The Elite are set to reunite for a big money match next week after Don Callis issued a challenge to the Young Bucks on “AEW Dynamite: Winter is Coming” on Wednesday. After “Jungle” Jack Perry lost to Kazuchika Okada in a Continental Classic match and refused to join the Don Callis Family, the Bucks came to his aid to fight them off when the various members of the faction attacked.
The Bucks regained possession of the duffel bag full of the one million dollars they won alongside Josh Alexander at Full Gear when they defeated Jurassic Express and Kenny Omega, but Matt and Nick Jackson refused to beat down Omega and Callis ran away with the money. In a backstage segment on Wednesday, Callis challenged the Bucks to a trios match against three of his men for all of the money, if they could find a partner.
They first asked Luchasaurus backstage, but he shook his head and simply pointed to Omega’s locker room door. When Matt and Nick knocked, Omega answered and said he didn’t want the money, but if it had to do with the Don Callis Family, he’d team with them for free, reuniting The Elite for AEW’s show in Manchester, England next Wednesday.
The 2025 Winter Is Coming edition of “AEW Dynamite” aired live from Atlanta, Georgia on December 10, and as is tradition with the show over the past two years, it featured action in the Continental Classic tournament. It was strictly Gold League action on “Dynamite” this week, and it proved to be a mixed night for The Don Callis Family.
Kicking things off was a battle of former stablemates in The Elite as Kazuchika Okada went one-on-one with “Jungle” Jack Perry. Okada came in to the match on three points after picking up his first win of the tournament against PAC seven days earlier, while Perry, who was wrestling his first singles match since January, entered at a severe disadvantage as he was replacing the injured Darby Allin, meaning he inherited Allin’s point total of zero. Perry looked to have injured his ankle early on after being kicked to the outside and landing awkwardly on a cameraman at ringside, but he fought back with some inventive offense, including biting Okada in the crotch in order to escape a Tombstone Piledriver. However, he was no match for Okada who finished Perry off by hitting The Rainmaker to pick up his second consecutive win, moving himself up to six points with two matches left to go.
After the bout, Don Callis did attempt to recruit Perry to his family as a way to get back at The Young Bucks but Perry refused. The Family then beat down Perry which prompted Luchasaurus and The Young Bucks to clean house, even hitting a BTE Trigger on Okada before standing tall in the ring, while also recapturing their share of the $1 Million they won at Full Gear.
The other match for the night was between “The Protostar” Kyle Fletcher and “Speedball” Mike Bailey. Fletcher came in to the match as the only man in the Gold League with a 100% record having won his first two matches, while Bailey was still looking to get some points on the board after losing his first match against PAC. The biggest turning point in the match came when Bailey went to drop his knees into Fletcher on the barricade, but Fletcher escaped and hit a Powerslam on the barricade, causing Bailey’s back to be a target for most of the match.
However, it was “Speedball” who unleashed everything he had in the final five minutes, including the Ultima Weapon which caused a near fall, but after trying to hit it on the outside, Fletcher moved out the way and hit a Powerbomb on the apron and looked to have the match won after hitting his patented Brainbuster. In the end, with less than one minute on the clock, “Speedball” countered a roll-up attempt by Fletcher into one of his own and secured a surprise victory. With the win, Fletcher remains top of the Gold League with six points thanks to his victory over Okada who also has six, while Bailey is off the mark with three points.
Saturday Night’s Main Event Expected to Air with a Flexible Runtime – John Cena’s Final Match with Gunther at Saturday Night’s Main Event will not be restricted by a fixed runtime, giving Cena all the time he needs for one of the most heavily discussed bouts of the weekend.
Bryan Alvarez reported to his X subscribers that Cena vs. Gunther is currently scheduled to open the show. Because the event has no predetermined end time, production is prepared to allow the match — and any post-match developments — to run without constraint.
“At this point, there is no set runtime for Saturday Night’s Main Event, so everyone will get all the time they need. Cena vs. Gunther is currently scheduled to open the show and Cena will get as much time as he wants.” Alvarez wrote.
Dave Meltzer also confirmed plans for the match to kick off the event. He noted that because the show is airing exclusively on Peacock in the United States rather than on NBC, WWE is not facing the same hard cutoff they dealt with during Goldberg’s retirement match in July, which had to end by 10 p.m. EST to meet network requirements.
Meltzer added: “The plus is they will have full time for the match to go as long as it should and to not rush the post-match. The bad is that tons of people will tune out after the Cena stuff is over. Also, not being on actual television there is no hard ‘out’ at 10 p.m. as they can go as long as they want.”
Saturday Night’s Main Event will take place at the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC, with Cena’s clash against Gunther now positioned as the opening segment.
WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event lineup
John Cena vs. Gunther
Cody Rhodes vs. Oba Femi
Bayley vs. Sol Ruca
World Tag Team Champions AJ Styles & Dragon Lee defend against Je’Von Evans & Leon Slater
Saturday Night’s Main Event Expected to Air with a Flexible Runtime
John Cena Details Retirement Tour Planning, His 17th WWE Title Win, AJ Styles Tribute, and More – John Cena joined Chris Van Vliet on Insight for a wide-ranging interview, offering one of his most detailed looks yet at his retirement tour, the long-discussed 17th WWE Championship, his surprise intro for AJ Styles, and how he views the final chapter of his in-ring career.
How much planning went into the schedule?
“The whole thing was like 3 years. So by then [2022], I knew I had a lot of opportunities outside of WWE, and those are very difficult to balance, not just being everywhere like the first half of this year for the tour, I was flying back and forth to Budapest and Morocco, making PLE dates. I left Intuit the day I announced, Jan 6, I left to land in Budapest to shoot the next day. That’s a scheduling. The biggest hurdle to climb is insurance, and insurance is super pricey. Every date, the cost goes up, whether it be $500,000, $1,000,000.”
Because you might get hurt?
“Because you’re doing a picture, and you’re being like, ‘Hey, I have Saturday off.’ That’s the thing a lot of folks don’t understand. It’s like, ‘But you have the weekends off, you can do this. Or they can shoot Tuesday through Saturday if they want. You can do every Monday…’ You’re right, but the liability of, hey, I’m doing this action movie, and then I’m gonna go do, albeit choreographed action, but with a high variable that I could get hurt. If I get hurt, I can’t come back to shoot. Or I get my nose broke, or if I get a black eye or something, we’ve already captured these moments on camera, and now I’ve got to stop and wait for the thing to heal before I can shoot another frame. So that’s something that I had to learn the hard way of like, my schedule is open. I can do it. It’s an insurance thing, and this is what it costs. So trying to get a studio to leverage that to let you go play stunt man is impossible. So you got to a lot of times you got to come out of pocket, and that’s a tough balance.”
What did winning that 17th championship mean to you?
“I want to choose my words carefully. I have been apprehensive for quite some time for that, because I love Ric, super mentor to me, always been a great guy to me, and I love him. I meant what I said in the press conference at Rumble, and this is another thing, I never wasted a second. We want you to do the press conference. How do I make these moments meaningful? I want to win 17 so I can shake the hand of the performer that wins 18. So what it meant to me, personally, was, ‘Hey, young uns, one of them is going to be you. You better get working, because I don’t want to be in the ground when 18 happens.’ I want to shake somebody’s hand. And something that’s impossible is now possible. So that’s what it means to me, hopefully, by my actions, this is possible. Holy hell, this guy wants to shake my hand when I pass it, and I can’t wait to do that.”
That intro for AJ Styles was great:
“I just wanted to do something nice for my guy. I didn’t even show Alicia [Taylor] until I handed her the paper. You don’t get those moments unless you get the sht beat up. I wanted to do something special. I went about it the wrong way. I went into business for myself. I should have gotten permission to do that, and I would have gotten permission to do that, but I told no one about it, because I wanted to do something special, and in doing so, the people running the show felt surprised, and that’s not a position I ever want to put them in because they award me such creative liberty.”*
I can’t imagine anyone had a problem with it?
“We’re all trying to make these moments special, and we’re all on the same team, and it shouldn’t be me doing something outside that realm. If I tell my teammates, ‘Hey, let’s do it.’ I can keep it from AJ, I can keep it from Alicia, but if I tell my teammates who are crafting this show, maybe they make it look better. The first thing I did was thank AJ, the second thing I did was pull a few creative individuals aside and say, ‘I’m sorry. That will never happen again. I know where I fcked up. I’m so sorry, and I went into business for myself. That’s not me. I hope you look at my body of work, and all the times I’ve asked for permission, and this is the one time I ask for forgiveness.’ It got the best of me, but I wanted to do something nice for AJ.”*
That match was so much fun:
“I just want to get that ball rolling. All right, ‘They’re wasting the heel turn at WrestleMania!’ And they’re like, Oh, the Randy thing. And then the Punk, and then Cody, and then Logan in Paris was even kind of dope. And then you go to Brock, what? What are they gonna do next? And then you get the payoff, and we look at them all in individual moments, but it’s why, until now, I have refused to give anyone any information about any of this, because I don’t want to lead the witness. The last one is going to be the last one. We have told the story, everybody knows the drill, a tournament to decide, this is going to be it. I want the last one. I want people to look at the road ahead, 2026 and beyond. I want them to take away some Superstar’s name from the 13th. But now we can reflect on the year. We get caught up in these moments, thinking that’s all you get and not realizing that this is the commercial spot before the reveal, before the big finish. We’ve just had to digest it as it has been a year storyline, and reflecting back on it, I get excited and again, I don’t feel I could have given anything else. So I’m very happy with how it’s gone so far.”
John Cena Details Retirement Tour Planning, His 17th WWE Title Win, AJ Styles Tribute, and More
