Category: AEW Television Musings

Yeah, since I touched on the MLP Mayhem show I (barely) watched (without falling asleep due to exhaustion… please don’t take that to mean the show is boring. Just that midnight is a horrible time to watch a wrestling show.), I may as well touch on that night’s episode of Dynamite, which I also didn’t watch a whole lot of, if I’m being honest.

I did watch the opening match that saw Andrade retain his title over Jack Perry and Nick Wayne in a pretty fun opener. The crowd is clearly into Andrade’s stick at the moment, which is a nice breath of fresh air compared to all the other times I’ve seen Andrade on TV and nobody gave a shit. And you can even tell that Andrade is putting a little effort because he cut a promo afterwards that had me sold on what he was doing. I know WWE is the be-all and end-all for some folks, but name me one time when Andrade was anything resembling a noteworthy deal on WWE television that isn’t NXT. Good luck with that.

“Um, League Of Nations?” Fuck off with that noise.

Six-man tag that I didn’t see much off is followed by a sitdown interview/conversation between Cope & Cage and the Bucks. You hear people cheering and popping in the background, which somewhat detracts from the piece, which I thought was pretty good. Again, they’re doing what they can to hype up this big dream and  get it out of the way at All In for the eventual other dream team match thing that’s going to come along one of these days involving a certain tag team of sorts whose no-compete is on the verge of expiry.

At which point, the phone rang and I largely ignored the rest of the show. I’ve heard good things, though. There was a Kenny/Ospreay promo that I missed in the overrun. I mean, they’re trying to get people hyped for All In from Wembley Round 3. If that means good online hype, then, great, fantastic…

Will that translate to ticket sales, however? Because you’re holding the same event at the same venue for the third time in four years. If, at any point, someone decides to watch these things year to year, they’re going to notice the crowd getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And it’s embarrassing. People already complain about the crowds being not as big as they used to be, but you watch the stadium shows and the same venue is gradually producing smaller crowds year after years… that’s a optical issue that you need to fix. Either book a smaller venue or book a better card.

Preferably both would be nice, too.

Anyway, shortly after the bulk of this post was written and I made my way back home, I did load up the Willow promo from that show and hey, you know what? That’s another hell of a promo. It’s not yelly-screamy promo stuff that’s all shooty and shit, but it was a very believable, very straightforward piece that told me all about Willow and her struggles up to this point. Do I want all these wrestlers to be relatable? Not really; you need these people to be larger than life… but sometimes, that doesn’t always work out. Sometimes, a simpler approach works. Willow has a character that works for her. She also has a mom that’s inspiring and that’s a nice touch of reality that helps… I don’t need that mom to be a character on TV, however. Even SUE got too much screen time that ventured into overkill after a while.

And then Mercedes comes out and cuts the usual Mercedes promo that I’ve seen her cut a billion times and this leads to a back and forth between her and Willow that is mildly entertaining (Willow tried, which is more than what I can say for Mercedes – come at me, stans) before the Divine people came in and ruined things… which brings out the Birds. These are actual tag team names…. in fairness, I’ve heard worse names such as any name preceded with the word “team.”

Like I said, I didn’t see a whole lot of this Dynamite… but what I saw was entertaining enough, the promos I spotted did a fair job of selling me on their matches, and it got more more excited for All In than this Summerslam show coming up this weekend, which costs a Netflix subscription to watch and features the WWE debut of Nick Aldis as an active wrestler for the first time in years. And as much I would like to watch THAT piece of business, it’s not enough to sell me on a month of Netflix to watch one match on one weekend…

But hey, McSon-In-Law wants people to fuck off and be a fan… enjoy the show. Well, that’s not a problem for me. I fucked off long ago and I’m enjoying someone else’s show.

Anyway… that’s the show.

Well, it’s the Dynamite after Double Or Nothing and there’s also an hour of Collision that I didn’t watch because the PVR didn’t catch it, which means that I missed the Kris Stat/Hikaru Shida Lights Out main event. Can we not have these 3-hours just be Dynamite and not some weird combination of one show that TSN airs with another hour of whatever. This is reminding me of that Impact/ReAction experiment that TNA tried back in the dark days where they’d have Impact end in the middle of their main event and then people would have to watch another show to see the rest of it. Fuck off with that noise, man.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (May 27th, 2026) – Double Or Nothing Fallout Boy”

It’s the go home for Double Or Nothing coming up this weekend, which means let’s have the obligatory opening party match seeing the Bucks Of Jericho get their asses kicked by that fucking geek Rick O’Shea and his geek squad before the Hurt people come along to even the odds. This Stadium Stampede match is going to be a fun time for the people at home; not so sure about the people in the arena. We’ll see what happens.

