After a wild WRESTLEDREAM 2024 in Tacoma, All Elite Wrestling debuts in San Jose at the SAP Center with an all-new DYNAMITE and it is Jon Moxley now standing atop the mountain as AEW World Champion but at the expense of “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson! He's not the only new champion coming out of WRESTLEDREAM 2024 either; Konosuke Takeshita is now your AEW International Champion after Kyle Fletcher's shocking betrayal of Will Ospreay while “The Machine” Brian Cage took the ROH World Television Championship from Atlantis Jr. during the ZERO HOUR! We also witnessed Shelton Benjamin and MVP confront Prince Nana and Swerve Strickland, The Young Bucks retain their World Tag Titles over Private Party, Mariah May survive Willow Nightingale to remain Women's World Champion, and Jack Perry escape the wrath of Katsuyori Shibata to keep the TNT Championship around his waist. ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe bested Chris Jericho to keep his title, and we also witnessed Darby Allin pin Brody King for the first time in their careers!
Now we are on the route to FULL GEAR 2024 on November 23 in Newark, NJ and it starts tonight in San Jose with the AEW in-ring debut of Shelton Benjamin as he takes on Lio Rush! Plus we expect to hear from the returning Adam Cole after his appearance last Saturday night, we will see TBS Champion Mercedes Moné take on Queen Aminata, and “Switchblade” Jay White continue his revenge tour when he faces “The Patriarch” Christian Cage one-on-one! It's a whole new world for All Elite Wrestling this Wednesday on DYNAMITE, and it all begins at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS, as well as around the world, so be sure to visit the official AEW YouTube channel to catch up on highlights from WRESTLEDREAM 2024, recent episodes of DYNAMITE, COLLISION, and RAMPAGE, and so much more! Then join us Thursday night in Stockton for a special taping of COLLISION and BATTLE OF THE BELTS XII where you can experience the action before the rest of the world watches on Saturday!
THE NEW CHAMPION...
Jon Moxley is now a 4-Time AEW World Champion, and while that is news by itself, the aftermath of his victory over Bryan Danielson dominated the headlines coming out of WRESTLEDREAM 2024.
Suffice to say that the future of “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson is quite uncertain; he promised that when he lost the title, his full-time career would be at its end, but it is quite possible that the actions of Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC, Marina Shafir, and, disappointingly, Wheeler Yuta have just flat-out finished one of the most legendary careers in the whole of professional wrestling history.
If Jon Moxley and his crew were willing to do that to a man he, Claudio, and Yuta once considered a brother, what does that say to the rest of the AEW locker room now that Mox has once again ascended to the top of the mountain? It means no one is safe, and this reign of terror begins tonight...
THE JAY WHITE REVENGE TOUR...
“Switchblade” Jay White vs. “The Patriarch” Christian Cage
July 6th was a brutal night for “Switchblade” Jay White; not only was it the night he got hurt fighting “Hangman” Adam Page in the 2024 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, the incident that led to White's victory over Hangman this past Saturday's, but the root cause of that July loss wasn't Page but rather Christian Cage's interference in the bout
So when Jay White said he was coming for everyone who cast him these last four months of his career, not to mention The Owen, that list obviously included “The Patriarch” Christian Cage! During the summer their issues swirled around the World Trios Championship, but this one is all about revenge, and Jay White isn't waiting to serve it up cold! Christian Cage may hold that guaranteed World Championship match in his possession, but once “Switchblade” is done with him, Christian may not be in any shape to cash it in!
ONE-ON-ONE...
Lio Rush vs. Shelton Benjamin
What a wonderful moment it was for Lio Rush to announce to the world that he signed a new contract with All Elite Wrestling, but what a spoiler MVP and Shelton Benjamin proved to be for that joyous occasion. It's alright though because tonight on DYNAMITE, Lio has an opportunity bring that joy back when he faces Shelton Benjamin in their first-ever meeting, as well as Shelton's first bout for AEW!
Shelton entered 2024 already a world-traveled combatant, one who'd fought all across the globe and faced top shelf competition essentially since his career first began in 24 years ago in Louisville, KY, but his year thus far has seem the man in Puerto Rico, Quebec, North Carolina, Mexico, France, and Seattle, just to name handful, and face opponents he'd never met. For someone who had seemingly done it all before setting foot in AEW, Shelton Benjamin never stopped testing himself against elite athletes, making it quite appropriate that he end up here tonight, inside the squared circle with Lio Rush, one of the elite high-flyers of this generation.
It's quite the important night for both sides of this match, the first for Lio as a newly-contracted member of the AEW roster, the first for Shelton under the AEW banner, and the first for a competitor represented by MVP. A win for Shelton is crucial if MVP wants some meat on all the negativity he spat at Swerve Strickland and Prince Nana over the last several weeks, but it's also key for Lio in order to get this new contract off on the right foot.
No doubt Swerve and Prince Nana will have a close on this one, especially after what went down during WRESTLEDREAM 2024 last Saturday night!
SINGLES MATCH...
TBS Champion Mercedes Moné vs. Queen Aminata
Despite Mercedes Moné having quite the high opinion of herself, albeit one reasonably earned give her status as both TBS Champion and NJPW STRONG Women's Champion not to mention the resume built prior to her AEW debut, Queen Aminata is clearly quite unintimidated by “The CEO”. If their interaction at WRESTLEDREAM 2024 seen above is any indicator of what's to come tonight, Mercedes is in for a very rough night inside that ring once the bell rings!
Since her April 2021 debut in All Elite Wrestling, Queen Aminata has been inside the ring with the likes of Kris Statlander, Athena, Hikaru Shida, Toni Storm, and Mariah May, and scored wins over Skye Blue, Anna Jay, and Robyn Renegade. She's ultra rough, hard-hitting, and has proven willing to throw blows with any opponent standing across the ring. The Queen may only have half the time Mercedes does as a pro wrestler, but she's experienced a great deal in her seven years. The question is if it will be enough to overcome the nine-match undefeated streak of the TBS Champion?
