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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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Let's talk about some rasslin' from Canada tonight as Dynamite was live in Winnipeg, which is definitely not a thing that they would mention a couple of times.
No. Also, don't know if you're aware of this, collision is tomorrow night, not Saturday. Okay. I do get that.
I am aware that one I can at least understand. Like you're making a
fairly significant schedule change. I can understand why you were like, Hey, it's tomorrow. I, the only thing I don't understand is why they didn't just do the cross promote and say it moved because of the final four.
Yep.
I don't know why you don't just cross promote that, but what do I know?
Exactly.
which is definitely not something on my mind.
No.
Anyway, where for those only listening, I'm wearing an Illinois hoodie. So, ⁓ yeah, anyway. All right. So let's get into it because we began with what may have been. The worst guarded secret in wrestling. Did it catch you by surprise? Did you not know?
Yes. ILL.
Dude.
I well, I
didn't know. Yeah, I didn't. I had not. I kind of tend to avoid the dirt sheet. So I try not to pay close attention to that because I do like to be surprised. And I turned on Dynamite tonight right as it was starting. And I was like, wait a minute. I know that music. What? And I just wrote, holy crap, it's Jericho and he looks amazing.
Yeah.
Okay, that's interesting. All right, so, ⁓ well, I'll, you'll, you'll see, you'll see why I say that's interesting here in a second. But, ⁓ yeah, so I, there's one website that I read every morning, ⁓ which is I read it every morning for two reasons. Number one is I think the rumors are fun. Number two is it allows me to kill time at work, not actually working. So, which I'm a fan of. ⁓ but this had not been
⁓
yeah.
That's fair.
The hottest rumor, it gained a lot of momentum today. I started seeing it on social media that Jericho would be back and that he would likely be back tonight because he is from Winnipeg. But what Spark did is he filed, I believe, a trademark for the term the cornerstone, which makes a hell of a lot more sense in AEW than it does in WWE. Now, I'll give him this. I thought for sure he was done. I thought he's going back to WWE. That's it. And I was fine with it.
Yes it does.
Mm-hmm.
⁓
I
think we even commented last week about them going to Canada and I said, they've got Jericho and you're like, ⁓ he's gone. And I was like, yeah.
Well, no, because because that's
what I saying of my disappointment with the with four with rushing the Omega MJF thing. If it's solely because you want Omega on the card because they're going to be in Canada, you know, my thing was, well, then is Jericho going to be there? And apparently the answer is yes, ⁓ maybe. I don't know. We'll see what happens next week or possibly tomorrow night. I don't know. But ⁓ so Jericho came back. And the reason.
Yes.
that I laugh or that I say like, that's interesting that you said he looked good. I have for you an episode of things my wife said while watching wrestling.
Yes!
First thing she said was, and I quote, I don't like his porn stash. Wait.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait
wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait
My bad. Yeah, she did not like his porn stash.
Okay, I'm gonna put an asterisk and I'll let you continue.
Okay, out there looking like the dread pirate Roberts. Anyway, that was my addition. ⁓ Other things that my wife said while watching wrestling. She said, and I quote, I do like his outfits though. Man be rocking some sparkles.
That is it. That's very accurate.
And the man do be rockin' some sparkles. It's true.
Well, if you're gonna have that porn stash, bro, you gotta have the sparkles. You gotta have the sparkles. You can't do one without the other. You have to combo that.
That's true. You got to sparkle with the stash. Yeah.
You do, you do. that, the only other thing that I put down here was, yeah, the only other thing I put down was, that's it? Just to come out and say, I'm home, that's it?
Ready to see this?
Dude, five minutes before he said anything, five minutes, that crowd went bonk, definitely poppin' the night, huge pop. And it was great because all he said was, Winnipeg, AEW, I'm home. And I think...
yeah. Yeah.
yeah, yeah.
That's pretty clear he's not going anywhere, especially with the cornerstone thing, especially with the new porn stash and the sparkles. Clearly, you know, because if he went to WWE with that porn stash, Cody could sue him for gimmick infringement from when he was dashing Cody Rhodes. So that can't happen. So.
That's fair.
That is fair. Here's why I say, excuse me, we'll edit that. Here's why I say, that's it. You've got, as we talked about last week, not a tremendous amount of time between now and dynasty. So if you bring him back now to get him on the dynasty card, which I do assume is where we are going with this, you probably, I mean, maybe not.
⁓
Maybe.
Maybe not, but right now I'm going to assume that's where we're going with it. If for no other reason, then Tony's got to get to his eight hours of wrestling somehow. So my assumption was you would at least kind of start the ball rolling tonight.
But I guess not.
The only thing that I had in my head was with MJF touting himself basically as the best wrestler ever and the reason or or Speedball saying that Kenny was the reason there's AEW I can see if Kenny wins or even if he doesn't Jericho coming out at the end and being No offense Kenny I'm the reason there is an AEW
Yeah, and I thought we were going to get some of that tonight because Excalibur referenced, you know, he's the first ever world champion and you know, he's got history with Omega. Obviously he's got history with MJF. I thought we were going to get something there, especially since they didn't exactly roll right into the contract signing, but it wasn't far off of it. I felt like
Mm-hmm.
No.
you could have run those segments together and gotten a little something. Because I mean, you were right, massive pop. let's just fantasy book this. Picture it this way, massive pop for Jericho. comes out, he says, I'm home. Now MJF's music hits, right? You get the big boo, even though really we love him.
Yep.
They have a little exchange, Omega's music hits, huge pop, they have an exchange, all three of those, you know, before they even say a word with all three of those dudes in the ring, you're gonna get the holy shit chance, you know? I mean, you could have just blown the roof off of that place to open the show by doing that. I fully recognize I'm nitpicking here. I don't think it was terrible by any means. Let me be clear on that. I just thought they would do...
