AEW Dynamite Preview for November 18, 2020

Last week on DYNAMITE, the surprising return of PAC to confront Eddie Kingston capped off a tremendous night of action in the shadow of FULL GEAR 2020. The Lucha Brothers went to battle with one another, a battle it does not look like they will return from together, while The Natural Nightmares had their own war against The Butcher and The Blade! It was a very rough night for Eddie Kingston's family, and we shall see if that continues this week as well!

We found out that Kenny Omega will have his AEW World Title Match with Jon Moxley on December 2nd, and witnessed newcomer Jade Cargill step to Cody, apparently on behalf of NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal, only to have Brandi get in her face in retaliation. MJF's induction into The Inner Circle became official, Brian Cage was triumphant over a very game Matt Sydal, Spears topped Sky, and so much more!

This week the new World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks will be back in the ring, the new TNT Champion and the man he beat will unite, PAC returns to action, Vegas time for The Inner Circle, and loads of additional action for your viewing pleasures! It all kicks off at 8pm EST/7pm CST and it is LIVE on TNT, or on AEWPlus.com for our International Audiences, and the pre-show kicks off on our YouTube channel earlier in the evening (Watch Here)!

RETALIATION...

TNT Champion Darby Allin & (#3) “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes

vs.

Team Taz ((#4) FTW Champion Brian Cage & (#5) Ricky Starks w/ Taz)

The relationships wrapped up in this tag team main event date back quite some time, to before DYNAMITE even existed in the case of Darby and Cody, but for the first time there is the existence of a championship in the picture.

At FULL GEAR 2020, Darby Allin conquered the monkey on his back by finally besting Cody to bring an end to The American Nightmare's second TNT Title reign, and the new champion even had a short-lived chance to celebrate, one that saw the former champ bend the knee to hand the belt over. Unfortunately that celebration was short-lived as Team Taz, having promised to make their presence felt at the pay-per-view emerged to assault both men, absolutely decimating Allin and leaving him lying in the wreckage of his own car.

Last Wednesday on DYNAMITE, we heard strong words from TAZ (as seen above) going into Cage's victorious match with Matt Sydal but it wouldn't be the last we'd hear from Taz, Cage, and Starks. First, Ricky had some words of his own to share after Cage's victory as it pertained to the TNT Title (Watch Here), and then, after Jade Cargill, Cody, and Brandi Rhodes had their respective confrontations later in the night, Team Taz tried to take advantage of the chaotic situation:

In the days following, the war of words would continue to escalate via social media with both Taz and Cody sharing some thoughts heading into this titanic tag team tussle:

It's pretty clear where Cody stands on the subject of that FTW Title, and it would not be completely off-base to pick up on the former two-time TNT Champion verbally positioning the two members of Team Taz against one another. Cody knows the game of psychological warfare, of looking three moves ahead, just as well as he knows the one inside the squared circle. And Darby, well Darby probably doesn't get enough credit in that regards. His videos aren't done just to show off the production skills and creativity; they are part of the game before the game, the prelims if you will, aimed to get in someone's head and throw the opponent off before the sounds of “I FELL” even blare out at Daily's Place.

Team Taz, by contrast, is straight in your face and, quite clearly, behind your back when the opportunity arises. Psychological warfare is not part of the playbook, although Taz's history shows he is capable, just a straight up beating to send the message required.

This Wednesday night, these four men will go at each other to settle a score in tag team fashion! Darby and Cody, in their two outings as a team, are batting .500 while Team Taz has a zero in the win column with one tag team outing under their belt. That bout, coincidentally, was against Darby as well albeit with Jon Moxley as his partner for that Tornado Tag Team affair.

Who will assert their dominance in the main event of DYNAMITE this week? Who will step up to be Darby's first challenger for the TNT Title? Tune in Wednesday night to find out!

THE BASTARD AND THE BLADE...

PAC vs. The Blade (w/ The Bunny)

On November 4th, after eight months of radio silence, PAC delivered a rather ominous address to All Elite Wrestling (Watch Here). Just one week later, as seen in the video embedded above, “The Bastard” made his highly anticipated return to the stage in the aftermath of the Penta El Zero Miedo/Rey Fenix fight. Clearly PAC has taken issue with Eddie Kingston and how he enmeshed himself into the lives of The Lucha Brothers following The Mad King's TNT Title Match with Cody many months ago.

