AEW Dynamite recap for Oct. 30, 2019: Clash of the titans
By Paul Bradley
The Arrival of the Artisan
A match that was not announced coming into this week’s episode pitted two debuting talents against one another as Shanna, making her AEW debut, takes on Hikaru Shida, who is making her Dynamite debut.
The match starts out with a feeling-out process as Shanna looked to be able to map out Shida’s strike patterns. Shanna eats a hard kick early and retreats to the floor but Shida meets her outside, sets up a chair and runs off it to propel herself into Shanna with a nasty knee strike.
Shida focuses in on Shanna’s back with a backbreaker and a barrage of kicks as Shanna attempts to fight back.
Back from commercial, Shanna hits a brutal double diving stomp onto Shida who is in the Tree of Woe position. Shanna looks to have turned the tide but Shida hits a devastating Beach Break and brings Shanna up onto the ropes for a superplex.
Shida goes for a kick on the downed Shanna but gets countered into a schoolboy pin which gets a very close two count. Shanna gets another super-close two count before getting hit with a knee strike from Shida, who then hits a Falcon Arrow and her patented Ōhōri no Tamashii knee strike for the win to gain the victory.
A great match that introduced Shida perfectly to the Dynamite audience. Shanna also looked quite good here and many fans afterwards seemed to hope she would be working with AEW more in the future.