Absolutely, absolutely.
Mm.
a little something to set something up with Jericho and somebody. But, you know, okay, they didn't. It's, it's, liked that it was a little bit of a callback to, ⁓ it gave me some of the old Y2J, the, countdown clock vibes when the Pyro went off interrupting the rock when he first came out, you know, and, I liked that. And I liked, ⁓ again, kind of a throwback to the rock who once just said, finally the rock has come home.
and
⁓ you know, so I, I didn't mind it. I just was a little surprised, I guess, but not by the return, just by how it went. You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, he's already... Right.
He's already got merch. He's got new merch.
does he? I didn't see that.
I got a message from Instagram. I got a message saying, shop AEW. I'm home. But it just says Jericho in a stylized purple font, which is still kind of cool.
No way.
⁓
well, yeah, like the video did, which I liked. I thought that was cool with it in the purple and all. liked that. So anyway, so that will probably be the headline of this show is that Jericho's back, but.
Yeah.
huh.
Yeah. And when I said I thought he looked great, I don't know if I've seen him in that good of shape in a long, long, long time. think physically, no, just think physically he looked really, really good. Like he's clearly been working. He's clearly been dropping some pounds and getting toned. And that's what I meant by he looks great because they did two several closeups in the stash. ⁓ it. ⁓
Yeah, it's funny though, because one thing I... Sorry, go ahead.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It takes a little getting used to. Takes a little getting used to. And that's coming from a guy with weird facial hair that I have. so, pfft.
It does. It does. he's...
Yeah,
he's probably one of like four people on the planet that can kind of pull it off. But, ⁓ but yeah, I think you're right. I think he probably needed the break physically. ⁓ Whether they planned for it to go that long or not, we'll probably never know. But
⁓ yeah.
I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't. think he definitely was talking to WWE. I think those talks happened. And I think Tony said, no, let's keep you. And like he did not do with Cody. And I think it's the right call. And I think it's a great call having Jericho stay with AEW. I love it.
yeah. Yeah.
Well, I...
No, I agree. think it's a far more interesting... I think it's far more interesting for him to stay in AEW. The Cody thing is interesting that you mentioned that, because I don't think Tony didn't try to keep him. I have my theory on what happened there. Again, I'm not sure we're ever going to know. Cody, I don't know if you saw it this week, said nobody has come close to guessing it, which makes me think, yes, we have. ⁓ But who knows?
Yeah, that's that's
Russell speak for yep someone nailed it
Yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of what I think. Yeah. But who knows? But I mean, I also think there's another side to that, which is the WWE side. And I do think that there's a chance that old Paul Levesque, who it turns out might not be as good at this as we thought he was, ⁓ said no, because there's been a long standing, you know, rumbling that they don't like each other.
It's... It's possible.
⁓
That can matter. It shouldn't for business, but it can. So.
Yep. Shouldn't.
I mean, I hate to bring his name up, but it never did to Vince. Vince didn't give a crap. If he thought he could turn it back, you were back, you know? So... But...
yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But and I
do I legitimately I think that Triple H is smarter than that. But I think there's also an angle here from the WWE side of you look at it at the landscape, you look at OK, so if they brought him back in the rumble, what do you have him do? Because he wasn't going to win it. So then what do you have him do? You know, what's the program there? And I'm sure they could have found something and used him to make.
Right.
you know, one of the young guys, but then the question becomes, is that what Jericho wants to do? I don't know. Probably not. And, and, you know, I would argue the same thing about AEW. I'm not quite sure where he fits in the current landscape, but I guess we're going to find out.
Mm-hmm.
No, probably not. You know.
Yeah, I think he fits there better now with a year off and coming back. if it goes even remotely close to what's just really briefly forming in my mind about cornerstone, then I think you're gonna see a good year of wrestling out of Jericho. I don't know if we're gonna see him for much longer than that, but I think the next 12 months is gonna be decent Jericho action personally. So yeah, I like, was.
Yeah, I agree.
We're gonna find out.
Yeah, we're gonna find out.
It made me think when we have talked about, would you miss them when they're gone? And would you feel their absence? And having him come back, it's like, yeah, I did. I did feel his absence. And having him back felt really, really good. I was like, ⁓ that's freaking awesome. Loved it. So yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's interesting
because for a while, for probably two, three months after he left, I would have agreed. And then we got to a point where I was like, again, I'm not sure where he fit into the landscape at that point. You know, there weren't storylines going that made me go this would be better if it was Jericho. ⁓
Right, yes, I agree with that, yeah.
But, know, let's find out. Let's see where he slots in. Let's find out. I am certainly not going to sit here and tell you that I'm pessimistic on this. I would say, I mean, look, it's him. He's got the track record, right? Like I'm not here to debate whether or not Chris Jericho is good at this. That's been decided, you know? So let's see where he goes. Let's see what he does. Let's see what the new version of him is, cause he's very good at reinvention.
Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.
And yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic to see where it goes. And really the only reason I'm putting cautiously in front of that is because there are a lot of booking decisions that have happened recently that I don't love slash make me scratch my head. That's why I say cautiously optimistic, because it isn't all up to him.
Nope, nope, it is not.
Alright, so then we had the backstage brawl between Osprey and Moxley where I thought Osprey really sold that he really wants to kick John's ass.
Yeah.
I thought it was great. I loved that Osprey bit. Like we had talked last week about this new passion in him is re- he's wearing it really well. It is fitting this new revitalized and re-energized Will Osprey and he comes back and he just beats hell out of mocks and then throws, you know, tosses you to like he's meant to be tossed. And yeah, I thought that was, I loved it. I thought it was great.
