AEW World Champion Samoa Joe meets face-to-face with his first challenger, Eddie Kingston. Plus, the 2025 Continental Classic continues with action from both leagues. You can catch AEW Dynamite LIVE on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT on TSN2, the TSN App, and TSN.ca.
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AEW World Champion Samoa Joe meets Eddie Kingston face-to-face
At Full Gear last month, The Opps’ plan to get the AEW World Championship back on the shoulder of Samoa Joe came to fruition when seemingly former member of the stable, HOOK, aided Joe in defeating “Hangman” Adam Page in a steel-cage match. After weeks of HOOK appearing to be at odds with his former crew, aligning with Eddie Kingston to take them on, it turned out it was all a ruse. On last week’s Dynamite, Joe gloated over the perfect execution of his plot and revelled in outsmarting Page. He also took shots at Kingston for good measure. That didn’t go unnoticed by “The Mad King,” who told Joe that after he took out Opps member Katsuyori Shibata on Collision, he would come after Joe’s title. Sure enough, Kingston defeated Shibata last Thursday night and cut an impassioned promo about what pro wrestling means to him. He went on to challenge Joe for the title at Dynamite: Winter Is Coming on Dec. 10. Before that can go down, though, the two men will meet face-to-face in the ring on Wednesday night. Two of wrestling’s best mic men, Joe and Kingston go back a long way, meeting in the ring for the first time nearly 20 years ago. But the singles match next week will be their first in 18 years. Just what will each man have to say to the other on Wednesday night?
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AEW Women’s World Tag Team Championship Tournament Semi-final Holiday Hardcore Death Match: The Timeless Love Bombs (“Timeless” Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa) vs. The MegaProblems (“Megasus” Megan Bayne and “The Problem” Marina Shafir) (w/ Penelope Ford)
At Full Gear, the four teams that comprised the AEW World Women’s Tag Team Championship Tournament semis to crown the inaugural champs met in a four-way match. The prize on the line? The ability to pick the stipulation in their final-four matchup. At the pay-per-view, Toni Storm managed to roll-up Harley Cameron to earn the victory for herself and Mina Shirakawa. On last week’s Dynamite, Storm revealed to their opponents, Megan Bayne and Marina Shafir, just what they had planned for their semi-final - a Holiday Hardcore Death Match. As daunting as that might sound for most competitors, that kind of match is perfectly apropos for the four women involved in this one. All of Storm, Shirakawa, Bayne and Shafir competed in last month’s brutally gory Blood & Guts match, the first ever women’s edition of the annual spectacle. None of them came out unscathed, with the physical toll of the match quite evident in the immediate aftermath. But what will this match mean for the tournament? If you are The Babes of Wrath (Cameron and Willow Nightingale), who defeated the Sisters of Sin (Julia Hart and Skye Blue) in the other semi to advance to the final, you’re probably thrilled at the prospect of these other two teams beating the holy hell out of one another ahead of the final. That’s something that must be taken into account by these two teams - a victory on Wednesday night will be a pyrrhic one if you head into the final as the walking wounded. It’s fine line to walk for all four women. And what about Penelope Ford? In a hardcore match, anything goes, so Bayne’s associate is free to get involved as much as she wants. Which of these two teams will survive Wednesday night?
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Continental Classic Blue League match: Jon Moxley (1-0, three points) vs. CMLL World Heavyweight Champion Claudio Castagnoli (1-0, three points)
When the Continental Classic field was announced last week, this was one of the matches fans immediately circled. The meeting of Death Riders leader Jon Moxley and stablemate Claudio Castagnoli comes at a very perilous moment for the crew. While Mox’s default state is unhinged, he appears to be coming unglued even more than usual amidst his inability to get the better of Kyle O’Reilly. Tapping out to the former ROH World Champion at Full Gear was Moxley’s fourth straight defeat to O’Reilly and second in a row by submission. After the match, he brutally attacked O’Reilly, going after his arm and ensuring he’d be unable to compete in the Continental Classic. The rest of the Death Riders seem increasingly unsure of Mox’s mental state and there is a sense that he’s becoming a liability. For just how long will the rest of the group tolerate Moxley’s losing and erratic behaviour. He took some of the heat off of himself last week when he won his Blue League opener over Mascara Dorada. Castagnoli also won his first tournament match, defeating Orange Cassidy, and then went on to do something that no other wrestler had been able to do in 1,117 days: take the CMLL World Heavyweight Championship away from Gran Guerrero. Castagnoli captured the title on Friday night at Arena Mexico. In doing so, Castagnoli became the first non-North American to hold the championship. With Castagnoli riding a wave of momentum and Moxley very mich an enigma right now, “The Swiss Cyborg” should be considered the favourite headed into Wednesday night. Which of the two Death Riders will keep their perfect start to the Continental Classic?
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Continental Classic Gold League match: “The Bastard” PAC (1-0, three points) vs. AEW Unified Champion “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada (0-1, zero points)
The man who won last year’s Continental Classic didn’t start the tournament with a victory last week. For a second straight year, Kazuchika Okada fell to Kyle Fletcher. As Okada looked for a Rainmaker to put away his Don Callis Family stablemate, Fletcher ducked the move and rolled up the AEW Unified Champion for the victory. While clearly angry after the match, Okada was able to bring himself to shake Fletcher’s hand. Starting the tournament in a hole means there will be an extra level of desperation from Okada on Wednesday night when he takes on the Death Riders’ PAC. “The Bastard” opened up his tournament last Thursday night with a win. After dodging a pair of Ultima Weapon attempts from “Speedball” Mike Bailey, PAC locked in the Brutalizer and the referee called for the bell. Wednesday night’s match between Okada and PAC is just the second singles meeting between the two men. The first came at Dynasty 2024 in what was an instant classic. In just under 22 minutes, Okada kept hold of his AEW Continental Championship when he finally put PAC away with a Rainmaker. Being the type of competitor that he is, PAC is likely still stewing over that loss and will enter Dynamite out to prove what he’s learned from it. With Okada in desperate need of a victory, can PAC use that to his advantage and stay undefeated in the Continental Classic?
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Continental Classic Gold League match: “The Protostar” Kyle Fletcher (1-0, three points) vs. “The Jet” Kevin Knight (1-0, three points)
The two men responsible for the biggest upsets in the first matches of the Continental Classic will have to go through each other to keep their records unblemished when Kyle Fletcher takes on Kevin Knight in Gold League action. Fletcher bounced back from losing his TNT Championship to Mark Briscoe at Full Gear by beating Kazuchika Okada for a second straight year in the tournament. Knight, making his Continental Classic debut, emphatically defeated Darby Allin in his opener. After planting Allin with a Coast-to-Coast, Knight hit a UFO Splash to pick up the three count to the shock of the fans in Memphis. But nobody should be surprised by Knight’s prowess. He’s proven time and time again to be one of AEW’s top young stars with an almost unmatched aerial ability and the kind of resilience that will make him a champion sooner than later. A win over Fletcher, building on the victory over Allin, would show that Knight isn’t in this tournament to make up numbers - he’s here to win. That could be easier said than done, though, with Fletcher possessing a bigger chip on his shoulder than normal right now after the loss to Briscoe. His championship meant everything to him and losing it was losing a piece of him. The Continental Classic is Fletcher’s way to get back on the horse and show the rest of AEW that he hasn’t lost a beat. Wednesday night’s match will be the first ever singles meeting between the two men with Fletcher and Knight having met once before in AEW and once in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Somebody will leave Wednesday night with a perfect record, sitting atop the Gold League - will it be Fletcher or will it be Knight?
