I Was There: AEW Dynamite Cleveland

By Ryan Joy
Updated: January 31, 2020
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Chapter 1

Event

Show #1: AEW Dynamite
Location: Cleveland State University Wolstein Center
Date: January 29th
Headline: Santana, Ortiz, and Chris Jericho vs. Darby Allin and Private Party
Miles from Home: 385 Miles
Ticket:

“Is there something left for me to save
In the wreckage of my life, my life” – Jericho

On December 20th, I left the comfort of my high paying corporate job to find out if I could make a life doing things I love and not just the things I need to do to get a paycheck. I am looking for the piece of me worth saving in the “wreckage of my life.” In order for me to save myself, I needed to examine who I am. What makes me. . . me? To the surprise of all my co-workers and pretty much none of my friends and family, a big chunk of what makes me . . . me . . . is my fandom of pro wrestling. With that in mind, I set out to spend at least one year deeply studying my passion.

My website, Minutes to Bell Time, is a love letter to Pro Wrestling. The “I Was There” series represents the quality time I’m spending to sift through the wreckage of my life.

“Everyone I’ve ever loved, I pushed them all away” – Jericho

My cousin and I have followed the AEW revolution pretty much from the beginning, and Pro Wrestling has given us a shared passion. We went to All Out in Chicago, the debut episode of Dynamite in Washington D.C., and the week three episode of Dynamite in Philadelphia. He also went to the week two episode in Boston, the Full Gear PPV in Baltimore, and the New Years Day episode in Jacksonville (the corporate job got in my way of these shows). When AEW announced the Cleveland date, we agreed to make the town together. I live in Annapolis, MD and he lives in Rochester, NY. I drove to Rochester, so we could ride together to Cleveland. This doesn’t make sense:

Driving: What I Could have Done:

Annapolis to Cleveland (5.5 Hours) + Cleveland to Annapolis (5.5 Hours) = 11 Hours Roundtrip.

Driving: What I Did

Annapolis to Rochester (6 Hours) + Rochester to Cleveland (4 Hours) + Cleveland to Rochester (4 Hours) Rochester to Annapolis (6 Hours) = 20 Hours Roundtrip

In order to have the shared experience of doing the trip together, I doubled my trip. Considering I want to spend more time with friends and family during my internal exploration, the extra nine hours in the car simply represented the price of having the shared experience with my cousin. I left home in my truck with 1,890 Minutes (31.5 Hours) to Bell Time.

“Encircled by demons, I fight” – Jericho

The Nyla Rose and Big Swole match ended up being below average, but all the other matches were at least of average quality. None of the matches had future ramifications (no title shots or number one contender matches), but everything built toward the big Revolution Pay Per View in Chicago.

All of the interview work (both live and pre-taped) was excellent. Without speaking a word, the video where MJF delivered the Young Bucks bounty to Butcher, Blade and Bunny was awesome. The Jericho and Moxley altercation in the opening segment beats everything on the other shows.

A really terrific first show of the year.

AEW Dynamite Cleveland Results:

AEW Dynamite Cleveland Links

Recommendations

Merchandise: AEW shows often feature merchandise specific to the city. You need to watch for this. I have a Maryland and Washington D.C. specific SCU “Worse Town” shirt. At Wolstein in Cleveland, I only saw one very long merchandise line and no Cleveland-specific gear. The long lines also typically appear at AEW shows. If you want to buy merchandise, I recommend that you arrive when doors open and go straight to the merchandise table.
Getting In and Out/Parking: We made it to Cleveland at 5PM and had no traffic issues at all. Prior to the show, we ate at the Winking Lizard (811 Huron Rd E, Cleveland, OH 44115) and parked at the surface lot on Huron Street across from The Fieldhouse. From here, we only walked about 10 minutes to Wolstein. We did walk by a few lots that could have saved us $2-3, but we found that getting in/out of the city was super easy from where we parked.