Tonight marks the final DYNAMITE before All Elite Wrestling opens the Forbidden Door, and it is going down in Buffalo at the KeyBank Center! It's a stacked night to kick off FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 week, including AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland and AEW International Champion Will Ospreay teaming up to fight Gates of Agony, The Blackpool Combat Club in trios action against NJPW's LIJ faction, and another Quarterfinal match in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament pitting Rey Fenix against “Switchblade” Jay White!
But that's not it; we've also got MJF scheduled to be in Buffalo, AEW Women's World Champion Toni Storm teaming with her FORBIDDEN DOOR challenger Mina Shirakawa and Mariah May to take on The Outcasts and Anna Jay, and Zack Sabre Jr. taking on Kyle O'Reilly! The night begins at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS, so don't miss one minute of the best professional wrestling on the planet when the best comes to Buffalo!
Then join All Elite Wrestling next Wednesday night in Chicago at the Wintrust Arena for a DYNAMITE that's sure to feel the aftershocks of FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024!
TRIOS MATCH...
The Blackpool Combat Club (IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley, ROH Pure Champion Wheeler Yuta, & Claudio Castagnoli)
vs.
Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi, & Titan)
***BRYAN DANIELSON ON COMMENTARY***
FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 is set to be a big night for both The Blackpool Combat Club and LIJ, between Jon Moxley defending his IWGP World Heavyweight Championship against LIJ's leader Tetsuya Naito and Bryan Danielson taking on Shingo Takagi in an Owen Hart Tournament Quarter-Final match, it's quite the exciting night for both units
Before anyone gets to Long Island though, there's the little matter of this star-studded Trios Bout going down tonight on DYNAMITE! This particular LIJ trio only has one outing as a group on their resume, a December 9, 2022 victory, while this BCC trio is 8-1 in AEW competition, though it's been over a year since their last outing together. This may be the bout that sets the tone for FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 on Sunday night, a true clash between the forces of All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling, with consequences for both sides of that coin, and “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson will join the commentary team to guide the AEW faithful through it all!
MEN'S OWEN HART FOUNDATION QUARTERFINAL...
Unified World Trios Champion Jay White vs. Rey Fenix
At DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2024, The Bang Bang Gang defeated Death Triangle to retain the Unified World Trios Championship and that was the only engagement Rey Fenix had had with The BBG before tonight on DYNAMITE and the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. We've already seen “The Bastard” PAC advance to the Semifinals of the tournament, we also know that Bryan Danielson will go head-to-head with Shingo Takagi this Sunday during FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024, and “The Last Outlaw” Jeff Jarrett will have to contend with a Wild Card opponent in his Quarterfinal match.
With this fight the BBG/Death Triangle rivalry gets another wrinkle, as well as the possibility that we could get an all-Death Triangle finale in Calgary, or maybe see PAC get his hands on Jay White if either man makes it that far. That's putting the cart before the horse though; Jay or Rey has to make it out of this Quarterfinal match first, and neither is going to make it easy on the other.
On a stacked edition of DYNAMITE, this has the potential to be the showstealing bout of the night, but will it see The Gunns get involved to their running buddy's benefit? Will the rest of Death Triangle be on-hand to balance out the odds? Or maybe, just maybe, “Switchblade” Jay White will give it a go all by himself, just like he had to do in the Continental Classic when he made it to the Gold League Finals...
TAG TEAM STRIFE...
AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland & AEW International Champion Will Ospreay
vs.
Gates of Agony (Bishop Kaun & Toa Liona)
With the AEW World Title on the line this Sunday night between champion Swerve Strickland and AEW International Champion Will Ospreay, the two competitors will have to stand side-by-side tonight on DYNAMITE in the face of their mutual foes in Gates of Agony. Ospreay gained them as foes when he decided to lend a hand to Daniel Garcia, and by proxy MJF, while Swerve's issues with Toa Liona and Bishop Kaun run far deeper. It wasn't all that long ago that The Gates of Agony stood side-by-side with Swerve, or perhaps they'd say stood behind in his shadow given his treatment of them is why they, along with Brian Cage, dropped Strickland through the announcer's table many weeks ago.
It's not as if Kaun and Toa didn't have rational reasons for their choice to turn their back on Swerve, the World Champion freely admits he did anything he needed to do to anyone in order to get where he is today, and he is well aware there are consequences for those actions. This tag team bout here is one of those consequences, pairing up with the man gunning for his championship to fight the monsters Swerve once had at his beck and call, just days before he and Ospreay meet at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024!
This is a situation that puts both champion and challenger at physical risk before their championship clash, but perhaps the past must be dealt with before either of these men can move forward into the future...
