After a historic Saturday night in Minneapolis, MN with FULL GEAR 2021, All Elite Wrestling heads to Norfolk, VA and the Chartway Center (Buy Tickets)! It's a homecoming celebration for new AEW World Champion Adam Page with AEW's first event in his home state, plus he's got a new challenger in the pipeline in “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson! AEW's newest signee Jay Lethal is getting out of the gate hot with a TNT Title fight against a battered Sammy Guevara, the Quarter-Finals of the TBS Women's Title Tournament will get underway, a little bit of CHAOS is coming to AEW from New Japan, and that aforementioned new top contender will be in singles action!
AEW DYNAMITE gets underway LIVE at 8pm EST/7pm CST on TNT, and at AEWPlus.com for our international audiences, but there is plenty of action to catch before that! Head to the official AEW YouTube channel to see the latest editions of DARK: ELEVATION and AEW DARK, and check out the official Twitter for breaking news, as well as highlights from events AS THEY HAPPEN! You can also relive all the action from FULL GEAR 2021, or watch it for the first time if you missed out, right here (Order Now) on Bleacher Report!
A CHAMPION COMES HOME...
It was a long, arduous, two-plus year journey for “Hangman” Adam Page to get back to an AEW World Title match, and there were moments where it seemed like an impossibility, but all that history (Read Here) helped make Page ready for the moment at FULL GEAR 2021.
Saturday night Adam faced down his former Elite brother, his former World Tag Team Championship partner, and after twenty-five minutes, earned the right to be called the new AEW World Champion! It was a destiny foisted upon his young shoulders over two years ago, one he self-admittedly was not ready for at ALL OUT 2019, but had since grown into a man worthy of being AEW's face through his tribulations.
On Wednesday night, 150 miles east of his residence in Aaron's Creek, “Hangman” Adam Page returns to the state he calls home a triumphant man! There are threats on the horizon, “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson most notably after his World Title Eliminator Tournament victory over Miro, but there will always be men looking to snatch that crown off Page's head. For this night in Norfolk though, the first National Cowboy Sh*t Day as officially declared by the champion, perhaps Hangman can celebrate with his people and bask in his achievements!
TNT TITLE MATCH
“The Spanish God” Sammy Guevara(c) vs. Jay Lethal
For proof that All Elite Wrestling continues to be a place where anything can happen, and anyone can walk through the Forbidden Door, look no further than what happened just prior to the main event of FULL GEAR 2021!
To the shock of all in attendance, as well as those watching on pay-per-view, a highly-decorated world-traveled champion walked on through said door, and his name is Jay Lethal! For a little more info on just what makes this warrior so special, check out the story here (Read Now) but just know he has captured championships everywhere he has gone is his twenty year career, and competed against everyone from The Young Bucks to Kenny Omega, from Sting to Cody Rhodes, and Jushin Liger to Kazuchika Okada. He's been around the world, fought the best from everywhere, and is now looking to square up with the locker here in THE home for professional wrestling!
And what better way to start that AEW journey than by calling out the TNT Champion Sammy Guevara! One of the four young pillars of All Elite Wrestling, Guevara may have just gone through a brutal war against Ethan Page, Scorpio Sky, and American Top Team, but he still drug himself out onto the stage to accept Lethal's challenge for this Wednesday night on DYNAMITE! It's gutsy, it's brave, it may also be foolhardy, but that is the type of competitor that “The Spanish God” has grown into over the last couple years and he isn't about to back down from any man's challenge!
ONE-ON-ONE...
“The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson vs. Evil Uno
No rest, no days off, stay on the grind; there are countless catchphrases and cute taglines that can be applied to how Bryan Danielson has approached his tenure in AEW thus far. Eleven matches since September 22nd, including his physically brutal fight with “The Redeemer” Miro on Saturday night at FULL GEAR 2021, and he shows no signs of letting up despite having secured that number one contender spot.
