The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 11.12.25

The SmarK Rant for AEW Dynamite – 11.12.25

BLOOD and GUTS

Live from Greensboro, NC

Your hosts are Excalibur & Tony Schiavone & Bryan Danielson

Women’s Blood and Guts: Skye Blue, Julia Hart, Megan Bayne, Mercedes Mone, Marina Shafir & Thekla v. Willow Nightingale, Mina Shirakawa, Jamie Hayter, Harley Cameron, Kris Statlander & Timeless Toni Storm

Willow and Skye start out and slug it out between the ring, but Willow grabs two handfuls of hair and tosses her around the ring. Willow teases a powerbomb on the apron and then slingshots Skye into the cage instead before spearing her into the cage for our first blood of the night. They fight to the top rope as we hit the 5:00 mark early and Julia Hart is the next one in at 4:55. They team up for a powerbomb on Willow to take her down and give Skye a change to recover. I don’t know if she’s ever bladed before but she did a hell of a job there. They check the turnbuckles for some kind of weapon but come up short, so they double-team Willow with superkicks instead. Excalibur declares that Skye is “7.5 on the Great Kabuki scale”. Well, he tried.

Harley Cameron comes in at 7:30 to save and runs wild, dropkicking a chair into Julia’s face in the corner as we take a break. Back with Thekla at 12:27 to complete the Triangle of Bermuda or whatever they are, and she brings a belt to deliver some whippings. So Willow and Harley get beat up for a bit, but Jamie Hayter saves at 14:20 and she brings thumbtacks and then uses the barbed wire kendo stick to do some damage first. Thekla goes into the tacks, and Megan Bayne is in at 16:00 and I feel like she’ll excel in this environment. So yeah, she immediately wreaks havoc and hits a double suplex on Willow & Harley, and then no-sells a lid shot from Harley for good measure. WHY DON’T THEY PUSH THIS WOMAN MORE?! Kris Statlander is next at 18:30 to even it up and she uses her World title to lay out Megan, but can’t complete her reconciliation with Willow before Bayne smashes her. We take another break and return with Harley and Megan randomly fighting up the cage wall before Harley dives onto her.

Mercedes Mone is next at 24:00 and takes her time, but heads in and DDTs Kris on the World title to lay her out. So Mone tosses a bunch of her belts into the ring as weapons for the bad girls to use, which they do. Mina Shirakawa is in at 27:00 with a barbed wire baseball bat and she flies all over the rings and slugs it out with Mone. Marina Shafir is next at 29:00 and she drags Statlander out of the ring and beats her down on the floor, which results in Kris taking a bump on a bed of nails. Toni Storm is in at 31:20 to kick off the endgame portion. Toni tapes up her fists and appears to load them up like a Taipei Death match for a slugfest and she teams up with Mina for a double hip attack and a double DDT on Mega as we take another break. Back with Hayter powerbombing poor Skye onto a table to add to her bad day.

Mone and Statlander trade finishes, but Harley brandishes Muppet Mone and then it turns out that she has brass knuckles underneath in a funny spot. Then in a crazy damn spot, Julia and Thekla are both small enough to slip out via the holes in the trusses, and they take out the referee and steal the door key, and it’s advantage Triangle of Isosceles. So they haul out Hayter and Harley and destroy them both on the floor, but a bloody Statlander puts Mone through the title belt table with a samoan drop off the ringpost. Meanwhile, Marina smashes in a mirror in Toni’s face in a spectacular spot. Next, Mina puts Megan in a figure-four with the baseball bat, but Marina puts glass on her bare feet and kicks Mina in the face to break it up choking her out. And Megan beats her with the title belt while Toni Storm is forced to watch helplessly, until Toni surrenders to save her partner at 44:30. Although it was a bad long, it didn’t feel long, and there was ALWAYS something insane and needlessly violent happening to keep it moving from start to finish. Also it was so horrifying and bloody that my wife and daughter got offended and both went to bed. And I watch horror movies with my daughter for fun! What else can I give it under those circumstances but *****?

Also, minor point, but I really thought they did a good job with placement of the commercial breaks here. It never felt like we were missing anything.

Man the TSN violence warning sure seems appropriate for this show.

Meanwhile, Luchasaurus and Jack Perry get into a brawl with the Callis Family, as we learn that the Bucks were behind it. So Callis thinks it’s time they decide about joining the Family next week.

Falls Count Anywhere: Hangman Adam Page v. Powerhouse Hobbs

They fight from one ring into the other, where Page misses a clothesline off the top and gets laid out by Hobbs with a lariat. Hobbs takes him to the floor and beats on the ribs out there, before running him into the post. Hobbs continues to destroy Page, smashing him backfirst on the stairs like he’s Bane breaking the Bat, and then slamming him again on the table as we take a break. Back with Hobbs trying a piledriver on the announce table, but Page backdrops him to the floor and clotheslines him into the crowd to make the comeback. Hobbs bouncing on his tailbone on that backdrop bump was terrifying. So Hangman climbs the stairs and moonsaults Hobbs, before bouncing a trashcan off his head. But then Hobbs puts him through a table for two.

Back up the stairs as fans flee in terror, and Hobbs teases a powerslam off the balcony and Hangman escapes. So they slug it out up there, and Page takes off his boot and runs at him for a shot with that, sending Hobbs off the balcony and through a table on the floor that blows up. And that finishes at 14:00. This was also crazy, but a more restrained type of crazy sandwiched between two B&G matches as a palette cleanser, I guess. ****. Afterwards, the Opps hit the ring and bring the cage down for a beating, but Hook and Eddie make the save. And that sets up a cage match main event for Full Gear. I will allow it.

