AEW Dynamite Results 3/20: Okada Challenges Kingston, I Quit TNT Title Match, Mercedes Mone Speaks
This is Wrestling INC.'s live coverage of "AEW Dynamite" for March 20, 2024!
Tonight's show will be headlined by the continuation of Christian Cage and Adam Copeland's rivalry. The former friends will once again do battle tonight in a bid to end their issues when they compete in an I Quit match for the TNT Championship.
That won't be the only title on the line though, as Eddie Kingston is set to defend his Continental Championship against one of AEW's newest signings, Kazuchika Okada, who is looking for his first title since joining the company.
Toni Storm's rivalry with Deonna Purrazzo is also continuing tonight. Purrazzo wanted a tag team match against the AEW Women's World Champion and has Thunder Rosa teaming with her as they take on Storm and her protege, Mariah May.
Speaking of the women's division, after making her debut for the company last week Mercedes Mone will be on the show tonight as the "CEO" is set to talk to the fans.
People will also hear from Will Ospreay on the show as he prepares for his biggest test yet at AEW Dynasty where he will compete against Bryan Danielson.
Finally, Chris Jericho is going to be competing in singles action against FTW Champion, HOOK. The two men have recently been helping each other out and even teamed together last week, but Jericho made it clear he wants to see and learn more about who HOOK is inside the ring, which is why they're going to be competing against each other tonight.
Let's Hear From Mercedes Mone
Tonight's show kicks off with AEW's newest signing, Mercedes Mone. She admits that she's still on a high from last week, and she missed all of this. Mone says she's excited to be here in AEW. Mone says all of this almost got taken away from her 10 months ago when she nearly had a career-ending injury against Willow Nightingale. She then shows a video that she has put together to give people an idea of who she is.
Mone says she was rocking and rolling all over the world, but then it got taken away from her. She knew she needed to be back and in AEW, as minor setbacks make for major comebacks and now she's here as AEW's "CEO." She wants to make the mission clear, she's not here to lead a women's evolution as she's done that before. She's here to lead a global women's revolution, as she's here to face the best in AEW and women all over the globe.
Mone talks about last week with Julia Hart and Skye Blue, and says there's a price to pay when you mess with Mone. The lights then go out, and when they come back on Mone staresdown Hart, but Blue tries to attack her from behind. She drops Blue with a backstabber, and then attempts to hit the Mone Maker on Hart, but Blue saves her tag team partner. They then go under the ring and get a chair each, but Nightingale's music then hits and she and Kris Statlander turn up and have Mone's back.
The lights then go out, and Blue and Hart are gone. However, Nightingale teases nailing Mone with a chair shot from behind, but she doesn't do it and Mone sees her considering it. She calls out Nightingale for thinking about it, and she then walks to the back.
The Elite are then shown, but Nicholas Jackson demands Alex Marvez shows more respect next time by speaking in Kazuchika Okada's native tongue. Matthew Jackson says Okada always rises to the big ocassions, and says they will both be backstage and will be Okada's personal match producers.
Eddie Kingston (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada (Continental Championship Match)
Kazuchika Okada starts out slowly mocking Eddie Kingston, not attacking him and slowly patting his chest instead. However, the champion responds by lighting up Okada with a series of chops, but he then gets sucked in and gives chase around the ringside as Okada attacks him once they get back in. Okada focuses on the shoulder of Kingston, but he responds by knocking him down with a shoulder tackle.
However, Kingston once again gives chase to Okada and he goads him in and drops the champion with a DDT outside the ring. Back in the ring, Okada tries to pin him with just one foot and then smiles after Kingston kicks out. Okada follows it with a dropkick to the side of the head, but Kingston keeps fighting by throwing several chops at the former NJPW star, but he instantly plants Kingston back down to the mat with another DDT.
Okada then drives his knee into Kingston's spine and wrenches back on his neck, but Kingston then throws several chops and then a suplex. He drives Okada down with a heel trip, providing some separation between them. He then nails a German suplex and a sliding elbow smash, but Okada kicks out. Kingston throws some chops to the side of Okada's face, but then gets rocked by a dropkick from the "Rainmaker."
Okada then goes to the top rope, but he doesn't get to hit the move he hopes and jumps over Kingston, but immediately turns into the Uraken, which gets Kingston a near fall. The two men then trade punches and chops until Okada goes for the Rainmaker, but Kingston gets his arms up to block it, with the move impacting both men. Kingston gets the boot up in the corner and then follows it with a clothesline as he pulls the straps down.
Kingston goes for a suplex, but Okada gets hold of the official's shirt which stops it. He pokes the eye of Kingston, and while he fights back and attempts the Uraken, Okada avoids it and then drives Kingston to the mat. He follows that with the Rainmaker.
