AEW TV 2025 Discussion

[The King of Old School]

The Ospreay not challenging for the belt stip certainly makes the crowning at All In 2026 at Wembley seem inevitble.

I could see them going from Hangman to MJF at some point in early 2026 and have have Ospreay vs MJF for the belt at Wembley.

I do like the idea of a Ospreay/Swerve vs Hurts programme though later this year.

[LaGoosh]

3 hours ago, Duke said:

Everything seems to be leading to JetSpeed, who are repeatedly proving to not be on the Hurts level, getting the shot. If you had any interest, Dynamite hammered the point home again. What massive geeks. They started the fight and then lost. Over and over again. Keep getting up all you like guys, you're not getting any offence in. 

I liked the angle. In kayfabe it makes perfect sense that the Hurt Syndicate would hammer them. They are much bigger and stronger and JetSpeed are both injured. But refusing to stay down shows that while they are smaller they are tough, can handle a beating and still stay in the game. They're not going to win the tag titles but it's a perfectly decent angle/story and made everyone involved look good, in my opinion.

[RedTwoster]

16 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I liked the angle. In kayfabe it makes perfect sense that the Hurt Syndicate would hammer them. They are much bigger and stronger and JetSpeed are both injured. But refusing to stay down shows that while they are smaller they are tough, can handle a beating and still stay in the game. They're not going to win the tag titles but it's a perfectly decent angle/story and made everyone involved look good, in my opinion.

I agree. Underdog stories can work really well, and you don’t necessarily have to believe before the match that they can win - as long as they can convince you during the match that it might happen. Similar circumstances led to Kofimania and The Acclaimed winning the tag belts - and you could also point to Moxley/Yuta and Bryan/Santino in the chamber as examples of just how effective it can be. There’s every chance Knight and Bailey leave this match feeling like much bigger stars - with real demand for them to win the belts in the future. 
 

[Guest]

You can do underdog stories well, but this was not that. They were injured, yes, but they were injured by the Hurts, and they didn't keep coming, they kept getting left for dead and getting up, long after it mattered. The announcers were even talking about how they must be out of their minds to challenge the Hurts. It wasn't Jeff Hardy against the Undertaker here, it wasn't even Private Party vs the Bucks it was an absolute demolition, and the crowd reaction showed it. If they'd got offence in every beatdown, if they'd not started a fair fight and been obliterated, maybe it could've worked, but the whole build has been them getting smashed, so I doubt it. 

[Kamran]

12 hours ago, Duke said:

That's actually the fourth thing. The phrase "firing on all cylinders" has been thrown around with impunity, but the cylinder marked "tag team champions" isn't even sputtering. It's collapsing in on itself. The cylinder marked "trios" seems to have completely fallen off the car, too, but it's several miles back, and tags seems to be a bigger issue. I keep expecting a swerve. That a different tag team, some sort of mega power, is going to come out and challenge the Hurts. Maybe all of Christians talk about Nick is going to lead to a swerve where he actually brings out Copeland, or something. And it keeps not happening. Everything seems to be leading to JetSpeed, who are repeatedly proving to not be on the Hurts level, getting the shot. If you had any interest, Dynamite hammered the point home again. What massive geeks. They started the fight and then lost. Over and over again. Keep getting up all you like guys, you're not getting any offence in. 

Kevin Knight has to beat Shelton on Collision, surely? I don't expect it though. I expect Shelton to beat him up. Is this another WWE guy thinking they're too big for the territory thing? Neither guy has had that issue before, have they?

 

11 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

I don’t think he will - Knight has to win for the story to have any intrigue to it. If it were Lashley I’d feel differently, but I’d be amazed if they put Shelton over here. We’ll see, though. 

I expect Hurt Syndicate to retain, however - with Edge/Christian and possibly Ospreay/Strickland kicking about, there are potentially some really exciting matches ahead.

They've changed the match to a 3-way on Collision:

Looks like it could end up as a 3-way at All In with The Hurts, Jet Speed and Christian/Nick,. Although I still think there is a chance of it being a 4-way with Big Bill/Bryan Keith too as they've been regularly talking about going after the titles. 

