AEW Dynamite: New Year’s Smash 2022 Preview For December 28th

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As 2022 comes to a close, All Elite Wrestling has been knocking it out of the park every Wednesday and Friday, and last week was no different! The Elite avoided elimination in the Best of 7 series with Death Triangle once again, this time picking up a pyrrhic No Disqualification victory that left Kenny, Matt, and a bloody Nick laid out at the hands of the AEW World Trios Champions. The BCC’s Jon Moxley topped Darius Martin on DYNAMITE, but Top Flight eliminated The BCC’s Claudio Castagnoli on RAMPAGE to win the $300,000 Three Kings Christmas Casino Trios Royale. Fans also witnessed Jamie Hayter retain her AEW Women’s World Champion against Hikaru Shida in a must-see DYNAMITE main event, while Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal topped “Daddy Ass” and Anthony Bowens in RAMPAGE’s final bout of the night.

All that plus Chris Jericho tried to court Ricky Starks into J.A.S. membership, The Gunns beat FTR in their tag team grudge match, and TBS Champion Jade Cargill continued her total dominance in her latest Eliminator Bout against Vertvixen!

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AEW returns to the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, CO for the first time since March 2020 for DYNAMITE: NEW YEAR’S SMASH 2022, featuring the sixth match in the Elite/Death Triangle Best of 7 Series, this time in a Falls Count Anywhere battle! Plus, “All Ego” Ethan Page steps into the ring with “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson, the TNT Championship is on the line when Wardlow finally gets his hands on “The King of Television” Samoa Joe, Top Flight gets a huge opportunity against The BCC after last week’s RAMPAGE, and a big time Grudge Match in the Women’s Division is set! It all begins at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS, as well as at AEWPlus.com for international audiences, and for the fans live in Broomfield, they also get to experience the final AEW event of the year with RAMPAGE: NEW YEAR’S SMASH 2022!

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The official AEW YouTube channel is the destination to get fans prepared for the final week of AEW action in 2022! It where you can find the latest editions of AEW DARK, AEW DARK: ELEVATION, ROAD TO, and THE CONTROL CENTER with Tony Schiavone, as well as highlights from previous episodes of DYNAMITE, RAMPAGE, and more!

TNT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH…

AEW TNT Champion Samoa Joe(c) vs. Wardlow

At FULL GEAR 2022, TNT Champion Wardlow stepped into the ring with both Powerhouse Hobbs and the ROH World Television Champion Samoa Joe in a bout where only his TNT Title was at stake. Wardlow was on the cusp of victory, delivering the Powerbomb Symphony to Hobbs en route to an assumed victory, but Joe snatched it all away with a blow to Wardlow using the title belt before stealing the victory on Hobbs. “The WarDog” wasn’t beaten, not directly, but he didn’t leave with the TNT Championship he’d worked so hard to earn still his to claim.

Instead Samoa Joe left with both title in his possession, declaring himself “The King of Television”, and for the first time since he arrived in All Elite Wrestling, truly unleashed the monster inside that helped Joe become a Champion everywhere he went, including a historic 645-day reign as ROH World Champion. In the 40 days since claiming the championship, Joe has bested AR Fox as well as the most successful TNT Champion of all-time in Darby Allin, and in both bouts he has looked utterly dominant. But this Wednesday night during NEW YEAR’S SMASH 2022, Samoa Joe has to finally meet “Mr. Mayhem” one-on-one…

These two monstrous competitors will collide in Colorado come Wednesday night with the TNT Championship at stake; which man will head into 2023 secure in their championship position and who will have their New Year’s celebrations spoiled?

MATCH SIX: FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE…

(3)AEW Trios Champions Death Triangle (PAC, Penta El Zero Miedo)

vs.

(2)The Elite (Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson, & Nick Jackson)

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Against the odds, The Elite have managed to stave off elimination in this Best of 7 Series after dropping the first two bouts, coming back in the third, and going down 3-1 after the fourth match. On the brink of being knocked out by PAC, Penta, and Fenix, the Elite trio rebounded in the No Disqualification fifth bout to set the series at 3-2 in favor of the AEW World Trios Champion Death Triangle.