Winner (and new Continental Champion): Kazuchika Okada
After the match, PAC makes his way out and stares down the new champion.
Swerve Strickland is then shown with Renee Paquette as he says his intentions last week were all about the AEW World Championship. He says Samoa Joe is ducking from him, and he says he has been inspired by Mike Tyson sparring, so he offers an open challenge for tonight.
HOOK vs. Chris Jericho
Renee Paquette interviews Nightingale and Statlander, and Nightingale points out that after tonight she'll have been in more street fights than any other woman on the roster. With a weapon, she's a different woman. Statlander says it will be the end tonight. Mone then appears and Statlander thanks her for having Willow's back last week, while Mone says she'll be watching tonight and says it's nice to meet her. She then tells Nightingale that she's done enough.
HOOK immediately drops Chris Jericho on his head, and after a while of selling it, he says he's okay to continue, so HOOK unloads on him in the corner. Jericho responds with a few chops, but HOOK once again throws him across the ring. Once again, Jericho connects with some chops and backs HOOK into the corner, but he then HOOK hits five German suplexes in a row as he dominates the encounter.
Jericho hits several chops again, but one right hand from HOOK is enough to send the veteran back to the mat. He then sends Jericho into the turnbuckles and looks for Red Rum as he bounces back, but Jericho blocks it, only to then be hit with another German suplex. Once again, Jericho goes for more chops, but HOOK then connects with several German suplexes. HOOK then goes for another but Jericho reverses and tries to set in the Walls Of Jericho, which HOOK avoids, but he then walks into a big boot.
Jericho tries to get some momentum going and he looks for a move from the second rope, but HOOK catches him and suplexes Jericho again. The veteran then hits another big boot and follows it with a Lionsault, but HOOK kicks out of the following pinfall. Jericho then stops HOOK from continuing his attack by throwing him face-first onto the mat. They head to the top turnbuckle as Jericho hammers down with punches, but HOOK reverses and locks in Red Rum, but Jericho then breaks out only for HOOK to reverse him again with a roll up.
Winner: HOOK
Let's Hear From Will Ospreay
Adam Cole is then shown as he says Wardlow disappointed him, and he failed. Cole says he...Wardlow should be the World Champion. Now Wardlow has a new job, making sure the Undisputed Kingdom keeps the gold they have, then maybe they will forgive him.
Jericho is then shown backstage, and he says HOOK showed him something he hasn't seen in a long time. He calls HOOK a future World Champion, and he has his respect. Next week, he has a proposition for him.
Will Ospreay apologizes for what he did last time he was in Canada. He's here to give elite levels of wrestling, but in return, he needs maple syrup from the Canadian fans. Ospreay says he had said all he wanted to say about Bryan Danielson until he saw him wrestle Katsuyori Shibata, and he hopes people study that match.
Ospreay says Danielson claims he wants to be in his shoes, yet he was in Japan doing what he wanted to. He can't fit into Danielson's shoes because they were too small for him, bruv. Ospreay says what Danielson did in Japan was great, but he elevated professional wrestling and he lists off his accolades from his time in NJPW. He asks Danielson if he wants to prove he can walk in his shoes.
He then calls out Shibata, and says seven years ago Shibata beat the piss out of him. But now he's a different man with pets, a kid, a Mrs., and a mortgage to pay. He challenges Shibata to a match on AEW Dynamite next week, and Danielson can sit at home and watch as he shows him what he's about.
Toni Storm & Mariah May vs. Deonna Purrazzo & Thunder Rosa
Deonna Purrazzo and Thunder Rosa hit the ring and immediately attack their opponents. Rosa and Toni Storm brawl out of the ring while the match starts with Purrazzo and May, with the latter slamming her opponent to the mat. She nails a dropkick and then brings in Storm, but Purrazzo shoves Storm into her portege and then clotheslines the champion for good measure.
Purrazzo launches Storm into the boot of Rosa who tags in and runs and launches herself off the back of Purrazzo to attack Storm in the corner. Rosa hits a lariat to keep the pressure on, but Storm kicks out, only to be tripped into the middle rope as Rosa drives herself onto her. Luther then tries to swipe at her which Rosa avoids, but that allows Storm to knock her to the floor.
May tags in and swings Rosa around repeatedly until she drops her to the mat. Storm returns to the action and locks in a submission while May winds up Purrazzo outside the ring. She returns in, pushing her boot into the face of Rosa. Purrazzo does manage to tag in though and she picks up the pace, connecting a knee strike and then a pump kick to May. She stays in control but Rosa tags herself in. It leads to some confusion as May drops Purrazzo with a headbutt.
