By Chris Vetter, ProWrestling.net Contributor (@chrisvetter73)
Dot Net contributor Chris Vetter attended the AEW Dynamite event on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 in St. Paul, Minnesota at Roy Wilkins Auditorium and filed the following report.
I love this venue for concerts, as it has a huge general admission floor and reserved seating in the upper deck — I’ve seen everything from Godsmack, Three Days Grace, and Skillet to Paramore and Dashboard Confessional in this venue. It’s also a good room for a mid-sized wrestling show — I’ve attended four NXT live events here as well as an ECW PPV in 2000.
* SO, with all that said, the crowd has to be seen as a disappointment. The venue holds about 4,000 for wrestling but WrestleTix listed the tickets distributed count as 3,432 (I’d estimate the actual attendance at 2,800). I really thought we’d fill it up. I know AEW has struggled in attendance… but yeah, if they had done this show at Target Center or Xcel Energy Center (about 13,000 capacity for wrestling) would have been a disaster.
* Because this room has a stage and little room on one side, there was no seating on the side of the stage, and they didn’t use the ‘tunnels.’ There just wasn’t room for it.
* There is only a thicker ‘drink rail’ on one of the three seating area sides. Sure enough, that is the side that Mark Briscoe ran and hit a Froggy Bow elbow drop to the floor.
* We started at 6:30 p.m. sharp with two dark matches! They clearly were taped but we did NOT have a commentary team, so whenever/wherever it is shown, that will be done in post-production.
1. Robyn Renegade vs. Julia Hart. Julia, of course, grew up in a suburb on the south side of Minneapolis so she got a massive pop. Robyn is not only much taller, she really has good muscle definition, and she dominated almost the entire match. The crowd popped for a Hart somersault flip to the floor and they fought briefly at ringside. Back in the ring, Robyn stayed in charge with Hart getting almost no offense, until Julia locked in a mid-ring Octopus Stretch, and Robyn tapped out. Decent match.
Julia Hart defeated Robyn Renegade at 6:28.
2. Bishop Kaun vs. Jay Lethal. No sign of Toa Liona or Jeff Jarrett. Kaun also is a Minnesota native; it was stressed in his ring entrance, and I don’t think it is usually said when “The Gates of Agony” are introduced together. A really good, hard-hitting match with some LOUD chops. Because it was the first ‘chop-fest’ of the night, it got a great reaction! Late in the match, Kaun hit a top-rope superplex. Jay went for the Lethal Injection, but Bishop blocked it! Kaun hit a Pedigree face plant for the pin! I’ll call that an upset!
Bishop Kaun defeated Jay Lethal at 7:34.
* Of note during the show, the huge screen was ONLY used for the backstage segments. It was not used during anything that happened in the ring, either during matches or promos. Point being, I genuinely could not tell when we went to commercial breaks during matches. The action didn’t really slow down. (It’s not like a couple years ago when I went to a live Smackdown where Rey Mysterio basically sat down in a sleeper for three minutes during a commercial break…)
* There was a fan seated RIGHT behind the commentary table who would have won a Halloween costume contest for his Don Callis look. Obviously he was bald, but he wore a suit and the red-tinted glasses and he was on his feet, waving his arms around while Callis was out there.
* The main event ended and a few fans immediately left. I would say 90% (we even had a show of hands!) have attended a live AEW show before, so we presumed we had some dark matches to come; I told the guy next to me I was hoping for five more quick matches. Tony Khan came out and thanked us. (This is where he asked for a show of hands on if we had been to a live show before) and he vowed he will return to this venue. Top Flight came out with their whole family (including their “big” little brother, clearly taller and thicker than them, and said “he’s going to be a problem.”) They thanked us… and that was it.
* So, I would have stayed and watched, but I think a lot of fans were just fine with leaving instead of feeling obligated to stay to watch some three-minute squash matches. My mild disappointment is that I was hoping to see Minnesota natives Rachael Ellering and Ariya Daivari get those hometown matches. And I assumed we would see Lio Rush/Action Andretti and Bryan Keith/Big Bill have matches, too. And as I’ve seen a couple live indy shows in the Twin Cities in recent weeks, I was really hoping to see some local talent get some screen time.
* I feel like Tony Khan is doing a better job with spending, though. We had backstage segments with Chris Jericho, Jay White, Samoa Joe and Hook with Max Caster, Pac and Wheeler Yuta, Adam Copeland and FTR, and Adam Page. I’d be surprised if they were all actually in Saint Paul. Those promos all could have been filmed last week. Seriously… if they aren’t coming out before the live crowd, I truly hope that Khan isn’t flying them in just for those segments.
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