TRIOS GRUDGE MATCH...
AEW Women's World Champion Toni Storm, Mariah May, & Mina Shirakawa vs.
Anna Jay & The Outcasts (Harley Cameron & Saraya)
Now this is going to be a tense time in the old town for sure! As if the entire dynamic of Toni Storm, Mariah May, and Mina Shirakawa wasn't stressful enough given their interpersonal dynamics without the AEW Women's World Title involved, factor the Shirakawa/Storm title fight set for Sunday night into this Trios bout tonight and one can't help but wonder how they can possibly coexist. Mariah May clearly believes she can be the peacekeeper, the bridge between her two friends, but that is going to be put to the test on DYNAMITE when all three women unite to deal with other business that ties them together.
Anna Jay, Saraya, and Harley Cameron stand united in their mutual disdain for Toni, Mariah, and Mina, all three having fallen to them at some point. Anna Jay has been bested by Mina in both ROH and AEW, she's fallen to “The Timeless One” three times in her AEW career, and Mariah has topped her twice in 2024. Harley Cameron has been beaten by both Mariah and Toni in recent weeks, as well as fallen in tag team action to the duo with Saraya as her partner. In fact the only one who has had success here is the former AEW Women's World Champion. Saraya holds a victory over Mariah May from three weeks ago, and she's got that GRAND SLAM 2023 championship victory over Toni Storm as well.
So will this be the night we finally see Mariah May lose any ability to keep the peace between the two sides of her life, or can she keep her friends on the same page for one more night before the go at each other's throats come Sunday on Long Island?
ONE-ON-ONE...
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Kyle O'Reilly
Last Wednesday night Kyle O'Reilly made a choice to push Orange Cassidy out of harm's way, eat Roderick Strong's jumping knee, thus allowing OC an opportunity to drill Roddy with an Orange Punch to score the win. Given the concerns about the bond between Kyle and Roderick, that decision made it quite clear where Kyle stands today, and the fact that tonight he's willing to go to war with Zack Sabre Jr. in advance of Cassidy's FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 fight, really shows where Kyle ranks Cassidy.
It's been over seven years since Kyle and ZSJ clashed in singles competition, and in the ten years since their first one-on-one bout, they've actually danced four times with Zack holding a 3-1 advantage in those bouts. From England to Reseda, CA to Berwyn, IL to Philadelphia to Germany, Kyle and ZSJ have found around the globe, and now they rekindle their rivalry in a new fashion tonight on DYNAMITE! Can Kyle O'Reilly throw a monkey wrench into ZSJ's plans for FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024, or will the former 2-Time NJPW World TV Champion make it 4-1 overall against KOR?
MJF IN BUFFALO!
Sunday night when Maxwell Jacob Friedman returns to the location he calls “the most magical place on Earth”, he's got to step into the ring with CMLL's Hechicero, a hard-hitting submission wizard who gave Bryan Danielson one of his toughest fights in 2024. Before that night comes, MJF has a stop to make in Buffalo tonight for DYNAMITE! What will he have to say, or what will he do, before returning home to Long Island to walk through the Forbidden Door?
THE CEO & BUFFALO...
With the announcement that NJPW STRONG Women's Champion Stephanie Vaquer will be in Buffalo for a fight with Lady Frost on COLLISION, we now know that we will hear from TBS Champion Mercedes Moné tonight ahead of their Title-Versus-Title clash Sunday night at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024! Mercedes took it upon herself to head to Mexico and crash CMLL to get in Vaquer's face, what more will she have to say before the fight?
The last DYNAMITE before FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 is coming to Buffalo's KeyBank Center this Wednesday night with a jam-packed card! AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland and AEW International Champion Will Ospreay are set to unite against Gates of Agony while The BCC welcome NJPW's LIJ to AEW for a Trios match! Plus Daniel Garcia returns home to Buffalo, Rey Fenix takes on “Switchblade” Jay White in an Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Quarter-Final, AEW Women's World Champion Toni Storm unites with Mina Shirakawa and Mariah May to battle The Outcasts and Anna Jay, and Zack Sabre Jr. goes head-to-head with Kyle O'Reilly! The action gets underway at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS, so don't miss one minute of the best professional wrestling on the planet when the best comes to Buffalo!
After the Forbidden Door closes, All Elite Wrestling is heading back to Chicago and the Wintrust Arena for a DYNAMITE full of the fallout from FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024! It's going to be a wild Independence Day Eve Who retained their title? What championships changed hands? Who lost, who won, and how will it effect the future of All Elite Wrestling? Come watch it unfold first-hand at the Wintrust Arena next Wednesday night!