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Elite Heat is the All Elite Wrestling podcast for fans who want more than just a recap.
Every week, Tim and Doug — two AEW fans who've been All Elite since day one — react to AEW Dynamite and Collision, break down the latest storylines, analyze the characters driving the product, and give you their unfiltered take on everything happening in All Elite Wrestling.
From weekly show reactions to PPV breakdowns, roster moves to long-term booking analysis, Elite Heat covers the full spectrum of AEW. No fluff, no filler...just two passionate pro wrestling fans who care deeply about the product and aren't afraid to say exactly what they think.
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It is time to go home for dynasty. The go home dynamite for dynasty. That is a lot of words that have die in it. But anyway, here we go. Let's get into it. Cause there was a lot that happened in this episode. first of all, no Doug tonight. He, was unavailable. Hopefully everything's okay. And hopefully we'll have him back for dynasty on Sunday. But since it is right around the corner, a lot of things had to get done tonight because if you think about it,
There wasn't a lot on the dynasty card. had MJF and Omega already done. I guess they booked Tecla and Jamie Hader on collision. So we had that one going. We'll get to that later. We had the FTR versus Copen cage. And that was about it. I'm not. and Moxley and Osprey. Those were basically the four matches that we had on the card for dynasty. So with it being this Sunday, obviously
we had some work to do and it opened with a bang tonight. Osprey and Mox just throwing down when United Empire showed up. Now, if you read the dirt sheets like I do, you saw perhaps earlier today that Osprey had been in Japan to talk to United Empire. They referenced it on the broadcast. I dig it. I liked bringing United Empire in. I gotta be honest with you. I didn't know United Empire was still doing their thing in New Japan.
I had no idea who was still part of it. I just learned about the young kid who won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, which would be referenced a lot tonight. But I thought United Empire looked really good here. I liked the starting the show with Osprey and Mox beating each other up. I liked them rolling up and getting out of the SUV and you know, the fight was on. Really liked it. Thought it was a cool way to start the show. I really like how they are building
the Osprey and Mox match, which we'll talk more about throughout the show. But then after that, Don Callis had to announce the Kyle Fletcher injury. I think we referenced it on this show a couple of weeks ago that there had been some talk that he'd been hurt. I think the hope was that maybe it was just a sprain or something. Maybe he'd be okay, be able to work on Sunday and apparently no, he cannot. So Fletcher has vacated the TNT championship, the winner.
The new champion, I should say, will be decided in the casino gauntlet match that will happen on Sunday. absolute bummer, but I will say Don Callis, course great. Cause he always is when he talked about it. And, I wrote down here, Don listens. And now I'd, I remember what it was. I didn't finish the note and I should have, talking about all the people complaining about, why haven't we seen Okada and Takeshi to fight?
Yeah, that would be us. We've talked about it a lot on this show. So Don Callis, thanks for being part of elite heat. And by the way, that would come up again later, but we'll get to that. after that, the trios match that Don talked about in his segment between Darby bandito and Jack Perry versus Andrade to Keshta and Mark Davis was on. I thought it was interesting to have Darby get on the mic, kind of the start of the match and
repeatedly call on Dr. Don Callis's little bitch, which, okay. I guess he is, but if he is, then Darby got beat by his little bitch. I thought the match was really good. I thought they did a really nice job again with Mark Davis. They're really building him up to be just a absolute killer, just an absolute monster. I really liked that on dry day, of course look great. Cause he's just done nothing but look great in AEW so far.
Takesha does always good. It was a good match. Good match. I will say this. So after the match, when the Bucks came in for the save, I think they need to start their music at the super kick party yell and get into it. Cause with it doing the kind of build, I felt like the live crowd didn't fully realize they were, that they had hit the music. And that's kind of a thing with AEW sometimes where they start at the beginning of the song. And sometimes I think you just got to start it at wherever it really kicks in to really pop the crowd.
