Two titles will be on the line for the Double or Nothing go-home edition of AEW Dynamite.
After a few weeks of build following Kyle Fletcher laying out Orange Cassidy backstage, Fletcher will get his AEW International title match against Cassidy this Wednesday. The winner will defend in the Blackjack battle royal set for the pay-per-view.
AEW Trios Champions The House of Black (Malakai Black, Brody King & Buddy Matthews) will defend against AR Fox, Metalik & Blake Christian under their new “House rules” stipulation.
After agreeing to an unsanctioned match at Double or Nothing, Adam Cole and Chris Jericho will sign their contracts.
Ahead of her challenge of TBS Champion Jade Cargill at the PPV, Taya Valkyrie will take on Lady Frost, making her Dynamite debut.
The show will also feature promo segments by all Four Pillars (AEW World Champion MJF, Jungle Boy, Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara), AEW Tag Team Champions FTR, and Ricky Starks.
The new additions join the previously announced ROH Tag Team title match and Tony Khan announcement about the first location of Collision.
Here’s the current lineup for the MGM Grand in Las Vegas:
Adam Cole & Chris Jericho Double or Nothing contract signing
AEW International Champion Orange Cassidy defends against Kyle Fletcher
AEW Trios Champions House of Black defend against Blake Christian, AR Fox & Metalik
FTR promo
Ricky Starks promo
Four Pillars promos
Taya Valkyrie vs. Lady Frost
ROH Tag Team Champions Lucha Brothers (Rey Fenix & Penta El Zero Miedo) defend against Blackpool Combat Club’s Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta
Tony Khan will announce the first location of AEW Collision
Several new matches were announced for Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite including Trios title and FTW title bouts.
The House of Black (Malakai Black, Buddy Murphy & Brody King) will defend the Trios titles against Best Friends & AEW International Champion Orange Cassidy. On Friday’s Rampage, Best Friends (Chuck Taylor & Trent Beretta) picked up a win over Black & King by DQ to put the match into motion.
After his win over Konosuke Takeshita on Rampage, Sammy Guevara will continue his path toward what he hopes is an AEW World title shot when he faces Komander.
In another new title match, undefeated FTW Champion Hook will defend against Ethan Page.
The new additions join the previously announced Tony Khan announcement and two title matches that will see The Gunns defend the AEW Tag Team titles against FTR’s AEW career, and AEW Women’s Champion Jamie Hayter defending against Riho.
Here’s the current lineup for this Wednesday’s show from Long Island, New York:
AEW Trios Champions The House of Black defend against Best Friends & Orange Cassidy
Tony Khan important announcement
AEW Women’s Champion Jamie Hayter defends against Riho
AEW Tag Team Champions The Gunns defend against FTR’s AEW career
MJF Day celebration
Blackpool Combat Club promo
The Acclaimed decide whether they are joining Jericho Appreciation Society
The House of Black are the new AEW Trios Champions.
Malakai Black, Buddy Matthews, and Brody King defeated The Elite (Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks) to win the championships for the first time. The finish had The Young Bucks attempt to hit the Meltzer Driver on Black, but Matthews broke things up by cutting off Matt Jackson in mid-air. The timing allowed King to hit Nick Jackson with the Dante’s Inferno, giving House of Black the win. After the match, the cameras showed The Elite recovering on the outside.
The Elite had held the titles for 53 days, defeating Death Triangle (Lucha Bros. and PAC) on the January 11 edition of Dynamite. Their win had capped off a best of seven series between the two teams.
In recent weeks, The House of Black had been seen on AEW television stalking The Young Bucks and Omega. At times, they would disappear then reappear on the stage and on the apron during and after The Elite’s matches, causing a distraction. A Trios Championship match was eventually confirmed for Sunday’s show.
We had a pretty noteworthy episode of AEW Dynamite unfold today.
Topics include: The Elite in Chicago dividing the crowd, a major announcement regarding the AEW Women’s division, the Blackpool Combat Club falling apart, and much more!
Tune in as Denise Salcedo breaks down the show on Speak Now Pro Wrestling.
AEW has filed to trademark “House of Black” for wrestling purposes.
The filing was submitted on September 8, one day after reports were released that Malakai Black had received a conditional release from the company.
Brody King, Buddy Matthews, and Julia Hart continued to be referred to as representing the House of Black on Monday’s edition of Dark: Elevation. Our own Dave Meltzer posted to Twitter on Monday that the faction will continue despite Black’s reported departure.
Following his match at All Out, Black took a bow and blew a kiss to the live crowd, leading to speculation it was his last match in AEW. Tony Khan would offer “no comment” on his status during the post-event media scrum.