Yeah, thought it was really good. So then we went back to the ring for the MJF and Kenny contract signing, which I already laid out there why I think maybe we should have done that first, but ⁓ you know, right behind Jericho coming out. I thought Kenny was a lot better on the mic tonight than he was last week.
Okay, that's fair, yep.
You know, last week, if you listened, I thought he was a little off, not bad, just a little off. thought he was really good tonight. I thought the promo landed really well with me. ⁓ I thought speed ball should have just kicked Max's head off instead of talking.
Mm-hmm.
I agree. I 100 % agree. But I gotta be honest, I liked Speedball coming out and doing what he did. I thought that was really, really cool. And that's when I started getting that vibe of, okay.
Speedball setting up the thing that if it weren't for Kenny, there wouldn't be AEW. Jericho's back, and Jericho has always said, you know, back in from day one that he's the reason for AEW. So I really did like that. I thought Speedball was a decent choice. ⁓ And seeing him in the ring, just in street clothes, face to face with Max, you realize how he's about the same. He doesn't have the muscle mass, but he's basically the same height.
Hmm.
probably 20 pounds less of muscle, maybe not quite that much, I was like, I was like, okay, I can, okay, I'm fine seeing this, you knew he ⁓ was either gonna kick him in the face or they were wrestling at the end of the night. So I was fine with that. I was like, yeah, all right, two months ago I wouldn't have bought Speedball wrestling anybody.
It might be.
Yeah.
100 % buy it tonight. And was great. Love it.
Yeah,
yeah, no, I agree. thought that was a good little segment there. ⁓ Then we rolled to the demand versus Kenny Brody and Jack Perry. Did I miss something? Why was Brody part of this? Honestly, why was Omega part of it? I'm not quite sure how this came together.
I don't really know why that happened. I think the only reason Brody was in it is to continue that Kenny thinks he's the toughest or the baddest, the most dangerous man in AEW. So there's that very tenuous thread. then Jack Perry is Jack Perry, I guess. And he had beat Ricochet. I don't know. I still love this match.
I
Jack was the only one that
made sense because of the national title, you know, implication, I guess. okay, whatever. Look, here's the thing. That aside, I wrote down, this was fun. I enjoyed it. I thought was a fun match.
Yep.
Yeah.
I didn't know I wanted to see those three as a trios. I really liked it. And I'd be down seeing those three be like a mini elite or whatever you want to call it. I would be down to see them wrestle as a trios team any time in the future. It's got all the elements you need. I thought it was really good. You've got Jack Perry playing Ricky Morton. You've got Brody playing King Kong and Kenny.
Yeah, I guess, yeah.
Can he be in the cleaner and the shooter? So I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a really solid match. So yeah, liked it a lot.
Yeah, I
agree. I thought it was a lot of fun for a match that I didn't understand how it came together. don't look, I've watched a lot of wrestling matches where there was no reason for them to happen and I didn't care. was a good match. So it was a good match. Don't care that I didn't understand the why behind it. Nope. Then we got the Willow backstage promo thrown out the open challenge and boy, that felt like a tease for a Mercedes returned to me.
Nope, didn't need to.
I hope so. It did feel that same way to me. I was like, you want the best. I can't think of too many people left that could fit that bill anymore. So I hope she's back.
No.
Yep, I agree. Unless they're gonna do like a, like a one-off appearance of, I don't know, like a Mickey James or somebody like that. She's not Canadian though, is she? I don't think so. I was gonna say Trish, but she's, mean, she's under the legends contract to WWE, so I don't think you can do it. Maybe you could, I don't know.
⁓
Right.
Mickey James is, I believe, her nationality is hardcore country, I believe is what it is. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep.
yes, you are correct on that. By the way, congratulations
to Hardcore Country on taking the gold medal in the bobsled event this year.
Big win for them. Big win.
Well, it's because they wrapped their bobsled in barbed wire with the hardcord.
I would
think that would slow you down actually.
It kept everyone else away. That's what did it.
that's a good point.
you go first, you shred the chorus, you win by default, I guess.
Yep, solid logic we're using here. I think this is what they call backstage talk.
⁓ yeah, we'll see. We'll see if the AI flags it is that or not. Yeah. I hope not. Because I actually rather enjoyed it. But anyway, ⁓ then we continued to have Christian Cage be great. He's so good. The whole the whole thing was great. Yeah, it was great.
We'll see. We'll see.
Hahaha
He's so good. He's just so good. Him threatening Renee was
so funny.
It was great. And Edge, because I can't stop myself from calling him that, going, no! That was really funny. I thought when they went into the FTR locker room, I thought Trent was really good here too. He's subtly very funny in this segment.
Yep. Yep. think he, you and I have talked about the missed, I think missed opportunities with Trent due to whatever reasons, but I like seeing him on TV. But if, look, if someone gets, needs to get a beat down and it gets Trent on TV, I'm okay with that. So yeah, they beat down RPG Vice, which, you know, okay. But like you said, Christian coming back and giving one more shot.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, mean, yeah.
Ugh, so good.
everything he did there was perfect. He is on the run of his career in my opinion. And that's saying something. He is in the run of his career right now.
Yeah.
Yes.
I'm a little surprised they kept them backstage since they were in Canada, but...
Yeah,
yeah, I was a little surprised by that too. I figured for sure we'd get an in-ring promo. ⁓ But you know, whatever, you do what you do. It's still certainly landed with the crowd, so that's all that matters. Pack an Osprey up next. I thought Osprey looked great.
yeah. yeah.