But other than that the bucks look great in the run-in I talked about this I think Last week maybe a couple weeks ago whenever the last time they were on the show was I Really like this version of them. I like that. They seem to be taking things seriously I think it's a nice new layer for their characters, so I liked the run-in I You know
I'm blanking did they make a match against the Bucks for dynasty Don Callis kept talking about he was working on it But I don't know if they're gonna be part of the dynasty card or not. I'm guessing they will be somehow but I guess that wasn't clear. I will say this I thought it was funny that Archer took forever to break them up. They had kind of the wrong camera angle on that one, but Whatever, that's nitpicky for an otherwise good match and and I thought good post match action there
And then they did something that I think is pretty different. I'm not sure I've seen this on a wrestling show or if I have, it's been a long time, long enough that I don't remember. Doc Sampson did a little backstage interview with Lexi talking about, yeah, Kenny's fine. You know, he's cleared. I cleared him. The surgeon cleared him. He's in great shape. He's you know, he's good.
Uh, and kind of chastising Max going, Oh, he's just trying to get in his head. I don't really like that. I thought it was pretty good. Surprisingly good little segment there. And I thought it was a creative use of their actual doctor. If you don't know Doc Samson is their actual ringside doctor. Then we moved to the TBS title match between a returning Queen Aminata and Willow. And I thought this was really good. Um, I thought Queen Aminata looked really good coming back off the injury worked. Um,
I would dare say worked a little bit heelish, just a little, and I know that was probably to contrast Willow is very over right now and arguably, well I'm not even sure it's arguably, it might just be fact that she may be the top face for the women right now. I can't really think of anybody else. So I'm sure that that's part of why Queen Aminata worked that way.
But I was kind of thinking during the match, if you do a heel Queen Aminata, a heel Sheeta, that could be interesting. And that gives Willow some good challengers. And then if you can heat, you know, one of the, one of the baby face women up, to be a legit threat for Tecla come double or nothing. Yeah, you're cooking there. You got a little something going there in the women's division that could use a little bit of a shot in the arm. As we've talked about a lot over the last couple of weeks.
on this show that it's nothing against the ladies. I don't think they're doing anything wrong. I just am not sure that the booking decisions have been the best leading to where we're at now. But again, we'll talk a little bit about more or a little bit more about that later. Words anyway, my nitpick here in this is going to be a little bit of a theme throughout the show. I don't know if it's that Willow has to watch closer on the count or again, if it's a referee issue, but
There were a couple times in this match that I was like, that was three. The referee had to pull up before Willow kicked. So it felt like timing was a little bit off a couple of times tonight with the referees, which is something we've talked about before. I haven't talked about it for maybe a month or two on this show, but it reared its head again tonight. And it felt to me like they were working on a kind of skeleton crew with both broadcast and
with the referees. didn't see the normal mix of referees that I feel like we usually do. Maybe I just wasn't paying that close of attention. I don't know, but maybe that played a factor. Maybe it didn't. Who knows? After that video package about MJF's impact on professional wrestling, after which I went, okay, I mean, cool, cool little video package, but okay. This will come back around.
I will give more thoughts on this when we get to the end. If you saw the show, you know where I'm going with this. Then we got Jericho. And my first thought was, is he just Jericho now? Because Excalibur only referred to him as Jericho. The graphic when he came out only said Jericho. You know, the entrance video only says Jericho. For a while there, he referred to himself only as Jericho. I'm like, are we dropping Chris? That's kind of interesting.
so then ricochet and the demand would come out to interrupt his promo, which was basically, if you haven't seen it, just Jericho, but no Chris, I don't know talking about he's thrilled to be back in AEW. It is his home. He, know, he's happy to, you know, he's as excited about it now as he was day one, all that sort of stuff. Right. So ricochet and the demand, interrupt.
Jericho looked confused by a lot of what Ricochet was saying and I understood that. I was confused too because Ricochet is kind of rambling in this and not making a lot of sense. He's going, know, I respect you and I respect you so much that I'm going to tell you that no one wants you here. Huh?
That doesn't make sense, my man. So anyway, Ricochet's part of it wasn't great, but it all led to a match between Jericho and Ricochet at Dynasty. Jericho was good here. He did a subtle little thing when Ricochet was like, yeah, you went and got abs, and he just kind of opened his coat a little bit to make sure you could see it. know, like Jericho was good here. This felt like a version of Chris Jericho we had not seen.
in quite some time and I think the time off did him a lot of good physically. I think it did him a lot of good mentally. Gave him an opportunity to refresh and kind of think about some things. So. I'm pretty excited to see where we go with this version of Jericho. Loved the call back to the list. That's always fun. I was at a house show probably 10 ish years ago like like Chris mentioned when he said, I might be rusty on this. I haven't done it for about 10 years.