Mark Briscoe defeat Tomasso Ciampa in an Anything Goes match and boy, if you wanted a relentless brawl between two hated rivals, this was the match for you. Tremendously heated conflict, the crowd was easily into the violence, and the right guy went over to earn a bit of redemption and revenge over the Psycho Killer person. This is, of course, followed by a brawl between Swerve Strickland and that Bandito person that is supposed to lead to an ROH title match… because Swerve wants a World title, but not necessarily the one that matters, apparently. Eh.

It’s not all fun and games, as Willow Nightingale has to surrender the TBS title due to injury and forfeit her spot in the Owen Hart Tournament, which is a thing that happens every year. I feel compelled to remind you that AEW has a tournament named after Owen Hart – who obviously never competed in AEW – because his widow wants nothing to do with WWE… and I don’t necessarily blame her, either. This is followed by a 20-minute draw between Jon Moxley and Kyle O’Reilly, which will lead to a no-time-limit match for Mox’s title (please don’t ask me which, I’ve forgotten) at the PPV. And then we have an interview with Stat and Shida, with Shida being a bit dickish. Hey, as long as Shida is getting TV time of worth, I don’t care where this story goes until it’s off the rails.

Six-woman tag match of little consequence follows before we get our main event of Darby Allin defending his AEW title against Speedball Bailey; a fast-paced, hard-hitting match that sees Darby retain the title and set the stage for our main event of Darby vs. MJF for the title and MJF’s head of hair… which I’d imagine Darby would want to cut and use as a wig… probably the most extreme thing he could pull off at this point. I mean, once you’ve climbed Everest, what’s left, really?

Apparently, there’s a Collision that follows this, but I didn’t catch it. Mick Foley will be making his AEW debut in the PPV preshow, for anyone who cares. How many mistakes will that guy make on the air, referring to guys by their WWE names or what have you? Should be an interesting trainwreck of sorts.

I’d imagine that I’ll try to catch the PPV this weekend in some form or fashion, although if that doesn’t end up happening, I’ll probably still do the post-PPV Dynamite before bringing this run of musings to a close. Either way, it’s been quite a bit of fun watching these Dynamites, which turned out to be quite entertaining shows that I was more content to sit back and watch rather than take copious amounts of notes.

Later, kids.

A little late with this one, but to be fair, I had to play catch-up on a few things, a couple other IRL things also came up, and I’ve been getting more unwanted sleep. Regardless, I was able to watch this show via PVR recording and honestly had little to say about it.

I mean, let’s get it out of the way. I largely enjoyed the show and there were some fun bits. Darby retained the AEW Title over Takeshita in a fun match before we get the contract signing for the PPV match with MJF, which is officially TITLE (Darby) vs. HAIR (MJF) at stake. As if you needed a dead giveaway that MJF is winning the title back because I doubt he’s going to be cutting that mop of his. There was also a really great match between Ospreay and Ace Austin, with Ospreay getting the win and also his training with Mox and his Death people continue, which I’m actually turning a corner on bit by bit… I’m waiting for this moment to be ruined, eventually, but that could be a trigger warning on my part. Kevin Knight retains his TNT title over the returning Brian Cage, who looked pretty good after a long injury hiatus… and then Speedball Bailey wants a shot at the AEW Champion next week, so we have our last Darby defense before the ride comes to an end this coming Sunday. And of course, the obligatory party match, which I largely skipped due to other stuff happening in the background, but I don’t think I missed much there.

Anyway, we’ve got the go home for Double Or Nothing coming up and if things work out, I might be able to catch the PPV this coming weekend and hopefully do some musings on it, since that’s the whole payoff of this mini sojourn of sorts through the Darby era of AEW World title matches. We’ll see about doing the Dynamite after DoN before closing out this run of musings, because June will be wrestling free.

Show opens with Tony Schiavone and Sting doing a classy tribute to the recently passed Ted Turner and highlighting his contributions to wrestling. We then move on to Jon Moxley beating Juice Robinson in a title eliminator match that prevents Juicy Juice from getting a crack at Mox’s title… dude, there’s like thirteen billion belts in AEW; that’s too many for my raddled brain to keep track of.

