AEW has a new dominant group on the rise. After their debut on AEW Dynamite last week, The Dogs — Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors, and David Finlay — aren’t here to fool around. As has always been their mantra, they’re in AEW to “stack bodies and win gold.”
Kidd has been in AEW on-and-off over the last year, joining up with The Death Riders for a common goal. Connors has made appearances since 2022, including at AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door last year, teaming with Drilla Moloney and Robbie X on the pay-per-view. They’ve both had a heightened presence in the last few weeks, which we now know is because of the debut of Finlay. The former leader of the Bullet Club turned War Dogs has been the talk of the town since his free agency began. He’s spent years in New Japan Pro-Wrestling cementing himself as a star, and now he’s ready to take that global in AEW.
Reports of a WWE offer were circulating before his signing, but Finlay seems confident in his decision to align with AEW.
“Obviously, I got family ties, but I haven’t made a single dime with my brother. I haven’t made a single dime. I have almost paid off a house with the War Dogs. And now we’ve dropped the war because we don’t want to give New Japan any more money. We’ve given them enough money. I want to be with my boys. I want to be with the guys that, you know, we’re stacking fat bags of cash.
Kidd chimes in, “The Japanese Prime Minister should thank us. The reason that the Japanese economy isn’t worse than it already is.is because we were selling so much merch. So it’s game over.”
Kidd was positioned as NJPW’s next top gaijin after the company became a revolving door for foreigners. At NJPW New Beginning, Kidd made comments backstage about leaving Japan to explore his other options. This upset wrestling fans in Japan who have supported Kidd’s career. But will he be back at some point?
“You know, you’re asking, first of all, you’re asking me a question like I know the answer to that. Yo, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next 20 minutes. It could go off in here. So I am a madman, as I keep telling everyone. These people that are upset are the same people that stopped cheering me last year when I came to AEW with New Japan on my knee pad,” he said. “You know what I’m saying? So there is a possibility that I might deal with that, but I do not know. I am enjoying trying to end Darby Allin right now and making a statement and then going after whatever we want to do, doing whatever we want to do. We can do anything we want. I don’t think there’s really anybody that can stop us from doing what we want.”
But now that he’s got his crew in AEW, what about his honorary spot in The Death Riders as their mercenary?
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’ll say this. I’ll ride for Jon Moxley any day of the week. That’s when I came in last year and messed some serious people up. So I’ll ride for him any day of the week. And that group, that’s a group of dangerous individuals too. I bounce around; I do what I want when I want to do it. Whatever appeals to me the most. Right now, that’s bringing in the boys and ending Darby Allin, ending Orange Cassidy and taking their spots, frankly enough. We’re not coming here to just be a flash in the pan. We’re coming in to be on top for many, many years to come. Anybody that has a problem with that, you’ll get punched up every Wednesday and Saturday.”
Kidd has been deep in a feud with Darby Allin for months, and now he’s got Finlay and Connors to help squash the AEW originals.
“When you’re the new kid on the school yard, the first thing you do is you go up to the biggest, baddest dude in there. And realistically, like you just said, Orange Cassidy, Darby Allin, they are what people think about when you think of AEW. So when we come in, we want to make a statement and we’re doing just that. We’re going to break them in half,” Kidd passionately states.
“We’re going to bleed them dry, we’re going to bury them in the ground, slap them silly and bite their heads off differently. You want to go straight for the throat and that’s exactly what we’re doing. I’ve said it time and time again, this ain’t over between me and Darby Allin until he’s pushing up daisies. I don’t think people understand the height of this situation here. So that’s what we do because we’re the best in the world. Ask anyone, don’t care. You know it, we know it. We are the best group in professional wrestling right now.”
Connors has gained the attention of a lot of AEW fans for his similar appearance to that of Hangman Adam Page. The country aesthetic, the slight alcoholism, it’s something he’s heard for years. However, Connors tells me he doesn’t see what everyone else sees.
“Dude, I’ve heard that for so many years. The thing is, I look at that guy and I think he’s a talented wrestler. But, dude, I am so much better. Everybody on this roster, I am the best-looking person you’ve ever met in real life. I will be honest with you, though, I might be good looking, but I would love to step toe-to-toe with him, too. I hope he wins the World Championship. Then we can see face-to-face who’s got the better face. There’s no problem in that ring. We’ll settle that. No problem.”
Speaking of championships, I ask what their goal is as a trio in AEW. Domination? Destruction? Trios belts? All of the above?
“Yeah, well, we did a pretty good job in Japan of collecting every championship we possibly could. There was two or three times where everyone had a championship. In Japan, the dynamic was a little bit different,” Finlay says. “I was the leader. But everybody knows in war, if you want to kill the leader, or if you want to win the war, you got to kill the leader. That’s much harder to do if everyone’s equal. So, if you want to kill us, you got to kill all of us. Until you do that, we’ll be collecting every single piece of gold we can. We will be stacking bodies left, right, and center.”
“And money,” Kidd adds.
“We’re never done evolving. The game changes and we change with it. Matter of fact, we changed the game. People are going to have their opinions and quite frankly, I could not care less. I’m a fourth-generation wrestler. Wrestling is my blood. I’m a mastermind when it comes to navigating this business. People can say what they want. I never cared, never will care. I’m going to just keep doing my thing and keep being successful.”
“We walk around backstage and I can see everybody back there turns their heads to look at us. They want to be us,” Connors says. “So at any time, we can make that decision between the three of us and if there’s more room in The Dogs, we can always make it. You never know who’s going to be around, who can join up. We’re a dangerous faction. We bring death, we bring bodies, and we’re taking gold home, baby.
“There’s never not going to be a time when we are not evolving. It’s only going to get better. You think we’re going to end up like the Good Brothers or something? A cosplay act, are you mad? And we’ll slap them up too,” Kidd adds. “Anyone can get it. It brings us joy to smash people’s heads in. It’s ridiculous. So it’s game over for all these chumps.”
“By the way, don’t forget, we still got connections in Japan, if you know what I’m saying,” Connors teases.
Catch The Dogs on AEW Dynamite tonight, March 12th, at 8 p.m. EST on TBS and streaming simulcast on HBO Max.
The post David Finlay and The Dogs Have Two AEW Goals: Stack Bodies and Win Gold appeared first on VICE.
