Dynamite
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The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 06.17.26

By Scott Keith on 18 June 2026

The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 06.17.26

MJF and the Callis Family join us backstage to start, as Max puts Kevin Knight over and then blows off Andrade and buries all the babyfaces who might want to challenge him for the belt. And then Callis announces his side of the MJF team, although Andrade isn’t thrilled to be included and working for MJF.

Live from Houston, TX

Your hosts are Excalibur, Tony Schiavone & Taz

Kenny Omega v. Tony Nese

Nese misses a moonsault and Kenny hits him with the snapdragon to lay him out, then follows with the V-Trigger and finishes with the One Winged Angel at 1:50.

Afterwards, Zack Sabre Jr. interrupts Kenny’s promo, bringing TMDK with him, but the Elite come out to even things up and Kenny is like “Oh yeah we’re gonna fight at the PPV” and points out that no one knows what TMDK stands for and that’s pretty much the whole build. I mean, OK. The build to this PPV hasn’t exactly been super inspiring, to say the least.

Meanwhile, on Collision, the Dogs upset the Young Bucks to continue their quest for a tag team title match.

Jon Moxley & Danny Garcia v. Brodido

Find someone you love as much as the Death Riders love doing pushups. Garcia takes Bandido down to start, but he showboats and Bandido comes right back and they battle to s stalemate. Bandido with a dropkick and Brody slams Bandido onto him and we FINALLY get the Macarena, but Garcia is offended and insists on doing his own dance instead. Moxley is over any and all dancing in general, however. So it’s over to Mox and he slugs it out with Brody and they’re hitting each other pretty hard. Finally Mox pokes him in the eye, but can’t put him down with a bodypress, so they bail to the floor and Bandido moonsaults onto them as we take a break. Back with Brody continuing to punch Moxley in various ways, but Mox fights back and puts him down with a cutter. But Brody pops up and hits him with a lariat. Back to Bandido, but Mox SWEEPS THE LEG to pull him off the apron and the Death Riders double-team him on the floor and hit Brody with a piledriver out there for good measure. Back in, Moxley gets two on Brody and the heels go to work on him. Brody figths back, but Mox rakes the back and takes him to the top for a superplex that gets two. We take another break and return with the Riders continuing their abuse of Brody in the corner, but Bandido gets the hot tag and we get a wacky series with Bandido trying to suplex them, only for Marina to run in and attack, and then she takes the suplex instead. The heels bail to regroup and Bandido dives on them and then hits Garcia with a frog splash for two, but Moxley breaks it up. Danny and Bandido trade cradles off that, but Bandido hits him with a knee strike and follows with the dead lift 21Plex to finish at 22:42. I don’t know if it’ll lead to anything but Bandido looked pretty awesome here and he continues to be criminally underused compared to his level of talent. ***1/2.

Meanwhile, Proto-Kada reveal that Ishii has been taken out, and Okada talks some shit in Japanese to rub it in.

Meanwhile, Ciampa continues his crusade against Jericho and talks about how much he used to respect Jericho. BUT NO MORE.

Meanwhile, the Dogs are about to head out for their promo, but Cope & Cage are hanging out in disguise backstage and chase them to the ring for an attack. Christian says some unsavory things about their mothers and notes that Fit Finlay should have pulled out. Also Copeland’s pairing of Faith No More t-shirt and Tragically Hip hoodie is SO MY JAM.

Meanwhile, we take a look at Starlight Kid, who will be facing Thekla at Forbidden Door. And then Thekla does another awesome promo about how everyone else sucks.

Meanwhile, Brodido is pretty pumped about their win tonight and now Bandido wants a shot at Jon Moxley’s title. He’s already the ROH World champion, why would an AEW midcard belt be something he even cares about? Anyway, he slips out a LET’S FUCKING GO before TBS or TSN can censor him a few seconds too late.

