Every Special Episode Of AEW Dynamite In 2020, Ranked
Emma Terry 
The weekly flagship show of All Elite Wrestling, AEW Dynamite has only been on television since the fall of 2019, but it’s already proven to be the talk of the wrestling world. It causes fans to debate weekly how the so-called “Wednesday Night Wars” against NXT are going.
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It has even affected the competition -- ever since Dynamite started doing special episodes like Fyter Fest or Bash at the Beach, NXT has followed suit with themed editions like The Great American Bash. In 2020, AEW aired nine special episodes of Dynamite in this fashion. Not all of them were significant or great, but some of them were legitimately awesome installments with huge matches that delivered. Let’s look at all of them, starting with the worst one.
Editor's note: this article was written prior to the passing of Brodie Lee and AEW's beautiful tribute episode. Due to the unique nature of the special and the larger tragedy of the beloved Jon Huber passing, this will be excluded from this discussion.
9 Anniversary Edition (1/8/2020)
AEW’s January 2020 was overstuffed with special episodes, with the New Year’s Day “Homecoming Edition” being followed by the “Anniversary Edition” of Dynamite, celebrating the day All Elite Wrestling officially announced its existence via a press conference.
While not a bad show by any stretch, the episode was just one of the promotion’s weaker efforts with decent matches but not enough spark to really excite fans.
8 Late Night Dynamite (9/10/2020)
Late Night Dynamite was a special extra episode of the show, which aired on a Tuesday night after an NBA Playoff game concluded. It was only an hour-long edition, offering AEW fans a little extra wrestling for the week and showing off some of the promotion’s talent.
It wasn’t a particularly strong episode thanks to some less-than-stellar matches, but there was a standout bout between Scorpio Sky and British high flyer Ben Carter, who signed to WWE soon after this match.
7 Anniversary Show (10/14/2020)
If you include the episode where Chris Jericho celebrated his third decade in pro wrestling, there were actually THREE anniversary episodes of Dynamite in 2020. But the Jericho episode didn’t wasn’t really pushed as a special episode in the same way, so only two were included on this list.
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This show, celebrating one year of AEW Dynamite, was much better than the anniversary episode they did back in January. The selling point was that all of AEW’s titles were on the line, resulting in some strong matches.
6 Fight for the Fallen (7/15/2020)
In 2019, Fight for the Fallen was a free PPV over the summer, but now that AEW has a weekly show they just made it a special episode. True of AEW’s best special episodes, Fight for the Fallen had big, really great matches, including Jon Moxley defending the World Title against Brian Cage and Sonny Kiss challenging Cody Rhodes for the TNT Championship.
But the show-stealer here was the six-man tag between The Elite and Jurassic Express, which was a ridiculously fun affair.
5 Fyter Fest - Night 2 (7/8/2020)
Like Fight for the Fallen, Fyter Fest was also a free PPV that happened in the summer of 2019. While some fans balked at AEW sticking with the increasingly dated Fyre Festival parody theme, the episode itself was anything but a disaster, climaxing with the hyped first encounter between Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy.
There were also some great tag matches on this show like a wild eight-man tag featuring The Young Bucks and FTR, as well as Private Party taking on Adam Page and Kenny Omega for the Tag Titles.
4 Bash at the Beach (1/15/2020)
The special WCW throwback Bash at the Beach episode of Dynamite opened real strong, with Kenny Omega and Adam Page becoming #1 Contenders to the Tag belts in an exciting four-way match. It ended strong as well thanks to a solid first-time-ever bout between PAC and Darby Allin.
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One of the big moments of this episode was the infamous segment where Chris Jericho stabbed Jon Moxley in the eye with a spike, leading to a great moment at Revolution months later.
3 Fyter Fest - Night 1 (7/1/2020)
While Night 2 of Fyter Fest had that major Jericho/Cassidy match, Night 1 had an overall consistently great card. After all, it opened with Jurassic Express vs. MJF and Wardlow and ended with a Kenny Omega/Adam Page title defense that advanced the increasing tensions among Adam Page, FTR, and Kenny Omega.
But there’s also an underrated Women’s World Title match between Hikaru Shida and challenger Penelope Ford that was Ford’s best AEW match to date.
2 Homecoming Edition (1/1/2020)
After taking a week off for Christmas, Dynamite came back incredibly strong with its New Year’s Day episode, presented as a special “Homecoming Edition.” This episode offered another solid installment of the Cody Rhodes/Darby Allin rivalry, a great Women’s World Title four-way, and a ridiculously fun main event as The Elite took on The Lucha Brothers and PAC.
Given how good this episode was, it’s difficult to imagine that there were better episodes in 2020, but there are.
1 Winter is Coming (12/2/2020)
AEW touted Winter is Coming as their biggest episode of Dynamite ever, and most fans would agree that it delivered. While the undercard of the show is pretty good, including a fun Battle Royal to determine who gets the Dynamite Diamond ring next and the surprise debut of Sting, the main event is what puts this show at the top for many fans.
Rather than save the bout for the Revolution PPV, AEW decided to run the Kenny Omega/Jon Moxley AEW World Title match on TV for free instead. The result was a strong main event with an ending that shocked the world, not to mention a fallout that is still developing in the wrestling world.