I thought both these guys looked amazing. I thought Pac is looking better and better every time. Give me more of these two. I loved this match.
Yeah, it was great. This is my match of the night. ⁓ I thought they were great, but I was watching it. I think in particular to see, okay, now we're getting kind of a legit match coming off the neck surgery, right? So what does Osprey really look like? Like where's the conditioning at all that stuff? And the answer is every bit as good as before the surgery, maybe better. Holy crap. Did he look good?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So there was there was the I don't even I can't even describe it how when he flipped backwards out of basically a neck crank. I. I'm just dumbfounded saw that and was like, what just happened? And he looked so great. I thought it was great to have pack attack him right at the beginning on the apron. I love that whole bit. I loved the dock getting in there and going, dude, you don't have to do this. It's your neck.
Yes!
Yeah.
I thought that played out really well. didn't feel near as cheesy as some of those kind of my neck hurts bits can feel. I thought Osprey played into a great, the dock played into a great, I thought it was really solid. And I just, I freaking love this match. Love it.
Yeah,
it was tremendous. Everything about it was really good. I liked the end when the Death Riders came for the beat down or threatened beat down. Was there a beat down? Okay. I couldn't remember. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Okay. I remembered the chair around his neck. I didn't necessarily remember how we got there. ⁓
There was a beat down. Yeah, they got him down. They put the chair around his neck.
He put it on and then laid down. He put it on himself and then he just...
Well, that's what I assumed, because usually that's what you
do post-match, is you put a chair around your neck and lay down.
He laid down on That's what happened.
Yeah, but I thought that was good. really, I liked Mox's promo here. My one note on it is I kind of wish, I know why he didn't, but I kind of wish he had gotten out on the, you might lose it permanently line. I thought that was a way better line to go out on.
Yeah.
I agree. I agree. I love how he threatened to decapitate him. You know, that was great. And he should have left it.
Yep. Yep. I thought that was...
Yep, that was your exit right there. Went just a little too far on that one. But only a little.
I ⁓
just a bit. Yep. Just a bit. And I really did, though. I thought the finish. Holy cow. Reverse in the brutalizer that way. Again, don't I know someone on the announce team said it. I don't think I've seen that either. I don't think I've seen that reverse like that in that way. And.
Yep. Yep.
Mm-mm.
Like I said, match of the night, I liked Mox's promo afterwards. I like how he was like, there's six of us. What did you think was going to happen? You know, I liked it. Went a little one line too long, but otherwise great.
Yeah, yeah. Very good promo from him.
Right. and, but still, yeah, very good promo. went one line too far, but you compare that to the rambling weirdness that he had been doing, which were, you know, if he said 10 sentences, then it was 11 sentences too long. Like,
Yeah, last week's promo was weird and not near as effective. This week was a diff- he's been painting this promo in a different style and I think last week was finding his footing. This week it really it landed much better.
Yeah. Yeah, this was good.
I agree. I agree.
Then we got what, so we go from the match of the night to, I don't, I have a hard time qualifying this one because I think that the live crowd was way further down on this match than I was. So it was triangle of madness versus Mina and the brawling birds. And was it just me or did it get awfully quiet in there?
Well, I mean, after what you just saw, that's a death spot to put anything into. And so they did not build them to win. I actually wrote down that I was looking forward to this one because I thought, OK, you've got Tekla in a trios match. You've got Meno with the brawling birds of who they're high on. I thought this had potential. It didn't reach even my low standard.
true.
But I didn't hate the match. think that Julia Hart isn't there yet. I think Sky Blue looks good. I gotta admit, Tekla is weird and growing on me. Her weird camera sides would use to of annoy me, of amuse the daylights out of me tonight. And I also, before the match even started, I wrote down.
I Thunderosa came and went, huh?
Sure did.
I ain't seen her.
Yep, sure did. So I kind of liked this match. I would certainly not call it anywhere near match of the night. ⁓ I kind of liked it just because I thought that it did a nice job of giving you like you were saying there a little bit more from Tecla. It gave us a different side of Mina than we've really seen, and I think that's good. They need that right now. Beyond that, I don't know what to say. They didn't do anything for the birds. I'm not sure what it did for them.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I mean, it just shows that they're a good tag team, which, you know, we already knew that. The biggest nitpick I have is I wrote down another six-person suplex. Who's producing this match? What? Did you not? But did you not? mean, twice on one show? Come on. Come on.
Right, I mean.
Yeah, they are in love with that spot.
They do it all the
time. I mean, they do it all the time in these multi-person matches. You're either going to get the six-person suplex or you're get the thing where they all stack in the corner and whoever the powerhouse is, power bombs all of them. It's a guarantee at this point.
our doom. Yep. Yep. but,
but you're, you usually only see one of those if you have two of those trios matches, you don't see the same group move twice in one night. And I was like, come on, don't, don't do that. But they did. And that was my biggest blah. So.
true.
Yep. Yep.
No,
I agree. I mean, the match was, I think there were some things that left to be desired there. I don't know. You brought up Julia Hart. I don't know what's going on there. She had been really good pre-injury and since coming back, I don't know what's going on there. I don't know if just she hasn't gotten enough reps or what it is, but I hope that that gets straightened out because I really enjoyed what she was doing before she got hurt. And I don't know.
Yeah, yeah. I also wrote down
Mina laying on the A in the shape of the A in the A-U-W on the mat was hilarious to me. I don't know. I hope she meant to do it. I thought it was hilarious. I thought it was great. And then I was also stunned. This was the triangle of madness's first loss according to Excalibur.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think she absolutely meant to do it. Yeah.
I mean, that's probably true. don't.