In fact, this Wednesday night on DYNAMITE, Bryan gets right back into the ring with a bout against one of the new AEW World Champion's Dark Order friends! In a rare singles match, Evil Uno will lock horns with “The American Dragon” live on TNT and there is no doubt Hangman Page will have his eyes on this one! Although a date for their World Title fight has not been set as of yet, Bryan may look at this bout as a chance to get into the champ's head by beating one of his friends.
On the side of the ring, it is a stellar opportunity for Evil Uno to demonstrate just how much of a threat he is inside the squared circle. With The Dark Order's tendency to compete in tag team and multi-man matches, it is easy to forget just how talented Uno is as a singles competitor, and just how much of a threat he is to any opponent that steps into the ring with him. Danielson is unquestionably one of the greatest wrestlers of this generation, but Uno is an expert ring tactician who always has a game plan.
It's going to be quite an intriguing battle between the number one contender and this Dark Order member, definitely something to set the stage for the eventual World Title fight between Danielson and Page, but what happens if Uno pulls off the upset? Does that change the championship landscape at all? And how long can “The American Dragon” keep up this pace of fighting every single week, if not multiple times within those 7 days? One would think, no matter how great a wrestler's conditioning may be, eventually a frantic schedule like Bryan's has to catch up. Will this Wednesday, especially coming off that fight with Miro, be the tipping point?
Tune into TNT, or AEWPlus.com, to see how “The American Dragon” continues his march towards the AEW World Title, or if Evil Uno upsets the apple cart!
TBS WOMEN'S TITLE TOURNAMENT QUARTER-FINAL...
Hikaru Shida vs. “The Native Beast” Nyla Rose
This is one rivalry that will likely never fade out; ever since Hikaru Shida toppled Nyla Rose for the AEW Women's World Title at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2020, there have been unsettled issues between the women. Even the rematch at FULL GEAR 2020, also won by Shida, did nothing to quell the hostilities or the rage felt by “The Native Beast” over failing to reclaim the championship. She even interrupted Tony Schiavone's congratulatory interview with Hikaru after defeating Serena Deeb in the opening round of the TBS Tournament and achieving her 50th win:
Perhaps one of the facts that lingers in Nyla's brain is that in tag team situations, regardless of who either competitor has teamed with, Rose has essentially dominated Shida in two-on-two situations. Four tag team encounters in their AEW careers, four career victories for Nyla Rose, but then on Saturday, during the FULL GEAR 2021: BUY-IN, that all changed. With Thunder Rosa as her partner, Shida found a way to pick up her first tag team victory over Nyla, despite competing on a bad leg courtesy of Serena Deeb, and aggravated that night by Vickie Guerrero's cane shot.
So in this third singles match for the two former Women's World Champions, Shida heads into the battle with a psychological advantage given her prior victories as well as the one just days ago, but Nyla has a strong physical advantage. We have seen Shida find ways to conquer the size differential, but never has the record-setting former champion entered into their fights with a nagging injury such as this. It absolutely puts Hikaru Shida in a hole to start the battle, and with just a handful of days since FULL GEAR 2021, there has not been a chance to really heal up.
Should Nyla Rose finally defeat Shida one-on-one, she absolutely owes a debt of gratitude to “The Professor” Serena Deeb for setting the table. Can “The Native Beast” breaking her singles losing streak against Shida and advance to face the winner of Ruby Soho/Kris Statlander? Or will it be Shida, bad knee and all, who continues to dominate in this rivalry and moves one step closer to that TBS Women's Championship?
TAG TEAM CHAOS...
“Freshly Squeezed” Orange Cassidy & Tomohiro Ishii vs. The Butcher & The Blade
No matter what they do, Orange Cassidy and The Best Friends collective just cannot seem to rid themselves of The Hardy Family Office. One would've thought Jack Evans losing his hair might have driven away Matt Hardy and his cronies, but it only seemed to enrage them further. The acceptance of the Lumberjack Match last Friday night on RAMPAGE was absolutely done in the hopes that a victory by OC would remove “Big Money” from their lives and they could move on to bigger and better. But yet again, The HFO found a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat courtesy of The Blade and those trusty knuckle dusters...