I was at a house show and he was still doing the list bit. He did it at the end of the show. It was fun. It popped everybody good little bit. I was, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed him calling back to that. Then we got a backstage with the Don Callis family and okay, so they did make the match here. I remember now the young bucks versus Okada and Takeshita going to happen at dynasty, which is going to be a very good match. No doubt about that.
My hope is that this segment reignites the Okada Takeshita feud. As I've talked about a lot on here, I want to see this match. But over the last couple of weeks, I had been saying, I don't care anymore, because you took too long. You took way too long on this and kept them apart way too much. And I don't know why they did that. Maybe it was because of Takeshita's commitments with New Japan or I don't know. I don't know.
But they reignited it or started to reignite it anyway tonight. because basically the, the match was made of like, like I said, Okada and Takeshita against the Bucks at dynasty. And then Don Callis just kind of dropped this as an aside double or nothing. We now have a match. It will be Okada and Takeshita for the international championship at double or nothing. Number one, I think you got to switch it. I think you got to put it on Takeshita number two, please.
use the time that we have between now and double or nothing to really heat this back up. mean, get it to a boil because you lost so much momentum on this from when it first started that you got a lot of work to do to get people to reinvest in it. It's gonna be a good match. No doubt about that. I want to see it, but you can heat this storyline up. You have enough time to really bring it to a boil and I hope that they do it. And I know they're capable of it.
because they're doing a great job. Like I mentioned before of building Osprey and Moxley for dynasty. think I love how they've been building this match tonight. They reached a whole new level with it. I think you can do that with Okada and Takeshita, but you got to be intentional about it and you've got to start at, you know, really it kind of started tonight. Dynasty's got to start to turn the heat up. And then every week between now and double or nothing, that he's got to get turned up more and more and more.
and hopefully actually works unlike my oven, which seems to not be working very well for us right now. You didn't need to know that. I just needed to get that off my chest. So then we got Tomaso Ciampa versus Mascara Dorada. Winner, believe, if I understood Excalibur correctly, winner would get the number one spot in the casino match for the TNT championship.
I thought it would have been very interesting to have Dorado win because it doesn't take Champa out of the match. But I think most of us probably knew Champa was going over there. He did. This is a good match. There was pretty much no chance that it would be bad. I thought they worked really well together. The contrast in styles between Dorado wanting to fly and do the flip flops and everything. And Champa just wanting to, you know, beat the crap out of him. Basically, you know, they say styles make matches. I thought this made a good one.
real good match here tonight. I would think Champa is the odds on favorite to take the TNT championship back. There might be something that happens on collision to change my mind on that, but I doubt it. After that, we got a interesting backstage with the dogs beating up Orange Cassidy and Roddy Strong. And here's why I say this is interesting. Number one,
Gabe Kidd handled a decent amount of the promo and I thought it was pretty good. David Finley, on his parts, I thought was only okay. He did like a super intense stare at the end that just, I laughed. It made me laugh. So that one didn't get over the way you meant it to, buddy. To be fair, if he were here, I would not actually say that. I would tell him it was a great promo because I would fear for my life. But you see my point. It wasn't his best work. That's okay. They're not all gonna be home runs.
Clark Connors once again was the best part of the promo though. That guy, that guy feels like he's going to be a huge star to me at some point. I hope that when the time comes, they pull the trigger and push him to the moon. And then some like, you know, the path Artemis too took, he needs to be on that trajectory because he feels like a superstar just waiting to launch. But here's why. When I started talking about this segment, I thought it was interesting.
So the dogs are beating up Orange, Cassidy and Roddy Strong, which makes some sense. They've been kind of beefing with them lately, right? But then they call out Misty Co and Jet Speed, the trio's champions.
which okay, sure, makes sense that you wanna go for the trios titles, okay. But they're gonna do it on collision.