Unfortunately for The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega that victory was short-lived, as Death Triangle unleashed an assault just as vicious as anything that happened during the match-proper, leaving Nick Jackson bloodied, with the other two just as broken at the feet of Death Triangle. And now just a week after that attack, The Elite have to drag their battered bodies back into the fray, in hopes of evening up the score, and forcing a Match 7 in which the World Trios Championship will be on the line!

It’s a nigh-impossible feat, coming back from a 3-1 deficit, but if there’s any trio in All Elite Wrestling who can find a way to pull it off, it would be this collection of talent. With three AEW World Tag Team reigns between them, and one AEW World Championship run, The Elite have one of the strongest resumes of any regular trio in All Elite Wrestling, and their 11-4 record puts them in second place for active units. Of course that first place slot is occupied by Death Triangle’s 14-5 record, and then there’s the history that includes PAC being one of just four men to hold singles wins over Kenny Omega, and The Lucha Brothers being the team that ended The Young Bucks first World Tag Team Championship reign at ALL OUT 2021.

As far as this FCA stipulation goes, The Young Bucks are 2-1 in All Elite Wrestling, having defeated Ortiz & Santana as well as The Butcher & The Blade, with their loss coming at the hands of Jurassic Express and Christian Cage with Adam Cole as their third. But the only time this Elite trio has been in a Falls Count Anywhere Match together was just over seven years ago, December 20th of 2015 to be exact, for the 2CW promotion in Upstate New York where they topped AR Fox, Cheech, and Colin Delaney. Kenny, separate from the brothers Jackson, has been in 14 other FCA matches over the course of his career, two here in AEW where he’s 1-2, and Omega stands with a 12-3 record overall. He’s done them in singles, tag, and trios, he’s fought in Falls Count Anywhere four and five way matches, and clearly his record is strong.

As for Death Triangle, not only have they never been in this kind of match together, not one member of the trio has even fought in a Falls Count Anywhere match during the course of their career, at least none that have been recorded in an online database. No singles, tag, trios, nothing akin to a FCA rules match, and that would likely put Death Triangle at a disadvantage were it not for the questionable physical condition of Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson, and especially Nick Jackson. There’s also the matter of Omega’s highly-publicized, greatly-anticipated return to New Japan Pro Wrestling on January 4th for WRESTLE KINGDOM 17 where he will face Will Ospreay for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. How does that effect Kenny’s mindset coming into this bout? Does he put it all on the line knowing what awaits him at the Tokyo Dome in one week’s time? Or does he play it safer?

There are so many variables in a match like this, things utterly impossible to prepare for because the very environment around the ring, inside the entire arena, can change the dynamic of the fight. Falls Count Anywhere means adapting to the environment, it means surviving a great deal of pain and punishment, but when The Elite have already taken so much, how much additional can they endure? That will be the question this Wednesday night on DYNAMITE: NEW YEAR’S SMASH 2022!

TAG TEAM CONTEST…

Jon Moxley & ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli

vs.

Top Flight (Dante & Darius Martin)

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Last week was a tremendous one for Dante and Darius Martin, collectively known as Top Flight. First, in the biggest singles match of his wrestling career, Darius went one-on-one with 3-Time AEW World Champion Jon Moxley. Mox, as one would expect, put the young man through the wringer, and although he did not emerge from that proving ground as a winner, Darius demonstrated to Moxley as well as the AEW faithful that he was as fierce a solo competitor as he is in tag team action.

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Then on Friday night’s RAMPAGE, in the $300,000 Three Kings Christmas Casino Trios Royale, the fight came down to Top Flight versus The BCC of Claudio Castagnoli and Jon Moxley. The Martin brothers gave the ROH World Champ and the former AEW World Champ everything they had, but it was the involvement of Hangman Page that help steer the fracas in their favor as it created an opportunity for Top Flight to eliminate Mox, leaving Claudio standing along against the tag team.

Despite numerous close calls, Dante and Darius pooled every ounce of tag team savvy they had to finally eliminate Castagnoli from the ring, and score the victory for themselves and their third compatriot who’d previously been eliminated by Moxley, AR Fox.

Now, riding high off that victory, Top Flight will go into tag team battle with the same two Blackpool Combat Club representatives they were able to eliminate on RAMPAGE: HOLIDAY BASH 2022! As a team, Claudio and Moxley have just one match in AEW under their belt, one victory, but still just one match, whereas Top Flight are far more experienced as a duo. That being said, with Mox and Double C, we are talking the former 3-Time AEW World Champion, the 2-Time current ROH World Champion, and two of the world’s premiere professional wrestlers. Top Flight may have found a way to survive The BCC in a Battle Royale situation, will they be able to do the same when the fight is a little more traditional?

