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AEW Dynamite Had Several Changes To This Week’s Show

By John Canton • Published 27th January 2023
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There were several changes made prior to this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite that saw Mark Briscoe defeat Jay Lethal in the main event.

The January 25th edition of AEW Dynamite took place in Lexington, Kentucky with Darby Allin defeating Buddy Matthews to retain the TNT Title, Bryan Danielson beating Brian Cage and Mark Briscoe’s AEW debut victory over Jay Lethal.

Mark Briscoe’s AEW debut match was a tribute to his late brother Jay Briscoe (Jamin Pugh). It was also on what would have been Jay Briscoe’s 39th birthday. Unfortunately, Jay Briscoe died in a car accident last Tuesday, January 17th. The Briscoes were not allowed on AEW TV prior to this past week due to some insensitive remarks that Jay Briscoe apologized for many times. Tony Khan said he worked hard talking to Warner Bros Discovery TV executives to get Mark on this week’s show and that’s what happened.

Fightful Select has provided some more insight into the changes that took place going into Dynamite this week while noting that prior to Tuesday, it didn’t look like Mark Briscoe would be able to pay tribute to his late brother Jay. However, AEW’s Tony Khan was able to make it happen with Ring of Honor announcers Ian Riccaboni and Caprice Coleman on hand to call the match between Mark and Jay Lethal.

It was noted by Fightful that the match between Allin and Matthews was going to be the main event, but it was moved to earlier in the show while some time was trimmed from that match to make room for the Mark-Jay match.

There was a sitdown interview featuring The Acclaimed, Billy Gunn & The Gunns that was supposed to go longer, but they shortened it to save some time.

A source told Fightful that they were impressed how AEW managed to trim time in other segments in order to give proper time to the Mark/Lethal match.

As we have reported elsewhere, Kenny Omega wanted to be at the show, but he has missed the last two weeks due to a visa issue.

Even though FTR didn’t appear on camera at the TV tapings, they were at the show.

Dax Harwood posted this photo of himself with tag team partner Cash Wheeler and Mark Briscoe for their Match of the Year at ROH Final Battle. They were given those awards by Fightful at this week’s episode of Dynamite.