So you guys just talked yourselves off of the pay-per-view? I mean, I get that they could do some sort of DQ finish or whatever on collision and it'll lead to a match at Dynasty and that may very well be what happens. Just felt a little odd to me that we're doing that on collision and not putting it on Dynasty, particularly when we know that Tony Khan likes to pack pay-per-views with somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 hours worth of wrestling.
I thought it was a little weird. I also thought it was odd that they're beating up Orange Cassidy and Roddy Strong to then call out guys that have nothing to do with them, but. OK, whatever. Then we did a backstage with Tekla. I know, like I mentioned earlier, they made this match on collision. I didn't see it, but I don't understand why we're doing Jamie Hader versus Tekla. Now, on one hand, I don't know who else you would have put in the spot.
I really don't know who else you would have had challenged Tecla. I'm sure we talked about it last week and the week before, but that tells you how memorable it's been to this point, right? That I don't remember what we said seven days ago. so I, I guess, you know, you want to get the women's world championship on the show. This is a, this is a good way to do it as any, I suppose, but it just didn't make a lot of sense to me.
it's a match that's getting smacked together very quickly. There's very little build to this. Jamie hater wasn't even on the show tonight. You get the tech, the promo by the way here, let me, let me just talk about the segment that did air was pretty good. You know, she's leaning into the like, she's weird and unhinged kind of thing. I, I thought her threatening to take Lexi to a steak house for a nice steak dinner and then take her to a strip club and then break all her fingers was.
weirdly entertaining. I just don't understand why all of sudden Jamie Hayter jumps to the front of the line. They did a half decent job of justifying it tonight with the promo. This just feels to me like a match that got slapped together because they went, we need to get the women's world championship on the pay-per-view and we don't have anybody. Jamie, you're up. Okay. I feel like it derails the momentum that they've been working on with the brawling birds.
why they are not challenging for the tag championships, which by the way, I don't think the women's tag titles are gonna be on the pay-per-view at this point. But why the brawling birds aren't in that hunt, I don't know. I don't get it. The women's division remains very muddy and very messy. Hopefully they're gonna start to sort this out. My hope is that at Dynasty we get the Mercedes return, because they need her real bad right now, real bad.
But anyway, so that happened. then we got an in-ring cope and Christian promo this time. again, further proof that somebody anyway, is listening to this show. I think it's Tony Khan. after we pointed out last week, why do you not have. Coping Christian go be in front of the live crowd when you're in their home country of Canada. So they had them in the ring. this time nice pop, Christian remains incredible. He's.
doing the best work of his career here. I said that last week. I think I've been saying that a couple of weeks in a row. He's just crushing it. He was great tonight. I thought they did a great job calling back to the RPG vice segment that we talked about last week where they decided where cope and Christian decided, they're in our way and braindom brained RPG vice with the chairs. Nice callback spot here, getting RPG vice involved.
the spot with, Trent basically drop kicking the chair into Cope's face looked brutal. mean, it, it looked really good. They, did a great job there. Stoke was funny. His spear was not terrible. Pretty impressive. you know, look, it's your standard. Okay. The heels got to get one up on the faces before we go to the pay-per-view. I have no problem with it. it's going to be good match.
I'm on board. At this point, I'm like, let's let's just get to Sunday. I'm ready to see those four dudes throw down. So then we got a Darby backstage promo. And I found this one interesting on a couple of different levels. Number one, it started off with me kind of being like, OK, it's Darby being intense and talking about the world title, which I don't think any of us think he's going to win. And. You know, in my head, I'm going, it's fine. And then he kind of ratcheted it up.
And I thought it was very clever for him to say, what's it all been for all the fire and the glass and getting thrown downstairs? What's it all been for if I don't get to be world champion? And I thought, well, now that's interesting. And he kept saying, I need this, you know, basically saying to Andrade, the winner of that match gets the first title shot, right? I need this. And he walked right up to the line of, I need this rock.
