AEW Dynamite Preview for April 9, 2025
- AEW Staff
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
DYNASTY 2025 was an absolutely unforgettable night in the annals of All Elite Wrestling history! Not only did fans bear witness to two titles changing hands, we also saw the return of AEW founding fathers The Young Bucks as they played a pivotal role in the AEW World Championship match between The Death Riders' Jon Moxley and Swerve Strickland. Be sure to catch it on replay if you weren't able to watch it live. That way you're prepared for tonight's trip to Baltimore and a return to the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena! After all much of what's happening tonight is a direct result of what went down Sunday night, including Swerve Strickland facing AEW World Trios Champion “The Bastard” PAC and The Opps' Samoa Joe & HOOK facing the other two-thirds of The Death Riders' championship team Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta! We will also see the 2025 Owen Hart Foundation Women's Tournament continue as Thunder Rosa and Kris Statlander meet in the Quarterfinals.
DYNAMITE gets underway at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT streaming on MAX, as well as airing on TBS, and fans around the world can also watch with AEW PLUS. Prior to the show kicking off make sure to visit AEW's official YouTube channel to catch-up on highlights from previous editions of DYNAMITE and COLLISION, a plethora of deep dive TIMELINES, and so much more! Then join us Saturday night in Springfield, MA for a live COLLISION from the MassMutual Center followed by two nights in Boston at Fenway's MGM Music Hall for SPRING BREAK THRU!
ONE-ON-ONE...
AEW World Trios Champion “The Bastard” PAC vs. Swerve Strickland
Swerve Strickland had the AEW World Championship won if not for the return of The Young Bucks, that much about DYNASTY 2025's main event was perfectly clear. However what's less clear is the entire situation that brought Hangman Page, The Death Riders, and The Opps all into the picture after Swerve dropped Jon Moxley with the Kudo Driver. Hangman was the first to the ring, and though he was obviously setting up for a Buckshot Lariat, who he intended as his target remained a mystery because “The Bastard” PAC was on the scene to stop Hangman, quickly followed by Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli.
From there, as can be seen in the video embedded above, chaos erupted among the disparate factions until they finally fought away from the ringside area, leaving Swerve to chuck a chair into the cranium of Moxley. We know how the rest of the match went and the role The EVPs played in Swerve's defeat, but they will not be the ones answering to the former World Champion, at least not tonight.
Tonight in Baltimore it will be “The Bastard” PAC who faces Swerve in their very first match of any kind. Never a tag or a trios, not even a battle royale; Swerve Strickland and PAC have never stood inside a ring together for a match of any sort prior to their scheduled conflict for this evening, and perhaps that's for the best as each is at the top of their game right now in 2025. They've both been honed into truly dangerous individuals, both capable of perpetrating remorseless violence upon their enemies, and both in utterly elite physical condition. Yet there is a potential downside to this match taking place in April 2025 as opposed to any other time in their careers and that is The Death Riders.
If this had been just nine months ago we'd perhaps have seen the two go to battle with no concern for the outside involvement of anyone. Prince Nana would have been at ringside, of that there is no doubt, but that doesn't mean he would've stuck his nose into the affairs of the two competitors once the bell rang. However with the match taking place at this time in All Elite Wrestling there is obviously the concern of Marina Shafir, Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, or even AEW World Champion Jon Moxley himself getting involved in the bout. There's also the looming possibility of The Young Bucks given how their actions in Philadelphia were targeted directly at Swerve Strickland, but their involvement in this whole scenario is a discussion for later.
If “The Bastard” PAC and Swerve Strickland are left to their own devices, this has the potential to be one of the most amazing battles in DYNAMITE history given the skills of the competitors involved. But is that even a possibility when it comes to The Death Riders? Is their involvement in each other's matches just an inevitability after the last seven months, or are enough forces within the AEW locker room finally coming together to level the playing field? We certainly saw that Sunday night as it pertains to Samoa Joe, Katsuyori Shibata, and HOOK...
TAG TEAM GRUDGE MATCH...
The Death Riders' Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta vs. The Opps' HOOK & Samoa Joe
...and two of those three Opps members will be in action tonight against the other two-thirds of the AEW World Trios Championship team when HOOK and Samoa Joe square up with Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta! Though this match is firmly rooted in The Opps hunt for the World Trios Titles, long-time fans of Samoa Joe and Claudio Castagnoli know theirs is a disdain that dates back to 2006 when Castagnoli turned his back on ROH ahead of one ultraviolent summer. It's been nearly six years since the last time they shared a ring together and the possibility of them meeting again has been one of the most intriguing possibilities once they both found their way to AEW. Tonight that rivalry rekindles, as does that of Wheeler Yuta and HOOK who had their own issues at the end of 2023 on the way to an FTW Title match at WORLDS END 2023.