See, earlier in the year, quite awhile before Kingston insulated himself with this family of The Lucha Brothers, The Butcher, The Blade, and now The Bunny, Penta and Fenix had taken up with PAC to form The Death Triangle. With the travel restrictions stemming from the worldwide COVID pandemic forcing PAC to remain in his home country, the Lucha Brothers had to move on with their lives and eventually found themselves seemingly embraced by first The Butcher and The Blade, and then Kingston, who initially placed a role of peacemaker between the two pairs.

Is that the reality, or just the perception Kingston wants the world to see? After all, Eddie is the one who strongly encouraged Fenix to forfeit his spot in the World Title Eliminator Tournament to Penta due to Rey's injury. Eddie also very clearly pushed Fenix out of the ring with his foot following the loss to his brother in their rematch last week, referred to Fenix as “dead weight”, and encouraged his “best friend” Penta that he did not need his brother. Does that sound or look like a man trying to keep a family together?

Yes, Kingston pulled the four men back together initially and pushed The Blade to “get his house in order” which led to Allie coming back to the fold, but his treatment of Fenix casts doubt on the man's intentions.

What is not in doubt though, heading into this return bout for PAC, is that he faced with a man in The Blade who proved his toughness one week ago in AEW's first ever Bunkhouse Match. Despite the loss suffered by his team, the blood-covered Blade demonstrated his ability to endure the type of punishment that is par for the course with that Bunkhouse environment. Bruised and battered he may be, but Blade is not broken, and this Wednesday night he takes up the fight on behalf of Eddie Kingston and this...family.

PAC wanted the fight with Kingston, but Eddie has yet to be cleared following his “I Quit” fight with Moxley at FULL GEAR 2020, so these two men of violence will collide for the very first time on DYNAMITE. Will it be a triumphant return for “The Bastard” or will “The Blade” humble his homecoming?

NON-TITLE MATCH...

World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson)

vs.

Top Flight (Darius & Daunte Martin)

On November 7th, The Young Bucks finally achieved the goal they set out to accomplish all the way back in June of 2019 when the existence of the AEW World Tag Team Titles first was announced. They were frustrated time and time again, initally by Private Party in the opening round of the tournament to crown the first champions, and then in later championship matches with both SCU, and their successors, fellow Elite members, Kenny Omega and Hangman Page.

Finally, at FULL GEAR 2020, Matt and Nick Jackson accomplished their goal when they overcame defending champions FTR in match fans bad been dreaming about for years. It lived up to, if not exceeded, all expectations, and was a tremendous beginning to a title reign many pundits thought would have began on October 30th when Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky earned the belts for the very first time.

This week on DYNAMITE, for the first time since capturing the titles, the brothers Jackson will be in action in a non-title affair against a team making some waves in their outings on AEW DARK. Collectively known as Top Flight, Darius and Duante Martin made their debut on the October 27th edition of DARK with a tremendous showing against The Dark Order represented by Evil Uno and Stu Grayson. Top Flight may have been on the losing end, but they impressed enough to be given a second chance, and on the November 10th episode of DARK, they made the most of that opportunity against Baron Black and Frankie Thomas, as you can see here (Watch Here).

With four years of ring time under their belts, the Minnesota natives have worked their tails off to garner the experience required to compete at the elite level (no pun intended) and this match-up with The Young Bucks is the biggest test, the biggest break, of the Martin brothers young careers. Win or lose, obviously a victory is the desired outcome, but either way this is Top Flight's moment to show up and prove they deserve to have their names included among the greatest tag team division in modern pro wrestling.

DECEMBER 2ND CREEPS...

With just two weeks until Omega and Moxley clash over the AEW World Title, we certainly expected to hear more from both of these competitors. After all, not only is it a championship battle, it is a rematch over a year in the making, and both men broached the subject a week ago (Moxley (Watch Here) & Omega (Watch Here)). This week on DYNAMITE, with December 2nd coming upon us fast, we will do more than just hear from the two competitors, we will have the official contract signing for the AEW World Championship Match between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega!

Now while Moxley may have won the first meeting, this contest will be quite different than the prior, it will be official, it will be sanctioned, and it is with the most important World Title in professional wrestling on the line. Time is ticking away towards what may be the biggest match in the history of DYNAMITE, and on TNT we put pen-to-paper to set it in stone!

VEGAS BABY, VEGAS...