I need to, how did it go? I need to beat you, Rock. I need to beat you more than you could ever know or whatever it was Austin said in the build to WrestleMania 17, which is one of my favorite promos. One of my favorite builds to a match ever. I thought they did such an incredible job building Rock Austin at 17 where we should have seen that turn coming and we didn't, or at least I didn't. I thought it was brilliant. So number one, whenever somebody says in a promo, I need this, I need this more than anything. I immediately go.
back to those WrestleMania 17 promos. But.
This felt a lot to me, like a tease that maybe Darby's gonna turn heel, because he needs this. He needs it more than you could ever know, Rock. So, you have my attention now. Which, if you've been listening to this show consistently, you Darby has not had my attention very much anyway, for a while now. So, okay. I'm a little intrigued. A heel Darby Allen could be very interesting.
So then we got our main event, which was made earlier in the show coming out of the brawl United Empire versus the Death Riders. They called it, I believe chaos in Canada. There were no rules here, which is fine. That's exactly what this match should have been. It was wild. It was fun. It was my match of the night. I thought this was really good. They showcased United Empire so well here, which number one, I think did a great job of introducing these guys to an American audience. Cause like I said before,
I didn't know who any of them are. I don't know any of their names, but boy, they looked good. The dude with the face tattoo looked awesome. I was really impressed by him. The little guy who's the junior heavyweight did some cool stuff. The guy that's the 23 year old IWGP champion looked really good. This was great. And it's a nice, it's a nice way to introduce United empire to us too much, two ish months before forbidden door. think that's going to be in June.
which would make a lot of sense because the G1 or at least some of the G1 is going to happen here in the US in July. So it makes some sense there if they put it late June. So it's a nice little kind of preview, I would think, for Forbidden Door. I would imagine United Empire is going to be involved again somehow when we get to Forbidden Door. So this is a good way to introduce them and they looked great. But you remember earlier when I said there were some referee issues.
So mocks are, they go for a double pin where Osprey and the IWGP champ have mocks and Garcia pinned. And anybody who's watched a lot of wrestling, like we all have, knows that usually when you've got the double pin, the referee counts with both hands. You count both pins. He didn't tonight. He only counted the Osprey mocks pin, which was a good thing, I suppose, because mocks kicked in time. Garcia did not. He kicked late and
probably that should have been a three count that ended the match. So that was one, that was another one of, of, there were more, several issues where the referees had to pull up even though somebody hadn't kicked out. We've talked about this before on the show. That pulls me out of, you know, I'm suspending my disbelief here, right? Like that's a huge part of wrestling is we're going to go with you. We know, know, wink, wink, we know, but we're going to go with you, right?
When that stuff happens, pulls me out of it. And it is something that I think AEW legitimately has to address. You've got a handful of referees that I think are really good. I think Aubrey and Paul Turner are really, really good. I believe Stephon Smith, I think that's his name. I think he's really good. Most of the time they do a good job of doing what a referee is supposed to do. You don't notice them until you're supposed to notice them, right? But we kind of slipped back into some issues here.
Where there probably should have been some three counts that didn't happen. And it's not the referee's fault. If the wrestler doesn't kick out in time, it just isn't. It's something they got to talk about it. Some they got to, they got to address, but other highlights, if you will, from the match Garcia on a table that just would not break. And then the little dude from United empire, I thought almost murked himself, when he went for, I think that was a moon. I guess it'd be a, Tope cone. He wrote is what, Excalibur would call it.
Um, he overshot the table and I thought, Ooh, he was going to land right on his head. He didn't, but boy, looked like he was gonna for a minute there. Um, but really what, what mattered here was the end where Osprey gets the win. He, he, he hit the hidden blade to knock mox through a table after the match. And just like that, after tonight, Moxley versus Osprey for the continental championship.
is the match with the most heat on the pay-per-view card. I think they eclipsed Omega and MJF. This match is now in my mind red hot. I cannot wait to see it. I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be a five-star match of the night possible match of the year candidate. I'd be stunned if it's not. They have built this so well and ratcheted this up week by week so well that I am now fully invested in it. Let's do it.
great job to everybody involved in that one. So the main event ends into the show, right? I certainly thought it was. Nope. Now we get a video talking about Kenny Omega's impact on the wrestling business, which again made me go, okay, why are we, why are we doing this? Why the shows over time were past the top of the hour. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing it after the main event? That doesn't make any sense to me.
