All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite: Dynamite 8/2 and Rampage 8/4: EPISODE 200

August 2, 2023 4:49 PM - Season 4, Episode 44

On this bicentennial episode of Dynamite, it's good to know that the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page have all re-upped their contracts, keeping the Elite in All Elite Wrestling. How will the company celebrate? Will Tony finally announce the card for All In at Wembley Stadium?

The announced card for tonight (with commentary borrowed from TSN):

Anything Goes Match: Jon Moxley (w/ Claudio Castagnoli) vs. Trent Beretta (w/ Chuck Taylor) vs. Penta El Zero Miedo (w/ Rey Fenix)

With bad blood still boiling hot, Wednesday night's match will assuredly get ugly at points with none of the three men involved afraid to dole out - or incur - punishment. Whatever happens on Dynamite won't end the war, but all three men will be looking to get one over on their adversaries.

AEW Women's World Championship Match: Toni Storm (c) vs. Hikaru Shida

In her second reign as champion, Storm will be making her sixth defence of her title since defeating Jamie Hayter for it at Double or Nothing at the end of May... But as formidable an opponent as Storm is, Shida won't have the luxury of keeping her focus solely on the champion when her stablemates Saraya and Ruby Soho will be lurking on the outside. The Outcasts have never been afraid to get involved in a match and Wednesday night won't be any different.

Trios match: The Elite ("The Cleaner" Kenny Omega, Nick Jackson and Matt Jackson) (w/ "Hangman" Adam Page) vs. Team TNA (Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal and Satnam Singh (w/ Sonjay Dutt and Karen Jarrett))

Two weeks after their brutal encounter in the Blood & Guts match, three members of The Elite return to action... This will only be the third time that Jarrett, Lethal and the monstrous Singh have wrestled as a trio, but their different styles and abilities will undoubtedly be enough to trouble Omega and the Jacksons. It's highly unlikely that any of the three men have dealt with somebody with the size and strength of Singh and it will take a large amount of creativity to come up with a game plan for the giant nicknamed "The One in One Billion." There is, of course, still concern over what kind of shape that Omega and the Bucks will be in after the kind of hellacious trauma they put themselves through during Blood & Guts.

Tag Team match: "The Ocho" Chris Jericho and Konosuke Takeshita (w/ Don Callis) vs. "The Spanish God" Sammy Guevara and "Red Death" Daniel Garcia

After weeks of courting by his old friend Don Callis in hopes of getting him to join his new family to rid of The Elite, Chris Jericho is ready for a trial run as he teams up with Konosuke Takeshita in tag-team action. What makes the match so intriguing, though, is their opponents on Wednesday night - (former?) Jericho Appreciation Society members Sammy Guevara and Daniel Garcia. Guevara, Garcia and the rest of the JAS have made it clear in recent weeks that they don't support whatever kind of relationship it is between Jericho and Callis and feel abandoned by their leader. For his part, Jericho has told his (former?) charges that he can't be there for them forever and need to strike out on their own. Guevara and Garcia have done that over the past month as the duo advanced to the finals of the Blind Eliminator Tag Team Tournament where they ultimately fell to AEW World Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Adam Cole. While there were some bumps along the way, Guevara and Garcia proved they could function as an effective team and will undoubtedly prove to be a tough matchup for Jericho and Takeshita.

ROH World Tag Team Championship Match: Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis) (c) vs. AAA Mega Champion El Hijo del Vikingo and Komander (w/ Alex Abrahantes)

Two of lucha libre's premier high-flyers, the Mexican duo will give Fletcher and Davis everything they've got and will offer a taxing challenge to the new champions. The major edge that Aussie Open will have over their challengers is in the chemistry department. While Vikingo and Komander have faced off as opponents and shared the ring on the same side in trios and multi-man matches, they never wrestled as a tag team before. It will be imperative for the United Empire members to take advantage of Komander and Vikingo's unfamiliarity with one another.

