The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 02.18.26

The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 02.18.26

Live from Sacramento, CA

Your hosts are Excalibur, Tony Schiavone & Bryan Danielson

Meanwhile, we hear from the four participants in the TBS title match later tonight, plus Swerve Strickland and Kenny Omega.

Meanwhile, Orange Cassidy has backup for his match with Kidd & Connors tonight, in the form of Ishii.

Continental title eliminator: Jon Moxley v. Mark Davis

Sadly, Wheeler Yuta doesn’t show his new bald look during the entrance, keeping his hood up. They fight for a takedown and get nowhere with that, so Davis just bowls him over and chokes hi out on the ropes. They slug it out and Davis uses the DUNKER to block a sunset flip and take over. Davis with a sliding elbow in the corner and they brawl on the floor, but Davis punches the post and Moxley hits him with a dive as Mark’s hand is busted open like he’s a poker cheat in Ace Rothstein’s casino. Hopefully he can count his chips with his other hand. We take a break and return with Mark slamming into Moxley on the railing, but back in the ring for some SMALL JOINT MANIPULATION from Moxley and he brings Davis down with a superplex. PK gets two. Davis tries to fight back with chops, but Mark’s hand hurts too much, so Moxley is able to slug back and reverse a lariat into a cutter. Davis gets another lariat, but misses a blind charge and Moxley rolls him up for two. Davis with the gut wrench piledriver for two. Lariat and he tries the enzuigiri, but that misses and Moxley curb stomps him and takes him down into a bulldog choke to finish at 14:34. Davis continues to be a hell of a utility guy while we wait for Doyle to come back. ***1/4

Meanwhile, Hangman Page is pretty upset about getting kicked in the balls in Australia. Well who wouldn’t?

FTR joins us, here to discuss how much they hate all their co-workers in AEW, especially the Young Bucks, but the Bucks show up while Stokely is doing his rant and they take out all three with superkicks, although TSN edits out Stokely getting superkicked out of his wheelchair for some reason. Maybe it was TBS? It was a weird jump cut either way.

Meanwhile, Brodido regroups after Australia, while the crowd chants “Fuck ICE”, and Brody is looking for a fight NEXT WEEK to get back into the World title hunt.

TBS title: Willow Nightingale v. Maria Shafir v. Megan Bayne v. Mina Shirakawa

I like Shafir as a part of the wacky Toni Storm stuff, but using her as a serious contender doesn’t work. The heels double-team Willow to start, but she cleans house and hits them with a cannonball off the apron. Back in the ring, Willow fights off the heels by herself in the corner, but Bayne hits her with a rana off the top rope and everyone is on the floor as we take a break. Back with Willow fighting off Marina in the corner, but Mina reappears and makes her comeback with a splash on Marina for two. Sling blade on Bayne gets two. Willow comes back with spinebusters on everyone and gets two on Mina off that. Mina and Willow slug it out as the crowd declares it a MEAT match, although I think it just sounds kinda weird if you’re applying it to the women. Everyone hits big moves and Bayne dives onto the pile outside as she continues her high flying dalliance. But then Marina has had enough of her and starts kicking her RIGHT IN THE BOOBS outside, until Bayne powerbombs her into the timekeeper table. Back in the ring, Megan goes up and Willow suplexes her off the top, but Mina swoops in and beats on Willow with kicks to set up the figure-four, which Willow reverses into a cradle to retain at 11:54. I’m shocked Megan’s top made it through that match because it was looking dangerous by the time they were getting to the finishing sequence. Anyway we all knew Mina was taking the pin but this was a super fun match and they were rocking by the end. ***1/4

Meanwhile, we take another look at Grand Slam Australia, which ruled and is totally worth watching if you haven’t.

Meanwhile, the announcers pay tribute to the late Kerwin Silfies, one of the all time great WWE directors.

MJF and Hangman Page join us for what MJF promises isn’t going to be a rasslin’ promo to sell tickets, and does a rasslin’ promo to sell tickets where he runs down how much he hates and resents Hangman, and then points out that Hangman was champion twice and crumbled under pressure both times. So at Revolution, now that Hangman is out of bullets, he’ll end the myth once and for all. Page notes that he really hates Maxwell more than anyone, but also he has never met someone more like myself, so he’s very conflicted. So Page thinks they need a stipulation, and some guy in the front row yells out TEXAS DEATH MATCH. MJF isn’t down with that, but Hangman gives all of us his word that if he doesn’t win it, he will never challenge for the title again as long as he lives. Max decides to take a week to think it over. Hangman, no! The last guy who made that promise disappeared one week and then we never saw him again!

Meanwhile, the Death Riders discuss the Callis Family, and Moxley challenges Takeshita to a rematch at Revolution.

