Wednesday is upon us once again, and you know what that means! DYNAMITE is back on TBS, as well as streaming on MAX, and this week we hail from the Knoxville Coliseum in Knoxville, TN! It's going to be an action-packed night on the heels of last week's wild COLLISION, and part of that is the first-ever bout between “The Rated R Superstar” Cope and AEW World Trios Champion “The Bastard” PAC! We will all witness the in-ring return of Samoa Joe as he faces The Patriarchy's Nick Wayne, and the AEW World Tag Titles will be at stake when Private Party meets Hurt Syndicate! We will also watch Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay come face-to-face after all that's transpired between them and The Don Callis Family since Kenny's return to AEW, not to mention their history over the last several years!
DYNAMITE gets started promptly at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS, MAX, and around the world with AEW PLUS and TSN in Canada, so make time to visit the official AEW YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@AEW/featured) to watch highlights from last week's editions of DYNAMITE and COLLISION, the all-new Will Ospreay and Briscoes Timelines, and so much more! Then it's time for a homecoming as All Elite Wrestling returns to Jacksonville, FL and Daily's Place for COLLISION: HOMECOMING 2025 where AEW Women's World Champion Mariah May and #1 Contender Toni Storm meet for the...first...time, Gates of Agony face Brody King and Buddy Matthews, and Undisputed Kingdom meets Matt Menard, TNT Champion Daniel Garcia, and the returning Angelo Parker in trios competition!
ONE-ON-ONE...
“The Rated R Superstar” Cope vs. AEW World Trios Champion “The Bastard” PAC
From the moment he returned to the AEW stage at WORLDS END 2024, “The Rated R Superstar” Cope made it clear his eyes were on The Death Riders, and specifically AEW World Champion Jon Moxley. Cope never took his eyes off All Elite Wrestling despite spending seven months on the injured list after fracturing his tibia at DOUBLE OR NOTHING 2024. He watched with joy as Bryan Danielson won the World Title at ALL IN: LONDON 2024 when his career was on the line, and he watched with sorrow as Jon Moxley ripped that championship away from “The American Dragon” at WRESTLEDREAM 2024 before proceeding to destroy the career of a man Mox once called “brother”.
He watched as Moxley, surrounded by Marina Shafir, Claudio Castagnoli, “The Bastard” PAC, and eventually Wheeler Yuta, did whatever they wanted to whoever they wanted whenever they wanted. Their aspirations of molding AEW into their vision of professional wrestling left broken bodies and shattered dreams in their wake, but in the process, it forced the members of the AEW locker room who actually cared about the future to step up. It forced Orange Cassidy to step up into a leadership role he didn't want, but it cost Chuck Taylor dearly to get OC to that point. It put Hangman Page back on the hunt for the championship, but his motivations were wholly selfish, as were those of “Switchblade” Jay White when he stepped up to the challenge of dethroning Moxley at WORLDS END 2024 alongside OC and Hangman. Cassidy was the only one that night whose motivations were pure, whose desire was to prevent AEW from turning into the dog-eat-trios dog world envisioned by The Death Riders, but it wasn't enough to end Moxley's reign.
Thankfully there are others who've stepped up to the plate with motivations more in line with Cassidy's than Hangman's or White's, chief among them Cope, FTR, and Powerhouse Hobbs. In the weeks since his return, fans have watched Cope take the fight straight to Moxley and his soldiers regardless of the cost to himself. There's been no hesitation, which brought triumphs such as the trios match victory against The Death Riders on January 1st but also tragedy like when Cope ended up battered at The Death Riders hands on January 8th.
Tonight on DYNAMITE, after his team scored victory in COLLISION's 12-Man tag, Cope is taking the fight to The Death Riders once again, this time in a first-ever match with “The Bastard” PAC! Aside from Jon Moxley, there may not be a more sadistic individual in The Death Riders than this World Trios Champion. Just the sheer fact PAC's preferred submission is called The Brutalizer is indicative of that, but that's not all he brings to the table. He hits hard, he's ridiculously fast, his response time is second to none, and he can soar with the most elite of high fliers. As much as he will look to win this match with Cope, PAC will also be looking to hurt the man for having the audacity to came at the self-professed King of AEW.
