https://www.youtube.com/embed/J8KWZd1wuR8
Between Dynamite and Rampage, Fight for the Fallen 2022 was quite the memorable pair of events! Jon Moxley continued to prove himself a candidate for the best wrestler in the world today after his victory over Rush in their AEW Interim World Title fight, only to find himself challenged by Chris Jericho for a championship fight. It seemed to be set in stone for Dynamite: Quake by The Lake, but Friday night threw a monkey wrench in that courtesy of Wheeler Yuta!
Last week also saw major shake-ups in the camp of Team Taz; first Ricky Starks successfully defended the FTW Title against Danhausen only to be crushed by HOOK in a second title defense that immediately followed. Then, as Starks was addressing the loss and praising HOOK, he fell victim to an assault from his own partner Powerhouse Hobbs. We also witnessed Thunder Rosa retain her AEW Women’s World Title in a hard-hitting fight with Miyu Yamashita, Anna Jay defeat Ruby Soho, and Swerve defeated Tony Nese and Mark Sterling in a handicap match only to find out his championship partner had been waylaid in the back by former ROH Pure Champion Josh Woods.
And in the upset of the year so far, Daniel Garcia defeated Bryan Danielson in a one-on-one match (albeit with a little hand from Jake Hager) in The American Dragon’s return to competition after two months off!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/111DZKct888
Last week marked All Elite Wrestling’s debut in Worcester, MA, and this Wednesday night takes us to Columbus, OH and the home of The Ohio State Buckeyes for the very first time! Chris Jericho’s arrogance got him to put his AEW Interim World Title opportunity on the line against Wheeler Yuta, The Acclaimed and The Gunn Club will collide in a Dumpster Match, The Undisputed Elite will reunite, ThunderStorm and Team Britt finally dance , and the old rivalry between Matt Hardy and Christian Cage will flare up once more!
Plus Jay Lethal and Orange Cassidy will collide following their Trios Bout on Rampage, and Powerhouse Hobbs will be in action on the heels of betraying Ricky Starks! The action gets underway on TBS live starting at 8pm EDT/7pm CDT, and on AEWPlus.com for our international audience. Before everything gets underway, make sure to visit the official AEW YouTube page to get up to speed on last week’s action with Dynamite and Rampage highlights, plus catch the latest editions of AEW Dark: Elevation, AEW Dark, Road To, and The Control Center with Tony Schiavone!
HIGH STAKES…
“The Wizard” Chris Jericho vs. ROH Pure Champion Wheeler Yuta
***WINNER GETS INTERIM TITLE MATCH WITH JON MOXLEY ON 8/10***
https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQW_WaZC3K8
Chris Jericho got played, it is that simple. The former AEW World Champion thought he had it all figured out when he challenged Jon Moxley to an AEW Interim World Title bout, knowing Mox is not one to back down from any challenge, and likely banking on The J.A.S to help swing things his way at Dynamite: Quake by the Lake. Jericho has been craving an opportunity to reclaim the AEW World Title ever since Mox beat him for it at Revolution 2020, and this Interim bout would be his first opportunity since that February night. How appropriate as well that, although for the Interim Title rather than the World Title he first won at All Out 2019, the championship match would be against Jon Moxley as well!
It seemed like kismet for Chris, but then that good old Jericho ego got in the way on Rampage, and “The Wizard” got outplayed by Wheeler Yuta:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/eBj9UGpxReQ
So this week on Dynamite, Chris Jericho and Wheeler Yuta will go head-to-head with that Quake by the Lake championship match on the line! Jericho has to be mad at himself, getting manipulated so easily like that by the ROH Pure Champion, but ego is a fragile thing, especially when it comes to a man like Jericho, and Yuta played it expertly. If anything Jericho should admire the young man for his mind games, it feels like a page out of the Jericho playbook of yore, and now “The Wizard” is in a situation to lose it all just because of that fragile ego.
