Awesome / All Elite Wrestling

AEW Dynamite

2019

October 2, 2019

• In a true David vs. Goliath matchup, Riho defeated Nyla Rose to become the inaugural AEW Women's World Champion.
• The main event six-man tag ended before a brutal brawl between the heels and the faces: even after run-ins from Cody Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes, the heels triumphed thanks to the AEW debut of Jake Hager.
• Jon Moxley appears and attacks Kenny Omega, and they brawl all over the arena to the VIP section, culminating in Moxley hitting a Death Rider through the glass table!
• The Opening Match between Cody and Sammy Guevara sets the tone for the night. With the two going at it and Sammy holding his own against Cody showing he isn't going to be a cakewalk for him. Cody manages to win by outsmarting him and rolling him up in a small package.
  • Brandi, Cody's wife, gets one when earlier Sammy pulled her in causing her to get also hit in a suicide dive by later slapping the taste out of Sammy's mouth.
• Even more amazing than all of this? AEW won the first ratings war with NXT, crushing them 1.4 million to 891,000 viewers.
• The numbers don't look like a big difference until you realize how much of an advantage NXT had.
  • They were part of the world's premier wrestling company with decades of brand recognition.
  • They had a robust roster of talent, as well as alumni who already had mainstream success in the RAW and SmackDown and could cross brands.
  • They had nearly ten years of running shows, five of which consistently produced some of the most critically acclaimed wrestling in the world.
  • They debuted on network television two weeks earlier specifically to get a head start and counterprogram against Dynamite.
  • All of that... and NXT still lost to a brand new upstart filled mostly with unknown talent. And a year later, Dynamite is still kicking NXT's ass.

October 9, 2019

• Opening match in the Tag Title Tournament, Private Party vs The Young Bucks. Two teams that are mirror images of one another with some saying Private Party are what The Bucks were 10 years ago. The teams go at it wowing the crowds with their moves and aerial attacks and Private Party shocks everyone when they get the win advancing to the Semi-Finals!
• After last week's brutal ending, Chris Jericho follows up by introducing his new faction, "The Inner Circle". Jericho's promo has the crowd eating out of his hand (and booing vociferously) as he puts over Sammy Guevara, "The Spanish God", and Santana and Ortiz huge, but when he gets to Jake Hager, the crowd starts up a "We the people!" chant. Jericho's greatest masterstroke is when he cuts the legs out from under that by declaring that "'We the people!' sucks and it's dead and buried!", before adding "It was a stupid idea from bad creative and all that's gone!" Just like that, with only a few words from Jericho, Jake Hager is no longer associated with a previous gimmick and is taken seriously as the brutal Wrestling Monster he should be. The promo garnered universal praise as a sterling example of exactly what Jericho had to bring to AEW and why he's one of the best in the business.
• The Inner Circle has won in the Main Event and is looking for a beatdown when all hell breaks loose with Cody, MJF, Ortiz/Santana and more getting involved. When Jericho decides to flee and fight another day, Darby Allin, his challenger for next week comes down the rampway on a skateboard and leaps off it and attacks him.
• Plenty of commentators pointed out that mainstream promotions like WWE or TNA have rarely if ever used skateboards in any capacity, so Darby Allin just further differentiated AEW using creativity and connection to the youth crowd.

October 16, 2019

• The team of Kenny Omega and Hangman Page take on the team of Jon Moxley and PAC. Seems pretty straightforward, two singles feuds being booked in a tag match. But the whole mood changes when PAC pushes Mox around too much. In response, Moxley gives PAC a two-finger salute and a Paradigm Shift for his troubles, showing that Jon Moxley isn't taking shit from anyone.
• The main event: a Street Fight for the AEW World Championship. The reigning champion, Chris Jericho, against the young upstart, Darby Allin. Both Allin and Jericho utilize the former's skateboard to great effect throughout the match, with multiple other weapons being used. Taking everything Jericho can give him, Allin refuses to stay down. It gets to the point where "The Painmaker" resorts to restraining Allin's hands behind his back...with gaffer's tape. Allin takes even more punishment, including being powerbombed onto the skateboard. But Allin still doesn't give up. He delivers a no-handed flipping suicide dive and a no-handed lionsault! Allin comes up just short when, climbing up to deliver the Coffin Drop, Jake Hager knocks him off the top rope, allowing Jericho to lock the Walls in and steal a victory.

October 23, 2019

• The show kicks off with a banger with Private Party and The Lucha Bros having a wild million miles a minute tag match
• Joey Janela and Kenny Omega have a rematch from their matchup on Dark. Janela proves he's more than just a hardcore guy that most dismiss him as he takes Kenny to the limit
• Cody comes out for an interview only to be mocked and harassed by Inner Circle who have bought tickets in the skybox section of the arena as Jericho claims he'll do nothing as its 4 vs 1. Suddenly, Dustin Rhodes comes out, then MJF, and who's the 4th man to even the odds? DDP! The four head up the arena and The Inner Circle tries to hide in the VIP box and Jericho mocks Cody. Cody responds by taking MJF's scarf and wrapping it around his fist for protection, breaks the glass so he can open the door and the fight is on.
• The main event for this episode would be Jon Moxley vs. PAC: when the latter ambushes Moxley as he makes his entrance with a steel chair, Moxley can barely stand, but the pain he receives brings him back to life as he takes on The Bastard. PAC retaliates later on by doing a 450 on the ring apron to the floor and goes for Black Arrow but Moxley moves and getting up hits Paradigm Shift and just as he covers, PAC kicks out and the bell rings as TV time has expired and it's a draw. Undaunted, Moxley takes it out on the Referee hitting his finisher on him to the delight of the crowd.

October 30, 2019

• For Halloween, The Elite have a match The Young Bucks again dress up as Ryu and Ken but this time their partner Kenny Omega dresses as someone else. He gets a video package showcasing his struggles the past months in 8-bit form and shows up dressed as Sans from Undertale
  • During the match, one of their opponents Kip Sabian attempts a somersault dive only for The Elite to catch him in midair and do an apron bomb and take him out of the match
• Hikaru Shida makes her Dynamite debut and the crowd instantly takes to her. During the match, she gets a chair and using it as a stepping stone leaps and hits a high knee onto her opponent.
  • Her opponent Shanna wasn't going there to just be beat there. During the match Hikaru gets caught upside down in the Tree of Woe position hanging from the turnbuckles and Shanna takes that opening to jump up and stomp her right on the chest.
• The finals of The AEW Tag Tournament, The Lucha Bros vs SoCal Uncensored, were certainly a crowning moment for SCU's Scorpio Sky. He wasn't even going to take part in the tournament, letting his two stablemates Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian gun for the gold, but had to step in after Daniels was attacked and injured by the Lucha Bros before the first-round match. Once the dust settled, it was him who scored the fall for his team to take the titles.
  Jim Ross: Yes! Yes! Scorpio Sky has done it!

November 6, 2019

• AEW Women's Champion Riho teams up with Shanna to take on the person who trained her Emi Sakura and Jamie Hayter. In the end, Sakura shows that the Student still has much to learn from the Teacher
• The wild out of control brawl at the end of the show. The Elite, The Inner Circle, and Jon Moxley all getting involved.
  • Omega and Moxley each with a weapon coated in barb wire look ready to go when they are attacked by Ortiz and Santana who pick up the weapons only for The Young Bucks to hit the ring and deliver Superkicks to them.
  • When Jericho tries to sneak out and is talking trash as he's got Hager with him to protect him, MJF comes out from and blasts Hager with the chair and when Jericho turns around MJF waves hi at him and nails him and throws him back into the ring so Cody can get his hands on him.
  • Ortiz and Santana are about to put Matt through the stage in a replay of what they did to The Rock N Roll Express last week when Omega and Moxley attack and take them out and immediately go back to fighting one another.
  • Nick Jackson climbs the set and delivers a somersault senton onto The Inner Circle.
• Lights Out: Kenny Omega vs Jon Moxley, an unsanctioned match not for the faint of heart. We'd been waiting for this clash ever since Double or Nothing, and Mox and Omega made sure we were not waiting in vain.

November 13, 2019

• Luchasaurus after being out with an injury makes his return to save his teammates Marko Stunt and Jungle Boy from The Dark Order. Dispatching of The Creepers effortlessly and when three stand against him, wipes them all out with one spin kick
• Jon Moxley at the beginning of the show after winning issues an open challenge for anyone on the AEW Roster to face him after what he did to Omega at Full Gear. Later on in the night, someone who's just as psychotic as he answers the challenge, Darby Allin!
• Main Event for The AEW World Tag Titles, SCU defends against Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevera. It appears that The Inner Circle will walk away with the belts at the end as Jericho's bodyguard Jake Hager takes out Kaz as well as Christopher Daniels but Scorpio refuses to give up and shocks everyone when he counters and small packages Jericho pinning The World Champ retaining the belts and making him suffer his first loss in AEW.

November 20, 2019

• The opening contest between Nick Jackson and Fenix sets the tone for the show. Wild fast-paced action all over the place between the two that if you blinked you missed something
• A brawl breaks out between Inner Circle and SCU, Inner Circle gets the number advantage and are beating down Sky, Daniels, and Kaz. But Jurassic Express hit the ring to lend aid and when Luchasaurus makes his way in, Jericho and his cronies flee to fight another day wanting no part of him.
• Main Event: Darby Allin vs Jon Moxley. Darby sets the tone for the match arriving being carried in a bodybag with Moxley's name on it. When Moxley makes his standard entrance through the crowd, he dives onto him and the two have a wild match culminating in Moxley hitting the Paradigm Shift from the Top rope to finally put Darby down.

December 4, 2019

• The Young Bucks and Dustin Rhodes take on The Inner Circle's Proud N Powerful and Sammy Guevera. The Bucks and Dustin have been aching for revenge on The Inner Circle and they get it. Culminating in them doing a Double Meltzer Driver on Ortiz and Santana and hitting a Senton splash on Guevera to score the win.
• Jon Moxley's open challenge is accepted this time by Joey Janela. Having a sanctioned match this time around, the two don't disappoint as Janela goes against Moxley. The Bad Boy shows he can hang when he dives from the top rope and crashes onto Moxley through the time keeper's table. But Moxley endures and hits a Paradigm Shift, this time on the top turnbuckle and then another to score the win.

November 11, 2019

• The street fight between The Young Bucks and Proud N Powerful. Numerous tables are broken, trash cans have been dented and chairs wielded by the time the match is over with The Bucks hitting a Meltzer Driver onto a pile of chairs for the win.

December 18, 2019

• Jungle Boy proving everyone who's doubted him wrong as he lasts the ten-minute challenge set by Jericho, being trapped in the Walls of Jericho but refuses to give in and rides out the clock. When Jericho demands five more minutes and Jungle Boy starts to regain the advantage, Jericho flees.
• Darby Allin and Cody teaming up, the only thing Darby wanted was another match against Cody in exchange for helping him against The Blade and The Butcher and he got it.

2020

January 1, 2020: Homecoming

• Opening match, a rematch from Fyter Fest between Cody and Darby Allin. The two know each other very well as Darby again holds his own against Cody and kicks out of the Cross Rhodes. But Cody this time manages to beat Darby after blocking the Coffin Drop and scoring the pin.
• Women's 4-way match. When Hikaru Shida gets put through a table during it, you'd expect that she's done for the night and won't factor for the rest of it. But she gets back in and attacks Nyla Rose and delivers a Michinoku Driver to her showing her impressive strength. In the end, Riho retains the Women's Title by taking advantage and getting the win.
• Dustin Rhodes, who's been wrestling for 31 years, discovering the Fountain of Youth hitting a Canadian Destroyer. But doing so on the ring apron.
• Main Event: The Elite vs The Lucha Bros and PAC. A wild sprint from beginning to end with all 6 going out.
• Shanna gaining revenge on Nyla Rose, spearing her through a table.

January 15, 2020: AEW Bash At The Beach

• The Opening 4 way No.1 Tag Titles Contenders. The four teams go wild throughout it each wanting the title shot with nonstop action throughout it. Culminating in Trent Superplexing Matt Jackson to the outside onto everyone.
• Pac wins the Main Event and proclaims himself the number one contender to the AEW World Title to face Chris Jericho. But Jon Moxley who despite earlier having been jabbed right in the eye with a spike by Chris Jericho, with a bloody eye appears and claims that he will be at the show next week and will beat Pac.

January 21, 2020: Chris Jericho's Rock 'N' Wrestling Rager at Sea

• Chris Jericho enters for the Inner Circle's tag match against Jurassic Express with the entire crowd singing along to his "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune "Judas", even continuing to sing it acapella after the music is cut off.
• Cody confronts MJF and is reminded that he's not allowed to lay a finger on MJF. Cody knows that he can't but that doesn't mean others can't. Cue Superkick from The Young Bucks and for bonus fun they chuck the smarmy weasel into the ringside pool.
  • The following week when confronted by The Inner Circle as well as some extra hired thugs, why does Moxley do? He decides that Jericho didn't bring enough men and immediately launches himself onto them.

February 5, 2020

• Jon Moxley gets revenge on The Inner Circle after they blinded him by taking note of an Eye for An Eye by jabbing Santana in the eye with car keys returning the favor.

February 19, 2020

• Battle Royal to decide the challengers for Revolution. Matt Jackson is left on his own as his brother Nick is eliminated early through the match. Despite the odds, he fights on and manages to outlast the others and wins the match
• Jon Moxley vs Jeff Cobb: Cobb instantly makes his presence to those who don't know him known by tossing Moxley around with suplexes and slams. And Moxley showing he's not just brawler manages to win by catching Cobb in a pin.
  • When The Inner Circle attacks post-match, Dustin Rhodes comes down but is getting overwhelmed due to numbers. But then the lights go out and Darby Allin appears on stage skateboard in hand as he makes his return and skates down to the ring to fight.
• Kenny Omega and Hangman Page vs The Lucha Bros for the AEW World Tag Titles. A crazy match where either team on multiple times nearly had it, in the end, The Elite win and retain the gold.
• Main Event the first ever Cage Match in AEW's history. Cody taking on MJF's hired muscle, Wardlow. Cody early on is busted open and donning the crimson mask as Wardlow showcases his strength and power but Cody continues to fight on and ends the match by climbing up the Cage and hitting a Moonsault off the top onto Wardlow to pin him to the mat.

March 4, 2020

• The night after Revolution, the legendary Jake the Snake Roberts appearing and delivering a promo on par with the best he's ever cut as he puts Cody Rhodes on notice.
  Jake Roberts: Now, a wise man once told me: never ever turn your back on somebody you respect, or you're afraid of."
  (Roberts turns around, tosses his microphone over his shoulder into Cody's hands, and exits the ring.)

March 18, 2020

• Even with the coronavirus scare, this episode of Dynamite is still able to pull off an amazing show, with the end showing the AEW debut of BROKEN MATT HARDY!
  • After months of The Dark Order proclaiming the existence of The Exalted One, he finally appears and reveals himself to be none other than Brodie Lee

April 1, 2020

• Kenny Omega vs Trent Barreta: Trent takes the Best Bout Machine to the limit, but in the end, Omega wins with just seconds left on the clock.

April 22, 2020

• Dustin Rhodes has stated that if he fails to win against Kip Sabian, he'll end his legendary 33-year career. The Natural shows he still has plenty in the tank and isn't hanging it up yet as he wins The Main Event advancing in The TNT Tournament. When Penelope Ford tries to get involved, Brandi hits the ring and spears her taking her out of the equation so Dustin can pick up the win.
• Orange Cassidy's Dynamite debut against Jimmy Havoc, where Cassidy scored his first singles win.
• After his brother and his wife had been assaulted by Lance Archer and Jake Roberts, the following week, Cody arrives and crashes the show in a truck and charges the ring not sparing a single word as he attacks The Murderhawk Monster.

May 6, 2020

• When the Dark Order stormed the ring after Moxley's match against Frankie Kazarian, beat Moxley to a pulp, and stole his championship belt just so Brodie Lee could challenge Moxley for the championship. Moxley's response was simple:
  Jon Moxley: Dude, all you had to do was ask.

May 20, 2020

• Jon Moxley staying true to his word and breaking 10's arm with a steel chair despite not getting his title back from Brodie Lee.
• Arn Anderson's promo on Jake Roberts. The legendary Enforcer of The Four Horsemen and Cody's mentor letting The Snake know that he's pure evil and that Arn's not afraid of him and ready to spinebuster him through the table between them.

May 29, 2020

• FTR, formerly known as "The Revival", make their debut on this episode of Dynamite and have a standoff with The Young Bucks! Fans of both teams have long been clamoring for a match between them and it looks like it will finally become a reality.
• In the same episode, during the rumble match for the #1 contender spot for the TNT Championship comes, Orange Cassidy manages to out-maneuver MJF and Wardlow, getting the former to hit his bodyguard with his diamond ring, allowing the King of Sloth Style to, with the help of Jungle Boy, eliminate both of them. Seeing MJF trying to angrily scramble back into the ring with the referees holding him back is as priceless as it is satisfying. And note that Cassidy did this despite Santana and Ortiz attacking him moments after the match started and before he could enter the ring, simply because he walked past the Inner Circle during an interview and Jericho doesn't like him.
  • The battle between Orange Cassidy and Jungle Boy afterward may have been short but was quite the spectacle itself, with Jungle Boy emerging the victor.
• Tazz's intense promo where he warns Jon Moxley that he better bring his absolute best against Brian Cage at Fyter Fest, reminding many of ECW, especially with his rendition of an old line.

  Tazz: Beat him if you can! Survive... If he lets you!

  • Jon Moxley also deserves credit for not looking the least bit intimidated, emphasizing how ready he is to take on his new foe.

June 3, 2020

• The show kicks off with Hangman Adam Page and Kenny Omega defending The AEW Tag Titles against Kip Sabian and Jimmy Havoc. They finally have a name for their combined finisher, The Last Call.
  • When Penelope Ford tries to get involved and gets caught by Page, The Ref catches it and ejects her immediately stopping her interfering.
• Jon Moxley swiftly setting the record straight to Taz and Brian Cage after his perceived dismissiveness of their upcoming title match for Fyter Fest the previous week. He picks Taz's talking points apart with almost surgeon-like precision making it very clear why he's the top champion in AEW.
  Moxley: You are swimming with a different breed of shark. With all due respect, gentleman! Don't waste your time or mine trying to intimidate me. And the next time you wanna bring my name up on TV just remember exactly who the hell you're talking about!
• Taz's promo before Moxley's entrance was pretty great too, explaining why Brian Cage needs to be taken seriously as a championship contender and the trouble that Moxley is going to be facing.
• When Chris Jericho calls out Mike Tyson demanding him to come out and face him, instead Orange Cassidy appears and saunters down to the ring and does his hands in pockets pose to Jericho and Hager. When Jericho orders Hager to attack, Orange swiftly dodges and avoids all attacks making them look like fools.

June 17, 2020

• Cody's TNT Title Defense issues an open challenge to anyone outside the Company. The challenge is answered by Ricky Starks who despite coming up short showed everyone he's no cakewalk
• After the match between The Young Bucks and Superbad Death Squad^note Kip Sabian & Jimmy Havoc, The Butcher and The Blade attack, and then FTR gets involved, leading to both the Bucks and FTR working together to hit Dual Finishers.
• Main Event: The Best Friends vs Le Sex Gods with BFs putting their Tag Title shot on the line. After last week's show had their friend Orange Cassidy beaten bloody, Trent and Chuck Taylor, normally known for being all smiles and hugs, waste little time taking the fight to Jericho and Guevara. Despite Jericho's and Guevera's attempts to cheat out a win, Best Friends with a little help of a cameraman (see below) get the win.
  • During the match, Sammy Guevara is seemingly accidentally tripped up by a cameraman, leading to the Best Friends winning. After the match and Jericho gets back in the cameraman gets up on the apron and ditches his gear and mask as he enters the ring to reveal Orange Cassidy! Wasting no time he attacks and pummels Jericho and finishes it off with a Superman punch, sending Jericho out of the ring as the show ends with Best Friends and Orange Cassidy group hugging.

June 24, 2020

• Luchasaurus is well known for his agility, hitting standing moonsaults, but he tops it this week when he hits a Shooting Star Press off the stage.
• As Hikaru Shida enters her bout with Red Velvet, she is immediately antagonized by Penelope Ford who sneaks in a slap. Shida proceeds to pin Red Velvet in barely 10 seconds and runs to what she's actually interested in: beating the shit out of Penelope Ford. She almost knocks out Kip Sabian for good measure, until she's just barely restrained by a terrified Ricky Starks.
• The show ends with Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy having a Face to Face to build up their match for Fyter Fest. Jericho treats Cassidy with utter contempt telling how he hates his character and gimmick. Cassidy then takes the mic as if to speak for the first time ever only to drop the mic and do his hands in pockets routine and turns his back on Jericho showing he's not intimidated or fazed by him. When the inevitable Brawl happens, OC gets the best of Jericho and the show ends with him knocking Jericho into a table and Orange Cassidy is shown standing tall.

July 1, 2020: AEW Fyter Fest Night 1

• The Jurassic Express getting one over and defeating MJF and Wardlow. After everything MJF's gotten away with, its good to finally see karma catch him to him
• Cody making his fourth defense of the TNT Championship, this time outsmarting Jake Hager and pinning him when he's got a submission move on him. Hager thought he won until after Cody is announced the winner
• Orange Cassidy just by doing nothing at all and taking a seat next to the announce booth gets Chris Jericho all riled up that Jericho goes crazy and has to be held back by six others while Cassidy walks away with a smirk on his face.

July 8, 2020: AEW Fyter Fest Night 2

• With Jon Moxley forced to reschedule his title defense against "The Machine" Brian Cage to Fight for the Fallen due to being forced into self-isolation by his wife Renee Young's Coronavirus diagnosis, Cage and his advocate Taz come out so Taz can present The Machine with gold of his own to carry into the match against Moxley- the long-inactive FTW Championship that he himself had once held back in ECW!

July 15, 2020: AEW Fight for the Fallen

• After cheating to win last week, Chris Jericho appears with his group and talks and brags about how he'll never give Orange Cassidy another match. Orange Cassidy appears in the stands and gives his half-hearted thumbs up only to turn it into a thumbs down. When he does, gallons of Orange Juice from above drop-down upon Jericho soaking him and the rest.
• After over a month and due to the match being rescheduled, Jon Moxley finally faces Brian Cage. Cage uses his power to overwhelm at first but Moxley shows he's more than just a brawler as he attacks Cage's arm, applying different submissions and holds onto it gradually damaging The Machine's arm. He finally wears Cage down and locks in an arm-breaker submission leaving Cage nowhere to go and forcing Taz to throw in the towel to save his client's career.
  • After the match, Darby Allin finally returns after being on the shelf for a month.

July 22, 2020

• Cody's Open Challenge for The TNT Championship is this time accepted by Eddie Kingston who comes out and cuts a deep promo about how while Cody was growing up surrounded and mentored by Champions, Kingston was surrounded by drugs, convicts and murder and how he's fought and scrapped his entire career having never been handed anything. He challenges Cody to put the belt on the line in a No DQ match and Cody's response is to order the bell rung.
  • A scene not for the faint of heart is Eddie Kingston performing a powerbomb on Cody onto a pile of tacks laid out.
  • Before this match, Eddie Kingston was a free agent and not an official member of AEW yet. After what many people call the best promo of the year and a balls-to-the-walls match to follow that, there were plenty of calls for Eddie to be added to the roster, and he was eventually recruited.
• The Young Bucks vs. The Butcher and The Blade in a Falls Count Anywhere match. Starting off in the Kitchen area and ending with the Bucks climbing up and performing dual dives off the set through their opponents onto tables.

July 29, 2020

• Cody's 7th defense of the TNT Title this time is against internet fan favorite and Memetic Badass Warhorse.
  • After the match when The Dark Order attacks, Matt Cardona arrives to make the save.
  • Props to Warhorse, when the Dark Order rushed in behind Cody while they were shaking hands, he shoved Cody out of the way and took them on himself, despite having just lost the match against Cody. He got beaten down, but it was a brave effort.
• After the match between Kenny Omega and Hangman Page vs Evil Uno and Stu Grayson for the Tag titles, The Exalted One Brodie Lee orders his Creepers to attack them and The Young Bucks, but FTR arrives to even out the odds.
• In the Main Event, a Tornado Tag, it appears that Jon Moxley will have to go it alone against Brian Cage and Ricky Starks as his partner Darby Allin is nowhere to be seen looking like he had been taken out beforehand. But when Cage and Starks make their entrance in what is now appears to be a handicap match, Darby appears on top of the stage and delivers a Coffin Drop right onto both of them.
  • This is later followed up by the ending of the match where Darby Allin pulls a skateboard full of tacks on the back side and hits it off Ricky's back from the top rope to score the pin!
  • Right before this, Cage tries to stop Darby from doing this. Jon's response? To seamlessly put Cage into an armbar, keeping it locked in until the match ended!
  • Mox and Darby work pretty well together despite not being an official tag team. At one point, Cage attempted to perform a buckle bomb on Darby but Mox quickly catches the young man before he hits the turnbuckle. They even perform a Paradigm Shift/Coffin Drop combo onto Cage.

