FRIGHT NIGHT DYNAMITE is upon us as All Elite Wrestling returns to Cleveland's Wolstein Center with a loaded night of action! Tonight Private Party put their tag team existence on the line for one last shot at The Young Bucks and the AEW World Tag Team Titles, plus Shelton Benjamin faces Swerve Strickland in the former World Champion's first match since the ALL OUT 2024 Lights Out Cage Match, Kris Statlander fights Kamille, and Adam Cole returns to action for the first time since ALL OUT 2023 to face House of Black's Buddy Matthews! It's Fright Night in The Land, and All Elite Wrestling is bringing the best professional wrestling on the planet to fans live in Cleveland and those watching around the world!
FULL GEAR 2024 will be here before we know it, making each night of competition crucial to the landscape of All Elite Wrestling as we travel around the country! DYNAMITE kicks off tonight in Cleveland 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 recent episodes of DYNAMITE, COLLISION, and RAMPAGE, and so much more! Then join us in Philadelphia on Saturday night for a live COLLISION where Anna Jay challenges Mariah May for the AEW Women's World Title, Thunder Rosa returns to action to face Harley Cameron, and “The Protostar” Kyle Fletcher faces Komander!
AEW WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
***IF PRIVATE PARTY LOSES, THEY WILL BREAK UP***
The Young Bucks (Matthew & Nicholas Jackson)(c) vs. Private Party (Isiah Kassidy & Marq Quen)
This is it, the biggest gamble in the career of Private Party since the started their tag team journey nine years ago. In that time they've captured championships in five different independent promotions, all prior to signing on with All Elite Wrestling, and been in the ring with some of the greatest teams in modern professional wrestling even before their AEW debut. Since their FYTER FEST 2019: BUY-IN debut against SCU and Best Friends, Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen have fought in 78 tag team matches together, second only to The Acclaimed, and been in the ring with The Young Bucks, Butcher & Blade, FTR, Dark Order, and Top Flight, just to name a handful, and have scored 42 victories over these last five years. For better or worse they've been mentored by some of the best talent in wrestling, they've unsuccessfully challenged for the AEW World Tag Titles six times, and have been so close to taking that next step in their careers many times though injuries have hampered their growth on several occasions.
Yet tonight, after 200+ matches together as a team, Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen are putting that all on the line for one last shot at The Young Bucks and their AEW World Tag Team Championship titles! It was a notion floated out there by the perpetually shady Stokely Hathaway, the idea that Zay and Quen should end their partnership with another loss, but one that Private Party has chosen to put into effect for one last shot.
They shocked the world in 2019 when they eliminated Matthew and Nicholas Jackson from the 2019 AEW World Tag Title Tournament, but have only replicated that feat in a pair of trios matches over the course of October. They united with Katsuyori Shibata for one victory over The Young Bucks and TNT Champion Jack Perry and with Daniel Garcia to score another this past Wednesday night, but have fallen three times in traditional tag team bouts since that 10/9/19 victory. Yet they feel this is their moment, their night to finally take that next step, become the AEW World Tag Team Champions for the very first time, and free the titles from EVP's content to watch AEW World Champion Jon Moxley and his lot rain violence down on All Elite Wrestling.
Will this gamble pay off for Private Party or will tonight be the last time Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen step into an AEW ring as partners?
ONE-ON-ONE...
Shelton Benjamin vs. Swerve Strickland
MVP arrived on the AEW stage at DYNAMITE: GRAND SLAM 2024 and immediately began slinging barbs at Prince Nana and his managerial approach to the career of Swerve Strickland. He took a “What have you done for me lately?” approach to his observations, only looking at Swerve's loss of the AEW World Championship and the Lights Out Steel Cage Match defeat, as opposed to including the 126-day World Title reign that featured defenses against Christian Cage, Will Ospreay, Claudio Castagnoli, and Roderick Strong. MVP tried to drive a wedge between Swerve and Prince Nana, but instead he brought them closer together, and created an enemy where there didn't have to be one had MVP elected to stay in his own lane upon entering AEW rather than crossing over into Swerve's.
So now what we have tonight at FRIGHT NIGHT DYNAMITE is two of the most dangerous professional wrestlers competing today meeting one another for the first time since Strickland beat Shelton via countout on a July 21, 2017 independent event in Waterloo, IA. Coincidentally, ten months later Swerve had his lone match with MVP during a DEFY event and scored the victory there as well, but this is a whole new ballgame for all the individuals involved. In 2017 Swerve may have had eight years experience, but he was still finding himself as a professional wrestler while Shelton had been a multi-time champion in both singles and tag ranks by that period. He'd been a two-sport athlete in junior college competing in both amateur wrestling and track & field, achieved NCAA All-American status twice as a wrestler during his University of Minnesota wrestling career, and very nearly pursued an Olympic bid with the 2000 Games in Sydney but instead opted for a professional wrestling career that has endured for 24 years. Shelton's battled around the world, faced the best wrestlers of the last three decades, and what's incredibly scary is that after watching his AEW matches against Lio Rush and Sammy Guevara, as well as his 2024 independent matches, it looks like Benjamin is only now hitting his peak as a competitor. He's taken those two and a half decades of experience, those 24 years of pro wrestling education, and congealed them into a game that's utterly terrifying. He's patient, yet violent, with an explosive style that only comes from competing in the amateur ranks.
