AEW TV 2025 Discussion

[LaGoosh]

Good Collision that. A good wrestling B-show is basically my favourite thing to watch so you'll get few complaints from me after watching that show.

HOWEVER a few complaints:

- Announcing Eddie Kingston's return (something fans are desperate to see) via a random challenge hidden away on Collision from Big Bill of all people is very weird. Also weird that they would seemingly feed Big Bill to Kingston as his first opponent back from injury. Kingston's return should be on Dynamite immediately getting in the faces of the top stars.

- Kyle Fletcher's entrance music is absolutely terrible. I am a huge fan of Fletcher and think he might very well be the future of the business but character/promo wise he's not quite there yet. He's just missing that hook. Whether they wait for him to find it before they push him to the moon or whether they just decide to take a chance on him will be interesting to see. Kind of reminds me of Triple H in summer of 1999 where they gave him the top push, the title and threw all the bells and whistles at him to get him over even though he wasn't ready and was pretty terrible, luckily he managed to get where they needed him to be by the end of the year/early 2000. I'm not sure who Fletcher's Cactus Jack can be though - a big Eddie Kingston feud would do wonders for him I think.

- At the right place and at the right time I don't mind the occasional bit of Roderick Strong. However now whenever he turns up I start grinning because I'm just imagining @RedTwoster absolutely raging as soon as he pops up on screen.

- In classic AEW fashion Wardlow returned and has immediately vanished with no mention of it.

Great show though. The Mox/Garcia match was excellent and I'm loving this storyline. Garcia's promo after was perfect. He hit the "when I get knocked down, I get back up" usual crowd pleasing stuff but it felt like he was trying to convince himself and that he didn't really believe that anymore. Garcia is a great character and I hope renewed push number 26 leads to something long term with him.

EDIT: also worth mentioning that FTR are on their best run ever right now. I've always loved them but they're stepping it up even more now. Great match this week. Especially loved how brutal they were - just absolutely clobbering these two guys. 

Edited September 8, 2025 by LaGoosh

[Slapnut]

I really really don’t see what everybody else sees in Kyle Fletcher unfortunately. There are few in AEW who make my interest in the show vanish entirely more than he does. He is to me what Roderick Strong is to @RedTwoster.

Maybe I’ll see it eventually but for now he’s nowhere near interesting enough. AEW’s Austin Theory.

[LaGoosh]

2 hours ago, Slapnut said:

I really really don’t see what everybody else sees in Kyle Fletcher unfortunately.

To me it's his ring work. He's one of the very few wrestlers around these days who wrestles like a true heel - he cowers, backs off, always goes for the cheap and easy shortcuts, slows things down for maximum heat, is great at cutting off babyfaces, is violent and nasty on offence and a pathetic worm when things aren't going his way. In an era where most heels still want to look cool Fletcher utilises every possible moment to get heel heat. It's why his matches usually have really hot crowds and get the right reactions with genuine emotion rather than "this is awesome" and "fight forever". 

Chartacter/personality wise he definitely needs some work and fine tuning but he's a rough diamond. If he can close those gaps he could be an all timer.

[tiger_rick]

Completely agree on the ring work. I wasn't sure about Fletcher for a long time, even into last year's C2. His promos are average and there wasn't a lot of substance behind his character but I think the association with Callis and his outstanding heel work in the ring have really grown this year to the point that he was the obvious choice to put the TNT Title on as a really strong heel with loads of room to keep growing who has matches that are of interest every single time. 

I really dislike him, for the right reasons.

His promos are still really irritating though. Fucking Aussies.

[organizedkaos]

4 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

- At the right place and at the right time I don't mind the occasional bit of Roderick Strong. However now whenever he turns up I start grinning because I'm just imagining @RedTwoster absolutely raging as soon as he pops up on screen.

I just can't work out what the intent here is. He was never that great at promos but the one on Collision was pretty much at the level of "The Room" in terms of delivery. The shouting of the name is a little annoying but can stay, i'm just not sure if he's supposed to be a comedy character who's has deliberately shocking delivery or if he's just not very good at what he's going for.

