AEW Dynamite 16th of October 2024

This week’s episode of AEW Dynamite kicks off with Jon Moxley talking in riddles again in the back of a black truck following WrestleDream on Saturday night. Once again after another Moxley promo, we are left with more questions than answers.

In the arena, Adam Cole makes his way to the ring. Adam Cole wants to know who’s ready for storytime with Adam Cole Bay Bay. Cole says he loves Roderick Strong, Matt Taven, and Mike Bennett but he has to do this on his own. Cole says MJF is the worst human being he’s ever met in his life and at some point in life you have to fight evil with evil.
Adam Cole says MJF would lead you to believe he betrayed his trust, but Cole is a lot of things but stupid isn’t one of them. Cole says the MJF we see right now is the real MJF that he saw behind closed doors, who pretends to care about AEW but only cares about himself.
Cole says the one word to describe MJF is fake. Adam says MJF is a scared insecure little boy. Cole says MJF is a phony who can’t be trusted and everyone in the locker room agrees with everything he’s saying. Cole hopes the young people of the AEW locker room aren’t looking to MJF for how to get ahead in the business.
MJF responds to Adam Cole
Adam Cole calls out MJF to come out and fight him right now. MJF’s music plays but he doesn’t come out, we get a video package from him instead. MJF says there’s no such thing as trust in professional wrestling. Friedman says years after letting people into his life he’d never do it again but Cole tricked him and now he will never trust again.
MJF says Cole will never get him inside that ring and he will die with a void of unfulfilled vengeance and he can thank him later. Cole says he knows MJF better than anyone and tells him he can run, but he can’t hide. Cole says when he gets his hands on him he’ll give him the ass beating of a lifetime and he’ll wish they had never met.
Grade: B
Adam Cole’s promo did what it needed to do and solidified his role as the babyface against MJF as a heel. MJF will be back to running away from his rivals and making them jump through hoops to get matches with him. This is pretty much what we’ve expected from Friedman in the past and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Sucked right back into the Jericho Vortex
The AEW fanbase let out a collective sigh of relief at WrestleDream when Chris Jerich didn’t defeat Mark Briscoe for the Ring of Honor World Championship. Unfortunately, this story seems to be far from over as Jericho challenged Briscoe to a rematch, claiming he cheated to retain at WrestleDream.
Mark Briscoe accepted the rematch and said the two men will face off next week in Ladders Wars for the Ring of Honor World Championship.

FTR vs. Big Bill and Bryan Keith of The Learning Tree
The closing moments of the match saw FTR hit the Shatter Machine on Bryan Keith. Cash Wheeler scored the pinfall victory for his team.
Winners: FTR
RUSH and LFI are backstage watching the match. The Outrunners make their way to the ring and four men shake hands before having a pose off.
Grade: C+
The match was fine for what it was and it was weird to have The Outrunners come out after the match just to do a handshake and a pose off, but I guess in AEW’s mind it was their way of getting them on the show this week.

MVP continues to recruit for the Hurt Syndicate
The Acclaimed are backstage bragging about their win over MxM Collection at WrestleDream. MVP and Shelton Benjamin approach and MVP offers his card. Caster takes it and puts it in his pocket although Bowens said they don’t need anything from MVP.

Private Party confront the Young Bucks
Backstage, Private Party ask the Young Bucks for another shot at the AEW World Tag Team Titles. Nicholas Jackson says that was their last shot at the titles. Stokely Hathaway comes in and questions why they deserve another opportunity. Hathaway tries to drive a wedge between the two men and implies that Isiah is the singles star of the group.

The Elite are backstage and Jack Perry acknowledges that it’s Kenny Omega’s birthday. Perry presents Omega with a cake and dumps guts on it. Kazuchika Okada says Happy birthday bitch. Perry says get well soon or die, he doesn’t care either way. The seeds are firmly being planted for the return of The Best Bout Machine.

The Conglomeration vs. The Elite
The closing moments of the match saw Wheeler Yuta hit the ring and attack Orange Cassidy causing the match to end unexpectedly.
Winners: The Conglomeration via DQ
The Elite watch from the ramp as Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC, Wheeler Yuta, and Marina Shafir attack Cassidy. Top Flight tries to make the save but they are taken out. The Dark Order hit the ring but get taken out as well.
Grade: C
The match was going well but the match being ended prematurely by Moxley’s group was very underwhelming. Moxley makes it clear that all of AEW is under attack and honestly the riddles and talking in circles have gotten tired in a hurry and until they actually bother to explain why this is all happening I find myself losing more and more interest by the week.