And I did have the thought of they must. They've been doing a lot of things. Both on TV, but especially on social media to basically introduce people to the AEW roster, which makes me think that they have gotten a hold of some sort of data behind the scenes that says they have a bunch of new viewers. And the new viewers are there somehow getting feedback from.
the new people in the audience going, I don't know who these people are, but I want to know, please tell me who they are, which makes a lot of sense, right? There's some names that if you're wrestling fan, you've been a fan for a long time, you're going to know, know, Jericho, you might know Omega. obviously, you know, Cajun and cope, you know, you probably know FTR depending how much attention you've been paying over the last, you know, 10, 15 years, whatever, I guess 10 years, but they may have picked up some people who
we're lapsed fans who've been hearing about it and are checking it out and don't know who a lot of these guys are. I'm kind of wondering if they're starting to get more people coming over from WWE. I don't know, but that's what it feels like to me of that. They got a hold of something, some sort of research data, whatever that says they need to introduce their wrestlers to the audience. And I think that that's a big part of what those video packages were tonight. So with that in mind, I went, okay, fine. That makes some sense.
But then Omega came out and he, was like, okay, great. He did a perfectly good promo. Cause of course he did. He's Kenny Omega and then, now here comes MJF. And now it's like nine 20 central time. We're way past the end of the show. And look, I've got no problem with Omega and MJF doing a promo battle. And everything that happened tonight in that segment was very good because again, how could it not be Kenny showing like
You know, talking about, okay, you know what, Max, you got under my skin. I'm not entirely sure why you did, but you did. And okay, I've learned from it, but Max, remember I know all your tricks. So you can't catch me off guard and Max tried it tonight and he didn't catch Kenny off guard. Kenny was ready for him. Right. So did a lot to give you a sense of Kenny might win this thing on Sunday. Right. I just don't understand why we did all this 20 minutes after the end of the main event.
I just don't, you know, and it made me wonder how many people missed it because I almost turned it off. Main event ends and I was like, okay, yeah, we're done, cool. I got a, you know, I got a podcast to do and I'm glad I didn't turn it off. It makes me wonder, did people leave the arena? And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe nobody turned it off. Maybe nobody left. Maybe everybody saw it. It just made me wonder if they lost some people by putting that.
after the main event. So there are going to be people that see it online or whatever the case may be and go, I didn't know that they did it. And I mean, they went way over time. And I know TBS is fine with them bumping a modern family rerun, because who cares, but way over time. And as somebody who's spent a lot of time in the broadcast industry, my wife actually pointed this out. When do they get the commercials in?
Cause the whole thing is, we're commercial. We've taken our last break, you know, and that was like a good 20 minutes where they didn't air a commercial. And I don't know. That's maybe two inside baseball. Maybe nobody cares, but he just made me wonder why we did all that after the main event, particularly with no promotion that, that it was going to happen, that they were going to talk, but overall good segment, good end of the show, really good show. was very impressed by tonight's dynamite.
I thought they did a great job getting you ready for dynasty on Sunday. Like I said, they had a lot of work to do to flesh out that card. think they did a pretty decent job of that tonight. I think they got, certainly they got me invested in matches that like the Darby thing that I wasn't invested in. and they just turned up that they cranked the two 11 with mocks and Osprey. Like I am all the way on board for this. Let's do it. So
pretty good show headed into dynasty. No dropped a pretty good. It was a good show. This is, this was an a show headed into dynasty. hope they keep that momentum rolling through the weekend, but we'll all find out together. And on that note, if you haven't hit subscribe yet, do it like the show, share it with your friends that are also into wrestling. Follow us on social media at elite heat pod. We're on pretty much every platform. You can find us there. And as always, I like engaging with people. If you got thoughts.
Drop them in the comments when we start posting stuff. I'd love to hear from you. I love getting different angles. A lot of people have commented on things we've posted. went, my God, I didn't even think about that, but that's really smart. So love, love, love to have the conversation with you at elite heat pod on social media. And like I said, like share, subscribe, do all those things and we will see you Sunday for dynasty. I'd have almost said dynamite there, but I caught myself. So why did I tell you that?
Should have just taken the win.