Show Air Date: January 8, 2025
AEW Dynamite was live on TBS and MAX in the old Mid-Southern (not Mid-South)/CWA territory area of Clarksville, TN, in a building not worth naming by commentary, apparently (it’s the F&M Bank Arena). Big returns and some interesting matches that looked good on paper, effectively a go-home show for their special episode next week. Excalibur, Ian Riccaboni (filling in for Tony Schiavone), and Matt Menard on commentary. That’s two positives and one negative, so a net gain.
Will Ospreay defeats Buddy Matthews
Will Ospreay bounced back from losing the Continental Classic final to Kazuchika Okada, beating Buddy Matthews of the House of Black. Commentary really wanted to get across Matthews was looking for revenge for Ospreay beating his HoB mate, Brody King, in the C2. Sigh. That’s one of those “trying too hard to make a story” moments. I wasn’t buying the “he’s so determined, having wrestled 2 matches 10 days ago” narrative. Relax. Excalibur said the commentary desk was “solid oak.” Menard’s terrible was infectious. The match itself was pretty good. Athletic, hard-hitting, light-on nonsense until Ospreay kicked up from that combination knee strike to the back of the head and a curb stomp. No sir, that’s a finish or don’t do it. Then Matthews looked right at him when Will delivered his Hidden Blade elbow strike. Sigh. They were doing so good until the last 60 seconds. Ospreay then gave a patronizing pep talk to Buddy “Murphy.” What was that? Starting off weird.
Bobby Lashley defeats Mark Briscoe by referee’s decision
World Tag champions Private Party (Quen, Zay) were having a nothing segment to celebrate their recent warm streak (not active enough to be “hot”) when The Hurt Syndicate (MVP, Shelton Benjamin, and Bobby Lashley) came out to celebrate with them…and let them know they wanted the tag titles. Loved Shelton’s coat. Them dudes put a good chill on a cold (in a bad way) segment.
Being AEW, Lashley then has a singles match, beating Mark Briscoe handily. Briscoe had his moments, but this was downhill skiing for “The Almighty.” If anything, this went on too long. Lashley wins with the Hurt Lock (full Nelson). The Syndicate gets in some after-match work until the Private Party makes the save, armed with chairs because they aren’t dumb.
Powerhouse Hobbs defeats Adam Cole and Adam Page and Daniel Garcia and Jay White and Jeff Jarrett and Kyle O’Reilly and Lance Archer and Ricochet and Roderick Strong and Wheeler Yuta
AEW World Title #1 Contendership Casino Gauntlet Match
Powerhouse Hobbs won the Casino Gauntlet match to get a World title shot next week at the Maximum Carnage event. This was okay. Got the point of rinse and repeat and I got bored and hit FF. A guy comes in, hits their stuff, everybody rolls to the floor, and the next guy. I did stop when Jeff Jarrett came out to a big pop and was cut off by Wheeler Yuta. Yuta taking all the lumps and the debut of “Ricochet’s House” were highlights.
We do get an in-ring interview with Jarrett with Riccaboni, one interrupted by Maxwell Jacob Friedman’s live, in-person return. I wasn’t sure why Jeff was suddenly questioning himself since he didn’t lose or even get a chance to compete in the Gauntlet match. Why not have him fight Yuta, not MJF? The whole thing was okay—nothing special. This was another guy trying to win the world title in his “final year” (didn’t we just do this?)., but MJF offered to help Jarrett win the world title as long as he got the first title shot. Not a bad deal at all. Jarrett turns him down. Okay.
They follow a talking segment with another one as Adam Copeland targets World champion (M) Jon Moxley and the Death Riders (which already puts Jay White’s World title chase in the rearview mirror). He runs through his list of injuries, reminding us how fragile he is. The Death Riders (Moxley, Yuta, and Claudio Castagnoli, sans PAC, and Marina Shafir) come out but get cut off by FTR (Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler).
Rated FTR have the advantage until PAC and Shafir show up and Cope ends up in a Moxley Bulldog choke. They tease Moxley smothering him with a plastic bag as he did Bryan Danielson last year, but Hobbs makes a slow-motion save. Now, I hate that they rushed this because I think Hobbs is challenging Mox and needs one more week to heat up.
World champion (W) “The Glamour” Mariah May starts to deliver one of her hot backstage promos (another top heel who talks a lot but wrestles a little) when Harley Cameron shows up, and my FF is engaged. She irks me, and if she didn’t push up and shine them boobs up, she would irk some more people, but…she gets it and the audience.
Main Event: Kris Statlander defeats Toni Storm and Willow Nightingale
Casino Gauntlet #1 Spot Three Way Match
The Lay Daze were absent the entire show but got some of the closing segments, including the main event. Kris Statlander beat Toni Storm and Willow Nightingale in a three-way match to claim the first spot in next week’s Women’s Casino Gauntlet match. This was fine. It was a nice TV match with all three working hard. It felt like they had a better match in them, but this wasn’t bad at all if it was a rather tame final match. The pop made it clear the least popular woman of the three won. The Storm interview in the back. Shrug. This new character and angle are not hot.
“The Cleaner” Kenny Omega returned to AEW TV after a long absence to a standing ovation. Good speechifying until his former manager, Don Callis, shows up. I like Omega, not waiting for Callis to talk and engage in some dinner theater back and forth and just started swinging. Lance Archer and Brian Cage and then Kyle Fletcher of the Callis Family come out and put a beatdown on him.
A chair-wielding Ospreay makes the save. This was different from an earlier save because he used the chair (and that’s literally it). Then there is a tense staredown for some reason when Omega should have been saying “Thank you.” They almost had a good segment here but tried for too much.
Solid show. Nothing “must-see” but light on “must avoid” too.
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The Real Uncle Dave grade: B (85 out of 100)
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