It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means. AEW has a new world champion, his name is CM Punk, and his reign kicks off on Dynamite tonight.
Hot off the heels of Double Or Nothing this past Sunday, post-pay-per-view shows tend to be special, and tonight’s looks set to be no different, emanating from the Los Angeles Forum and packing a stacked lineup:
We hear from MJF
Austin Gunn, Colten Gunn & Max Caster vs. CM Punk & FTR
Christian Cage, Darby Allin, Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus & Matt Hardy vs. Hikuleo, reDRagon & Young Bucks
Johnny Elite vs. ???
Daniel Garcia vs. Jon Moxley
Britt Baker & Jamie Hayter vs. Ruby Soho & Toni Storm
JD Drake vs. Wardlow
Tony Schiavone speaks with Athena
All that and more tonight as the road to AEW vs NJPW at Forbidden Door kicks off! Follow along below for updates, results and reactions to tonight’s show.
9:49pm
Garcia vs. Moxley
Vince Vaughn and Macaulay Culkin are in the crowd. Speaking of the crowd, Jon Moxley comes through the crowd to fight Daniel Garcia. Moxley and Garcia are hitting each other with palm strikes in the chest. They sound pretty brutal.
I might be in the minority, but I’m not sure I see the appeal of Daniel Garcia. Now, I think he’s good. I just don’t think he’s a guy who should be main eventing in singles matches on Dynamite at this point in his career.
Moxley has some stitches in his head from Sunday. At one point, Moxley gets opened up. He’s bleeding like crazy. Garcia uses the steel steps on Moxley. At one point, Moxley hits a X-Plex style move on the steps which are turned on their side. AEW really loves that trick now.
Back in the ring, Moxley and Garcia rotate who gets to do the Machine Gun Elbows. Then they trade submission. Garcia hits a nasty piledriver right on the top of Moxley’s bloody head. Garcia locks in a sharpshooter. He leans to far back and Moxley locks in the choke. Now, it’s fighting spirit forearms.
Oh, Rampage is getting Young Bucks vs. Lucha Bros. Nice.
The match continues past the hour. Jericho leaves commentary to try to distract Moxley. It doesn’t work. Moxley hits the Paradigm Shift for the win. Kingston runs down and beats up Jericho. Moxley says sign him up for Blood and Guts.
The show is over. It was a decent show. It wasn’t the best follow up show I’ve ever seen, but it flew by and was entertaining. That’s good enough for me.
We get the Jade Cargill and Athena segment. A quick men’s interview and now it’s time for the women’s match. Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter are wrestling Ruby Soho and Toni Storm.
This is one of those feuds where I’m ready for Soho to do something different. Of course, we don’t get a match involving our champion, Thunder Rosa. She hasn’t really wrestled on television much at all since winning the title. Who’s next for Rosa?
Shida?
My favorite moment of the match so far was the entrance. Ruby Soho is in the ring. Toni Storm follows. For some reason, Soho turns around and grabs Storm. A few seconds later, Storm realizes Soho is supposed to be holding her back. Then she goes after Hayter. LOL.
During the commercial, Baker and Hayter beat up on Soho. Toni Storm gets the hot tag, but the momentum doesn’t last long. She gets a draping DDT from the apron to the floor. Soho hits a crossbody on Hayter. Hayter hit the floor hard. Then Baker hits a slingblade on Soho.
Now all 4 women are in the ring and the action has broken down. Geez. Soho takes a helluva backbreaker.
Baker goes for the Lock Jaw. Soho reverses. Hayter flips it back. A little miscommunication between Hayter and Baker allows Soho to hit Destination Unknown for the win.
After the match, Hayter drills Storm and Soho with the Owen Belt. That was fine. Nothing spectacular. Entertaining.
Wardlow is here. He’s got music. He doesn’t have security. First move of the match for Wardlow was a bit of a mistake. He rared back, but Drake wasn’t there.
A couple minutes in and it’s time for a symphony. He only hit two tonight. Out of the blue, JR shares that Wardlow has bowled 6 300 games. In WWE he’d be packaged as a bowler and have a name like Balls Alley or something.
