DYNAMITE: MAXIMUM CARNAGE

January 14, 2026

Pac . . . thinks he can be the one to finally end Darby Allin’s career.

Skye Blue . . . has been steadily improving since bleeding buckets in November but still has a long way to go.

Bandido . . . tries to become a double champion, even if he only has one arm to work with.

DARBY ALLIN vs. PAC

Outside of the fact that the question “Will Darby take another bump that borders on insane?” didn’t need to be answered, this is rather nice from bell to bell. There are very few guys on the roster who bump and sell better than Darby, although calling what he does “selling” may be giving him too much credit, considering what Pac puts him through. Between the Kurt Angle-style overhead belly-to-belly from the top and the BT bomb on the ramp, the bump on the stairs wasn’t even needed. Darby stumbles around, barely even able to stay on his feet, and even after he surprises Pac with a missile dropkick (which requires him to take a back bump of his own) he’s frantically moving his fingers and hands to show how much the dropkick hurt him. Not to mention that Darby’s main finisher is predicated on him landing on his back, which makes Darby’s own offense hurt him just as much (if not more) than it’s designed to hurt Pac.

Pac’s previously injured ankle leading to his undoing isn’t bad in theory, but they should have found a better way to get there than Pac hurting it by hopping off the second turnbuckle. Granted, Darby is every bit the mad dog that Pac was when going after his back, even if he doesn’t get nearly as much time to do it. Right before Darby submits him with the Scorpion Deathlock, Darby hits a coffin drop with the ankle in a chair; and the chair only comes into play because of Pac calling for Yuta to assist, which wound up backfiring. So, if anything, Darby’s win is as much due to his own resilience as it is Pac’s overconfidence and underhandedness.

Being an AEW TV match, there are some tropes that pop up for seemingly no other reason than that’s how they always do things. After Pac gives Darby the BT bomb on the ramp, he lies there all but dead while the ref is counting and then just after nine, he gets up and rushes into the ring. Darby’s second wind is what causes Pac to hop off the corner and hurt his ankle, so it did lead to something that had consequences in the match. It’s also not a Death Riders match without the ref bump and run in, and, of course, right after he goes down is when Darby gets the first Scorpion on and Pac frantically taps out before Yuta shows up. The action begins quite a bit before the match officially does, with the long brawl through the crowd, with Darby leaping off the balcony. They don’t do anything that hadn’t been seen before in Darby’s various matches with Moxley and the other Death Riders, and given that the match proper had a strong focus on body part psychology, they could have easily just started on the floor and gone right to the spot on the steps that sets up Darby’s back. When it was time to buckle down and actually have the match, these two were as good as pretty much anyone else in the company, and all the extraneous stuff served to do was hold them back, as a result the match is merely good rather than great. ***1/4

ADAM PAGE vs. BRYAN KEITH

The background to this is that Keith is being used as an enforcer for Samoa Joe, which means that either Joe needs a more stringent screening process or he needs to up his budget. With only a couple of exceptions, this is pretty much a squash for Page. Keith gets a bit of a control segment during the commercial break, which is little more than generic brawling with a lot of punches and throwing him into the barricade and ramming him into the announce desk. Keith also gets a couple of surprising spots, like a near fall from a Gannosuke clutch and an overhead suplex into the corner, but those are the exception instead of the rule. Page pretty much has no problem doing whatever he likes, and when Keith manages to escape or dodge something, Page has an answer ready such as when Keith elbows his way out of the fireman’s carry only to eat a rolling elbow. Even the finish run starts with Page no-selling some chops from Keith and firing back; and the bit with Swerve Strickland running in probably could have been jettisoned as well, seeing as even with Big Bill trying to run interference, Page wasn’t exactly in danger.

BRODY KING vs. JON CRUZ

Cruz’ selling of Brody’s chop has to be one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while, and it’s the best thing about this. It’s Brody King versus a jobber who barely even wrestles, so how this plays out for all thirty-seven seconds isn’t a shock (minus Brody missing the one corner charge).

MATT JACKSON/NICK JACKSON vs. MIKE BAILEY/KEVIN KNIGHT vs. MARK DAVIS/JAKE DOYLE vs. TOA LIONA/BISHOP KAUN (#1 Contenders match for the AEW World Tag Team Titles)

The sheer number of eye-popping spots and sequences makes this a fun match, but it’s disappointing that they don’t try to accomplish anything more. The recent issues between the Bucks and GOA don’t seem to have any bearing on things, there’s no noticeable uptick in intensity from either of them when they’re working opposite each other. The match having two teams of flyers and two teams of power guys means that the spots are clean more often than not but that only goes so far because at the end of the day this isn’t anything more than a big spotfest. And it’s not like there weren’t any opportunities to try to tell a story or develop a theme to it. Bailey comes into the match with his shoulder taped up and a big double throw from Davis and Doyle sees him come down on it. Instead of continuing to work it over, Davis and Doyle opt to show their power by chopping him as hard as they can so Bailey can Hulk-Up and return fire leading to the others getting involved and resetting the action. Just about the only clever thing is the setup to the finish; Doyle rolls through Bailey’s rana and powers him up and tosses him onto the floor on top of both the Bucks and GOA, leaving nobody to save Knight after Davis spikes him with the piledriver. But that’s about thirty seconds out of a match that goes for almost fifteen minutes. One would think that all these years of working with FTR would have rubbed off on the Bucks, by osmosis if nothing else, but apparently not.