For Yuta, coming off a tremendous title victory over Daniel Garcia at ROH’s Death before Dishonor 2022 pay-per-view event, this is a huge opportunity to show just how far he’s come under the tutelage of The Blackpool Combat Club. He’s been tested by Moxley twice, he’s been tested by Bryan, PAC, Penta, and Adam Cole, and every time, win or lose, Yuta has given the fight everything he has, but the difference between those bouts and this is The BCC. Each test took place before the knowledge of William Regal, Danielson, Moxley, and now Claudio Castagnoli, were at hand for Yuta to partake. They all happened before Wheeler went to NJPW and excelled in his first Best of Super Juniors Tournament, narrowly missing out on being part of the finals.
Jericho isn’t facing a young Yuta just hoping to make an impression and earn his spot in All Elite Wrestling; this is the ROH Pure Champion Wheeler Yuta, this is a Yuta who has chosen violence by choosing The Blackpool Combat Club, this is a Yuta who could very well smash in the head of Jericho the way his current mentors would, or trap him in a pinning combination he cannot escape like Orange Cassidy once did.
Ego and arrogance got Chris Jericho in this situation in the first place, will the same see him lose his first championship opportunity in two and a half years as well? Will we get a BCC versus BCC Interim Title fight next week in Minneapolis? Or will it be J.A.S versus BCC with the biggest prize in all of pro wrestling at stake?
ONE-ON-ONE…
Jay Lethal vs. “Freshly Squeezed” Orange Cassidy
https://www.youtube.com/embed/EcMqlF9FVBg
Last Friday night, Orange Cassidy and his Best Friends defeated Jay Lethal and his besties in a Trios Match, but it was a rather pyrrhic victory seeing as how “Freshly Squeezed” got laid out by a Lethal Injection while Satnam Singh held him in place. Then Lethal just proceeded to pound his fists in Orange’s head until TNT Champion Wardlow made his way to the ring to back down Lethal, Dutt, and Singh.
Now, in their first ever singles match, Jay Lethal and Orange Cassidy will meet this Wednesday on Dynamite! This rivalry is just heating up, but OC could shut it down before it burns any hotter with a victory on TBS. And how does Wardlow factor into all of this after last week’s rescue?
TAG TEAM DUMPSTER MATCH…
The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster)
vs.
The Gunn Club (Austin & Colten w/ Billy)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iVVoos-dPSI
The Fleet Center in Boston, now known as the TD Garden Arena, was home to the very first Dumpster Match in professional wrestling history where the legendary duo of Mick Foley and Terry Funk took on Billy Gunn and his tag partner Road Dogg in a championship bout. The rules were quite simple, akin to a Casket Match, get your opponents inside the dumpster, trapping them in there with all that garbage, and close the lid to win the match. Simple in statement, far harder in execution, but it would be Gunn and his partner who ended up inside the trash heap on 3/29/98. Being the first of its kind, it was a match that has lingered in the memories of fans for 25 years, and although it has been duplicated many times over the years by various wrestling companies across the landscape, none have been as memorable as the original.
Call it a throwback, call it a tribute, but now The Acclaimed are bringing the Dumpster Match back into the spotlight, and reminding the Gunn Club about a little piece of their family history in the process! Austin and Colten have had it coming for weeks now, some payback for turning their backs on The Acclaimed after they’d finally figured out how to work together, and perhaps Billy is to blame for some of this animosity. He certainly insisted upon this union to begin with, seemed to relish the whole “Scissor Me Daddy Ass” routine, and even initially chose to side with Max and Anthony when the cracks in the foursome started to show.
But family blood ran thicker, with Billy ultimately siding with his boys in the dissolution of this alliance, and now this Wednesday it will all come to a head when one team ends up inside the confines of a dirty, slimy, stinky trash-filled dumpster. Will it be “The Trash Boys” as The Acclaimed so lovingly dubbed them in the video embedded above, or will The Acclaimed be a victim of their own stipulation on Dynamite?
