Hello, everyone, and welcome once again to This Week in AEW. As we’ve got three shows to cover, we’re going to do things a bit differently here and quickly go through all of them before we get to my thoughts on the week as a whole at the end like usual.
4/13/22 AEW Dynamite Results
- CM Punk def. Penta Oscuro via pinfall (13:37) in a hot opening contest and a once-in-a-lifetime match between these two. Penta gave Punk one hell of a fight, but it was the Best in the World who came out on top after catching a springboard attempt and turning it into the GTS for the win.
- The Jericho Appreciation Society arrived at an airstrip in style on their own private jet, but were accosted by Eddie Kingston, Santana and Ortiz. They drove off in a card and left the JAS’s Angelo Parker & Matt Menard without their shoes.
- Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus def. reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) via pinfall (13:45) to retain the AEW World Tag Team Championships.
- Bitter losers O’Reilly and Fish attacked Jurassic Express after the match with chairs. They were confronted at the ramp by FTR, who got into their faces.
- The Blackpool Combat Club talked about their match on Friday with the Gunn Club in a promo.
- Jamie Hayter talked trash to Toni Storm in advance of their upcoming Owen Hart Women’s Tournament matchup.
- Capt. Shawn Dean def. MJF via countout (4:05) after Wardlow appeared and attacked many security guards and scared Max out of the ring. MJF begged referee Bryce Remsburg not to count him out, but Bryce decided to
- Post-match, Wardlow attacked more security guards and then threatened that he’d continue his attacks until MJF released him from the contract.
- In another one of Darby Allin’s arthouse videos, we saw him skateboarding on the streets with a coffin nearby. He said that he was ready to put a nail in this rivalry he’s had with Andrade El Idolo, proposing a Coffin Match challenge.
- Malakai Black spoke about
- The Jericho Appreciation Society (Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, Daniel Garcia) def. Eddie Kingston, Santana and Ortiz via pinfall (11:45) when Jericho struck Kingston with Floyd the Baseball Bat, allowing Garcia to get the pin.
- Post-match, The JAS attacked the faces in a 5-on-3 assault, with the announcers noting the unfair disadvantage Kingston and PnP found themselves in.
- MJF was backstage with Shawn Spears, still steamed about Wardlow getting in his business. He said that per the stipulations of the contract, he can book Wardlow in any match of his choosing, and that he knows of the perfect guy to “slay the pig”: The Butcher.
- Marina Shafir def. Skye Blue in a very short squash match via submission (2:23). During the match, they showed Red Velvet and Kiera Hogan sitting in Jade Cargill’s “Baddie Section”, hinting at an apparent alliance between the three.
- HOOK was interviewed backstage, but was interrupted by Tony Nese and “Smart” Mark Sterling before he could say anything. Nese was upset that he didn’t get interviewed as he and Sterling were chased off by HOOK. As HOOK left the room, he tossed aside a medicine ball, which Danhausen caught as he tried to do another curse on HOOK.
- Powerhouse Hobbs & Ricky Starks def. Swerve Strickland & Keith Lee via pinfall (12:33) after Hobbs planted Lee with the spinebuster for the pinfall victory. This match was a fantastic tag match. One notable spot was Swerve using Lee as a springboard to hit a moonsault on the two Team Taz members. Taz appeared at the end to assist his team by grabbing at Lee’s leg, leading to the aforementioned finish with Hobbs and the spinebuster.
- Thunder Rosa was backstage and was met with Nyla Rose and Vickie Guerrero, who had cake for the AEW Women’s World Champion. Rosa decided to splash the cake in Nyla’s face as a brawl broke out for a bit. Nyla got the upper hand by throwing Rosa against a crate. “I love cake and I love violence!” Nyla said as she walked off.
- Samoa Joe def. Minoru Suzuki via pinfall (11:38) with the Muscle Buster to become the new ROH World Television Champion in a very hard-hitting main event. The match opened with Joe and Suzuki hitting each other with repeated chops until their bodies turned red from all the chopping.
- Following the match, Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt revealed their “big surprise” as the lights went out. When the lights turned back on, a gigantic 7’3” man appeared behind Joe and proceeded to beat him up as Lethal and Sonjay joined in. The commentators identified this big man as Satnam Singh, a former NBA draft pick with the Dallas Mavericks.
—
4/15 AEW Rampage Results
- The Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Wheeler YUTA) def. Gunn Club (Billy, Austin, Colton Gunn) via pinfall (9:00) when Wheeler pinned Billy Gunn with an O’Connor Roll after avoiding the FameAsser.
- The Butcher def. Local Talent via pinfall (1:00) with a powerbomb.
- Dustin Rhodes was backstage as he talked about his recent win over Lance Archer, knocking him off the Top 5. He then said he wanted to issue a dream match challenge to CM Punk.
- Ruby Soho def. Robyn Renegade via pinfall (9:00) with a spinning neckbreaker move referred to as “Destination Unknown” to advance to the Owen Hart Foundation Women’s Tournament. Robyn and her twin sister Charlotte attempted to do a switcharoo in order to steal the win, but Ruby was too smart for that.
- “Hangman” Adam Page def. Adam Cole via pinfall (20:00) in the Texas Death Match to retain his AEW World Championship in a very brutal encounter… even with not much in the way of bloodshed. At one point, Hangman had Cole tied against the ropes and teased hitting him with a barbed wire-wrapped steel chair… but refused to do so due to his cowboy code of honor. Ultimately, Hangman secured his win by hitting Cole with a Deadeye through a table (but not before crowning his rival with a barbed wire crown on his head).