Of course a mere win is never enough for Matt Hardy's ilk, he just had to clamp on The Leech after the victory to rub it into Orange's face, and The Bunny had to needlessly knock Kris Statlander out with those same brass knuckles. Their joyous rapture after the fact was quite a display, but AEW GM opened the door for “Freshly Squeezed” to find himself a partner for a match this Wednesday night to face The Blade and his partner Butcher in a tag team bout.
It was a reasonable assumption that OC would pick one of his friends, Chuck Taylor or Wheeler Yuta, perhaps Trent would be able to make his triumphant return, or Cassidy could tap Chris Jericho after their tag team foray on the Jericho Cruise a few weeks back. Instead, Cassidy used his newfound connections to a certain New Japan Pro Wrestling stable to bring a little CHAOS to Norfolk, VA!
Uniting with “Freshly Squeezed” on DYNAMITE, making his AEW debut, will be none other than the brand new NEVER Openweight Champion “The Stone Pitbull” Tomohiro Ishii! The victory over Jay White that took place at the same time as FULL GEAR 2021 marked the beginning of Ishii's sixth reign with that championship, but it is far from his only accomplishment. “The Stone Pitbull” is a two-time NEVER Six-Man Tag Champion with his CHAOS stablemates, the first reign actually being with Trent as one of his partners, and also reigned as an IWGP Tag Team Champion with Toru Yano. He was even a Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion in the old WAR promotion back in the late 90's!
With a career dating back twenty-five years, and as a student of legends Riki Chosu and Genichiro Tenryu, Tomohiro Ishii has fought in countless promotions around the world. In addition to his New Japan bouts, he has seen battle in All Japan, Zero-1, NOAH, HUSTLE, as well as Revolution Pro, and fought wrestlers such as Lance Archer, Minoru Suzuki, KENTA, Jeff Cobb, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shinya Hashimoto, and Shinjiro Otani. Ishii is a wall of a man with a devastating brainbuster in his arsenal that can fell any man; Orange Cassidy would be hard-pressed to pick a better partner to match-up against The HFO's powerhouse Butcher!
CHAOS is about to be unleashed on The Hardy Family Office, and the fans of AEW cannot wait to watch it happen! Hardy and his hired goons have certainly earned whatever comes their way Wednesday night!
TAG TEAM BOUT...
The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) vs. Dante Martin & Lio Rush
The above embedded video is probably not the best way to make a sales pitch to get someone to join your team. Running down a man's hometown, threatening him if he doesn't join your side, demanding an immediate answer; none of those are the best motivational tactics for recruiting. If anything they are the exact opposite and a valid reason why Dante Martin popped both members of The Acclaimed in the mouth and followed that up with a dive on Max and Bowens!
And now AEW's hottest prospect will get a chance to even the score in an official match when Dante, along with his new mentor Lio Rush, unite once again to take on The Acclaimed in tag team action! In their first outing as a team, Martin and Rush combined their forces to best Matt Sydal and Lee Moriarty, now they get to try their hands against a more seasoned combination.
And after his offer to Dante Martin to jump ship on RAMPAGE (of course on a night when Lio was absent to support his family after the loss of his grandmother), rest assured Taz and his team will have their eyes on this one looking for an answer.
AEW DYNAMITE kicks off at 8pm EST/7pm CST LIVE on TNT, as well as AEWPlus.com for our international audiences, and as always there is loads of wrestling to watch before Wednesday night! Just visit the official AEW YouTube channel for all the action from latest editions of ROAD TO, DARK: ELEVATION and AEW DARK, also be sure to visit the official Twitter for breaking news, highlights from events AS THEY HAPPEN, and the rankings every week! And if you missed FULL GEAR 2021, or just need to watch all the historic action again, head here on Bleacher Report to order the replay!