[Guest]

Gee, I wonder what Nick Wayne's role in that match will be. 

 

Quote

You can do underdog stories well, but this was not that. They were injured, yes, but they were injured by the Hurts, and they didn't keep coming, they kept getting left for dead and getting up, long after it mattered. The announcers were even talking about how they must be out of their minds to challenge the Hurts. It wasn't Jeff Hardy against the Undertaker here, it wasn't even Private Party vs the Bucks it was an absolute demolition, and the crowd reaction showed it. If they'd got offence in every beatdown, if they'd not started a fair fight and been obliterated, maybe it could've worked, but the whole build has been them getting smashed, so I doubt it. 

Quoting myself because listening to a review of the show, they did the exact same thing with Hangman earlier in the show, but did it properly!

Edited July 4, 2025 by Duke

[LaGoosh]

That four way was a match of two halves. One half (MJF and Brody King) doing excellent work. The other (AR Fox/Anthony Bowens) doing not very good work at all.

I think the Hurt Syndicate stuff has really revitalised MJF and I'm definitely enjoying him a lot more recently.

King is fantastic and seems to be getting better and better every time he's out there - he could be a pretty big star for them. I'm not sure what his ceiling is but giving him the TNT title and building Collision around him feels like a good idea to me.

AR Fox is a guy I'm not a huge fan of. He does some cool stuff but the problem with only being able to do cool stuff is that if you mess any of it up it just highlights how little else you have to offer. He was flubbing his spots left, right and centre here - he was embarrassing.

Bowens has problems too but he can fix them if he wants to. At the moment it just seems like he doesn't know who he is. He's overloaded with gimmicks but there's so many that none of them mean anything. He's got the big song. The weird chest thing. He's the 5 Tool Player. He's the Pride of Pro Wrestling. He still does the scissors. He has a finishing move called the Wolly Wop or something? He shouts a lot in his promos. There's a lot going on here but it's all adding up to very little. He just needs to pick the one thing and go all in on it. Outside of the ring he comes across as a very natural and likeable person who is easy to root for - he needs to just channel his natural self. He's covering himself with a lot of pro wrestling gimmickery when he doesn't need it. It's like he's not confident enough to just be himself.

[tiger_rick]

I like the cute little shout out to Benjamin that "Yo Momma must have taught you how to fight". It's a nice layered little line. You don't need any knowledge to understand it as an insult. But if you remember Shelton's Momma on TV, it's even funnier. I liked that.

Agree with lots of points made. The tag titles are a bit meh. I think I'd rather Shelton and Bobby just ran through someone every week, with a made-up story that MVP is selling titles shots for £50k or something. It's all just business. Trying to make PPV challengers out of the rubbish they are is false economy. Though, to be fair to TK, he gets slagged for not using guys, he strikes while the iron is hot with Knight and Bailey and he still gets a slagging, from me, anyway, because they're a rubbish act. 

The trios titles are in an odd place. They're on an act who could defend them every week on Collision at least. It's easy to make a trio from any of their stables, a tag team and a mate or just three odd guys. They've got 700 people who can lose. They could bring in people from Joe's past for one-offs. They can use Mexicans or borrow some Japanese talent. Seems easy and wouldn't stop them using the lads to piss off the Death Riders on Dynamite angles. It's not the end of the world, the belts are a bit of a WOT but still easily resolvable.

Love everything about Hangman at the moment. Knew Shafir was getting it. What brilliant use of her for months to build to that one moment. I don't love man on woman violence but I think in a sports context, if you've built her as a particularly tough woman who scares other men, it works. 

300 episodes of Dynamite. Where on earth did the last 6 years go? 

[JLM]

I am this close to the entranceway for EVE. May faint when Statlander walks past. Pray for me. 

[DEF]

Re the Shafir spot. I feel uncomfortable with it however my 15 year old daughter loved it. She A) thinks that men and women not being equal in the ring is bullshit. B) thinks that Shafir deserved it because she's the bad guy and repeatedly slapped the the good guy and doesn't see them differently because of their gender.