PLUS:

- After running down the name and legacy of Extreme Championship Wrestling on last week's Dynamite, FTW Champion Jack Perry goes face to face with ECW icon Jerry Lynn

- We hear from AEW World Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman after he and Adam Cole were unsuccessful in their attempt at taking the AEW World Tag Team Championships from FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) on this past Saturday night's Collision

posted by The Pluto Gangsta (14 comments total)

Jericho tried to wrestle a clean match, he really tried, but Callis went and cheated on his behalf, earning him a first-quarter F-bomb.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:28 PM on August 2, 2023

Surprise #1: Jerry Lynn calls in ROB VAN DAM to represent for ECW and get all-up in Jack Perry's snoot.
Surprise #2: Tony actually paid the money for Rob to come out to Pantera's "Walk" as if this was a goddang GCW show
Surprise #3: Jack Perry leaps into the front row of the audience and grabs a child to hold out in front of him! And you know that spot had to be cleared!
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:36 PM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

After a banger of a no-DQ match where everyone ate some table and had some thumbtacks injected into their backs, Trent stole the pin on Penta for the win (but not before executing a beautiful running knee onto Moxley). Of course, the rest of BCC object to this, so in honor of the 200th episode, Rampage is going back to Daily's Place for another parking lot brawl. (Wait, does that mean Rampage is live on Friday?)
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:58 PM on August 2, 2023

MJF out here cutting the opposite of a "you people" promo... God, he is a good talker.

And finally we have our title match: THE BIGGEST EVENT IN WRESTLING HISTORY at Wembley Stadium
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:08 PM on August 2, 2023

The Elite vs. Team TNA was a lot of funny business, focused mostly on how big Satnam Singh is and how much cheating Jeff & co. tried to squeeze into one ref distraction spot and how psyched the crowd is to have the Elite re-signed to the company.

By contrast, the segment of AR Fox and Swerve invading the actual Wayne Academy garage dojo to assault Nick Wayne is chilling. They left him a crimson mask and a pool of his own blood, and I'm pretty sure Fox actually held a shard of glass to Nick's throat so that they could make a comicbook-villain-style threatening phone call to Darby Allin.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:30 PM on August 2, 2023

If you watched this episode on TNT instead of the Fite feed, I'm sorry to say you missed some primo Taz messing with Tony Schiavone about the meaning of the word "intercostal" and the location of the Antipodes Islands.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:44 PM on August 2, 2023

AND NEW.... women's champion! Shida is now on top again and the Outcasts can be part of a new storyline, hopefully. I was worried the episode would have a screwy finish after Saraya, Ruby and Toni each got their cheaty spots in, But Shida powered through. Probably she will defend at All In, and smart money says the opponent will be hometown girl Saraya, who hasn't had a match since May.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:13 PM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

And finally we have our title match: THE BIGGEST EVENT IN WRESTLING HISTORY at Wembley Stadium

I cannot express how much I want this match to be 100% clean and to be followed by a tearful hug and a fade to black.
posted by Etrigan at 7:27 AM on August 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I cannot express how much I want this match to be 100% clean and to be followed by a tearful hug and a fade to black.

I will be sobbing
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:23 AM on August 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Rampage's match of Skye Blue vs Anna Jay.A.S. shows that Skye has gotten better and better in the ring this year, and Anna hasn't let any injuries dull her skills either. Speaking of the awesome potential of the women's roster, here's Kris Statlander using Renee Paquette as her squat weight, talking up tomorrow's match against Mercedes Martinez, and something about pickled eggs? (If Kris Stat has gone back to being a loon, I'd be pretty happy.)
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:54 PM on August 4, 2023

Shout out to the set designer for this parking lot fight who placed a key light above the ceiling fan just right so that we get the visual of the fan's giant spinning shadow in the background. It's a shame that despite the excellent Sue run-in (drive-in?) with Orange Cassidy and a finish that includes Claudio tearing a door off its hinges, that the company continues to make the Best Friends look like losers no matter how popular they are. Dynamite's three-way had no stakes, so it was OK for Trent to win I guess, but as soon as Death Triangle are interested in fighting the winners of this match, the Best Friends get fed to Moxley. Ah well.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:04 PM on August 4, 2023

Oh, and AR Fox showed up with Swerve to squash some jobbers wearing a blood-stained tank-top that is purported to be the same one Nick Wayne was wearing when they smashed him up on Wednesday (ignore the fact that Nick was still wearing it when that segment ended), and wearing his balaclava through the whole match. So basically you hang out with Swerve for two weeks and you become a goddam psychopath.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:12 PM on August 4, 2023

So basically you hang out with Swerve for two weeks and you become a goddam psychopath.

They’re both still working through their PTSD.
posted by Etrigan at 5:12 AM on August 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Every week, I am more and more amazed that Jon Moxley lasted as long as he did in WWE.
posted by Etrigan at 11:47 AM on August 5, 2023