The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 06.12.24
Live from Des Moines, IA
Your hosts are Excalibur, Tony Schiavone & Taz
Swerve Strickland joins us to start, and he’s accusing Will Ospreay of not having the killer instinct. Much like the EVPs, who haven’t even defended their tag team titles since winning them. So this brings out the Elite and Okada is all salty tonight. The Bucks are tired of not being considered violent enough to compete, so they challenge a team from AEW to Blood & Guts and then try to recruit Swerve. That’s a very weird way to build to Blood & Guts, with no real feud going on and just wanting the match so they can be more violent. And Matthew even offers Swerve a pair of their new sneakers to sweeten the deal! Sadly, Swerve doesn’t wear size 9, so Nana throws the shoes into the crowd. This brings out the Acclaimed to make the save, but Interim VP Christopher Daniels kicks them all out of the ring so that Jack Perry can do his qualifiying ladder match against Dustin.
TNT title qualifier: Dustin Rhodes v. Jack Perry
Dustin gets a lariat and chokes him out with his shirt, but Jack pulls off a turnbuckle pad and they fight to the floor. Jack runs him into the stairs as this crowd is really quiet, but he pulls up the mats and Dustin backdrops him onto the concrete as we take a break. Back with Dustin busted open and Perry choking him out on the ropes and then decides to try a V-Trigger, but Dustin catches him in a powerslam. Dustin makes the comeback with a bulldog and slugs away in the corner and then hits the Shattered Nuts in the corner behind the ref’s back. Crossroads gets two. Perry sends him into the exposed turnbuckle and they head to the floor again, where Jack gets a DDT on the exposed concrete. Dustin beats the count at 9. So Perry gives him a blatant kick in the yambag, and then finishes with a running knee at 10:00. This one never really took off and really given that it was Perry’s first singles match in months, he should run through Dustin. **
Meanwhile, the oddball team of Kyle O’Reilly & Mark Briscoe & Orange Cassidy do a wacky promo about their match against the Don Callis family later tonight. Mark Briscoe is amazing here as usual while Kyle just stands back and lets him cook.
Rush v. Deonn Rusman
Rush tosses this poor geek and just beats the hell out of him on the floor, and then back in for more chops and a beatdown in the corner. Bull’s Horns finish at 1:30. So he goes for a further beating, but MJF makes the save and they get into a huge bell-ringing brawl after beating up the security guards sent to split them up. And then it’s into the crowd and they fight into the backstage area, where Max puts him through a catering table with a double leg before they finally find enough geeks to pull them apart successfully. So next week, it’s Rush v. MJF to kick off the show. Pretty badass brawl here.
Orange Cassidy, Kyle O’Reilly & Mark Briscoe v. Kyle Fletcher, Konosoke Takesh*ta & Roderick Strong
This is about as random as humanly possible. Briscoe puts Fletcher down with some martial arts, but Takesh*ta comes in and dominates the babyfaces before putting Orange down with a knee strike. Everyone fights on the floor, setting up a dive from Orange onto the pile, but Takesh*ta slugs him down from behind as we take a break. Back with Kyle running wild, and he brings Briscoe in to continue slugging away on the heels. Mark uses REDNECK KUNG FU and hits Strong with an enzuigiri to send him to the floor. Orange hits Fletcher with the diving DDT for two in the chaos. But then Fletcher cuts off the Orange Punch with a half and half suplex and they all start firing off high speed highspots, setting up Orange and O’Reilly taking out Fletcher with a Total Elimination. Orange goes up and Fletcher cuts him off again, but Briscoe hits the Froggy ‘Bow for two. Briscoe tries the Jay Driller, but Takesh*ta breaks it up with the knee strike and Fletcher pins Briscoe with a piledriver at 12:40. I’m not opposed to giving Fletcher a big win and I expect that will set up the next ROH PPV main event. Started slow but after the break it was complete insanity and never let up. ****. Afterwards, Willow tries to help Orange from a heel beatdown, but Kris Statlander lays her out and prevents her from helping. So yeah, there was a LOT going on here.
Meanwhile, Chris Daniels announces that the Elite will have to work Eliminator matches next week, with all seconds barred from ringside.