The purposes of the trademark are listed as “Entertainment in the nature of wrestling contests; Entertainment services, namely, live appearances by a group or individual wrestlers; Entertainment services, namely, televised appearances by a group or individual wrestlers; Entertainment services, namely, wrestling exhibits and performances by a professional wrestler and entertainer.” As well as “Beanies; Hats; Shirts; T-shirts.”
Dark Order advanced to the AEW Trios Championship tournament semifinals on Friday’s Rampage, picking up a win over House of Black.
The finish of the match came when Miro came out, distracting Brody King and Buddy Matthews who went out to attack. Dark Order’s Alex Reynolds then used the distraction to roll up Malakai Black for the win.
After the match, House of Black jumped Miro and were beating him down when Sting and Darby Allin came down for the save, potentially setting up their own trios match for All Out.
With their win, Dark Order move on to next Friday’s live Rampage, taking on Best Friends in the semifinals.
The winner of that match will face either United Empire (Will Ospreay & Aussie Open) or The Elite (Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks). Those two teams will meet on Dynamite with one going to the finals, set for Sunday, September 3rd at All Out.
What a banger of a show AEW Dynamite Quake By The Lake was! Tune into Speak Now Pro Wrestling hosted by Denise Salcedo as she shares her thoughts on the show. Topics include trios championships, possible Kenny Omega return, CM Punk’s return, and lots more!
Denise returns this Friday to chat Rampage and SmackDown!
AEW has announced five matches for a special weekend edition of Dark.
The episode was filmed at Friday’s Rampage taping from the Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Darby Allin vs. Brandon Cutler will headline the show. Other notable matches include the Death Triangle taking on the Factory and Riho, Yuka Sakazaki & Skye Blue vs. Nyla Rose, Diamante & Emi Sakura. The House of Black and Anna Jay will also be in action.
AEW Dark on Saturday, May 28 will air at 7 p.m Eastern time on YouTube. The full lineup for the show is as follows:
Darby Allin vs. Brandon Cutler
Anna Jay vs. Sandra Moone
House of Black (Malakai Black, Buddy Matthews, & Brody King) vs. Adriel Noctis, Gregory Sharpe & Matt Brannigan
Riho, Yuka Sakazaki & Skye Blue vs. Nyla Rose, Diamante & Emi Sakura
Death Triangle (Pac, Penta Oscuro, & Rey Fenix) vs. QT Marshall, Nick Comoroto & Aaron Solo
Ahead of this weekend’s NJPW Strong tapings for Capital Collision in Washington D.C and Collision in Pennsylvania, I spoke with Brody King who takes on Minoru Suzuki Saturday and Jake Something on Sunday.
King had been signed exclusively to Ring of Honor since 2018. But in October 2021, they announced that following last December’s Final Battle, they would be taking a hiatus. They then released everyone from their contracts, including King.
Then on January 12th of this year, King made his AEW debut, joining Malakai Black in what would become known as the House of Black.
In our 32-minute talk you can watch above, we touched on the changes in ROH, why he signed with AEW and plenty more.
The writing on the wall with ROH
“I kinda saw the writing on the wall. They weren’t renewing any contract that were coming up and they weren’t discussing it with anybody. My contract was going to be renegotiated in December and it was about October and they hadn’t said anything to me and I know a few others that they hadn’t said anything to. I was like, ‘That seems strange that they have all these big players that they would probably want to keep with their deals coming and nobody is discussing it with them, so…’
I feel like maybe a lot of people wanted to pretend like that wasn’t the case, but if you look at it from a business standpoint, that’s probably not a good sign, especially since we were doing shows with crowds again. The crowds weren’t great and there’s only so much you can do with a big roster with a lot of money and not a lot of people in the crowd.”
The seeds of House of Black idea planted prior to AEW
“When the news for Ring of Honor broke, I feel like Malakai and I had already been discussing this House of Black dream scenario like ‘If it could happen…’ I think we were already discussing possibly trying to set the groundwork for it, so it was very much in the works already. We had already been discussing the what ifs and balancing ideas.
I talked to Tony (Khan) very shortly after the news from Ring of Honor broke and he invited me out to a couple of the shows. We discussed things and that’s when the whole House of Black idea really came into fruition. It seemed like a good fit and everything fell into place, so I was very fortunate that I kind of had a plan already and it was just an easier decision.”
