8 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (8 Dec)

4. Silver Gets His Head Kicked In

The final chapter of Bryan Danielson's campaign to kick The Dark Order's heads in was the most compelling, with John Silver showing greater fight than his peers in front of his hometown crowd.

Silver scored enough offense to shine without diminishing Danielson in any way. He flexed on Bryan early, countered a dive into a sitout powerbomb, and traded kicks with the best wrestler on the planet in the middle of the ring. Having endured a literally head-kicking that concluded with a knee drop while his skull was dropped over the edge of the apron, he came back into late on, cannonballing Danielson and working towards the Spin Doctor before getting outwitted.

Death came for Silver via trapped head strikes, a Gotch Style Piledriver, and a modified crossface, causing John to pass out. Danielson, as always, was excessively violent in the way he put Silver down. The piledriver was enough. The post-match stomps? Overkill, but that's the point.

'Hangman' Adam Page ran down for the save, promising to kick the cowboy sh*t out of Danielson as Dynamite went off the air. Next week, we get the first true test of his short AEW World Title reign.