Continental Classic kicks off on Dynamite on TSN2

The Continental Classic tournament kicks off on Wednesday night with three Gold League matches with Jon Moxley meeting Mark Briscoe, Swerve Strickland taking on Jay Lethal and Jay White battling Rush. You can catch AEW Dynamite LIVE at 8pm et/5pm pt on TSN5, streaming on the TSN App and on TSN.ca.

Continental Classic Gold League match: Jon Moxley (0-0) vs. Mark Briscoe (0-0) - Two of the toughest men in AEW will get their Continental Classic tournaments underway when Jon Moxley takes on Mark Briscoe in Gold League action. The winners of each league will meet in the final at the World's End pay-per-view on December 30. Because Eddie Kingston is in the tournament and will be putting both of his ROH World Championship and New Japan Strong Openweight Championship on the line in it, the final will crown the first AEW Triple Crown Champion. The rules of the round-robin tournament are straightforward: Each match will have a 20-minute time limit. Entrants are not to permitted to have any seconds accompany them to the ring and any interference of any kind will result in an automatic disqualification. Three points will be awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. This opening match for both men is an intriguing one because it is a first-time meeting. Despite having spent time in some of the same promotions over the years, Moxley and Briscoe have never crossed paths. For the former, the match is an opportunity to get back to winning ways after a bitter defeat to Orange Cassidy in the AEW International Championship match at last weekend's Full Gear PPV as Moxley failed to reclaim the title he once held. Briscoe will see this tournament as the opportunity to kick off his run in AEW that was derailed by an injury that kept him out of action for five months with the 13-time ROH World Tag Team Champion only just returning to action on Nov. 4. As AEW president Tony Khan noted in the announcement of the Continental Classic, the tournament dates will coincide with the one-year anniversary of the final matches of Jay Briscoe's career before his untimely death this past January. The tournament, then, will undoubtedly be an emotional one for Briscoe. Which of these two men will open up their tournaments with a victory?

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Continental Classic Gold League match: Swerve Strickland (0-0) vs. Jay Lethal (0-0) - A pair of men who had differing fortunes this past Saturday night at Full Gear will kick of their tournaments on Dynamite when Swerve Strickland goes one-on-one with Jay Lethal. Perhaps the hottest star in all of AEW right now, Strickland is coming off of one of the most brutal matches in the history of televised North American wrestling last weekend when he defeated "Hangman" Adam Page in an ultra-violent Texas Death Match. Lethal, meanwhile, fell short in his quest to win the ROH World Championship for a third time, falling to Eddie Kingston. Like with the Moxley-Briscoe match, this will be a first-time meeting. But does one man have a distinct advantage here? While his pride might be wounded after his loss to Kingston, Lethal doesn't have the physical scars from Saturday that Strickland does. After going through what he did with Page at Full Gear, there is no possible way that Swerve is 100 per cent and he's likely far from it. Being the fresher of the two men, it's imperative then that Lethal takes the match to Strickland. Though the longer the match goes likely favours Lethal, a time-limit draw is in play and that won't really do any favours for either man. It would behoove Lethal to take the initiative here and try to end the match quickly. Will Swerve stay red hot or can Lethal use his battle scars against him?

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Continental Classic Gold League match: "Switchblade" Jay White (0-0) vs. "El Toro Blanco" Rush (0-0) - Two former world champions go one-on-one on Wednesday night when Jay White takes on Rush. Both men are coming off of losses at Full Gear. White did everything humanly possible to AEW World Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman at the PPV except defeat him with White losing in AEW for the first time. Rush teamed with his brother Dralistico in a losing effort in the AEW World Tag Team Championship ladder match that saw Absolutely Big (Ricky Starks and Big Bill) retain their titles in a match that also included FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) and the Kings of the Black Throne (Malakai Black and Brody King). The White-Rush match makes it three out of three for the Continental Classic bouts to be first-time encounters. With White having won every singles championship in New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Rush a former ROH World Champion, the championship pedigree on display on Wednesday night is obvious and the match is a huge one for both men. White desperately needs a good showing in this tournament to reestablish himself as a championship threat after coming up short against MJF. For Rush, who's looked intense even for his standards since his return to AEW after a six-month absence earlier this month, the tournament offers a chance to show AEW fans what ROH and CMLL fans became accustomed to in his performances. With a win being precious for both men, which of White or Rush will have his hand raised on Wednesday night?

PLUS:

- TNT Champion "The Patriarch" Christian Cage "rechristens" Luchasaurus and Nick Wayne