ONE-ON-ONE…

“The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson vs. “All Ego” Ethan Page (w/ Stokely Hathaway)

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It doesn’t take much to get Bryan Danielson to step into the ring for a professional wrestling match; as someone who loves to compete, who has stated he’s as happy wrestling in front of 50 people as he is 50,000, it is the sheer joy of competition that still makes “The American Dragon” want to step between the ropes after 20-plus years of wrestling.

Then someone like “All Ego” Ethan Page comes along, someone who clearly feels overlooked and underappreciated, and who knows all the right things to say to push Danielson’s reasons for fighting into a whole different realm. Page views Bryan as a “line-jumper”, someone who hasn’t earned the opportunity in All Elite Wrestling that they are pursuing, while he sees himself as the man who has proven deserving of an AEW World Championship opportunity based on the 2022 Men’s World Title Eliminator Tournament and the 2022 Dynamite Diamond Battle Royale.

So insults and personal attacks aside, ultimately what this is about is contention. This is about who has earned the right to next challenge MJF for the AEW World Championship after he squeaked past “Absolute” Ricky Starks at WINTER IS COMING 2022. Is it “All Ego” desperately craving his first AEW World Championship opportunity after, in his mind, working so hard to earn the shot? Is it “The American Dragon” who comes for MJF as much for retribution as for the championship?

The outcome of this first-ever collision between Danielson and Page will no doubt lend shape to the future of the AEW World Champion and the future its holder, so there’s no doubt Maxwell Jacob Friedman will have his eyes firmly locked on this fight come Wednesday night?

TAG TEAM GRUDGE MATCH…

Ruby Soho & Willow Nightingale

vs.

Anna JayA.S. & Tay Melo

Ruby said it herself; she hoped to be done with Tay Melo after defeating her two weeks ago in Ruby’s return match from the injury sustained at Tay’s hands back at ALL OUT 2022. Ideally, that victory over Melo would’ve freed Soho to pursue other venues of competition in AEW, to work back into title contention for the Women’s World Championship or the TBS Championship, but unfortunately she is enmeshed with two women for who the very concept of ideals is foreign.

That lack of strong moral fiber is why it’s so easy for Anna Jay to jump Ruby from behind after the victory, and so easy for TayJayA.S. to ruin what should’ve been Soho’s triumphant return to competition. Anna and Tay seem to genuinely think they can perpetrate that attack and face no repercussions, or they’re foolish enough to think they’re that much better than everyone else and there’s nothing Ruby can do to them.

This Wednesday night on DYNAMITE, when Ruby brings Willow Nightingale along with her for the fight, Tay and Anna Jay may just find out how wrong they are! Willow has had her own issues with these two, and last month actually defeated Anna Jay in singles competition, right before Ruby made her return to confront, and take out, both women. On Monday night’s edition of DARK: ELEVATION, fans saw the potential of Willow and Ruby as a pair, and during NEW YEAR’S SMASH 2022, TayJayA.S. will get to experience it as well!

With some help from Willow, can Ruby finally end her perpetual problem that is Anna Jay and Tay Melo? Or will the Jericho Appreciation Society members find yet another way to escape Ruby’s wrath intact?

RASSLE…

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AEW comes back to Broomfield, CO and the 1stBank Center this Wednesday night for DYNAMITE: NEW YEAR’S SMASH, the last DYNAMITE of 2022! Bryan Danielson collides with Ethan Page, the TBS Champion Samoa Joe meets Wardlow, The BCC and Top Flight dance in tag team action, and The Elite step into a Falls Count Anywhere fight with Death Triangle in the 6th bout in the Best of 7 Series! And it all comes to the AEW faithful live on TBS starting at 8pm ET/7pm CT, as well as at AEWPlus.com for international audiences, and be sure to visit the official AEW YouTube channel to get up to date with the latest action from DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well as recent editions of AEW DARK: ELEVATION, AEW DARK, and ROAD TO!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/I6mtMDJYfkg?start=150Article source: allelitewrestling.com