24/04/24 – Daily’s Place – Jacksonville, FL
Commentary – Tony Schiavone, Taz and Excalibur
The Elite – The Young Bucks and Okada arrive at the arena, followed by another car with Jack Perry as they make their way into the arena.
Security comes up to Perry and tells him he can’t come into the arena but Matt Jackson tells them to back off and that he is with them.
The funny thing is these security guards looked like legit tough scary men and could beat the Elites ass in 2 seconds flat, they make the “wrestlers” look so small, not a good look to begin the show.
Orange Cassidy comes out for his match but is jumped from the back by Trent Beretta who beats Cassidy down and throws him in the ring.
Beretta grabs a mic and asks for Chuck Taylor to come down to the ring.
Beretta tries to get into Chucks head that Cassidy doesn’t care about him.
Chuck Taylor looked like he was going to side with Beretta but grabbed the mic and said “He always thought Trent was a piece of shit” as he hit Beretta with the microphone.
Beretta scurried away as Taylor said they won’t clear him to wrestle but he wants to fight Beretta in the parking lot.
Jon Moxley has a backstage promo as he talks about his match tonight with Powerhouse Hobbs, he says he isn’t underestimating his opponent tonight, he knows what he is capable of and he knows if he makes one mistake everything could come crashing down.
Finally the new AEW World Heavyweight Champion “Swerve Strickland comes out but wait it’s a match?
Eliminator match
Swerve Strickland (with Prince Nana) vs Kyle Fletcher
Don Callis joins the commentary team as he puts Kyle Fletcher over through out the match.
This is a very strange decision to have this match instead of some sort of promo by Swerve Strickland after his big win at Dynasty to become the first African American World Champion.
These two had a competitive contest but I just couldn’t understand the point of it all.
The Elite are seen coming into the arena with Jack Perry.
Swerve hit a brutal Swerve Stomp on Fletcher who was sitting on the ring apron, Swerve seemed to have tweaked his ankle from this.
Fletcher targeted this injured area with a leg lock trying to tap Swerve out to no avail.
Both man battled on the top rope with Fletcher trying to superplex Swerve but he got knocked down with Swerve hitting his Stomp as Fletcher was teetering on the second rope, this didn’t put him away but a sidekick to the head did.
Winner – Swerve Strickland
Thunder Rosa was interviewed by Renee backstage who said even though she came up short against Toni Storm at Dynasty she was proud of what she achieved.
She brought up Dionna Purrazzo and Mariah May getting involved in her match, Purrazzo came into the scene and said to say it to her face as the two firey women had to be broken up by security.
Singles Match
Mina Shirakawa vs Anna Jay
Shirakawa is the former tag team partner of Mariah May and her first appearance of Dynamite was drinking champagne and making out with Mariah.
Tonight she faces Anna Jay who seems to be stuck at the moment doing jobs for others.
The way I see Anna, she could definitely be like a Velvet Skye type but she has absolutely no storylines going on and basically just has matches which isn’t doing anything for her currently.
Mariah May is on the outside and is cheering Shirakawa on, Anna Jay blows kisses to Mariah who looks offended. Mariah would probably be a great choice for a partner to Anna Jay for a Beautiful People style reboot.
Anna Jay locked in the Queenslayer submission, she took her eyes off the buisness at hand and looked at Mariah which caused her to get distracted with Shirakawa reversing into a pin.
Winner – Mina Shirakawa
After the match Anna Jay attacked Mariah May and locked her into the Queenslayer submission.
Toni Storm came running down the ramp to scare Anna Jay off with her comforting Mariah May.
Serena Deeb came out and held Toni Storms title which she left at the top of the ramp, looks like maybe she will be the next in line for a shot at the AEW Women’s Title.
Casino Gauntlet Match
Winner receives an International Title Match against Roderick Strong at Double or Nothing.
I only got the drift from the commentators that this match wasn’t a regular match rather a Casino Gauntlet Match.