August 6, 2020

• Jon Moxley vs Darby Allin for The AEW World Championship, despite Moxley yelling at him to stay down and quit, Darby refuses to give up the entire match.
  • Jon's promo before the match where he noted typically, others had to stop him from doing dangerous things. In this case, he would do the same for Darby.

August 12, 2020: AEW Tag Team Appreciation Night

• MJF is cutting a promo in the middle of the ring when Moxley's music hits and he orders Wardlow and his other goons to go up the stands to cut him off as Moxley always comes from there. But Moxley is one step ahead as instead, he comes out through the entranceway leaving MJF all alone with him unaware he's behind him. Cue beatdown from The champ and MJF laid out ten seconds later.
• "Freshly Squeezed" Orange Cassidy scores the biggest win of his life in the Main Event: we see him pin Jericho cleanly in the middle of the ring.

August 22, 2020

• When The Lucha Bros and The Butcher and The Blade lose an 8 man tag and start blaming each other and get ready to fight, Eddie Kingston who has wrestled with them all over the years hits the ring and calls them out telling them how they've fought to get where they are now and there is no reason to blame each other stopping the brawl telling them they are better than this and they need to come together.
• Jon's promo on MJF, where he manages to not only put over his opponent, but still keep up his image as a badass, telling MJF he would actually like for his foe to be the face of the this company for the next 25 years, thinking he himself would be lucky to keep going for 18 months and that in their upcoming match, they'll see MJF for who he truly is.
• Brodie Lee vs Cody for The TNT Championship. The Exalted One, in a stunning display absolutely destroys Cody in less than four minutes to become the new champion. The announcers and everyone at ringside is shocked at what happened.
• Jon Moxley outsmarting MJF and his Lawyer, that while he agrees to not use The Paradigm Shift in their match, snuck in a clause and page of his own in it where he gets a match with The Lawyer, and if the Lawyer refuses to face him, MJF doesn't get his title shot.
• Thunder Rosa vs Serena Deb. This being Rosa's first match in AEW, you'd expect her to dominate in the match and for it to end rather quickly after she's shown a good amount of what she's capable of. Yet not only does the match go on for quite a while, Serena gets in just about as much offense as Rosa whom really shows she's why the NWA Women's Champion, aswell! Jim Ross even notes this one of the best women battles he's seen in AEW!

September 8, 2020

• Kip Sabian reveals (after a couple of fake-outs) who he's chosen to be the best man for his upcoming wedding to Penelope Ford- the "Best Man", previously believed to be retired, Miro!

September 16, 2020

• Jake Roberts and Lance Archer announce that they've cut a deal with Tazz for his stable to be Archer's partners for next week's 6-man tag against Jon Moxley. Moxley appears, only to be attacked by Ricky Starks and Brian Cage from the crowd, leading to the newly signed Will Hobbs to make the rescue with chair in hand to drive them away. Moxley then reveals that Hobbs will be on his team for the match and calls out his other partner through the camera, someone who has plenty of scores to settle with Tazz and his men, Darby Allin
• Best Friends and Santana & Ortiz in the main event have the parking lot brawl to end all parking lot brawls. Dave Meltzer unironically called it a genuine match-of-the-year candidate, and hardcore legend Mick Foley himself praised the guys for one of the best street fights he'd ever seen. Just in case the critical reception to this match isn't quite clear yet, Meltzer eventually gave it five stars in his weekly ratings, the first 5-star match the promotion has ever earned for a Dynamite match, as well as the first 5-star Meltzer has awarded since the start of 2020's COVID-19 Pandemic era.

September 23, 2020

• Cody's return since having been absent since his brutal defeat at the hands of Brodie Lee, he returns to the ring and lays out The Dark Order.
• The original planned Main Event was to be a Six man tag, but due to Covid Lance Archer had to pull out of the show. Instead, AEW improvises and The Main Event is Jon Moxley vs Eddie Kingston for The World Title.

September 30, 2020

• With an assist from Will Hobbs to repel an interfering Brian Cage, Darby Allin gets revenge on Ricky Starks for the weeks of mockery.
• Cody comes out and at first looks like he will refuse Brodie Lee's challenge for their match to be a Dog Collar Match, only to then turn right around and states that he accepts the match

  Cody: No, as in no regrets! No, as in no looking back! We enter much different than we leave! TNT Title! Dog Collar Match, I accept!

  • During the brawl, Cody's wife Brandi scales the top rope and does a somersault onto The Dark Order on the outside taking them out.
• FTR defending The AEW Tag Titles against the first ever Tag Champions, SoCal Uncensored in a superb match.
• Eddie Kingston confronts Bryce Remsburg, the referee for previous week's match he had against Jon Moxley, and is getting ready to have Lucha Bros beat him down but Jon Moxley hits the ring with a baseball barb wired bat in hand to drive them off before his World Title defense against Butcher.
• Cody vs Brodie Lee for The TNT Championship, for the first time ever in AEW and in years in Wrestling, a Dog Collar Match is held. Both don the Crimson Mask during it in a brutal matchup between the two who are chained together by the neck and pull out all the stops. In the end, Cody regains The TNT Championship.
  • Arn Anderson reveals he's Still Got It as during the match he hits his patented Double A Spinebuster on Alex Reynolds.
• The episode opened with Brian Cage defending his FTW Championship against Will Hobbs in a clash of two startlingly fast hosses. Hobbs puts on an impressive performance before he misses his desperation frog splash and Cage finishes him with the Drill Claw. After the match, an impressed Taz offers Hobbs a place on his team, with the alternative being a beatdown from Cage and Ricky Starks, before Darby Allin comes out with his skateboard to make the save, causing Taz's boys to leave it for another day to give Hobbs time to think.
• Cody and Orange Cassidy take themselves to the limit for the TNT Championship on the anniversary show. Cody being the first to kick out of the Orange Punch as well as OC fighting out of the Figure Four, in the end Cody retains due to time running out and the match ending in a draw.
• Chris Jericho outdoes himself as his "dinner" with MJF culminates in a brilliant Broadway-style musical number.
• Brother vs Brother, Rey Fenix vs Penta El Zero M, a match that Eddie Kingston claimed could be match of the year and it delivered with both wrestlers pulling all the stops to win, culminating in Penta breaking his brother's arm who then counters his next move with an amazing Canadian Destroyer to finish an incredible match.
• Kenny Omega vs Penta El Zero M, who got the spot after his brother was forced to drop out due to injuries. The two pull out all the stops to win between them. Including Penta hitting a Canadian Destroyer on the ramp and Omega fighting off a broken arm to hit the One Winged Angel to win.
• Before they face at Full Gear 2020, Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston have a face to face interview, each giving a passionate promo about how much their match Saturday means to them and the paths they took.

November 11, 2020

• The Natural Nightmares vs The Butcher and The Blade in a Bunkhouse Brawl match, come as you are and ready for a fight, and all four were.
• The Main Event, Penta El Zero M vs Rey Fenix in a rematch from three weeks ago. Two brothers doing anything it took to win.
  • After the match, having been gone for seven months due to the pandemic, Pac finally returns.

November 18, 2020

• Top Flight vs The Young Bucks from this episode of Dynamite. The Bucks face a young team of Brothers that are basically who they were a decade ago. The Bucks win, but Top Flight impresses everyone to the point that they get a contract with AEW.

December 2, 2020: AEW Winter Is Coming

• This special episode of Dynamite, Winter Is Coming, just might be Dynamite's most significant episode since its debut:
  • When Cody and Darby (along with Arn and Dustin) are being brutalised by Team Tazz, something truly shocking happens, something that hasn't happened on TNT in nearly twenty years...
    Tony Schiavone: It's STING!!!
    • Particularly awesome is a long staredown between The Icon and the young TNT Champion Darby Allin, staggered from the beating he's just received but still boldly pulling himself to his feet to meet Sting face-to-face without flinching.
• In the main event, even the greatest champions must someday fall, as the indomitable Jon Moxley's epic title reign finally comes to an end at the hands of "the Cleaner" Kenny Omega and his sure-kill Finishing Move, the One-Winged Angel. Finally, Kenny Omega is the AEW World Champion. But that's not all...
  • After Omega's victory, the new champion and his long time friend Don Callis, the executive vice-president of Impact Wrestling who was commentating the match (as he had done before for Omega's match against Hangman Page at Full Gear) and had gotten involved to distract the ref and let Omega cheap shot Moxley, scampered off to the back to drive away, with Callis announcing that if you wanted to see what would happen next you'd have to tune in next Tuesday. That's right, the new AEW Champion is going to appear on the next episode of Impact and the wrestling world has been shaken to its roots!
• Miro's performance in The Dynamite Dozen Battle Royale was impressive, as he manhandled everyone in his way and had the most eliminations and even when The Inner Circle all ganged up on him, chucked them off of him like they were gnats.

December 9, 2020

• The Young Bucks vs The Hybrid 2
  • Jack Evans during it goes for a dive outside only for Matt Jackson to catch him in the air in the tombstone position, his Brother Nick then springboards and they do The Indytaker onto the floor taking him out.

December 16, 2020

• At the end of this Dynamite episode, Death Triangle comes out and PAC reveals to Kenny Omega that they've talked to management and they agreed that since Rey Fenix was not able to get his match against him in the Tournament, they had decided to go and have the match be held on December 30th, with Kenny Omega having to defend The AEW World Title against him. Unfortunately, Real Life events (see below) had to postpone it until 2021.

December 30, 2020: Brodie Lee Celebration of Life

• The tribute show to Mr. Brodie Lee on the final show of the year who sadly left the wrestling world far too soon. Just two hours of great wrestling and TV. Notable highlights:
  • After defeating Eddie Kingston's Family, Evil Uno, Stu Grayson and Lance Archer proceeded to beat Eddie around the ring, culminating in Jake Roberts finishing Eddie off himself with a short-arm clothesline.
  • When Wardlow interfered in the match between John Silver, Alex Reynolds and Adam Page vs MJF, Santana and Ortiz, Erick Redbeard ran in, flattened Wardlow with an Iron Claw Chokeslam and shrugging off all of Wardlow's attempts to fight back, drove him out of the arena again.
  • When MJF taunted Brodie's son, Brodie Jr. (aka -1 of the Dark Order), snatching his mask off his head and spitting on it, the eight-year old boy smashed the jerk over the head with a Singapore cane, smiling as he staggered away into a ballistic crossbody from Adam Page. In the ring, John Silver destroyed Ortiz with a discus lariat (Brodie's iconic finishing move) to win the match for the Dark Order.
  • When Taz attempted to interfere in the main event match between his team and -1's hand-picked team of Cody, Orange Cassidy and 10 of the Dark Order by grabbing a steel chair, Arn Anderson grabbed a steel chair of his own and faced Taz down, keeping him out of the ring and giving the faces a chance to hit Ricky Starks with an Orange Punch, Cross Rhodes, and Spinebuster for the win. When Team Taz spitefully attempted to beat the victors down, Darby Allin entered the arena from the back, skateboard in hand, followed immediately by Sting, driving the heels away.
  • Tony Khan awarding the TNT title belt to Brodie Jr. for life, officially retiring the belt and having a new one made for champion Darby to carry instead so Brodie Jr. could keep the prize his father had won (despite all the drama AEW had gone through to get the belt made in the first place), was hailed as one of the classiest moves anyone could possibly make.

2021

February 3, 2021: AEW Beach Break

• The "Forbidden Door" finally opened when KENTA, of New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Bullet Club, gave Jon Moxley the Go 2 Sleep to remind him of their match for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship — and to open the NJPW/AEW working relationship with a bang.

March 10, 2021

• During the Inner Circle's "war council" to address their recent slump, MJF was kicked out of the group for trying to turn its members on Chris Jericho... only to out-heel the heels by revealing he'd built his own faction The Pinnacle.

March 17, 2021: AEW St. Patrick's Day Slam

• Dr. Britt Baker vs Thunder Rosa: a women's hardcore match in the form of an "Unsanctioned Lights Out" match that was so violent (Britt scored at least an 0.5 or 0.6 on the Muta Scale!) that the initial YouTube upload had a content warning on the title.
  • At one point, Rosa kicks a ladder into Britt's face so hard the latter starts bleeding; the crimson mask Britt wears◊ has since become iconic, reminiscent of the one "Stone Cold" Steve Austin wore at Wrestlemania against Bret Hart. Once Britt went for a bag full of thumbtacks, she gets powerbombed back-first into them by Rosa; when she tried putting Rosa in the Lockjaw, Rosa kicked out by rolling over to push Britt down into the tacks again! The bloody bout would finally end after Rosa delivers a Fire Thunder Driver against Britt onto a table on the outside of the ring.
  • The match not only stole the show, but immediately went viral and became a Star-Making Role for both Baker and Rosa, further legitimizing AEW's then-maligned women's division; it even got a seal of approval from the Hardcore Legend, Mick Foley.

March 31, 2021

• Christian Cage debuted in-ring against a familiar face from Impact Wrestling: Frankie Kazarian.
• MJF's locker room party with the Pinnacle was crashed without mercy by the returning Inner Circle, who took the fight all the way to the backstage corridors.

May 5, 2021: AEW Blood and Guts

• The Inner Circle went at The Pinnacle in AEW's first Blood and Guts match: their version of WCW's legendary WarGames match. Two rings, one steel cage, plenty of blood.
  • At the end, Sammy Guevara surrendered after MJF threatened to throw Jericho off the top of the cage... but MJF did it anyway.

May 12, 2021

• Jon Moxley defended NJPW's IWGP United States Championship against the legendary Yuji Nagata, thus leaving the Forbidden Door open for good.
• The Inner Circle crashed The Pinnacle's Blood and Guts after-party, giving a Stone Cold-esque shower of "a little bit of the bubbly".

July 7, 2021: AEW Road Rager

• Malakai Black debuted during an in-ring segment between Tony Schiavone and Arn Anderson, delivering the "Black Mass" to Arn's face. Although Cody Rhodes runs in to defend Arn, he lets his guard down long enough for Malakai to hit Cody with another Black Mass. Notably, Malakai was released from WWE at the start of June, which explains the crowd's utter surprise to his sudden AEW appearance^note There's usually a 90-day non-compete clause by WWE with released talent, barring them from joining another promotion quickly, but a "clerical error" on Black's WWE contract gave him the standard 30-day non-compete that WWE NXT talent receive rather than the 90-days the main roster is given. While wrestling fans and pundits had predicted Malakai would eventually join AEW, almost no one knew he would arrive in the promotion this quickly, hence the surprise.

July 14, 2021: AEW Fyter Fest Night 1

• The main event was AEW's first coffin match, between Darby Allin and Ethan Page. After laying Page into the coffin with a skateboard shot, Darby closed the show with a Coffin Drop onto the coffin for good measure!

July 21, 2021: AEW Fyter Fest Night 2

• Chris Jericho won the first of the "5 Labors of Jericho" to get a rematch against MJF by defeating Shawn Spears, despite Spears being allowed to use chairs. Post-match, MJF revealed his next opponent:
  MJF: ''He once stabbed his opponent in the jugular. He once robbed a bank...with no mask on. Ladies and gentlemen, Labor #2:NICK! FREAKIN'! GAGE!"

July 28, 2021: AEW Fight for the Fallen

• Jericho defeated Nick Gage in a brutal No Rules match. Gage did not go down easy, even after Jericho threw him through a pane of glass. Notably, Jericho took the match seriously enough to revive his Painmaker gimmick from New Japan Pro-Wrestling beforehand.

August 18, 2021

• After 20 years away from TNT, Sting (teaming with Darby Allin) returned to the ring against 2point0 — and utterly humiliated them by making them tap to a double Scorpion Deathlock.
• Chris Jericho finally gets his hands on MJF as the final of the 5 Labors of Jericho, but MJF stipulates before their match that Chris cannot use the Judas Effect or he's disqualified. To add insult to injury, Maxwell also bars Chris' "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune "Judas" entrance music from being played. What does the Houston crowd do in response? SING JUDAS REGARDLESS in a mass A Cappella.

September 22, 2021: AEW Dynamite Grand Slam

• One week earlier, Bryan Danielson confronted Kenny Omega, demanding that they give the people what they want: an AEW dream match between the two of them. Kenny doesn't have to put his AEW World Championship title on the line, as only his ego and reputation is at stake. Despite Don Callis' objections, Kenny accepts. Danielson vs. Omega heads to a 30-minute draw in front of an audience of 20,000 at the Arthur Ashe Stadium, the first time this venue plays host to a wrestling promotion, as well as AEW's debut in New York City. The match was so intense that even Dave Meltzer was finally convinced to award Danielson the first 5-star match in his 20+ year career.
  • Right from the start there was the feeling that this wasn't just a match, it was an event. The fans were almost impossibly loud, rising to their feet and cheering at the top of their lungs as soon as referee Paul Turner called for the starting bell, and chanting "THIS IS AWESOME!" before Omega and Danielson had even locked up. This was the very definition of a "big fight feel".

September 29, 2021

• After narrowly winning a tag team match (with Lee Johnson) against Dante Martin and Matt Sydal, Cody Rhodes tried to call out Malakai Black only to get a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Arn Anderson:

Arn Anderson: [...] You pull up to a red light, a man jerks your door open and says, "Out of the car! I'm taking your car!" You say..."Okay, take it. Just don't hurt me." Y'know what I do? I pull out the Glock, put it on his forehead and SPILL HIS BRAINS ALL OVER THE CONCRETE! I'M ARN ANDERSON, and all that that implies, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna coach a loser!

• The Dark Order, after months of dissension, finally got back together to defeat the Hardy Family Office. Evil Uno and Stu Grayson tried to walk out when things got tough... but were shamed back in by Brodie’s widow Amanda Huber, -1 (who whacked Uno with a roll of papers), Anna Jay and Tay Melo, in the late Brodie Lee's hometown of Rochester, New York.
• Ever since the superkick he received from Adam Cole during the latter's debut at All Out 2021, Jungle Boy has been feuding with him, culminating in a singles match on this Dynamite episode. Although Cole proves to be the veteran and hits his "Panama Sunrise", Jungle Boy kicks out of the near pinfall to Cole's absolute shock and disbelief. Jungle Boy would successfully lock Adam Cole in the "Snare Trap", forcing Cole to win unfairly via mule kick to the groin without the referee noticing, giving him the chance to nail Jungle Boy with "The Boom" knee strike to the back of the latter's head and the pinfall win.
• Even while outmatched in power and size, Sammy Guevara gave TNT Champion Miro a crisis of faith by taking his title with a Tornado DDT (which Sammy's best friend Fuego Del Sol had used previously and is Miro's Achilles' Heel), leading into a Go To Hell and a 630° Senton for the pinfall win.

October 6, 2021: Anniversary Show

• The Casino Ladder Match was intense, with six wrestlers competing — all of whom were feuding against one another^note Jon Moxley, Lance Archer, Matt Hardy, Orange Cassidy, Andrade El Idolo and PAC, but the whole venue exploded when "Hangman" Adam Page entered last and finally won the chance to challenge his former mentor Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship.

October 16, 2021

• Not even 24 hours after his brutal battle with Minoru Suzuki in the Buy-in pre-show for Rampage on October 15, 2021, Bryan Danielson defeated his Ring of Honor rival Bobby Fish with a vicious heel hook.
• Having decided to antagonize The Dark Order next, "The Superkliq" (Adam Cole and the Young Bucks) faced Evil Uno, John Silver and Alex Reynolds in a trios match. At one point, Evil Uno pulls the sock right off Nick Jackson's foot, puts it on his right hand and rams it down Nick's throat as the crowd hysterically cheers - even CM Punk commentates and wonders, "Wait: is that Mick Foley?"
• Ten days earlier, Dante Martin issued an open challenge to anyone in the AEW locker room during the Anniversary Show on October 6, to which Malakai Black accepted, but not without spraying the Black Mist into Dante's face, coupled with a Black Mass for good measure. Dante vs. Malakai was a bout full of displaying the former's athleticism: at one point in the match, Dante successfully hits a super hurricanrana onto Malakai, including his trademark double-spring moonsault, but winds up injuring his leg. Despite Dante's manager Lio Rush telling him not to use the moonsault again, Dante misses the second attempt at it, giving Black the chance to deliver the Black Mass onto Dante for the pinfall. As Malakai walks to the back, he turns and gives Dante a rare nod-of-approval.

October 23, 2021

• "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes proved he still had it against a seasoned veteran like Bryan Danielson in the first round of the AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament to determine who challenges for the belt after "Hangman" Adam Page vs. Kenny Omega at Full Gear 2021. Even in defeat, at age 52, Dustin would rise out of several knee strikes with the only Pre Ass Kicking One Liner he could need.
  Come on, motherfucker!

October 27, 2021

• Hikaru Shida finally scored her fiftieth victory in AEW, against Serena Deeb.
• Several weeks after being viciously laid out by The Pinnacle, Darby Allin surprised MJF with a vengeance.
• The main event was an eight-man tag with everyone in costume for Halloween — The Elite as the Ghostbusters (with Michael Nakazawa as a "bay-bay" and Brandon Cutler as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man) vs. the Dark Order, with Stu Grayson as Kratos; John Silver as Bambi; Evil Uno as a cowboy; and Colt Cabana as Brandon Cutler.
  • Late in the match, the Dark Order's Alan Angels and Alex Reynolds chased an unknown in a horse suit into the ring whom the Elite immediately beat down - but it was Brandon Cutler, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man was Adam Page the whole time.

November 10, 2021

• Lio Rush makes his Dynamite debut, teaming with Dante Martin against Matt Sydal and Lee Moriarty. In a match that harkened back to the glory days of WCW's cruiserweight division there was plenty of high octane, lightning fast offense where if you blinked, you missed something.

November 24, 2021

• One week earlier on the November 17th episode of Dynamite, MJF pulls a promo on his win against Darby Allin from Full Gear 2021, stating his intentions to eventually get a title run for the AEW World Championship and that "there's nobody in the locker room [who] is on [his] level". Cue CM Punk coming to the ring to confront Maxwell face-to-face, but without even saying a word, let alone greet MJF (who offers Punk a handshake), leaves and simply smirks at the sight of Maxwell. Before Punk's scheduled match against QT Marshall at the start of this Dynamite episode, MJF calls him out for what happened last week. What follows is a near-20 minute promo that will go down as legendary and talked about for years, from CM Punk stating MJF is a "less famous Miz" to Max claiming Punk has gone "PG" and preaches "hustle, loyalty and respect" and he'll always be second-best to the "King of Kings". Punk fires back by saying while he was selling out arenas, Max was "marking out" to Rosie O'Donnell, that all MJF does is talk when someone like Britt Baker is replacing him as a "pillar"^note A reference to MJF's earlier proclamation during his feud with Darby Allin leading up to Full Gear about the "Four Pillars" of AEW that comprises of himself, Darby, Jungle Boy and Sammy Guevara and that if Maxwell really wants to be number one, he'll have to wait until AEW owner Tony Khan has "a daughter" that Max can marry.

December 15, 2021: Winter Is Coming

• Bryan Danielson vs "Hangman" Adam Page opens the event for the AEW World Championship: the two go the limit, an hour-long match that had nail biters and teased finishes between them - from Hangman's multiple Buckshot Lariats to Danielson's string of knee strikes, kicks and submission techniques - culminating in time running out just as Hangman hits the final Buckshot as he crawls to pin Bryan. To date, the latter has yet to record an official loss in AEW. Dave Meltzer would award the match a 5-star rating, Bryan's second in his career, while Hangman's third; notably, it's been 32 days since Hangman's prior 5.5-rated match at Full Gear 2021 against Kenny Omega for the championship, making him the fastest wrestler in AEW to be given 5+ rated matches on Meltzer's scale.
• Hikaru Shida vs Serena Deeb Round 3: with each having won one match apiece between them, Shida wins the rubber match of the hot feud.

December 22, 2021: AEW Holiday Bash

• The Undisputed Era reunite triumphantly with the debut of the "Violent Artist" Kyle O'Reilly, who secures a victory for Adam Cole against Orange Cassidy.
• CM Punk, Sting & Darby Allin vs. MJF & FTR
  • The former team all came out with unique facepaint: Sting with CM Punk's fists-and-lightning design, Darby with Sting's Wolfpac paint and Punk with Sting's old-school "surfer" paint.

2022

January 5, 2022: New Year's Smash

• As AEW kicks off the new year and a new era ushers in for Dynamite broadcasting on TBS, this episode brought about a bunch of firsts for the promotion:
  • "Hangman" Adam Page and Bryan Danielson meet once again in a rematch for the AEW World Championship following Winter is Coming three weeks earlier. For half an hour, they brutalized and bloodied each other, using whatever it took to beat the other, with their faces covered in blood. Hangman in the end hits The Buckshot Lariat and pins Bryan to retain the title, marking the latter's first official loss in singles-competition for AEW.
  • Similarly, MJF gets his first loss of the year when CM Punk runs down to the ring just as the match begins, to which MJF flees immediately. Frustrated that Maxwell keeps running away from him, CM Punk delivers the GTS to Max's opponent "Captain" Shawn Dean, awarding a disqualification win for the latter, something AEW rarely uses for a finish. More importantly, because win-loss records for AEW reset every year, Punk ensures Max begins 2022 with a 0-1 record, thereby preventing him from getting higher up the rankings for a shot at the AEW World Championship.
    • Afterwards, both men continued trading promos. MJF took shots at Punk for never having main-evented a WrestleMania, but Punk's answer was scathing:
    CM Punk: And listen, pal, if you think the grass is so greener on the other side, be my guest! Go ahead, leave! Main event Night Four of a buy-one-get-one-free extravaganza, and then get released faster than you can last in the sack!^note Another Take That! against WWE for releasing unprecedented amounts of talent and staff while they registered record profits during 2021.
  • Jade Cargill wins the inaugural TBS Championship against Ruby Soho in the finals of the months-long elimination tournament, with her perfect win record since 2021 retained^note Excluding her elimination in the women's Casino Battle Royale from All Out 2021.

