AEW Dynamite results, highlights (Oct. 30): Bobby Lashley debuts, Private Party dethrones The Young Bucks

As the spooky season is on the verge of ending, this week's "AEW Dynamite" left tricks at the door and brought the treats into our living rooms with one hell of a show. Thanks to Tony Khan, who must have known it was my birthday and wanted to gift some brilliant tag team graps.

ELITE: The Young Bucks are all-time greats, but where do they rank?

There's simply nothing quite like a fantastic tag team match ... or a GOAT debate! Every time I watch Matt and Nick Jackson craft another piece of wrestling cinema, their placement in the pantheon of history circulates the mind.

The Hardy Boyz, The Dudley Boyz, The New Day, FTR, those are just a few that come to mind immediately. And yeah, a titanic ton of names are being left out. The criteria for determining a legendary tag team feel harder to define, at least for me. The Bucks are up there, checking off box after box. They don't have bad matches.

A match against Private Party wasn't something I was highly anticipating. Sure, a loss meant their tag team days were over. Despite having no clue what they might do as solo wrestlers, I still felt they wouldn't lose and the drama was minimal at best going in.

Then the match started — after the title-holding Jacksons tried to get an early upper hand on their foes post-Jon Moxley chaos.

Don't worry, we'll get to that last part.

"SCU later," Matt said into the camera as the bell rang. A hilarious call back to this same instance when they broke up that tag team years back. The Bucks can be the slimiest heels and the most sincere faces when necessary. Here, heel mode is in full EVP effect and added so much to the match.

Zay Kassidy got royally beaten down throughout the match, which began with the bell-ringing shenanigans above, and the odds seemed pretty insurmountable. EVP Triggers, near roll-ups, a One-Winged Angel nod to Kenny Omega — but then suddenly a failed TK Driver gave Private Party the opening for Gin and Juice to get the win! What?!?

This. Was. Wild.

So ... the inmates now run the asylum?

Before The Young Bucks lost their championships and fled the building out of Blackpool Combat Club-induced fear, Jon Moxley rolled out to continue his cosplay as an evil, rich Triple H-"Stone Cold" Steve Austin lovechild henchman.

That might be oddly specific but it's completely accurate and I can't be convinced otherwise.

Listen, I like me some unpredictable badasses. And Mox and Co. are certainly that. They're AEW's Bloodline storyline parallel. At the same time, they feel like that group of kids in high school who just didn't really care. You know, the ones who weren't dumb or unathletic but they weren't jocks or A+ students. I'm not saying I fully fit into that category, but if there was one I did ...

Anyway.

Moxley and the gang maximizing their time in the ring with just enough words and action is a good deal. They run the show now and the AEW World Champion is magnetic on-screen. His clarification on his attack on Chuck Taylor last week as his challenge to Orange Cassidy — not the other way around — was filthy manipulative control-freak s***. And like I said, he's unpredictable as all hell, which brings us to the following.

🙈 WEASEL OF THE NIGHT

Wheeler Yuta turned into the sacrificial lamb! That's cool. Let's get crazy.

Pac and Claudio Castagnoli setting up their boy for a chair-crushing neck assault was dastardly work to get Cassidy out for the save. However, I hate so much what happened after.

Yuta, the little weasel, continued to stick with Moxley and Co. once this turned into a big messy brawl that included John Silver, Evil Uno, Top Flight, and Private Party. Unless this was an internal set-up type of plan from Moxley and Yuta, this type of thing drives me nuts. This guy just attempted to break your neck, no big deal.

Manipulation, manipulation. Yeah, yeah.

All that silliness almost made me forget the historically most unnecessary entrance of all time.

💀 TRY-HARD MOMENT OF THE NIGHT

Man, this is so perfectly "Fright Night" and Darby Allin.

AEW's resident daredevil figured it would be most appropriate to make his grand entrance dangling from the rafters to make the save on Cassidy. The visual looked pretty cool behind Castagnoli if you don't think about it, but he dangled his way down so hilariously.

Not the most efficient way to quickly break up a tussle.

