The carnage levels are at their maximum! Tonight, AEW has the chance to do the most ridiculous thing and put the World Title on Powerhouse Hobbs. Will they do it? Probably not. Should they do it? I don't know! I love Hobbs and this Death Riders shit is pretty boring to me, and they haven't really done a shock title change like this since Christian Cage beat Kenny Omega and that was just for an Impact/TNA Title.

So, why the hell not? Let's have some fun and spice up the main event scene. Put the belt on someone for a month or something and then he can drop it. Let's experiment.

The match I'm probably most excited to see is Brian Cage vs Kenny Omega because those guys are out of their minds and super creative in the ring. I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of his shit Cage can get in.

Plus, the women's Casino Gauntlet! Will there be returns? Will rookie Toni Storm decide she deserves another chance after all and work her way into the match? I only have questions, and those questions have more questions!

Kenny Omega's broken belly

Kenny Omega is going to get about 6-10 years worth of selling his stomach in wrestling matches, much like Bryan Danielson's love of selling his broken body with fake seizures. It's a new lease on life for Omega!

Omega beat Brian Cage in his return to AEW television which wasn't a surprise at all. Unfortunately, with the story being rooted in this being Kenny's first match back and needing to sell his diverticulitis recovery we didn't get anything near the quality of his match with Gabe Kidd from Wrestle Dynasty.

The most important thing to come out of Kenny's return? The fact that with his highlights and black & yellow color scheme, he's giving Jerry Lynn in ECW and it's absolutely beautiful.

Post-match, the Don Callis Family beat Kenny up a bit before Will Ospreay made the save. The save was brief, though, as Konosuke Takeshita arrived to confront Kenny face-to-face. It all ended up being too much for Omegaspreay, who were laid out by Kyle Fletcher and Takeshita. Kenny and Ospreay shared some pained glances with each other to wrap things up.

MJF is back to dragging down everyone around him

MJF is so completely boring in this form. He's an edgelord dipshit trying to say something that sounds like a shoot while providing his own feedback loop about how horrible the thing was that he just said.

His greatest trick has now become telling a silent crowd to shut up so they boo him for four seconds.

He's back to reaching for the lowest-hanging fruit and it's exhausting, especially knowing that he can be better.

Now he's dragging Jeff Jarrett down with him, causing Jarrett to come back at him with the same type of lowbrow insults. It doesn't feel natural. It feels lazy and toothless and the crowd couldn't have given less of a shit. It's 2025 and we're doing jokes about everybody's wives and mothers being sex workers? Fuck off already!

Was this the Maximum Carnage they promised us for this week? It sucks! I'd rather watch a Naito match.

"This is exactly what AEW needed, more monstrous women" – Mariah May

The Women's Casino Gauntlet had the predictable outcome of Toni Storm winning, but predictable doesn't mean bad. I found this to be much more fun than last week's Men's Casino Gauntlet match.

Part of that is because, for better or worse, the women's division in AEW feels like much more of a free for all where every woman is decently protected and could very easily be bought as a challenger to any belt with just a couple weeks of build. You don't get that same feeling with every man on the singles roster.

This Gauntlet also had the benefit of the surprise Dynamite debut of Megan Bayne who FUCKING FINALLY returned to an AEW ring. Bayne really stood out on AEW Dark years and years ago and word around the ole world wide web was that she had been signed by AEW at some point.

Then she sort of disappeared. She was injured for a bit, but then she popped back up in STARDOM and, more recently, back in GCW. I had sort of given up hope that she would ever make it back to AEW but always kept the thought in the back of my mind. I for sure thought she was going to be the replacement for Kamille.

Instead, she made her TV debut in the third spot of the Casino Gauntlet and looked like a monster the whole time. Gimme more Megan Bayne and more hoss-offs with Kris Statlander, Jamie Hayter, Willow Nightingale, and anyone else on the roster.

I had been wondering if Toni would actually be in this match since it sounded like she wrote herself out last week. I was setting myself up for Toni vs Mercedes Moné in Australia for the TBS Title instead. But, now we get the expected blowoff of Toni Storm vs Mariah May for the World Title. I wonder how long Toni continues on the ruse before she reveals her true form.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Chaw

Ever seen a grown man try to eat another man's ear on live television?

Actually, I guess that's a yes somehow.

Nonetheless! Powerhouse Hobbs tried his best to eat Jon Moxley's ear and, boy oh boy, was there a lot of blood in the aftermath.

You know, I really didn't think they would put the World Title on Hobbs but I had a little bit of hope that they would do something unusual and unexpected. And I gotta tell ya, when Hobbs went to lift Mox for the Torture Rack I thought they were going Full Lex Luger on us all.

Unfortunately, that didn't turn out to be the case at all. The case, in fact, was in Marina Shafir's hands and collided with the skull of Hobbs, leading to a Paradigm Shift for the Moxley win.

Post-match, of course, Death Riders tried to maim Hobbs but he was saved by Rated FTR.

This may have been the most vulnerable Moxley has looked against any opponent since this whole Death Riders thing kicked off. It seems like he has a sweet spot for Hobbs going back to the Daily's Place early pandemic days, which is another reason I thought there might be a tiny chance Hobbs could go over tonight.

Hopefully Hobbs doesn't get lost in the shuffle too badly after this, as we're clearly building to a Cope/Mox match that I can't imagine anybody wants to see.

Wrapping Up

Another week, another unique venue and setup that I love. The building Dynamite was in this week had an amphitheater setup, similar to Daily's Place, and the hardcam was placed behind the ramp facing the commentator's table. Neat!

Also, they used my all-time favorite presentation for wrestling shows: the elevated rampway that runs right up to the ring. It's such a classic look, I wish they'd use it all the time. Looks so cool when people are on the ramp and you can see the crowd behind them.

Ricochet may be the most hated man in AEW at this point and his segment was wonderful. He didn't have to say anything to have the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand, and then came the attack from Prince Nana before Swerve Strickland chased him out of the building and directly into the snow.

Swerve came out with a massive chain around his neck and I'm wondering if we're going to get my favorite (singles) gimmick match of all time again here in AEW with a dog collar match. These guys seem ready to spill buckets of blood together.

Honestly, I think if the Christian/Hook match didn't have a fuck finish I would have liked it more than Omega/Cage. The opener was good but hampered by the need for Omega to sell his medical issues. The post-match with Samoa Joe returning almost made up for things, but the match on its own still fell short of the opener.

On commentary, several mentions were made of AEW Dark and I hope this is some sort of subliminal messaging telling us that Dark is going to come back on Max or something. I miss that sweet old show.