January 19, 2022

• After being gone for nearly three months due to checking into rehab, Jon Moxley returns to All Elite Wrestling to thunderous applause, with the crowd remaining silent throughout the majority of his promo. He ends his reappearance by proclaiming, "I don't run from demons: I just beat the shit out of them!", even citing how thirsty he is to compete again and that "all [I] drink is blood!". Unscripted Violence, indeed.
• Cody Rhodes also returns from a brief absence due to "medical protocol": rather than address the multitude of the Broken Base surrounding him, such as why he hasn't turned Heel, he explains that following CM Punk's infamous "Pipe Bomb" that changed the industry's culture, Cody left for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, joining the likes of Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks, eventually helping to create AEW, including taking credit for opening the "Forbidden Door", justifying why he remains a Face because the audience has been cheering him for his efforts. Cody also takes the time to call a few shots after missing for two weeks, such as the arrival of Brody King and how AEW isn't "in the business of renaming people like 'Gunner McGillibuddy' or whatever the hell it is"^note A Take That! against WWE's rebranding of Walter into "Gunther". The promo ends with Cody challenging Interim TNT Champion Sammy Guevara to a ladder match at Beach Break in order to unify the TNT Championship. Even though the crowd has been booing Cody for much of the segment, most began cheering for him by the time he leaves the ring, with many citing that this promo may have been Cody at his best.
• The main event of The Acclaimed against Darby Allin and Sting would be well-remembered largely by the latter's performance, who had to fight Max Caster and Anthony Bowens single-handedly for most of the bout as Darby was assaulted before the match began, with the biggest spot being the 62-year old Sting diving off the stage onto Caster, crashing through the bell-ringer's table, an unbelievable feat for someone like The Icon at this stage in his career.

January 26, 2022: AEW Beach Break

• Cody Rhodes' and Sammy Guevara's Ladder Match to determine the unified TNT Champion opens Beach Break: neither men disappointed as many proclaimed this was one of, if not, the best Ladder Match in AEW thus far. Sammy would take an early hanging superplex off the top of a ladder, including a Cross Rhodes from mid-climb off another ladder, though Cody himself got the brunt of a deadly Senton outside of the ring by Sammy following a Go To Hell. The hard-fought Ladder Match would end with Sammy smashing Cody with the hanging belts off the side of his head, knocking him down to the ring, giving Sammy the chance to take the belts and become 2-time TNT Champion.
  • However, the most memorable moment of the bout is mid-match: as Cody starts reaching for the belts with his ladder, Sammy sets up a second ladder at a ring corner, leap-frogs from the top turnbuckle to the top of his own ladder, jumps off and seizes Cody's head for a cutter, crashing down to the ring from nearly 15-feet in the air to the shock of the crowd. The cutter's delivery has been regarded as perfectly executed, to the point that fans proclaimed this will be part of Sammy's highlight reel throughout his professional career, as well as cementing this as one of the greatest spots in the industry's history of ladder matches, up there with the mid-air spear by Edge onto Jeff Hardy at Wrestlemania X-Seven. Dave Meltzer would agree, awarding this Ladder Match 5-stars, giving Cody his second since Double or Nothing 2019 and Sammy's first.
• One week earlier, Britt Baker got accidentally sent through a table during a mixed tag team match with Adam Cole against Orange Cassidy and Kris Statlander. Incensed at what happened, Cole challenges Cassidy to an Unsanctioned Lights Out Match. The fight is a great showcase of both wrestler's singles competition abilities and their deep-seated contempt for one another after weeks of feuding.
  • Just to show he's taking this match seriously, Cassidy crushes his sunglasses at the start of the match and simply trades fisticuffs with Adam. Doubling with Hilarity Ensues, as the fight is taken outside of the squared circle, Cole gets a steel chair from under the ring, only to have to struggle to pull it out since Danhausen has been clinging onto the chair, making his surprise AEW debut as he "curses" the stunned Adam Cole!
  • Even though this Lights Out was largely bloodless^note Neither wrestler wore the "crimson mask", though Cassidy's right hand does bleed, it was no less brutal: Cole is dealt Laser-Guided Karma trying to deliver a low blow on Cassidy like he did for the past few weeks, but the latter came Crazy-Prepared with a cup laced with thumbtacks and gave Adam his own Panama Sunrise for good measure. Cole also got sent through the bell-ringer's table, while Cassidy is dropped onto Jerry Lynn and Tony Khan's table backstage in the gorilla position and smashed in the head with a stage prop as a counter to Cassidy's "Orange Punch" with a chain wrapped around his right arm and fist.
  • The match would conclude by the entrance stage: as Adam prepares to use the Panama Sunrise from the top of one of the entrances, Orange flanks Cole to give him a low blow, hugging him deathly tight a la The Best Friends, then sends the two of them crashing to the stage below - a 10+ feet drop - with Cassidy landing on Cole, allowing for the three-count and victory.

February 2, 2022

• In what is the most-anticipated match since the two of them publicly met in the ring on the November 17th episode of Dynamite, while trading verbal barbs with one another for weeks, CM Punk finally gets his hands on MJF in Chicago. Unfortunately, with some interference (and assistance by Wardlow), Maxwell cowardly wins the match using the Dynamite Diamond ring in his possession, handing Punk his first official loss in AEW.
• Following a victory over Wheeler Yuta, Bryan Danielson confronts Jon Moxley after their little run-in post-match on the January 21st episode of Rampage. Rather than antagonize Moxley into a match that the audience expects, Bryan propositions a partnership - one where they can go after the AEW World Championship, the TNT Championship and the World Tag Team Championship, including taking young wrestlers like Wheeler, Daniel Garcia and Lee Moriaty under their tutelage, away from their respective cohorts that are The Best Friends, 2Point0 and Matt Sydal/Dante Martin. Although Jon neither accepts nor declines Danielson's idea, it's clear that the gears to this approach is turning in Moxley's head.

February 9, 2022

• This episode of Dynamite didn't just bring out the big guns, but also delivered on its matches. It goes without saying that this was AEW's best televised episode of professional wrestling thus far in 2022.
  • During the February 4th episode of Ramage, Tony Khan teased about the "Forbidden Door" opening again. During an interview with Roppongi Vice, The Young Bucks and Adam Cole interrupted and handed them a beatdown until Adam stops it mid-way when he notices a mysterious man wearing a black leather jacket with the words "Switchblade Era", who throws Trent Beretta into the side of a trailer. That's right: Jay White has crossed the Forbidden Door, making his AEW debut.
  • To determine the number-one contender for the TNT Championship, some of the top-ranked wrestlers in the men's division would compete in a qualification tournament, leading to a "Face of the Revolution" ladder match at the March pay-per-view. Isiah Kassidy of Private Party would be the first entrant, but his face instantly drops when the words "FOR HE IS LIMITLESS" appears - "Limitless" Keith Lee is now All-Elite! As the crowd chants, "ALL BASK IN HIS GLORY!", Lee makes short work of Kassidy by literally throwing him around like a ragdoll, alongside showcasing the athleticism he is known for, winning his buy into the Face of the Revolution.
    • Mid-way into the bout, Matt Hardy, Private Party's manager-boss in the Andrade-Hardy Family Office, leaves the match via the crowd, having had enough of Private Party failing him, with Tony Schiavone noting, "I would call that pretty erratic behavior if you ask me"^note A possible Foreshadowing of Jeff Hardy entering AEW soon with regards to his exit from the WWE in December 2021, who fired Jeff on allegations of him exhibiting "erratic" behavior when he walked out during a match...
  • As MJF celebrates his victory over CM Punk from the previous week, The Best in the World is not done with him yet. With Darby Allin and Sting by his side, Punk calls out Max for his cheating (which he naturally denies) and demands a rematch. Like the coward that he is, MJF only allows it if Punk can defeat FTR in a tag team match later that night. As Punk cannot choose Darby or Sting per Max's stipulation, Punk selects a man who not only MJF had beef with in the past, but also was the one who ended his own undefeated streak: JON MOXLEY!
    • The match itself was absolutely awesome, allowing twenty minutes for all four men to show off the full range of their incredible abilities, including Punk giving Dax Harwood a Doomsday Device off of Moxley's shoulders, before the faces are finally able to overcome one of the best tag teams in the world with a stereo Paradigm Shift/Go-To-Sleep to earn Punk his rematch.
  • The main event saw AEW World Champion "Hangman" Adam Page take on the monstrous Lance Archer in a "Texas Deathmatch"^note Participants can only win via knockout or submission; no disqualifications. The Murderhawk Monster's specialty, the last time he was in one of these matches in AEW, he ended Jon Moxley's IWGP United States Championship reign, thus Page is up against the wall to retain his position on top of the promotion. As expected, the match is bloody murder from the start as Hangman attacks Lance during his entrance, throwing him through a pane of glass and cutting him up. In fact, both men go full-bore Abdullah the Butcher on each other's foreheads (Lance cuts Adam using a hook holding the ring's top rope); Archer would even use a fork mid-match to keep Adam bleeding!
    • Things escalate as Jake "The Snake" Roberts gives Hangman a short-arm clothesline, Lance chokeslams Adam onto a garbage can and delivers a deadly "Blackout" on him from off the apron onto the ring steps! Since Dan Lambert cut the ring's top rope loose early into the match, it prevents Page from being able to perform the Buckshot Lariat on Archer, thus he's forced to improvise: after dealing some elbow shots on Lance via barbed wire wrapped across his arm, Adam drops the wire onto the mat; just as the referee bends down to pick it up, Page vaults off the referee's back for momentum (just like he did off of Kenny Omega during the Stadium Stampede Match against Jake Hager of The Inner Circle) to put the Murderhawk Monster down with the Buckshot as they get sent through a table Lance set up outside of the ring. Adam rises just before the end of the ten-count to retain his championship.
    • Page's victory is cut short when Adam Cole enters the ring and gives him back the title belt while affirming that he is going after the title next as the new number-one ranked wrestler in the men's roster following Lance's loss.

February 16, 2022

• Fresh off of his victory from the previous week, CM Punk announces the date and time for his rematch with MJF: March 6, 2022 - AEW Revolution. However, when it comes to the match stipulation, Punk has to think on this. While it was largely surmised by audiences that a cage match would suffice, CM Punk argues that Max can still run away and Wardlow can simply climb into the cage to interfere. Instead, Punk recalls how Max keeps referencing "Piper in Portland" and that he's better than him. Digging deep into wrestling lore, Punk settles on the only suitable stipulation: a Dog Collar match, as he takes out a pair of collars linked to a chain from a box, while making a quip to MJF about "being his Valentine" days after the February holiday^note A dual-reference to the infamous Dog Collar match between Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine during NWA Starrcade in 1983.
  • As Max comes out to the stage, CM Punk shows the memetic photo of a young MJF in a meet-and-greet with Punk many years earlier. He ends the promo by disparaging what Max thinks was important to him and accomplishes the rare feat of, once again, leaving Max completely speechless with an expression that mixes anger, anxiety, confusion, disappointment and shame as he leaves.
  CM Punk: "I'm sure you remember it well - possibly the greatest day of your life — and to me, it was Friday."

February 23, 2022

• As "The Road to Revolution" continues, this episode of Dynamite escalates the already building storylines heading into the pay-per-view:
  • Ten tag teams square off at the start in a battle royale to determine the first challengers against Jurassic Express' AEW World Tag Team Championship at AEW Revolution. With Kyle O'Reilly, Matt Jackson and John Silver left in the ring, the latter is forced to handle the other two, but Kyle and Matt prove too much for John alone. When Kyle seemingly injures his left shoulder after giving John a suplex, urging Matt to toss Silver over the top rope, O'Reilly feigns his injury and eliminates both men, punching reDRagon's ticket into Revolution. Post-match, as The Young Bucks confront reDRagon for their deception, "Hangman" Adam Page heads to the ring to give O'Reilly and Bobby Fish a beating for having jumped him on the February 16th episode of Dynamite; the Bucks, who are still on decent terms with Hangman since he won the World Championship at Full Gear, leave the ring for reDRagon to fend for themselves, nor do they bother helping Adam Cole after failing a sneak attack on Page.
  • Knowing what's he gotten himself into via the Dog Collar match at Revolution, MJF attempts to justify why he is the way he is: as a boy, he had ADD and tried out for football, but was relentlessly bullied by his schoolmates for being Jewish. Regardless, Maxwell found solace in professional wrestling, especially when he met his idol CM Punk for the first time. However, when Punk left the business back in January 2014, Max felt betrayed and gave up on his pro wrestling dreams; fast-forward a few years later, he noticed a social media picture of Punk shaking hands with Bryan Danielson, which turned Maxwell livid. He would quit his studies to become a pro wrestler full-time in spite of Punk's betrayal, promising that he wouldn't do what Punk did and turn on the business when there are kids like Max back then who could depend on him in the present. As tears stream down MJF's face, CM Punk enters the ring and, without a microphone, directly asks him "Is it true? Is that real?", to which Max simply replies, "It's true" and leaves. It goes without saying that CM Punk might have been indirectly responsible for creating Maxwell Jacob Friedman, as this promo was essentially Max's Origins Issue and raison d'être for becoming a super-villain.
  • As revenge for the Black Mist that Malakai Black dealt to Penta El Cero Miedo back on the February 2nd episode of Dynamite, the latter returns to his old "Pentagón Dark" persona, re-christened as "Penta Oscuro". Death Triangle faces The Kings of the Black Throne again for a re-match, leading to Penta gaining the win when he covers Malakai's mouth just before spewing out the Black Mist and getting a roll-up pinfall victory. Afterwards, as Brody King goes after PAC and Malakai is about the decaptitate Penta with a shovel, the lights go out and turns back on as Buddy Matthews makes his AEW debut in the ring, shocking Malakai enough that he falls to the floor in despair (due to their shared history and Arch-Enemy status from WWE NXT), only for Matthews to attack PAC and Penta instead! Malakai simply laughs as the crowd's disbelief as Buddy Matthews has seeimgly joined The House of Black!
  • For weeks, Bryan Danielson continues to entice his proposition to Jon Moxley about a partnership and training the young talent in the AEW roster. On the February 16th episode of Dynamite, Jon states he's thought hard for a reason to say "no", but he couldn't think of one. However, he accuses Bryan that the only reason he offered a partnership proposal was because he does not want to "get destroyed" by Moxley; instead, Jon leaves the final decision to Danielson, citing that he does not "stand side-by-side with nobody 'til I bleed with them first". On this episode, Bryan finally agrees to a match at Revolution, but not without a few choice words.
    Bryan Danielson: "So, in order for us to fight together, we need to bleed together. I don't need this (tosses a steel chair aside) to make anybody bleed! You want a match at Revolution? You GOT IT!...But don't be surprised if you're the only person bleeding!"

March 2, 2022

• Kicking this episode of Dynamite off would be the monumental announcement by AEW owner Tony Khan and his acquisition of Ring of Honor. As a nod to the WWE purchase of WCW back in 2001, Tony addresses that "Shane's not here! There's no Shane! It's (just) me!" both as a Call-Back to the purchase and a Take That! against the then-rumors about Shane McMahon possibly coming to AEW since his WWE departure post-2021 Royal Rumble.
• To determine the second team of challengers for the AEW World Tag Team Championship at Revolution, fifteen pairs from the tag team division fight in a Casino Tag Royale. In a surprise entrance at the start of the match, Darius Martin returns to in-ring action following his ACL injury roughly a year ago, reuniting with his brother Dante Martin as Top Flight; They even make it to the final three pairs of the match against The Young Bucks and FTR, with Darius becoming runner-up (thanks to some distractions from reDRagon against Dax Harwood).
• After MJF's heartfelt confession a week ago, CM Punk is forced to ask what's on everybody's mind since: is he the bad guy in their feud? Punk is unsure whether Max is Gaslighting him or if he was being sincere about his pro wrestling motivations and calls Maxwell out to the ring. Although the latter is still hurt from last week from publicly baring his soul, CM Punk offers a reconciliatory handshake on the grounds that Max's hate for him will destroy himself even further. Instead, Max goes in for a surprising hug, which leaves Punk confused at first, but he hugs back. Unfortunately, this was all a feint as MJF hits the caught-off CM Punk with a low blow, leading to a beatdown as the rest of The Pinnacle reinforces their leader. As Punk is bleeding profusely and collared with a chain, Maxwell venomously answers his former idol with some of the same words he used previously in Ring of Honor fifteen years ago.
  Maxwell Jacob Friedman: "You stupid, stupid old man: I'm a snake. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist. And this Sunday, at Revolution, I'm going to show you and all these mindless sheep that I am THE DEVIL HIMSELF!!!"
  • In response, CM Punk, while attended to by paramedics, brings out his last promo before Revolution with the sort of ferocity he was known for years earlier, but hasn't had the chance to use it in AEW:
    CM Punk: "Few people are going to understand that being in this much pain makes certain people feel so very alive. I think you understand, Max, and if you don't, on March 6th, you will. You are going to find out exactly what you think you already know - that CM Punk is the master and I know exactly who the fuck I am. You wanna call me "PG Punk"? You wanna pretend like I'm not that same guy? You WANT that same guy that you grew up idolizing?! Congratulations, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, BUT YOU'RE NOT READY!! And on March 6th, I'm going to walk you like a dog. I'm gonna BEAT YOU and BEAT YOU and I'm gonna BEAT YOU until your own mother won't recognize you! I'm gonna leave parts of you in that ring and I'm gonna leave parts of you all over Orlando, Florida. This is what you want, but more importantly, this is what you deserve. On March 6th, I will become a monster...TO FIGHT THE MONSTERS OF THE WORLD!! Because I'm CM Punk...and I'm better than you!"

March 9, 2022

• As the follow-up to AEW Revolution, this episode of Dynamite effectively changed the status quo, setting up many different angles to occur in 2022:
  • Having not lived up to his word of shaking Eddie Kingston's hand after he won their pay-per-view match, Chris Jericho admits his frustration at the loss and calls Eddie to the ring. The Mad King confesses that the handshake was never meant for himself, but was for Jericho to come to grips with what it is he's missing - that their fight was so Eddie could have Chris realize that. With respect, The Demo God asks for the handshake and Eddie responds in kind, until their moment is interrupted by Daniel Garcia and 2.0, who haven't forgotten their past grievances with either men. Fortunately, Santana and Ortiz rush down to back up Eddie and Chris, passing the latter's baseball bat "Floyd" to use on Garcia...only for Chris to use it on Santana and Ortiz! Jake Hager runs to the ring, berating Jericho for this betrayal, except he also turns on Proud and Powerful! After Hager gives Eddie a powerbomb through the timekeepers's table, Jericho stands in the ring with Jake, Garcia and 2.0, proclaiming the new "Jericho Appreciation Society" as they flip off the crowd, just like The Inner Circle did when they first formed in AEW.
  • Finishing a tag team match against The Workhorsemen quickly, William Regal addresses becoming the manager to Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley. Re-counting his personal history and his prior working relationship with both men, Regal interrupted their post-match antics at AEW Revolution so they can form the perfect combination (the soon-to-be named "Blackpool Combat Club"). He ends his speech by warning the roster and anyone who climbs into the ring with them.
    William Regal: "You will not like the outcome, and you either will step up or you will get stepped on!"
  • In a brief backstage interview, Dax Harwood of FTR laments having to lose to The Young Bucks and reDRagon in the prior two tag team battle royale matches before AEW Revolution and want revenge, but Tully Blanchard reminds them that they're supposed to be gunning for the AEW World Tag Team Championship; after all, that's why FTR brought him in as their manager. Since this is going to be personal, Cash Wheeler wants none of this from Tully and decides to fire him.
  • Matt Hardy holds an emergency meeting with the Andrade-Hardy Family Office on wanting to start fresh and to make amends after all the losses the faction's taken. However, Andrade el Idolo wants to kick Matt out by giving a vote of no-confidence against him, as does his assistant Jose. Matt believes Private Party will back him up, but Isiah Kassidy and Mark Quen side with Andrade, leading to them beating down Matt. Even though Darby Allin and Sting head to the ring to confront Andrade, they're still outmatched due to The Butcher and The Blade also aligning with Andrade. Making his AEW debut, Jeff Hardy runs in, reinforcing his brother and reuniting The Hardys in AEW.
  • As much as he wants to punish Maxwell Jacob Friedman for all the abuse he was put through by his employer, Wardlow reasons that his only goal going forward is his shot at the TNT Championship at AEW St. Patrick's Day Slam since he doesn't want to waste time dealing with Max and wants Laser-Guided Karma to handle him instead. Telling Max to let bygones be bygones, Mr. Mayhem also wants out of his bodyguard contract with MJF, while informing the AEW roster he no longer protects Max nor is he a member of The Pinnacle - he is finally free.
  • In a "Title vs. Streak" match, Sammy Guevara puts his TNT Championship on the line against Scorpio Sky's undefeated singles record since 2021. After missing a 630° Senton onto Scorpio on a table, Sammy refuses to quit the match, even though Scorpio keeps targeting his injured ribs. When Ethan Page tries to interfere, Tay Melo pulls him away from the ring, but America Top Team Guest-Star Party Member Paige VanZant throws Tay into the steel ring steps, giving Scorpio the chance to deliver the "TKO" to Sammy for the pinfall, ending The Spanish God's 5-month championship reign. Post-match, Dan Lambert gives Paige an AEW contract to sign, elevating America Top Team to new heights for 2022 with Scorpio Sky as the new TNT Champion.

March 16, 2022: AEW St. Patrick's Day Slam

• Thunder Rosa finally won the AEW Women's World Championship from Britt Baker in a vicious steel cage match, to raucous cheers in her adopted hometown of San Antonio, Texas.
  • Both women's entrances also deserve mention: Rosa was welcomed in by the Guerrera Quetzalli mariachi band, while Baker entered with black-on-white "spray paint" gear in tribute to the late Scott Hall.

March 23, 2022

• In The Texas Tornado Tag on the March 23rd, 2022 episode of Dynamite, Jeff Hardy shows he's up to his crazy stunts again as when the fight goes into the arena's concourse, he scales a ladder and climbs up to the ledge of the wall and delivers The Swanton Bomb onto The Butcher and The Blade through a merchandise table.

March 30, 2022

• The newest member of the AEW women's roster turns out to be Toni Storm, who wins her debut match against The Bunny to qualify for The Owen Hart Memorial Tournament.
• Jay Lethal goes one-on-one with Jon Moxley in a superb match where it genuinely looks like either man could have won. Moxley rejects Lethal's offer of a Ring of Honor-style handshake before the bout, refusing to show any respect that hasn't been earned the hard way, but after he eventually pulls out a narrow win against Lethal he offers him a handshake to show that NOW he respects him.
• Bryan Danielson faces Wheeler Yuta, this time in a singles match. Fired up like he's never been before, Yuta fights like hell against the veteran, even looking like he might upset Danielson at a couple of points. While the result is ultimately inevitable, when Bryan sets Yuta up for the "steppies" (holding his wrists and stamping on his face repeatedly), the young man defiantly spits in his face. If one needs further proof that The Blackpool Combat Club is succeeding in its aim of building up younger stars and getting them over, even in defeat, just listen to the insane crowd pop when Yuta reverses the Cattle Mutilation.

April 6, 2022

• After showing up at Supercard of Honor XV from the previous weekend, Samoa Joe makes his AEW debut in grand fashion, handily winning his first match against "Platinum" Max Caster of The Acclaimed and qualifying for The Owen Hart Memorial Tournament.
• FTR put their AAA World Tag Team Championship and newly-won Ring of Honor World Tag Team Championship against The Young Bucks in the highly anticipated re-match. The two teams pull out all the stops against one another putting on a clinic of tag team wrestling. In the end, after twenty minutes of action, FTR manages to hit The Big Rig on Matt Jackson and pin him to retain their titles.

April 13, 2022

• The show opens up with the first ever matchup between CM Punk and Penta Oscuro, in front of a hot New Orleans crowd. In the end, Punk would catch Penta when he attempts to Springboard and deliver The GTS onto him and win the match.
• Jurassic Express defending the AEW World Tag Team Championship against reDRagon. Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus despite the efforts of Fish and O'Reilly would retain their tag titles.
• The main event for the Ring of Honor World Television Championship: Minoru Suzuki defending against the challenger, Samoa Joe. The two wasted little time in delivering hard and brutal blows to one another turning each other's chest red from the slaps and chops to one another. In the end after a grueling matchup, Samoa Joe would hit The Muscle Buster and become the new ROH World TV Champion.

