By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Dot Net Member Jerry from Illinois attended Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite in Peoria, Illinois at the Peoria Civic Center and sent the following report.
-The crowd was very excited for either a dark Match or an ROH match. They had ROH ring mats, and aprons so guessing it was taped for HonorClub. The match featured Ross Von Erich, Marshall Von Erich, and Dustin Rhodes facing Violence is Forever and another wrestler. VIF wasn’t named and had no entrance and neither did the third man. The crowd loved Dustin and the Von Erichs.
-Swerve Strickland and Willow Nightingale vs. Jon Moxley and Marina Shafir opened Dynamite. The crowd loved Swerve and Willow. The person in front of me was cheering all the heels and yelling wrestlers real names at them. The person two rows behind me was yelling “Whooo!” every 20 minutes. Willow is amazing and I hope to see her as TBS or AEW Woman’s Champion because Willow has a dynamic personality and the crowd loved her and did her clap.
-Swerve had the biggest pop of the night next to Bob. Bob is a ring crew guy, so when the crowd got bored, we chanted Bob.
-Toni Storm vs. Penelope Ford was next. Putting Penelope out there without Megan Bayne was death. You could hear a cough drop, it was so quiet for her entrance. Toni came out and crowd erupted.
-The Hurt Syndicate was next and the crowd loved chanting “We Hurt People.” Oddly enough, Peoria loved MJF. He was one of the bigger pops too, which kind of surprised me.
-The Learning Tree Music hit and that reminded me that I had to use the bathroom. The line was out the door. When I got back, a match with Big Bill and Bryan Keith was still going. This killed the crowd. You could say we got sucked into a vortex.
-Will Ospreay and Kevin Knight were next. Knight had zero reaction. Ospreay had the biggest pop, bar none. The crowd chanted “Ospreay, Ospreay” and the floor was shaking from it.
-Blake Christian got a decent reaction. I yelled, “You’re all Heat, Blake Christian” but my voice was giving out.
-During Brody King vs. Lance Archer, I yelled that Archer hasn’t won a match since 2019… the bathroom lines were long again, and someone said “They’ve seen pornstars on their back less than Archer.” They’re not wrong.
-Cope got a good reaction as he’s a legend. Claudio Castagnoli got a quiet applause. Their match was fine, the angle after was interesting. I’m not sure if Dynamite was off the air when Swerve bit into the glass and talked about basically coming up through CZW like Mox. After that show, people started to leave before the Collision taping. The crowd died and kept getting thinner and thinner until by the time the show ended at 11 PM (Central), there were half the seats open.
-I recommend people see AEW live, because Don Callis was on commentary and we didn’t have to hear that nor Excalibur speed run 985 things. My dad even smiled a lot during this.
-As someone with Autism, I feel the need to mention that the fireworks and pyro (fire) AEW uses are a lot less loud than WWE. Kane’s pyro and the opening pyro shook the entire arena. AEW’s is noisy but it’s not shaking the seats.
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