OLD ENEMIES…
Christian Cage vs. Matt Hardy
https://www.youtube.com/embed/YntsC82e5d0
Prior to their Fyter Fest 2021, Night 1 collision last July, Christian Cage had never beat Matt Hardy in a one-on-one match. Sure there had been plenty of tag team bouts in their record books, victories for both men, but over six singles matches, it was always Hardy who got the victory.
That all changed last year when Cage bested Hardy, then just two months ago, the script was totally flipped when Hardy and Cage actually stood as partners on Dynamite against The Undisputed Elite! Given their history, it was quite a strange moment to see them as allies, but all seemed right with the world several weeks ago when Hardy came out to try and talk sense into Christian after his betrayal of Jungle Boy.
Hardy paid the price for his attempts at reason, and was greeted with the same kind of disgusting rhetoric from Christian Cage that he has foisted upon JB and Brian Pillman Jr over recent weeks. Words about Matt’s career, his brother Jeff, just reprehensible comments that have been par for the course for Cage. Of course, the outcome of that tete-a-tete may have been different had Christian not had Luchasaurus at his side, and we will find out this Wednesday night on Dynamite when Cage has to answer for his words without that monstrous man at his beck and call!
Will Cage turn tail and run as he did at the sight of Jungle Boy, or will he actually stand and fight against his oldest foe in all of professional wrestling?
A STORM BREWING..
Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D & Jamie Hayter
vs.
Thunder Storm (AEW Women’s World Champion Thunder Rosa & Toni Storm)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/hBdjdXybpk0
The ThunderStorm pairing of AEW Women’s World Champion Thunder Rosa and Toni Storm may be fairly new to working together, they’ve only had one match to date, but statistically speaking they’ve had greater success than Dr. Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter as a team. It’s a one hundred percent success rate for ThunderStorm where as Team Britt, well their first win in 2022 just took place on July 22nd against the mash-up of Skye Blue and Ashley D’Amboise. One out of five matches, twenty percent, not the best stats for the Good Doctor and her partner, but pretty accurate when framed by the nature of their relationship.
20% of the time the two women actually seem to get along, the rest of the time it feels like they’re about to come apart at the seams, but despite those tensions, despite their failings as a tag team, Hayter has been there when Baker needed her during the former Women’s World Champion’s title reign.
Now Britt and Jamie have additional common ground in their mockery of ThunderStorm, as well as common ground in loses to both Thunder Rosa and Toni Storm, and that has to be what consistently eats at Baker, why Britt has to reach for ammunition to fire at the woman who beat her for the Women’s World Title. No matter how many verbal jabs Baker throws, no matter how many sandbags she has Rebel carry to the ring, the bottom line is that both Toni Storm and Thunder Rosa hold victories over Baker, and the latter took the Women’s World Title from around her waist. For the first time in ages, it wasn’t Britt atop the Women’s Division, and any momentum from her triumph in The Owen at Double or Nothing 2022 was quickly overshadowed by losses on two Dynamite‘s over three weeks.
This week’s tag team match could make a return to the winning side for Baker, two consecutive victories for her and Hayter would do wonders, and one over the Women’s World Champion would be a boon to either woman’s title aspirations. But the reverse is also true, seeing how neither Britt nor Jamie are in the rankings, a loss here would further dampen their hopes of bringing the championship back to the fold, and it would also completely nix any fuel for the verbal fire Baker throws at Rosa every chance she gets.
Will we see ThunderStorm continue their impressive pairing in their second tag team outing, or will it be Baker and Hayter who find a way to get a second straight win despite their inconsistent history as a duo?
UNDISPUTED ELITE RETURN…
It’s been a bit since we’ve seen The Undisputed Elite all together, not since before Forbidden Door six weeks, Kyle O’Reilly hasn’t competed since that top-shelf clash with Jon Moxley, Adam Cole’s been on the mend since the IWGP World Heavyweight Title fight on June 26th, Bobby Fish only just returned to action on the 7/18 episode of Dark: Elevation, leaving The Young Bucks to carry the flag for The UE over those weeks.