Orange Cassidy & Tomohiro Ishii v. Gade Kidd & Clark Connors

The War Dogs double-team the Stone Pitbull in the corner, but he shrugs off their wussy chops and brings Clark to the corner for some brutal shots from Orange that get two. Orange goes up with a flying clothesline on Connors, but he goes after Kidd on the floor and that backfires on him, as we take a break. Back with Kidd and Ishii trading chops and then they slap each other silly until Kidd hits him with a rebound lariat to put him down. Ishii’s hip seems to go out on him and everyone stops dead, but Connors gets two anyway. Ishii just hits a backdrop driver anyway, because of course he does, and Orange returns to run wild and save. This allows Darby Allin to pop out of the audience again and kidnap Gabe Kidd, leaving Connors alone to get brainbustered and pinned by Ishii at 10:00. The Ishii injury derailed the match for a bit but it was still good. **3/4

Meanwhile, the Callis Family is beating up some random geeks backstage while Okada and Andrade calmly do promos about wanting the World title. Also Don thinks they should get the CMLL title from Claudio while they’re at it.

The Brawling Birds v. Viva Van & Becca (?)

Didn’t catch the name of the other jobber and there was no graphic. Windsor works a headlock on Van, and Hayter comes in with a snap suplex to set up some two handed chops in the corner. Van fights off a Sharpshooter and brings in Becca, who gets some shine with a splash in the corner before walking into a backbreaker from Hayter, and the Birds finish with a Hart Attack at 3:40. They looked fine and it’s something to do with them.

Meanwhile, Kris Statlander introduces the returning Thunder Rosa, who apparently did not make millions from the MLM scheme she was doing and is back to wrestling again. Well there’s always crypto. I hear that now’s the best time to buy BitCoin!

The Beast Mortos v. Kevin Knight

Apparently LFI gets a shot at the Trios titles if Mortos wins here, which is fine because they’ve done nothing with the title anyway. Mortos puts Knight down and slugs away in the corner, but he misses a running knee and hits the corner, allowing Knight to dive onto him outside as we take a break. Back with Mortos hitting Knight with his own dive and back in for the pop up samoan drop for two. Knight fights back with a dropkick and hurks him up into a bodyslam and splash for two. Mortos goes up and Knight snaps off a rana to bring him down, following with a DDT before going to the top with the UFO splash for the pin at 8:25. So no title shot for LFI I guess. *** Wait, who even IS LFI anymore?

Meanwhile, Ricochet and GOA decide to take that Trios title shot for themselves on Saturday and Toa is kind of an awesome promo now, but then they discover that some kind of, I dunno, KNIFE PERVERT has left a calling card in their door. Hopefully that person can stay healthy.

Swerve Strickland v. Kenny Omega

Kenny immediately sends him to the floor but can’t hit the dive, as Swerve hits him with his own dive first. They fight into the crowd as Kenny moonsaults him off the railing and we take a break. Back with them slugging it out, but Swerve hiptosses him and flows into the suplex, which Kenny counters for a double down. Kenny comes back with the sling blade for two and You Can’t Escape gets two. Snapdragon suplex gets two. Kenny grabs a handful of Swerve’s hair and hits him with knees to the face, but Swerve catches a third one and dropkicks him to the apron. Swerve runs him into the turnbuckles out there to set up a vertebreaker on the apron, but Kenny reverses out and hits him with a snapdragon instead. He wants a german suplex as well, but Swerve lands on his feet in a terrifying spot that thankfully went perfectly, and Swerve hits him with his own suplex on the floor. Back in the ring, Swerve with a 450 to the back for two. Kenny kicks him into the corner and they fight to the top rope, where Kenny brings him down with a dragon superplex for two. Kenny tries the V-Trigger, but Swerve pulls Aubrey into the way and she takes it instead, which is a supreme dick move from Swerve, especially since Aubrey doesn’t do ref bumps that I can ever recall. Swerve escapes the One Winged Angel and hits the House Call Kick for the visual pinfall, and then follows with a Swerve Stomp on the apron before pulling off the turnbuckle pad and catapulting Kenny into the exposed bolt. Back in the ring for another Swerve Stomp, which gets two. Kenny dodges another House Call and hits the snapdragon, and then follows with a poison rana. Swerve escapes another Angel, but Kenny tries another V-Trigger, which Swerve blocks with a high kick and finishes with the JML Driver at 20:18. An awesome PPV quality main event here. ****1/2. And then Swerve goes full heel, beating the shit out of Kenny and choking him out with the chain before taking him to the floor and putting him through the announce table with a vertebreaker to end the show. Although he had the Killshot logo from Lucha Underground on his boots here, so we should have known something was up.

Another PPV quality episode here, served up with a hot crowd. They continue to roll.