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Adam Copeland Facing Japanese Legend In First Time Ever Matchup

By John Canton • Published 21st January 2024
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Adam Copeland has been announced for a first-time-ever match on AEW Dynamite against a Japanese wrestling legend.

Since joining AEW at WrestleDream in October 2023, Adam Copeland has made it clear he wants to have fun and compete against a lot of different wrestlers.

While Copeland is also a former TNT Champion after winning the title at AEW Worlds End, that title reign was very brief since Christian Cage used his “monster” Killswitch to get an instant rematch that led to Cage winning the title back.

Following what happened at Worlds End, Copeland has been facing new opponents in the Adam Copeland Open Challenge matches that usually take place on Collision. He calls them the Cope Open for short.

On AEW Collision in St. Louis, Adam Copeland beat the high flyer Dante Martin in a competitive match. After the match, Copeland spoke to Tony Schiavone about how he wants to regain the TNT Title.

“Tony, it gets harder and harder every week. What was I thinking with this Cope Open? I have to give all the credit to Dante Martin. I see all these young guys stepping up to take a bite out of me. I am going to keep coming out here, and working hard, and working hard, and working hard, just like Christian Cage said he was going to when he first came to AEW.”

“And Tony, God bless you, I’m going to keep working until I get the TNT Championship and bring it back to TNT. And get in here every Saturday so these people can see their championship, our championship, defended. The next time I set foot in this ring in this great city, I’m going to be your TNT champ.”

The TNT Title may be in Copeland’s sights, but he also has a big test coming up on the January 24th edition of AEW Dynamite in Savannah, GA. On that night, Copeland will face Japanese wrestling legend Minoru Suzuki in a matchup that was announced by AEW’s boss Tony Khan.

Minoru Suzuki is known as one of the toughest Japanese wrestlers of all time and at the age of 55 years old, he’s still competing at a high level. Adam Copeland is also competing at a high level at the age of 50.

Adam Copeland In Action On AEW Dynamite And What Else Is Scheduled?

There are several other big matches set for AEW Dynamite on January 24th including Jeff Hardy in singles action against Swerve Strickland, which is also a first-time-ever matchup.

The full lineup is below.

* Adam Copeland vs. Minoru Suzuki

* Swerve Strickland vs. Jeff Hardy

* “Hangman” Adam Page vs. Penta El Zero Miedo

* Wardlow vs. Trent Beretta

* AEW Trios Tag Team Titles: The Acclaimed & Billy Gunn vs. Brian Cage And The Gates of Agony

* ‘Timeless’ Toni Storm & Deonna Purrazzo face-to-face

* Sting & Darby Allin to speak

As always, we’ll have a full review of AEW Dynamite right here on TJRWrestling.