Last week, despite the protestations of certain members of The Inner Circle, Maxwell Jacob Friedman (and thus Wardlow by proxy) were officially inducted into the illustrious group by Chris Jericho. Ortiz has never made it a secret how he feels about Max's inclusion in the group, and did not hesitate to express those feelings last Wednesday either. Sammy Guevara is another who was extremely reticent to include MJF in the ranks, but his voice was not one we got to hear from during the induction ceremony as Sammy was noticeably absent from the proceedings. Apparently that was due to miscommunication, if you believe the word of MJF, but that seems about as likely as the accidental wrong sized jacket that “The Spanish God” received some weeks ago.

Still, in an apparent effort to smooth the transition, also in part to celebrate Chris Jericho's birthday, MJF purchased a trip to Las Vegas for the whole lot, even Sammy, although he gets to ride in the cheap seats of the plane. But based on this picture shared over the weekend, the escapades are going about as well as can be expected...

Ortiz and Guevara are clearly unhappy while Hager and Wardlow look like they're about to fight on the rooftop. Meanwhile Max, Jericho, and Santana are oblivious to it all and appear quite the happy trio in front of that Vegas skyline. Every picture tells a story, what's the story you see in that one?

And what else happened during this Inner Circle excursion? Will the (mis)adventures of this septet stay in Vegas, or will the whole world get to see just what they got up to in Sin City? We shall see this Wednesday night on TNT!

NWA WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP REMATCH...

Serena Deeb (c) vs. Thunder Rosa

October 27th, Long Beach California, UWN Primetime Live; that night Serena Deeb dethroned the reigning NWA Women's World Champion Thunder Rosa to claim the championship for herself. Twenty-four hours later, Deeb was in Jacksonville for AEW DYNAMITE to make her very first defense of the title against the up-and-coming “Legit” Leyla Hirsch.

Deeb topped Hirsch that night to retain the title, and would head into FULL GEAR 2020 to make her second defense as part of the BUY-IN. The challenger that November 7th evening would be the women who preceded Rosa as the NWA standard bearer, Allysin Kay, and although the former champion but up a very tough fight, Serena successfully retained her title for the second time.

But the celebration was short-lived as Thunder Rosa emerged onto the stage to stake her claim to a rematch for the NWA Women's World Championship. The match was quickly signed, with the blessing of NWA officials, to take place THIS Wednesday night on DYNAMITE live on TNT!

Only six women have held the title more than once since it's inception in 1954, the last being Tasha Simone, whose third reign as champion lasted 300 days from December 2011 until October 2012. Can Thunder Rosa become the first woman in eight years to join that illustrious club or will Deeb continue building up her legacy as champion?

ONE-ON-ONE...

“Freshly Squeezed” Orange Cassidy (w/ Best Friends) vs. “Superbad” Kip Sabian (w/ Penelope Ford & Miro)

The issues between The Best Friends, Miro, and Kip Sabian have been escalating for several weeks now. It all started with the accidental destruction of Kip's prized video game console, a gift from Miro, during the course of Chuck and Trent's World Title bout with FTR. That accidental collision led to Best Friends ending up on the wrong end of an assault by Miro following their failed title bid, led to a heated back-and-forth via video conferencing between Trent and Miro that Excalibur hopelessly tried to moderate, and Miro then defeating Trent in the former's first AEW singles match.

It seemed the issue may have been done, but after Orange Cassidy's victory over John Silver at FULL GEAR 2020, Kip Sabian decided to confront “Freshly Squeezed”...

So it will be this Wednesday night that we find out just how cool everything really is when Orange Cassidy and Kip Sabian lock horns inside the squared circle? The Best Friends, Miro, and Penelope Ford will no doubt be in the corners of their respective allies, so who knows what will unfold from this powder keg?

Tune into TNT at 8pm EST/7pm CST to experience another exciting edition of DYNAMITE LIVE and in living color! A huge tag team main event, The Young Bucks giving two young guns the biggest opportunity of their careers, PAC returning, the NWA Women's World Title on the line, and so much more on tap for your Elite Experience!

And be sure to catch a loaded edition of AEW DARK (Click Here) on Tuesday night, exclusively available on our YouTube Channel (Watch Here), with Leyla Hirsch, The Acclaimed, Christopher Daniels, and Big Swole in action, as well as Thunder Rosa and Ricky Starks ahead of their huge Wednesday night!