Rosa takes out May, but she's then hit with a German suplex by Storm, who follows it with a Hip Attack. She then looks for Storm Zero, but Rosa reverses with a roll-up, and she catches the champion out and pins her.
Winners: Thunder Rosa & Deonna Purrazzo
Swerve Strickland vs. The Butcher
Swerve Strickland headbutts Butcher, and then stomps away on him in the corner of the ring. He throws Butcher into the turnbuckle, and follows it with a big boot and a running elbow strike. He then hits an uppercut to the spine of Butcher from the second rope. However, Butcher reverses with a backbreaker, and he then begins throwing big right hands until Strickland responds with several kicks to the head.
Butcher attempts a clothesline, but Strickland flips through it and responds with a kick of his own before hitting House Call. Strickland connects with a Swerve Stomp, but he's not done, and he then locks in an arm submission to take the win.
Winner: Swerve Strickland
Post-match, Strickland gets on the microphone to speak about Samoa Joe. He had nothing but respect for him until they met, but then he felt a little indifferent, then he stopped liking Joe, and now he is getting close to hating him. He thinks about wrapping his chain around Joe's neck and wrapping it around the post and pulling until he has no life left, but with Joe's big neck, he doesn't have enough chains.
Strickland says he will take out the security Joe sends him every week until he gives him what he wants. The AEW World Champion then appears, and says he should ignore Strickland because he beat him at AEW Revolution. He thinks Strickland's major problem is that he still believes in the impossible, and that he can box with a God, but the problem is that becomes infectious and then people believe they can be great too, and can be a champion.
Joe says it is sweet until someone like him turns up and smashes them in the face. That's when he realized what to do with someone like Strickland, which is to give him what he wants. Joe heads toward the ring, but Don Callis appears and says he guesses Strickland can just book himself into a title match. It strikes him that Strickland and Konosuke Takeshita have the same number of wins, so maybe Takeshita needs to show Strickland what it's like to lose to the family.
Strickland says if he had more time he'd burn Callis' family down. He will take on Takeshita, and after that, he's coming for Joe.
Christian Cage (c) vs. Adam Copeland (I Quit TNT Championship Match)
Christian Cage starts out attacking Adam Copeland, but he responds by sending Cage face-first into the turnbuckle, and this fight then immediately spills out into the fans. Copeland dumps Cage into the penalty box and brawls with Cage. They put on hockey jerseys and then brawl again as Cage gets launched into a sign and then several steel guardrails.
Things then spill further backstage, but after Copeland sips a beer from a fan he loses Cage. He runs into the women's bathroom but Copeland drags him back out and continues to brawl with him all around the fans. They head back to ringside and Copeland pulls out a ladder which he makes into a bridge between the announce table and the timekeeper's area. They start fighting on that as Copeland drives Cage down onto the steel.
Copeland then inverts the ladder in the ring and throws Cage stomach first into the middle rungs, but he still doesn't quit. He sets a table to lean on the barricade, but as Copeland goes for a Spear Cage leapfrogs it to avoid the move and then pokes him in the eye straight after and sends him into the stairs which busts Copeland open. Cage then takes to the top turnbuckle and hits a crossbody which sends Copeland crashing through the table he set up.
Back inside the ring, Cage sends Copeland head-first into a ladder, but he still doesn't quit. However, the TNT Champion then misses with a Frog Splash, and that leads to Copeland locking in a cross-face, but he gets out by gauging the eye again. Cage looks to walk to the back, but Copeland gives chase as he sends Cage head-first into the entrance tunnel. He then launches Cage off the stage.
Copeland pulls out a hockey goal and throws Cage onto it before throwing him in it. Copeland then fights Cage back to ringside, but Mother Wayne appears and uses a hockey stick to nail a low blow, and Cage then splits the stick on his back. Cage then pulls out a barbed wire-wrapped chair, placing Copeland's head on a normal one, but Copeland avoids the con-chair-to. He tries to use that weapon himself, but Cage kicks him, only for Copeland to nail him with the hockey stick.
He grabs it and puts it in his mouth with a cross-face, and he then uses the drawstring from his tights to choke him, but Nick Wayne and Killswitch appear. Daddy Magi and Daniel Garcia turn up and help, as Killswitch gets hit with the Impaler onto the barbed wire chair. Copeland then climbs a ladder and dives out of the ring to attack both Wayne and Killswitch. They both get handcuffed, and Mother Wayne then runs away as Cage realizes he's alone against all three men. They beat him down as Copeland hits a Spear, and then Cage gets handcuffed.
Copeland nails several low blows to Cage, but he doesn't quit. Copeland then brings out Spike, and hits a low blow with that. He sets up to nail Cage with it in the head, but at that point, he quits.
Winner (and new TNT Champion): Adam Copeland