If Cope makes his way through “The Bastard” in one piece, will he have to take on each of The Death Riders one-by-one in order to get to the AEW World Champion? Are they going to put him through the kind of hell they did Bryan Danielson and Orange Cassidy en route to making him wish he'd never returned to the AEW stage? Cope may want the World Title, he may want a piece of Jon Moxley, but The Death Riders will no doubt make him suffer to get there!
AEW WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH...
Private Party (Zay & Quen)(c) vs. Hurt Syndicate (Bobby Lashley & Shelton Benjamin w/ MVP)
A few weeks ago Hurt Syndicate made it quite clear what their intentions were for Private Party and the AEW World Tag Team Championship when they crashed the champs' celebration just a few minutes before Bobby Lashley defeated Mark Briscoe. Zay and Quen saved Mark from a beating after that loss, which served to set-up the trios match days later between the two sides that marked MVP's first fight in AEW, as well as his first televised match in 2.5 years. That bout came to a conclusion when Shelton Benjamin kicked Quen's head in following a nasty German Suplex, thereby earning this title opportunity for Hurt Syndicate!
There's no denying that Private Party are extremely outmatched in both size, strength, and experience level - to do so would be an extreme disservice to all parties involved. What Zay and Quen do have is a will to survive, the desire to maintain this position atop the tag division that they fought so hard to achieve, and a hunger to show the world they are the best team in wrestling today! Zay and Quen have their work cut out for them but this is a team who, with this bout, become the most active duo in AEW history following the dissolution of The Acclaimed. This will be their 83rd contest as a team, and in the process they've scored victories over The Young Bucks, The Acclaimed, and Top Flight, among others, as well as in their most recent title defense against Action Andretti and Lio Rush. They've suffered the sting of loss plenty as well, 36 times to be exact, and that's a pain neither Zay or Quen want to feel again, especially now that it means the loss of their championship titles.
Can these AEW originals, men who've been part of the locker room since before there was a locker room, overcome the threat of Hurt Syndicate or will MVP's business partners bring the first bit of AEW gold to their organization?
THE REMATCH...
Julia Hart vs. Jamie Hayter
Three weeks ago, at DYNAMITE: FIGHT FOR THE FALLEN 2025, Julia Hart and Jamie Hayter finally stepped into the ring after weeks of anticipation. The match came to its end when Hart brought an arrow into the ring, seemingly with the intent to stab her opponent. However that proved to be a ruse as Julia used referee Aubrey Edwards' momentary distraction to spray mist into Hayter's face and secure the victory.
That mist came into play during the Casino Gauntlet Match last week, only it was Harley Cameron who got exposed rather than Hayter, but it was still Julia who knocked Jamie out of commission long enough to keep her from victory. Hart wasn't the one who secured that GRAND SLAM: AUSTRALIA title opportunity either. That prize went to Toni Storm when she pinned Hart, so instead of either woman looking forward to a fight with Mariah May, Julia and Jamie Hayter are looking to take out their disappointment on each other!
Will the former AEW Women's World Champion even things up with the former TBS Champion, or will the dark princess score another victory tonight on DYNAMITE?
GRUDGE MATCH...
Samoa Joe vs. The Patriarchy's “Prodigy” Nick Wayne
It had been six months since the last time we saw Samoa Joe in All Elite Wrestling, but last week at DYNAMITE: MAXIMUM CARNAGE the former AEW World Champion returned home to help HOOK against the forces of Christian Cage's Patriarchy! While Christian Cage hightailed it out of harm's way and Nick Wayne was discarded like the piece of trash he's shown himself to be, Kip Sabian paid the price for his supposed family's sins. He got powerslammed nearly through the mat by Joe and punted through the uprights by Katsuyori Shibata all while Christian, Nick, and Mother Wayne watched on from a safe distance.
Well tonight on DYNAMITE there will be no safe distance, at least not for “The Prodigy” Nick Wayne, because he will have to stand in the ring with Samoa Joe and face the former AEW World Champion one-on-one! Will “The Patriarch” be there to support his “son” in this fight, or will he leave Nick to the wolves the same way he left Kip Sabian to fend for himself? The AEW faithful have waited a long time to see Samoa Joe back inside the squared circle, and tonight that patience pays off in Joe's first DYNAMITE match since July 10th!
ONE-ON-ONE...
AR Fox vs. Swerve Strickland
Last week the AEW faithful rejoiced when Swerve Strickland returned to the stage to exact some revenge on Ricochet. Unfortunately it's a vengeance delayed because, as soon as Ricochet laid eyes on the former AEW World Champion, he headed for the door and out into the cold Cincinnati night...that is as soon as he could move after Prince Nana cracked him with a chair. It seemed that braving the snow in his fancies was preferable to dealing with the consequences of his assault on Swerve with that pair of golden scissors.