Affected stuff is fine, Kyle O'Reilly sounds like a person playing make believe but it sort of works for his goofy "make a joke so mum and dad don't get a divorce" vibe. Roderick Strong sounds like a side character in a late era David Lynch film has been pushed into a well and now must navigate the real world

[Chili]

I turned a corner on Kyle O'Reilly last year because they actually got him away from dullard Strong. I'm glad in a way he's still semi associated with The Conglomeration because last year seeing him being a bit more relaxed and quite goofy (holding Mark Briscoe's ROH title like it was a baby etc) was genuinely great because it proved me wrong. Honestly no idea what you do with Strong, except hide him in a cupboard for @RedTwoster sake. He's gonna Elvis his TV one week.

[HarmonicGenerator]

21 minutes ago, Chili said:

I turned a corner on Kyle O'Reilly last year because they actually got him away from dullard Strong. I'm glad in a way he's still semi associated with The Conglomeration because last year seeing him being a bit more relaxed and quite goofy (holding Mark Briscoe's ROH title like it was a baby etc) was genuinely great because it proved me wrong. Honestly no idea what you do with Strong, except hide him in a cupboard for @RedTwoster sake. He's gonna Elvis his TV one week.

I just got a genuine jolt of dread at the idea that they might bring The Kingdom back in, and team them with Strong against Kyle and the Conglomeration. Legitimate shudder.

Maybe Roddy turns out to be behind the Clone-Hologram mask. It's an El Grande Americano rip-off, but that doesn't matter if you don't watch WWE! Could be fun.

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, organizedkaos said:

Affected stuff is fine, Kyle O'Reilly sounds like a person playing make believe but it sort of works for his goofy "make a joke so mum and dad don't get a divorce" vibe. Roderick Strong sounds like a side character in a late era David Lynch film has been pushed into a well and now must navigate the real world

Fuck, this is a tremendous way of framing him, and being a fan of David Lynch it’s about as good a way as any of making me like Strong. Seriously well done for that, you briefly won me over. 

Then I remembered - it’s Roderick Strong, and as we saw on Hey EW, he’s completely humour-free and lacks the wit and nuance to make a weird gimmick like that work. But yeah, for a split second - maybe less than that - I considered there was some avant garde brilliance to the whole thing that I missed. 

5 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Announcing Eddie Kingston's return (something fans are desperate to see) via a random challenge hidden away on Collision from Big Bill of all people is very weird. Also weird that they would seemingly feed Big Bill to Kingston as his first opponent back from injury. Kingston's return should be on Dynamite immediately getting in the faces of the top stars.

One way of handling it and potentially moving Bill up the card would be for Kingston to completely ignore his challenge, returning against someone like Moxley or Fletcher, leading to Bill absolutely destroying him in a bitter and embarrassed rage. I think you could make that work, with Kingston’s logic being that he writes his own narrative as far as his return is concerned

5 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

EDIT: also worth mentioning that FTR are on their best run ever right now. I've always loved them but they're stepping it up even more now. Great match this week. Especially loved how brutal they were - just absolutely clobbering these two guys. 

I’m so glad that they stayed put and didn’t end up moving back to WWE when there was talk of that. They’re one of the biggest acts in AEW right now, and pretty much always have been - but there’s zero chance they’d have had that prominence in WWE. They’d be where DIY and the Motor City Machine Guns are. 

[Infinity Land]

4 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

One way of handling it and potentially moving Bill up the card would be for Kingston to completely ignore his challenge, returning against someone like Moxley or Fletcher, leading to Bill absolutely destroying him in a bitter and embarrassed rage. I think you could make that work, with Kingston’s logic being that he writes his own narrative as far as his return is concerned

There's only these Dynamite & Collision ECW Arena shows and then 3hr special next week. I'm just expecting a couple of weeks of Bill beating people and calling out Eddie to no response with the match being announced for All Out. Eddie's first appearance being in front of 10k people and then the clean slate to do whatever's next when back on TV. 

[RedTwoster]

2 minutes ago, Infinity Land said:

There's only these Dynamite & Collision ECW Arena shows and then 3hr special next week. I'm just expecting a couple of weeks of Bill beating people and calling out Eddie to no response with the match being announced for All Out. Eddie's first appearance being in front of 10k people and then the clean slate to do whatever's next when back on TV. 

I’d be OK with something like that - perhaps with them not even confirming  the match; just that Bill will be in ring, waiting for him to turn up for a fight. The more they can do to make his return feel special, the better. With Ospreay, Swerve and Omega out of action, Kingston has as good a chance as he ever has of breaking into the main event scene on a more permanent basis.