April 20, 2022

• The Forbidden Door is at last pulled wide open as All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling announce that on June 26th, 2022 live from the United Center in Chicago on pay-per-view, they will be hosting a joint event called, appropriately enough, "Forbidden Door". The announcement gets hijacked from Tony Khan and New Japan president Takami Ohbari by Adam Cole, who whets the crowd's appetite by announcing an Owen Hart Cup qualifying match between himself and Tomohiro Ishii on the upcoming episode of Rampage, before introducing his friend Jay White, who declares that this event isn't going to be about AEW or New Japan, but rather the Undisputed Elite and the Bullet Club.
• The Blackpool Combat Club continue their path of destruction through AEW as Mox, Danielson and Yuta run roughshod over the young upstart team of Dante Martin, Brock Anderson and Lee Moriarty, finishing the match by all three BCC members beating down the opposition at once (Mox and Yuta giving the hammer elbows to Martin and Anderson respectively, while Danielson stomps Moriarty's head in) before Mox finishes Martin with a Paradigm Shift. Notably the crowd was cheering everyone in this match, not just the incredibly-over Blackpool Combat Club, but also their young opponents, especially Hometown Hero Lee Moriarty.

April 27, 2022

• The show opened up with a qualifying match in the Owen Hart Memorial Tournament: for the first time ever in their careers, Cash Wheeler and Dax Hardwood of FTR find themselves on opposite sides of the ring, with the winner being able to take part in the tournament. With CM Punk providing special commentary for the match, the two put on a wrestling clinic, showing just how well they know each other and every trick the other has.

May 11, 2022

• In what has long been touted as a dream match by fans, Jeff Hardy and Darby Allin squared off in a quarterfinals matchup for the Owen Hart Memorial Tournament. Prior to Dynamite, both men decided to say "screw it" and made their match a no-disqualification. What follows is the sort of death-defying spectacle Jeff is famous for, to which Darby similarly answers by hitting Jeff with his patented Swanton Bomb nearly 20 feet in the air from the top of a ladder while lying on a row of steel chairs. Darby would miss hitting his Coffin Drop onto Jeff by landing on the hard part of the ring apron, while Jeff also miss hitting the Swanton Bomb onto Darby lying on the side of the overturned steel steps outside of the ring. Once Darby gets Jeff back into the ring, he executes the Coffin Drop successfully a second time, but Jeff winds up winning via surprise roll-up for the pinfall. Post-match, Darby gives Jeff a congratulatory hug and handshake for his victory.

May 18, 2022: Wild Card Wednesday

• AEW World Champion "Hangman" Adam Page takes on Konosuke Takeshita from the Dramatic Dream Team promotion of Japan. Konosuke more than holds his own against The Champ as the two battle earning applause from fans.
  • The week before, CM Punk, who is challenging Hangman, used his own Buckshot Lariat to win his match against John Silver. This week, Page returns the favor and uses the Go To Sleep to defeat Konosuke.
• History Repeats as MJF once again subjects his potential pay-per-view opponent to ten belt lashes. However, unlike Cody Rhodes before him, Wardlow takes eight lashes without even flinching, completely shattering Max's composure. It takes a ninth from Shawn Spears to get a reaction that isn't a figurative shrug-off, and even then, Mr. Mayhem gets right back into Maxwell's face and demands the final lash. The Dirty Coward that he is, MJF has to resort to a low blow, additional lashes beyond the ten, a punch with the Dynamite Diamond ring and Shawn's C4 (with a mock pinfall count as Max will be the guest referee for Wardlow's match against Spears the next week - the second stipulation pre-Double or Nothing) to try to save face.

May 25, 2022: Three Year Anniversary

• The "go-home show" before Double or Nothing would return to Las Vegas three years since the pay-per-view's inauguration:
  • Wardlow's steel cage match against Shawn Spears opened up this episode of Dynamite with MJF as guest referee. Knowing the odds are against him, Wardlow had to stave off Shawn's attacks while handcuffed as Max refused to take them off before the match began. As the Salt of the Earth continued to goad Wardlow into attacking him (thereby annulling their agreement to fight at Double or Nothing), Mr. Mayhem breaks the handcuffs through sheer strength and gives Spears a senton for good measure, but Maxwell doesn't count the pin. After Wardlow kicks out of Max's fast count after Shawn delivers a C4, The Chairman takes a steel chair to crack open Wardlow's skull, but ends up hitting Max instead. Now at Wardlow's mercy, Spears takes the brunt out of a four-movement Powerbomb Symphony as referee Bryce Remsburg declares the pinfall victory since MJF has been knocked out cold. Upon destroying the security guards post-match, Wardlow climbs to the top of the steel cage, relishing in the fact that Max must now face him at Double or Nothing.
  • As a preview to the three-way AEW World Tag Team Championship match at Double or Nothing between Jurassic Express, Ricky Starks with Powerhouse Hobbs and Keith Lee with Swerve Strickland, Jungle Boy would be booked into a match against Ricky and Swerve one week prior by Christian Cage after Swerve cost Jungle Boy a shot at Ricky's FTW Championship. Throughout the bout, each man would try to capitalize on a weakened opponent, only to one-upped by the other, including Swerve landing on his feet after Jungle Boy's poison rana from the turnbuckle. Although Ricky is locked into Jungle Boy's Snare Trap, Swerve kicks the latter away to give Starks the Swerve Stomp for the win. As Hobbs runs into the ring to deal with Swerve, Luchasaurus enters to give Hobbs a chokeslam, but is interrupted by Keith, who knocks both men out of the ring and plants them with an over-the-top rope body slam. The segment ends with Lee celebrating Strickland's victory as they head into the pay-per-view looking like a well-oiled tag team.
  • Trent Beretta and Rocky Romero of Roppongi Vice was seconds away from beating FTR for the ROH World Tag Team Championships with Trent's Strong Zero when Jeff Cobb and the Great-O-Khan from The United Empire interrupted the match to deal with both teams. Given that the Forbidden Door pay-per-view occurs a little over a month away, seeing members of New Japan Pro Wrestling invade AEW is a sure sign that rivalries are going to form within the next few weeks before the Crossover event.

June 1, 2022

• Aside from the fact that AEW made its debut in California on this episode of Dynamite, the fallout from Double or Nothing 2022 was, to put it mildly, intense.
  • After making short work of The Gunn Club and "Platinum" Max Caster, newly-crowned AEW World Champion CM Punk calls upon the New Japan Pro Wrestling roster to see who will answer his challenge at the Forbidden Door pay-per-view. Out comes Hiroshi Tanahashi, "The Ace" of New Japan, who accepts.
  • There's a reason why MJF is often deemed as the best talker in the current era/generation of professional wrestling when his segment for this episode of Dynamite was instantly hailed not simply as Max's best promo (moreso than the one during his feud with CM Punk), but widely regarded as his "pipe bomb".
    I am in a lot of pain right now after what happened on Sunday, but all you people want to do is hear me talk, right? That's what you want, right: you want to hear me talk? I'll talk... BUT THIS IS MAX FRIEDMAN TALKING! Big merger, boss. Lot of important executives here tonight to watch your product. Would be a real shame if somethin' bad happens. I wouldn't want to embarrass you, man. Speaking of embarrassing: you've been trying to sit down with me to hash things out for quite some time now, haven't ya? Well, guess what? Too little too late.
    Here's why: when this company first started, it was "All Friends Wrestling". Everybody was handed a ticket except for me! See, I had to write my own, and boy, do I have good penmanship because I created moment after moment after moment for this company and I still get no respect! NOBODY IS ON MY LEVEL: NO ONE! Everything I touch turns to gold! There is nothing I can't do! Every time I come out here, I am not expected to hit home runs; I am expected to hit grand slams, and I do that shit on a weekly basis! See, all the other boys, they get to settle for being great; I have to be perfect, because I'm a 26-year old who is constantly held under a microscope because I'm the only guy who is capable of carrying this company on my back as I have for months!
    It's funny I hear boos, but I also hear clapping. That's interesting: where were you guys this whole weekend when you were calling me an unprofessional piece of shit? I'm just curious. You're not the only problem, no: it's the boys in the back, too, 'cuz the boys in the back all want my spot. Well, guess what: you want my spot? You can have it 'cuz I don't wanna be here anymore!
    Now, let's talk about you fans, huh? You people call yourself "fans"; you're not fans - you're uneducated marks! You sit there on your phones, tweeting out your opinions like they're worth a damn: let me explain something to you people - YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT! Your opinions suck! Your opinions change at the drop of a dime and then you pretend your new opinions are the same as your old. For example: "Man, I always knew MJF was a good wrestler". Really? That's interesting because last time I checked, you guys pretended I sucked in the ring for a long time and why is that, huh? Because I'm not untrained like all your favs? Because I don't pretend to watch New Japan? Because I don't dump my opponents on their heads? Because I'm not reckless? What is it? Is it because I'm not chasing star-ratings, guys? What is it? How could I possibly be the best, well news flash: I AM THE BEST!! I'M THE BEST IN THE WORLD 'CUZ I'M THE ONLY GUY WHO MAKES YOU FEEL!! And unlike all those boys, I don't gotta do a bunch of bullshit to get you there!
    I am a generational talent and you people consistently take me for granted, but it's not just you: it's the big man in the back, too. Here's something you guys can't take for granted, here's something he doesn't want you to know. Do you guys know who the second-biggest minute-for-minute draw is in this entire company? Nope, you wish! IT'S ME!!! It's me, and if you don't believe me, do me a favor: ask "Stat-boy Tony" in the back - see what he's got to say, but whatever you do, don't ask him to reach into his pockets and pay the man who's been bustin' his ass for him since day one! No, no, no, no, no, no! Make sure he hoards all that money! Make sure he hoards all that money so he can give it to all the new ex-WWE guys he keeps bringing in... THAT CAN'T LACE MY GODDAMN BOOTS!!!
    Hey, boss! Would you treat me better if I was an ex-WWE guy? See, maybe you don't get it, man! Here's the problem with you, boss: you got a position of power in a wrestling company when the only position you should be assuming is behind the guardrail with all of them! I don't wanna wait 'til 2024, but you don't listen to me so allow me to make it a little bit easier for you: Tony... I want you to fire me. Tony-DON'T COUNT ME DOWN, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!! SHUT YOUR MOUTH!! Look at me, Tony! Look at me: I want you to fire me, YOU FUCKING MARK!!! FIRE ME!!! FIRE ME!!!
  • The Jericho Appreciation Society celebrates their victory from Anarchy in the Arena during Double or Nothing 2022, but Eddie Kingston interrupts Chris Jericho as he's barely done with them. Given how furious The Mad King is, rather than say anything else, he passes the microphone to William Regal instead, who simply utters the words, "BLOOD AND GUTS!", setting up the next match stipulation between both sides after Forbidden Door.
  • Johnny Elite has an open challenge against anyone on the AEW roster, and who better to face him than The Redeemer, Miro, who returns to AEW since his loss in the finals of the AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament at Full Gear 2021. In a short promo he cuts before coming to the ring, Miro is back "to help his fellow man - the bastards, the punks, the cowboys and the pagans, too" so he can "redeem them all" in order to be allowed back into heaven...so he can kick God's ass for separating him from championship gold.
    "My God: I no longer wish to come home - I now want to come and take yours! The Redeemer is back...flawless..."

June 15, 2022: AEW Road Rager

• Chris Jericho vs Ortiz's Hair vs. Hair match: however, it's the climax of the match that would be memorable as Fuego del Sol interfered by knocking out Ortiz with Jericho's baseball bat Floyd, giving him the victory; even the commentators are confused as Fuego had no prior stake in this fight. As "Fuego" finishes celebrating with Jericho and Jake Hager, he slowly took off his luchador mask, revealing Sammy Guevara! The Spanish God has rejoined his old Inner Circle stablemates as the newest member of The Jericho Appreciation Society! Eddie Kingston, who was at Ortiz's side for the match, states this changes nothing as Blood and Guts will still happen regardless of who Jericho recruits. Meanwhile, Ortiz ends the segment by honoring the match stipulation, cutting off locks of his hair and shaving his head while yelling "BLOOD AND GUTS!!!" at the top of his lungs repeatedly to point of Madness Mantra.
• Dax Harwood vs. Will Ospreay
• Jurassic Express vs The Young Bucks' Ladder match, with the AEW World Tag Team Championships on the line.

June 22, 2022

• Christian Cage's venomous promo against Jungle Boy after turning on him a week ago for losing the AEW World Tag Team Championship to The Young Bucks.
• Orange Cassidy and Roppongi Vice vs. Will Ospreay and Aussie Open
• After a match against his old Ring of Honor rival Silas Young, Adam Cole continues to confront "Hangman" Adam Page about getting his shot at Jay White's IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at Forbidden Door, but The Catalyst denies both men the chance, citing how Cole lost to Hangman twice and that Page doesn't have what it takes to beat White. Having heard enough, Hangman smacks the microphone away from The Switchblade, leading to a 2-on-1 brawl against Page. Just as Cole is about to use the IWGP title to hit Hangman over the face, the distinct sound of a coin drop is heard. The crowd in the Milwaukee arena instantly go unglued as Kazuchika Okada, "The Rainmaker" and arguably the face of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, made his AEW debut, fighting off Jay White, eager to take back the title the latter took from him weeks earlier during DOMINION.
• At the end of the show, as a wild brawl breaks down and fighting is scattered all over the arena, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Jon Moxley stand center in the middle of the ring having a staredown as they ignore the chaos.

June 29, 2022: AEW Blood and Guts

• Having learned from some of the flaws of the first Blood and Guts, this year's titular match between The Jericho Appreciation Society and The Blackpool Combat Club (with Eddie Kingston and Proud and Powerful) was far more enticing (thanks to an arena filled with a Detroit audience), but no less brutal than before. With multiple weapons ranging from steel chairs to a barbed-wire baseball bat to broken glass to thumbtacks and wooden skewers, the two 6-man teams in the dual-ring sized steel cage destroy one another, cutting each other up quickly. When Chris Jericho tells Tay Melo to open the cage, she knocks out referee Aubrey Edwards and steals the key to open, but Ruby Soho, who's friends with Eddie Kingston, runs down to fight Tay, sending them to the back. As Chris scales the cage, Eddie pulls his Slasher Smile, knowing how stupid The Influencer is for trying to escape to the top of the structure. Although Sammy Guevara comes to help Jericho, Eddie deals a low-blow to The Spanish God and sends him flying down crashing into the timekeeper's table. While Claudio Castagnoli comes to help Eddie by pushing Jericho away from locking in The Walls of Jericho onto Kingston, giving Jericho his giant swing maneuver, Matt Menard wasn't far behind and tries dealing a piledriver onto Claudio, but he reverses it into a Sharpshooter on Menard as The Mad King uses the "Stretch Plum" on Jericho, the same submission technique he had Chris tap out in their AEW Revolution 2022 match. However, it's Menard who taps out first, giving The Blackpool Combat Club and their allies the win. Post-match, Eddie is visibly frustrated and upset that Claudio robbed him of the victory as the commentators note that Kingston wanted Jericho to tap out in order to humiliate him.

July 6, 2022

• With no more obstacles from MJF since AEW St. Patrick's Day Slam, Wardlow gets his second chance at Scorpio Sky's TNT Championship. Despite the match being a Street Fight, Wardlow easily swats away American Top Team single-handedly in their futile attempt at saving Scorpio. Although Sky hammers him with the belt to the face, Mr. Mayhem kicks out of the three-count and reverses Scorpio's TKO into a spinebuster, leading to a three-movement Powerbomb Symphony and pinfall to become the seventh TNT Champion as Rochester, New York (incidentally, the home of the posthumous and former TNT Champion Brodie Lee) celebrates Wardlow's victory.

July 13, 2022: AEW Fyter Fest Night 1

• The Young Bucks put up their AEW World Tag Team Championships on the line against Swerve Strickland/Keith Lee and Ricky Starks/Powerhouse Hobbs.
• Konosuke Takeshita has put on great matches against the likes of Adam Page and Eddie Kingston, and he has another one, this one against Jon Moxley

July 27, 2022: AEW Fight for The Fallen

• Jon Moxley defends The Interim AEW World Championship against Rush. In a brutal hard hitting match that has Moxley getting busted open, he manages to overcome The Bull and retain the title
• Team Taz went through some absolutely shocking changes on this night:
  • Ricky Starks faced off against Danhausen in an open challenge for Starks's FTW Championship and handled him with relative ease, despite his lingering neck issues, which showed throughout. Ricky then asks for a mic, and just like last week, claims that he can still go and requests for another open challenge, and this time he means right now, unlike last week with Danhausen. Cue Action Bronson as HOOK answers the open challenge, taking Starks by complete surprise.
  Taz: "Big mistake, Ricky!"
  • The match does not last long as HOOK manages to counter some of Ricky's moves, but then suffers a spear. Starks then goes for the Roshambeaux, but HOOK counters it into the Redrum! Ricky tries to escape, but with the submission maneuver aggravating his neck issues, he's forced to tap, and HOOK becomes the new FTW Champion! Ricky shows no bad blood between them when he offers a fist bump, which HOOK returns the gesture, keeping respect for one another.
  • Afterwards, Ricky, with Powerhouse Hobbs by his side, is interviewed by Tony Schiavone, and gives an impassionate promo about his time holding the FTW Championship, speaking of turning what people took as a noose into a tie, and grabbing leather and metal and turning it into gold, and said he never gave less than 100% even in defeat. Once Ricky got into his and Hobbs's unfortunate defeats in their quest for the AEW World Tag Team Championships, saying that it was a string of bad timing instead of bad luck, Hobbs decks him from behind and delivers a powerslam. This absolutely bewildered Taz, who was on the commentary booth, and now draws questions as to what happens now for Team Taz.

August 10, 2022: AEW Quake by The Lake

• The show begins with The Coffin Match between Brody King and Darby Allin. Darby wastes little time not even bothering for his entrance to launch an attack at Brody causing Brody to bleed in a nasty sight with his face all red. But Brody would counter and ragdoll Darby, tossing him around the arena and into barricades and stands. But as we know, Darby won't ever stay down and fights back against the behemoth. House of Black then intervenes and attacks but then Sting emerges from the Coffin his trusty baseball bat in hand taking care of Matthews and causing Malakai to back off. The match continues and ends when Darby uses a chain to hang and dangle Brody from the ropes and cause him to pass out and fall into the coffin.
• AEW Interim World Championship. Jon Moxley vs Chris Jericho, Jericho this time reverts back to his Lionheart persona, shaving his beard and dressing up as he did in the 90s. The two would go at it and Jericho would get busted open bleeding profusely. The JAS intervenes and when Jericho hits The Judas Effect it seems like he will win, only for Moxley to be the first person to ever kick out of it. In the end, Moxley would counter The Lion Tamer and lock in a sleeper hold and leave Jericho with no choice but to tap out.
  • But then after the match, when The Jericho Appreciation Society attacks and tries to lay out Moxley. Cult of Personailty hits and CM Punk returns from injury and easily takes out Jericho's henchmen and sending Jericho out of the ring. He and Moxley have a staredown to end the show.
• Andrade El Idolo and Rush reunite and team up for the first time in seven years and face The Lucha Bros in a tornado tag match that ends with the former team the victors.

August 17, 2022: AEW House of the Dragon

• Knowing the AEW World Championship must be unified, CM Punk and Jon Moxley head into this episode of Dynamite by exchanging a war of words, bringing up a lot of references during their time in the WWE. Punk opens the night with his usual pipebomb rhetoric by calling out "Hangman" Adam Page to a rematch for his title, calling him a coward when he did not answer. He then moved on to Moxley and in his speech, proclaimed him "the third best guy" of not just The Blackpool Combat Club, but also from his previous faction, which Punk argues is "a recurring theme" in Jon's career, and as AEW Interim World Champion, he is only second to Punk. He then gets under Jon's skin further by insulting his best friend and how he is only "the third best Eddie" he ever faced and "the second best Kingston" he ever shared a locker room with. When Punk brings up at AEW All Out, he states Moxley will not be the first "Jo(h)n" he beat in Chicago for a world title. Moxley heads into the ring to tell Punk that the only reason Punk is even in AEW is because he ran out of money, but Punk fires back at Moxley's frequent bleeding. Both men then had enough and proceeded to exchange punches, forcing personnel and security to separate them.
  • Although this is but a brief respite, when Tony Nese and "Smart" Mark Sterling are scheduled for a segment, Moxley shoves the two away and demands CM Punk continue their fight in the ring. Not only does Punk oblige and security are forced to stop them again, Tony Khan makes it official that the unification match for the world title will happen next week instead of AEW All Out
• With both men having won a singles match against each other (Bryan back in February 2022 on Dynamite, Daniel winning last week at AEW Quake by the Lake), Daniel Garcia challenges The American Dragon to a 2 out of 3 Falls Match. In what could be Garcia's best singles match in AEW thus far, The Red Death makes quick work of Bryan by reversing his own "Dragon Tamer" submission move into a piledriver, then knocking out Danielson via the "Dragon Sleeper" technique, giving Garcia the first fall. However, Bryan quickly capitalizes with a surprise roll-up on Garcia for the second fall. At one fall apiece, The Red Death starts utilizing a few of Danielson's techniques, including the Busakiku knee and foot stomps to Bryan's head. When Garcia tries to use another piledriver, Bryan catches him in the triangle choke, leading into the LeBell Lock and additional elbow blows to the head. All this combined is finally too much for Garcia, and he is knocked out, giving Bryan the second fall and win.
  • Post-match, Bryan extends a hand in respect to Garcia for fighting well, but Chris Jericho, who was at commentary, blindsides Danielson and begins beating him. When Daniel stops Chris, the latter tells him explicitly to think about what he's doing as disobeying Jericho is tantamount to betrayal, but the crowd wants none of it as they chant for Garcia's name and yell "You're a wrestler!", a possible Foreshadowing that The Red Death isn't meant to be a sports entertainer for long.
• After more than 277 days since his absence due to injuries, Kenny Omega returns to AEW for the first trios championship tournament match with The Young Bucks against La Facción Ingobernable.

August 24, 2022

• Jon Moxley crushing CM Punk in under 4 minutes to become the Undisputed AEW World Champion.
• In a wild and crazy trios championship tournament match, Death Triangle teams up to face United Empire's Will Ospreay and Aussie Open. The teams pull out all the stops for over twenty five minutes of action as they face one another

August 31, 2022

• With a spot in The Trios Tournament Finals at stake, The United Empire faces Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks in The Main Event. The six men pull out all the stops in front of a wild crowd with multiple highlights

September 7, 2022

• Due to Real Life situations that unfolded after AEW All Out, new AEW World Trios Champions had to be crowned. The belts would be decided between Death Triangle vs The Best Friends and Orange Cassidy, groups that have been rivals since the beginning of AEW. Death Triangle would emerge victorious and become the second AEW World Trios Champions.

September 14, 2022

• With the winner facing Jon Moxley in the finals to crown to a new AEW World Champion, Bryan Danielson and Chris Jericho faced in the main event. Bryan wins and will now face Jon Moxley as the two have a staredown to close the show.

September 21, 2022: AEW Dynamite Grand Slam

• Prior to the show, Tony Khan promised this year's edition of Dynamite Grand Slam would be none like before; given the events that followed, this night was one to remember for the New York crowd.
  • During the September 16, 2022 episode of Rampage, Chris Jericho interrupted Claudio Castagnoli, claiming one of the few world championship titles he's never acquired is the one from Ring of Honor, thus issued a challenge for the belt at Grand Slam; Claudio accepted and the night opened with this match with Chris playing up his Heel antics, such as slapping Claudio after the "code of honor" handshake, even trying to use former-Ring of Honor owner Cary Silkin as a shield to take a cheap shot at the defending champion. After Claudio uses his giant swing technique on Chris for a whopping fifteen-rotations and a lariat, but couldn't get the pinfall, The Wizard cheekily grabs his baseball bat Floyd to use, but the Swiss strongman easily takes it away. As referee Aubrey Edwards is distracted by getting rid of Floyd, Jericho deals a low-blow to Claudio with the Judas Effect for good measure to achieve the win, making him an eight-time world champion with the Ring of Honor Championship.
  • Ever since their monumental match against Swerve in our Glory at AEW All Out, The Acclaimed has been on fire and was given a second chance to redeem their loss at Dynamite Grand Slam for the AEW World Tag Team Championships. Although Swerve Strickland and "Limitless" Keith Lee dominated most of this re-match (with Lee even pulling a Hurricanrana and a moonsault from the second rope), "Platinum" Max Caster and Anthony Bowens remained determined to win. When Keith is accidentally hammered by Swerve using Bowens' boombox, The Acclaimed tried to capitalized on the downed Lee, but Max landed on the ring hurting his knee while trying to use the "Mic Drop". Once Swerve hit a 450-maneuver on his opponents outside of the ring, Billy Gunn got into Swerve's face, giving Anthony the time to recuperate for a rolling elbow strike, followed by Daddy Ass hitting his "Fame-asser" on Swerve while the referee was distracted by Keith as he wasn't tagged in. With the Mic Drop and Bowens' "The Arrival" used on Swerve, the former achieved the pinfall, making them the ninth AEW World Tag Team Champions, something The Acclaimed has been chasing since November 2020 when they first formed.
  • Toni Storm's AEW Women's Interim World Championship is put on the line again, this time in a four-way match against Britt Baker, Serena Deeb and Athena. With the Faces and Heels clearly established from the start of the match, the women don't let his bout go easy with Toni and Serena locking in a single-leg crab submission move on Britt and Athena, respectively, while hitting each other half-way into the match. Not to be outdone, Athena lifted both Britt and Serena for a dual suplex, even getting a near-pinfall on Storm before Deeb broke up the count. After throwing Serena out of the ring, Athena gets a DDT from Toni, but Britt catches the champion off her guard with a crucifix pin, until Toni is able to reverse that to score the win on Britt instead. Post-match, as the Heels beat on Toni and Athena, Jamie Hayter runs down to the ring, seemingly still at odds with Britt, who cost Jamie her chance at the interim title at AEW All Out, but sides with her friend and joins in. Before Britt can use the "Lockjaw" on Storm, "Zombified" by Falling in Reverse is played in the Arthur Ashe Stadium as a single name is shown on the wrestling screens - Saraya. As the crowd went unglued at the newest AEW debut, Britt is dumbfounded by Saraya's appearance and clears the ring with Serena and Jamie. The segment ends with Saraya mouthing "This is my house!" towards Britt, hugging Toni and Athena in the ring afterwards.

