FTR might not be done with AEW just yet

Dynamite airs tonight (Mar. 1) with a live show from the Cow Palace in San Francisco, California. This is the go home show ahead of this weekend’s Revolution pay-per-view on Sunday (Mar. 5) night.

FTR might not be done with AEW just yet

The Gunns will defend the AEW world tag team titles at Revolution in a four way match that also includes The Acclaimed and Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal. The fourth team will be determined tonight in a Casino Tag Team Battle Royale.

The 10 teams that have been announced for this match include The Blade & The Butcher, Top Flight, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta, Aussie Open, RUSH & Preston Vance, John Silver & Alex Reynolds, Daddy Magic & Angelo Parker, Matt Taven & Mike Bennett, Lucha Bros, and the Best Friends. There should also be a surprise team, assuming this match follows the rules of all the previous Casino matches.

Those rules indicate that unlike last week’s team Battle Royal, this week’s match should feature staggered entries, kind of like a mini Royal Rumble match, with the final entry being a surprise.

The surprise team is where things get really interesting here, and there are two possibilities that are front of mind.

The first option is Sting & Darby Allin, who have nothing booked for Revolution. The clock is ticking on Sting’s career, and it’s not like Tony Khan to leave this legend off a PPV, assuming Sting is healthy enough to compete.

The second option is FTR, who have been taking time off from AEW, perhaps all the way through the end of their contracts in early April. There are reasons to think the relationship between AEW and FTR has become frosty in recent weeks, but it might all be a work to set up a surprise return tonight. Harwood has indicated that they will return if Tony Khan asks them to, and they do have beef with The Gunns in kayfabe, so there’s at least a chance it will happen.

The PPV four-way match already has two heel teams, so adding one more babyface duo would even the field on that front. If not Sting/Darby or FTR, the teams that stand out from the pack from the advertised list include the Lucha Bros, Blackpool Combat Club, and Top Flight.

The rest of tonight’s lineup

Bryan Danielson and MJF will wrestle a 60-minute Iron Man for the AEW World Championship at Revolution. Last week’s promo segment where MJF talked about the end of his engagement and Bryan’s history of head trauma created enough heat to be a proper go-home segment. But tonight is the go-home episode of Dynamite, so we’ll hear from both men again.

The presence of a 60-minute Iron Man match on the PPV means that a few other notable stars likely won’t make the cut for that show, so they are instead being featured in matches with stakes tonight. Orange Cassidy is one of those guys, so he’ll defend the AEW All-Atlantic championship tonight against Big Bill. Cassidy is a fighting champion who always finds a way to retain the gold, just like he did last week against Wheeler Yuta. Will Big Bill’s big boot be enough to stop Orange in his tracks?

The Face of the Revolution Ladder match has been bumped from the PPV and will instead take place tonight on Dynamite. The eight men announced for this match include Powerhouse Hobbs, Action Andretti, Ortiz, Konosuke Takeshita, AR Fox, Eddie Kingston, Sammy Guevara, and Komander (who is making his AEW debut). The winner of the match earns a shot at the TNT championship, currently held by Samoa Joe, who will be on commentary. Hobbs and Takeshita look like the favorites to me; the winner of this match might foreshadow if Joe or Wardlow walks out of Revolution as the champ.

Riho returns to AEW television tonight for a singles match against Toni Storm. I assume there will be some kind of post-match angle here that leads to appearances from Saraya, Ruby Soho, and AEW Women’s World Champion Jamie Hayter, who are wrestling in a three-way match for the title at Revolution.

Chris Jericho has a match against Peter Avalon tonight. Avalon tried to accept Ricky Starks’ open challenge for a match at Revolution, but Jericho took Peter out so he could instead sign his own name on the dotted line. Will Avalon find a way to channel his inner Action Andretti and pull off a miracle here?

FTW Champion HOOK defends the unrecognized gold against Matt Hardy tonight. Stokely Hathaway wants revenge for what HOOK recently did to him, so Ethan Page forced Hardy into this match. Hardy confidently accepted the fight before adding multiple stipulations such as HOOK earns a match with Stokely if he wins, The Firm is banned from ringside, and it’s a No DQ match. If AEW abides by Hardy’s stips, we could be looking at HOOK vs. Stokely at Revolution, because it’s unlikely that Hardy will be the man who ends HOOK’s undefeated streak.

Other stuff to keep an eye on

– House of Black is challenging The Elite for the AEW world trios titles at Revolution. Maybe we’ll find out tonight if Malakai Black has finally learned another spooky trick besides appearing and disappearing as he turns the lights on and off.

– Undefeated TBS champion Jade Cargill once again has no competition in AEW. It sounds like she is willing to take on any challenger, so we’ll see if someone answers the call in time to set up a title match for Revolution.

– Jon Moxley and Hangman Page will square off in a Texas Death match at Revolution. The entire Blackpool Combat Club leaned heel last week, including Mox, who continued choking out a bloodied Evil Uno after winning their match. Page made the save and cut Moxley open with barbed wire punches to the head. We should get a final word from both men at some point on tonight’s broadcast.

– Jungle Boy was a dummy last week and hesitated too long when he had Christian Cage in a vulnerable position. The end result is that Christian beat his as again, this time busting Boy open. Will a singles match between these two foes be officially announced for Revolution?

– Adam Cole’s return match will happen this month on Dynamite, to coincide with the premiere of the AEW: All Access reality show. There’s no word yet on who Cole will wrestle against, but we should find out very soon.

– Swerve Strickland & Parker Boudreaux have agreed to fight Dustin Rhodes & Keith Lee at the Cow Palace, so that will probably happen later this week on Rampage.

– Where the f*** is PAC Miro?

What will you be looking for on Dynamite?