Owen Hart Foundation semi-final: Mercedes Mone v. Hazuki

They trade armdrags to start and Mone bails to the ramp. Back in, Hazuki takes her down with a headscissors and we take a break. Back with Mone in control with a lungblower that gets two, sending Hazuki to the floor. Back in, she gets two. Mone with the running knees on the ropes and that gets two. Hazuki dodges her and hits her with a dive on the floor to come back, and then makes a trio of topes. Back in the ring, a missile dropkick gets two. They fight for a suplex and Mercedes gets the Three Amigos, and then Hazuki bails to the ramp and Mercedes hits her with double knees out there as we take a second break. Back with Hazuki making a comebackand pounding on Mone in the corner and taking her down with a DDT and a senton for two. She puts Mercedes into a crossface of her own, but Mone cradles for two. They trade forearms on the mat and battle to a double down. Hazuki recovers first and superkicks her for two, and follows with a brainbuster, but Mercedes bails to the floor to escape. Back in, they trade rollups and Mercedes rolls her into the Bank Statement, but Hazuki reverses out. Hazuki reverses the Moneymaker for two and gets a sunset flip for two. Majastral cradle gets two. Hazuki keeps coming with superkicks, but Mercedes cuts her off with an elbow, and a backstabber, and Bank Statement to finish at 22:00 to send her to the finals. Hazuki had zero realistic shot here but she had the crowd believing by the end and it was a hell of a TV match. ****

Will Ospreay joins us, clearly inspired by the chance to go after the AEW World title on my upcoming 30th birthday! Also he’s excited because he just got married, so that’s nice too I guess. Apparently he took her upstairs and “smashed the life out of her” and then came to Houston for this show. Good to know. I think we wree all hoping for a reference to a “good rogering, bruv” but you take what you can get. This brings out Swerve and Nana (“Tony, that suit is TOO TIGHT! Loosen it up!”) and Swerve wants to know why Will is busy playing “booty boot camp” backstage with the Death Riders and he’s changed, man. Will takes it back to All In Texas, when Will and Swerve teamed up and then Swerve declined to help him later on. He wants to go to Wembley and kick the winning goal, bruv! But Swerve points out that Hangman Page is gone now and Will doesn’t even know where he is, so helping Page win the title ended up meaning nothing for Ospreay anyway. And TBS bleeps something but it sounded like a sick burn from Swerve. So Swerve cuts a hell of a promo on Ospreay and goes for a sneak attack, but the Death Riders quickly head out and prevent any shenanigans, which Ospreay doesn’t seem terribly happy about. This was a great build for what it clearly the real main event of the PPV.

Meanwhile, Will goes after Daniel Garcia out of frustration, but Moxley steps in and calms him down, telling him to keep his eyes on the prize and ignore Swerve’s mean words.

MJF, Kyle Fletcher, Andrade, Kevin Knight, Jake Doyle & Kazuchika Okadav. Mark Briscoe, Orange Cassidy, Roderick Strong, Kyle O’Reilly, Konosuke Takeshita & Darby Allin

I don’t get why we’re doing the match here on free TV when they’re expecting us to pay for it in two weeks as well. This whole PPV has been very weirdly built. We get a bit of a brawl to start and Kyle locks up with Kyle and trades armbars with Kyle, but Kyle gets the advantage to take over. Kyle comes back with kicks on Kyle and tries for the ankle, but it’s BREAKING LOOSE IN TULSA, every Kyle for himself! They all fight to the floor and we get a showdown between Darby Allin and MJF’s gigantic knee wrap, but Knight and Fletcher get into a shoving match over who gets to beat up Darby as we take a break. Back with Orange getting worked over in the corner, but we get a callback to the old arm-pump comedy spot and Orange is able to escape. I’ve been waiting forever for someone to resurrect that one! Next up, we get a battle between Roddy and Jake Doyle, as Strong hits him with an Angle slam for two. We get another run of big wacky moves and they all trade finishers until Takeshita hits Fletcher with a Blue Thunder Bomb and everyone is out. Briscoe and MJF finally hook it up, but Knight cuts off Mark with a springboard clothesline and then fights to the back with Darby Allin. But then Jake Doyle saves his new friend Knight and tosses Darby off the ramp and into the post, while Don Callis takes the ref and distracts him while Briscoe hits MJF with the Jay Driller, and thus Mark can’t get a pin. And then MJF just taps out Strong with the armbar at 15:30. This was just a lot of chaotic…stuff…and not really much of a match. **1/2

And then MJF gets into a spat with Andrade to continue building that thing and lays out Briscoe with the diamond ring and we are OUTTA TIME with honestly not much accomplished tonight aside from adding the Moxley-Bandido match to the PPV. There was a couple of really good, really long matches, but that was more about filling time on the show it felt like, and this sure didn’t leave me super excited for Forbidden Door outside of the Swerve-Ospreay match which will rule. Also what’s the point of Forbidden Door this year given that the only match with any real “dream match” crossover appeal is the Thekla-Starlight Kid match? And even then no one knows who Starlight Kid is. Just a weird PPV all around this year.