October 5, 2022

• Two behemoths, Wardlow and Brian Cage go at it for The TNT Championship with Wardlow facing his toughest challenge in his reign, the two powerful men going at it with Cage proving he is indeed a Machine. But Wardlow is not ready to lose his Title just yet as he manages to get Cage up and deliver The Powerbomb Symphony to retain.

October 12, 2022

• Orange Cassidy finally becomes a Champion in AEW when he defeats Pac to win The All Atlantic Championship in the Main Event.

October 18, 2022: AEW Dynamite Title Tuesday

• In another display of his mic skills and promo work, MJF interrupts a segment between Tony Schiavone and William Regal to call out the latter for what he did to him years earlier.

November 23, 2022

• Chris Jericho defends The Ring of Honor World Championship against New Japan Pro Wrestling's Tomohiro Ishii, who is one of the toughest in pro wrestling and shows Jericho why as they face one another as he shows everyone why he embodies Strong Style as Jericho was in for the fight of his life against The Stone Pitbull.

December 7, 2022

• Ricky Starks' promo against MJF, in which he deconstructs his entire character and promo style that he can only go for the lowest hanging fruit and blames everyone for his problems instead of accepting it. He also brings up and points out that unlike Max, he doesn't think doing fan meet and greets is beneath him as Ricky goes on about how he is there for the shows, for the fans, and that Ricky delivers every week. Bringing up how he lived in his car and he took care of his Mother during his difficult times. When MJF tries to attack, Ricky spears him out of his boots.

December 28, 2022: New Year's Smash

• The Blackpool Combat Club's Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli takes on Top Flight. It's a momentum test for The Martin Brothers as they face Moxley and the reigning ROH World Champion but Darius and Dante show they belong in the ring with them. Moxley and Claudio also show that despite being singles wrestlers they can work as a team as they won the bout.
• The Elite and Death Triangle's Best of 7 series will go the distance as Omega and The Bucks rally from a 3-1 deficit to tie it up in a falls count anywhere match.

2023

January 4th, 2023

• After a quick and emphatic victory over Tony Nese, Bryan Danielson takes to the mic and declares he still wants to fight, and calls out the AEW Champion, MJF. MJF begs off, claiming that as the champ, Bryan needs to earn a match against him, but not to worry, MJF's already got an opportunity for him: if Bryan can win a match on Dynamite every week until February 8th, he'll get the match with MJF at Revolution 2023. Bryan...refuses, knowing full well that a) MJF has a history of doing this to anyone who wants to face him and Moving the Goalposts in the process, and b) nothing's stopping him from running through his opponents and becoming #1 contender anyway. This riles up MJF so much that when Bryan offers to take his deal in exchange for getting to set the stipulation at Revolution, he jumps at it, and Bryan calls his shot: the match at Revolution will be a 60 Minute Iron Man Match.

January 11, 2023

• The show opens up with Jon Moxley facing Adam Page as the feud that had been brewing between them comes to a head at last.
• Bryan Danielson vs Konosuke Takeshita
• The Main Event and final match of The Best of 7 series for The Trios Titles between Death Triangle and The Elite culminates in a Ladder Match. Needless to say the two teams don't disappoint as they go all out as in the end, Omega climbs the ladder and claims the titles winning the belts for his team.

January 18, 2023

• Top Flight score the biggest wins of their career as Darius and Dante defeat The Young Bucks in a major upset, cementing themselves as a top tier team.
• Bryan Danielson vs Bandido
• In The Main Event for The TNT Championship, Darby Allin defends against New Japan Pro Wrestling's Kushida. Kushida uses his technical wrestling skills to dissect Darby's shoulder, even catching him in a dive to apply an armbreaker as he sets up his finisher The Hoverboard Lock. But Darby, ever The Determinator refuses to give up and manages to slip out and score the win and retain his Title.

February 15th, 2023

• Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli vs Preston Vance and Rush in a Texas Tornado Tag Match, they rip each other apart with both Moxley and Vance bleeding by the end of it with BCC eventually coming out on top.
• When Jon Moxley accompanied by Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli confront Adam Page and taunt him about not having any friends to have his back Evil Uno, John Silver and Alex Reynolds come down to defend the cowboy.
  • Especially awesome for Evil Uno who doesn't hesitate to step up to Jon Moxley 3-time AEW champion and proclaiming he isn't afraid of him slapping him in the face.
• Christopher Daniels refusing the bribe MJF gave him to badmouth Bryan Danielson and instead talking about how Danielson may very well be the very best wrestler he's ever met.
• Christian Cage returns and beats up Jungle Boy after a hard fought match against Brian Cage.

March 1st, 2023

• Orange Cassidy beating William Morriesy in the opening bout with 3 Orange Punches one of those off the top rope to retain the All-Atlantic championship.
  • And afterwards subbing in for the Best Friends with Dan Hausen to win the Casino Tag Team Battle Royal later that night.
• Will Hobbs winning the Face of the Revolution ladder match and earning a shot for the TNT title.
• Jon Moxley cutting a frenzied, manic promo against Hangman Adam Page as they head towards a Texas Death Match at Revolution dripping blood and refusing to back down from Page despite respecting him.
  Moxley: This time I will leave no doubt, Hangman you are a great wrestler, you are even a great man. But you are NOT THE SAME ANIMAL AS ME!
• Bryan Danielson knocking MJF down to size at the end of the night telling him he's going to 'get his fucking head kicked in' sending MJF retreating in visible fear.

April 5th, 2023

• Tony Khan has a big announcement to make: their first international PPV is scheduled to take place in the UK on Sunday August 27th this year. For the event, AEW have booked the Wembley Stadium, by far the biggest venue they've ever tried to fill (the rebuilt and expanded version of the stadium where WWE famously held SummerSlam 1992), with 90,000 seats. If AEW can even sell 40,000 tickets they'll consider it a success (and with over 25,000 fans pre-booking tickets as soon as the event was announced, this would be low-balling it). But the big twist was the revealed name of the event: AEW All In.
• The main event saw FTR take on The Gunns, the much-hated tag team champions, with their AEW careers on the line against The Gunns' belts. With rumours flying about FTR letting their contracts expire to return to WWE, there was real tension that this could be FTR's last match in the company, and the match had a number of nail-biting false finishes, including The Gunns shamelessly cheating right in front of referee Paul Turner, hoping to retain their belts through losing by DQ (since FTR had promised that they would leave AEW if they failed to win the belts, not the match), but Turner used his referee's discretion to initially refuse to DQ them for a low blow on Dax, and then when he was reluctantly about to call for the bell after another nut shot, Cash caught his hand to beg for the match to continue. After Dax kicked out of a belt shot counter to his diving headbutt, FTR eventually got the better of the upstarts, pinning both Gunns with simultaneous roll-ups, becoming 2-time AEW Tag Team Champions and securing their future with the promotion as Mark Briscoe came out to celebrate with them.

AEW Rampage

2021

August 13, 2021

• The debut episode of Rampage already started with a bang: Christian Cage won the Impact World Championship from Kenny Omega, with a Killswitch on a steel chair that Omega had tried to cheat Christian with. This was Omega's first singles loss on AEW in two years, and Christian's first world title win in ten years.

August 20, 2021: AEW The First Dance

• After seven and a half years and several weeks of teases on Dynamite, CM Punk has returned to a crowd of 15,000 in his hometown of Chicago chanting his name perfectly to the beat of "Cult of Personality".
  • Punk's following ten-minute promo was a testament to how beloved he still is as nearly everything he did got pops - from sitting down to taking off his hoodie!
  • To top it all off, Punk has one more surprise for the United Center that was ten years in the waiting: free ice cream bars!^note This is a reference to his infamous "pipe bomb" promo from WWE, where Punk wanted them to bring back their branded ice cream bars...which they did, but only after Punk left WWE.

August 27, 2021

• The Jurassic Express vs. The Lucha Bros with the winners getting the title shot for the AEW World Tag Championships.

September 10, 2021

• PAC and Andrade El Idolo finally square off on the September 10th episode and they didn't disappoint.

September 17, 2021

• Having won the AEW Tag Team World Championships from All Out 2021, The Lucha Bros. defend their titles against The Butcher and The Blade: when The Blade deliberately ties Penta's mask to the ropes by the cords, holding him there, seeing his brother about to get defeated, he makes the ultimate sacrifice and willingly takes off his own mask to escape and get Fenix to counter The Butcher and score the pin to retain the belts.

September 24, 2021: AEW Rampage Grand Slam

• CM Punk made his televised in-ring return to action, defeating "Powerhouse" Will Hobbs in his first match back on TV in seven and a half years, following an unprovoked attack on him during commentary on the September 15th episode of Dynamite.
• The main event is a Lights Out match between Suzuki-gun^note Lance Archer and Minoru Suzuki vs. Eddie Kingston and Jon Moxley. Needless to say, they went right at one another with all four using everything they could get their hands on. In the biggest surprise of the night, Homicide makes his shocking AEW debut helping out Kingston and Moxley.

October 1, 2021

• Bryan Danielson gets his first official win in AEW defeating Nick Jackson. Afterwards, when The Elite come out to antagonize Danielson, Jurassic Express and Christian Cage arrive to even the odds with Jungle Boy putting Adam Cole in the Snare Trap. When Bryan goads Kenny Omega to get back into the ring as The Young Bucks lie defeated on the outside, Kenny gets himself pulled into Danielson's "LeBell Lock" submission hold. The episode ends with Kenny and Adam tapping out from the respective holds.

October 15, 2021

• Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki: the crowd was on fire from start to finish, with Suzuki knocking the soul out of Danielson multiple times; Bryan barely ekes out a win after pulling every move in his arsenal. Making this even more unbelieveable was that this took place on the Buy-In pre-show^note As a response to WWE Smackdown adding an extra half an hour onto the end of its show. This dream match was aired for free on YouTube!
• The show proper opened with CM Punk vs. Matt Sydal, which was no slouch either and a full display of both men's skills. Note that this came right after Danielson vs. Suzuki, and still didn't drain the Miami crowd.

October 22, 2021

• PAC vs. Andrade El Idolo, round 2: this time, PAC wins and evens the score.

October 29, 2021

• Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston in the second round of the AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament: Kingston batters and bloodies Danielson's chest with chops and blows turning it a deep red as the two go at it, but Bryan never backs down from him. At one point, Eddie retaliates Bryan's elbow strike with his Uraken back-fist, knocking Danielson to the mat. Just as Kingston crawls to pin the American Dragon, he gets locked in Danielson's Triangle Choke, leaving him nowhere to go. Coupled with Bryan's continued elbow attacks to his head, in a last act of defiance, the Mad King flips him off before passing out.
• Dante Martin vs Matt Sydal: on their third encounter, the young up-and-comer Dante finally defeats the veteran Sydal in a typically high-energy contest filled with jaw-dropping athleticism.

November 5th, 2021

• Following their "backstage incident" one week earlier on the October 29 episode of Rampage, due to Eddie Kingston's loss to Bryan Danielson in the AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament, he confronts CM Punk and engages in a fiery promo with him - a must see engagement as Eddie calls out Punk, claiming he's been "mistreated" by Punk since their days in the independent scene, while Punk retorts that Eddie failed himself for not living up to his peers' standard, even calling him "a bum". The confrontation finally turns physical when the Mad King suggests that after he finishes beating up Punk at AEW Full Gear 2021, the latter should "quit again and leave for seven years". Punk interrupts Eddie with a headbutt for the insult and the brawl is on, to the point where referees, backstage personnel and wrestlers have to break them up.

December 10, 2021

• After becoming the epitome of Memetic Mutation in AEW (up to and including CM Punk's "Send Hook!" when he called out Team Taz months earlier), Hook finally makes his in-ring debut against Fuego del Sol and he does not disappoint: not only does he beat Fuego cleanly, Hook is fully confident throughout the entire Rampage segment, from his walk down to the ring to his grappling and strikes against Fuego, ending off the match with a version of the kata ha jime, "Redrum"^note Incidentially, Hook's Real Life father Taz, also used the kata ha jime, "Tazzmission", in his WWE debut at the 2000 Royal Rumble against Kurt Angle to win.

December 31, 2021: AEW Rampage New Year's Smash

• To cap off 2021, Anna Jay and Tay Melo are placed in a Street Fight against The Bunny and Penelope Ford, as the latter two frequently ended their matches throughout the year against Anna and/or Tay using brass knuckles. Having had enough, the two pairs of women decide to use just about every weapon possible to destroy the other. The number of insane spots throughout the bout ranged from a wine bottle shattered onto the side of Tay's head and making her bleed to The Bunny getting cut by the very same brass knuckles that Anna Jay took from her at the start of the match and used it against her to a moonsault from the top turnbuckle by Penelope onto Tay lying on top of a table. By mid-match, half of The Bunny's face is drizzled in her own blood, similar to Britt Baker's appearance during her match against Thunder Rosa at AEW St. Patrick's Day Slam. Once The Bunny took out the thumbtacks, Anna Jay went on the offensive and suplexed her onto the tacks from the top turnbuckle, while Tay delivered a Gotch-style piledriver against Penelope onto a second table. When The Bunny retrieved the brass knuckles to finish off Anna, she forgot about the pile of thumbtacks in the middle of the ring and slipped on it, giving Anna Jay the chance to use "The Queen Slayer" submission move, but with the added bonus of having wrapped barbed wire across her arm and choking the life out of The Bunny with that wire, forcing the latter to tap out.

2022

January 7, 2022

• Jake Atlas vs. Adam Cole on this episode was a much-welcomed showcase for the former - a star prospect ever since AEW was getting off the ground - and an embraced return for him after a 10-Minute Retirement. The match's finish also saw an excellent display of professionalism and improvisation on Adam Cole's part, as Atlas unfortunately legitimately injured his knee near the fight's climax, resulting in him being in absolutely no position to take Cole's Panama Sunrise. Instead, Cole turned it into a simple kneebar submission, which allowed Atlas to safely tap out while honoring Kayfabe as a logical finisher after such an injury.

January 14, 2022

• Ever since his return on the December 8th episode of Dynamite from spinal fusion surgery, Trent Beretta has been looking and performing better than before. He opened this Rampage episode against Adam Cole - a match filled with multiple counters and reversals, from Trent playing possum just as Adam got ready for a superkick, leading into a half-and-half back-throw, to a piledriver on the apron and negating Cole's Panama Sunrise into Trent's "Strong Zero". Unfortunately, true to their Heel nature, The Young Bucks, reDRagon and Britt Baker distracted the referee by brawling with The Best Friends and Kris Statlander, giving Cole the chance to nail Trent with a low blow and The Boom for the win.
• The main event of Rampage would be Jurassic Express' first title defense of the AEW World Tag Team Championship against John Silver and Alex Reynolds of the Dark Order. The latter two prove they are just as deadly as any other partnership in the tag team division as they don't hold back on Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus. The biggest spot in the match would be Jungle Boy prepping Reynolds for a superplex off of the turnbuckle, but Silver gets Jungle Boy into the German suplex, led by Luchasaurus giving John the powerbomb. All three techniques are delivered to thunderous applause and chants of "AEW!"
  • To hammer home how coordinated John and Alex are, the two deal Jungle Boy a combination of a kick to the chest, followed by a rolling elbow strike, a flying kick to the side of the head, a Stunner, German suplex and finally the Jacknife hold, narrowly succeeding with a pinfall win at the last fraction of a second as Jungle Boy kicks out.

January 21, 2022

• Jon Moxley's return to ring action against "All Ego" Ethan Page: the story of a man who spent time away to take care of himself, Moxley shook off the ring rust from a near-3 month absence and proved he still has it against his opponents. Although Page didn't make it easy for him, Moxley took command throughout the match, forcing Page into a bulldog choke, knocking the latter out into unconsciousness for the win. As Jon left through the crowd, the segment segued into Bryan Danielson, who approached Moxley and sarcastically clapped at his victory, teasing a possible feud because of Jon leaving for rehab in the midst of the AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament (Miro replaced Moxley in the tournament beginning in the semi-finals).
• Although Roppongi Vice (Trent Beretta/Rocky Romero) was scheduled to face The Young Bucks, it would be singles competition between Trent and Nick Jackson instead, continuing their feud from New Japan. Throughout the match, both men put on a stellar display of athleticism, with Trent taking the brunt of Nick's Canadian Destroyer from the ropes, including a Senton Atomico on the ramp leading to the ring from the top turnbuckle, with a follow-up 450 splash, yet Nick remains unable to get the pinfall. Ultimately, Trent wins the match cleanly by countering Nick's superkick into the Strong Zero, securing a long-awaited victory by The Best Friends over The Elite after weeks of being antagonized by them.
• Still fresh from her performance in the street fight at New Year's Smash, top-ranked Anna Jay proclaimed before her match against Jade Cargill for her TBS Championship that "TBS" wouldn't stand for "That Bitch Show", but will be known as "That Bitch Slayer" when she wins. The fight is considered by many to be their best singles' match up to this point in AEW, with such excellent in-ring chemistry while looking at playing to the crowd and off of each other's strengths. Although Jade retains the belt and an undefeated 25-0 singles competition winning streak, an excellent highlight of the match is Anna slipping out of Cargill's "Jaded" finisher, kicking her knees in and locking in the Queen Slayer.

March 4, 2022

• With less than 48 hours until AEW Revolution, Sammy Guevara defends his TNT Championship against Andrade el Idolo and Darby Allin in a three-way match to open up this episode of Rampage. Given that Sammy and Darby will be teaming up in a trios match with Sting against Andrade, Matt Hardy and Isiah Kassidy at the pay-per-view, both men set aside some animosity to deal with and weaken Andrade first, but since this is a three-way bout, they quickly turn their attention to one another. An incredibly wild match, the biggest spot is when Sammy decides to suplex Darby from the top turnbuckle, only for Andrade to powerbomb Sammy, sending both men crashing to the ring. The climax would culminate with the Spanish God hitting the Go-To-Hell on Andrade after a Stunner reveral by Darby, who proceeds to throw Sammy out of the ring and deliver a quick Coffin Drop onto Andrade to steal a win, but Sammy is quick enough to head to the turnbuckle for a Senton onto Darby's back, successfully pinning Andrade and retaining the belt.
• With Penta Oscuro and PAC, Alex Abrahantes issues a challenge against The House of Black to a trios match at AEW Revolution. Malakai Black, Brody King and Buddy Matthews cannot believe Alex would even get in the ring with them, stating his "sacrifice to The House will be honored". As the three are about to attack Death Triangle, Alex reprimands The House of Black that he never said he was fighting them - as The House has their monster in Brody, Death Triangle has invited theirs...Erick Redbeard, who hasn't appeared in AEW since his surprise debut during the Brodie Lee Celebration of Life! Despite security attempting to stop any fighting, Redbeard lays waste to them, while Penta breaks one of the guards' arms, showing that he's serious about reverting to his dark persona in order to punish The House of Black.

April 8, 2022

• In what is arguably his best match in AEW yet, newly-crowned Ring of Honor Pure Champion Wheeler Yuta gets a re-match against Jon Moxley. Right from the start, Wheeler goes after Jon before he gets into the ring, intent on making sure he does not get a third loss to Moxley. Even though Yuta starts bleeding profusely after Jon slams his head into the steel ringsteps, Yuta goes full-blown Determinator for the entirety of the match, giving a body splash onto Jon, sending him through the timekeepr's table. By mid-match, Wheeler is giving Jon German suplexes and submission holds, including Bryan Danielson's stomps and the LeBell Lock for good measure; to Jon's absolute shock, not even the Paradigm Shift (two of them, in fact) are enough to put Yuta down, forcing a final Bulldog choke immediately after Yuta kicks out from the second Paradigm Shift to knock him out of commission for the win.
  • Post-match, William Regal and Danielson enter the ring with Regal incensed that Yuta nearly beat Moxley. As Wheeler beckons The Blackpool Combat Club to fight him, Regal offers a handshake that he previously refused from Yuta. With the crowd cheering and chanting Yuta's name, he shakes William's hand, earning his informal induction into The Blackpool Combat Club. As the episode closes, Yuta writes "BCC" with his own blood on his chest, while Moxley tells him "Now, the real work begins!"

June 10, 2022

• On the June 8th, 2022 episode of Dynamite, New Japan's United Empire leader Will Ospreay and his cohorts Aussie Open attacked FTR and Trent Beretta shocking the crowds with their appearance. Two days later on this episode of Rampage, the six faced off in a trios match.

June 24, 2022

• On the go home show to Forbidden Door, Rey Fenix and Andrade el Idolo face off putting on a spectacle. One of the highlights is that of Fenix hitting a Reverse Spanish Fly off of the top. In the end, Rush would make his television debut and prove to be the difference maker as he and Andrade would join together, reforming La Faccion Ingobernables, the stable they had started from their time in CMLL.

July 1, 2022: AEW Royal Rampage

• With a brand-new battle royal format, twenty men enter two seperate rings (from AEW Blood and Guts) to determine who will challenge for Jon Moxley's AEW Interim World Championship. It would wind up with Brody King and Darby Allin as the last from their respective "red" and "blue" rings. In a surprising twist, it's Brody who picks up the win by putting Darby into a rear-naked chokehold, then literally dangling him by his neck with his arms over the ring apron and dropping him to the floor after Allin is knocked out cold from the submission.

July 8, 2022

• Konosuke Takeshita vs Eddie Kingston, a hard hitting bout between the two that has Kingston eek out a win against a more than game Konosuke as the two push each other to the limit

July 29, 2022: AEW Fight for the Fallen

• After winning the rap battle at AEW Fyter Fest 2022 Week 2 on Rampage, The Acclaimed get the chance to determine their match stipulation against The Gunn Club. In the form of a diss track, "Platinum" Max Caster now called Austin and Colten Gunn "The Trash Boys" and chose a Dumpster Match for the August 3, 2022 episode of Dynamite^note A significant Call-Back as the first ever Dumpster Match was between Billy Gunn of The New Age Outlaws and Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie at Wrestlemania XIV.

August 5, 2022

• Jon Moxley faces Mance Warner who is making his televised debut (having previously made his AEW debut the night before on a special editon of Elevation). The two basically being mirror reflections of the other have a hard hitting brawl that has both busted open. Mance would give as good as Moxley gave him, but in the end Moxley would be victorious after making him pass out with The Bulldog Choke.

September 9, 2022

• Claudio Castagnoli defends The Ring Of Honor World Championship against Dax Hardwood of FTR. Dax again shows he's more than just a tag team guy as he takes Claudio to the limit as the two go at it. In the end, Claudio would lock in The Sharpshooter and successfully retain.

September 23, 2022: AEW Rampage Grand Slam

• The Great Muta Sting's first rival of his iconic career makes a shocking appearance at the opening match of the show between him and Darby Allin vs The House of Black. Muta appears as the two rivals with a thirty year history stareoff. Only for Muta to come to Sting's aid as he sprays his infamous Green Mist into Buddy Matthew's face.

November 4, 2022

• Orange Cassidy defends his All-Atlantic Championship against the most shocking of opponents, NJPW legend Katsuyori Shibata, once believed forced into retirement by injury, now following up on his previous shocking appearance at Forbidden Door earlier in the year to cash in the debt Cassidy owed him for saving him from a beatdown at the hands of The United Empire. The two men wrestled a blinder of a match where each stayed true to their own styles- Orange playing mind games with his "Sloth Style", and Shibata responding by smashing the crap out of him. In the end, Cassidy is able to evade the PK and counter with a second Orange Punch to down Shibata for the win in what is arguably the biggest match of his career.

November 18, 2022

• Eddie Kingston and Ortiz in the Main Event face the returning sensation Konosuke Takeshita and his partner, who is none other than the Legendary Jun Akiyama.

November 25, 2022: Black Friday

• Top Flight challenges FTR for The Ring of Honor Tag Titles, for Top Flight it's a sign that they are a top tier team despite Darius' injury woes and for FTR, it's another showing of why they are the top team in the world as they face the aerial assault of The Brothers.

December 9th, 2022

• Jon Moxley takes on Konosuke Takeshita, The Ace of AEW taking on a future star as the two deliver.

2023

January 13th, 2023

• AEW have their traditional yearly "shockingly gruesome women's hardcore deathmatch" early this year as last year's victors Anna Jay and Tay Melo (now heels) take on the unusual team of the rough-and-tumble Ruby Soho and the smiling cheerful crowd favourite Willow Nightingale in a street fight. As expected, the four women go all out to meet the usual standard of these horrific matches, with Ruby getting nightmarishly busted open to the tune of at least 0.7 Mutas when she gets a trash can jammed over her head and stomped on the outside. Anna Jay takes a horrifying bump when Willow gives her a powerbomb off the stage and overshoots the table, with Anna going almost flat onto the floor, while Tay puts a now blood-soaked Ruby through another table at ringside with a Gotch-style pildriver off the apron- which Ruby somehow kicks out of. The finish comes when Tay brings out the thumbtacks, only for Ruby to eventually hit Destination Unknown on Tay, sending her face-first into them for the win.