I don’t understand why AEW can’t explain to the viewer what is going on, from what I gathered from the commentary that there could be 20 people in this match but if someone is pinned early it would be over, very confusing.
Jay White, Penta and Dante Martin battled it out early until Kylie O Riley came into the match.
Taz on commentary made the comment that there is no countdown or anything just people coming in the match, yes this is silly.
The crowd erupted when Will Ospreay came in next who wasn’t expected to be in this match.
More info from commentary came in that this match could end at any point, so if someone pinned someone right now it would be over but if not more people come in, bizarre rules and hardly fair if you don’t get to come in the match.
Lance Archer was next who came in and gave Will Ospreay a stiff shot to the head.
He set up 2 tables on the outside and was looking to inflict some damage.
This match remained on the outside with Archer dominating everyone.
Kommander was next he came in the ring, he jumped on the top rope and did a hurricanrana to Archer through the two tables.
What an anticlimax.
Jay Lethal came out to fight with Ospreay in the ring as now everyone starts popping in the ring to hit thier big moves.
Finally Ospreay hit his running back elbow on Kammander who was pinning O Riley to win the match.
Winner – Will Ospreay
Will Ospreay will now face Roderick Strong for the AEW International Championship at the next PPV “Double or Nothing”
The Unisputed Kingdom come out and surround Ospreay, Taz on commentary said it will be different as he won’t just be facing one guy one on one, I thought Ospreay was suppose to be in the Don Callis Family? Where are they?
Chris Jericho came out to the ring with new music and a new background them for his new moniker “The Learning Tree”
Jericho was super condescending to the crowd, pandering to them which was getting underneath the audiences skin, it seems lately Jericho has been getting a lot of hate from the AEW loyalists and he is totally playing on this with his new character of “The Learning Tree”
Big Bill came out to the ring and said he needs “The Learning Tree” and said he would be a perfect fit for it, Jericho said he would be watching Bill Bill closely.
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match
Jon Moxley (c) vs Powerhouse Hobbs
Don Callis joins the commentary team.
Powerhouse Hobbs dominated the early goings of this match.
My issue is with the way Powerhouse is presented on the show you never really feel he is going to win and we should, the guy is a legit monster.
Hobbs continued to toss Moxley around like he was nothing, throwing Moxley into the guardrail. This was more of a brawl rather than a match.
Back in the ring Hobbs missed Moxley in the corner and hit his knee awkwardly, Hobbs was now hurt and hobbling after dominating the match.
Moxley hit his double armed DDT then put the rear naked choke in which choked Hobbs out. Interesting that they didn’t use Hobbs injury for the finish of this match.
Winner – Jon Moxley
Konosuke Takeshita came out and pointed to Moxley signaling he wants a title shot.
Shibata is backstage with Renee, he uses his Google translator to make a challenge for the FTW Championship next week in Winnipeg against Chris Jericho.
Tony Schiavone brings out Jack Perry to the ring, Perry calls out Tony Kahn to the ring.
Kahn comes out, Perry offers his hand to reinstate him and let bygones be bygones.
Tony shakes his hand and hugs him with Perry looking into the hard camera and smirking.
Perry strikes Tony in the guts with the microphone with The Young Bucks and Okada running down to the ring to appear to stop the situation, instead The Bucks pick up Kahn and hit him with the TK Driver leaving Tony laying.
Referees come out to stop the assault with “The Elite” leaving the arena with Matt Jackson saying “it’s time to change the world baby”
Kevs Thoughts –
I applaud AEW for finally ending the show with a cliffhanger for next week, finally some sort of story is developing here which for their sake I hope it doesn’t just fizzle out to nothing.
I think they really missed a big opportunity with not having Swerve Strickland come out for a promo as AEW champion to start the show, instead we got a match against Kyle Fletcher for absolutely no reason.
Im really starting to enjoy this new character Chris Jericho is playing as “The Learning Tree” he is already starting to get the crowd riled up and I’m glad Jericho is back to being important on the show as I have felt he has been stale for a while.
Let’s see how they follow up this Elite vs Tony Kahn storyline next week.
