https://www.youtube.com/embed/hZVdGhHpMk8
Last week’s GRAND SLAM episodes of DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE were absolutely loaded with the best professional wrestling on the planet! From Danielson/Omega to Punk/Hobbs to Baker/Soho to The SuperKliq versus Cage & JurEx, and everything in-between, one would be hard pressed to find a greater collection of in-ring action that what AEW presented inside the Arthur Ashe Stadium! And now the fallout from GRAND SLAM week continues this Wednesday night when DYNAMITE finally makes its long-awaited arrival in Rochester, NY! With a TNT Title match on tap, the first-ever meeting of Jungle Boy and Adam Cole, and multiple intriguing tag team bouts, fans at The Blue Cross Arena are in store for one action packed evening! It all gets underway LIVE at 8pm EST/7pm CST on TNT, as well as at AEWPlus.com for our International fans!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_uLmcXHo9Dw
With FULL GEAR 2021 (Learn More) just announced, eyes begin to turn towards Minneapolis and AEW’s next PPV offering, and you can get up to date with all the latest happenings in AEW by subscribing to the official YouTube channel with highlights from DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, as well as the latest editions of DARK: ELEVATION, AEW DARK, and the ROAD TO editions!
TNT TITLE MATCH…
“The Redeemer” Miro (c) vs. “The Spanish God” Sammy Guevara
https://www.youtube.com/embed/tZWP5ApZJBc
Friendship; as much as this first-ever meeting between Miro and Sammy Guevara is about the TNT Title, so too is it about the friendship between Fuego Del Sol and “The Spanish God”. Twice now the TNT Champion has rebuked the challenge of AEW’s favorite underdog, even besting Fuego for possession of his own car if Miro chose to take it for himself. But just simply winning the match wasn’t enough for “The Redeemer”, he needed to humiliate Fuego as well and that is really what brought Guevara into this fray.
Beyond the personal nature of this singles match, so too is this one ripe with a bit of history in the making. This TNT Title fight marks the very first AEW singles championship bout for “The Spanish God”. He and Chris Jericho battled SCU over the World Tag Titles a lifetime ago, Sammy even got a shot at Kenny Omega’s AAA Mega Title on AEW programming, and Guevara was even a part of the tournament to crown the first TNT champion, but this is his very first match for an AEW singles title.
On the other side of the ring is a man primed to make history of his own, and in very rapid fashion at that. Currently Darby Allin holds the record for most successful TNT Title defenses with nine, and it’s a record that took him 173 days to accomplish. Well this Wednesday night, should Miro be successful in toppling Guevara’s challenge, he will match that record in just 140 days, putting “The Redeemer” on the precipice of snatching the crown as most successful TNT champion off of Darby’s head.
Which of these two warriors will make history on Wednesday night? Will it be Sammy Guevara by capturing his first AEW championship, or Miro with the breakneck speed in which he has matched Darby Allin’s record? Tune into TNT or AEWPlus.com to watch this battle go down!
THE FIRST TIME…
Adam Cole vs. Jungle Boy
https://www.youtube.com/embed/JnJfvjOaZvA
Certain matches feel like destiny; that was certainly the case with Bryan Danielson versus Kenny Omega as well as CM Punk battling Darby Allin, and there is just something about this pairing that feels fated. So much so that immediately following Adam Cole’s debut at ALL OUT 2021, a debut that happened to include Cole kicking Jungle Boy in the face, during the post-event media scrum Cole said:
“There are definitely some people I’m looking forward to stepping into the ring with. Number one is the gentleman that I kicked tonight and that’s Jungle Boy. He is an incredibly talented young man with a huge future and a guy I would love to kick in the face again.”
Well, much like Punk/Darby and Bryan/Kenny, fans do not have to wait like to get this collision nor will Adam Cole have to wait too long for another opportunity to kick Jungle Boy in the face, because this Wednesday night will feature Jungle Boy versus Adam Cole! As seen in the video clip embedded above, Cole had words for Jungle Boy following The SuperKliq’s victory on RAMPAGE, and added a little bit extra immediately after the singles match was set for DYNAMITE…
Now while it has been two months since Jungle’s last one-on-one match, a victory over Marq Quen on the 7/26 DARK: ELEVATION, his 13-2 record as a singles over the course of 2021 is a testament to the fact Jungle Boy performs just as strongly solo as he does in tags and trios. There is a reason he was the first man to both 50 and 60 wins in AEW competition, why he has competed in the more matches than anyone else in the locker room (93 not counting Battle Royale situations), and will more than likely be the first person in AEW to hit 100 battles. Jungle Boy is a workhorse, looking to net as much experience as possible against all opponents and in as many different situations as possible. Jungle has 25 singles, 44 tags, and 24 multi-man bouts to his record, he won the 2021 Casino Battle Royale to earn a shot at AEW World Champion Kenny Omega, and has competed in seven other Battle Royale situations since 2019.
