AEW Dynamite (11-27) and Collision (11-30): TAPE's Road Report
Tonight I completed a double trifecta for AEW in Chicagoland, as I have now seen Collision at the United Center, a PPV (All Out this year) at NOW Arena, and Dynamite (and Collision!) at Wintrust Arena.
Unlike the All Out Road Report, this has less interesting overall story. No suite for this one, just seats with the riff-raff — and boy, there were some people around me — and pretty good seats at that. All three Chicago AEW venues really don’t have bad seats, but Wintrust might be my favorite of the three. Nice, cozy setup in there.
To my left sat a very drunk young man. Very, very drunk, but also nice. Just, you know, drunker than I think he thought he was getting. Listen, I’ve wasted half my life to date sitting in bars, so when I say someone is “too drunk,” please just trust that my words carry some weight, and a big part of it is just that this is not a person who was handling their amount of alcohol very well.
I thought he’d be the night’s star, but then the dude directly in front of me got really drunk right as the fella to my left started relaxing, having quietly realized to himself that he was too drunk. And the dude in front of me became belligerent and shitty. I’m not here to tell security how to do their job, and I’m not Narc Ruffalo, but it was pretty bad before his wife was able to drag him out of there, not long after the other fella had also left.
So the last 45 minutes or so, I had a great time! The rest was a little tense. And despite all of that, I overall had a very good time and saw some terrific wrestling.
THERE WILL BE COLLISION SPOILERS IN HERE. Dynamite obviously already aired, but Collision won’t until Saturday. They’ll be a ways down, and I’ll again warn you, but there are Collision spoilers in this post.
AEW Dynamite
November 27, 2024
Wintrust Arena - Chicago, IL
MVP was super over for his promo at the top with Shelton Benjamin and Bobby Lashley, but so was Swerve when he got brought up. That issue is obviously not dead. MVP is also a terrific promo and this group is special. I’m glad they’re getting to really run with it somewhere.
Mark Briscoe vs Shelton Benjamin: Continental Classic match, and one of many I was truly looking forward to tonight. As I mentioned for All Out, I think, I am not super confident in “star rating” matches I see live because it’s just a different animal and different experience than watching on TV. But this was terrific, and the start of a pretty special night of in-ring TV wrestling. Briscoe and Benjamin have a bit of history in tags from their Ring of Honor days, and you could feel some of that in the match. Good scrap, a battle of strong-willed dudes, and ultimately Shelton was able to just sort of out-physical Mark. Benjamin’s superkicks look so great on TV, best in the business today for sure, and they look just as good in person with the fixed angle of your seat. Shelton got the W with probably the weakest move of the last eight or so he did. Rating Guess: ***¾
Man, Chicago does not like Mercedes Mone. Kamille quitting instead of being fired for Mercedes was pretty funny, partially because Kamille is not so good with the acting. Been a weird little story with them but amusing at least.
Chris Jericho vs Tomohiro Ishii: Cool to see 217 years of in-ring experience in one singles match. These two knew the situation they were in. First of all, nobody really cares about the “ROH title.” Second of all, they were out there on a night that was going to be filled with high-level workers doing high-level work against one another. And third of all, they are both a million years old. So what do you do? You beat the piss out of each other. And they did. I actually did expect them to have a good match because Ishii is still Ishii to a pretty incredible level given that he’s 48 years old, and Jericho may fuck around and shortcut a lot of things, but he does still have pride when it’s needed. So they just lit each other up a ton. Obvious Jericho win. Rating Guess: ***¾
Swerve Strickland is beaten but not broken right now, and gave Bobby Lashley credit for hitting him harder than he’s ever felt. Max Caster interrupting and getting his ass dog-walked was good comedy, for me, the person who has no time left for Max Caster.
Hangman Page did something with Tony Schiavone that included the Death Riders and Jay White that I don’t fully remember at this point, honestly, and my quick notes1 don’t trigger that memory much.
Ricochet vs Claudio Castagnoli: Another Continental Classic match. The crowd got going on both these guys being bald and just never really let up. It was a very “Chicago indie crowd in the early 00s” sort of vibe in a much bigger building than back then, on a much bigger show. Became a lot about the fans being interested in themselves. I won’t lie and say it didn’t kind of affect how I saw the match, because however you slice it all the hard work by these chrome dome fucks was just not really engaging the audience, but it was a good match and on some level I kinda felt bad for both of them. Ricochet did his best to play into it and get it to die off, but that didn’t work like he hoped. Claudio with the win. Rating Guess: ***¼
Adam Cole and Matt Taven and Mike “Michael” Bennett came out so Cole could address MJF. Kyle O’Reilly interrupted because HE wants to be the one to get revenge for Roderick Strong. Man, I don’t care about this at all, to the point I was kind of with MJF appearing on the screen and just turning down both of their offers to fight him. They’ll both be in some dumb battle royal next week or whatever.
Jamie Hayter vs Queen Aminata: These two beat each others asses, too. “Physical” is what I anticipated, “physical” is what we got. Aminata’s upside is huge and Hayter looks pretty much fully back in the groove. Jamie got the W and I think it was a Julia Hart tease after the match with the lights and whatnot. Rating Guess: ***¾
Mina Shirakawa’s sit-down on the big screen being interrupted by a furious Mariah May was good. Mina basically saying she’ll show Mariah the “real” Mina Shirakawa now. These two are gonna light each other up when the time comes in a couple weeks.
