Casino Gauntlet Match headlines Dynamite on TSN2
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The contender for the AEW World Championship match at Forbidden Door will be determined in a Casino Gauntlet Match. Plus, AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland meets Killswitch and IWGP World Champion Jon Moxley is in action. You can catch AEW Dynamite LIVE at 8pm et/5pm pt on TSN2, streaming on the TSN App and on TSN.ca.
Casino Gauntlet Match for an AEW World Championship match at Forbidden Door - The third annual Forbidden Door pay-per-view is set for Long Island's UBS Arena on June 20 and Swerve Strickland will be putting his AEW World Championship on the line. At the inaugural Forbidden Door in 2022 in Chicago, Jon Moxley defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to retain the interim AEW World Championship. Then at last year's edition in Toronto, Maxwell Jacob Friedman kept his title with a win over Tanahashi. Could it be a third title match for Tanahashi next month? Well, we don't know if the eight-time IWGP World Champion and New Japan Pro-Wrestling president will be in Wednesday night's match just yet, but he is back Stateside after teaming with Claudio Castagnoli and Daniel Garcia in a trios win over Lance Archer and the Righteous (Vincent and Dutch) on last Saturday night's Collision and AEW president Tony Khan is promising "competitors from all over the world" for the match. Wednesday's bout will be just the second Casino Gauntlet Match. New AEW International Champion Will Ospreay earned the right to challenge and defeat Roderick Strong for the title at last Sunday's Double or Nothing PPV by winning a Casino Gauntlet Match on the Apr. 24 edition of Dynamite that also included Archer, Dante Martin, Jay Lethal, "Switchblade" Jay White, Kyle O'Reilly, Penta El Zero Miedo and Komander. The match rules are fairly straightforward. Two competitors will start and whichever man emerges victorious moves on to take on the next challenger and so forth until a winner is crowned. The exact number of contestants in the match remains to be seen. Who will get their shot at Swerve at Forbidden Door?
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AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland (w/ Prince Nana) vs. Killswitch (w/ "The Patriarch" Christian Cage, "The Prodigy" Nick Wayne and Mother Wayne) - Speaking of Swerve, it appears that he isn't done with The Patriarchy just yet. At this past Sunday night's Double or Nothing, Strickland successfully retained his AEW World Championship over Christian Cage in a hard-fought match that saw both Killswitch and Nick Wayne get involved on more than one occasion until they were removed from ringside by the referee. On Wednesday night, Killswitch can put his hands on Swerve again, but this time legally as the two meet in singles action. It will be the first time ever that Strickland and Killswitch have met one on one and the match will provide the latter with a major opportunity to reassert his credentials. A former AEW World Tag Team Champion and TNT Champion, Killswitch currently exists solely as muscle to help Cage, who maintains a svengali-like sway over the big man, get what he wants. The match marks the former Luchasaurus's first bout on Dynamite in over two months and he's going to want to make it count. For Swerve, the match will provide a stiff test ahead of his next defence at Forbidden Door and comes on the heels of a very physical match with Cage last weekend. Strickland heads into the match undefeated in singles competition in 2024 with his last loss coming to Jon Moxley in Continental Classic action last December. Can Killswitch pick up a key victory or will the world champ keep rolling?
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IWGP World Title Eliminator Match: Jon Moxley (c) vs. Rocky "Azucar" Romero - Rocky Romero is a man desperate for a win right now and, should he pull one off on Wednesday night, it would be colossal. Romero meets Jon Moxley in an IWGP World Title Eliminator Match on Dynamite and will earn a shot at his title with a victory. Romero is far from a stranger to New Japan gold. Romero is a former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and an eight-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion, holding the titles alongside Davey Richards as part of No Remorse Corps, Alex Kozlov as Forever Hooligans and Trent Beretta as Roppongi Vice. But a championship feels very far away from Romero right now. Since dropping the Major League Wrestling World Middleweight Championship in late February to Mistico, Romero has been adrift. He heads into Wednesday night's match as a loser of six straight singles matches in AEW. Most recently, he fell to "The Bastard" PAC on last Friday night's Rampage. Increasingly desperate, Romero reached out to Beretta to reform Roppongi Vice, but he was blown off by his former partner. Fortunes can change in an instant and they would do just that with a win over Moxley. With his victory over Tetsuya Naito at Windy City Riot on Apr. 12, Moxley became the first man in history to hold all of the IWGP, AEW and WWE World Championships. Since winning the title, Moxley has defended it successfully on two occasions over Powerhouse Hobbs and Ren Narita and is set for a third defence at Dominion against former champion EVIL on June 9. Moxley is coming off of a victory in another World Title Eliminator this past Sunday night at Double or Nothing over Konosuke Takeshita. Moxley has not lost a singles match since falling to Eddie Kingston in the Continental Classic Final at World's End on Dec. 30. Will Romero get off the schneid with a big win or will Mox gear up for EVIL with a victory?
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"The Glamour" Mariah May (w/ AEW Women's World Champion "Timeless" Toni Storm and Luther) vs. Saraya (w/ Harley Cameron and Zak Knight) - On last week's Dynamite, the team of Mariah May and Toni Storm defeated Saraya and Harley Cameron in tag-team action with May helping to put Cameron away with her Mayday Death Valley Driver. This Wednesday night, two of the four women in that match meet in one-on-one action for the first time when May takes on Saraya. A former AEW Women's World Champion, Saraya will be making her 2024 debut in singles action. She last wrestled in singles competition on the Dec. 20 edition of Dynamite when she fell to Riho in a No. 1 contendership match. Saraya is also chasing her first victory in quite some time. Since retaining the AEW Women's World Championship over Toni Storm on the Grand Slam edition of Dynamite on Sept. 20, Saraya has lost her last seven matches. Breaking that streak won't be easy when you consider the kind of form May has been in since joining AEW back in January. The Londoner is 10-4 in AEW and is a winner of three straight matches. Most recently, she defeated Leyla Hirsch on this past Saturday night's Collision. May has yet to challenge for a title in AEW and it seems like it's only a matter of time before she does. Can Saraya earn a much needed victory or will May take out her fellow Brit?
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PLUS:
- Following his return to AEW at Double or Nothing, Maxwell Jacob Friedman appears
- Don Callis offers "Freshly Squeezed" Orange Cassidy a contract to join the Don Callis Family
- "The CEO" Mercedes Mone holds a TBS Championship celebration
- Kris Statlander and Stokely Hathaway explain their shocking betrayal of Willow Nightingale
- The debut of "TV Time with Chris Jericho"
- The Elite (Nicholas Jackson, Matthew Jackson, "The Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada and "The Scapegoat" Jack Perry) address their victory in Anarchy in the Arena at Double or Nothing