🤥 LIAR OF THE NIGHT

Adam Cole is a great wrestler in every way. Yet, he still leaves a lot to be desired. Hopefully, his current story arc circles into where it should go: Him heeling it up.

Buddy Matthews welcoming back Cole was an awesome match to start the show. Ankle concerns for Cole progressed as the match went on and hit the pivot point. Cole's pain became too much and he nearly quit, with Doc Sampson walking him to the back.

Then Murphy called Cole a b**** — and he wasn't going to have that now, was he?

It would have been fun to go down a story path that asks, "Is Cole the same Cole?" like Matthews did throughout this. He'd need to lose to make that work well, but he unsurprisingly didn't. He rallied, came back, beat Matthews, and shook his hand, proclaiming he's the same. Next up appears to be Matthews' pal Malakai Black.

If Cole was truly still the same, he would have kicked Matthews in the grapefruits and remained the S.O.B. he primarily has been — and more importantly was — before his injury. Cole's trying to justify that he's not the bad guy in his saga with MJF. This isn't to say MJF is good, it's just that if you have to let people know you're a good guy, you most likely are not, Mr. Cole.

He also said the Matthews match was one of the toughest of his career and that's fooling no one, pal.

👍 NOW THAT'S DYNAMITE 👍

1. BIG BOB IS BACK.

Bobby Lashley made his AEW debut after the Swerve Strickland vs. Shelton Benjamin main event, looking every bit almighty as always. The call from MVP after the match was a great touch. The lights going off, not so much. That felt like a miscue.

Regardless, Lashley is an awesome and fascinating addition whether in a team alongside Benjamin pursuing tag gold, or solo. He'll surely be a force and prominent figure fast. He also managed to keep his sunglasses on the whole time that he beat down Swerve. Impressive.

2. Kamille vs. Kris Statlander was great. With more time, they could have had an even better showing. Stat hit an F5, which was going to get her on this list by itself. They meshed great for the "powerhouse" wrestler clash they were being touted as.

3. In media, we hear an unfortunate amount of stupid questions asked by some folk who are admittedly trying their best (usually). When it's dumb, it's dumb though. So, Mercedes Moné calling out Renee for asking Kamille her prediction for her Kris Statlander match was a perfect ode to that. Especially considering Moné is no fan of media.

4. Jamie Hayter maximized her tiny bit of screentime alongside Penelope Ford with a Daphne from Scooby Doo costume-get-up. Sometimes it really is the little things.

5. The black and orange "Fright Night" set plus the orange ropes were excellent.

👎 DUDSVILLE 👎

1. Chris Jericho's character has become that of a troll of himself. Right? That's the thing? I don't dislike "Y2J" as much as most in 2024. It's relatively funny what he's doing, but there's objectively not much left to him after 30 years. AEW has to do something else. Or nothing? I have no clue. It's wasting the time of everyone around him.

Great Halloween blazer, though.

2. I know he has obligations, but come on — where the hell was Danhausen on this night of all nights? Really?

3. Brandon Cutler, the poor guy. What more needs to be said? He had his hand smashed with a hammer! That's a bad time, man.

👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑

It had to be Shelty B.

Benjamin has always been arguably the most underutilized wrestler ever. It's absolutely shameful he never held a WWE world title during his prime. That said, the guy is still phenomenal and has been used so beautifully in AEW thus far.

Swerve was an excellent dance partner, as expected. These two put together an awesome match that closed with a nasty-looking Swerve Stomp. Lashley's inclusion now makes me fear for Benjamin's potential in AEW as a singles star, but they stood tall in the end and will be great together once again. There ain't no stopping 'em now.

TL;DR: Moxley and Cassidy continued their rivalry, which will culminate in a Full Gear AEW World title match. The Young Bucks lost their AEW Tag Team titles to Private Party and abandoned shop, seemingly leaving Blackpool Combat Club to run the show in terror. Adam Cole still hates MJF, the United Empire is done, Bobby Lashley is here, and Mercedes Moné vs. Kris Statlander will be sweet.

👑 I give this show a Crown score of 8.5/10 crowns. 👑