SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)…

ALL ELITE WRESTLING DYNAMITE PREVIEW
APRIL 13, 2022
NEW ORLEANS, LA. AT THE UNO LAKEFRONT ARENA
AIRS ON TBS NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EST, 7:00 p.m. CST
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Excalibur, Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross

Last Week

  • Adam Cole defeated Christian Cage.
  • Samoa Joe, making his AEW debut, defeated “Platinum” Max Caster to qualify for the Owen Hart Cup Tournament.
  • “Captain” Shawn Dean defeated “Chairman” Shawn Spears via a distraction from Wardlow.
  • Matt & Jeff Hardy defeated The Butcher & The Blade in a Tables match.
  • Hikaru Shida defeated Julia Hart to quaify for the Owen Hart Cup Tournament.
  • FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) defeated The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) to retain both the AAA & ROH Tag Team Championships.

Arena

This week’s AEW Dynamite and Rampage tapings take place in the UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, LA. The arena opened in 1983 and is located on the campus of the Senator Nat G. Kiefer University. It holds just under 9,000 people and has been an infrequent host to wresting events dating back to a 1989 WWF house show. The most recent event to take place was the 2018 ROH Supercard of Honor. ROH is now owned by AEW boss Tony Khan.

This week is billed as “championship week,” which will culminate with Battle of the Belts II taking place on Saturday. Tonight’s show is loaded with seven matches. AEW has been granted time to overrun if necessary:

AEW Tag Team Championship: Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus) vs. ReDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly)

Fish & O’Reilly came out to attack Christian Cage after he lost to Adam Cole. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus came out to make the save and then AEW Champion “Hangman” Adam Page came out to challenge Adam Cole to a Texas Death match for the title on this week’s episode of Rampage.

Later in a backstage promo, Christian stood with Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus but walked away in frustration after his loss. Jungle Boy made fun of Fish & O’Reilly’s cauliflower ears and said they were tired of them sticking their nose in their business. They offered a championship match for tonight’s show.

Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus defeated the Lucha Brothers for the titles back in January. Fish & O’Reilly were multiple-time NXT Tag Team Champions during their recent tenure in WWE.

Frank’s Analysis: Champions challenging opponents violates the ranking system used in AEW. Either you go by it, or you don’t. I’ll counter myself by saying in pro wrestling, it’s ok for championship matches to come about via storyline. The problem is it was done twice on the same show, but more so ReDRagon isn’t even in the top five in rankings. If they were, I might forgive it. At least Adam Cole is ranked second, so a title match for him isn’t that hard to swallow even though he did lose his shot at Revolution.

Trios Match: Eddie Kingston and Santana & Ortiz vs. Jericho Appreciation Society (Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, and Daniel Garcia)

Issues continue to roll on between Eddie Kingston and Santana & Ortiz and the Jericho Appreciation Society, with the latest chapter taking place on last week’s Dynamite. Eddie threw a TV at Jericho backstage while he and his Appreciation Society were fleeing. Immediately thereafter he made his way to the ring with Santana & Ortiz and said he would attack Jericho even if he was with his family. He said he know where Garcia lives and would go to his house to go after him.

After Eddie beat Jericho at Revolution, Jericho betrayed Eddie after shaking his hand out of respect and formed the Jericho Appreciation Society. Their issues go back to the end of last year when Santana & Ortiz were part of Jericho’s Inner Circle and Eddie got in their ear about Jericho’s influence.

https://twitter.com/Santana_Proud/status/1514000634193887233?s=20&t=e26yMg20DU0I9d2K8n0E9Q

Frank’s Analysis: It feels like this has been going on forever, but I don’t mind. We’re seeing the blossoming of Eddie right before our very eyes. Now I may be a little partial to him because he’s a NYer and a big Giants fan like me, but I don’t think I’m alone when I say it’s awesome how genuine he comes across and whatever issue he has with someone feels real. It felt that way with CM Punk and it feels that way now.

