{"id":131360,"date":"2025-02-25T07:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=131360"},"modified":"2025-02-25T02:34:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T07:34:11","slug":"aew-dynamite-preview-2-26-25-cassidy-vs-takeshita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/02\/25\/aew-dynamite-preview-2-26-25-cassidy-vs-takeshita\/","title":{"rendered":"AEW Dynamite Preview (2\/26\/25): Cassidy vs. Takeshita"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With only two more weeks until Revolution, AEW Dynamite returns to California with momentum and suspense on their side. At time of writing, only three matches have been confirmed for this week\u2019s show.<\/p>\n<p>Expectations remain high as AEW started 2025 with strong performances and story developments across two weekly shows. It feels like AEW is addressing some fans\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/01\/01\/aew-new-year-resolutions-2025\/\" target=\"_self\">New Year\u2019s Resolutions<\/a>. Yet, there are still issues to address.<\/p>\n<p>After Collision, there\u2019s still slots to fill on the Revolution card. There are matches to be confirmed and surprises to occur before March 9th. There are still developments to build those matches already announced.<\/p>\n<p>For example, when Bryan Keith tries to collect the bounty on Will Ospreay. Will The Bad Apple collect the money Don Callis has put on the Aerial Assassin\u2019s head? Will this overlap Chris Jericho\u2019s faction with The Family?<\/p>\n<p>Also, after last week\u2019s blistering promo battle between MJF and Hangman Page, what\u2019s next? The same for \u201cTimeless\u201d Toni Storm after Mariah May left her bloody at the start of Collision. What about \u201cSpeedball\u201d Mike Bailey, Gabe Kidd, or Clark Connors?<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s skip the music reference and get straight to it.<\/p>\n<h2>AEW Dynamite Announced Card:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Revolution International Championship Series: Konosuke Takeshita vs. Orange Cassidy<\/li>\n<li>Deonna Purrazzo vs. Harley Cameron<\/li>\n<li>Bounty Match: Will Ospreay vs. Bryan Keith<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Feeling The Wrath<\/h2>\n<p>Harley Cameron <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2024\/10\/31\/maximizing-her-minutes-aews-harley-cameron\/\" target=\"_self\">maximizes her minutes like no one else in wrestling right now<\/a>. Although she did not get the huge upset win and TBS Championship from Mercedes Mone, Cameron has the crowd in her hands. Puppeteering us with strings than a hand up our- anyway.<\/p>\n<p>She might not be riding the money train, but the wrath continues, and looks now for her second singles win in AEW. This teased match with Deoanna Purrazzo goes back to when Cameron scored her first singles victory over Purrazzo\u2019s Vendetta partner, Taya Valkyrie.<\/p>\n<p>Purrazzo, with her experience and championship pedigree, feels Cameron stole her chance to challenge Mone in Australia. The Virtuosa sees Cameron as a flash in the pan. Purrazzo will look to prove this on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I hope this will become a proper feud and not just a one-off match. While Cameron has earned and deserves more matches, so do other women like Purrazzo who sometimes get rotated in and out due to time management.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a problem of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/02\/14\/the-spotlight-issue-timeless-toni-storm-vs-mariah-may\/\" target=\"_self\">spotlighting that still plagues the AEW\u2019s women\u2019s division<\/a>. Regardless, with time and care, this match could be a great showcase for both women.<\/p>\n<h2>Banger of the Night: International Championship Series<\/h2>\n<p>The return of Orange Cassidy last week to Jane and his traditional faded denim felt nostalgic. It seems like the old Cassidy is back. The Cassidy who made the International Championship a coveted prize.<\/p>\n<p>Defeating Roderick Strong last week, the man who took the International Championship from Cassidy when differently to last week was worn down and broken by the weekly grind. On Wednesday, we might potentially witness the best TV match of the year so far.<\/p>\n<p>Konosuke Takeshita against smaller opponents can play the bully and monster with mastery. I\u2019m expecting Takeshita vs. Darby Allin vibes from this match. Rather than slaughtering his opponent for victory, Cassidy\u2019s resilience and mind games might push Takeshita in a way that will frustrate and push him mentally to a new limit.<\/p>\n<p>The winner faces Kenny Omega in the final stage of the series. Will this match be the peak of Takeshita\u2019s international title reign?<\/p>\n<p><strong>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Header photo \u2013 AEW \u2013 Stay tun<\/em><em>ed to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" data-linkindex=\"1\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on AEW Dynamite and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. As well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.\u00a0 You can catch AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights at 8 PM ET on TBS. AEW Collision airs Saturday at 8pm Eastern on TNT. More AEW content available on their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@AEW\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With only two more weeks until Revolution, AEW Dynamite returns to California with momentum and suspense on their side. At time of writing, only three matches have been confirmed for this week\u2019s show. Expectations remain high as AEW started 2025 with strong performances and story developments across two weekly shows. It feels like AEW is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4960,"featured_media":131405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4677,6,2192],"tags":[4133,5730,8545,1162,9042,4909,2423],"class_list":["post-131360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aew","category-north-america","category-wrestling","tag-aew","tag-aew-dynamite","tag-aew-international-championship","tag-deonna-purrazzo","tag-harley-cameron","tag-konosuke-takeshita","tag-orange-cassidy"],"modified_by":"Chinyere Okafor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131360"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131406,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131360\/revisions\/131406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}