I guess as a trios, I guess as a trios, maybe just 2026, because I know the sisters have gone goose eggs, but maybe just with the three of them, they haven't lost yet.
Ever?
Yeah?
Yeah.
Well,
actually that does make some sense because they protected Tecla a lot in the build to the the title. So yeah, makes sense.
Did the next segment confuse you as much as it confused me?
Yes, I literally wrote down, Doug, this whole segment confused me. Yes. Holy crap, yes.
I wrote down Darby? Was he even announced for tonight? Calls out Max?
I don't know if he was.
Yeah, I went, I mean, here's what went through my head. I'm far more interested in the Don Callis family hunting Darby than I am in Darby hunting Max. Andrade was the only guy who didn't know he was gonna be the pick.
Yeah. Yup.
That was obvious.
And then why did Brody and Jack Perry come out?
This was... Here's what I wrote down about the whole thing. I wrote, see what Darby's trying to do, which is he's trying to be, you know, the feisty rebel who's going, ⁓ fight the bad guy. It's just not, I don't think it's landing with the crowd. It's not landing with me. ⁓ I wrote down Brody and Jack Perry with the save question mark, and then Kenny comes out, and then I wrote meh.
So yeah,
so initially I had been confused by Kenny coming out as well. It would make more sense since the, he stayed on commentary for the main event, which was next, but this whole, like you said, this whole thing confused me. I don't get it. I don't know what they were trying to do there.
I mean, I think Brody and Darby have history. Maybe Jack and Darby have a history. But I thought, OK, Brody wants a shot at Max. Darby wants a shot at Max. It makes more sense for Kenny to come out and be like, look, kid, I get it. But wait your turn. And again, I'm a fan of having a lot of people chase the belt. And I know.
Yeah.
I feel like this is six months too late for Darby or at least six months too early. it doesn't feel the right time for Darby to be saying, I want the title shot. It's like, well, you're not going to get it. And even if you do, you're not going to win it. I'm sorry, Darby. I don't want to be the guy to tell you, but you're not going to win it.
Yeah, I agree. I think the timing is off on that. ⁓ You know, in going back to what you said about them having a history. Yeah, he and Brody have history. You know that that spot that they did recently where Brody choked Max out hanging him over the rope. He did that to Darby first. That's that's the history is they are rivals.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah
So why are you saving this guy? know you're both faces, but why are you saving this guy that's been your rival? And I would say the same thing with him and Jack. I don't think Darby and Jack have crossed paths a lot, the last, to my knowledge, the only time they have was the, four pillars match when it was Max, ⁓ Sammy Guevara, Darby and Jack Perry fighting for the belt, which is a match I still like, even though I know a lot of people crap on it. I thought it was good.
Yes.
Mm.
No, I like that match too. Absolutely. Yep. I liked it. I think you had two guys with history with Darby that were coming out and just being like, hey, we haven't forgot about you. And I get it. it just, again, the timing is so weird. And I.
And I liked the story part of it too. know even the people involved didn't love it, but I liked it. But anyway, so it just didn't make sense to me.
But yeah, but from a
a logic standpoint, right, because. Well, OK, but but we've talked about this before, right, of you build a world and I will suspend my disbelief. But once you've built the world, now I want you to play by the rules that you have built, right, or that you you have laid out. Yeah, this is your world that you built. So. When you've it would have made more sense to me.
I'm sorry. I thought we were talking about wrestling. Okay.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, these are your rules, not ours.
Mm-hmm.
If it was like, well, but Brody and Jack are neck deep in a beef with the Don Callis family, but they aren't. The bucks would have made more sense here. I mean, not that they're neck deep with the Don Callis family, but at least there's a, there's more of a history with the Don Callis family there. You know what I mean? Like it just felt, it felt to me like they went, we need two faces to come out and save him. Jack Brody, you're up.
No.
Yep. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Like they were hanging around and Tony just went, you two go. I, yeah. I don't know. It just, it confused me. It just could, yeah. I mean, it just confused me.
Yeah, you're here.
You, you. Who are you? Go. ⁓ shit. Kenny, now go. I thought one of you were
Kenny. No? Dammit. Okay. Kenny, go.
Where is Stone Cold Steve Austin? We need him. He needs to run. Yeah. Luke Warm Steve Dallas needs to run in and make the save.
Cold Steve!
And can I just say real quick with that reference?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It makes me sad, but I'm so happy for him that Dan Howzen isn't able to do what he's doing in WWE, wasn't able to do it in AEW. I'm so thrilled for Dan Howzen for being able to do what he's doing, sell merch like a madman and not wrestle. I freaking, I love it for him. I wish he could have had more screen time in AEW, but ugh.
Yeah
I think that they, I saw somebody say this online and I agree with it. I think that Tony, I don't think he loves the comedy acts. Like, I don't think he has a problem with wrestlers being funny, but when that's your whole shtick is that your weird, goofy, funny guy and you really don't bring a ton else to the table.
Mm-hmm.
I don't think that's Tony's cup of tea and I think he gets tired of it quick and I think that's what happened there.
Could be, could very well be. And, you know, again, it's just.
Or could be because
Dan Howson is tight with punk.
That could very well be two. That could be two. But again, I'm happy for him. But anyway, I thought that whole last segment was meh, confusing, unnecessary, and whatever. And then I just wrote down, because Kenny was on commentary, I wrote down Kenny on the mic in just shorts is freaking hilarious. I don't know what it was. It just made me laugh. I'm like, dude.
I think that was a big part of
Yeah, it wasn't good.
I agree.
You're at the commentary table. But on a t- at least a t-shirt! Come on! Take it off when you get back in the ring!
Yeah, I
think that should be part of his character now that he never wears a shirt. Like, literally never wears a shirt.