AEW Collision

2023

Pay-Per-View Events

2019

Double or Nothing

• The first pay-per-view to be produced by AEW (and second to include its wrestlers-turned-executives in The Elite counting the independent ALL IN), sold out in FOUR minutes. Cody Rhodes, AEW executive vice president, said it is the first ever same-day sellout for a Las Vegas pro wrestling show.
  • Dylan Frymyer, a video editor for AEW, is also a wrestler, performing as "Sunny Daze". In April 2019, Cody announced that he would be part of the Double or Nothing Over Budget Battle Royal (later changed to the Casino Battle Royal). Dylan was in tears when asked about it. AEW even showed a picture of 15-year-old Dylan with the legendary Diamond Dallas Page.
• Speaking of the Casino Battle Royal, the gimmick-based match format is interesting. Four sets of five wrestlers enter the ring in order based on what suit of playing card they draw (hearts, clubs, spades, diamonds). The wrestler who draws the Joker card is the 21st and last wrestler to enter. Come the event, who was Joker? "Hangman" Adam Page, the eventual winner. Oh, and some of the entrants? Glacier, Billy Gunn, Tommy Dreamer and Shawn Spears (the former Tye Dillinger).
• AEW also stunned the Double or Nothing crowd and fans watching at home with the cameos of Awesome Kong, who had gone three years between matches, and Bret Hart, who introduced the AEW World Championship belt.
• Cody vs. Dustin Rhodes. The match was instantly held up as one of the best, if not the best, singles match of both brothers' careers. This is the match that the WWE had refused to put over, back when these guys used to be with the company, because they felt it wouldn't sell tickets. Cody vs Dustin ended up being the most talked-about match on the PPV. And how awesome it was? It got five stars from Dave Meltzer and won Match of the Year for 2019 from Pro Wrestling Illustrated.
• The tag team match for the AAA Tag Team Championships between The Young Bucks and the Lucha Brothers (Pentagón Jr. and Rey Fénix) was an absolute barn-burner, an absolutely exhausting display of the high energy style both teams have mastered, with the Bucks ultimately emerging victorious.
• The main event didn't disappoint as well. Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho tore down the house in a match for the ages. But the best bit was after the fight: while Jericho single-handedly took credit for AEW and gloated that he deserved a thank you, along came JON MOXLEY!
• Further comments about Orange Cassidy's Memetic Badassery have already been made on other pages, but it's undeniably impressive that one of his signature moves is a kip-up with his hands in his pockets.

Fyter Fest

• The Elite are no strangers to being video game fans, and for their match against Pentagon Jr, Fenix and Laredo Kid, make their entrance. The Young Bucks dressing up as Ryu and Ken and Omega making his Entrance as Akuma.
• At The Buy In, Private Party are the unknowns of the opener but by the end of the match, the crowd is unanimously chanting for them as both looked like stars.
• The CZW-level unsanctioned fight between Jon Moxley and Joey Janela. It starts with tables and chairs, and things don't appear to be as violent and crazy as advertised. Then Mox gets a barbed wire enveloped chair which he gets to use on the Bad Boy. From then on, things undergo a Serial Escalation: tables with barbed wire, Janela doing an elbow drop on Moxley from the top of a ladder, and thumbtacks. Moxley wins by doing a Death Rider on Janela over thumbtacks.
  • Possibly the most wince-inducing moment came when Moxley tore Janela's boots off, picked him up, then instead of slamming him just put him back down on his feet again... on the thumbtacks!
• Darby Allin vs Cody, a shining example of how to make a new star in only 20 minutes. While it's clear than Cody is stronger and more experienced than Darby, he just can't put the relentless younger man away, with the match going to the full 20 minute limit to end in a draw, and the previously unknown Darby emerging a made man.

All Out

• The PPV itself sold out fifteen minutes after tickets were put on sale.
• Kenny Omega was set to face Jon Moxley, but an infection forced Moxley to pull out. Rather than the match being canceled, a new opponent is announced. That man? PAC.
• The Ladder War for The AAA Tag Titles between The Young Bucks and The Lucha Brothers. With both teams going wild, in the end, The Lucha Brothers climb the ladders and retrieve the belts.
• Orange Cassidy's appearance and doing a no-hands suicide dive to take out The Dark Order to save The Best Friends.

Full Gear

• Proud N' Powerful (Ortiz and Santana) kick off the PPV vs The Young Bucks. The heels win, but it's still an excellent match where the Bucks defy their Spot Monkey reputation with excellent storytelling and psychology after Nick injured his leg kicking the ring post.
  • After winning, Sammy Guevara joins his allies in the ring to do a post-match beatdown on the Bucks, and who comes to the aid than the iconic tag team and idols of The Bucks, The Rock 'n' Roll Express, who have scores to settle with Ortiz and Santana. Ricky Morton (that's 63-year-old Ricky Morton) hit a Canadian Destroyer and Tope Suicida to see the heels off.
• AEW World Championship Chris Jericho vs Cody. Thirty brutal minutes, including a horrific spot where Cody misses a dive and smacks headfirst onto the steel entrance ramp, ripping his head open, before a dramatic ending where MJF throws in the towel to save Cody from an inescapable Lion Tamer.
  • MJF after the match gets a villainous moment afterward and becomes the most hated man in wrestling, with all of Baltimore wanting his head.
• Lights Out: Kenny Omega vs Jon Moxley, an unsanctioned match not for the faint of heart. We'd been waiting for this clash ever since Double or Nothing, and Mox and Omega made sure we were not waiting in vain.

2020

Revolution

• Darby Allin vs Sammy Guevara
  • An insanely fast-paced and brutal exhibition, the highlight of which was Sammy laying Darby out on a table outside the ring and hitting him with a 630 Senton off the top turnbuckle- and this was before the match had even officially started!
• Kenny Omega and "Hangman" Adam Page vs. The Young Bucks for the AEW World Tag Titles
  • Not only a spectacular display of athleticism as always, but a masterclass in subtle, multilayered storytelling, as the tension between Page and the Young Bucks built to a boiling point with desperate peacemaker Omega in the middle. Once the dust had settled, Dave Meltzer gave it SIX STARS, calling it nothing less than the greatest tag-team match of all time!
• Jon Moxley vs. Chris Jericho for the AEW World Title
  • Some weeks after a gruesome eye injury from Jericho and the Inner Circle, Moxley revealed near the end of the match that his injured eye had healed far earlier than anyone would've expected.
• Orange Cassidy affirming his status as a Lethal Joke Character par excellence when he took "The Bastard" PAC, the man who's beaten and brutalized both Adam Page and Kenny Omega, to the absolute limit and may have very well won if not for some untimely interference by the Lucha Bros. As an aside, it's absolutely staggering how over Cassidy was with the crowd, possibly even more over than Cody or Moxley.

Double or Nothing

• The Casino Ladder Match kicks off the show, with "The Machine" Brian Cage making his debut as the mystery entrant. How does he enter the match? By carrying his own ladder out with him... and then ripping it in two with his bare hands!
• Cody vs Lance Archer to crown the First TNT Champion. Cody wins with two back-to-back Cross Rhodes, finally winning the big one after repeatedly coming up short in the past.
  • During the match, Archer's manager Jake Roberts tries to get involved bringing a bag to the ring no doubt containing a snake. But special guest and belt presenter, Boxing legend Iron Mike Tyson gets up from his seat and stands in front of Roberts who backs down from The Champ and flees.
• Hikaru Shida vs Nyla Rose in a No DQ match for The AEW Women's Championship. At the end of the match, after hitting Nyla with a flawless Falcon Arrow, Shida winds up and breaks her kendo stick across Rose's head, smacking the fight completely out of her. One more running knee to the face and Shida is the new AEW Women's Champion!
• Jon Moxley vs Brodie Lee. Even after a Paradigm Shift that sends both men through the stage, Moxley still cannot put the Exalted One away, as successive Paradigm Shifts only see the bloodied but determined Lee kicking out at the count of one, then two. Moxley has to resort to a rear-naked choke to render his monster opponent unconscious to retain his championship.
• The Main Event, Stadium Stampede. Words cannot describe the utter insanity and crazy fun Inner Circle and The Elite and Matt Hardy had fought against each other using the entire football stadium belonging to the Jacksonville Jaguars as their battleground. Highlights include:
  • Both teams coming out to full football entrances, complete with smoke and fire machines, cheerleaders and a marching band (in face masks), and The Inner Circle wearing football uniforms with numbers relevant to their respective histories.
  • The first clash between the teams starts with a kickoff-esque charge across the field against each other, with Kenny Omega's broom rendered useless against Ortiz's football helmet.
  • Hangman Adam page was not in The Elite's starting lineup and running a little late. Why? Because he was coming BY HORSE (which he uses to chase down Sammy Guevara).
  • Matt Jackson, who had been legitimately injured in the ribs due to a bad landing earlier in the week, climbs the goalposts and does a freakin' moonsault to Chris Jericho and Sammy.
  • Speaking of Sammy, he was back in the stadium after losing Adam Page in the backstage area. Adam, still on his horse, decides to just futz off to the bar.
  • Up in the stands, Proud and Powerful manage to separate Matt Hardy from Kenny Omega, and throw Matt into a swimming pool. They dunk Matt into the pool, and in response, up pops Matt Hardy Version 1 (he even gets a screen overlay, which even Ortiz and Santana can see, explaining he can hold his breath for 346 seconds). Matt gets dunked again, pops back up as Damascus (Tony Schiavone calls the pool 'The Lake of Reincarnation'), and tosses Proud and Powerful onto a table, puts Ortiz under a ceremonial bell, rings the bell, duct tapes Ortiz to a wheelchair when the man is stunned, and then locks Santana in an icebox.
  • Jake Hager is prowling the backstage area for Hangman page, spots Page's horse parked outside the bar, and joins Adam for a whiskey. They immediately start an honest to goodness bar fight after one drink, and Adam, in what Vince Verhei calls 'the spot of Hangman Page's dreams', gets thrown onto the bar and slid face down across the entire bar, tossing drinks and food all the way like in the old comedy cowboy movies.
    • Kenny Omega then comes in for the save, busts open four bottles of Bubbly on Hager's head, then gives Page a boost to perform the Buckshot Lariat onto Hager. Kenny and Adam then share a drink (milk for Kenny).
  • Back out on the field, Matt Jackson is doing repeated Northern Lights Suplexes onto Sammy Guevara, from one end of the field to the other, with his busted ribs. He scores a touchdown and begins to do the Alex Wright dance. The referee gives him a penalty for excessive celebration, and Matt superkicks the ref for his troubles.
  • Chris Jericho takes time out of fighting with Nick Jackson to give the Judas Effect onto the Jacksonville Jaguar's mascot (who, for some reason, decided to taunt Jericho).
  • Jericho then gets into an argument with referee Aubrey Edwards for what he thought should have been a three count, demanding they see a replay. Aubrey stands on her decision, and Jericho calls her a bad ref.
  • Nick Jackson decides to do a table spot onto Chris Jericho by running all the way up the stands, all the way back down the stands, then splashing onto Jericho, who is on a table, on the field, held down by Matt.
  • Sammy Guevara, still trying to get up after being suplexed literally across the field, gets a sprinkler to the face, and then Kenny Omega and Matt Hardy show up in a golf cart and begin chasing Sammy again. This time, Sammy manages to escape by jumping the fence and running up the stands.
    • Sammy manages to throttle Hardy against a raised platform, and who should come in for the save but... NEO-1, the upgraded version of the recently murdered Vanguard-1. NEO-1 manages to distract Sammy long enough for Kenny to take Sammy out, and then deliver the two-story-high One-Winged Angel onto Sammy for the win.

All Out

• Hikaru Shida defending her AEW's Women's Title against the reigning NWA Women's Champion Thunder Rosa. The two go out and put on a clinic that had those in attendance applauding.
• FTR becoming the new AEW Tag Team Champions ending Omega and Page's 200+ day reign, as well as their team.
• The Nightmare Family (Dustin Rhodes, QT Marshall, Scorpio Sky and Matt Cardona) avenging Cody by defeating The Dark Order and afterwards Dustin claims he's coming for Brodie Lee's TNT Championship.
• Orange Cassidy ends the feud between him and Chris Jericho winning the first ever Mimosa Mayhem match, ending with 2 wins to 1 and emerging a made man.
• Main Event: AEW World Champion Jon Moxley vs Challenger MJF. Despite the odds stacked against him, Moxley outsmarts MJF by hitting his banned finisher while the referee is distracted and retains and puts the first ever singles loss on MJF's record. It was a particular display of savviness from Moxley who, realising that Wardlow had distracted the ref to throw MJF his Dynamite Diamond Ring, decided that if MJF was going to cheat then he was perfectly justified in cheating first.
  • After the match while celebrating, Moxley spots his next challenger, Lance Archer in the crowd. Undaunted and unafraid he flips him off daring him to come try and take the belt.

Full Gear

• Former tag partners Kenny Omega and Adam Page set the tone for the show in the opener, putting on an instant classic.
• Darby Allin finally manages to defeat Cody and in the process becomes the new TNT Champion.
• Hikaru Shida retains the AEW Women's Championship against Nyla Rose, finally putting her down with repeated knee strikes until Nyla was unconscious.
• FTR and the Young Bucks in a long sought after dream match and it finally happens. Two teams who are regarded as the best today finally meet and they do not disappoint. FTR representing the wrestling tag style of the 80s and the Bucks representing the style of the new millennium. They pull out all the stops and in the end, the Young Bucks win and capture the AEW Tag Team Championship.
  • Dave Meltzer gave this bout 5.25 stars, and some people even claimed it was better than the already-legendary match between the Bucks and Omega/Page from Revolution earlier in the year.
• Jon Moxley vs Eddie Kingston in a match that consists of two words and five letters, "I Quit".
  • In the end, Moxley goes beyond the norm to end the match: he wraps barbed wire around his arm and locks in a chokehold on Eddie, not only cutting off his air but grinding the wire against his throat and jaw, forcing Eddie in tears to finally say it.

2021

Revolution

• Maki Itoh who had become a fan favorite the past month due to the Women's Tournament makes a surprise appearance that nobody was expecting.
• The Young Bucks retain the AEW Tag Titles over The Inner Circle's Jericho and MJF, making that the first time they've ever been beaten in tag action.
• AEW Women's Champion Hikaru Shida vs Tournament Winner Ryo Mizunami.
• After the months of tensions and escalating the feud, TNT Champion Darby Allin and Sting face Team Taz in a wild Street Fight.
• In the first time in a major US company, an Exploding Barbed Wired Deathmatch is held in The Main Event between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega. And while the post-match angle was one of AEW's most embarrassing botches due to faulty pyro, the match itself was pure, beautiful, horrible brutality, as Mox and Kenny built actual storytelling and psychology into a freakin' Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch!
  • During the match Omega seems to have Moxley pinned and is going to win, only for Moxley to kick one of the ropes and set off an explosion to break up the count and blind Omega.
• Despite the dud finish, Revolution turned out to have been a smashing success for AEW — the top-selling non-WWE North American PPV since 1999, surpassing even what WCW was able to make during its last years^note while WCW was on the downslide during its last 2 years of life, that was still in the late-90s wrestling boom when the business was bigger than it had ever been, and pulling in $7 million worth of PPV buys.

Double or Nothing

• For the first time in over a year, a show is held in front of a full crowd.
• The pre-show gives us Serena Deeb and Riho firing up the crowd.
• The show kicks off with Hangman Adam Page vs Brian Cage.
• The Young Bucks vs Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston for The AEW Tag Team Championships.
• Jungle Boy winning The Casino Battle Royale and the crowd becomes unglued and sings his theme song.
• Sting and Darby Allin defeat Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page getting revenge at last.
  • Sting, who some thought could never perform in ring-again, was able to use all his signature moves, such as the Scorpion Deathlock, and finally Pinning Scorpio Sky with the Scorpion Death Drop.
• The World's Strongest Man, Mark Henry is All Elite as he joins AEW as a commentary for the upcoming Rampage tv show
• Hikaru Shida's year-long reign as Women's Champion comes to an end, heralding the era of Britt Baker, DMD.
• AEW World Championship: Kenny Omega, PAC, Orange Cassidy in a triple threat match.
• Stadium Stampede II: The Inner Circle vs The Pinnacle. While the First Stadium Stampede set a very high bar, Stadium Stampede II proved to be very entertaining, violent, and still packed with action.
  • The ending for Stadium Stampede II proved to be a moment of awesome for not just Inner Circle, but the Crowd, as the match switched from cinematic to live as the fighting moved from TIAA Bank Field into Daily's Place, culminating in Sammy Guevara Pinning Shawn Spears, cheered on by the fans. The show closed as the crowd sung Judas as Inner Circle celebrated their victory.

All Out

• The event opened with Miro defending the TNT Championship against Eddie Kingston, putting on a slobberknocker of a match that was probably Miro's best in the company so far before he retained. Eddie even nearly won with a visual pinfall that the ref only missed because he was trying to replace a dislodged turnbuckle pad.
• The next match saw Jon Moxley take on NJPW legend Satoshi Kojima, the only man who responded to the open challenge Mox had issued to NJPW's locker room. After a brutal match that left both men's chests red from chops, Mox managed to win with two Paradigm Shifts (or Death Riders). He wasn't able to enjoy his victory, however, as after the bell out strolled his next challenger, a face from his past that he probably still has nightmares about- Minoru Suzuki! The King choked Moxley out and hit him with a Gotch Piledriver, standing tall, with a match between the two being announced for the next week's episode of Dynamite.
• Women's Champion Britt Baker and challenger Kris Statlander put on one of the best AEW women's matches of the year next, slugging it out in a contest that was easily Statlander's best match in the promotion, before Britt solidified herself as the top woman in AEW by winning clean as a whistle, without interference. She also added a new move to her arsenal, a Canadian Destroyer variant coming off the second rope called the "Pittsburgh Sunrise"...
  • Halfway through the match, Statlander gets knocked out of the ring, and is about to get counted out when Orange Cassidy takes off his sunglasses and starts yelling in her face to get up and get back into the ring, finally compelled to expose that hidden beating heart of gold of his because he cares for his friends and wants them to win.
• AEW maintained its reputation for providing the best tag team wrestling matches in the world with the AEW Tag Team Championship match, contested between the champion Young Bucks and their archnemeses the Lucha Bros inside a steel cage. An insane spotfest to rival or even exceed the best the two teams had ever done before, the two brother pairs beat the holy hell out of each other (including the Bucks tearing the Lucha Brothers' masks and using a shoe studded with thumbtacks to make them bleed like stuck pigs), ending with Rey Fenix soaring off the top of the cage to wipe the Bucks out before joining his brother Penta to finish Nick Jackson with the spike piledriver, finally winning the big one in AEW. Instantly acclaimed as Match of the Night, a serious contender for Match of the Year, and a worthy successor to the Bucks' matches against Page & Omega at Revolution 2020 and FTR at Full Gear 2020. Importantly, this made the Lucha Brothers dual tag-team champions (holding both AAA and AEW tag-team belts simultaneously) in two major promotions from two different countries simultaneously, a pretty much unheard-of feat. Finally, Dave Meltzer gave the match 5.75 stars in his review.
• The women's Casino Battle Royale for a future shot at Britt Baker's championship was won by surprise Joker entrant and new AEW signing Ruby Soho, who finally eliminated Thunder Rosa.
• The Final Fight between MJF and Chris Jericho, with Jericho's AEW career on the line, was a hard-worked and psychologically-brilliant match that nearly ended in tragedy when MJF hit Jericho with his own baseball bat behind the ref's back, then followed up with Jericho's own Judas Effect for the pin. Jericho got his foot onto the rope, but Aubrey Edwards didn't see it and counted to three- but in a perfectly-executed use of the Dusty Finish, second referee Paul Turner (who'd already come out to break up a brawl between Wardlow and Jake Hager) was in position to spot Aubrey's error and correct her, causing the match to be restarted, this time leading Jericho to finally get his first, and most pivotal, win over MJF by tapping him out in the Walls of Jericho.
• Then came the most anticipated match of the night when, for the first time in seven and a half years, CM Punk returned to the wrestling ring to compete against his hand-picked opponent, top AEW youngblood Darby Allin, in order to prove that he still had what it took. This more than any other was the match everyone had bought the PPV to see. And after all the hype and anticipation, Punk did in fact still have it. His young opponent took him to the limit, but after a banger of a match the Home Town Hero Punk finally countered Darby's poison rana into the Go To Sleep for the win, shaking hands with Darby and Sting on his way out of the arena, both men leaving the ring looking much better for it.
• Finally^note after a cooldown match between Paul Wight and QT Marshall that was the weakest thing on the show, the main event saw Kenny Omega face off over his AEW World Heavyweight Championship against the man who only a few weeks earlier had beaten him for the Impact World Heavyweight Championship, Christian Cage. Another classic bout that proved both how Kenny is one of the best workers in the world and how Christian remains one of the most consistent and underrated wrestlers of his generation, with both men giving each other everything they had, until Kenny finally won with a One-Winged Angel off the second rope. But the biggest and best was yet to come...
• As The Elite began their traditional beat-down on the defeated Christian and Jurassic Express ran out to try and help, Kenny cut a promo about how there was nobody left in AEW who could possibly beat him, but then the lights went out... and out walked ADAM COLE BAY BAY!!! He came down to the ring while Kenny stared at him like he'd seen a ghost (since in Kayfabe the Young Bucks had murdered Cole with poison to write him out of BTE when he signed with WWE), faced off against his former friends... and superkicked Jungle Boy before hugging The Elite. And you'd think that would be quite enough to put the cap on one of the best PPVs of the year, but no...
• With Kenny cutting another smug promo, he was on the verge of wishing the fans an insincere "good bye and good night" when the opening strains of Ride of the Valkyries began to ring around the arena and the crowd exploded again as out came BRYAN DANIELSON. And this time there was no Bait-and-Switch as he charged the ring to rescue the outnumbered faces, kicking the crap out of poor Nick Jackson, suplexing him across the ring, then kneeing him in the face, closing out what will undoubtedly go down as one of the biggest nights in the entire history of professional wrestling.
• It was also the biggest night in AEW history to date, with the PPV pulling in over 200,000 buys! This is not only by FAR the highest in company history (their previous best, Revolution 2021, only pulled in around 135,000, which at the time was still considered amazing) but the highest buyrate for a non-WWE PPV since WCW Mayhem in 1999, before the WWE's biggest rival began its decline. Even WWE's non-"Big 3"^note Royal Rumble, WrestleMania and SummerSlam events struggled to pull in 200,000 buys in the pre-Network era (even the famous Money in the Bank 2011 where Punk beat Cena to leave WWE with the title only drew 195,000 buys). AEW has well and truly hit the big time.

