AEW Dynamite New Year’s Smash 2024 Results: Winners, Live Grades, Highlights and More
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Credit: All Elite Wrestling
MJF and Samoa Joe are set for battle Sunday at World’s End, the former’s AEW World Championship at stake, but first they had to coexist Wednesday night on a special “New Year’s Smash” edition of Dynamite.
The champ and his No. 1 contender united to defend the Ring of Honor World Tag Team Championship against the mysterious, enigmatic Devil’s masked men.
Were the foes able to stay on the same page long enough to earn the win or did The Devil’s mind games and manipulations prove fruitful?
Find out with this recap of a show that also featured the finales of the Continental Classic Gold and Blue leagues.
Match Card
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- Continental Classic Gold League Final: Jon Moxley vs. Swerve Strickland vs. “Switchblade” Jay White
- Continental Classic Blue League Final: Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson
- Ring of Honor World Tag Team Championship Match: MJF and Samoa Joe vs. The Devil’s Masked Men
- Adam Copeland and Christian Cage sit down interview with Lexy Nair
- Kris Statlander vs. Skye Blue
- Renee Paquette interview with Mariah May
Announced in advance of the show were:
Gold League Final: Jon Moxley vs. Swerve Strickland vs. Jay White
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- Strickland cut a post-match promo in which he challenged Keith Lee to a match Saturday at World’s End.
- Renee Paquette interviewed Mariah May, who revealed that her first match will take place next week. Riho interrupted, Toni Storm followed, and a brawl that broke out and ended with the No. 1 contender standing tall.
- Orange Cassidy, Trent Berreta, and Rocky Romero nonchalantly challenged Top Flight and Action Andretti to a Trios Match Friday night on Rampage.
Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Jon Moxley defeated Swerve Strickland and “Switchblade” Jay White at the top of Wednesday’s show, cashing his ticket to World’s End Saturday night.
The former world champion overcame a knee injury to outlast his two opponents, each of whom took their shots at his injured joint. As he has done countless times, Moxley showed grit and tenacity en route to pinning White following the Death Rider.
The match was quite good and felt like a pay-per-view quality main event to kick things off. The energy was there, the crowd was red-hot, and the combatants brought aggression to their performances.
With that said, it is hard not to feel like Moxley was the least interesting choice to win here.
Sure, he is one of the faces of the company and one of the most decorated competitors in the history of AEW, but he wins more than he does not and both White and Strickland have been trending upwards.
It would not have done any damage whatsoever for Mox to drop the match.
At least it sets up an interesting Blue League Final between Bryan Danielson and Eddie Kingston, both of whom have their own history with the Gold League winner.
Result
Moxley defeated Strickland and White
Grade
B+
Top Moments and Takeaways
The Don Callis Family Celebrated Boxing Week
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- The pop for Guevara’s return was great and quite clearly the most positive reaction he has received in a long time.
- Shout out to artist Mel Coleman, whose work in the portraits for Callis and numerous other angles and moments in AEW, is always extraordinary.
- Guevara took exception with Callis abandoning him the moment he got concussed.
- Maybe smashing frames and sending shards of glass and plastic into the crowd was not the wisest decision.
Credit: All Elite Wrestling
The Don Callis Family celebrated Boxing Week Wednesday night, with the head of the faction presenting Konosuke Takeshita, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Kyle Fletcher with portraits.
Sammy Guevara hit the ring, taking exception to being left out and cast aside when he suffered his concussion. Callis blamed him for getting hurt and taking maternity leave, leading to a beatdown on The Spanish God.
Chris Jericho made the save and reunited with his protege in the most rushed angle in recent memory. AEW World Tag Team Champions Big Bill and Ricky Starks hit the ring and jumped the friends, only for Sting and Darby Allin to appear.
This was…something.
Tony Khan had to come up with something for the tag title scene given Kenny Omega’s recent bout with diverticulitis, but this rushed through weeks of storytelling with Guevara and Jericho.
Just book Sting and Allin vs. Starks and Big Bill and run the match. As it is, at least Jericho has established heat with the champs.
Grade
C+
Top Moments and Takeaways
Blue League Final: Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson
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- After the match, Moxley interrupted Kingston’s celebration and demanded his friend’s best Saturday night.