KRIS STATLANDER/WILLOW NIGHTINGALE/HARLEY CAMERON vs. THEKLA/JULIA HART/SKYE BLUE

The only thing to really take away from this is the finish, which solidifies that Stat and Willow’s friendship is fully mended as well as setting up Thekla as a future challenger for Stat’s title. The work the rest of the way is watchable at times, but nobody seems to be willing or able to take the match anywhere. The heel team is good for heat mongering and not much else, all three of them look the best when they’re stooging for Stat after Harley’s hot tag. They get a decently long heat segment on Harley, but it’s rather unremarkable outside of Julia’s variation of the Tarantula. Willow is pretty much kept back, aside from a few double teams with Harley and getting shoved out of the way by Stat when Thekla is charging for the spear. Harley looks better than all of the heels, but she’s far behind Stat who is clearly the best of the bunch on this night. Of course, we can’t expect Skye, Julia, and Harley to get better without more practice, which is what a match like this is designed for.

It may not seem like it, with how vastly different their styles are, but these two look practically made for working one another. MJF has always been good about adding smart touches to his matches to go along with the over-the-top bumping and selling, and Bandido is almost just as good in both areas. One of their better parts of this is how they treat Bandido’s 21-Plex finisher. It’s a spot that’s always been scrutinized for the fact that it can only be done when Bandido’s opponent is in the exact position for it. So, MJF gets himself into position for it early and lets Bandido try it, only to quickly get himself out of the way. On the surface it may seem like MJF is doing the same old thing that everyone else does, but he’s actually baiting Bandido into doing it. Much later in the match, Bandido gets the opening for it, but his worn down shoulder prevents him from hitting the suplex. Another time Bandido gets him up, but MJF backflips his way out of it, and then Bandido finally pulls it off (complete with a hilarious bump and sell job) only to be unable to go for the pin right away because the effort of doing it took just as much out of him as it did Max.

The story of the match is carried by MJF working over Bandido’s shoulder to wear him down for his armbar (and later the LaBell lock), and he’s every bit as innovative and vicious as you’d expect. His offense ranges from simple things like dropping the arm across the top rope or kicking it when Bandido tries an early handspring, to digging out bigger guns like a double underhook shoulder breaker. It’s also nice to see that the armbar doesn’t get used umpteen times. He gets it as a counter to Bandido’s slow pin attempt after the 21-Plex and when Bandido won’t tap he switches to the more dangerous LaBell lock which Bandido also refuses to submit to (and his method of telling MJF as such is yet another great moment), but he can’t escape the hold and winds up passing out.

Bandido doesn’t have the same sort of tight and focused strategy as MJF. His back is already against the wall so whenever he gets any sort of opening, he tries to inflict as much damage as possible. His dives are as graceful as ever and it’s more than impressive that his plancha clears the barricade. But that’s not why he’s doing them. He needs to wear down MJF as much as possible in the short window that he’s got, and dropping his entire body weight on him from high distances is the best way to do it at that moment. And MJF’s selling and reactions are more than enough to show that it pays off for him. Even better is that Bandido almost always manages to keep his bad arm in mind when he’s in control. He’ll do something that seems questionable, but quickly do something else to show that the arm in still a problem. A good example is his press slam. He gets MJF up for it and then quickly puts the bad arm down and holds him up with only the good arm. Bandido’s best near fall is the SSP, and he’s clutching the shoulder while he’s using the good arm to hook the leg. Bandido’s vertical suplex reversal is another great moment from them. Bandido slowly but steadily lifts up MJF, and Max is wildly kicking his legs the whole time trying to stop it.

Bandido may have been firmly established as the top guy of ROH, but a match like this is a substantial step up for him. His matches with the likes of Mistico, Mascara Dorada, and even Konosuke Takeshita were all based around spots rather than story. But he stepped up his game huge here and was able work in a lot of his trademark stuff, but in a way that felt natural. Ironically enough, this is also a step up for MJF. Yes, he’d always been one of the better workers in the promotion, but he works, for the most part, a simple and straightforward match here. For all of his attitude and heelish touches, he doesn’t need to do anything underhanded in order to win. He didn’t need a ref bump or foreign object or a foul in order to finally vanquish his challenger. The AEW World Champion retained his title by simply being a better and smarter wrestler, which (heel or not) is exactly how the champion is supposed to be presented. ****1/4

Conclusion: The main event is absolute must-see stuff, but the show as a whole is worth checking out.