Cassidy, Taven meet in Texas Death Match on Dynamite on TSN2
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Orange Cassidy and Matt Taven meet in a Texas Death Match. Plus, Adam Copeland takes on Daniel Garcia and Jon Moxley goes one on one with Dax Harwood. You can catch AEW Dynamite LIVE at 8pm et/5pm pt on TSN2, streaming on the TSN App and on TSN.ca.
Texas Death Match: AEW International Champion "Freshly Squeezed" Orange Cassidy (w/ Trent Beretta and Rocky "Azucar" Romero) vs. ROH World Tag Team Champion Matt Taven (w/ ROH World Tag Team Champion Mike Bennett, Roderick Strong, Wardlow and Adam Cole) - When Orange Cassidy gets serious, you know things are getting out of hand. Still furious over the Undisputed Kingdom's attack on Chuck Taylor last week and smarting from a trios loss on last Friday night's Rampage, Cassidy challenged any member of the group to a Texas Death Match on Wednesday night's Dynamite with Matt Taven stepping up to the plate to answer him. The match comes with Cassidy scheduled to defend his AEW International Championship at next month's Revolution pay-per-view against Roderick Strong. The match will be the seventh Texas Death Match in AEW history and the first since the now legendary encounter between "Hangman" Adam Page and Swerve Strickland at Full Gear last November. The contest also marks the first singles meeting between Taven and Cassidy. While Taven's stablemate Strong is slated for a title match against Cassidy, a win on Wednesday night would certainly put Taven himself in line for a shot at Cassidy's International title. Though a decorated tag-team and trios wrestler, Taven is far from a stranger to singles gold. Taven is a former ROH World Champion and ROH World TV Champion and should have no problem giving Cassidy a run for his money. There is also, of course, the nature of the match to consider. By design, a Texas Death Match is brutal and violent and with each wrestler's respective stablemates likely to be at ringside, things could get particularly nasty. Which of these two men will pick up a victory that will undoubtedly come with a physical cost?
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No. 1 contenders' match for the AEW World Tag Team Championships: The Young Bucks (Nicholas Jackson and Matthew Jackson) vs. Top Flight (Dante Martin and Darius Martin) (w/ Action Andretti) - The Young Bucks want the AEW World Tag Team Championships back and have made no secret of that. After Sting and Darby Allin defeated Ricky Starks and Big Bill for the titles on last week's Dynamite, Nicholas Jackson and Matthew Jackson laid waste to the new champs, as well as Sting's sons, in a bloody attack. The Jackson now want to face Sting and Allin at Revolution next month, but before they can do that, they must earn the right by defeating another brother tag team in Top Flight's Dante and Darius Martin. The Young Bucks are a familiar opponent for the Martin brothers, having faced off with them in both tag-team and trios action, but this match will be the first between the two teams in over a year. In three prior meetings, Top Flight is 1-2 against the Jacksons, but did win their last match on the Jan. 18, 2023 edition of Dynamite. Including trios and multi-man matches, the Bucks hold a 6-1 edge over Top Flight. The Martins are seeking only their second-ever AEW World Tag Team Championships match, having previously fallen short in March 2023 against then-champions, the Gunns (Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn). For the Jacksons, another tag-team title victory would break the longstanding tie with FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) for most reigns with two. On top of that, the Jacksons would relish the chance to retire Sting with a loss in his final match. With a shot at the champs on the line, which set of brothers will set up a date for the pay-per-view?
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"The Rated-R Superstar" Adam Copeland vs. "Red Death" Daniel Garcia" - It's an all-QEW battle on Wednesday night when Toronto's Adam Copeland meets Buffalo's Daniel Garcia. On this past Saturday night's Collision, Copeland stated his intentions to once again challenge "The Patriarch" Christian Cage for the TNT Championship. But before he could make a formal challenge, Garcia came down to the ring and told Copeland that he, too, was gunning for Cage and was willing to go through Copeland to get to him. While the two left the ring on friendly terms, Wednesday night's match is likely to be far from friendly. It will also be a huge opportunity for Garcia to once again take on a great of the sport. Though he might not have won every match he's had against the likes of Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston and Jon Moxley, he's given them all hell and heads into the match as a winner of five-straight singles matches after defeating Shane Taylor this past Saturday night. For his part, Copeland is also on a roll since losing back the TNT Championship to Cage at World's End in late December. He's won five straight, as well, including a win over Minoru Suzuki on the Jan. 24 Dynamite. With both men set to go full bore towards the same goal, which competitor will emerge victorious?
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Willow Nightingale (w/ Kris Statlander and Stokely Hathaway) vs. Skye Blue (w/ TBS Champion Julia Hart) - Following a big victory over the imploding Outcasts (Saraya and Ruby Soho) this past Friday night on Rampage, Kris Statlander and Willow Nightingale didn't even have time to celebrate their victory before the arrival of Skye Blue and TBS Champion Julia Hart, who seemingly issued a challenge towards the duo. Now on Wednesday night, Nightingale and Blue will go one on one. The match will be a bit of an awkward one as Nightingale and Blue regularly teamed up at one point in their AEW careers, having wrestled on the same side 10 times. But this isn't the same Blue that Nightingale previously knew. Blue has been an entirely different person since falling under the sway of the House of Black's Hart. Nightingale will need to put away whatever fond memories of Blue she might harbour in order to focus on the task at hand. Will Nightingale make it seven straight victories or will she be handed a defeat by a former ally?
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Jon Moxley (w/ Claudio Castagnoli) vs. Dax "The Ax" Harwood (w/ Cash Wheeler) - After the Blackpool Combat Club's Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli dispatched Esfinge and Star Jr. amidst the war between the BCC and CMLL on Saturday night, Mox was still spoiling for a fight. He grabbed the mic and with his trademark bombast issued a challenge to anybody in the back, from CMLL or otherwise. Big fans of violence in their own right, that challenge was answered by FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler). The encounter quickly got violent when Mox decided to pie-face Harwood and now the two will meet one on on one on Wednesday night. The match will be the first ever singles bout between the two and a rare singles match for Harwood. Over the course of his AEW tenure, Harwood has only wrestled in 13 singles matches and Wednesday night's bout will mark his first since a no-contest against Rush in November. While this will be the first singles match between the two, Mox and Dax have wrestled twice before. On the Feb. 9, 2022 Dynamite, Mox teamed with CM Punk to defeat FTR. Then at this past December's ROH Final Battle, the team of FTR and Mark Briscoe defeated Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli and "The American Dragon" Bryan Danielson in a Fight Without Honor. With tensions running high between these two men, who will pick up a big victory?
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PLUS:
- We will hear from all three competitors in Revolution's main-event three-way: AEW World Champion Samoa Joe, "Hangman" Adam Page and Swerve Strickland
- AEW Women's World Champion "Timeless" Toni Storm premieres her new film entitled Wet Ink