- “You’re not gonna get one single favor from me,” Moxley warned Kingston.
- “That’s my ‘out’ line, Topher,” Kingston said, continuing his rivalry with the production team.
- Everything about this ruled. Hard.
Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Ring of Honor World and NJPW Strong Champion Eddie Kingston and Bryan Danielson blew up several Best Match of the Year lists Wednesday night with a brilliant conclusion to the Continental Classic Blue League, won by the former following a series of spinning back fists and a Kawada-inspired powerbomb.
Kingston overcame a match full of verbal insults and mind games conducted by Danielson, showing the toughness and resiliency that have long been a part of his DNA. He withstood the best wrestler in the world’s most devastating offense and stayed in the fight.
The crowd was behind Kingston, invested in his story and his pursuit of the Continental Crown and it helped fuel the competitors. The match was action-packed, and dramatic, and featured some extraordinary selling from Kingston.
In the end, the fans’ emotional investment in Kingston was rewarded in the form of the win over Danielson, who openly mocked the ROH champ and the idea that he could defeat him.
This was a superb example of an intensely physical match meshing with a storyline that was easy to follow and care about. The AEW faithful did and now, Kingston enters Saturday’s World’s End for a match with friend and rival Jon Moxley.
Result
Kingston pinned Danielson
Grade
A+
Top Moments and Takeaways
Kris Statlander vs. Skye Blue
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- The commentary note about Statlander not being pinned in 19 months felt a little foreboding.
- Blue might be the most improved wrestler on the AEW roster here in 2023.
- Nightingale’s return makes sense given her history with both Blue and Hart, while Abandon’s presence on the ramp hyped her TBS title match with Hart Saturday night at World’s End.
Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Skye Blue became the first person in nearly two years to score a pinfall victory over Kris Statlander, but did it under less-than-honorable means.
Blue withstood the power-based offense of her opponent but found herself reeling late. TBS champion Julia Hart interfered, leveled Statlander, and set up Blue’s monumental victory.
After the match, a beatdown ensued before Willow Nightingale made the save. Abadon followed and the heels scurried.
Booking Hart and Blue as partners was a great call in that there are enough storyline threads out there for them to explore, including a feud with the aforementioned Nightingale. They have the potential to be central figures in programs both involving and not involving championship gold.
More importantly, they are young, and the more reps they get on television, in singles or tag team action, the better.
A solid match for Blue against Statlander is a great place to start.
Result
Blue defeated Statlander
Grade
B
Top Moments and Takeaways
ROH World Tag Team Championship Match…or Not
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- It became fairly clear right away that this was going to involve chicanery when the match started at 10:01 ET.
- Ugh.
Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Samoa Joe was working with The Devil all along, fans found out in the closing moments of Dynamite.
After feigning a knee injury that took him out of the ROH Tag Team title clash, he hit the ring and chased the new champions, known generically as The Devil’s Masked Men, to the floor. Back inside the squared circle, he helped MJF to his feet, only to blast him with a chair following a brief appearance by The Devil on the video screen.
All of it felt like haphazard booking to add heat to the MJF-Joe match, put together late in the game. After all, Joe may be an opportunist but the idea that he needed to work with The Devil to take out an AEW World Champion who is very clearly working with a serious shoulder injury says more about The Destroyer than the titleholder.
Joe easily could have betrayed Max without getting caught up in the Devil nonsense. Instead, the “shocking” reveal felt more like a desperate creative decision to hype up Saturday’s main event.
Result
The Devil’s Masked Men defeated MJF to win the gold
Grade
F
Top Moments and Takeaways
Overall Grade
7 of 7
Credit: All Elite Wrestling
The instant classic out of Danielson and Kingston made this show a thumbs up.
The rest of the broadcast did a solid job of building a World’s End show that was thrown together mostly at the last minute and elevated its grade, despite a closing segment that landed with a thud.
A very good show in a bubble, it will be interesting to see exactly what goes down Saturday night and how Tony Khan builds on it moving forward.
The creative has been lacking of late, but World’s End has the potential to provide a sort of reset. Hopefully, the company takes advantage of it because there are lots of pieces to create interesting stories and matches around.
Grade: A
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