Dealing with jealousy not being in AEW
“My perception was that (AEW) was a good alternative to something like WWE and it was an alternative that I liked a lot more. It fit much more to my style and to my beliefs in wrestling and everything in between. A lot of my friends were some of the people that started it like MJF, Jungle Boy, Darby Allin. All these guys were starting the company while I was starting in Ring of Honor. I would be lying if there wasn’t a little bit of jealousy once I started seeing that blow up. And it was just like ‘Man, I wish I was over there with those guys.’ I kept in contact with them throughout the years and they welcomed me with open arms.”
Creative collaboration for the House of Black
“Everything with the House of Black is pretty much a collaboration. Usually one of us will come to the table with an idea and we all kinda just riff off of that and kinda make something out of that. Everyone kinda gives what they think they should do and we kinda take pieces from all of it and make the whole thing. It’s really cool, because it doesn’t feel like one person is in control of the whole thing. Obviously Malakai has a lot more experience and he has years in wrestling to guide all of our ideas and I feel like without him, it might not be as polished as it would be.”
The future of the new Ring of Honor
“I would like to see it become what it once was. It just needs the diehard fans back. It needs people to give their energy to the performers in the ring. If it’s a super indie, that’s awesome — like, if it travels around to different cities when there’s pay-per-views or whatever. That’s cool. If it’s just a traveling show or if it’s a TV product, that’s awesome as well. But I think it’s a good opportunity to give a lot of younger talent a look that’s just not only Dark or Dark Elevation. They can really go out there and show what they have or if there are some undercard guys on AEW that need to really get out in front of a crowd and test some stuff out, then maybe Ring of Honor is a good opportunity for that as well. I feel there is a lot to be done with it. “
The Varsity Blonds are scheduled to call out the House of Black on AEW Dynamite.
After their victory on AEW Dark on Tuesday, the Blonds were interviewed by Tony Schiavone. Brian Pillman Jr. dared Malakai Black, Brody King, and Buddy Matthews to “come and get” Julia Hart on Dynamite.
“It turns out that the House of Black can bleed, because I saw what Death Triangle did out there to you, they embarrassed you,” Pillman Jr. said. “Just like you tried to come out there and embarrass us and tried to take our girl, the one thing that made us a unit, the one thing that made the Varsity Blonds complete. Well, guess what? You can blow the smoke in her face, the mist everywhere, come and get her because Wednesday we’re going to be at AEW Dynamite and so will the House of Black, so if you want Julia, come and get her!”
The Varsity Blonds calling out the House of Black has since been added to the lineup for Wednesday’s show.
The May 4 edition of Dynamite will take place from the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena in Baltimore, Maryland. The updated lineup for the show is as follows:
ROH Women’s World Championship unification match: Deonna Purrazzo (c) vs. interim title holder Mercedes Martinez
Owen Hart Foundation Men’s Tournament qualifier: Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Fish
Wardlow vs. a mystery opponent of MJF’s choosing
Chris Jericho vs. Santana
Owen Hart Foundation Men’s Tournament qualifier: Dante Martin vs. Rey Fenix
Rey Fenix made his return to AEW on tonight’s Dynamite, confronting the House of Black.
Tonight’s show had House of Black circling around a fallen Fuego del Sol. They were about to unmask him when Alex Abrahantes seemingly appeared in the ring in his cloak, confronting the trio. Malakai Black, Brody King, and Buddy Matthews then headed to the ring. This brought out Penta 0M, PAC, and Abrahantes (without the cloak) to the stage. It was then revealed that Fenix was the one under the cloak and attacked the trio with a shovel, then laid out Matthews.
Fenix had been out of action since the January 5 edition of Dynamite, when he and Penta lost the AEW World Tag Team titles to Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus). Towards the end of the match, Fenix suffered an arm injury after being chokeslammed off the apron through tables that were set up on the outside.
Fenix’s in-ring return will be at AAA’s Triplemania event this weekend, where he will team with Hijo del Vikingo to take on The Young Bucks.
A six-man tag team bout has been announced for the Friday, April 1 episode of AEW Rampage.
House of Black’s Malakai Black, Buddy Matthews, and Brody King will face Fuego Del Sol, and The Dark Order’s Evil Uno and Stu Grayson on next week’s show.
The trios bout was set up on this week’s Rampage.
After a promo from Fuego Del Sol, House of Black appeared in the ring. The trio attacked Fuego and left him laying. As the group exited, they were confronted in the aisle by The Dark Order. The match was then announced later in the episode.
A graphic aired during Rampage that announced that AEW president Tony Khan will be announcing more matches for next week’s Rampage and Dynamite on social media, urging viewers to stay tuned to AEW’s social channels for more information.
Three matches are already set for the March 30 Dynamite, as Darby Allin faces Andrade El Idolo, FTR takes on The Gunn Club, plus a debuting talent will face The Bunny in a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament.
