Fresh off an amazing pay-per-view, aw presents a blockbuster Dynamite from California. It seems feuds are continuing to heat up and intensify as the world title picture has become a hotbed of excitement. The Don Callis family looks to regroup following their defeat, and MJF must defend the world championship against mark brisco. for a 2-hour episode, they packed in a ton of wrestling and more promos then the norm.
Kicking off the show, we are treated to some backstage promos which took place after Forbidden Door, notably with Will Ospreay celebrating with Alex Windsor until Jon Moxley interrupts with an official offer to join the Death Riders. Ospreay is then confronted by Kenny Omega who also wants one more chance at the World Championship. Both are then confronted and ridiculed by the champ himself, as MJF gloats with confidence to walk in and out of All In as champion.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman retains the AEW World Heavyweight Championship against Mark Briscoe.
A wild and bloody bout. The last time MJF defended the championship after a PPV, things didn’t go well. While still protecting an injured leg, he managed to overcome the onslaught from the challenger to retain. MJF survives multiple Froggy Bows, Jay Drillers, being crushed through a table, pulling off the Heat Seeker Piledriver for the win. Despite proving he could out-maneuver the bloody Briscoe, he opted to administer a post-match attack. Kenny Omega rushed out for the save, challenging MJF to a title match. The champ balked, but stated he would face him next week if Omega agreed that should he lose, he would never challenge for the World Championship again.
Oh, this sounds familiar. Fantastic match, the story told within saw an underdog continue to push as hard as possible while visibly tiring out as MJF refused to stay down. This was probably one of Briscoe’s best matches, but nothing can top his rivalry with Kyle Fletcher.
Will Mark Briscoe be AEW World Champion someday? It does seem likely.
Andrade with Tony Schiavone, discusses leaving the corrupt Don Callis Family. As he delivers his “How you know” trademark, he is ambushed by the tanks of the family, Brian Cage, Lance Archer, and Jake Doyle. This leads to the next match where TNT Champion Kevin Knight retains over ROH TV Champion, Lio Rush. The two have superb chemistry, Knight still selling injuries from Forbidden Door.
Lio Rush is the real story here. While not quite at the main event level, yet, his pivot to this creepy conundrum of a character is paying off big time. The live crowd was very much invested, even while there was no chance of winning. His antics are going to keep him on TV for a long time.
After the match, Knight opted to gloat some more, but was interrupted by Darby Allin. He demands a match, but Don Callis denies the chance. This twists sideways, as Darby appears to get a little crazy, appearing to concoct some horrible, horrible plans for the DCF.
Darby’s smile looked like The Joker. Straight scary.
Backstage: Renee interviews Tommaso Ciampa until Chris Jericho shows up and the two brawl all the way into the parking lot.
Backstage again: Renee catches up with Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks. Nick Jackson encourages Kenny to take the offer, while Matt wants Omega to exercise caution, reminding him what happened to Cody and Hangman.
Jon Moxley and Will Ospreay defeated Blake Christian and Lee Johnson
“The Swirl” as Blake and Lee are known by might have a fair shake on ROH programming, but at no point did a victory seem likely. While not a squash by any means, it was perplexing to see two of the most dominant wrestlers in the company seem to struggle against a duo with the collective intimidation factor comparable to when Tito Santana and Virgil were a jobber tag team.
Very cool spot with Mox and Ospreay hitting their finishers in tandem. Paradigm Blade? Hidden Shift?
Unless this was Mox and Ospreay selling their fatigue, there’s no believable way a match like this shouldn’t have been more dominating. But hey, maybe this means Blake and Johnson should be taken a bit more seriously?
Backstage: Lexy Nair catches up with Cage and Cope, but Cage quickly diverts to why Copeland allowed Jay White to appear during their match. Cage explains it was an owed favor, but Christian states he still has beef with The Switchblade.
Speaking of whom, Jay White arrives with the entire Bang Bang Gang. He cuts an amazing promo, calling out how we all feared and hated the Death Riders, and now they are suddenly beloved for supporting Will Ospreay, someone White does not hold too kindly. Regardless, he centers on The Dogs, specifically his longtime rival Dave Finlay.
Jay White also seemed to be testing out some new crowd chants. It was fun. But he turned the promo drop dead serious. Jay White is back and if this promo is any indication, he’s going to be at his best and maybe even better.
Backstage (yet again): Shane Taylor Promotions challenges the Bang Bang Gang to a match on Collision.
Main event: Hikaru Shida wins the Survival of the Fittest match to win the vacant TBS Championship
Fantastic elimination style match. Very surprised to see Harley Cameron eliminated first, but made sense as the match progressed. She really didn’t have much of a feud with any other woman in the ring. Stardom’s Maika was eliminated second, but not before dropping bodies with some hard suplexes. Third to go was Queen Aminata, who put on a hell of a show, and certainly seemed to be one of the harder hitting women in the match, and the division for that matter. Hopefully Aminata remains in the title hunt. Persephone, eliminated fourth by Statlander, should be considered the MVP of the match. Besides having the most eliminations, she has by far the most dominating presence in the match.
It would have been very believable for her to win the match given her superior standing throughout. It was pretty clear she was a favorite to win based on the crowd reaction despite her being booked more as a heel. Shida managed to outsmart Statlander to gain victory and championship. This booking decision is perfectly fine, as there are typically more contenders when there is a heel champion. I imagine statlander will get a rematch, and hopefully the likes of Persephone and Queen Aminata will also get future title matches.
AEW Dynamite 7/1/26 featured some good wrestling, and uncharacteristically a lot more promo segments than we are used to. This being said, this is not a detraction on the show but an observation of how promos can be strategically placed throughout the two-hour program where it does not feel like it’s become too much of a distraction or robbing us of wrestling. Collision appears to be a heavily stacked show, dare I say Forbidden Door Part 2, and next week’s Beach Break Dynamite special appears to be a Pay-per-view on free television.
