The Buy-In: Britt Baker vs Bea Priestley
Bea Priestley cost Britt Baker the Casino Battle Royale at All Out, and now Dr. Britt Baker DMD is out for blood. In the latest episode of AEW Dark, she yelled into the camera at Bea Priestley that she’s going to reach into her mouth and press on her mandibular nerve. I tried to read the Wikipedia article for “mandibular nerve” but it was too hard. Colgate.com says that it controls your ability to chew and feelings in your face. So, if Dr. Britt Baker DMD is in your mouth pressing on it, that could really mess you up. She also claimed that she’d be able to rip Priestley’s jaw off, which I don’t believe. I have tried to dislocate my jaw a TON of times (to eat giant sandwiches like Scooby Doo), and could never figure it out. The jaw is on the skull real good.
Prediction: Britt Baker won’t rip Bea’s jaw off, but she’ll make her tap out with her weird dentist move.
Joey Janela vs Shawn Spears
I’m not really sure what this match is about. Janela attacked Spears on Dynamite this week, and I couldn’t tell you why because I only started paying attention once I saw Joey’s lustrous hair and cool leopard print leggings. They might have had some kind of Twitter beef, but Spears’ account seems to be gone. Oh well!
Joey Janela was set to wrestle Jack Evans a couple of weeks ago and they changed it at the last minute. Why can’t we see that instead of this?
Prediction: Shawn Spears will probably win.
Santana & Ortiz vs The Young Bucks
Santana & Ortiz debuted at All Out, attacking the Lucha Bros, and have since joined Chris Jericho in The Inner Circle. The called out the brothers Jackson a few weeks ago, demanding a match. They also attacked the Rock and Roll Express the other night, who are like a very old version of the Young Bucks, for all the Zoomers reading this.
The Inner Circle hates The Elite, and that’s as good an excuse as any to have these two highly acclaimed teams face off. The Inner Circle stuff may be pretty corny, but very few teams look as cool in the ring as Santana & Ortiz. This one should slap.
Prediction: I’d like the dudes formerly known as LAX to pick up the win, but I think it’ll be the Bucks.
Hangman Page vs Pac
Page versus Pac is actually the very first feud in All Elite Wrestling’s history. It began way back in January at the rally announcing the formation of the company and has seen two matches so far. Page beat Pac in May when Pac decided he’d rather kick the referee in the balls than keep wrestling. Then Pac beat Page in the first episode of AEW Dynamite last month. That makes this their rubber match (a term I think is weird and apparently comes from 16th century lawn bowling).
Prediction: Pac is a feral little badass. Look at him. He’s got this for sure.
AEW World Tag Team Championship: SCU (c) vs Lucha Bros vs Private Party
SoCal Uncensored is set to defend their new championships against… the very team they beat for those championships last week: The Lucha Brothers. And also Private Party, who beat the Dark Order this week to get this opportunity. No other context needed, I don’t think. None of these guys are the kinds of teams to get very underhanded. If you’ve seen any of these guys wrestle, you probably know what to expect.
Prediction: Let’s get real about who the actual stars of this division are. The Lucha Bros win.
AEW Women’s World Championship: Riho (c) vs Emi Sakura
A tale as old as time: teacher versus student. Emi Sakura is almost twice Riho’s age, which frankly owns. Sakura debuted after the big women’s wrestling boom was kind of ending in Japan, so we really haven’t seen much of her here in the US until AEW. It looks like she did a couple of ECW matches in the 90s?
As much as I did enjoy the match Riho had with Nyla Rose last month, I can’t say I’m not looking forward to seeing her have a singles match with someone more experienced. This may have the least amount of build-up shown to us on AEW TV, but a mentor challenging her mentee is a natural powerhouse of a story.
Prediction: Sakura has a strong showing, but Riho retains.
AEW World Championship: Cody vs Chris Jericho (c)
This match isn’t just a regular championship match, it has a stipulation that if there is no winner after 60 minutes, a panel of judges will pick the winner. An additional stipulation was added by Cody on Dynamite this week, when he announced that if he loses on Saturday, he will never challenge for the title again.
Also on this week’s Dynamite was Le Champion mocking Cody with a video package showing that Jericho’s biggest struggle in life was picking what kind of bubbly he should drink while he celebrates with his boys. I would say that this is going to be a long slog into 60 minutes of indecision and celebrity guests, but Death Stranding came out today, and if Cody is half the gamer he claims to be, he’ll be too excited to waste precious mpreg Norman Reedus time dodging Chris Jericho’s middle aged elbows.
Prediction: Jericho retains, but the crowd chants “ok boomer” at him and he gets really mad.
Lights Out Match: Jon Moxley vs Kenny Omega
The very first appearance Jon Moxley made after leaving WWE was sauntering into the MGM Grand at Double or Nothing, rolling his shoulders like some kind of sexual cat man, and throwing Kenny Omega off of a stack of giant poker chips. They were supposed to face off at All Out, but Mox injured his elbow in his (inspired, brilliant, delightful, transcendent) run in New Japan’s G1 Climax tournament. So Kenny wrestled Pac instead. In the very first episode of AEW Dynamite, Jon Moxley interrupted the main event so he could smash Kenny Omega through a glass coffee table.
This is a lights out match, which means it’s not sanctioned, which means it won’t count towards their win-loss records. Has Jon Moxley even had a match yet that was sanctioned? (Yes, three of them.) They keep teasing a big fight between Mox wielding a barbed-wire baseball bat and Kenny wielding a barbed-wire broom, which I’m hoping means that Mox will reawaken the Cleaner and bring Kenny Omega back to being the bratty shithead we all fell in love with.
Prediction: Jon Moxley kills Sad Gamer Kenny and gives us back Hot Cleaner Kenny. Horny people will finally have rights again.