Even before Forbidden Door, the brothers Jackson were on top of the world, having defeated Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus to become the first 2-Time World Tag Champs, and then topping Bishamon in an Eliminator Match on the Rampage following that joint pay-per-view extravaganza. But the highs quickly turned to lows as Swerve In Our Glory captured the championship during The Young Bucks very first defense, a three way that also featured Team Taz, and just last week after the AEW World Trios Titles were announced, they were captured on camera wandering about the backstage area looking rather forlorn about all their missing friends.
Then they awkwardly ran into Hangman Page, but before they amounted to anything, The Dark Order arrived to talk the Trios Tourney with the former AEW World Champion, and left Matt and Nick standing there even more awkwardly than before. This week on Dynamite, the loneliness comes to an end when The Undisputed Elite are back at full strength as all eyes turns towards Chicago and All Out 2022!
What will The UE have to say for themselves now that they’re back together in the same place at the same time? Will it be about the World Title situation? Will it be to address the Trios Title Tournament? Tune in to TBS this Wednesday night to see what Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, Kyle O’Reilly, and The Young Bucks have on their minds!
POWERHOUSE IN ACTION…
https://www.youtube.com/embed/f9S-XU0teVU
Last week, Ricky Starks found himself doubly humbled first when he lost his FTW Title to HOOK in ninety seconds, and second when his own tag team partner, his running buddy for the last two years, Powerhouse Hobbs, slid a knife into the neck of “Absolute”. It was shocking, there was certainly no sign of it coming, no moment for Starks to reflect on and say to himself “yeah I should’ve seen it”; instead he has been left in the dark as to what went wrong. Just hours before this betrayal, Starks and Hobbs were even comfortably ranked as the number three team in AEW behind FTR and The Young Bucks, demonstrating that they were not too far removed from getting another shot at the World Tag Titles, perhaps even in a traditional tag setting as opposed to their two previous bids in Three Way Matches.
Instead, Hobbs smashed Starks down, shattered that bond, that brotherhood, and left us all wondering just what prompted the turn from “brother” to playing the role of Cain asking “Am I my brother’s keeper?” after having murdered him in the field. Perhaps we will all get answers this Wednesday when Powerhouse Hobbs goes into singles competition for the first time since April 12th, or perhaps we will just witness another man be decimated by the power of Hobbs.
THE CHAMP SPEAKS…
https://www.youtube.com/embed/RfiVGIuPiTY
Jon Moxley is fresh off a hard-hitting victory over RUSH with the AEW Interim World Title at stake, and he’s gearing up for another one at Dynamite: Quake by the Lake next week. The only question is if he’ll be facing the man he beat for the AEW World Title at Revolution 2020, or if he’ll be facing his Blackpool Combat Club brother? We will hear from the dominating champion this Wednesday night as he focuses on the winner of the Jericho/Yuta collision!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/pvurLBtsLw4
This Wednesday, All Elite Wrestling comes to The Schottenstein Center in Columbus, OH for the very first time, and with it comes a all-new edition of Dynamite! A shot at Jon Moxley’s AEW Interim Title is on the line with Jericho and Yuta, we will see Powerhouse Hobbs in action after he betrayed Ricky Starks last week, ThunderStorm will battle Baker/Hayter, Christian Cage and Matt Hardy meet again, and plenty more on tap for AEW’s debut in the home of The Ohio State University!
The night begins at 8pm EDT/7pm CDT on TBS, with doors opening at 6pm for those in the house; go get yourself prepared by visiting the official AEW YouTube channel for highlights from last week’s Dynamite and Rampage as the latest editions of AEW Dark: Elevation, AEW Dark, the Control Center and Road To episodes!
Article source: allelitewrestling.com
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