For all that Swerve has been through over the last year, really since FULL GEAR 2023's Texas Death Match, in some ways Shelton Benjamin may be his deadliest opponent yet as it pertains to a straight up wrestling contest. Hangman may have pushed the limits of Strickland's capacity for violence, but Shelton is going to test his wrestling acumen like no other individual since Swerve arrived on the AEW stage at REVOLUTION 2022.
RETURN TO ACTION...
Adam Cole vs. House of Black's Buddy Matthews
It has been 423 days since ALL OUT 2023 where Adam Cole fought his last professional wrestling match, an ROH World Tag Titles defense where he and MJF defeated the Dark Order tandem of Alex Reynolds and John Silver. That was September 3, 2023 and just 17 days later at DYNAMITE: GRAND SLAM 2023 Cole shattered his ankle rushing to the aid of Maxwell Jacob Friedman during his World Championship defense against Samoa Joe.
It's been a long, hard road back to being in fighting shape, one filled with numerous setbacks and far more surgery than Cole anticipated last September when the injury first occurred. It's been countless grueling hours of physical therapy, and doubting whether he'd ever be cleared for competition again, but the moment Adam ran to the ring at WRESTLEDREAM 2024 to get after MJF, all that doubt dissipated and it became clear that BayBay was back in business!
Still, there is a very wide gap between being cleared by the doctors and actually locking up with an opponent for the first time in over a year. There's a vast difference between getting into the ring and being put through physical testing by AEW trainers and getting hit in the face for the first time in 13 months. There is no conditioning that replicates what fighting in a professional wrestling match is like, no cardio training save actually being in a match that adequately prepares a wrestler's body for the grind of said match, which means Adam Cole isn't going to truly know where his body is at until he hears the bell ring tonight on DYNAMITE and looks at Buddy Matthews standing across the ring from him for the very first time.
Sometimes it feels like every match has been done before, yet All Elite Wrestling continually finds new bouts that have never been seen before, but this one is all Buddy Matthews. It was he who made the challenge to Adam Cole, he who said he wanted to prove the point that Cole is fragile, and in a locker room full of talented competitors there are few men more eager to hurt their foes than House of Black. They are a sadistic lot, this unit of Buddy Matthews, Malakai Black, and Brody King, and in many aspects Buddy is the deadliest of them all. He possesses the deadly striking ability of Malakai but also the sheer strength of Brody King, and tends towards silence far more than his House compatriots. Of the three, Matthews is more prone to lets his actions speak and those tend to be quite violent.
If it's a test Adam Cole was looking for in his first match back, consider this his Ivy League entrance exam tonight during FRIGHT NIGHT: DYNAMITE! Will he excel in this attempt to jump through the first of those three consecutive hoops MJF has placed in Undisputed Kingdom's path to vengeance?
GRUDGE MATCH...
Kris Statlander vs. “The Brickhouse” Kamille
Who is the baddest woman in All Elite Wrestling? Who is the toughest? Is it “The Brickhouse” Kamille or former TBS Champion Kris Statlander? That is the question of the night as the immovable object and the unstoppable force collide for the first time ever! Fans watched Stat decimate her TBS Championship challengers for 174 days, over the course of 16 title defenses, and against foes like Willow Nightingale, Nyla Rose, Anna Jay, Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D, Marina Shafir, and Julia Hart. They've witnessed Statlander come back from a devastating injury to claim that title, one that robbed her of nine months of her career, and yet she returned to the fight better than she'd ever been. That being said, those same fans also watched her swayed from the righteous path by the inequities of a selfish, evil man named Stokely Hathaway. They watched Stat betray Willow Nightingale at one of her weakest moment, mere minutes after she lost the TBS Title to Mercedes Moné, and engage in a month's long battle with her supposed best friend that culminated in a nasty Chicago Street Fight at ALL OUT 2024.
Yet in the weeks since that night Statlander experienced an awakening, a realization if you will, about the effect Stokely had on her, and the path his influence sent her down. Is she repentant about her actions towards Willow? That remains to be seen, the two women have not engaged each other since Statlander took the time for some self-reflection, but what is certain is that the former TBS Champion looks upon the arrival of “The CEO” at DYNAMITE: BIG BUSINESS as the moment everything changed for her. It sent Statlander down the path that ultimately led to that Chicago Street Fight, but now is the time to course correct, get back on the right path, and return to pursuing the championship she held so proudly for nearly six months. There's just one major obstacle in Kris' path to that goal: “The Brickhouse” Kamille...