Tony Nese & Ari Daivari v. Hook & Samoa Joe
Joe’s pre-match peptalk with Hook is delightful, and the babyfaces proceed to kicking their ass on the entranceway and then more of the same in the ring. They take turns clotheslining Nese, but Hook gets caught in the corner. Daivari goes up, but Hook shows his growth and walks away like Joe, while Joe grins from the apron. Meanwhile Shibata takes a break from working as an amateur handheld cameraman and lays out Mark Sterling, allowing Hook to choke out Daivari at 2:43. And Shibata chokes out Sterling on the floor for good measure, which makes me think a lawsuit might be pending. This was delightfully wacky. *1/2
Meanwhile, Shingo Takagi announces for the Owen Hart cup? Holy cow. That’s a thing.
TBS title: Mercedes Mone v. Zeuxis
They trade lucha takedowns to start and Mercedes dropkicks her into the corner for two. Zeuxis hits her with kicks and they head to the floor, where Mercedes takes her down with an armdrag off the table. Back to the apron and Zeuxis dropkicks her to the floor again and follows with a tope as we take a break. Back with Zeuxis hitting a powerbomb for two. Another powerbomb is countered into a rollup by Mone for two, but Zeuxis puts her down with a double knee for two. Mercedes comes back with a bulldog and goes up with a meterora for two. Zeuxis puts her down with a double underhook lungblower, which gets two. That’s kind of a crazy move for a near fall. And the Moneymaker finishes for Mone at 9:41. This was kind of a weird match but Zeuxis looked like she was trying for a regular gig. ***
Meanwhile, we get the Mina Shirakawa video package that made all of Twitter horny this week, and then cut to Mariah and Toni learning about Toni’s title defense on Rampage this week.
TV Time with the Learning Tree! Jericho educates the Iowa crowd about the low quality of their corn due to poor pH, which frankly is just embarrassing for them. So Jericho brings out Private Party (with Big Bill grooving to their theme) and criticizes their grasp of the basics. He was trained by Stu Hart, you know. It’s technically unsound! So Jericho (who some call the Caitlin Clark of AEW) demonstrates going to the top rope as Owen Hart used to do, at which point Zay trips him up, showing GRAVE DISRESPECT for the Learning Tree. It is what it is with the Jericho stuff.
Meanwhile, we learn that Naito is getting a rematch with Jon Moxley at Forbidden Door, and that could probably be a titl change this time so they can get it off Mox and back to Japan.
Meanwhile, the Bang Bang Gang (complete with the return of CARDBLADE!) throw out a challenge to the House of Black for Collision.
Daniel Garcia v. Nick Comoroto
Been a while since we’ve seen Comoroto. Garcia stomps him down in the corner and follows with a Saito suplex and a guillotine into a DDT to finish at 1:11. Apparently he’s going after the International title while Ospreay is going for the AEW World title and it’s getting a bit hard to follow to be honest. I don’t know why they bothered putting the title on Ospreay.
Meanwhile, Pac announces his entrance into the Owen Hart cup.
AEW International title: Will Ospreay v. Rey Fenix
They battle to a stalemate right away and Ospreay sends him to the floor, but misses a dive and Fenix hits a rana out there. Back in with a frog splash for two as we take a break. Back with Ospreay laying him out with a faceplant and following with an elbow strike out of the corner. They slug it out and fight to the top rope and Fenix gets the top rope rana, but Ospreay lands on his feet and spikes Fenix with a tornado DDT…and Fenix lands on HIS feet! They trade high kicks and Ospreay spins him into the Air Raid Crash for two. We take another break and return with Fenix holding him in the Octopus, into a crucifix bomb for two. German suplex gets two. Will throws kicks to set up the Ozcutter, which gets two. Hidden Blade is countered into a rana for two by Fenix. Fenix tries to roll into the cutter, but Ospreay hits him with a Hidden Blade in mid-air and goes up for his own Swerve Stomp, into another Hidden Blade to finish at 13:00. Not top level stuff from Ospreay but he still looks like the biggest star on the show. ***1/2 And then Swerve gets in his face and continues to impugn his manhood, so Will snatches the World title belt and shows how nice they look on his shoulders. Swerve tells him that he’s lucky that they’re still friends because otherwise Ospreay would be in the grave right now. So…I’m guessing we’re NOT gonna get the Uptown Funk dance-off spot at the PPV, then?
Man, this one started a bit questionably with a quiet crowd and then TOOK OFF after that. The trios match lit up the arena and it never slowed down again, making for a fun night of wrestling.
