than Swerve wanting a fight, so why not? It will be good, therefore I won’t complain.
We then show off Wheeler YUTA’s bald head, pictured below, as each of the Death Riders make promises of violence for their respective feuds.
Thekla (c) v. Thunder Rosa – AEW Women’s World Championship Match
There were quite loud chops to highlight the violence these two threw at each other. With Queen Aminata injured, Thunder Rosa could be the next roughhousing feud Thekla occupies herself with. Hard strikes and hard connections everywhere got the crowd ooh-ing and aah-ing all over the place.
The finish of this one had Thekla hitting two Spears and two Stomps to defeat Thunder. I really wish these two were given some more time to demonstrate their strengths. We know their capabilities of violence and they had good chemistry, but having this be a one-and-done deal hurt the levity of this match a bit.
Right when it was only a few minutes until 10 p.m., Tommaso Ciampa came out for an interview segment about wanting “Silvie,” the TNT Title, back. FTR interrupted and reminisced with Ciampa about the good ol’ days. Those black and gold days were over though, especially since Ciampa shared his hatred of FTR and Big Stoke. Ciampa wanted Dax Harwood in a match this Saturday on Collision, and thus, the match was made official.
Does this seriously mean that Johnny Gargano is going to AEW? Hypothetically speaking, he would have signed much earlier in the company’s history if he wanted to jump on board. I would love to see #DIY v. FTR again as much as the next sicko, but it feels like a ship that has steered long away as of 2026.
Jet Set Rodeo (“Hangman” Adam Page, Kevin Knight, & “Speedball” Mike Bailey) v. Don Callis Family (Kazuchika Okada, Kyle Fletcher, & Mark Davis) – AEW Trios Championships Match
Everyone threw hands before the bell rang, but the action finally got under control eventually. It then lost control because AEW multiman matches don’t have any disqualification counts for non-legal people in the ring. All six people in this match are notably great, so the action’s quality was not doubted in the slightest. Although the big talking point of the match was everyone’s teamwork on both sides of the fence.
Moves leading to other moves dominated the offensive styles of everyone here. Bailey and Knight’s dives were also prominent in the action, so much so it became as transitional as an arm drag. It’s just a shame the crowd didn’t show excitement for the Horsecock name by chanting it. In the end, MJF would run out to interfere in Hangman’s business which led to the finish. Okada’s Rainmaker went right into Mark Davis’s Piledriver for the Don Callis Family win. We have new Trios Champions!
The pacing of this show felt a lot more rushed than your typical AEW card. This week’s Dynamite even had two back-to-back squash matches just so they could squeeze in more roster members for in-ring action. Don’t get me wrong, their wrestling remains a great focus despite the bloated roster.
All these big matches and segments involve talents and they still can’t find anywhere to put Jay White (Editor’s Note: White is injured). Sad times. Although with David Finlay now being All Elite, maybe it’s not the best idea to have White in the same locker room as the guy who kicked him out of Bullet Club.
