We’re fresh from Full Gear and tonight we’ll see the aftermath of AEW’s first major pay-per-view.
The announce team fills us in on tonight’s card LIVE from Nashville as Dark Order takes on Jurassic Express, Nyla Rose is in action, Hangman and PAC have a Full Gear rematch (ugh), and SCU take on Jericho and Guevara. Plus, Jon Moxley kicks off the show, but first we see a video on Kenny Omega’s checkup after the Lights Out match. Omega wasn’t cleared to wrestle, but Moxley is. That’s gotta sting.
Jon Moxley vs. Michael Nakazawa
Jon Moxley is ready for his next challenge. Who will step up?
In a STUNNING gesture, Nakazawa tosses away the baby oil. That does nothing to faze Moxley as he proceeds to pick Nakazawa apart. The Paradigm Shift ends this quickly.
After the match, Moxley gives Omega some kudos for facing him and proceeds to call out the locker room. Who will answer the challenge?
Dark Order vs. Jurassic Express
Marko Stunt and Jungle Boy are growing on me. I can’t say the same for Dark Order, but they’re a decent low-card tag team, ala the Orient Express. The crowd is fully behind Marko as the Express takes it to the Order. Marko flosses a bit, which immediately makes me like them less. Eventually the Order gets the better of Stunt and they dominate the tiniest Jurassic for a while.
After a commercial break, Marko finally gets the hot tag and Jungle Boy makes the big comeback to the crowd’s delight. Marko has an unfortunate botch on the top rope which quiets the crowd a bit, allowing the Order to take over again and get the victory. Some sloppy moments made this match lose a couple points.
Uno takes the mic after the win and offers Marko Stunt a mask to join the Order as a Creeper. Jungle Boy rejects the offer, and the Order swarm the Express. JR mentions it would be nice if someone came to help, and cue the music. Luchasaurus is back! The crowd loses it. He singlehandedly destroys the Dark Order as Uno bails. The Express reunites to huge cheers.
The Chairman appears and will be in action after the break.
Shawn Spears vs. Peter Avalon vs. Darby Allin
Hmm, I’m pretty sure one of these three has ZERO chance of winning this match, and his name is not Shawn or Darby. Speaking of, Avalon starts the match by leaping from the top rope and missing everyone before being dumped to the outside so Spears and Allin can square off. This match remains mainly Darby and Spears until Joey Janela storms down for revenge on Spears. This leaves Darby and Avalon which bodes poorly for the Librarian. Darby gets the Coffin Drop for the three count.
Allin takes the mic and just says two words to get the crowd’s attention. Jon Moxley. Darby has accepted the challenge.
Nyla Rose vs. Dani Jordan
Dani tries to get some shots in, but it doesn’t take long for Nyla to get the win with the Beast Bomb. The crowd didn’t seem to care much about this one.
We get an update on Dustin’s condition. He has a broken bone in his arm thanks to Jake Hager’s poor chauffeur work. He should be back in about a month.
Next week, the Dynamite Dozen Battle Royal will determine who will compete for a fancy new ring!
Tony is at ringside with Allie who speaks for a few minutes before being interrupted by Brandi and Kong. Allie tries to get a jump on Kong, but she is overpowered quickly and the demented twosome take a lock of Allie’s hair for the collection.
Chris Jericho Speaks (probably not about his choice of podcast guests)
The Champ asks for another thank you, and Cody’s music interrupts. But Cody doesn’t emerge from the stage. Instead, it’s MJF. Tony gets cheeky and says he can remove the J. Oh, snap!
Maxwell gets the A-hole treatment as he respectfully addresses Jericho then goes on a heel rant about Cody and the fans, cementing his very obvious evil status. I don’t know about all of this. MJF was always a heel, then they tried to make him a cool heel, then he’s a good guy? The heel turn didn’t surprise anyone but at least we are back where we should be. MJF get this week’s S-bombs as he tells us all how awful Cody is before having a bonding moment with Jericho over how much they hate Cody. We get some discussion of MJF joining the Inner Circle, which will inevitably happen, but they go back and forth with some posturing to keep some tension between them before sealing the deal. Eventually, a battered Cody comes out and rushes the ring. Cody and Chris botch a powerslam once, then finally make it happen before Wardlow sneaks into the ring in a fancy suit and takes out Cody at the urging of MJF.
Hangman Page vs. PAC
Okay, I hate PPV rematches when they happen on the very next show. I get the attempt to extend feuds, but this doesn’t make any sense on a scripted show to do something like this. It’s like a sitcom telling basically the same story two weeks in a row with just a couple rewritten jokes.
Anyway, the match is pretty standard with plenty of back and forth offense until PAC hits the Black Arrow and makes the Hangman submit with the Brutalizer, winning the series against Page. So I guess that’s done? Alright then.
Backstage, the Bucks and Santana/Ortiz are brawling all over the place. The action in intense until an irish whip opens the men’s room door and Orange Cassidy is…well…standing there. The crowd loses it as the segment ends.
Back from break, and the brawl has spilled out to ringside. After several more minutes of beating up the Bucks, Santana and Ortiz put Matt through the stage. Brandon Cutler comes out to help Nick and gets some kicks for his trouble. Private Party joins the, well, party before the chaos is over. Next week, Private Party and Santana/Ortiz will face off, and Moxley will take on Darby Allin.
Time for our main event and Christopher Daniels is back on TV with SCU.
SCU (champs) vs. Jericho/Guevara – AEW World Tag Team Championship Match
So Cal Uncensored does their gimmick in the ring. It’s no “I got two words for ya!” but it’s fun. Justin does FULL ring intros, and I do like this touch for the main event.
Now for the recap, but it is a Chris Jericho match, so instead of enjoying it, I’ll just say that SCU pulls out a sneaky, yet clean win when Scorpio rolls up Jericho. The story here seems to be that Scorpio Sky is the MVP of the team and with Daniels back, that may cause some dissention in the ranks. Could they be setting Sky up for a title run, as he gets the pin on the champ? That would be an interesting step forward as well.
Next week, AEW is just a couple hours away from me in Indianapolis. While the diehard fan in me would drive to the show to cover it live, the incredibly lazy fan in me is going to stay home and watch it on TNT like the rest of you.
UNTIL NEXT WEEK!
