Holiday Bash offered another match in the best-of-seven series between The Elite and Death Triangle, a reunion of sorts for Bryan Danielson and an old partner on the mic, a rare appearance on Dynamite for Hook, and a banging women’s main event where Jaime Hayter successfully defended her title against former champion Hikaru Shida.
Highlights:
- Main Event: Jamie Hayter defeated Hikaru Shida for the AEW Women’s Championship. Great match that won back the crowd despite following the worst segment of the night.
- The Elite defeated Death Triangle in a No DQ match giving them their second win in the best-of-seven series that saw crazy spots including the use of a Christmas Tree as a weapon and a beatdown for The Elite following the match.
- Gunn Club defeated FTR through chicanery. Solid match here that gets the Gunn Club a victory which will no doubt be avenged in short order by FTR, although news that the tag team might be exiting the company at the end of their contracts suggests the possibility of more losses coming their way as they still have belts to drop if this does indeed come to pass.
- AEW continues to tease a Jon Moxley heel turn in his viciousness towards Darius Martin in their one-on-one matchup.
- Bryan Danielson‘s interview with former Talking Smack partner Renee Paquette. This included an interruption from All Ego Ethan Page (who I’m glad to see is getting more TV time) that got away from him a bit with a jumbled vegetable metaphor but the super-over Danielson managed to keep the segment on track and apparently we’ll be seeing this match next week.
- Chris Jericho and the JAS began a feud with Ricky Starks (whose promo opened the show and who refused to join the stable). Action Andretti appeared after the JAS jumped Starks.
Lows:
- In the worst segment of the night (arguably the worst segment on any episode of Dynamite this year) Rick Ross, Keith Lee, and Swerve Stickland were involved in a mediation that served to officially break-up the tag-team and apparently ally Swerve with a new random stable with a couple of wrestlers neither the commentators nor fans seem to recognize. Other than the stomp through the cinderblock spot to mercifully end the segment, this was truly awful and killed the crowd for the start of the main event. It was the only miss on the show but it was an awfully big one.
Less Notable:
- Jay Lethal, Satnam Singh, and Jeff Jarrett‘s music video. Intentionally bad, it did what was intended to further the feud with The Acclaimed (who did not appear).
- Hook squash match. Fine for what it was, and nice to see him on the show, but too short and not all that memorable given his opponent. Followed by Jarrett and company’s backstage attack on Jungle Boy.
- Samoa Joe promo for his upcoming match
- Promos for Rampage which includes a $300,000 Casino Trios Royale
- Action Andretti was set on fire by Chris Jericho
- Appearances by Saraya and Toni Storm in the scrum following the main event