The dynamic Joe and HOOK have developed over the last year is quite fascinating; after all HOOK was the first man to challenge Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship and earned Joe's respect the hard way through that bout. It became this interesting mentor-protégé-friend relationship that grew to include Katsuyori Shibata and together, as The Opps, they've amassed a 7-0 record as a trio and have had their sights set on claiming those championships. Tonight's bout could be a huge push towards getting that title fight if it leads to a victory over The Death Riders. However, much like Swerve Strickland, Joe and HOOK will have to worry about the outside involvement of the other members of Moxley's army.
Can The Opps fight their way into World Trios Championship contention, or can The Death Riders shut those aspirations down with a victory tonight in Baltimore?
2025 OWEN HART FOUNDATION WOMEN'S QUARTERFINAL...
Thunder Rosa vs. Kris Statlander
***AEW WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMPION TONI STORM ON COMMENTARY***
Thunder Rosa and Kris Statlander have both been part of AEW for quite some time, five-plus years for Statlander and four-plus for Thunder Rosa, and there's so many parallels between their careers. Each one worked their way up the ranks of the Women's Division to become champions. Rosa did it first when she claimed the AEW Women's World Title on March 16, 2022, but eventually Statlander followed when she won the TBS Championship May 28, 2023. Each sustained serious, potentially career-altering injuries that robbed them of extensive periods of time in their careers; nineteen months between two injuries in the case of Kris Statlander and 16 out of Thunder Rosa's. Each has faced the best women AEW has to offer, they've won, they've lost, and yet in all this time one thing that never happened in AEW was Kris Statlander versus Thunder Rosa! In fact it's been nearly six years since the last time they went one-on-one pre-AEW, and it's only happened twice in their entire careers with “La Mera Mera” picking up the win both times!
Both have come a long way since that August 2019 battle in Winston-Salem, NC, they've even been partners on a handful of occasions here in AEW, most recently against Megan Bayne and Penelope Ford back in February, but now that an ALL IN: TEXAS fight for the AEW Women's World Championship is at stake for the winner of The Owen, the stakes are so much higher than ever before! The winner of this contest will face the winner of the Jamie Hayter/Billie Starkz Quarterfinal in the Semifinal round, but will it be the former World Champion or the former TBS Champion who takes that next step towards DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2025?
WHY NOW?
Sunday night at DYNASTY 2025 fans witnessed the shocking return of 3-Time AEW World Tag Team Champions and EVP's of All Elite Wrestling, Matthew and Nicholas Jackson, The Young Bucks. They were directly responsible for stealing Swerve Strickland's AEW World Championship victory away from him after the efforts of “Hangman” Adam Page and The Opps seemingly leveled the playing field between Jon Moxley and Swerve. In the aftermath of that heinous interference in the World Championship match the first question that springs to mind is why now?
The last time we saw The Young Bucks on AEW programming was on October 30th of last year. That night they not only lost the AEW World Tag Titles to Private Party, but they were apparently destroying things in their private locker room, and abandoned Brandon Cutler to the not-so tender mercies of Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Marina Shafir, “The Bastard” PAC, and Wheeler Yuta. It wasn't the first time The Young Bucks disappeared in the face of the soon-to-be named Death Riders, but it was the last time before they reappeared in Philadelphia to apparently help Mox in his World Championship fight with Swerve. Perhaps it's not even about helping Moxley so much as hurting Swerve; after all Matthew and Nicholas have had their own issues with the former World Champion, going so far as to bring Hangman Page back from an indefinite suspension specifically to send him after Swerve inside last year's Blood & Guts Cage match.
So it all again begs the question, why now? They told Christopher Daniels they were “working from home” when they ran out of FRIGHT NIGHT DYNAMITE in Cleveland last year. Whether or not that means they did anything for AEW the last five months is between them and All Elite Wrestling, but clearly something about DYNASTY 2025's AEW World Championship match was important enough for them to make the 2,700-mile journey from Rancho Cucamonga to Philadelphia. Will we find out what that was tonight in Baltimore?
AEW's flagship returns to Baltimore and the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena for the aftermath of DYNASTY 2025! DYNAMITE kicks off at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on TBS, streaming on MAX, and on AEW PLUS for fans around the world. Before the show gets underway, drop in on the official AEW YouTube channel to watch highlights from previous editions of DYNAMITE and COLLISION, a score of all-new TIMELINES, and so much more! After that we head to Springfield, MA on Saturday night for an all-new live COLLISION hailing from the MassMutual Center. Following the Saturday night fights, it's off to Boston and the MGM Music Hall at Fenway for DYNAMITE: SPRING BREAK THRU on April 16th and COLLISION: SPRING BREAK THRU on the 17th!