—
Battle of the Belts 2 (4/16/22) Results
- Sammy Guevara def. Scorpio Sky via pinfall (12:46) to win the TNT Championship, using a low blow just before the GTH to win the match. Guevara received a lot of hate from the crowd during the match
- Jonathan Gresham def. Dalton Castle (w/ The Boys) via submission (10:33) to retain the ROH World Championship with the Octopus stretch hold.
- Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt and Satnam Singh showed up after the match to attack both Gresham and Castle, with Singh literally making Gresh look like a child when they stood face to face. Matt Sydal and Lee Moriarty attempted to make the save, but were beaten down by the massive Satnam Singh. Samoa Joe ran in with a lead pipe to chase off Lethal and company. Joe & Gresh posed with their ROH Titles afterwards.
- Thunder Rosa def. Nyla Rose via roll-up pinfall (16:13) to retain her AEW Women’s World Championship in a fantastic main event match.
—
Before we can talk about some of the things that disappointed in an otherwise eventful “Championship Week” in AEW, let’s get down to what I really liked about last week.
The Texas Death Match between the Adamses for the AEW World Title delivered in the brutality and interesting story beats. While not as bloody as previous Texas Death Matches, we still got a fantastic way to close out this week’s live Rampage.
I was fascinated by Adam Page refusing to batter Adam Cole with a barbed wire steel chair, which played into his noble babyface cowboy character. Even more interesting was a spot where Page had himself a beer while fighting Cole in the crowd. This bit got my attention mainly due to the man who’s all-but confirmed to be Page’s next challenger post-Cole feud: CM Punk.
Punk is famously straight edge and has used that often to inform his wrestling character, while a love for beer has been used to define who Hangman Page is as a character. However, the drink on Rampage was the first time in quite a while that Hangman ever downed a beer, and it’s a curious timing given the Punk feud that’s likely coming soon.
Even more interesting is to see what the alignments will be for this feud. Will it be a straight face vs. face feud, or will we see a heelish side from either one of them — especially in the case of CM Punk? Time will tell, and I can’t wait for this story to begin.
Samoa Joe vs. Minoru Suzuki was a match coming in with a lot of expectations for how it would turn out, and it definitely delivered on that front… even with a short eleven-minute main event time. The match could’ve easily just been Joe and Suzuki chopping each other for the majority of it and I would’ve been hooked from start to finish.
Satnam Singh’s arrival in AEW was probably the most talked-about story last week… albeit not for the reasons AEW had hoped for. Fans were left confused by Singh’s lights out arrival and disappointed that the much-hyped overrun was not for Joe vs. Suzuki, but rather for Singh’s appearance.
By comparison, Singh’s appearance on Battle of the Belts was handled a lot better than when he first showed up a few days prior. The image of the gargantuan Singh staring down Jonathan Gresham and making him look small in comparison was a memorable visual.
While AEW could’ve handled Singh’s first week better, he’s hardly dead on arrival as some might fear. It’ll, of course, take some work, but there’s something with Singh that AEW can use to their advantage and if they learn from the mistakes made from his disappointing first appearance, then there’s sitll hope for Singh and his time in AEW.
By now, you’ve probably read my editorial about the state of AEW’s women’s division and what needs to be done to fix it, and a rather poor week in representation had quite a bit to do with it.
Over four hours of programming on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, approximately 29:09 was dedicated to women’s segments and matches, with the main event AEW Women’s World Championship match at Battle of the Belts clocking in at about 16:13. In contrast, there were 10 men’s matches scheduled on the three AEW TV programming versus the three women’s matches we saw on Dynamite, Rampage, and Battle of the Belts. There’s something wrong with that picture, for sure.
This is something that obviously needs to change, and like I said in my aforementioned editorial, having one women’s match per show isn’t the way to go about it at all.
Let’s have a look at what’s coming tonight on Dynamite:
- Coffin Match: Darby Allin vs. Andrade El Idolo
- Owen Hart Foundation Qualifier: Jungle Boy vs. Kyle O’Reilly
- Owen Hart Foundation Qualifier: Dr. Britt Baker vs. Danielle Kamela
- Wardlow vs. The Butcher
- CM Punk vs. Dustin Rhodes
- HOOK’s Dynamite Debut
- Another Tony Khan big announcement
And here’s what’s coming on Rampage this Friday:
- TBS Championship: Jade Cargill (champion) vs. Marina Shafir
- Eddie Kingston vs. Daniel Garcia (all outside interference banned)
And with that, we’ll officially call it another week for This Week in AEW. ‘Til next time, keep cool, gabagools*.
*in case you were wondering about why I always close out these recaps with that line, it’s from the always-excellent and always-funny Fightful Sour Graps recaps of NXT, hosted by friends of RingCrashers Alex Pawlowski and Kate Elizabeth, which you can find here.
—
Marc Quill is the editor of RingCrashers, GateCrashers’ home for all your All Elite Wrestling and indie wrestling needs. He’s also the web novelist behind Skye Emery: Bluebird, which you can read here. You can chat with him about wrestling, comics, and stuff in general on @MarcQuill on Twitter.
