AEW WrestleDream 2024 10/12/2024

AEW WrestleDream 2024 10/12/2024

Note - As I often do with AEW PPV's, I will just give you my post-match thoughts. The show is just too long and has too much wrestling for me to type out every single thing like I usually would. I don't love to do it this way but it's about the only way this will get done on time.

Jay White vs "Hangman" Adam Page

Jay got the win here which was surprising. I didn't really like the build to this and just though it was a last minute attempt to come up with something. I thought it was a lose-lose booking wise as losing didn't really help either guy. Jay gains more from winning but had this been built better, he would have gained more. It was a heavy brawling match here with them not doing a lot but various strikes. They had Page sell his knee throughout this one and somewhat played it up near the end on a buckshot attempt. I thought it was a bit long for an opener and should have been elsewhere in the card, but I had no issues with it.

AEW Women's Title - Mariah May (c) vs Willow Nightingale

It was a rushed and brief match here. It didn't have much of a story due to the time and was more of a TV style match than a PPV quality match. May winning was expected as if Willow ever wins the Women's title, it's not going to be this way.

AEW TNT Title Match - Jack Perry (c) vs. Katsuyori Shibata

Shibata went for the choke here and Jack bridged him while in it and pinned him. It was a short match that wasn't much and had a weak ending on top of it. I didn't expect much out of this and it was not that that good as expected.

Jack attacks Shibata after and hits him with the TNT Title. Daniel Garcia then came out to save Shibata. Jack backed off then MJF came out and stared down Garcia. Jack then hit Garcia in the back of the head with the title.

MJF then pounded on Garcia and said the last time he saw him, he beat him without breaking a sweat. He said he went on to make millions doing movies. MJF said there was a bidding war over Garcia but claimed it was non-existent. MJF said he found his Dynamite Diamond Ring in a pawn shop in Buffalo due to Garcia saying about that. He says Garcia is going to kiss the ring then Adam Cole's music hits. Cole comes down and MJF runs. Cole did not workout during his time out and still looks super thin. I felt like they would have just been better off dropping Cole vs MJF since MJF got his revenge months ago. Cole now being the face in this just further complicates this bad storyline.

AEW International Title Three Way Match - Will Ospreay (c) vs. Ricochet vs. Konosuke Takeshita

Ric wore short trunks here. Don Callis got involved and Will tried to tiger driver him but Kyle Fletcher stopped him. Takeshita then picked up the win off of this. Kyl e hit a tiger diver '91 on Will after. It was a high flying three way as you would expect. It wasn't as crazy though as their matches normally are though because of how many people were involved and because they didn't do a long finisher stretch. I wasn't a big fan of it.  

Orange Cassidy and Jerry Lynn are interviewed. Jerry said he dressed up like OC for Halloween, though not intentionally. He tells OC he could be the man around here if he really tried. Hook then came in and told him to listen to Jerry.

Prince Nana came out and brought Swerve out. Swerve had some weird sleeveless shirt on. Swerve said he's medically cleared. He wanted to talk about his future then MVP and Shelton Benjamin came out. MVP says he tried to reach Swerve but Swerve hasn't responded. MVP says he wants to help Swerve reach the mountain top again and wants to talk business.

Swerve says hello and said MVP gave him a lot of advice. He said they fought years ago and he beat MVP. He said he learned a lot from him. He says Shelton was a big inspiration to him and said he paved the way for him. They brought up race as usual.

Swerve said the last few months haven't been good to him and says he lost his title and his home under Prince Nana's watch. He says he wouldn't have had all of these things to begin with without him. He says him and MVP go way back though and say they have potential to make a lot of history. He says he likes having more power than anyone.

Swerve says Nana is still selling weed to high school kids and says he's only watching his wages go up a little each week. He says he can't always find him when it's time to go the ring. He says Nana is family though. and he doesn't turn his back on family for anyone. He tells MVP to shove his business cards up his @ss because he's not interested.

Shelton Benjamin gets in Swerve's face. He said they weren't asking him, they were telling Swerve there is no him without them. He says they are with them or against them. Nana gets in the way and gets pushed and refs try to come down to stop the fight from happening. 

Thoughts: Swerve was kind of rude here though they did justify it later. I expected Lashley to debut here but that didn't happen.

Hologram vs The Beast Mortos

The crowd was not into this one. It was hard to really care since nothing was on the line. Having this be 3 falls hurt some of it as the crowd didn't know how to react and it caused pauses in the action, making it lose some of its steam. They did too much here as usual and didn't sell much. Holo ended up winning with a sitout torture rack bomb.

Brody King vs Darby Allin

It wasn't as wild as some of their previous matches. It was also a little slower than I would have liked. I thought it was a decent match though and was what it needed to be with Darby getting beaten up and then finding a way to win in the end.

The shook hands after. 

AEW Tag Titles - The Young Bucks (c) vs Private Party

Top Flight and Stokeley Hathaway are at ringside for this. We saw a pre-match video with The Amazing Red (the trainer of Private Party) trying to hype them up. The Bucks rip Private Party pre-match, calling them a midcard act.

It was a flippy and spotty match here as expected. They did way too much with poisonrana's and canadian destroyers on the floor not leading to the finish. Quen got dumped on his head on the floor and it got too cute for its own good at times. Private Private lost here as expected with The Bucks hitting the Meltzer driver to win.

Ring of Honor Title - Mark Briscoe (c) vs Chris Jericho

I liked it. It was a little long and the first half wasn't that great. But I liked Mark's comeback after taking the jay driller and him getting the win. I thought they got that right and turned this one around some. 

AEW Title - Bryan Danielson (c) vs Jon Moxley

Mox won via choke here. I didn't love the finish but it was a good fight otherwise. It was aggressive from start to finish and it was pretty much all hard strikes. I thought they did a good job with it and made it feel like a fight. They pushed that this could be Bryan's last match but I don't think anyone really buys that.

Mox tried to put Bryan's head in a plastic bag again after. Wheeler Yuta and Darby Allin came out for the save. Yuta turned on Darby. Yuta put the bag over Bryan's head and Private Party and Jeff Jarrett came out to help. Bryan then took a curbstomp with a chair around his neck from CC. OC and others then came out to help Bryan and Bryan was stretchered out.

Overall thoughts: It was a long show as these AEW PPV's always are. They ran too many shows in too short of a time frame and this show was a casualty of it. There were really only 2-3 matches here that really mattered and the show did not have a ton of storylines behind it. And with AEW moving to PPV's every 6 weeks or so, this is going to become the norm. The opener, King/Darby, Briscoe/Jericho and the main were all fine and I didn't care much for the rest. The show was missing a ton of talent here including Mone, Britt (injured/sick), Hayter, FTR, Christian, Okada, plus other people who weren't expected to be here due to longer term injuries. I didn't really like the show that much and thought it was average overall.