I’d be perfectly fine with a build up to him turning heel on Hangman - I’d love to see the two of them feud.

[BomberPat]

I'd prefer Eddie returning as a surprise to confront Moxley - I've laid out how I would see that storyline going a few times already - but I'm holding out hope that it's a double whammy; set up the match so that we know Eddie Kingston is coming back, and then still have him get involved in another angle later on the same show, or at the very least on the next one. But it's rare you see anyone in more than one or two segments on AEW TV, and wrestlers' storylines tend to be isolated, so it's not promising.

I don't think King becomes a main event act - he's 43, and we don't know how good he will be coming off an injury that's clearly been tough for him to come back from - but he should be the guy to keep the main event talent busy when they're not in the main event; there's a built-in programme with Moxley about how, in Eddie's absence, Mox happily teamed up not only with Eddie's arch-nemesis Claudio, but also with the man who put him on the shelf, Gabe Kidd. He could be the only person capable of cutting through the worst of MJF's material and actually making a feud with him exciting again. 

[RedTwoster]

4 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I'd prefer Eddie returning as a surprise to confront Moxley - I've laid out how I would see that storyline going a few times already - but I'm holding out hope that it's a double whammy; set up the match so that we know Eddie Kingston is coming back, and then still have him get involved in another angle later on the same show, or at the very least on the next one. But it's rare you see anyone in more than one or two segments on AEW TV, and wrestlers' storylines tend to be isolated, so it's not promising.

I don't think King becomes a main event act - he's 43, and we don't know how good he will be coming off an injury that's clearly been tough for him to come back from - but he should be the guy to keep the main event talent busy when they're not in the main event; there's a built-in programme with Moxley about how, in Eddie's absence, Mox happily teamed up not only with Eddie's arch-nemesis Claudio, but also with the man who put him on the shelf, Gabe Kidd. He could be the only person capable of cutting through the worst of MJF's material and actually making a feud with him exciting again. 

Given that Moxley is busy with Darby, I’d be surprised if they did that. But they could have him beat Bill, then call Moxley out on the Dynamite following.

Kingston’s longevity depends, as you say, on how affected he is by the injury. I don’t think he’d got a Hangman style run in him or anything like that, but I’d absolutely love to see him win the World title at some point - and I suspect there would be a lot of intrigue in having him do so. 

[tiger_rick]

Kingston should never win the world title. He's not that guy. Samoa Joe isn't either. He's already the low point for the title.

I love Eddie but it's above his ceiling. He should feud with Mox and then when he's seen the error of his ways, buddy up to finally win them fucking tag titles.

[organizedkaos]

I think unlike a Samoa Joe (who's great at promos but just can't be vunerable enough to sell such a thing) you can make a short Kingston main event/world title run work by the booking and story you tell. Kingston is (was pre injury) no slouch in the ring but the thing that makes him top tier is his promos and general ability to sell a story and the emotion around it. He's one of the few guys the AEW would accept in such a way if they can nail the booking of it. I don't think there are many people in AEW who could be seen as main event without having a few banger matches (i'm looking at you every big man people think could be pushed more) but Kingston can make most workrate pilled fan feel something

Eddie could sell you on the idea he's not got much left in him but to win the AEW world title, even for a night would be the most meaningful thing he could ever achieve in his career. It's not about becoming the top guy for a year it's about knowing that he was the top guy for a moment and he'll always be in the history books. He can sell that he wants that (because i'm p sure he does) and from there I think you genuinely could make the fans want that more than anything. I think you could make AEW's fan base care more about the champion being Eddie than they care about the champion putting on the best matches. I don't think there's anyone else you can do that with right now and it might not be a bad idea to try and do that now to have an idea how to do it again at another time...

I always thought Kingston/MJF could've been a big AEW feud given you're taking arguably two of the best promos and then juxtaposing these bold but very different characters to tell a story. Kingson the completely raw, blue collar, loveable schlub vs the over practised, affected, rich boy who is very in shape and looks like a superstar. Both are passionate and can sell their passion but in a completely different way. Kingston ending MJF's first run would've really been something.

[RedTwoster]

11 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

In classic AEW fashion Wardlow returned and has immediately vanished with no mention of it.

According the Fightful, he’s already suffered a torn pectoral muscle, meaning he’s out injured. Very unfortunate for him.