Yes, please give me more of that. Yes, that's what I want.
Yeah.
Yeah, I thought he was pretty good on commentary. I thought Nigel put him on the spot asking what he said to Darby and he had to improv something there pretty quick. And I he did a pretty good job with it. ⁓ But I thought that was interesting. Yeah. Like Nigel, you know better, man.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. I was like, what are you? You can't ask him that question. He's not going to tell you. And if he does, he's not going to be.
Exactly. Exactly. Big dork.
⁓ but
it was MJF and speed ball in the main event, ⁓ as set up earlier in the evening. thought they were really good. They pushed for match of the night in my mind.
Yeah.
I thought it was great. thought, yeah, if, I'm sorry, going up against Ospreay and Pac, you're gonna have to do something just miraculous to get Match of the Night out of me. But on almost any other card.
Yeah, I wouldn't put that as match of the night. I thought they both looked great. And again, I think this is another really good match that shows just how MJF can perform and his little psychological things. Again, him just screaming as he's getting dropped on his head or getting ready to get squashed. I know it's dumb. I know it's little, but it just brings a little level of believability and a little bit of like, ⁓ crap.
Like, I think anyone would do that. Not everyone does it in the ring. He does. And I just, I love it. To me, it's one of those things that's like, ⁓ god, he's a genius. He's just so good.
No, I agree. I love him. I think everything he does is incredible. I thought they were great tonight. Really, really good stuff. ⁓ I think it was the right thing having Speedball lose it. ⁓ Because going back to what we were saying about Darby, if Speedball had won and that's like, okay, he's gonna get the first shot after dynasty. I have.
yeah.
I look, I get it. The man's on a heater right now, but he's not going to He's not going to win.
No, but if
Kenny wins, he said he would give him a match, like immediate. So yeah, he could have gotten the match regardless of what happened, you know? So, I thought this match was really good. I thought the ending was weird that they were like, we're going to stay with this to the end and then it ends and they just keep with it for like another two minutes.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So
I don't know what happened tonight, but they were short. They had to stretch to the top of the hour. If you watched it live, it ended at I think nine or 9.01 PM central. They've been, dude, they've been ending at like 9.15 our time.
Got it.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, what are the other notes I wrote down? Four matches, two hours tonight. Tomorrow on collision, I think I saw 20 matches listed. What the hell? I don't know if some of those people were in the building tonight. Maybe they were, but it felt like they didn't have enough people to...
Yeah.
really fill out that show because four matches was it and you had a lot of backstage stuff. So I don't know if they're trying to really cram collision with a bunch of stuff because it's going to be on a different night and they want to make sure that people are watching. But.
I don't know if
it's a travel issue. I don't know. But here's how you know they ran short. Right now we have finished the show and you and I are not even at the 40 minute mark.
Yeah, well, there are only, again, four matches.
We, yeah,
we normally talk for like an hour about this stuff. So I,
Yep. And we went
kinda long on the Jericho bit.
That's what I was thinking too. Like that's that there wasn't a lot of meat on the bone tonight. Now I'll say this. It was a good episode of Dynamite. I enjoyed it. And I think that they did what they need to do.
Yeah, those four matches,
those four matches, they were great. But it also, at the end of it, I was like, I understand why some AEW talent could get frustrated with not getting TV time. I 100 % understand it. And I'm not going to begin to pretend that I know how it works with Tony's mind and how, who gets to say what.
Yep. Yep.
But I understand it, and it's just sometimes a little bewildering to me that you have so many talented people that just can't get on TV. And now you've got Jericho back. He's going to eat up a spot. You know he's going to get TV time. know Cope and Cage are going to get whatever TV time they want. FTR is going to get whatever TV time they want. MJF, ⁓ Kenny. So.
yeah.
yeah.
Well, so, no, I hear you, because two thoughts on that. Like number one, you were ramming these quote unquote standby matches down our throats for weeks on these shows that were going 15, 20 minutes long. And you don't do it tonight when you clearly had time. That doesn't make sense. Well, but I mean, to your point, then throw Big Bill out there. Have him squash somebody.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, Brody had already come out twice, so.
Absolutely.
Willie Mack has been complained. Did you even remember Willie Mack is signed to All Elite Wrestling? Because he is. Yeah. Yeah, so you.
Yeah. That's no, that's what made me bring that up because I read that that today about how he was like he's I think he had five matches last year.
Yeah, so you could roll him out there. You know, you could throw any of the tag teams out there that are MIA all over again.
Yep.
Yeah, throw out your new toy, Jordan Oliver and Alec Price, who were on once.
Yeah.
Well, again, any tag team, if you are not FTR or Copen Christian, doesn't matter. Does not matter. You know, the bucks are on the fringe of it, but we didn't see them tonight. You could have thrown them in some. Yep. The rascals are not there. Yep.
Nope. Rascals are... Rascals have been getting some TV time. They're getting time tomorrow.
But you've got so many tag teams that you could do anything with. Proto-cotta.
Yeah. You brought private party
back and didn't do anything with them, you know?
Nope. They came back for
a minute and they were like, we're going to, you we're back and we're changed and well, we can't see you. So I don't know what's happening.
Yeah,
so I mean, you had plenty of options there that you could have done to fill the time. The other thing I'll point out is, again, on a show that to me sure felt like it went short and Excalibur was stretching at the end to try to make the top of the hour, where was Swerve?
Haven't seen swerve since he lost at all. And I think that's probably good. I think that's fine that we don't see swerve for a minute. Because I think having him back muddy the waters a little more that we really don't need because those waters are muddy as it is with that title contenders. So I'm okay not seeing him for a couple of weeks. Let him go away, let him refresh and let him come back and basically wrestle murder someone on TV.