So while Swerve eagerly anticipates getting his hands on Ricochet in short order, tonight he'll step into the ring with another man with whom he's quite familiar: AR Fox. It may have been over a year since the last time these two competitors shared a ring, they've got a dozen years of history between them as both ally and enemy, though most of it spent as foes to be honest, and their time as allies here in AEW didn't exactly end in favorable fashion.
Tonight on DYNAMITE, AR Fox and Swerve Strickland renew their rivalry once again in their 10th career one-on-one clash! Swerve currently holds the edge 5-4 with two of those victories coming in the time since both men arrived in All Elite Wrestling, and all five of his wins coming in their last five bouts. Fox ran the table on the first four, but since 2017 it's been all Swerve when the fight has just been between the two of them!
Can AR Fox tie it back up with Strickland tonight in Knoxville, or will Swerve pull ahead with his sixth straight victory over Fox? And just where will Ricochet be in the midst of all this?
FACE-TO-FACE...
After Kenny Omega defeated Brian Cage in his DYNAMITE return last week, The Don Callis Family immediately attacked “The Cleaner” as he recovered from the hard-fought battle, clearly focused on the abdominal area to exploit any lingering issues from Kenny's fight with diverticulitis. For the second time in two weeks, “The Aerial Assassin” Will Ospreay was on the spot to assist Omega against The DCF, a case of “the enemy of my enemy...” it seemed, but are they really enemies? They've got a history dating back to December 2015 and their first encounter at Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's ALL STAR WEEKEND 11, NIGHT 2, as well as numerous NJPW contests between BULLET CLUB and CHAOS between 2016 and 2018. In fact, Omega's second-to-last bout for New Japan prior to the inception of AEW was a bout pitting Omega and Kota Ibushi against Ospreay and Hiroshi Tanahashi. It was three years and eight months before Omega and Ospreay shared a ring again, this time on opposite sides of the inaugural AEW World Trios Title Tournament in a Semifinal bout won by The Elite.
Four months later, at WRESTLE KINGDOM 17, Omega made his grand return to in-ring competition for New Japan Pro Wrestling and defeated Will Ospreay to claim the IWGP United States Heavyweight Title for the second time. Five months later, at FORBIDDEN DOOR 2023, Ospreay returned to AEW with Don Callis at his side and took the championship back in violent fashion. Three months later, at WRESTLEDREAM 2023, the two were on opposite sides of the ring once again, this time in a trios battle between The DCF and the unlikely team of Omega, Chris Jericho, and Ibushi. Omega's team was on the losing side of the match, though the fall did not involve either Ospreay or Omega, and the two warriors never laid eyes upon one another again until January 8th. Ospreay returned to NJPW while Omega remained in AEW for another two months until the fight with diverticulitis nearly cost him his career.
With all that history, where do Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay stand now on January 22, 2025, just a little over nine years since their very first fight? Hopefully we all learn the answer to that question tonight when two of the greatest wrestlers of this generation meet face-to-face on DYNAMITE!
DYNAMITE comes to you this week from the Knoxville Coliseum in Knoxville, TN featuring a tremendous line-up of action! Jamie Hayter and Julie Hart clash once more, “The Rated R Superstar” Cope goes one-on-one with “The Bastard” PAC, Samoa Joe faces The Patriarchy's Nick Wayne, and the AEW World Tag Titles will be at stake when Private Party meets Hurt Syndicate! We will also watch Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay come face-to-face after all that's transpired between them and The Don Callis Family since Kenny's return to AEW! The night begins at 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS, MAX, and around the world with AEW PLUS and TSN in Canada, head over to AEW's official YouTube channel to catch all the highlights from last week's DYNAMITE and COLLISION, Timelines celebrating Will Ospreay and The Briscoes Timelines, and so much more! Then AEW returns to Daily's Place and Jacksonville, FL COLLISION: HOMECOMING 2025 featuring the first time meeting between AEW Women's World Champion Mariah May and #1 Contender Toni Storm, as well as Gates of Agony taking on Brody King and Buddy Matthews, and trios action as Undisputed Kingdom faces TNT Champion Daniel Garcia, Matt Menard, and the returning Angelo Parker!