After a wildly successful premiere episode of Rampage last Friday, All Elite Wrestling looked to continue their momentum with the August 18 edition of Dynamite. Just two days away from what AEW is hailing as one of their most anticipated events, The First Dance, this episode of Dynamite set the stage for what could be one of the company’s biggest nights this Friday.

Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston made their way to the ring to start the show, but they were ambushed in the crowd by 2.0 and Daniel Garcia, who recently suffered a loss to the trio of Moxley, Kingston and Darby Allin. The three hit the ring, and Matt Lee of 2.0 demanded that the Texas Tornado tag match between 2.0 and Sting and Allin happen immediately. 

Sting and Allin answered the call, and Allin executed a blindside of his own by attacking Garcia from behind with his skateboard. The two teams brawled into the crowd, with 2.0 gaining the upper hand once Garcia rejoined to give them the numbers advantage. After some big offense from the heel trio, Kingston returned to the scene to take Garcia out of the equation, but 2.0 planted Allin with a suplex onto the back of his skateboard. They proceeded to powerbomb Sting through a table, but Sting no-sold it, immediately returning to his feet and staring down the duo. Allin dropkicked both members into a double Scorpion Death Drop from Sting, and he added insult to injury with a Scorpion Deathlock applied to both Lee and Jeff Parker at the same time, forcing them both to tap out. This was a super fun opener, allowing Sting to shine in his first match on TNT in over 20 years.

Sammy Guevara, who proposed to his girlfriend Pam before the show went on the air, faced off with Shawn Spears in yet another iteration of the long-standing feud between the two members of warring factions. Spears attacked Guevara during the latter’s entrance, and during the brawl between the two Spears got an assist from manager Tully Blanchard to piledrive Guevara on the outside. 

Once the match officially got started, the two competitors fired on all cylinders. While Spears gestured toward Pam at ringside throughout the match, Guevara landed some ridiculous moves, including a cutter with both men standing on the top rope, a Death Valley Driver onto a steel barricade, and a wild 630 Senton that flattened Spears for a close two-count. Guevara won with a series of brutal knees to Spears’ head, cutting him open before Spears was finished off by Guevara’s GTH finisher. This was intense and exciting, and probably my favorite singles match of Spears’ career.

Don Callis interrupted a backstage interview of Christian Cage, reminding Christian that Callis gave him his first break in wrestling 25 years ago. Callis shaded him for his lack of upward mobility since, and Christian reiterated his point from last week’s Rampage about being in the head of Kenny Omega before calling Callis a “carny piece of shit.”

Dan Lambert, the founder of MMA gym American Top Team who last month appeared on Dynamite and was laid out by Lance Archer, returned to continue his rant from his last appearance. Flanked by former UFC Heavyweight Champions Junior dos Santos and Andrei Arlovsky, Lambert gave yet another weird, right-wing-esque tirade about “cancel culture” and AEW’s attempts to “censor” him. Soon enough, Archer came out to head to the ring, but he was ambushed by Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page. The duo beat Archer down as the commentators seemed to hint at an allegiance between the team and Lambert. This was a weird way to reintroduce The Men of the Year, who have been off TV for a few weeks.

With the rest of The Elite in tow, The Young Bucks defended their AEW World Tag Team Championship against Jurassic Express. This was another fast-paced, high-intensity bout, with the two teams trading big moves. The highlights included a tombstone/senton combo from the Bucks, a brainbuster onto a set-up chair from Jungle Boy, Jurassic Express slamming Matt Jackson with their back suplex/spinebuster finishing move and a surprise BTE Trigger from the Bucks to successfully retain their titles. During the match, Christian speared an interfering Omega and they brawled to the back, but Doc Gallows and Omega carried Christian back to the ring after the bell rang to continue the beatdown on him and his Jurassic Express allies. The Elite needed this momentum back after Omega’s big loss on Rampage, and the Bucks were able to pick up a win without the excessive cheating we’ve gotten used to with them.

Britt Baker was interviewed backstage and brought out Jamie Hayter, who debuted as Baker’s muscle on Rampage, and the two talked trash to the not-present Red Velvet. Hayter challenged Velvet to a match on next week’s Dynamite. Paul Wight was then interviewed in-ring, but he was quickly interrupted by QT Marshall and The Factory. Marshall poked fun at Wight’s medical history, bringing up his hip operations and his apparent inability to return to in-ring competition. However, Wight made a big announcement that he would indeed be returning to the ring in a match against Marshall at All Out.

After a commercial break, Ricky Starks called Brian Cage out to talk man-to-man, but in a clear set-up, the big screen showed Starks’ partner Powerhouse Hobbs standing over Cage backstage. Once Cage began to fight back, Starks yelled to cut the feed and ran backstage to presumably assist Hobbs. The Death Triangle was next in line for an interview, and Pac had scathing words for Andrade El Idolo, whom he will face at All Out. Andrade then crashed the interview with his manager Chavo Guerrero, and the two presented Pac with a stack of papers that they referred to as Andrade’s “conditions” for the match between the two. Andrade and Chavo continued their pursuit of The Lucha Brothers’ services as they left Death Triangle with their reading material.

Thunder Rosa and Penelope Ford faced off in a match set up by Ford’s victory over Rosa’s friend Masha Slamovich on this week’s episode of Dark. The match didn’t quite live up to the previous three contests, but it was good enough ignoring that standard. Rosa picked up the win with a unique submission hold that forced Ford to give up.

Backstage, Brock Anderson ignored the warnings of his father, Arn, about Malakai Black, telling him that he was certain about his match with Black next week. Moxley then commented on the droves of new talent coming- and presumably arriving soon- to AEW, saying that being on top is not as easy as everyone believes. He warned Garcia to rethink his choices ahead of their match on this week’s Rampage.

The main event saw the conclusion of the Five Labours of Jericho, as Chris Jericho finally got his match against Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Unable to come out to his “Judas” entrance music, the crowd sang it for Jericho, but it was the other part of MJF’s stipulation for this match that factored into its conclusion. The crowd was behind Jericho more fervently than ever, but after he stopped himself from hitting his Judas Effect elbow that MJF had stipulated Jericho could not legally use, MJF landed one of his own before locking in his Salt of the Earth submission and forcing Jericho to tap. Hopefully, this will conclude the blood feud between the two, and MJF picking up the huge victory as clean as a whistle hopefully indicates bigger plans for him in the coming future.

AEW knocked it out of the park with this episode, particularly the first hour which featured three very high-quality matches. With The First Dance potentially forever altering the landscape of the company pending the rumored debut of CM Punk, AEW certainly kept the ball rolling and kept excitement high heading into Friday.