I here's what I was going.
I mean, I think you make a fair point there. My thought on it though was, so you're going to not have him on the card on the dynasty card then.
Probably not, no.
which seems, I guess maybe Jericho takes that spot then, but it's like, again, you're gonna have a pay-per-view without one of your biggest names. Okay, all righty. I just, it bugs me, cause it goes back to what we were talking about last week of you could have done a really cool thing with him, with Swerve and Omega, and you could have had MJF and ⁓ Omega after Dynasty and they didn't do it. And that bums me the hell out. So.
Yeah.
And maybe he's requested some time off. Maybe he needs a break. I don't know. But I do think this rushed Omega match last week was a mistake.
Maybe. Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, yeah, I do too. And I think, you know, again, on a show where you went short, if you could have had those two guys on the mic against each other. Come on, man. Come on. So.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you
had, you know, you had Kevin Michael Knight riding kit there because he came out with Speedball. He could have taken someone on. I mean, we know the Don Callis family was there. Hell, I would pay to see Kevin Knight and El Clon go at it. Why not? Why not give us that? They were both there.
Yes.
Yes, I would. would too. Yeah. Yep.
Yeah, mean, you know, Claudio is barely on TV anymore. And when he is, it's just to be Moxley's muscle. mean, Danny Garcia is not doing a ton. I was about to say Fletcher wasn't there, although apparently he may have gotten hurt. So there's, there's, yeah, there's a question on if his ankle got hurt or not, I think on collision, but also I know, well, sky blue was with him. So nevermind. I was gonna say he had been over in London.
Yeah.
Ooh, that'll suck.
they were promoting the on sale for all in, but sky blue was with him and she was on tonight. So there goes that theory. ⁓ I don't know. What's that?
Unless they don't travel together for kayfabe.
I said, unless they don't travel together for kayfabe. But no, just kidding.
Well...
That would be awkward.
Um, I did see somewhere that he had, those two have mentioned the possibility of maybe being an onscreen couple as well. So I don't think, I don't see that in the near future by any means, but, you know, but okay. You know, whatever.
Yeah. No, it doesn't make sense right now, but yeah, at some point, yeah. Yeah.
So yeah, if you don't know, they're married. So I think they're married. I could be wrong on that. They're definitely together. I thought they were married, but I could be wrong. Regardless, they live together. They, hey, yes, yes. ⁓
Yeah, I didn't know they were married. just thought they were together. I didn't realize they were married.
Congratulations to both of them. Proud of both of you.
Proto Blue.
just kind of like that.
Thank you. Thank you. I just thought of it.
That's a good name.
That's a good name for them. I like that. yeah, but anyway, so I just feels like you had plenty of room here to showcase people that you never put on TV or rarely put on TV and you didn't do it. You know, the women's tag belts are now completely in purgatory. You could have been building a story there. You didn't. ⁓
Just thought of it.
Just announced that they'll be in action tomorrow. opponent, nothing.
Right.
Yeah, which typically when they do that means they're going to squash some locals and that's going to be, you know, but you've got nobody lined up for them. You could have been working on that. And some of that time tonight, you, I assume it's going to be Mina and Tecla at dynasty for the women's belt, but we're not, we haven't really made that yet. Okay.
Mm-hmm.
I would assume so, yeah.
if they bother putting
that on the card, which they may not do, and if they do, it's probably going to be on zero hour.
That's true.
That's true. Yeah. So I, you know, I think you've, you've built a handful of matches for dynasty and that's it. And you could have used some of that time to make more of that card come together. So again, I'm going to say that this was a good show. This was a good episode of dynamite, but they wasted some operative. were some missed opportunities here and we've been saying that a lot lately. So I'm
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yep.
I
I would have sacrificed that Darby bit for almost anything else. Literally almost anything else. And it's a little frustrating because I know, at least in the past, seems that Tony, when he sees something that doesn't quite work, he's not afraid to get away from it. Apparently, he thinks this is working enough. I thought.
Yep. I agree.
Yeah.
Again, I don't think the crowd is as into Darby going after the title as Darby and maybe Tony think they are because remember when he said, I'm coming for you, Max, the crowd didn't react. They were like, okay. And then tonight when he came out and called out Max, it was kind of like, hey, Darby's here.
Yeah,
I think.
The only thing in my mind is that everything that they're doing is setting up the dominoes for All In, which is what you should be doing right now, by the way, because it's four months away. ⁓ So you should be setting those storylines up. My hope is that that's what they're doing. And so even some of these things that you and I are watching and going, doesn't make sense, this feels rushed.
Should be. Yep.
Mm-hmm.
I don't understand why
Yep.
we're doing it is that maybe it's setting something else up that, you know, in a month, you know, coming out of double or nothing, we're going to go, okay. I get it. They were doing this to get to this, which is going to get us here for all in. Cause it's gotta all be building to all in, in my mind, at this point, it just has to be.
I hope so.
I hope so, you know. And like you said, if Mercedes-Monaid doesn't show up to take on Willow, I'm going to be disappointed. Because again, I cannot fathom who they would have. Can't fathom.
So yeah.
Well, the only
other thought that I have on that though is, okay, so if she comes back tomorrow night and takes on Willow, I know that she's been losing the belts all over the place, but doesn't it feel like she almost has to beat Willow in that spot?
I would think.
So the question then becomes, do you A, have her beat Willow and she carries the TBS championship into All-in? Where then she only is in a TBS title match and not in the Women's World Championship match. Or do you B, have her shoot for the double championship and take on Tecla at All-in? Given her history, it's probably option B, but.
