After a week at sea, AEW is back on land and the craziness is sure to continue in Ohio.
The show opens with Jon Moxley making his entrance through he crowd. Mox told the crowd that when he got stabbed in the eye he knew all the fun and games were over, but he knew his opportunity at the AEW World Championship was coming.
He said the upcoming match in Chicago, is more than a wrestling match. There is a lot that comes with the match, meaning the Inner Circle and all the mind games. Moxley then made a list of the kind of man Chris Jericho has been in the past; including taking Rey’s mask, punching a woman, and orchestrating five on one attacks.
Mox isn’t a saint, he is able to look into the mirror at the end the day and still have a moral code. He listed off what he sees when looking at Jericho, including insecure, manipulative, and a bully. Moxley hates bullies. No matter the target on his back, Moxley is taking the AEW Championship on February 29th.
He called out Chris Jericho: for once, take your beating like a man. Jericho does make his way ringside, but hangs out on the stage. Y2J said that what Moxley earned was a stabbing in the eye, which could have been avoided if Moxley had said yes to joining the Inner Circle.
Jericho brought up seeing Moxley’s mom backstage, he how apologized for what happened to his eye. He told her it was Moxley’s fault he got injured. About Moxley’s offer to fight tonight, Jericho told him to go to hell and then brought out the Inner Circle.
Jericho thought he had the upper hand, but Moxley informed him that he was born in Ohio. Moxley says that it would be the Inner Circle versus the entire arena. That is until Santana and Ortiz bought out five more men. This doesn’t phase Mox, as he ends up in a brawl with everyone. Refs and security have to break it up.
MJF and Wardlow meet with the Bunny, the Butcher, and the Blade. MJF simply hands Bunny an envelope and leaves. The envelope has the Young Bucks name upon it.
The Young Bucks defeated The Butcher and The Blade via Pinfall (Meltzer Driver)
Of course MJF was on commentary for this one, but I don’t think he was thrilled with the outcome.The Butcher and the Blade seemed to have a little miscommunication, which isn’t what MJF paid them for.
After the match up, Butcher and blade tried to attacked the Bucks. Kenny Omega first made the save, but sooner after Hangman Page came out. He had a hold my beer moment with Matt and delivered a hell of a Buck Shot.
Nyla Rose defeated Big Swole via Pinfall (Sitout Powerbomb)
Big Swole gave it her best effort and gosh it was nice to just see her on TV doing her thing. Unfortunately one mistake, led to Nyla Rose taking over the match.
Cody defeated Kip Sabian via Pinfall (Cross Rhodes)
This sure was an interesting one to watch. Lots of Arn Anderson yelling at the ref and Penelope Ford distractions. At one point when Sabian and Ford went to kiss on the outside, Joey Janela popped up in between them! There was a lot to take in during this one.
We saw a recap of what happened between Tony Schiavone and Britt Baker on the cruise. Forward to tonight, Tony tries again to get an interview with Britt.
Britt gives him the same kind of attitude as last week, but changes her focus to Jim Ross. She admonishes him for interrupting her last week and asks him to be the legend everyone grew up with, not a sloppy bbq salesman. She also tells him to get the names of the roster straight, zing! Baker also tells the crowd that unlike Rhio, she will be here every week.
We then are brought backstage to where the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega are being interviewed. The Bucks say their main goal is to work their way back up to the top of the tag team division. Omega takes no offense to that, but Hangman shows up to show off the new side plates on the tag titles. Surprisingly Hangman has plates for the Bucks, says in the future they’ll get to use them and then leaves. After Hangman leaves, Omega says they’ll all need to get on the same page, as they will be in an 8 man tag against Butcher and Blade/a team of their choosing next week.
SCU defeated Angelico and Jack Evans (The Hybrid 2) via Pinfall (SCU Later)
TH2, a rather underrated team, gave the former tag team champions a run for their money. They pulled together a lot of double team moves, along with underhanded tactics, but SCU pulled off the victory.
After the match, The Dark Order calls out Christopher Daniels. Uno says that the Exalted One has told them to target everything close to Daniels. Uno says this is his warning.
A video from PAC is shown. In it he says how unhappy he was about wrestling on a boat. He also gives a bit of a warning to Moxley. If there is anything left of him after Jericho is done, PAC may come and pluck Mox’s other eye.
PAC then voices his displeasure with Kenny Omega. He is glad Omega finally heard him, but he isn’t happy that everything has to be on Omega’s timetable. PAC says he will change that next week.
Inner Circle defeated Private Party and Darby Allin via Pinfall (Judas Effect)
Just when you thought Private Party and Darby could pull off the victory, the Judas Effect ruins it. Both Darby and Private Party seemed to have the Inner Circle on their toes with their creative offense, so it was a good showing for them.
After the match, the Inner Circle beat down Allin and Private Party. Once Private Party was taken out of the ring, the focus was solely on Darby. Unfortunately for Darby, they used his own skateboard against him.
Thankfully before the damage to Darby could continue, Jon Moxley made his way to the ring with a bat. That’s the show folks!