Full Gear

• The PPV was opened by MJF and Darby Allin, blowing off their heated feud. A superbly-worked technical masterpiece where Darby proved he's more than just a reckless Spot Monkey and MJF displayed masterful psychology. In the end, unable to break Darby's spirit or defeat him technically, MJF can only fall back on cheap-shotting Darby with his Dynamite Diamond Ring, before pinning him with a side headlock takedown as he promised he would, finally beating the only other member of the "Four Pillars" he had not yet defeated. Quite possibly match of the night, the match earned a "FIGHT FOREVER!" chant from the enthralled crowd.
• Despite a... weird finish,^note Dax Harwood was nearly knocked out during the match, forcing a change to the ending the Lucha Brothers put on another exciting and tense match against FTR, avenging the loss of the AAA Tag Titles earlier.
• The American Dragon and The Redeemer go head-to-head in the finals of the World Championship Eliminator Tournament. Danielson, who had never beaten Miro before in any encounter anywhere else, used every inch of technical nous he had to fight back against the overwhelming ferocity of his massive opponent. In the end, a second-rope Tornado DDT knocked Miro clean out, the ref calling for the bell almost as soon as the lightning-quick Danielson locked in a guillotine choke on his unconscious opponent, making the American Dragon the new #1 contender to the AEW World Championship.
• Christian Cage and Jurassic Express took on the Superkliq (the Young Bucks and Adam Cole) in a Fall Counts Anywhere match, a ludicrously fast-paced brawl with too many insane spots to list, including Christian fighting off Nick Jackson and Brandon Cutler in the stands and hitting them with a dive from the upper level, the Superkliq forcing thumbtacks into Jungle Boy's mouth before putting him in the camel clutch and superkicking him in the face, Luchasaurus hitting a shooting star press off the ramp onto all three opponents on the floor, and Jungle Boy finding the steel in himself to finish Matt Jackson with a Con-Chair-To (after having hesitated to do it to Adam Cole earlier) before pinning him to win. The intensity of this match was enough to convince Dave Meltzer to give it 5-stars^note Meltzer has stated that he gives a 5-star rating when any match sets a new standard for a specific gimmick, such as with the previous year's Best Friends vs Proud & Powerful Parking Lot Brawl, and this was simply the finest Falls Count Anywhere match he'd ever seen, meaning like Bryan Danielson at Dynamite Grand Slam back in September 2021, Christian is finally awarded the honor for the first time in his 25+ year career, while rising star Jungle Boy gets his first one at the age of only 24.
• Tay Melo gave it her best shot, but didn't yet have quite enough to bring down the wily and tenacious Britt Baker in the Women's World Championship match. Tay gave the champion everything she had in her arsenal, including a Gotch-style piledriver, but nothing could keep Britt down. She didn't lose easily, though, as her jujitsu training made her too slippery for Britt to get into the Lockjaw, eventually forcing the champion to resort to a technical roll-up to retain her championship.
• CM Punk and Eddie Kingston beat the hell out of each other in an unbelievably intense match with a molten-hot crowd. Before the match even started, the Mad King surprised Punk with a spinning backfist over the ref's shoulders that dropped him like a bullet to the head, making Eddie grin like a lunatic. Punk also got busted open early in the match when the action spilled outside and quickly ended up wearing a crimson mask, prompting Eddie to gather some of the blood and wipe it on his own face like gruesome war paint. A psychologically intense match, Punk even went for some John Cena moves, to the boos of the crowd who started out divided but came to side with the underdog Eddie, and it took two Go To Sleeps before Punk could finish Eddie, with Punk simply too weak and tired after the first to even attempt a pin. After the match, an impressed Punk offered Eddie a conciliatory handshake, but Eddie being true to his character, walks away.
• The Inner Circle went head-to-head with the Men of the Year and American Top Team, including coach-turned-unwilling fighter Dan Lambert in a Minneapolis Street Fight. Another insane brawl filled with brutal weapon use, it finally ended with Lambert getting his comeuppance from Chris Jericho who wailed on him with a kendo stick before paying tribute his old friend Eddie Guerrero by finishing Lambert with the Three Amigos and a Frog Splash.
• Right before the main event, Tony Schiavone came out to announce a surprising new arrival in AEW- Jay Lethal, who immediately challenged Sammy Guevara for the TNT Championship on the next episode of Dynamite.
• Finally, the climax of a story that had been literally years in the making, as Adam Page finally faced his old friend Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship. Page battled against the skills of the Best Bout Machine and the interference of Don Callis, fighting with a renewed confidence as he and Kenny traded moves and counters, including a sick springboard top rope liger bomb from Kenny to Page and a massive flying clothesline from the top of the ringpost to Kenny on the outside, sending both men through a table. Following a ref bump when Kenny pulled the official into Page's Buckshot Lariat attempt, Page finally took out Callis when he attempted to use the belt against him, then ducked Kenny's attempt to do the same and took him down with the Deadeye, getting a clear visual pinfall that would have won him the championship if the replacement ref hadn't had to run all the way from the back to count it. Surviving a barrage of offence from Omega, Page even slipped out of a One-Winged Angel and hit Kenny with an OWA of his own, which Kenny only barely kicked out of. Just as things were at their most intense, the Young Bucks limped down to the ring, despite Page's threat that he would ruin them if they screwed him this time... but as Page went for double Buckshot Lariats to finish Kenny off, one to the back and another to the front, they only watched, with Matt giving Page a nod of approval before he delivered the finishing blow. More than two years after he'd failed to defeat Chris Jericho at All Out 2019 to become the first AEW Champion, after years of struggling with self-doubt, Hangman Adam Page finally reaches the top of AEW, as the Dark Order come out to celebrate in the ring with him.
  • Dave Meltzer gave the main event 5 1/2 stars, making it the first time AEW had scored themselves two 5+ rated matches in a single event, and the second time Page and Omega have broken Meltzer's rating scale together since the start of AEW^note After their legendary tag match together against the Young Bucks at Revolution 2020.
• While the pay-per-view didn't come close to the massive number set by All Out 2021, Full Gear still managed to be AEW's second-highest drawing PPV ever, scoring about 145,000 buys (numbers better than any non-WWE PPV since WCW was still in its prime) and more-or-less solidifying that this is the new normal for them going forward.

2022

Revolution

• From the Buy-In, The House of Black takes on Death Triangle (minus Rey Fenix) and Erick Redbeard.
• The main card kicks off with Chris Jericho facing Eddie Kingston. They end up having a brutal, King's Road-style bout as a Call-Back to Eddie's All Japan Pro Wrestling inspirations and Jericho's own Japanese excursions from New Japan Pro-Wrestling. After Le Champion misses the Judas Effect, The Mad King deals two Uraken backfists to Jericho, leading into the "Stretch Plum" submission move, which forced Chris to tap out; even Eddie couldn't believe he had won! Post-match, Eddie offers his hand to Chris as a sign of respect, but is denied the handshake as Jericho walks off, visibly baffled at his own loss.
• Jurassic Express retained the AEW World Tag Team Championship against The Young Bucks and reDRagon in a three-way tag team match.
• The six-man "Face of the Revolution" Ladder Match to determine the #1 contender for Scorpio Sky's TNT Championship between Wardlow, Christian Cage, Orange Cassidy, Keith Lee, Ricky Starks and Powerhouse Hobbs.
• One year ago, Christian Cage signed with AEW at Revolution 2021; this year, Shane "Swerve" Strickland is the newest member of the AEW roster, who had signed just before the show began.
• Just days after Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor, CM Punk brings back his old entrance from that promotion, complete with "Miseria Cantare" from AFI. This is right after MJF had used "Cult of Personaity" as his entrance music to Troll the crowd before using his own. Needless to say, everyone was shocked.
  • In their Dog Collar match proper, CM Punk finally gets his hands on MJF and following a brutal bloody match, knocks him out with his own Dynamite Diamond Ring (that Wardlow seemingly didn't know where he had put it) to win.
• For the past couple weeks before AEW Revolution, Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley had done promos against the other leading up to their match. When it finally happens, they don't disappoint as they go all out against one another. When Bryan locks Moxley in the Triangle Choke, the latter fights back to reverse the submission for a surprise pinfall to Danielson's disbelief. Post-match, The American Dragon continues to fight Moxley as more referees and backstage personnel attempt to stop it, but to no avail...until William Regal casually enters the ring and puts a stop to the shenanigans by slapping both men to their senses and forcing them to shake hands. What the audience wouldn't know was that this would be the birth of a brand-new faction that would reverberate through All-Elite Wrestling in 2022.
• The six-man tornado tag match between Sammy Guevara, Darby and Sting against Isaiah Kassidy, Andrade, and Matt Hardy was considered the cool-off match before the main event and all participants decided to prove that wrong, creating pure chaos. Things really go off the rails when Sammy nails Isaiah with a Spanish Fly onto two tables, taking them both out. The highlight of the match would be Sting who, at sixty three years of age, does a dive off a balcony and onto Andrade el Idolo, putting him through four tables that had been set up.
• In The main event, "Hangman" Adam Page defends the AEW World Championship against Adam Cole. Hangman, in the end, puts away Cole after hitting him with his own finisher and then following it up with a Buckshot Lariat to retain the title.

Double or Nothing

• As expected, Wardlow vs. MJF was entirely in the former's favor. Knowing he would have to resort to his Dirty Coward tactics, Maxwell tried to pull out and use the Dynamite Diamond Ring, but referee Bryce Remsburg stands over Max's shoulder just as he wears it, completely baffled that the Salt of the Earth would be this deliberate in front of him. Once Remsburg takes the ring away, Mr. Mayhem delivers the justice upon Max that he's been waiting for - a ten-movement Powerbomb Symphony for the win. Afterwards, Tony Schiavone tells Wardlow that Tony Khan has officially signed him onto AEW's roster, with the appropriate "x IS #ALLELITE" illustration.
• Before the pay-per-view, Anna Jay has said that ever since she lost her shot at Jade Cargill's TBS Championship on Rampage in January 2022, she's learned a lot from others in the women's division. Although she put in a good effort, Jade winds up retaining the belt a second time against her, no thanks to a surprise debut of Stokely Hathaway, which catches Anna off-guard, allowing Jade to use her Jaded on Anna from the turnbuckle for the pinfall. Post-match, just as Jade, her cohorts from The Baddies (Red Velvet and Kiera Hogan) and Stokely descend on Anna, Kris Statlander runs out, who still has a score to settle with Red. All of a sudden, the words "Fallen Goddess" appear on the stage screens: Athena has arrived in AEW, who's been feuding with Jade on Twitter months prior and now wants a piece of her. The Baddies are forced to leave as Anna, Kris and Athena stand united against Jade and her cronies.
• After much anticipation since Rey Fenix was out due to injury months ago, Death Triangle gets their hands on The House of Black at Double or Nothing. A very clinical match of high-flying maneuvers, superkicks and grapples, The Lucha Brothers and PAC are able to stand toe-to-toe at every opportunity against Malakai Black, Brody King and Buddy Matthews. Just as PAC is about to use his Black Arrow from a top turnbuckle on Malakai, the lights go out, only for Julia Hart to appear in front of The Bastard and spew Black Mist in his face! Malakai gets the easy pinfall with a Black Mass finisher as The House celebrates their victory with a new member in tow - one who was targeted specifically by Malakai months ago and now has turned to The Dark Side.
• If the previous Stadium Stampede matches were meant to comedic, then Anarchy in the Arena was the exact opposite: absolutely bloodthirsty, ruthless and unforgiving. Neither Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston, Santana and Ortiz were willing to give The Jericho Appreciation Society any breathing room as all ten men were bloodied and bruised, with fights spilling into the crowds and merchandise stands. While Eddie was busy with Daniel Garcia, Proud and Powerful dealt with 2.0 by putting Matt Menard and Angelo Parker through tables from a ladder. Just as Bryan and Moxley locked Chris Jericho and Jake Hager in the LeBell Lock and Bulldog Choke, respectively, Eddie returns to the ring with a gasoline canister, hellbent on setting Chris on fire as revenge for nearly burning away The Mad King's eyes on the April 27th, 2022 episode of Dynamite. The American Dragon puts a stop to that, but tensions between him and Eddie were still high since they don't see eye-to-eye and a scuffle breaks out, giving Jake a chance to send Jon through barbed wire onto a table outside of the ring, while Chris knocks out Eddie with a Judas Effect. Although Bryan returned blows to stave off Chris, Hager attacked Bryan's weakened leg with Jericho's baseball bat Floyd. The JAS would claim the win by having Danielson knocked unconscious to the Walls of Jericho, while Hager simultaneously chokes him with the top ring ropes that Moxley unhooked mid-match. Dave Meltzer would award 5-stars to the complete insanity that is Anarchy in the Arena, making this Danielson's third 5-star match, the second for Jericho, Moxley, Santana and Ortiz, while the others earn their first.

Forbidden Door

• New Japan Pro Wrestling and All Elite Wrestling team up for a joint PPV, live from a sold out United Center in Chicago.
  • The show kicksoff with Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevera and Minoru Suzuki taking on Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta and Shota Umino.
  • FTR cement their legacies as one of the greatest tag teams when in a triple threat tag match featuring Roppongi Vice and United Empire, become The IWGP Tag Team Champs. In doing so, they hold Ring of Honor, AAA and now New Japan's Tag Titles, three separate championships from three different promotions in a feat that may never be duplicated or topped.
• Pac becomes the inaugural All Atlantic Champion, winning a fatal fourway in a match that included Miro, Clark Connors and Malakai Black
  • During the match, Connors would wow fans in attendance and watching when he hits a spear on Miro knocking him off and putting him through a table.
• Sting reformed his early '90s group Dudes with Attitudes, teaming with Shingo Takagi and Darby Allin to take on Bullet Club (The Young Bucks and El Phantasmo).
  • Sting did not actually appear during his entrance, making it look like Bullet Club would have an advantage — only for Sting to jump them from atop the face tunnel!
• For The IWGP United States Championship, Will Ospreay defends against Orange Cassidy.
  • Post match after winning, Ospreay and Aussie Open look to beatdown OC but then music hits as The United Center erupts as stepping out to come to Cassidy's aid is none other than The Wrestler himself, Katsuyori Shibata.
• Bad news: Due to injury Bryan Danielson is not cleared to compete at Forbidden Door against Zack Sabre Jr which had been a dream match for many. But then there's the Good News, Bryan is allowed to handpicked a replacement for his match and who will the newest member of Blackpool Combat Club. Who is it you ask? The Swiss Superman who is now All Elite, Claudio Castagnoli!
• In The Main Event, after three years of buildup, The Dream Match finally happens. Jon Moxley vs Hiroshi Tanahashi

All Out

• The Casino Ladder match was entirely disrupted as mysterious masked men invaded the ring just before the Joker entrant, beating up the rest of the participants. One of them climbed and retrieved the poker chip, then unveiled himself to be Stokely Hathaway; the others were Lee Moriarty, Ethan Page, Austin and Colten Gunn and W. Morrissey - all of whom Stokely offered his services via a business card for weeks leading up to the pay-per-view. When the Joker was set to appear, "Sympathy for the Devil" was heard from the speakers as the entrant headed down to the ring, dressed up in black and donning a demonic-looking mask. Taking the poker chip from Stokely, the Joker won the match; just as he was about to remove his disguise, he double-backed and wagged a finger at the crowd, not content on showing his identity...yet.
• CM Punk main evented AEW All Out against AEW World Champion Jon Moxley after the latted unified the titles from Punk two weeks earlier on Dynamite. While the match was straightforward with Punk hitting Moxley with two consecutive Go-To-Sleeps and getting the pinfall, it was the post-match event that will be fondly remembered: a voicemail from Tony Khan is heard throughout the arena, addressing someone about their absence in AEW and that Tony will pay them to appear in All Out. After a brief video snippet of CM Punk from Ring of Honor about "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist", the Joker from the Casino Ladder match appeared on the screens with his back turned, then took off his mask, declaring "I am the Devil...himself". Once he wrapped that telltale scarf around his neck, the Salt of the Earth - Maxwell Jacob Friedman - headed to the stage, staring down daggers at the newly crowned champion and his Arch-Enemy after being absent since the Dynamite episode after AEW Double or Nothing. Despite knowing Max is guaranteed a shot at the title, CM Punk is undeterred at the latter's return as the pay-per-view ends.

Full Gear

• Coming off the back of the terrible mess that followed All Out^note the incident known as "Brawl Out" where new World Champion CM Punk started a backstage brawl against new Trios Champions The Elite which resulted in all of them being stripped of their belts and suspended, with Punk assumed to be done with the company as a result, AEW had a lot to prove with their last PPV of 2022. But everyone stepped up and knocked it out of the park.
• The free Zero Hour pre-show hyped up the crowd with a trio of enjoyable matches: The Factory took on AEW's CHAOS chapter in an enjoyable 5-on-5 tag match that saw the AEW debut of Danhausen's "evil" character, giving the facepainted weirdo a chance to show off that, like Orange Cassidy he can be a serious wrestler when provoked; Ricky Starks defied injured ribs to defeat his longtime rival, the monstrous Brian Cage, and move on to the final of the AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament; and Eddie Kingston got to live out his childhood dream by facing his idol Jun Akiyama, which he won after a second Uraken, before cutting a heartwrenching and heartwarming impromptu promo that did as much to sell the actual PPV as all the build that had happened leading up to it.
• The show opened with Jungle Boy Jack Perry blowing off his vicious feud against former-friend-turned-enemy Luchasaurus inside a steel cage. The two went at each other with the bitter hatred than can only come from deep friendship blackly betrayed, with Jack absorbing terrifying levels of damage from his hulking opponent. Two chairs and a table were introduced to the cage after Luchasaurus' manager, the treacherous Christian, unlocked it to let the action briefly spill outside, leading to a pair of brutal spots where Jungle Boy leaped off one of the chairs Luchasaurus had been intending to chokeslam him onto to give the big man a Canadian Destroyer, only for Luchasaurus to land the chokeslam on the second attempt, causing the chair to not bend, but explode under Jungle Boy's body. With Jack Perry refusing to stay down no matter now many times he was flattened, he eventually choked the dinosaur out enough to position him on the table, making him stay there with a full chairshot to the face, before climbing to the top of the cage and finishing his former partner with a diving elbow through the table transitioned into his Snare Trap submission. With blood dripping from his mouth, Luchasaurus had no choice but to tap out, giving Jungle Boy Jack Perry a career-defining win, right in front of his mother and sister in the front row.
• Death Triangle defended the Trios Championships against the returning and long-missed inaugural champions The Elite next, with the Elite coming out to "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas to a monster pop. A typically incredible match ensued as six of the very best workers in AEW went balls to the wall, but it was the conclusion which shocked everyone as Rey Fenix, who had previously refused PAC's directions to use the ring bell hammer to cheat as he'd previously stated that the three of them were good enough that they didn't need to cheat to win, found himself up on the shoulders of Kenny Omega and facing certain doom in the form of a One-Winged Angel. With no other choice left, Fenix hit Kenny with the hammer and rolled through into a pin, shocking everyone who believed that Death Triangle had just been keeping the belts warm for The Elite while the investigation of Brawl Out was resolved and The Elite would be taking them back as a matter of course. Later on in the show it was announced that Tony Khan had declared Death Triangle's win to be only the first in a best of seven series between the two teams that would play out on TV, possibly all the way up to the new year if it went down to the wire.
• The ROH World Championship was defended in a 4-way between champion Chris Jericho, JAS stablemate Sammy Guevara, and the BCC pairing of Bryan Danielson and Claudio Castagnoli. What started as a simple 2-on-2 match eventually broke down as Bryan and Claudio eventually beat Jericho and Sammy out of the ring, leading them to exchange looks, shake hands politely, and then start beating the tar out of each other. The JAS members also ended up coming to blows when Sammy broke up a Jericho pinfall, not being willing to simply stand by and watch his leader win the match. After a number of insane near falls, Claudio had Sammy by the legs and was giving him his trademark Giant Swing when Jericho came barreling in, leapt over Sammy in mid-swing to land a flying elbow, and knocked Claudio reeling, setting him up for a full Judas Effect to retain.
• Saraya's comeback match against Britt Baker laid to rest all worries about her ring readiness, with the young British veteran showing that even 5 years out of the ring wasn't enough to dull her passion for wrestling, as she downed the AEW original for the win, embracing her brother at ringside after she was done.
• The 3-way hossfest for the TNT Championship saw champion Wardlow, ally-turned-enemy ROH TV Champion Samoa Joe, and Powerhouse Will Hobbs smashing against each other in a heavyweight clash. Wardlow continued to display his terrifying agility for a man his size, hitting both his opponents with a Whisper in the Wind, but when he got distracted delivering a 3-movement Powerbomb Symphony to Hobbs he got blindsided by a belt-wielding Joe, who stole the pin on Hobbs to win the match and the TNT Championship, becoming a double champion.
• Sting and Darby Allin took on Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarret in an insane No DQ tag team match, producing their usual amount of crazy spotfest insanity. The first major highlights came during the opening brawl when Darby set up a ladder on the entranceway and tried to Coffin Drop off it onto Lethal on the floor about 20 feet below, only to be plucked out of midair by the titanic Satnam Singh, carried back up to the ramp and ragdolled across the hard surface. Later in the match once the action had returned to the ring, Darby went for another Coffin Drop onto Lethal, only for Jarret to shatter his trademark guitar across Darby's back while he was in mid-air- which Darby promptly ignored as he roared back to life, beating his chest like his mentor does and taking it back to his opponents without fear. Finally, after receiving a massive chokeslam from Singh, Sting finally managed to catch him in position for a Scorpion Death Drop, but the Indian giant was too big to take down, so he called for his protege to deliver yet another Coffin Drop onto Singh as he slammed him to the mat, finally taking him out. The match itself ended when Sting caught a Lethal Injection attempt into another Scorpion Death Drop^note sadly botched as the spot was overambitious, but the crowd didn't mind and Darby landed one final Coffin Drop for the pin.
• The Women's Interim World Championship was defended by Toni Storm against the massively over Jaime Hayter in what some have called AEW's best women's PPV match ever. The two women worked an absolute clinic, beating the crap out of each other and stealing each other's finishers to no avail. Eventually it was interference from Hayter's colleagues Rebel and Britt Baker that made the difference, with Toni being sent into an exposed turnbuckle before Hayter finished her off, winning the belt to a colossal pop.
• The AEW Tag Team Championships were contested in the rubber match between champions The Acclaimed and former champions Swerve in Our Glory. Tensions between Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee had been running high as the honourable Lee grew tired of Swerve's shameless cheating, while questions hung over Anthony Bowens and his weakened right shoulder, which the challengers targeted without mercy. After working a psychologically superb match, the increasingly-unhinged Swerve first tried to cripple Max Caster with a pair of pliers, the same way he'd tried to do to "Daddy Ass" Billy Gunn, only for Gunn himself to run down and save Caster. Then when Swerve tried to force Lee to use the same pliers against Bowens, Lee had reached his limit and tossed them out of the ring. When Swerve furiously slapped his partner, Lee responded by giving Bowens a reassuring pat on the back and walking out of the ring, leaving Swerve to The Acclaimed, with Bowens finally gritting through the pain to help Caster deliver their tag team finisher for the win.
• Finally, the main event saw unexpected face MJF come out to prove that he could beat indomitable champion Jon Moxley for the World Championship without needing to resort to his usual tricks. The crowd was monumentally behind the young star, which he revelled in, and when they turned on Moxley the champion responded with his usual insouciance, flipping them off and outright bullying MJF, beating him from pillar to post while MJF did his best to tough it out. MJF hung tougher than he ever had before, but it eventually became clear that he simply wasn't Mox's equal, and following a ref bump he reached into his trunks for the Dynamite Diamond Ring he'd claimed he wouldn't use. This brought out Mox's stable leader William Regal, who threatened to clobber MJF if he tried to use the ring, leading MJF to throw the ring away and defiantly flip Regal off. However this led him to back into Mox, who caught him in his deadly bulldog choke, but another bump on the replacement referee caused him to miss MJF's frantic tap-out. But then, when Regal directed Mox to go and wake up the referee to solidify his win, the old villain slipped MJF his own iconic brass knuckles, which he used to punch out Mox and pin him to become the youngest AEW World Champion ever. Despite MJF having played everyone for fools, the crowd went MENTAL for the young star's win, as a new era in AEW history was about to begin.

