AEW Dynamite Recap, Grades, & Opinion: September 16, 2020

AEW Dynamite Recap: September 16, 2020

A.K.A The One Where There’s A Parking Lot Brawl

All Elite Wrestling Dynamite is stacked with great content this week, headlined by a Parking Lot Brawl between Pride-N-Powerful and Best Friends and an NWA Women’s Championship defense between Thunder Rosa and Ivelisse that had great match written all over it. New AEW Tag Team Champions FTR challenged Jurassic Express in a non-title bout, Chris Jericho & Jake Hager faced Private Party, Hangman Page faced Frankie Kazarian and MJF was in action. There was more build for the AEW Title fight between Jon Moxley and Lance Archer. Oh, and more Miro! Here’s how it all shook out.

Results:

• FTR def. Jurassic Express
• Hangman Page def. Frankie Kazarian
• MJF def. Jobber
• Chris Jericho & Jake Hager def. Private Party
• Thunder Rosa def. Ivelisse
• Best Friends def. Pride-N-Powerful

Match of the Night: Best Friends def. Pride-N-Powerful

Trent is wearing jeans, Santana and Ortiz have face paint on and I’m wondering whose cars these are. Anyways, the two teams immediately started throwing punches at each other. After taking out Santana, Best Friends set Ortiz up under the hood of a car and hit a flipping Senton and a sit-out Senton on him. Not even three minutes into the match and all four men already had bruises and Santana was busted open.

There was so much that happened, but Ortiz was bleeding from his elbow and Trent speared him through a door or something. Santana then just started clobbering Chuckie T with blows before Trent put him down. Then came the vicious shot with some metal dustpan to Trent’s head that shook me. Chuckie made him pay for it by suplexing him through some barricade.

A little later, Trent went on the hood of a car to do something to Ortiz, but was hit with a low blow and powerbombed onto the roof. It gets worse for Trent because immediately after that, Santana and Ortiz powerbombed him onto the windshield. Chuckie found a 2×4 and broke it on Ortiz’s back before being vaulted onto a recycling bin by Santana. By this point, Trent’s back is a bloody mess and it doesn’t look good for the babyfaces.

Santana had Chuckie sat up against a car and prepared to wack him with a large metal pipe. Then, Orange Cassidy popped out of the trunk of the car with a chain wrapped around his fist and hit the Orange Punch to knock out Santana. Chuckie hit a sit-out piledriver on Santana and Trent hit Storm Zero on the bed of a pickup truck to win the match in just incredible fashion.

A WILD CASSIDY APPEARED!
Watch #AEWDynamite NOW on @TNTDrama. pic.twitter.com/9dFcR21pbr

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) September 17, 2020

Three Thoughts:

A Jurassic Challenge

The show opened with Jurassic Express already in the ring. The Young Bucks randomly came out and Superkicked the official in the ring. A camera followed them all the way to the back, where they threw money at Tony Khan and walked by a taunting FTR.

When the bell rang, FTR took turns grinding down on Jungle Boy, who within a minute of wear and tear just fired up and displayed his electric offense. He managed to get the tag to Luchasaurus, who scared the life out of the champs. Cash Wheeler took on the challenge and immediately went for Jungle Boy on the apron. FTR were very clearly the dastardly heels of this match and tried anything they could to get the dinosaur down, but alas they are human, not meteors.

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Jungle Boy got a tag and had a short burst, but Wheeler caught him with a powerslam on a drop-and-float-over spot and immediately started working his midsection, snapping on an impressive bow and arrow submission. The champions then took turns stretching out Jungle Boy and despite all of the abuse, he kept kicking out. Dax Harwood showed visible frustration and kept trying to wear down, eventually getting too cocky and eating a clothesline, allowing the big man to be tagged into the match.

