Looks like Don Callis has already picked out Will Ospreay’s replacement

AEW World champion Swerve Strickland and his Forbidden Door challenger Will Ospreay turned up the heat on an already hot program with a strong promo segment on the June 19 Dynamite.

It contrasted the two old friends paths to next Sunday’s match, including a very good line from Bruv referencing Swerve’s time as Isaiah Scott in WWE (“while you had a Hit Row, I had a hit list — and I didn’t miss one of ‘em”). It also refreshed our memories on their recent pasts, with Strickland reminding us he’s currently friend-less in AEW to get Ospreay to say he doesn’t need The Don Callis Family to take the belt from Swerve and head to the main event of All In at Wembley Stadium. We also got talk about Will’s vow not to use the Tiger Driver ‘91, a decision Callis is absolutely not on board with.

Don & crew were watching all of this on a monitor backstage. He didn’t seem pleased, even before his newest recruit Trent Beretta started needling him about Ospreay downplaying The Family’s importance to his success and future prospects. Only Ospreay’s old United Empire mate Kyle Fletcher didn’t seem to be buying Callis assurance that everything would be fine.

Probably because Fletcher knows first hand that The Jackal is full of $#!+. And it certainly looks like he’s right, because later we saw Callis approaching RUSH about an “oportunidad” while the Mexican star was stewing over his show-opening loss to MJF.

A split between Ospreay and The Callis Family has been a long-time coming, and could create some interesting storytelling wrinkles for the next few months in the AEW World and International title scenes. It also makes sense for El Toro Blanco, who’s over with the AEW faithful even with limited promo ability. With Don doing the talking, RUSH could become a staple of the title scenes himself.

Of course, we thought the same thing about Konosuke Takeshita. But we’ll stay optimistic (and also remind ourselves that Takeshita is headed for the G1 Climax on July 20, so things aren’t that bad on that front, either).

Let us know what you make of Don Callis’ latest machinations in the comments below. And on your way down there, check out the rest of the highlights from last night’s Dynamite — including MJF vs. RUSH & the entire Swerve/Ospreay war of words — in the following playlist:

• MJF & RUSH in a BRUTAL BATTLE to kick off Dynamite!
• AEW World Champ Swerve & International Champ Will Ospreay FACE-TO-FACE!
• ALL STAR 8-Man! Cassidy, Briscoe, O’Reilly, Martin vs ZSJ, Strong, & Callis Family!
• AEW Tag Champs, Young Bucks, & The Acclaimed clash in a title eliminator!
• Match SET! AEW Women’s champ, Toni Storm, & Mina Shirakawa sign the contract!
• Kris Statlander vs Nyla Rose kicks off the 3rd Annual Owen Hart Tournament!
• Daniel Garcia makes his case for an AEW International Title Shot!
• Claudio Castagnoli vs PAC in the first round of the Owen Hart Tournament!

For complete results from Dynamite, click here. To read a recap & review of the show, click here.