AEW Dynamite: Preview and Predictions for October 16th, 2021

AEW Dynamite will come to us this Saturday from Miami, Florida.  TNT’s television deal with the NHL pushed Dynamite to Saturday this week and is most likely the reason Dynamite will have a new home on TBS in the near future.

This special episode of Saturday Night Dynamite has a heavy focus on some of the newer additions to the AEW roster as well as the announcement of the bracket for the upcoming World Title Eliminator Tournament.

With Full Gear less than a month out, it is very likely that the winner of this tournament will get a crack at Kenny Omega at the upcoming pay-per-view.

In the coming weeks, we will get to see how the Full Gear card will end up filling out, as the card has the near-impossible task of living up to the success of the promotion’s last pay-per-view, All Out.

A program that seems to be heading to a culmination at Full Gear is the one between MJF and Darby Allin.

With the attack on Darby Allin last week (by masked men that looked a lot like the Pinnacle), AEW has bought time to have Allin and MJF have their highly anticipated match at the Full Gear pay-per-view as Allin is not yet cleared to compete.

This episode of Dynamite will most likely begin to shape the rest of the card for the upcoming pay-per-view.

Let’s take a look at this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite and what to expect from its matches and segments.

Bryan Danielson vs Bobby Fish

Bobby Fish will have his second match in AEW when he takes on Bryan Danielson.

Much like last week when he battled Sammy Guevara, there is almost zero chance that Fish wins this matchup.

This is more about putting Danielson in the ring with another high-quality wrestler.  Even though Danielson will come out on top, the goal here is to make both of these relative newcomers to the roster look really good.

So Fish will get his offense in, and it will be a competitive match.  But Danielson is clearly in the upper echelon of AEW and his first loss in a singles match with the promotion won’t happen on Saturday night.  Winner: Bryan Danielson

Malakai Black vs Dante Martin

Malakai Black will take a break from running roughshod on the Nightmare Family to take on young up and comer Dante Martin.

First off, kudos to AEW for pairing Dante Martin with Lio Rush.

AEW has done a very intelligent thing by regularly pairing their young stars with veterans of the sport to help mold them in their careers.

We have seen this with Darby Allin and Sting, Sammy Guevara and Chris Jericho, Matt Hardy with Private Party, Christian Cage with Jungle Boy, and many others.

Usually, when one member of a tag team gets injured it has a devastating effect on the other member of the team.

But Dante Martin is no regular talent.  And he has used the time to not only stay relevant but absolutely excel.

Pairing him with a versatile talent like Lio Rush will help Martin take it to the next level.

Unfortunately for Martin, none of that is going to matter when he steps in the ring with Malakai Black.

AEW has brought in a ton of high-level talent in the past few months.  But it can be argued that none of those free agent signings has been as fantastic as Black.

Malakai Black has delivered in every facet of the business since joining AEW.  His in-ring work has been great, in large part to both his offensive repertoire to his ability to deliver on match psychology.

His promos are spot on and his entrance is quite possibly the best in all of professional wrestling.  No disrespect to CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Ruby Soho, Andrade, Miro, Adam Cole, and Christian Cage, but Malakai Black has been the one to excel the most his finding a new home in AEW.

Black will continue his momentum with a win over the impressive young Dante Martin.  Winner: Malakai Black

Lucha Bros vs a masked team friendly with Andrade for the AAA Tag Team Titles

The Lucha Bros will put their AAA Tag Team Titles on the line against a mystery team that is associated with Andrade.

The mystery team will more than likely be someone that Andrade is bringing in through the forbidden door and not someone currently on the AEW roster.

And while the forbidden door matches are fun, the result of these matches is almost always that the AEW talent goes over.

This will most likely be no exception to that rule.

Whoever the identity of this mystery team ends up being they will most likely be the latest victims of Fenix and Penta, and Andrade El Idolo will have to find another way to get to the Lucha Bros.  Winners: The Lucha Bros

World Title Eliminator Bracket Reveal

Even though that Adam Page won the Casino Ladder Match on last week’s Dynamite, it seems like AEW may hold off on putting “Hangman” in the ring with Kenny Omega.  So it seems like the promotion will use this tournament to find an opponent for Kenny Omega for Full Gear.

It is really hard to predict who might be in this tournament and AEW regularly mixes things up by including some of the best the promotion has to offer with some of the young up and comers on the roster.

So instead of trying to predict the field, let’s take a look at some of the wrestlers that have the best shot to win the tournament.

There are so many ways AEW can go with this, as they have a ton of high-level opponents they could place in front of Omega at Full Gear.

Some of the potential opponents are Pac, Orange Cassidy, Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Eddie Kingston, Andrade El Idolo, Brian Cage, Lance Archer, Miro, MJF, Darby Allin, and the list goes on and on.

AEW does a great job of keeping the matchups fresh.   And we have seen Pac and Orange Cassidy challenge Omega for the title before so let’s assume they are out as possible winners.

Andrade, Darby Allin, and MJF are all in their own programs that seem to be heading towards matches at Full Gear so let’s rule them out as well.

Miro would be an interesting choice, but that matchup would be more fun once one of them turns babyface.

CM Punk seems content with working with the young talent in AEW, for now anyway.

So that leaves Eddie Kingston, Lance Archer, Brian Cage, and Bryan Danielson as possibilities.

I think AEW waits on putting Danielson and Omega back in the ring together, as it would be hard to top their first meeting in AEW, especially with it being so fresh in everyone’s minds.

Kingston and Archer would both create a fun matchup with Omega as well, but the man that really needs to win this tournament and re-establish himself as a top talent in the promotion is Brian Cage.

Cage has all the tools to create a ton of problems for Omega and has been a bit underutilized since being turned on by Team Tazz.

Having Cage win this tournament and give Omega a run for his money would go a long way towards curing what has been a somewhat underwhelming tenure in AEW thus far.