The Elite gets called out
The Elite are backstage and say what happened out there was none of their business. They get confronted by Daniel Garcia and Private Party questioning how EVPs could let their company go down in flames like this.

Lio Rush (w/ Leila Grey) vs. Shelton Benjamin (w/ MVP)
The closing moments of the match saw Shelton Benjamin hit Lio Rush with a T-Bone Exploder pinning combination to score the pinfall victory.
Winner: Shelton Benjamin
MVP gets on the microphone after the match and says that Swerve Strickland and them need to finish the conversation they started at WrestleDream.
Grade: A-
Easily the best thing on the show so far tonight. Shelton Benjamin looked like a monster and Lio Rush made him look like a million dollars. The Hurt Syndicate is going to do big things in AEW and the impending debut of Bobby Lashley looms large over the faction right now. Hopefully, we’ll see The Almighty sooner rather than later.

Swerve Strickland and Prince Nana are backstage. Strickland accepts MVP’s offer for a future match with Shelton Benjamin. Strickland says they’re coming for the most dangerous man in AEW and they best not fail, because he won’t.

A Don Callis press conference
Tony Schiavone is in the ring and brings out Don Callis who comes to the ring with Lance Archer and ROH World Television Champion Brian Cage. Don Callis says he has something important to say and says he needs to hold a press conference.
Callis puts over the trade he did to acquire Lance Archer. Callis says Cage and Archer will take the Tag Team Titles from The Elite. Don brings out Konosuke Takeshita and Kyle Fletcher. Callis says he and Takeshita will go to every corner of the globe to defend the AEW International Championship.
Konosuke Takeshita says he’ll defend the title all over the world and if someone wants his title they can try to take it. Callis tells everyone to be quiet and to show some respect for Kyle Fletcher.
Fletcher says all he has heard is why Kyle why? Fletcher says that’s the problem, everyone wants to talk about Will Ospreay when the Don Callis Family is having the biggest night in their history. Kyle refuses to answer why he turned on Ospreay. Callis blames the fans for not getting an answer out of Fletcher.
Grade: D
A complete and utter waste of our time. Why is Brian Cage suddenly with the Don Callis Family now? Could they have at least taken a minute to explain that? Apparently not! This could have happened backstage. This wasn’t necessary on tonight’s show at all.

Anna Jay confronts Mariah May on AEW Dynamite
Mariah May is backstage complaining about not having any challengers and is confronted by Anna Jay. Christopher Daniels tries to break the two up and Jay accidentally slaps him as May gets away.

It’s announced that Swerve Strickland will face Shelton Benjamin on the October 30 episode of AEW Dynamite.

Ricochet is backstage and says Konosuke Takeshita beat Will Ospreay on Saturday but he didn’t beat him. Ricochet says he hasn’t been beaten since arriving at AEW and he’s there to win gold and he lays out an open challenge to anyone who wants to face him Saturday on Collision.

Top Flight and Dark Order are still brawling backstage with BCC. Moxley and company finally leave and the two teams cut passionate promos about wanting to get their revenge against Moxley’s group.

Jay White (w/ Bullet Club Gold) vs. Christian Cage (w/ The Patriarchy)
The closing moments of the match saw interference from both Kip Sabian and Hangman Page. While the referee was busy with Sabian, Page hit White with the Buckshot Lariat which allowed Cage to score the pinfall victory.
Winner: Christian Cage
Grade: B-
Christian Cage celebrates his win as AEW Dynamite goes off the air.

AEW Dynamite Review:
If you take all of the Jon Moxley stuff out of the show. It was an entertaining episode of AEW Dynamite. But the dark cloud of Moxley’s stable that has been a thing for almost two months now with no real answers as to why these things are happening is beyond frustrating for someone who wants their pro wrestling product to make sense.
I want to give AEW the benefit of the doubt here, but it really feels like they are just dragging this story along because they really don’t know what Moxley’s true motivations are supposed to be and where this is supposed to end up. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, this Moxley story can shift in a better direction but right now, I’m losing interest fast.
Grade: C+

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— JJA Sport Studio (@jjasportstudio) October 17, 2024