MJF vs. “Captain” Shawn Dean

MJF, for all intents and purposes, told Wardlow his services were no longer needed and and said he would pay him to stay home. He along with Shawn Spears have been putting up signs to not allow him into the building. Last week Wardlow attempted to get to MJF by pushing off security while he was on guest commentary for the match between Shawn Spears and “Captain” Shawn Dean. This distracted Spears and allowed Dean to roll him up for the surprise win.

Later, MJF challenged Dean to a match. Dean holds a victory over both MJF & Spears.

Frank’s Analysis: It is amusing that they have us believing Wardlow works for MJF and not AEW. If wasn’t employed by AEW, he would be arrested for trespassing, wouldn’t he? It was like when John Cena “worked” for then-rookie Wade Barrett in the Nexus invasion angle in WWE back in 2010. It’s all good, but as I said I find it funny. That said, I’m wondering if it was worth handing MJF his first loss when they had Dean beat him, granted it was via DQ. He could have gone into the Dog Collar match with CM Punk undefeated. I may be the only one who cares about this, so if you’re all good I’m good. We’re just headed towards a match with Wardlow, likely at Double or Nothing. It’ll probably be “for an AEW contract.”

Swerve Strickland & Keith Lee vs. FTW Champion Ricky Starks & Powerhouse Hobbs

It’s been a long time coming. Swerve Strickland will pair up with “Limitless” Keith Lee to take on Ricky Starks & Powerhouse Hobbs of Team Taz. Things have been brewing ever since Keith arrived in AEW right before Revolution. He, Hobbs, and Starks were all part of the Face of the Revolution ladder match which was ultimately won by Wardlow. Swerve arrived on the scene that night, signing his contract.

Anyway, the latest chapters in this story unfolded last week when Hobbs & Starks attacked Swerve in the back after he was being interviewed by Tony. Keith made the quick save (who tipped them off that Swerve was going to be there by the way? How did Keith know to be close by to make the save?). This past Friday on Rampage, Starks officially challenged Swerve to the match after he defeated QT Marshall.

There was some Twitter trash talk but I found this tweet interesting:

Frank’s Analysis: I look forward to this match as they have been building towards it for a while. The tweet and retweet with Arn Anderson is interesting. I don’t know if there’s anything to read into there.

ROH Television Championship: Minoru Suzuki (champ) vs. Samoa Joe

Fresh off winning the Ring of Honor TV Championship at Supercard of Honor, Minoru Suzuki of New Japan Pro Wrestling returns to AEW to defend his championship against Samoa Joe. Joe made his debut last week, as I recapped earlier.

This will be Suzuki’s fourth appearance on AEW television. He arrived at All Out back in August of last year. He teamed with fellow Suzuki-gun member Lance Archer and lost to Jon Moxley & Eddie Kingston at the Grand Slam event back in September in Queens, NY. On a rare YouTube Buy-In show leading into an episode of Rampage back in October, he lost a classic to Bryan Danielson. I had the honor of covering that match and night with Tyler Sage on the PWTorch VIP Rampage post show.

Frank’s Analysis: I’m curious how the ROH product will be tied to AEW moving forward. Will we have to watch it to keep up with AEW? I’m not sure how many people want to do that. I have no idea. That said, this is an amazing match. I’m curious how they book it with Joe just debuting in AEW and Suzuki winning the title just weeks ago. I would think Suzuki is far past getting hurt by losing here, so I could see Joe winning, which would get him off to a hot start in AEW.

Other Matches Announced

On Tuesday afternoon, AEW announced two more matches in addition to what had been advertised all week:

  • CM Punk vs. Penta Oscuro
  • Marina Shafir vs. Skye Blue

Punk returns to the ring after defeating Dax Harwood of FTR several weeks ago. He declared his intention to become AEW World Champion, and said he’d have to wait two weeks to find out whom he will face. His most recent feud was with MJF, which culminated in a Dog Collar match at Revolution, won by Punk with help from Wardlow. This match developed because of a tweet by Punk in which Penta responded:

Shafir makes her AEW television proper debut against Skye Blue. Dubbed as “The Problem,” she has compiled a 4-0 record on Dark and has been tabbed as a challenger to Jade Cargill for the TBS Championship.

Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Thank you for reading!

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