Jay White Turns Heel, Aligns With The Dogs on Dynamite

AEW Dynamite delivered a major turn this week as Jay White and the Bang Bang Gang threw in with David Finlay and Clark Connors’ The Dogs, setting up what looks like a new heel supergroup aimed squarely at Jon Moxley and the Death Riders.

The chaos kicked off after Moxley beat Roderick Strong in a match where a submission win would have earned Strong a future shot at Moxley’s AEW Continental Championship. Instead of celebrating, Strong was jumped after the bell by Finlay and Connors. Moxley rushed back out to make the save, only to get caught up in the beatdown himself. Gabe Kidd tried to even the odds next and was also taken down by The Dogs.

That’s when things got interesting. Jay White, Orange Cassidy, and Kyle O’Reilly — with White and Cassidy having teamed together earlier in the same show — ran out as the next wave of would-be saviors. But instead of helping clean house, White turned on Cassidy, planting him with his finisher in full view of the crowd. It was about as unambiguous a heel turn as professional wrestling allows, and it instantly made clear that White, the Bang Bang Gang, and The Dogs are now operating as one unit.

The lone bright spot for the fallen babyfaces was Claudio Castagnoli, who refused to go down easily and absorbed multiple rounds of attack before finally being overwhelmed. It was a nice showcase for Claudio’s power and durability, even in a losing effort, and a reminder that he remains one of the toughest outs on the roster regardless of numbers.

By the time the dust settled, Moxley and the Death Riders were left laid out — but, notably, fully repositioned as babyfaces in the eyes of the crowd. That’s a significant shift for a faction that built its entire identity on menace and villainy. Pairing that reaction with the involvement of O’Reilly, Cassidy, and Strong in the fallout hints that AEW may be building toward some kind of organized resistance to counter the new White-led alliance, even if the exact lineup hasn’t been spelled out yet.

The most obvious thread to pull going forward is Jay White versus Jon Moxley. Moxley still holds the Continental Championship, and White aligning himself with two heavy-hitting units in the Bang Bang Gang and The Dogs looks like a calculated move to put himself in position for a title shot — with plenty of muscle behind him to make sure nothing stands in the way.

With so many moving pieces now in play — a reinvented Death Riders playing defense, a freshly assembled heel faction with championship ambitions, and a handful of former rivals suddenly on the same side — AEW has set up a storyline with real room to grow. How quickly a formal babyface grouping forms around Moxley, and how fast White presses his advantage toward a title opportunity, will be worth watching in the weeks ahead.