MJF defends the AEW World Championship against Bandido. Plus, Darby Allin meets PAC in a grudge match. 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 Championship match: Maxwell Jacob Friedman (c) vs. ROH World Champion Bandido
For the first time in over two years, Maxwell Jacob Friedman will enter an AEW ring on Wednesday night as the defending AEW World Champion. Friedman makes the first defence of his second reign on Dynamite against ROH World Champion Bandido. MJF’s first reign with the title was a record-breaking one. After defeating Jon Moxley at Full Gear 2022, Friedman went on to hold the title for 406 days, making him the longest-reigning champion in the promotion’s history. He would drop the title at Worlds End 2023 to Samoa Joe, but he got his revenge - two years in the making - at Worlds End 2025 when he beat Joe for the belt in a four-way match that also included former champions “Hangman” Adam Page and Swerve Strickland. Bandido earned his shot to once again become a double champion (he and Brody King previously held the AEW World Tag Team Championships for 90 days during his 281 reign as ROH champ) by defeating Ricochet in the Dynamite Diamond Ring Final on Dec. 20. Wednesday night’s match will be the first ever meeting between the two men. It will also mark a continuation of Friedman’s war on lucha libre that began last year when he engaged in a bitter feud over the CMLL World Light Heavyweight Championship with Mistico that culminated in the latter winning the title at CMLL’s 92. Aniversario at Arena Mexico in September in a title vs. mask match. The hit to MJF’s pride if he should lose the title in his first defence would be seismic. A man with an ego as large as Friedman’s might not be able to withstand it, so rest assured he will fight tooth and nail to make sure that doesn’t happen, even if that means trying to bend the rules in his favour. Will MJF’s first defence be a successful one or can Bandido end the reign before it even really begins?
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Four-way match for an AEW World Tag Team Championship shot: The Young Bucks (Nick Jackson and Matt Jackson) vs. JetSpeed (“The Jet” Kevin Knight and “Speedball” Mike Bailey) vs. GOA (Bishop Kaun and Toa Liona) (w/ AEW National Champion Ricochet) vs. The Don Callis Family (Mark Davis and Jake Doyle) (w/ Don Callis)
The AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) will be watching Dynamite with great interest as a four-way match will determine new challengers for their titles and many of the competitors in that match are no strangers to the champs. One duo in the match will be making their debut as a team. On last Wednesday’s show, The Demand (Ricochet, Bishop Kaun and Toa Liona) were set to meet “Jungle” Jack Perry and JetSpeed (Kevin Knight and Mike Bailey) in a trios match, but Knight and Bailey never made it to the match. The bounty put on the heads of the duo by The Demand was claimed by The Don Callis Family’s Mark Davis and its newest member, the debuting Jake Doyle. The hulking Doyle spent the past several years in TNA Wrestling, doing battle with the likes of Steve Maclin, Joe Hendry and Mike Santana. What was very interesting about the attack, though, is that Doyle regularly teamed with Bailey during 2023 and 2024. Did a payoff make him forget about all of that? With Bailey and Knight incapacitated, Perry ended up getting back up from Nick Jackson and Matt Jackson, winning their trios match. After the bout, a massive brawl broke out involving all four teams in Wednesday night’s match. Of the four duos in the match, only the Jacksons have held the titles before. Will that experience play into the bout on Dynamite? Which of these four formidable teams will set up a date with FTR?
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AEW Women’s World Champion Kris Statlander and AEW Women’s World Tag Team Champions Babes of Wrath (TBS Champion Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron) vs. Triangle of Madness (“The Toxic Spider” Thekla, Julia Hart and Skye Blue)
On one side of the ring on Wednesday night will be three women carrying all of the gold in AEW. On the other side of the ring will be three women wanting to take it away from them. The enmity between Kris Statlander, Harley Cameron and Willow Nightingale and Thekla, Julia Hart and Skye Blue is only heating up and it will come to a head on Dynamite when all six women meet in a trios match. But even though Wednesday night’s match should be a brutal one, it’s very unlikely to settle matters between the two sides. Simply put, Thekla wants Statlander’s world title and Hart and Blue want the tag belts that are around the waists of Cameron and Nightingale. While Thekla has yet to win gold in AEW, it came to her quite frequently in Japan. In Stardom, the 32-year-old Austrian was an SWA World Champion, a Goddess of Stardom Champion (with Momo Watanabe) and Artist of Stardom Champion (with Mai Sakurai and Giulia). Thekla was a participant in the match at September’s All Out in Toronto where Statlander became AEW Women’s World Champion, but she has yet to face her one-on-one. A win on Wednesday night would force the issue almost immediately. Likewise, Hart and Blue see the trios match as a way to get a shot at the tag titles. The duo actually took on Cameron and Nightingale in the tournament to crown the inaugural champions, falling to them at the semi-final stage. Can the trio of Statlander, Cameron and Nightingale show their championship mettle or will the Triangle of Madness prove that it’s their time for a shot at gold?
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Darby Allin vs. “The Bastard” PAC (w/ Daniel Garcia)
Darby Allin wants more than anything to be done with the Death Riders, the group he spent much of 2025 battling, so he can focus on becoming AEW World Champion for the first time. But Allin can’t do that yet. On last week’s Dynamite, Allin acknowledged he can’t be rid of the Death Riders just yet because there’s one member of the group he’s yet to beat: “The Bastard” PAC. The ornery Brit has seemingly gotten the better of Allin at every turn even as he’s beaten Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Daniel Garcia and Wheeler YUTA. At All Out last September in Toronto, PAC returned after a six-month absence to assist Moxley in beating Allin in a Coffin Match. Then at Blood & Guts, PAC once again bested Allin when he and Gabe Kidd combined to toss the former TNT Champion off of the stage and through a flaming table. While that only further incensed Allin, PAC managed to yet again escape his comeuppance. The two met in a singles match at Full Gear where Allin appeared to be on the precipice of victory, but the intervention of YUTA allowed PAC to crack Allin in the face with a baseball bat with the referee distracted to pick up another win. Determined to be finally done with the Death Riders, Allin challenged PAC to another match. PAC, of course, refused, so Allin was forced into more drastic measures. On last week’s Dynamite as PAC spoke backstage with Renee Paquette, Allin nailed him with a fire extinguisher before threatening to break his ankle if he didn’t acquiesce to the match. PAC finally relented and the match goes down on Dynamite. Allin’s determination led him to conquering Mount Everest in 2025. He’s now set his sights on the world title and PAC is in his way. Can PAC somehow find a way to frustrate Allin yet again or has The Bastard’s luck finally run out?
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Kenny Omega returns
Two weeks ago on Dynamite, Kenny Omega let AEW World Champion MJF know that he wants his title back. Omega hasn’t held the world title since 2021, but he wants to change that. After a trip to Japan for the retirement of former rival Hiroshi Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom last week, Omega is back in North America and will be in the house live on Wednesday night. Just what will “The Cleaner” have to say as he plots his return to title contention?