TAG TEAM ACTION...
FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood) vs.
The Learning Tree (“Bad Apple” Bryan Keith & “The Redwood” Big Bill)
Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler have been out of action since the September 21st COLLISION but it had nothing to do with injury, rather because the two of them reside in the areas of North Carolina most affected by Hurricane Helene's devastation. Right off the bat, on their behalf ShopAEW offered an FTR tee to benefit Summit Coffee's River Arts District location that was completely destroyed, as well as the staff affected. The region is still recovering from the catastrophic damage done by Helene, and will be for quite some time, so with that in mind the 2-Time AEW World Tag Champions return to competition in large part to help benefit the recovery efforts in their home state, but also to throw support behind one of their closest allies in professional wrestling: ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe!
Despite Briscoe defeating Chris Jericho at WRESTLEDREAM 2024 this past Saturday night, “The Learning Tree” swears he is not yet done with the ROH World Champ which has prompted FTR to throw their fists into the fight to back up their friend! Cash and Dax are quite familiar with Big Bill after facing him three times with the World Tag Titles on the line, including the bout just over a year ago where Bill and Ricky Starks ended FTR's second title reign. However Bryan Keith is an unknown quantity to Dax and Cash, and that could be The Learning Tree duo's ticket to scoring victory tonight on DYNAMITE!
Will Chris Jericho and Mark Briscoe end up involved in this tag team affair? There's a distinct possibility of that taking place when it comes to Jericho and his ilk, but Mark isn't about to let his most recent challenger get one over on his friends if he's got anything to say about it!
TRIOS CONTEST...
The Elite (AEW Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada & AEW World Tag Champion The Young Bucks) vs.
The Conglomeration (Kyle O'Reilly, Orange Cassidy, & Rocky Romero)
After scoring victory alongside Orange Cassidy and The Outrunners during WRESTLEDREAM 2024: ZERO HOUR, Kyle O'Reilly was definitely feeling it because he did not hesitate to step right up to AEW Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada and issue a challenge for that title. As heard in the video clip embedded above, “The Rainmaker” was not in the giving mood, denying O'Reilly his request, but that doesn't mean Okada is escaping KO without a fight!
Tonight Okada steps back into the ring for the first time since his DYNAMITE: 5TH ANNIVERSARY fight with Bryan Danielson but not for singles action or a title contest. Tonight he will be joined by AEW World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks, fresh off their own pay-per-view victory over Private Party, for a trios fight with The Conglomeration! This will mark the first time Kyle, Orange Cassidy, and Rocky Romero have ever comprised a Conglomeration combination, as well as Romero's first time fighting under The Conglomeration coalition in a trios bout, but luckily there is a whole lot of familiarity in this group, and not just because of OC's time competing with both these guys.
Kyle and Rocky have their fair share of history, though most of it puts them at odds over the years, but that's not really all that different from Kyle and ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe and they've gelled quite nicely in this group.
Still The Elite have a bit more time operating together in trios competition, running up a 4-2 record thus far in 2024, but will that be enough to put them over the top, especially after the pep talk the legendary Jerry Lynn gave Orange Cassidy last Saturday night?
THE BOOM IS BACK!
When we last we saw Adam Cole, he was getting kicked in the groin by MJF at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2024, a small receipt for all the trouble Cole caused Max at the end of 2023, not to mention all the drama he put the former AEW World Champion through over the course last year. Yet if there was one takeaway from everything that took place between MJF and Adam Cole, it's that Maxwell Jacob Friedman earned every bit of it for his behavior from the first moment he stepped onto the All Elite Wrestling platform. He used everyone, manipulated anyone, used and abused his own life experiences to garner sympathy only to laugh at the individuals who gave it to him, and even when fans embraced “their scumbag” and he appeared to return the feeling, all it took was them having the audacity to cheer Will Ospreay for MJF to revert to form.
With all that in mind, for as manipulative as Adam Cole was over the course of 2023 when it came to Maxwell Jacob Friedman, in all honesty he was just giving the man a heaping serving of his own medicine. All of MJF's evils came back to bite him, and his rampant narcissism will never allow him to see that reality, so it's a good thing Adam Cole is back in AEW to kick that truth straight down Max's throat!
Tonight on DYNAMITE, we will hear from Cole for the first time since he came to the aid of Daniel Garcia at WRESTLEDREAM 2024, and there's no doubt MJF will be at least one topic on the man's mind this evening!
As WRESTLEDREAM 2024 passes and the eyes of the All Elite Wrestling turn to FULL GEAR 2024 on November 23rd, we head to AEW's San Jose, CA debut where Lio Rush faces Shelton Benjamin in the latter's first match under the AEW banner! We will also see Queen Aminata step into the ring with TBS Champion Mercedes Moné while “Switchblade” Jay White is slotted to fight “The Patriarch” Christian Cage one-on-one! We will also hear from Adam Cole on the heels of his AEW return in Tacoma, and with Jon Moxley now the AEW World Champion who knows what he, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC, Marina Shafir, and apparently Wheeler Yuta, will bring to the SAP Arena this evening!
DYNAMITE gets underway at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS, and around the world for the AEW faithful outside the United States, and you can get ready with a visit to the official AEW YouTube channel for highlights from WRESTLEDREAM 2024, recent episodes of DYNAMITE, COLLISION, and RAMPAGE, and so much more! Then come with us on Thursday night to Stockton for a special taping of COLLISION and BATTLE OF THE BELTS XII where you can experience all the action before the rest of the world witnesses it on Saturday!