Suffice to say Jungle Boy has, in large part because he wanted it, gone through the ringer during his AEW tenure, and at only 24 years old with five years of active competition to speak of, still has plenty of mileage to go. There’s something that should be noted here; Adam Cole has 13 years of experience inside the squared circle, and given that he started just a few months shy of his 19th birthday, there is a certain parallel between Cole’s career at that of Jungle Boy’s. Jack Perry, just a few months shy of his 6th wrestle-versary in November, had his first match in 2015 also at 18 years of age. And just as Adam Cole was frequently referred to as “the future of pro wrestling” in those early years of his career, so to is Jungle Boy in that situation now. Where Cole was once that young, up-and-comer that the veterans wanted to test to see how he measured up, that position now belongs to Jungle Boy where Adam is the vet looking to put the young guys through their paces. Adam isn’t the first in AEW to test Jungle Boy, the Jurassic Express member has been there with veterans like Jack Evans, Chris Jericho, and Cody Rhodes, as well as the aforementioned Kenny Omega match, and the instant classic where Jungle submitted Dax Harwood to demonstrate just how effective The Snare Trap submission can be.
This Wednesday night on DYNAMITE, fans will witness fate unfold before their very eyes when Jungle Boy and Adam Cole go one-on-one for the very first time! Do not miss a minute of the action LIVE at 8pm EST/7pm CST on TNT or at AEWPlus.com!
TAG TEAM COMPETITION…
The Nightmare Family (Cody Rhodes & Lee Johnson) vs. Dante Martin & Matt Sydal
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6PSDnSEOLsE
What’s next? That is a question Cody Rhodes has to be asking himself after last week’s defeat at the hands of Malakai Black, his second loss to Black in six weeks at that. Along with that loss came some clear issues with Coach Arn Anderson over both how Rhodes competed in the match, as well as the fact Cody let Arn’s tumble to the floor take his eyes off the prize. No matter how momentary the distractions may have been for “The American Nightmare”, to Arn there was absolutely no excuse for letting anything cloud Cody’s focus on Malakai, nor is Black a foe you ever want to fight distracted.
So now after disappointing himself, as well as feeling he let down the rest of The Nightmare Family, Cody is doing what he does best: putting in the work. He is not letting the defeat drag him down, instead he is saddling right back up with his Nightmare Family, and diving into tag team competition! With “Big Shotty” Lee Johnson at his side, Cody has to putting The House of Black out of his thoughts to focus on the pairing of Matt Sydal and Dante Martin.
In many ways, the Sydal and Martin duo bears similarities to that of The Nightmare Family. Sydal, just as with Cody, is the veteran of the duo with years of worldwide experience to his resume, and a man who has served as inspiration to his tag team partner. Martin, just as with Lee, is still very early in his pro wrestling career, but has spent a great deal of that time teaming with brother Darius as Top Flight. An unfortunate injury to Darius has sent Dante off on a solo journey for the last six months, but he has found kinship under the learning tree of Matt Sydal who, alongside brother Mike, spent a great deal of 2021 running as a tag team himself.
Just like Cody and Lee Johnson, Matt and Dante enter into this bout with a 1-1 record as a team, with that victory coming on Tuesday night’s DARK over familiar Nightmare Family foes, QT Marshall and Aaron Solo. It’s a been a few months since Cody and Lee’s last outing as a team, a June loss to QT and Anthony Ogogo, but given their teacher/student relationship, The Nightmare Family duo will likely gel pretty quickly back into partnership.
For both teams, this is a chance to show up and show out in the division, and for Cody it is perhaps a chance to get his head straight after having it kicked off by Malakai Black.
FURTHER DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE…
Anna Jay & Tay Conti vs. Penelope Ford & The Bunny
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-fRLFDEKLR8
There has to be some frustration on the party of the TayJay duo when it comes to Penelope Ford and The Bunny. While Tay Conti has recently beaten Ford one-on-one, The Bunny has bested her. As for Anna Jay, since her return to action it has been the opposite situation with her holding a win over The Bunny, but just this last Friday night on RAMPAGE: GRAND SLAM, Ford got a brass knuckle assist from The Bunny to get her win over Anna.
It feels like no matter what leg-up TayJay gets over their foes, the Ford/Bunny duo finds a way to steal something back, usually through some underhanded means. Well this week on DYNAMITE, there will be no assistance coming from the outside as these four women will finally meet up in tag team competition! This bout has been coming since the moment Anna Jay returned to AEW to help Tay Conti several weeks ago, and now Penelope and The Bunny will have to answer for their weeks of shady tactics and sneak attacks!
Will we see the rest of The Hardy Family Office show up in support of The Bunny and Penelope Ford? And will any of The Dark Order be there to support Anna and Tay, as well as counteract The HFO’s presence? Last week, in the aftermath of the Anna/Ford bout, fans witnessed The Dark Order come together, if just for a moment, to assist their allies, but also watched as Evil Uno walked away from the extended hand of Alex Reynolds. Just where do things sit with The Dark Order, and will that strife play into this tag team contest?
https://www.youtube.com/embed/bbCvhieklTY
Can Sammy Guevara stop Miro’s march towards TNT Title history in the champ’s 9th defense? Will Cody Rhodes bounce back from his soul-crushing defeat last week with this tag team contest? Who will get their hand raised in the first-time Jungle Boy/Adam Cole bout? And can TayJay shove Ford & Bunny right back down their rabbit hole? Tune in for the fallout from GRAND SLAM beginning at 8pm EST/7pm CST LIVE on TNT, and on AEWPlus.com for the International audience!
And you can stay up to speed with all the latest happenings in AEW by subscribing to the official YouTube channel for all the highlights from DYNAMITE and RAMPAGE, plus the latest editions of DARK: ELEVATION, AEW DARK, and the ROAD TO editions are available as well!
Article source: allelitewrestling.com