Category: AEW Television Musings

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)”

Well, you have to give All Elite Wrestling credit… they live up to their moniker.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (Nov. 12th, 2025) – Blood And Guts”

Color yourself shocked; I actually sat down to watch the last episode of AEW Dynamite, which happened to be the 6th anniversary episode of the program. It is also the first bit of AEW programming that I’ve watched since whatever the last PPV was from the summer. All In? All Out? One of the two? I don’t recall. I’m sure it’ll pop up on the archives if I look it up, but it doesn’t matter.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (October 1st, 2025) – 6th Anniversary Show”