If it were me I wouldn't do it because it makes me very uncomfortable. Particularly as it's a predominantly male audience cheering for a babyface doing it.  But I can see her perspective she very simply feels like she and women's wrestlers are equal to men.

 

Re the stip in the Bucks and Swervespray. I absolutely loved it. I fully expected to eye roll the crap out of them putting up their careers. One year no challenge stip is actually very, very believable and totally ups the stakes of the match. Either stips now could genuinely pan out.

[gaz2050]

Yeah, I thought the stip, was really clever. It's one that makes it so the winner isn't clear, and I'm probably thinking way too much into it but I thought Swerves reluctancy was because he thought Hangman would be winning and would obviously want to challenge him as soon as possible. Not sure if they'll tie that together but it's just another great storyline that can intertwine.

[JLM]

 

 

 

Eleven stars best show ever. 

Edited July 4, 2025 by JLM

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

To quote Toni Storm ‘What a woman!!!’

[Kamran]

Scheduled for Collision tonight:

[Supremo]

Trust Hangman to even use jazzy shirts to tell subtextual stories. Seems his choice of clobber the past two weeks was very deliberate.

“And so Hangman Page finds himself leaping from shirt to shirt, striving to put right what once went wrong…”

”..hoping each time that the next shirt will be the shirt…home.”

Excellent episode of Dynamite. A perfect mix of great matches, super effective promos and fun skits.

Loved the opening segment. I can understand why people wouldn’t like Hangman hitting Marina with The Buckshot, but I didn’t have a problem with it. It seems silly to say it, but they put the work in and earned it. You can tell loads of thought has gone into it beyond, “ whooo! Stone Cold giving Chyna a Stunner! Let’s cheer men hitting women!”

They’ve spent a few weeks having intergender matches, Marina and The Death Riders have been successfully built up as a shower of bastards, and Hangman’s proven to be such a good egg (still adore that he always calls it The Men’s World Title, ensuring The Women’s World Title is of equal importance) that you accept he wouldn’t normally be hitting women.

If anything, it wasn’t even the act of clotheslining Marina that sold the madness. It was the way the camera cut to him already flying through the air, upside down. Picture perfect. Completely sold what a complete lunatic Mox is messing with. Hangman Adam Page is the best character in pro-wrestling history. I love that in turning babyface they didn’t do the usual Men In Black memory eraser. It’s all one, continuous arc. Everything that came before it still counts and informs what the character will do or say. He’s a goodie now, but he’s still fucking nuts. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if he sets Mox’s house on fire next week.

I need more Young Bucks vignettes of them driving around towns, being daft pricks. Best use of them in years.

It was a bit wonky in how they announced it, but I like the added stipulation of Ospreay and Swerve being unable to fight for the World Title. It makes it far more unpredictable which team will win and I actually quite like the idea of Ospreay and Swerve losing and Swerve’s frustration leading to an eventual feud between the two.

Wouldn’t be against some more Trios matches with The Young Bucks and Takeshita as a team. That ruled.

Low point of the show was the Jet Speed angle. You could see what they were trying to do, but when a far more beloved character in Hangman is doing the exact same, “you’re going to have to kill me!” storyline on the same show, it just makes them look like geeks. For as much as AEW has improved, there still seems to be this disjointed nature, where agents don’t talk to each other.

Shockingly enjoyable Main Event. 2025 being the year of dreams for an AEW fan continues. Kota Ibushi seemingly spent the last year or so necking Rey Mysterio’s stem cells. He looked great! Not G1 or WrestleKingdom Kota Ibushi, but completely acceptable North American TV Wrestler Kota Ibushi. I’m now allowing myself to imagine some Fantasy Matches. Him tagging with Kenny against The Bucks might actually deliver, now!

Bang up for All In. Already bought it on Triller. Gonna get a multi-pack of Wagon Wheels in. It’s Cowboy Time!

Edited July 5, 2025 by Supremo