Speaking of rattled brains, Will Ospreay continues training with the Death people, who continually have him do exercises hurting his neck because that’s a thing we need in wrestling. And then Orange Cassidy beat one of the FTR guys to earn a future tag title match… presumably after Double Or Nothing, but who knows with this company? And while we’re on the subject of rattled brains, here comes JERICHO to declare that the time for talking is over and he invites Ricochet to talk some more… okay. Anyway, this exchange leads to a Stadium Stampede match being booked for DoN pitting Ricochet and his band of geeks (two big guys following Ricochet of all people deserve to be called geeks, not even sorry) against Jericho and the Syndicate Of Hurting People In Business (Shelton and Lashley)… I guess we need more names to fill the slots to make this a ten-man, but yeah, sure, Stadium Stampede is always fun for a lark. Hopefully Aubrey Edwards isn’t anywhere near that match for Jericho’s sake. She is, after all, a shitty referee.

Okada retains his belt over Bryan Keith and he also wants a shot at Darby… how long before Double Or Nothing hits because that’s going to be a fun one if it happens. Meanwhile, Shida-san and Kris Stat make short work of Harley Cameron and that Mina person… Shida-san being somewhat sneaky about some less than honorable deeds. Methinks she’s turning on Statlander soon and that’s probably a good thing. Hopefully, Statlander learns from Sting’s past mistakes on how NOT to be an idiot babyface and see the turn coming.

And in the main event, AEW World Champion Darby Allin retains his title over TNT Champion Kevin Knight in another stellar outing. Probably not as crazy as the last two main events, but still a fun, fast-paced match that showcase both guys’ talents immensely. At this point, the recording cuts off because Dynamite is technically over and the PVR didn’t record the Collision portion of the program, but what ended up happening afterwards is that Darby challenged MJF to put his hair on the line if he wants a rematch or else he can fuck off. MJF delivers his answer next week. Should be fun.

All in all, a fun show. Perhaps not quite as eventful as I was hoping it’d be… probably because they saved all the important bits for the Collision portion of the show, but I went away largely entertained. No complaints, really.

There was a part of me that wanted to hold this musings off until Saturday. See, because Saturday is May 2nd, which is the Rock’s birthday, you stupid son of a bitch… so let’s celebrate by talking about an AEW show. Obviously, we’re not doing that… but I’ll probably play the Fight Forever game on Saturday instead… or do a quick match there. I don’t know…

Anyway, we’re continuing the Road To Double Or Nothing, which is nowhere near as poorly maintained as the Road To Wrestlemania was. Hey, if nothing else, these Dynamite shows have been entertaining enough to warrant continuing these musings for the short term, which will probably last until Double Or Nothing. Last night’s show wasn’t a big show, by any means, but still a fun one.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (April 29th, 2026) – Better Maintained Road To Double Or Nothing”

You know… I almost feel bad for posting this on a Friday midnight hour as opposed to a Thursday afternoon or evening… because twelve hours later, the Portrait Of Ruin video is going up and I feel that’s going to be the bigger deal than the second Dynamite I’ve watched in a row… which is quite an accomplishment, all things considered.

But yes, for those who missed it, Darby Allin’s defeat of MJF for the AEW championship, along with Double Or Nothing being a good chunk of time away, convinced me to give this AEW thing another shot until that show. And we’ll have to see if Tony Khan does a better job of filling his potholes than McSon-In-Law can. Right now, the odds are even.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (April 22nd, 2026) – Crash! Kapow! Crumble! slow clap…”

Right, you know what? I was gonna hold until Sunday, but then decided… nah, fuck it. I’ve already seen it last night and ramifications are too large to hold off, so let’s get it out of the way.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (April 15th, 2026) – Let’s Give This Another Shot…”

For the record, I didn’t watch the whole show. I saw bits and pieces here and there. I’ve heard that there was the usual good matches that you’ve come to expect from some of the featured talent. Someone suggested that I’d give the Kyle Fletcher/Speedball Bailey match a watch and I thought that was pretty fun. So if you’re expecting a full-blown musings on the show as a whole, I’m afraid I’ll have to let you down here.

However, I did watch the main event press conference between Hangman Page and AEW Champion MJF to hype up their Revolution main event because AEW uploaded the clip onto Youtube. And THAT’s the piece of business I want to touch on today.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (March 11th, 2026) – Main Event Press Conference”

Listen, I don’t feel like throwing up a banner on short notice, so you’re getting a picture of this here dog. Good enough for me, dammit.

So a buddy of mine forwarded this Grand Slam Collision show my way via DVD-R recording… along with a couple other things that he thought I might like. This was the Grand Slam show from Australia that took place on Valentine’s Day. Out of courtesy, I gave it a watch and…

Continue reading “Grand Slam Collision (Feb. 14th, 2026)”