Tonight on AEW Dynamite New Year’s Smash, Thunder Rosa battles Jade Cargill in the semi-finals of TBS Women’s Tournament, plus Adam Cole reunites with Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish to face the Best Friends.
AEW DYNAMITE: NEW YEAR’S SMASH
December 29, 2021, Daily’s Place, Jacksonville, FL
Commentary: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone & Excalibur
MATCH 1
Jurassic Express, Christian Cage & Lucha Brothers vs. FTR, Private Party & Matt Hardy
Cash and Christian begin the match. Cash flexes to the crowd. Front chancery on Cage to ground him. JB and Cage hit a double hip toss to Cash. Dax gets the tag. Corner attacks are traded between JB and Dax. Dax gets ping-ponged by the faces before Cage takes offense to Harwood. JB goes for a Snare Trap but Cash dropkicks Dax free. Rey Fenix gets in before tagging back JB. Double team Gin & Side Effect to JB. JB is isolated but tags in Penta and it leads to double team attacks to FTR. Big swanton to Marq Quen for a near fall. Quen downs Fenix with a brainbuster. Rey is the man isolated now. Hot tag to Luchasaurus and he dominates. Penta blind tags in which causes tension. Dives to the outside happen. Penta was going to finish Dax, but Christian blind tags. They argue and it allows FTR to nail a Big Rig and pick up the W.
WINNERS: FTR, Private Party & Matt Hardy
MATCH 2
2point0 & Daniel Garcia vs. Eddie Kingston, Santana & Ortiz
The fight starts with Eddie before Ortiz and Parker battle. S&O double team him with kicks. Garcia gets tagged in and he and Santana battle. Santana hits Three Amigos. Double team to Garcia gets a near fall. Soon we go to picture in picture. Eddie goes on a flurry of offense and so do Santana & Ortiz, but a handful of Ortiz’s pants gets the 1-2-3.
WINNERS: 2point0 & Daniel Garcia
Post-match, Garcia attacks Santana with the ring bell, but here comes Chris Jericho with his bat. He clears house. Eddie and him show tension between one another.
MJF runs down Sting and says if he worked for a more “professional wrestling” company that wouldn’t be happening. We’ll have to wait until the bidding war of 2024. He says CM Punk tried to avoid him last week in the tag match. Wardlow is sitting there and Max makes clear he’s going to take any title shot he gets. Mark Sterling enters and reads details of a contract between the two.
MATCH 3
Colin Delany vs. Wardlow (with Shawn Spears)
Goes the way one would expect. Four powerbombs. Foot on chest.
WINNER: Wardlow
Adam Cole sends The Bucks and Fish on their way to speak to Kyle O’Reilly. KOR notes they have heat and this is a new company and new beginning. Cole tells Brandon to cut the camera.
Dan Lambert is with Men Of The Year. He rips on Arn and then calls Brandi a whore. He then goes after Cody and his “Transformer” tattoo. Brandi Rhodes comes out and calls Lambert a less talented version of Paul Heyman. He says he prefers Jim Cornette. She asks when is the last time he got beat up by a woman and didn’t have to pay for it. He tells her to lets go. Dustin Rhodes comes out to calm the waters and MOTY hit him from behind.
Video package highlighting Hangman vs. Danielson II
MATCH 4
TBS Women’s Championship Tournament Semi-Finals
Jade Cargill vs. Thunder Rosa
Rosa, decked out in X-23/Wolverine garb, dropkicks Jade in the knee. She takes down Sterling too. Jade attacks her from behind because of that. Rosa breaks the count. Rosa leaps off the apron and Jade catches her for a backbreaker. Impressive. Rosa attacks the knee again. Fight still goes down on the outside. Jade gets her nee wrapped on the barricade and breaks the count, before slamming Rosa into the ring post. Action gets back in the ring. Rosa escapes a diving back elbow and hits a dragon screw over the ropes. Rosa dropkicks Jade’s leg several times in the corner to Cargill. The focus is one her leg. Cargill gets a gutwrench Canadian Beckbreaker to Rosa, but Rosa hits a kneebreaker. Figure four leg lock.
Sterling gets on the apron, Rosa goes for a figure four again, but Jade shoves her into the turnbuckle. A hooded figure comes out and smashes Rosa with something. Jade gets the pinfall and the W.
WINNER and ADVANCING: Jade Cargill
Post-match, Rosa attacks Cargill, but the hooded figure comes out and attacks Rosa. It’s Mercedes Martinez.
CM Punk comes out and welcomes back Jim Ross. He says Daily’s Place reminds him of Brodie Lee. He said he sat at home and watched the tribute show from here and it made him want to come here. Someone who doesn’t want to be here is MJF. He takes exception to MJF comparing himself to Roddy Piper in Portland. He says while Roddy laced up his wrestling boots, MJF laced up his running shoes. He says MJF said he was done with Punk and Punk is kind of okay with that. He has bigger things on his plate as well. He calls Max a waste of his time and a bigger wste of con money than Tim Tebow. That gets a mixed reaction. He makes it clear nobody can touch him. Punk said it would be a real shame if somebody interfered with MJF’s quest for gold.
Ricky Starks and Powerhouse Hobbs call out Dante Martin and make clear that he hasn’t done anything since hooking up with Lio Rush.
Hikaru Shida wants another piece of Serena Deeb.
Brian Pillman Jr. is in the ring with Schiavone. He doesn’t remember a lot about Griff being attacked, but he does remember that he was laying next to Griff. HE says he never knew his father but one thing he’s learned is tht you only have one life to live. Next week he wants Malakai Black. Lights go out and Black appears before vanishing.
Anthoy Bowens cuts a promo on Darby Allin with Max Caster. Darby and Sting make clear that Darby’s ready for Bowens on Rampage.
MAIN EVENT
RedDragon & Adam Cole vs. Best Friends & Orange Cassidy
KOR gets some showcase before Cassidy and Fish go at it. Orange soon tags in Trent and BFs take it to Cole.