That match was quick. After the match, Mark Sterling serves Wardlow a lawsuit for beating up all the security. Wardlow quickly Powerbombs the Shawn Spears look-a-like security guard.
Backstage, we get a promo from Scorpio Sky, Ethan Page, and Dan Lambert. They talk about Dante Martin’s potential. Martin walks up and cuts a very boring promo where he says he’s better than him right now. Martin is not a good talker. He should stick to the incredible high-flying moves.
Backstage, Swerve is standing with some people who are apparently famous. I don’t know who they were. One of them gave him a jacket. Then he listed a bunch of Lakers.
Keith Lee said at some point they’ll win some titles. Then we’ll Swerve in their Glory. That is a horrible team name.
Out next is Athena. Shes wants Jade Cargill. Jade Cargill is on the stage. She hands the mic to Stokely Hathaway. Jade calls him the best talker in the business. I don’t know about that. He’s good. Cargill says she’s not getting her shot anytime soon.
The baddies get in their face. Anna Jay and Kris Statlander come out to even the odds. Cargill is a very, very tall woman. Athena also is very short compared to the other two women on her team. I don’t guess it matters a whole lot. But it was particularly noticeable as they were all standing near each other. At least they weren’t all in a straight line.
This match has changed a few times. It’s Red Dragon, Hikuleo, and The Young Bucks vs. Darby Allin, Jurassic Express, Christian Cage, and Matt Hardy. Adam Cole isn’t participating. Jeff Hardy is also out.
Before the match, Samoa Joe is attacked by Jay Lethal and crew. Singh is a big, big dude.
This match is going to be too impossible to keep up with each move. I’ll try to hit the high spots, but even that may be difficult with this crew. The first big one was Jungle Boy hitting a Frankensteiner onto Bobby Fish who was standing on the apron and landed on the floor. We get dives by Allin and Luchasaurus. The Young Bucks are next to dive. And now, it’s time for a commercial.
I’m sure you can’t believe it, but Rick Knox is not enforcing any sort of tag team rules. We’ve got people in left and right. Nick Jackson sells a piledriver like I’ve never seen. Canadian Destroyer from Jungle Boy where he jumped off Luchasaurus. Hikuleo is in against Luchasaurus. They’re big.
Now it’s Darby vs. ReDRagon. He just runs as fast as he can and slams his body into both men who are stuck in the corners. Darby gets caught by Hikuleo. He then hands him over for a Chasing the Dragon. Matt Hardy does the Delete Head Slams into the turnbuckles in all 4 corners until the big man is in.
Eventually, Christian and Matt Hardy take out Hikuleo. The Young Bucks have a Super Kick Party, hitting everyone on the other team. They go for BTE Trigger, but it’s blocked. ReDRagon hits High/Low. The Bucks then hit the Meltzer Driver. Adam Cole on commentary says The Bucks are going to get their titles back. Wonder what ReDRagon thinks about that?
Jericho’s boy band is here and they are addressing Anarchy in the Arena. Angelo addresses the AEW Galaxy and wants them to appreciate them. Get it…Universe…Acknowledge…
Matt Minard says something. I have no idea what, but he talked.
Jericho then wants to know what kind of man burns another man. He is upset Eddie Kingston brought gas to the ring. Ironic. Jericho is good at doing that kind of stuff.
Jericho says he had his hair pulled out because of the number of times his bald spot was shown. Jericho says sports entertainers always beat wrestlers.
Eddie Kingston is out. He wants to fight the JAS in Blood and Guts. That’s the War Games match. He has William Regal say Blood and Guts. It’s not as effective as when he said War Games.
Eddie has all the guys come after him minus Jericho. While Jericho is still in the ring, Ortiz jumps in and cuts Jericho’s hair. This makes Jericho accept. He says that he has one thing first. He’s going to face Ortiz in a hair vs. hair match. Looks like we’re getting bald Jericho. My guess…Hair plug treatment.
Miro delivers a pretty great little return promo via video package. Miro is answering the open challenge against Johnny Elite. This makes me really happy. I love Miro.
The majority of this match was in the picture in picture commercial break. During the break, Johnny Elite got in a few moves. He went for the side flip splash, but missed.