Luchasaurus came in and ran roughshod. FTR had no answer for his strength and explosion. He was able to single-handedly take down both members, but a tag from Jungle Boy into a pin wasn’t enough to give them the win. Jungle Boy tried multiple pinning combinations, but none would work as Harwood continuously kicked out. Eventually, Luchasaurus jumped into the crowd trying to get rid of Wheeler, taking him out. He tried to roll up Harwood, but Wheeler reversed it from the corner and trapped Harwood’s leg with his own, leaving Jungle Boy unable to kick out. A great tag match to start the show.

Don't mess with the dinosaur @luchasaurus #AEWDynamite pic.twitter.com/ge2t7ouCfo

— All Elite Wrestling on TNT (@AEWonTNT) September 17, 2020

The Lone Ranger

 Hangman came out to take on Kaz in single’s competition with Kenny Omega on commentary. The action was slow to start, with Kaz on top with some manipulation of the Cravat hold. Hangman managed to fight back with his speed and strength advantages, but seemed out of his element when by himself. Omega made multiple mentions of how Page didn’t have him there to tag in and his struggles showed. Despite the standing that Hangman had a single’s competitor, he was very much struggling against Kaz.

Eventually, Hangman was able to collect his bearings and connected with a Buck Shot Lariat to win the match. Right when the match ended, Omega walked away and Hangman was left looking around for him in disappointment before cracking a beer and chugging it.

.@theAdamPage is back in his winning ways…But, @KennyOmegamanX wasn't sticking around for the post-match celebration.

Watch #AEWDynamite NOW on @TNTDrama. pic.twitter.com/bGNEtWA6BI

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) September 17, 2020

Latinas Show Out

Thunder Rosa defended her NWA Women’s Championship against Ivelisse on Dynamite this week and it was awesome.

Before the match even started, the two were shoving each other. They kept going for the same moves and countering each other, but then Ivelisse smacked Rosa. Rosa was set off by this and unleashed on her with powerful chops. Ivelisse was about to get back in control and hit a couple of high spots, but Rosa managed to get in a couple of strong strikes and kicks into the corner to stun her opponent. The story was really that these two were evenly matched and Ivelisse seemed to have a counter for everything Rosa could throw at her.

Ivelisse was able to fight through a lot of offense that Rosa threw at her and was able to get a VERY close near fall. In the end, however, Rosa hit a Tombstone Piledriver and won the match. After the fall, Diamante attacked Rosa. Hikaru Shida ran in from the crowd and made the save, then sharing a moment of respect with her former challenger. There’s probably going to be a tag team match here in the future.

Who wants it more @RealIvelisse @thunderrosa22 #AEWDynamite pic.twitter.com/YL9ye2u6iI

— All Elite Wrestling on TNT (@AEWonTNT) September 17, 2020

Grade: B-

This was a solid episode of Dynamite that left me wanting a bit more up until the main event. The main event made this show completely. That Parking Lot Brawl overshadowed everything to the point that this episode was defined by it. The opening tag was good, so was the NWA Women’s Title match and the Hangman/Kazarian match, but nothing came close to the main event. It was just epic. Go check it out as soon as you can.Class dismissed.

One More Thing:

Moxley and Archer chose tag partners for this six-man tag match that is occurring next week. Archer picked Brian Cage and Ricky Starks on the condition that Cage get a title shot should Archer win the belt. When Moxley came out to announce his partners, he was abused by Cage and Starks, who were fought off by Will Hobbs. It was kind of surprising, but Moxley chose him as one of his partners and then told Darby Allen that he’d be his other partner. An exciting matchup for sure.

.@TrueWillieHobbs came to the aid of @JonMoxley!
Looks like we've got an all-out war on our hands!
Watch #AEWDynamite NOW on @TNTDrama. pic.twitter.com/i2p5GWokCB

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) September 17, 2020

Javier Melo is a writer of Pro Wrestling for Full Press Coverage and co-host of the Crossbody of Work podcast. Follow Javier on Twitter @JMeloSports.oxley