The Young Bucks and Tony Khan try to expose CM Punk as a liar

Dynamite airs tonight (April 10) with a live show from Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, West Virginia. This is the sixth episode of Dynamite during the seven week build towards Dynasty, which takes place on April 21.

The Young Bucks and Tony Khan try to expose CM Punk as a liar

On tonight’s episode of Dynamite, the Young Bucks are going to “present backstage footage from AEW All In & will discuss it for the first time.”

In the immediate aftermath of this segment being announced, it was reported by multiple outlets that this is not some kind of bait-and-switch tactic; Tony Khan really is airing the security cam footage of the backstage altercation that took place last August at All In: London between CM Punk and Jack Perry. This is presumably the footage that prompted Khan to terminate Punk’s AEW contract “with cause.” However, it sounds like it’s not the footage that caused Khan to say he feared for his life.

Tony’s decision to air this footage follows CM Punk’s lengthy interview last week with Ariel Helwani where he told his side of the story, which is that he was doing the “responsible thing” and only “choked somebody a little bit” with no punches thrown. It seems obvious that Khan wouldn’t air footage of the incident if he thought it backed up Punk’s story, so he’s essentially trying to expose CM as a liar.

The decision to air this footage also follows a couple weeks of Dynamite’s lowest demo ratings in years, which makes it come off like a desperation tactic to turn those numbers around.

The added wrinkle here is that the footage is being presented by the Young Bucks. That means there will have to be some kind of kayfabe tie-in of this footage to the Bucks’ upcoming AEW world tag team championship match against FTR at the Dynasty pay-per-view. Is it possible that FTR appears in the footage and is backing up Punk during the fight?

There’s also the fact that Matthew and Nicholas Jackson are douchebag corporate heels right now, but AEW can’t possibly intend to paint Punk as the good guy during their discussion of his scuffle with Perry. That seems like a tricky situation to navigate, if the douchebag corporate heels are shitting on a guy who AEW wants to convince you is a narcissistic douchebag liar.

Finally, could this segment be part of the process of bringing Perry back into kayfabe? The Bucks already sent him a message of support on last week’s show, so maybe this is the next step towards getting him back on AEW television.

This whole thing sounds kind of surreal. I don’t blame you one bit if you still think it will end up being some kind of worked trolling from the Bucks. However, Tony Khan claims we are going to see real footage, and of course most people who tune in are expecting it to be the incident between Punk and Perry. If AEW doesn’t deliver on its word in a satisfying way, the company risks losing good will with its fan base, and that’s a road it doesn’t want to go down. Tony Khan has strongly hinted that we will see what actually happened between CM Punk and Jack Perry backstage at All In, and now he has to follow through on it.

The rest of tonight’s lineup

The Rhodes family is having a great week, and Dustin tries to keep it going when he battles Samoa Joe in an AEW world championship eliminator match. I’m pretty sure that Joe is gonna kill him, especially because Dustin doesn’t have John Cena or The Undertaker available to help him win. Will Swerve Strickland show up afterwards to remind the champ that his reign on top will end in less than two weeks?

TNT Champion Adam Copeland defends the belt against Penta El Zero Miedo. It should be a very good match, but I think you already know who is going to win. Will the House of Black strike down Adam after the match is over?

AEW Women’s World Champion “Timeless” Toni Storm will host a Charleston Championship Champagne Toast for her next challenger, Thunder Rosa. This sounds like the sort of segment that could end with one of the ladies (or Luther) being drenched and humiliated.

Katsuyori Shibata teams up with Chris Jericho and FTW Champion HOOK in a trios match against Shane Taylor, Anthony Ogogo, and Lee Moriarty. Ogogo just returned to AEW on Collision where he landed a knockout punch on Jericho, so I guess this match will tell us whether he’s actually in line for a push, or if the babyfaces just need someone new to beat up this week. Shane Taylor loses pretty much every match he has on AEW television, so my money is on the latter scenario.

Mariah May looks to rebound from last week’s defeat when she steps in the ring with Anna Jay in a singles match.

Other stuff to keep an eye on

– Powerhouse Hobbs wanted to rip off Will Ospreay’s head after losing a match against him last week. Does Don Callis have his family on the same page after Ospreay beat them all, or is this problem spiraling out of control?

– Is AEW Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada going to get back in an AEW ring tonight so that PAC can cause some trouble for him?

– Daddy Ass beat the shit out of Jay White for the better part of 15 minutes last week. Yeah, that’s a thing that happened. What thing will happen this week to undo some of the damage that was done to White’s credibility as an upper card wrestler?

– We’re coming up on one month of Mercedes Mone in AEW, and she has yet to wrestle a match. She also somehow has nothing lined up for this month’s Dynasty pay-per-view, but is getting a TBS championship match next month at Double or Nothing. This very slow rollout has a lot of people speculating about her health and whether she’s actually cleared to compete right now.

– Jon Moxley hasn’t competed in an AEW ring in over one month. Will he return tonight to set up a match for Dynasty?

– Trent Beretta is an asshole who turned on Orange Cassidy last week and broke up the Best Friends. He whispered something into Kris Statlander’s ear after she confronted him about it in an online exclusive. Will he be able to convince Kris to also abandon Orange?

– AEW International Champion Roderick Strong competes in a title eliminator match this Saturday at Battle of the Belts against Rocky Romero. That’s right, Battle of the Belts has become such a nothing show that the belt won’t even be on the line. We should find out more info tonight on what other championship (eliminator?) matches will take place at the event.

– Where the f*** is Miro?

What will you be looking for on Dynamite?