That is why tonight on FRIGHT NIGHT DYNAMITE, for the very first time, Kris Statlander will go head-to-head with “The Brickhouse” Kamille! There is no getting to “The CEO” without going through Kamille, but there's a reason the TBS Champion's bodyguard remains undefeated thus far in AEW. She is power personified, the proverbial immovable object in a world full of tremendous athletes and powerhouses. There's a reason Kamille reigned as a Women's World Champion for 812 days prior to her arrival in AEW, one of the longest reigns in 21st century professional wrestling, and holds victories over women such as Serena Deeb, Leyla Hirsch, Rachael Ellering, Kiera Hogan, and Taya Valkyrie during her 41 successful defenses. Kamille is a monstrous threat to every woman who steps into the ring against her, but Kris Statlander just may be the woman best equipped to take her on!
Will this be the night Statlander gets one step closer to vying for the TBS Championship once again, or will Kamille shut that quest down tonight on FRIGHT NIGHT?
THE HANGMAN COMETH...
We heard “Switchblade” Jay White lay out the match last Saturday night on COLLISION, him versus “Hangman” Adam Page at FULL GEAR 2024 on November 23rd, and tonight we will hear from the former AEW World Champion regarding this situation! Will Page accept the match knowing he's 1-4 against White in their one-on-one history, as well as knowing that that lone victory comes with a Christian Cage-shaped asterisk attached to it? Given his track record, there's little chance “Hangman” will back down from the fight, it is more a question of if he will up the ante of the battle into something far more sinister? Page's propensity for violence has really come to the forefront in 2024; will that also be the case when he fights Jay White?
WHAT'S NEXT?
The world saw Chuck Taylor take Orange Cassidy to task during last week's DYNAMITE, heard as Chuckie T challenged his long-time friend to step into the fight against AEW World Champion Jon Moxley, Marina Shafir, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC, and their former ally Wheeler Yuta, and watched as the 2-Time International Champion arrived on the scene too late to save his best friend from their violent assault.
It was a painful moment, not just because of the damage done to Chuck Taylor, but also because the aftermath saw Orange begin to point his fingers at Daniel Garcia and anyone else involved in the situation. The words “What did I tell you?” spilled out of Orange's mouth, “Take it out on them, don't take it out on me” was Garcia's retort, “I didn't want to do this” Cassidy replied, but ultimately, while surrounded by Dark Order, Private Party, Garcia, and Jeff Jarrett, Cassidy said, “I am going to take care of it on Wednesday”. It was a powerful statement, further amplified in the clip embedded above by that final unidentified voice screaming “We've got to stick together!” as Cassidy walked back up the ramp.
Those final five words are really what this is all about, the members of the AEW locker room banding together against the onslaught of Moxley and his army, but it seems tonight that Orange Cassidy is coming to Cleveland to take the fight on by himself. He does hold victories over Moxley, Castagnoli, and Yuta over the course of the last several years, but this is a different animal than your average wrestling match. This is a war that Jon Moxley and company brought to the doorstep of AEW's locker room, that Bryan Danielson took on heading into WRESTLEDREAM 2024, but has now fallen on the laps of those still standing after what happened to “The American Dragon” in Tacoma that night. It's a war that OC has been conscripted into, but one he's now chosen to take on by himself with the words “I am going to take care of it”.
What will Cassidy do tonight on DYNAMITE to “take care of it”? Only he knows, and the rest of us just have to watch as it unfolds while hoping that Orange survives to fight another day...
All Elite Wrestling brings DYNAMITE back to Cleveland tonight starting at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS, as well as to fans around the world, and what a loaded FRIGHT NIGHT it will be as AEW World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks face the challenge of Private Party with Zay and Quen's tag team future at stake! Plus Kris Statlander takes on Kamille, Adam Cole makes his long-awaited return to face Buddy Matthews, Shelton Benjamin fights Swerve Strickland, and we will hear from Hangman Page. Orange Cassidy has also promised to do something about the Jon Moxley situation after what happened to Chuck Taylor last week!
So ahead ahead of tonight's action, make a point to drop by AEW's official YouTube channel to catch up on highlights from recent episodes of DYNAMITE, COLLISION, and RAMPAGE, plus much more, and then follow us to Philly for Saturday's live COLLISION featuring AEW Women's World Champion Mariah May fighting Anna Jay, Thunder Rosa facing Harley Cameron in a Day of the Dead Match, and “The Protostar” Kyle Fletcher taking on Komander!