Darby Allin vs Brody King: More from the Continental Classic. I expected Brody to get back to his winning ways against Darby, and he did. I also figured it’d be your standard Darby vs Brody match, so you know, really good, and it was. Darby’s a great wrestler to watch live and so is King. Loved the post-match where Claudio came in ready to put a beating on Darby, but was backed down by Brody King, who may not necessarily be Allin’s friend, but they’re warriors with a deep respect for one another. If Castagnoli really wanted to try to go through with it, it was made totally clear that he’d be going through Brody King first, standing over the still-downed Allin like a big ass guard dog. Claudio changed his mind. Rating Guess: ***¾
OKAY, SERIOUSLY, FROM HERE ON DOWN IT’S COLLISION RESULTS AND SPOILERS FOR SATURDAY’S SHOW
AEW Collision
November 30, 2024
Wintrust Arena - Chicago, IL
Obviously there will be more Segments and stuff added later, they really did do a good job getting people out at as reasonable a time as they could.
Mina Shirakawa vs Leila Gray: This was taped pre-Dynamite, right after a Ring of Honor three-way tag match. It was alright, as best I could tell. They didn’t have a ton of time or anything but Mina was there and it gets her a win. The nice drunk fella was having himself quite a time watching Mina, I can say that.2
Will Ospreay vs Juice Robinson: Juice is always super over in Chicago and Ospreay is super over everywhere. Good match but maybe a tad disappointing on the Ospreay scale, a couple of rough moments in there but hard-hitting, nice pace, you know what you get from them. Again, the physicality was really strong, everyone was working these matches hard, the Continental Classic is quickly becoming a special yearly event. Ospreay with the W. Rating Guess: ***½
Mistico & Private Party vs Johnny TV & MxM: A fine little Collision midcard deal, nothing special but neat. TV and MxM do have a nice chemistry together and the MxM boys are giving Johnald a new lease on his AEW career, a new purpose, and he’s good in the mentor-y veteran role.
The Beast Mortos vs Kyle Fletcher: More Continental Classic. Match of the Night for me in my seat, this thing absolutely ripped. Even better than I imagined it would be. Fletcher is one of the absolute best on the planet at the moment, he’s on an insane heater, and Mortos stepped up even more than normal. He’s also really getting over, a clear breakout star and quickly becoming “the guy” in the LFI stable that has frankly been DOA as a group, which probably surprises nobody. But this match was absolutely fantastic. Fletcher gets the W. Rating Guess: ****½
The Outrunners vs Iron Savages: Glorified squash-y stuff, FTR came out after and did a bit with the Outrunners like they always do. Gonna be pretty ruthless when FTR turn on these guys, having decided they’ve maybe become a little too “sure do love the fans and being Fun” and that’s why they haven’t gotten back over the hump this year.
Wheeler Yuta vs Hangman Adam Page: Good match, really good angle after. Yuta isn’t at this level just yet, and he’s got an interesting role in the Death Riders group. Claudio and PAC appeared on the stairs in our section, then were joined right after by Moxley and Marina. Everyone looked on as Hangman won and all that, and post-match Hangman was strongly considering busting Yuta real bad with a chair. None of the Death Riders moved; Moxley in particular seemed really interested to find out if crazy ol’ Hanger really had that in him to just pull that trigger of raw violence on Yuta. But before he could do it, Jay White came out with a chair, so Hangman had to use the one wrapped around Yuta to arm himself. Hangman left the ring, White hit the Blade Runner on Yuta and made clear he’s got his eyes on Moxley and the AEW title. Death Riders never did go down to help Wheeler.
Daniel Garcia vs Kazuchika Okada: Very good match in the Okada TV fashion. Went to a time limit draw with Okada fighting a submission attempt for long enough that you really thought he might tap out. They also didn’t make the time clear in the arena so the anticipation of it possibly happening really was there. Some folks chanted “five more minutes,” but that’s not how tournaments work, lads. They went to the limit. They had a draw. Okada feigned offering a handshake to Garcia then gave him Da Bird and left. Not a win for Garcia, but he also didn’t lose to Okada. Danny is really in the mix now. The push is real, it’s considered, and it has purpose. Rating Guess: ***½
I am very tired. I had a great time even with some drawbacks. One thing I did realize late, because once the drunks were gone one small kid was making a lot of noise near our section — there weren’t enough kids at this show and that’s a reason the vibe was off. It’s Thanksgiving Eve, kids and families are largely doing family stuff. So you’re left with the real dregs of The Fandom3, the people whose families are perfectly fine if they aren’t in the house on Wednesday night and maybe even if they’re too hungover to show up on Thursday. Kids and old people are the only legitimately good wrestling fans, and there just weren’t enough of either in the house.
But yes, it was fun, and there was a lot of great wrestling. I look forward to again seeing AEW live4.
Yeah, man, sorry, I’m a guy taking little notes at the shows I go to now. You have to understand that I am a great professional newsletter fellow now. Some of you lovely geniuses are giving me money for this. I’m trying not to dog ass it.
I’m trying to be polite here but my guy was borderline “ah-whooo-gah” and shit.
Listen, I was there, I’m not taking myself totally out of this group.
Also, if you’re wondering, I have friends that like going to AEW because they watch AEW. They do not watch WWE. They’re not lifer wrestling fans, they’re people who were maybe fans as teenagers and gave AEW a try when it got going and liked it. They just aren’t modern WWE people, so my trips to Allstate Arena are fewer and further between, though I also enjoy WWE shows.