2023

Revolution

• The show opened with Ricky Starks finally concluding his feud against Chris Jericho, getting the Ocho in the ring with his flunkies in the JAS banned from ringside. Jericho once again defies his age to keep up with the younger star, at one point countering Starks' spear into a beautiful Codebreaker. Sammy Guevara attempts to defy the ban on the JAS by running down, only to be jumped by a Genre Savvy Action Andretti and driven off, but Jericho uses the distraction to deliver a bat shot to Starks' stomach. However Starks becomes the first person to ever block the Judas Effect and take Jericho out with a Roshambo to pick up the win.
• After more than half a year, Jungle Boy Jack Perry finally gets his hands on his treacherous former mentor Christian in a Final Burial match and the two go hammer and tongs at each other as they brawl through the crowd and up the ramp. Perry wields the gravedigger's spade against Christian's steel chair and Christian desperately hurls a handful of dirt into the young man's eyes to try and buy some time, but eventually Jungle Boy chokes out Christian with the Snare Trap, then delivers a final Con-chair-to him before dumping him in the casket and remorsefully dropping the lid, sending Christian plumetting six feet under and avenging his betrayal and the insults to Perry's family.
• The Trios Championships were put on the line as The Elite faced off against the menacing power of the House of Black. Given the talent involved it's no surprise that there were too many brilliant spots and bouts of literally Elite-tier wrestling on display, from the dream match tease of Buddy Matthews opening against Kenny Omega to Brody King's unstoppable rampage and Kenny accidentally V-Triggering Julia Hart off the apron. But in the shocking conclusion, Matthews kicked Nick Jackson out of the air mid-Meltzer Driver and an isolated Matt fell prey to Dante's Inferno, with the House of Black becoming the new Trios Champions.
• The 3-way for the Women's Championship was a solid triple threat between champion Jamie Hayter and challengers Saraya and Ruby Soho where every woman was in it for herself. After Jamie retained with a roll-up on Ruby, a bitter Saraya and Toni Storm jumped her and Britt Baker while Ruby watched pensively from the corner. For a moment Ruby seemed to side with the AEW originals against the Outsiders, throwing them out of the ring and shouting at them that they didn't run AEW, only to shockingly turn on Jamie and Britt, helping Saraya and Toni beat them down and leaving their spray-painted bodies lying in the ring.
• The Texas Death Match between Hangman Page and Jon Moxley promised to be a nightmare of violence as the two blew off their hate-filled feud, and it delivered! Both men bled buckets, as they tried to see if every wrestling match spot could be made more interesting with the addition of as much barbed wire as possible, Mox used a fork to rip up Page's forehead in a manner that would make Abdullah the Butcher proud, and later used a pair of bricks to try and smash Page's right hand. But in the end it was the Hangman who came out on top, appropriately enough by hanging his opponent, clotheslining a chain-wrapped Moxley over the top rope and holding the chains so Mox was actually forced to tap out in order to avoid being choked to death! Dave Meltzer would give this match 5 stars in his ratings, marking it as probably the greatest Texas Death Match he'd ever seen.
• Wardlow and TNT Champion Samoa Joe had a violent grudge rematch as Wardlow not only attempted to regain his championship but also make Joe pay for the act of spitefully cutting off the topknot he wore to honour his late father. The two had a typically heavy-hitting hoss match while next challenger Will Hobbs watched from the stands, but in a surprising twist it turned into a match of submissions, with Wardlow eventually and uncharacteristically choking Joe out with a sleeper similar to Joe's own Coquina Clutch, becoming a 2 time TNT Champion.
• The Tag Team Championships were defending in a 4-way match between the unpopular champions the Gunns (aka. the "Ass Boys"), former champions The Acclaimed, the old veteran team of Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal, and the surprising team of Orange Cassidy and Danhausen. A light-hearted and at times goofy affair with lots of interference from the sidelines, with the probable highlight being the colossal Satnam Singh being dropped by a Fameasser from Billy Gunn (there to support his surrogate sons The Acclaimed), only for him to receive a double low blow from his actual sons the Gunns. While the crowd went dead quiet when the Gunns managed to retain with a 310 To Yuma on Danhausen, the excitement came back when FTR made their unexpected return to avenge past insults and stake their claim to the Tag Team belts once more.
• Finally, the main event was hailed by some viewers as potentially the single greatest match AEW has ever put on, as World Champion MJF faced the American Dragon Bryan Danielson in a 60 minute ironman match. Commentary pointed out that this was already guaranteed to be the longest match of the young man's career, as he'd never even gone beyond 40 minutes before this, while Danielson did 60-minute matches for fun, but MJF stepped up to the plate to prove once again that he's more than just a (foul) mouth. It was 20 minutes of intensive chain wrestling and increasingly big moves before the American Dragon finally drew first blood with a Busaiku Knee, but MJF immediately countered with a low blow that, despite costing him another point, allowed him to score two quick pins in return on Danielson and nearly a third! As MJF mercilessly targeted the injured left shoulder of Danielson that he'd been paying other men to damage in the lead-up to the match, Danielson in return ruthlessly tried to turn MJF's left knee inside out, an issue only further exacerbated by MJF's own offence as he fearlessly hit big moves such as a spectacular flying elbow from the top turnbuckle to put Danielson through the timekeeper's table, which he followed with a running tombstone through the unbroken remnant of the table. As the two brutalised each other, the score ended up at 3-3 with MJF in a savage single-leg crab as the last few seconds counted down, tapping out right after the last second elapsed, making the match a draw. However as both men were being tended to by medical personnel, Tony Schiavone received a message from Tony Khan backstage, who relayed to ring announcer Justin Roberts that a draw was not acceptable, and even after 60 minutes of torment the two men would have to fight into extra time. After a breathtaking series of near falls and false finishes, including MJF missing with the Dynamite Diamond Ring and then having it taken away from him by the ref while he was locked in a submission, MJF managed to sucker Danielson over to the edge of the ring before smashing him on the head with an oxygen canister the medical staff had been using to try and treat him earlier out of the ref's line of sight. For the final blow, MJF did not use his Salt of the Earth Armbar to finish off Danielson's injured shoulder, instead using Danielson's own LeBell Lock submission against him. For a moment it looked like Danielson would pass out, only for him to appear to find a Heroic Second Wind... and then tap out, unable to bear any more. This match solidified MJF as not only the top heel in AEW, but one of the very best young wrestlers in the world today and a man who deserves to be AEW's top champion. The icing on the cake was Dave Meltzer's rating- 5.75 stars!

Double or Nothing

• The show opened with Orange Cassidy putting his International Championship on the line in a 21-man Blackjack Battle Royale. With brawling going on both inside and outside of the ring (due to the stipulation that a wrestler can't be eliminated until they've officially entered the ring) bodies flew everywhere. Notable moments and story beats included:
  • The four luchadors in the match (the Lucha Brothers, Bandido and Komander) all teamed up to show off the power of lucha libre, with Komander, Fenix and Penta at one point fighting off attackers from all sides to defend Bandido while he stood in the middle of them holding Tony Nese up in a stalling suplex.
  • Brian Cage went on a rampage, showing off his terrifying power as the luchadors just bounced off him, and the titanic Big Bill ragdolled whoever got in his way, lasting all the way to the final 3.
  • While Chuck Taylor was accidentally eliminated by his friend Orange Cassidy when the champion (who was stranded on the ring apron) pulled the ropes down to duck when Big Bill hurled Chuck bodily towards him, having to choose between his championship and his friend, later in the match Trent Beretta sacrificed himself to save Cassidy by shoving him out of the way and being kicked off the apron by Big Bill in his place.
  • Ricky Starks gained a measure of revenge on Bullet Club Gold, eliminating first Juice Robinson and later on "Switchblade" Jay White.
  • The match would eventually come down to a tired and battered Cassidy against Swerve Strickland after Strickland backstabbed Big Bill, ending with Cassidy putting his feet up into Swerve's face to counter a stomp on the apron, leaving Swerve dangling from the rope by his fingers- which the champion would insouciantly kick away, sending Swerve to the floor to triumph and continue his amazing International Championship run.
• FTR faced the team of Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett for their Tag Team Championships in a match where Mark Briscoe was special guest referee. While Mark was committed to calling the match clean down the middle without showing favour to either side (despite Team TNA's attempts to forment discord between him and FTR), after Jarrett accidentally smashed his guitar over Mark's head (and his wife Karen got atomic heat by doing the same to substitute referee Aubrey Edwards), Jarrett pushed his luck too far when Mark didn't count a pinfall attempt fast enough for his liking, slapping Mark and causing Mark to smack him right back, sending him right into a Big Rig for the win.
• TNT Champion Wardlow took on Christian Cage on his own terms, challenging the veteran to a ladder match. Christian showed off his incredible talent for this match format, knowing exactly what kinds of spots would and would not work to best effect^note one criticism of AEW is that their gimmick matches often see talent trying prop-based spots that are too ambitious to work and end up going wrong, crotching Wardlow on a ladder bridge outside the ring and slingshotting him into the underside of one he'd propped up in the corner, while Wardlow adapted quickly, smashing his opponent with and against the ladders, as well as fearlessly hitting Christian with a top-rope senton while he was lying on one. Their supporters Arn Anderson and Luchasaurus both got involved, with Arn nearly biting Luchasaurus' finger off to escape a chokeslam and Wardlow hitting the dinosaur with a massive senton off the top of a ladder to put Luchasaurus through a pair of tables on the outside. At the end, Arn tipped Christian off a ladder just as he was about to seize the championship, dropping him directly into Wardlow's arms in perfect powerbomb position, leaving him crumpled on the mat for the TNT Champion to ascend the ladder and retain.
• The House of Black's open challenge for the Trios Championships was answered by The Acclaimed and Daddy Ass. Max Caster cut a vicious rap on them during their entrance (including a roof-lifting shot at Buddy Matthews for being "cucked by a kid named Dominik"^note a reference to Dominik Mysterio's story in WWE about his relationship with Buddy's real-life girlfriend Rhea Ripley and cockily declared they didn't need to take advantage of the "Dealer's Choice" house rule. The House made them pay for their arrogance, as despite a valiant effort they were brutalised into submission. Just when it looked like Billy Gunn was going to run wild and bring it back for his team, he turned around into Malakai Black's "The End" finisher and was knocked out as the House wins again.
• Jade Cargill faced rival Taya Valkyrie in a rematch where Taya's finisher, the Road to Valhalla, was no longer banned to her (since it was the same move as Jade's finisher, Jaded), meaning this time it would come down to who was the better woman. Taya gave Jade one of the best matches of her entire run, but in the end Jade was able to kick out of Road to Valhalla before hitting Jaded, a feat which Taya could not repeat, extending the champ's win streak to 60-0. After the match, her manager Mark Sterling got on the microphone to declare that Jade was ready to fight any time, any place, but there were simply no challengers left... only for Kris Statlander's music to hit as the injured star made her long-awaited return and got into the ring. Jade arrogantly refused to back down, but Stat put her away in less than a minute to finally end her record-breaking win streak and become the second ever TBS Champion to a monstrous ovation.
• The highly anticipated "Four Pillars match" between AEW's 4 biggest young stars (champion MJF, Sammy Guevara, Darby Allin and "Jungle Boy" Jack Perry) lived up to everyone's wildest expectations, with too many brilliant little story details and subtle nuances to list here. Notably, before the match Sammy came out with his young wife Tay Melo and brought back his iconic signs to announce that they were going to be expecting their first child. In the most iconic spot of the match, each man took the opportunity to hit another competitor with the finisher of their mentor- Darby used the Scorpion Death Drop, Sammy the Codebreaker, Jack the Killswitch and, most shockingly, MJF even used the Cross Rhodes. At the end of what would be considered by some to be one of the greatest 4-way matches ever, MJF slipped the AEW Championship belt onto Jack Perry's prone body while Darby was going up to hit him with the Coffin Drop, causing Darby to knock himself senseless on the belt and setting him up for MJF to hit with another side headlock takeover in order to retain.
• Finally, the Elite and the BCC went to war in Anarchy in the Arena. Just like last year, Jon Moxley's theme 'Wild Thing' was played over and over again on repeat as the match started, only this time being performed live by The Violent Idols, which continued until the Bucks got fed up and superkicked the vocalist when he showed off the BCC T-shirt he was wearing under his jacket. As with the last match, it was gruesome bloody carnage, with spots like Moxley suplexing Kenny Omega onto one of the giant poker chip props he'd studded with barbed wire and broken glass, Claudio Castagnoli piledriving Matt Jackson in the back of a pickup truck parked out the back of the arena, Moxley putting thumbtacks into Matt's mouth and him and Yuta holding him so Claudio could uppercut him in the jaw, Matt superkicking Moxley in the face with a shoe that exploded, and Matt having his shoe and sock yanked off his left foot then being picked up and dropped onto a pile of thumbtacks bare foot first (while everyone got their fair share of pain, it was not a good day at the office for Matt Jackson). In the end, Omega was about to put Wheeler Yuta away with the One-Winged Angel, only for his treacherous former mentor Don Callis to get into the ring and distract him, and then a masked figure to slide in and hit Omega with a jumping knee, revealing himself to be Konosuke Takeshita as Yuta pinned Omega with the Seatbelt Pin to win the match for the Blackpool Combat Club. Dave Meltzer would assess this match as being just as good as the original, giving the Anarchy in the Arena stipulation its second 5-star rating.

Forbidden Door

• 3 words: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! EUROPE is All Elite!

All In

• 81,035. In Wembley Stadium. Five years on from the first All In breaking out with the largest attendance at an independent show in 25 years, the second All In lives up to its legacy by breaking the WrestleMania 32 record for the highest paid attendance for a professional wrestling show. Not too bad for a t-shirt company.

All Out

• 3 words....again. THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! EUROPE remains All Elite!

Wrestledream

• After managing to retain his title against Darby Allin and luring Nick Wayne over to his side in the process, Christian Cage tears up the ring, ready to hit Sting with a Conchairto on the exposed wooden surface. Interrupted by the lights suddenly going out, a vignette starts playing on the screen, backed by the intro to Cry Of Achilles. And then, after a slightly altered five-word catchphrase, the stadium erupts into a much more recognisable Alter Bridge song: Metalingus. Adam Copeland has become All Elite.

Other

Battle of the Belts 2022

• Although Cody Rhodes was scheduled to defend his third reign as TNT Champion, he's forced to pull out of the show due to "medical protocol", thus an interim TNT Champion would be crowned instead, with his intended challenger Sammy Guevera taking on Dustin Rhodes. Recall that Dustin is 52-years old, but don't think he's some slouch against a young talent like Sammy: near mid-match, after Sammy gives Dustin the Go To Hell and knocks the wind out of him, Fuego del Sol comes out from beneath the ring and sets up a table on the outside for Sammy to use on Dustin. However, Dustin reverses it by performing a Canadian Destroyer on Sammy, doing it from off the apron and sending him through the table, shocking both commentators and the crowd.

• At Battle of The Belts III; For The Ring of Honor World Championship, Claudio Castagnoli defends against Konosuke Takeshita. The two would go have a fantastic match that would leave the fans standing and applauding. Konosuke has proven himself in previous matches and now proves he is World Champion material as he and Claudio face one another in a classic. Takeshita would come on the verge of winning the title many times in the match, including hitting a DDT on the Top Turnbuckle. In the end, Claudio would hit The Riccola Bomb and retain in a hard fought bout.

AEW Dark & Dark Elevation

• Joey Janela vs Kenny Omega on the second episode of AEW Dark, an unsanctioned match filled with the two going crazy against one another with The Bad Boy holding his own against The Cleaner. At the end of the match, AEW's internet show was trending worldwide.
• The Northern Lights Suplex is one of Matt Jackson's favorite moves and he loves to do multiple in a row. On The 2/18 edition of Dark, he did not one, not two, not three but eight of them in a row.
• On the 2/25 edition of Dark, Joey Janela is facing Kip Sabian in a Falls Count Anywhere match. Due to anything goes, Penelope Ford, Kip's Manager, and Janela's former flame is taking advantage to interfere. But when she tries late in the match, Janela rolls through and picks her up and tosses her onto Kip sending the two crashing onto tables.
• Ben Carter vs Lee Johnson, two of AEW's young prospects go out and tear the house down on the September 22nd edition of Dark earning praise from many
  • Later that night on a special edition of Dynamite, Ben Carter would have another well received match against Scorpio Sky and he would be trending as well.
• Brandon Cutler finally wins a match for the first time after over a year of coming up short, defeating Peter Avalon on the October 27th edition of Dark to get his long sought after first win.
• On the 12 April 2021 episode of Elevation, Konosuke Takeshita (from Dramatic Dream Team) makes his AEW debut against Danny Limelight, and the two men tear the house down, with some people in the comments even saying Takeshita reminded them of a young Kazuchika Okada.
• Matt Sydal faces Dante Martin on the June 8th Edition of Dark and the two go at it tearing the house down.
• QT Marshall vs 5 on the August 10th edition of Dark.
• FTR vs Stallion Rogers and Anthony Greene on the September 21 2021 episode of Dark.
• Two back-to-back bouts at the end of the November 30th episode. First Fuego del Sol makes a brave effort against Ethan Page that has the crowd full behind him. Then Anthony Greene gets a shot against Adam Cole in the main event and the two men put on an absolute blinder.
• Joey Janela vs Sonny Kiss on the December 28th 2021 Edition of Dark. A No Disqualification match between them as the former friends and tag partners face another.
• Wheeler Yuta vs Penta El Zero M on the January 25th Edition of Dark.
• Wheeler Yuta vs Josh Woods for The Ring of Honor Pure Championship on the May 17th 2022 edition of Dark.
• From the July 11th 2022 episode of Dark Elevation, Dante Martin vs JD Drake, an intensely close back-and-forth clash of speed vs power.
• The July 12th 2022 episode of Dark included broadcasts of 2 matches from other promotions featuring AEW champions, opening with Women's Champion Thunder Rosa facing Miyu Yamashita at Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling in a match where Miyu would get a shot at Rosa's championship if she managed to win, and culminating in PAC making his first defence of the All-Atlantic Championship in Revolution Pro Wrestling against Jon Moxley's protégé Shota Umino. Both absolute bangers, especially the RevPro match with its molten hot UK crowd.
• The July 26th 2022 episode of Dark features another All Atlantic Championship match. This time; PAC heads to Over The Top, a promotion based in Ireland where he faces the Hometown Hero LJ Cleary who has the crowd behind him as he makes the challenge.
• PAC makes his third defense of The All Atlantic Championship, from Revolution Pro Wrestling's Summer Sizzler event, defending against Connor Mills.
• From the 30th of August episode of Dark, Dante Martin vs AR Fox (ironically perhaps best known to mainstream wrestling audiences as Dante Fox from Lucha Underground). A spectacular display of agility and speed from two of the most talented high fliers in the ring today.

Unsorted

• AEW landed a TV deal with TNT, returning pro wrestling to Turner Sports after the end of WCW in 2001.
  • TNT signed a rookie, unproven wrestling promotion without a single show to its name (ALL IN was put on prior to AEW's formation). This is the same network which had a memorable and contentious foray with wrestling in the past, even with vastly different management at the time. While AEW is backed by a billionaire, that is a notable business coup for the North American wrestling industry.
  • Similarly, landing a TV deal with ITV for broadcast in the UK on ITV4 beginning in October 2019. After the disastrous relaunch of World of Sport Wrestling that lasted just a few episodes before unceremoniously being pulled, there was a question of whether or not ITV would be broadcasting wrestling again. Through the Khans, AEW has been put in position to singlehandedly revive wrestling in the British mainstream. The real kicker? The best that WWE could do was switch from longtime partner Sky Sports to BT Sport, a subscription service with 2.6 million subscribers. Through ITV, AEW could be broadcast for free in as many as 27 million homes. A spectacular coup for the company.
  • Naysayers of the TNT deal who didn’t expect it to last even a year were proven wrong in January 2020, a mere three months after Dynamite starting airing, when TNT announced a four year renewal. According to Tony Khan, this would make AEW profitable by the end of 2020, a feat which numerous pro wrestling organizations have failed to accomplish over much longer lifespans.^note While this would later turn out to be extremely unlikely when the COVID-19 Pandemic almost crippled the entire pro-wrestling industry, the TV deal ended up being even more pivotal than ever by being the main thing keeping the company afloat while they were incapable of holding live events, their main source of income.
• AEW signed veteran commentator Jim Ross, less than a week after his WWE contract expired in March 2019. This makes Ross the only commentator in pro wrestling history to be employed by NWA, UWF, WCW, WWE, NJPW and AEW.
  • The fact that they also signed Tony Schiavone could be considered one. Especially since it means that he and JR are going to be working together again, like they did back in the early days of WCW.
• The promotion markets their signed referees the same way they would wrestlers. As of May 2019, the referee roster is Earl Hebner (WWE, TNA/Impact Wrestling veteran), Aubrey Edwards (from Defy Wrestling), Rick Knox (from PWG and Lucha Underground), Bryce Remsburg (from CHIKARA) and Paul Turner (from ROH).
• While it's more an indictment of WWE's declining ratings more than anything else^note the episode of RAW in question had the lowest ratings of all time for the show, and was only restricted to the (admittedly key) 18-49 demographic, the December 9th 2020 episode of Dynamite managed to outdraw the following episode of Monday Night RAW,^note drawing an 0.45 in the key demographic compared to RAW's 0.41 a feat none but the most hopelessly optimistic fans even dreamed AEW would ever be able to accomplish! This despite RAW running unopposed by other wrestling shows on Mondays, while Dynamite is being directly counterprogrammed by NXT! In general, while Dynamite has only managed to draw over 1 million viewers one time since it's first three episodes, the show has proven a major success for TNT overall, dominating the key demographic of 18-49 year old viewers, and regularly managing to be one of the most popular shows on cable.
• AEW crushed The Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards for 2020, even having a heavy presence in the runners-up for most of the few (positive) awards they didn't win. Despite COVID-19 (or possibly even in part because of it, due to how well the company was able to continue producing top quality product while other promotions floundered), 2020 truly was the year of AEW. Their haul, as follows:
  • Wrestler of the Year: Jon Moxley
  • Most Outstanding: Kenny Omega
  • Tag Team of the Year: The Young Bucks^note Making them 6-time winners, the most of anyone in the award's history.
  • Best on Interviews: Eddie Kingston
  • United States/Canada MVP: Jon Moxley
  • Mexico MVP: Rey Fénix^note Shared with AAA as he's signed with both promotions.
  • Feud of the Year: Moxley vs Kingston
  • Most Improved: Britt Baker
  • Most Charismatic: MJF
  • Best Brawler: Jon Moxley^note Ending a 6-year streak by Tomohiro Ishii, who Moxley had had a 5-star rated match against the year before.
  • Best High Flyer: Rey Fénix
  • Best Non-wrestler: Taz
  • Best TV Announcer: Excalibur
  • Best Wrestling Maneuver: Kenny Omega's One-Winged Angel^note 4-time winner.
  • Best Gimmick: Orange Cassidy
  • Best Pro-wrestling Book: The Young Bucks: Killing the Business from the Backyards to the Big Leagues
  • Best Booker: Tony Khan
  • Promoter of the Year: Tony Khan
  • Match of the Year: The Young Bucks vs Omega & Page at AEW Revolution 2020^note This snapped an eight-year win streak by NJPW matches for this award!
  • Best Major Wrestling Show: AEW Revolution 2020
  • Best Weekly TV Show: AEW Dynamite^note Second year in a row.
  • Best Promotion: AEW^note As with Match of the Year, NJPW had maintained an 8-year deathgrip on this award before AEW won!
• On the May 5th episode of Dynamite, "Blood and Guts", the show hit a new milestone by being, for the first time ever, THE #1 highest rated show on cable TV! While it only drew 1.09 million viewers, this was because the episode fell on the night of Cinco de Mayo, specifically the first Cinco de Mayo since the pandemic started to come under control, meaning all TV ratings were down about 20% across the board, so this rating was still enough to make Dynamite the most popular show on cable TV in America that night (even its debut episode, the highest rating it has ever drawn, was only enough for it to reach the #2 spot).
• Jungle Boy was always a commendable wrestler, but needed something else to truly get over — so Tony Khan licensed Baltimora's italo disco hit "Tarzan Boy", which has consistently gotten the entire crowd singing along since Double or Nothing 2021.
• With the exception of "Inspirational Wrestler of the Year" that went to Edge, AEW effectively swept the reader-voted Pro Wrestling Illustrated Awards of 2021: winners include MJF ("Most Hated Wrestler of the Year"), Jade Cargill ("Rookie of the Year"), Chris Jericho ("Feud of the Year" shared with MJF), The Inner Circle ("Faction of the Year"), The Young Bucks ("Tag Team of the Year"), Kenny Omega ("Wrestler of the Year") and CM Punk ("Most Popular Wrestler of the Year" and "Comeback of the Year"). However, it would be Britt Baker who would be the most notable, with "Most Improved Wrestler of the Year", "Woman of the Year" and "Match of the Year" shared with Thunder Rosa from their Unsanctioned Lights Out fight at AEW St. Patrick's Day Slam.
• For the second year running, AEW completely owned the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards, winning almost every major Category A award (except "Most Outstanding" which understandably went to Shingo Takagi), and with a strong showing in the (positive) Category B awards too, winning many of their awards back-to-back. In total:
  • Wrestler of the Year: Kenny Omega^note His second time winning the award, the first being in 2018 when he competed in NJPW
  • Tag Team of the Year: The Young Bucks^note Their record-setting seventh win
  • Best on Interviews: MJF
  • United States/Canada MVP: Kenny Omega
  • Non-Heavyweight MVP: Darby Allin
  • Feud of the Year: Omega vs Page
  • Best Box Office Draw: CM Punk
  • Most Improved: Tay Melo^note Became the third woman to win the award
  • Most Charismatic: CM Punk
  • Best Brawler: Jon Moxley^note Second straight win
  • Best High Flyer: Rey Fénix^note Second straight year winning
  • Best Technical Wrestler: Bryan Danielson^note Winning the award that was renamed after himself for a record-breaking 10 times, although this was shared with WWE as he spent the first half of 2021 there. It's also his first win since 2013, in addition to ending Zack Sabre Jr's streak of winning it consecutively
  • Rookie of the Year: Jade Cargill^note The second female winner
  • Best TV Announcer: Excalibur^note Second consecutive win
  • Best Wrestling Maneuver: "Hangman" Adam Page's Buckshot Lariat
  • Best Pro-wrestling Book: MOX
  • Best Booker: Tony Khan^note Second consecutive win
  • Promoter of the Year: Tony Khan^note Third straight win
  • Match of the Year: The Young Bucks vs the Lucha Bros at AEW All Out 2021^note The second year running the Young Bucks have won MOTY with one of their PPV Tag Team Championship matches
  • Best Major Wrestling Show: AEW All Out 2021^note Third consecutive PPV win for the promotion
  • Best Weekly TV Show: AEW Dynamite^note For the third year in a row
  • Best Promotion: AEW^note Second consecutive win
• While 2022, a trying year for AEW, didn't see the same complete domination of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards as the previous two years, the company still ruled the results by securing no less than fifteen awards, including most of the major ones. Once again:
  • Wrestler of the Year: Jon Moxley
  • Tag Team of the Year: FTR
  • Best on Interviews: MJF^note Second consecutive win
  • United States/Canada MVP: Jon Moxley
  • Feud of the Year: FTR vs The Briscoe Brothers
  • Most Improved: The Acclaimed
  • Most Charismatic: MJF
  • Best Technical Wrestler: Bryan Danielson^note Extending his record-breaking hold on his own award to eleven wins
  • Best Brawler: Jon Moxley^note Third consecutive win
  • Most Underrated: Konosuke Takeshita^note Not entirely a positive award, as "Most Underrated" is generally understood to be the "Why aren't you pushing this guy, you idiots?" award, and this is the first time since 1998 (when WCW was castigated for not pushing Chris Benoit) that WWE has not won it. Although the award was for Takeshita rather than AEW as an indicator of his talent, and Takeshita was signed with DDT until November 2022.
  • Best Major Wrestling Show: AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door^note Shared with NJPW, obviously
  • Best Booker: Tony Khan^note Third consecutive win
  • Promoter of the Year: Tony Khan^note Now up to four straight wins
  • Best Weekly TV Show: AEW Dynamite^note Now developing a stranglehold on the award with four consecutive wins
  • Best Promotion: AEW^note Third consecutive win

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