After, he got a thrust kick in the face. He then locked in his finisher, which for the life of me I can’t remember what he calls it now. Anywho, he looked fantastic in his return.
I’m so glad this dude is back. He’s excellent and he beat up Johnny Elite in just a few minutes.
MJF said he’s hurting from Sunday. He said he’s speaking as Max Friedman. He said it would be a shame if something happened tonight with the big Time Warner merger.
He says Khan wanted to sit down with him and it is too little too late. MJF then says he wasn’t handed a ticket like everyone else. He said he had to earn it. He said he has to be perfect each and every week. He says he’s expected to hit grand slams every week. He is the only one who is capable of carrying this company on his back. He says he’s been doing it each and every week. He says everything he touches turned to gold.
He then turns his attention to the guys in the back. He says they want his spot. He says they can have it because he doesn’t want to be here anymore. He says he is the only one who makes you feel. He says he doesn’t have to do all the BS flips and stuff to get you there.
MJF turns to the fans. He calls them stupid and says they don’t know anything and their opinions don’t matter.
Finally, he turns his attention to Tony Khan. We’ve officially entered into the work portion of this story. Whatever was shoot and work before, we can now assume this is all work. He talks about how he’s the second biggest draw in the company behind CM Punk. He says he’s the best in the world. He even says he’s tired of not getting paid. He’s tired of not getting the attention and respect of all the ex-WWE guys. He literally says ex-WWE. The crowd erupts. He asks if he’d get better treatment if he worked in WWE before.
Punk then begs to get fired after saying Khan should be in the crowd not in the back. He then lights into an expletive filled rant which was bleeped out. The whole segment was one curse word after another.
This was an incredibly delivered promo. MJF is an incredible actor. He’s unbelievable at delivering a wrestling promo. However, this didn’t scream shoot like the CM Punk pipebomb from years ago. In the end, they cut his mic and cut to commercial. No one addressed it after the commercial break.
We’ll see where it goes. If I were Tony, I would book him against one WWE guy after another until he earns a title shot. Then, I’d strap the title to him and see where he can take us. The crowd quickly got behind him in spite of him just calling them out left and right.
Trios Action - Gunn Club and Caster vs. Punk and FTR
FTR and Punk are taking on The Ass Boys and Max Caster. I hope Punk and FTR can get along. No, not because they feuded as part of the Pinnacle vs. Punk feud, but because they may start arguing about who is the bigger Bret Hart fan.
Max Caster is great. I can’t explain why, but I like this Billy Gunn and Acclaimed pairing. That said, the baby Gunns are a bit obnoxious.
During the match, much of the commentary is really about explaining the relationship development between FTR and Punk. They explain that in spite of being in a feud not that long ago, CM Punk and Dax Harwood developed mutual respect during their match. As a result, they found common ground. Now they are all together in a group of sorts.
During the match, Punk and Wheeler really take advantage of the other team. It seems Dax Harwood is going to take the punishment for his team. Dax seemingly loves to sell and he’s pretty decent at it.
CM Punk may have to re-name himself to See Him Botch. After his two unsuccessful Punkshot Lariats at DON, tonight he slipped off the rope on his Springboard Lariat.
In the end, CM Punk and FTR get the win. They hit the GTS into the Big Rig. This match was mostly about putting over Punk and FTR. Gunn Club and Caster had some bright spots, but the match was never in doubt.
The announcers tried to cover for Punk’s slip-up by saying he was in a brutal match on Sunday. Nice try. Punk is going to have to simplify his offense if he can’t consistently hit the high-flying moves.
Punk addresses his botches after the match and says he knows he’s got to get better. He knows he has room to improve and you can call him what you want, but you have to call him champ. He says he doesn’t do drugs, but he thinks he’s feeling like he is tonight. Dax then says he’s done them and they do feel that good. Hmm.
CM Punk then says he wants to know who he has at Forbidden Door. Tanahashi answers. Great. It’s two guys who are a bit past their prime. They still have incredible star power and that’s a main event that will sell some tickets. JR says Tanahashi reminds him of a young WCW Sting. JR knows he’s 45 right?
Our live coverage will kick off from the start of the show at 8pm ET, but to get you in the mood before then, check out the new stage design AEW is debuting tonight:
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