Ricky Steamboat joins us, which is timely because we’ve been talking about him in the 86 and 91 Superstars rants. So he talks about North Carolina history, but FTR interrupts and Stokely introduces himself. “You have Macho Man’s number? I haven’t seen him on TikTok in a minute.” I WILL NOT STAND FOR SLANDERING MACHO MAN. BOO THESE MEN! BOO! So FTR shows footage of them teaming with Steamboat for his retirement match, but Dax points out that if Ricky had saved his money he wouldn’t have to be working this show. Big heat for that one. So Ricky is about to ARMDRAG SOME BITCHES but thinks better of it. So FTR attacks him anyway and threatens a piledriver, but Brodido makes the save and even Ricky gets some chops to send FTR running away. Great segment to set up Full Gear.

Men’s Blood and Guts: Darby Allin, Orange Cassidy, Mark Briscoe, Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong v. Pac, Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Moxley, Wheeler Yuta & Daniel Garcia

We start with Darby Allin and Wheeler Yuta, and Bryan is GIDDY to watch Yuta get punished. So Darby attacks him on the floor and dropkicks him into the railing before whipping him into the railing multiple times, but he misses a charge and goes into the railing himself. Into the ring, Wheeler pounds him with chops, but Darby leaps off the cage with a coffin splash to put him down. And then a thumbtack skateboard to the face, which the crowd feels like Wheeler deserves. It’s true, I’ve heard he rented tapes from Blockbuster back in the day and ran them through a demagnetizer before returning them. Orange Cassidy is in at 5:00, and he stabs Wheeler in the face with his sunglasses and Yuta is busted open. Good, I’ve heard he also microwaves fish in the break room and then just LEAVES it there. He’s the worst.

Daniel Garcia is next in at 7:30 and they team up with a chain on Orange as we take a break. Back with Mark Briscoe at 12:00 to save, which is bad news for Yuta because he’s the kind of guy who takes the middle seat on a plane and uses both armrests at the same time. He deserves whatever he gets. However, we discover that Mark is laid out in the back, so Roderick Strong is next at 13:17 instead. So he hits Wheeler with backbreakers as we learn Strong apparently WON A MATCH to gain the advantage? That’s the craziest thing about this show so far. Claudio is in at 15:32 to even it up and he overpowers the faces and does a Giant Swing on Darby while holding Orange on his back. And then he tosses Darby into the other ring with a press slam for good measure. Strong is busted open, and Darby gets nose smashed by an uppercut as Kyle O’Reilly is in at 17:28. Kyle with a DDT on Claudio and he blows into a guillotine, and then Paragon double-team him as well.

Meanwhile Garcia and Yuta double-team Orange with a chair. Everyone slugs it out and Orange bumps into the corner for a Flair Flip to the floor as we take another break. Back with Claudio destroying Orange with a press slam into the cage as Jon Moxley is in the match at 24:00. He of course brings his fork and stabs people in the face with it. Man he must have loved Weapons. I feel like they were missing a valuable cross promotional opportunity on HBO Max there. So Darby takes a FORK TO THE BACK and the Death Riders gleefully stab and rake him over with the fork, and we learn that Mark Briscoe is OUT and it’s 5-on-4. We get a pile of broken glass in the ring and Darby takes an Annie Lennox piledriver onto that as we take a third break. Back with Pac as the fifth man for the heels as Darby drops off the top of the cage at 32:30. So the endgame begins and Pac hits Kyle with a suplex while O’Reilly bleeds all over the ring. Yuta manages to steal the key, because he’s the worst. I’ve heard he takes calls on spreakerphone while he’s on the train and discusses current movie spoilers.

But it turns out you can’t keep a good Briscoe down, as he hits the ring and cuts his way into the cage to make the save for his team. Luckily he has a toolbox and the babyfaces get some weapons and fight back. Briscoe takes Wheeler to the floor and sets up a table, but Garcia saves, so Mark puts him on the table instead and heads to the top of the cage before Garcia escapes. So Yuta follows Mark to the top of the cage for a fight up there, and Briscoe sends down a fishing line and retrieves a pile of chairs for use on Wheeler. Well that was wacky. Mark tries a Jay Driller up there, but Yuta goes low and puts him down with a chairshot as we take a fourth break. Back with Mark hitting that Jay Driller, and we return to the ring while Pac waits for Briscoe to come down and then lays him out. But then Gabe Kidd hits the ring and takes out Darby with a taser outside. Back in the ring, Orange sticks his hands in his pockets, so Moxley, head of the Ironic Punishment Division in Hell, staples his hands into his pockets. Well that makes sense. He does put his hands in his pockets a lot. Meanwhile Gabe lights two tables on fire and Pac slams Darby through them in yet another insane spot, which Moxley chokes out a bloodied Kyle with a chain, only for Kyle to flip him off.

And now Orange is fired up and makes the comeback, hitting Moxley with the Orange Punch a few times while Yuta gets hurled through a table. Claudio bails out his boss, but he also goes through a table, and Orange continues punching Moxley until Kyle can put him in the anklelock with no one to save him. Moxley tries to counter, but Kyle goes back to it, sinks it in, deep, and Moxley taps at 54:00 to give the win to the Conglomeration in an INCREDIBLE finish. So O’Reilly finally gets that win over Mox and he’s the hero for the babyfaces. Now THAT one stuck the landing! Not as action-packed as the women’s match, but the degree of difficulty for the insanity was higher and the finish was better, so this also gets ***** and likes it.

This one is gonna go down as one of the all time greatest wrestling TV episodes in history, in any promotion, I’m pretty sure. Two unbelievably violent and great Blood and Guts matches and the Hangman match put this one at a PPV quality level and then some. Not to mention Kyle O’Reilly putting on an all time individual performance and making himself a star in the process. This is the AEW I’ve been waiting to see again.