I don't know, I don't know. And I don't know what the right move there is because I agree with you that you cut a promo like Willow did tonight. It sure feels like that's Mercedes that she's talking about. Cause if you roll Britt Baker out there and I like Britt Baker, I'm a fan of hers, but you roll Britt out there tomorrow night, that's not gonna hit the way you think it will.
It sure does.
I mean...
It'd be really cool. I'm not going to lie. I'd pop for that. I'd pouch for it. I'd pop on the couch. I don't think, but if you do do that, I think, I do do, if you do that, I think, I know I'm 12. I think it's a one and done. I don't think we see her again. I think she pulls a thunder Rosa shows up two shows and is out. I can't see you putting thunder Rosa in there. I can't see you trying to.
I would too. I would.
Yeah. Yep.
rekindle a rivalry with Statlander because that would make zero sense. I can't think of any other women in the division that are remotely have any heat going into this, like at all.
Yep, I agree.
Stop.
Yeah, I think it's gotta be somebody that's a surprise. So it's either a surprise return in Mercedes or I will give you Hikaru Shida. I will posit that name.
Okay, yeah I would take-
I will take that.
or it's somebody that we, that's just completely unexpected. It's either somebody that they signed that we didn't think about, or like I said, it's a one-off from a Canadian legend, whomever that may be.
Mm.
I couldn't even begin to, like you said, What's or Nuts is tied up in a Legends contract probably. Trish, yeah.
Yeah, I mean Trish is the
legend in my mind of women's wrestling from Canada. It's Trish Stratus, but she is very much under the legends contract to WWE. So I don't think that's going to happen.
You know who I think is posse? I have zero reason to suspect this could be the person, but I know that they are semi active. They're a big name and they I don't think they're under any WWE contract because I saw her recently in GCW in the last two months. Gail Kim.
that would be interesting. No, she's not tied to WWE at all. ⁓ the only reason that I think it won't be her is she went on Twitter and fired some shots at AEW in the past. Yeah.
No.
Of course, of course you did. Of course you did. Yeah, I'm
not saying it, but I'm just trying, literally, I'm pulling names out of a hat right now. I'm trying think of, you don't give us Mercedes, that is a short list now of current AEW stars and available stars outside of AEW that would be credible.
Yeah, but I'm with you.
Yep, I agree.
I
actually, I like your idea of a hardcore country. I think that would be fun. I don't see. Yeah.
I think Mickey James would be very interesting there. Yeah.
⁓ so I don't know. I guess we find out tomorrow, but again, my hope here is that they are setting things up that are going to ultimately get us to all in. ⁓ it just right now it feels weird and it feels convoluted and that's where the Jericho return makes me raise an eyebrow too of
Where do we fit? doesn't that muddy it more? Where do we fit him in? You know, so I.
And I know it's hypocritical of me, I don't care with him. I'm like, all right, put him in. I don't care. He'll make it work, because I trust him that much, because he makes it work. The willow call out makes less sense, because it's like, you better have a good plan. So.
Yes!
You will.
Yeah, no, mean.
Yeah, I mean, look, the Jericho return makes sense to me and I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. I think that only makes the show better, but it just, again, where do you put him? Where do you put him and who just lost their spot? Because somebody did. So.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, you almost
you almost have to have him either go up against Omega or or MJF. You almost have to, especially if he's going to bring in that cornerstone gimmick that is that he trademarked. So. Or on an outside, maybe Moxley, maybe.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, maybe. There's
some history there. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know.
You pivot
swerve to him? I don't know.
Okay? Okay?
I don't
know. mean, but it's but that's the that's the end of the pool we're playing in is that main event level. And that's already a pretty convoluted scene as it is. So I just it's a good show tonight. I don't want to end on a note of us being like, Dynamite sucked and it sucked for a couple of weeks. That's not it. It's not it at all. It was a good show. I'm just really confused.
No, it did not.
show.
And I'm not confused in the way of like, in the exciting way, you know what I mean? Where I'm going like, ooh, well maybe this is gonna happen or ooh, maybe that or ooh, this would be fun. I'm confused in a way of like, I don't, I have no idea why we're doing what we're doing. And we're doing things like the Darby promo that don't make sense.
You're can.
You're confused like me on a daily basis.
Yeah, I'm confused like when they tried to teach me math in high school.
Thank you, yes.
It's not a fun level of confused there.
No, no it is not. But again, I like the show. Four matches, they did a great job with those four matches. Could have used one more, but that's okay. ⁓ Collision tomorrow night is gonna be jam packed. Hell, maybe we should do a bonus episode. I don't know. Maybe we'll do one this weekend. Getting ready for dynasty, dynamite dynasty. Come on.
Yeah, maybe. don't know.
Yeah, I,
yeah, I've made that same mistake too. So anyway, we will continue along this very winding and confusing path to dyn- see there was, to dynasty. ⁓ Dynamasty, yep, that's what they should have called it. ⁓ So anyway, we will continue on it possibly later this week, but definitely next week. So like, subscribe and share if you haven't already.
Dynamisty!
and follow us on social media at Elite Heatpod on pretty much every channel that is out there. And again, I'll put it out there. Let us know what you're thinking. Maybe you see an angle that we don't. I'd love to hear it, because I'm confused as hell and I would prefer to not be confused as hell.
Yeah.
Yeah, I go through life every day like that. It's not super fun, so I'd appreciate some clarity, especially in my wrestling. So if you could help me out, I would greatly appreciate it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Wrestling is typically the one thing I'm not confused about. So now.
Yes. Don't like this feeling.
up is sideways
and purple is milk and
Again? Purple is milk again?
Yeah,
again, yes. 1984 all over again.
All right, I'm to go get some purple.