AEW TV 2025 Discussion

[JLM]

2 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

Lane had a great look and while she seemed a little green in ring, there’s definitely potential there. 

She was with WWE for seven years or so as Kayden Carter, debuted in 2016, has always been a little bit sloppy but also does go for quite ambitious stuff. 
 

I actually liked her tag team with Kacy Catanzaro (and not just because it had Kacy Catanzaro in it) in WWE. They had a crap gimmick and no chance to develop characters and they were in a deader than dead women’s tag division, so their main roster run amounted to very little unfortunately. Despite that I thought they were a fun tag team. Likeable undersized underdogs with some cool crowd pleasing moves. 

[gmoney]

Mostly excellent show in ring wise. Why was this 'Title' Tuesday though? They had one title match. Even the tag match was non title!

Darby is a good wrestler and is fantastic at taking big bumps in matches. I hate almost everything else about him. Shit music, shit look, bad promo, the videos they let him make for TV are always really bad concepts perfunctorily executed. I'd be more than happy to see him off of TV for a long time. Negative excitement for the I Quit match.

Did Moxley manage to bust Ishii's nose with one of his wack forearms? They look like arse and can still injure you. Classic combo. I will give Mox credit though, he's been in incredible shape recently. Lean as hell. 

The street fight was a lot of fun, the right side of chaotic. 

[tiger_rick]

7 minutes ago, gmoney said:

Mostly excellent show in ring wise. Why was this 'Title' Tuesday though? They had one title match. Even the tag match was non title!

Just the tag they use every time the show gets moved. Like if "Thursday Raw Thursday" had become an occasional thing! They definitely could have leaned into the gimmick though. Think there were 2 title matches, assuming Mercedes open challenge was for the belt?

[gmoney]

I forgot the TNT title, you're right. So two title matches. Still.

[mim731]

I assume they've canned those "Battle of the Belts" specials, because having those alongside "Title Tuesday" is very confusing. 

[BomberPat]

I thought this was a really odd Dynamite. It had all the faults of recent weeks, of feeling like wheels spinning in place but no forward momentum for anything, but with the added issue of it not being on its usual night, so them probably just writing it off as one not to bother with, as the ratings are going to suck regardless. Even with some new matches signed for Wrestledream, it felt like the most skippable Dynamite in months.

• Something I think AEW have always struggled with is forgetting about wrestlers when they're not on-screen. I don't need the Monday Night Wars thing of Stone Cold being in every other segment, or the commentators talking all over everyone else's match to tell us what Hulk Hogan will be up to later, but Hangman Page and Samoa Joe have a World Title match to sell, with very little build, and we got an in-ring promo at the start of the show and then we were left to forget all about it. Why not give them some other segments later in the show - Joe could have had a squash match to at least try and legitimise him as a singles threat again, or a backstage segment to show tension between him and Powerhouse Hobbs, Hangman could have been interviewed later in the show, anything, really.
   
• Why is the first time we're seeing Eddie Kingston on Dynamite, weeks after he returned, in a ten second pre-taped promo? Would it kill them to give him a live mic in front of an audience? Or to let him actually wrestle on the main show?
   
• Lacey Lane is good, and it was a decent TV match, and I get that they were trying to harken back to the days of AEW Dark and Daly's Place shows where anyone could show up and make a name for themselves, but why do a mystery opponent match with a week's worth of build, only to have it to be someone who wouldn't have made a dent in the viewership if she'd been announced in the first place? If it's a proper debut for Lacey, it's a rough spot to be in, not only losing in your first appearance but being in a spot where you can guarantee the majority of the audience were hoping you'd be somebody else. On the topic of forward momentum, it did nothing for Mercedes either - she still has no feud going on, and no match signed for Wrestledream. 
   
• There was a video package for them, but that's it for Toni Storm and Kris Statlander. Couldn't find a spot for them on this show? Or to build up any of the women in the Blood & Guts match? Or, hey, remember how they revealed some Women's Tag Team Titles a couple of weeks ago? Maybe some women's tag teams might have been nice to see! Some mention of who might be challenging for those belts, or when, or how? 
   
• No follow-up on Andrade debuting last week; no sign of him, or Kenny Omega, or any justification for any of that. El Clon just got to be room meat in someone else's promo.
   
• Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think a babyface should be attacking his opponents with tasers, pepper spray, or Molotov Cocktails. I get that it's to show that he'll stop at nothing in the I Quit Match, but surely it should be Moxley that's prepared to do the extreme violence, and Darby who keeps getting up? Darby's thing is that he doesn't care about his own safety, and is prepared to use his body as a weapon, but that's a bit secondary if he's also prepared to use actual fucking lethal weapons.

[Hannibal Scorch]

@BomberPat this isn’t a shot directly at you, but it’s about your EK comment. WWE fans are conditioned, and have always been conditioned, to believe Smackdown and Raw were both important shows. For most of its run, Collision has been left to be the show “For the Sickos”. Not important enough to necessarily watch on a weekly basis. But they have for  a big chunk of this year trying to focus wrestlers on there on a more regular basis, or announce Blood and Guts. I don’t see anything wrong with what they are doing. Try and make it feel important. Give people reasons to tune in. I see nothing wrong with this approach myself.

[BomberPat]

yeah, I've thought about that - there definitely seem to be people who are more Collision-exclusive. But it's another communication thing - AEW doesn't really tell you why some people show up on Collision more than Dynamite, or sell Collision as "the only place to see..." whoever it may be, whether that's Eddie Kingston or someone else. And then you have guys who are showing up on both shows, but only involved in feuds on one of them - so Daddy Magic has been beefing with Danny Garcia on Collision, but I guess he just doesn't show up to work on Wednesdays any more? 

I don't want it to be a hard brand split, but they could do more on Dynamite to sell me on what's happening on Collision, or they could find more to define the two shows to explain why some people are only showing up one show and some the other. Something like the TNT Title would be a good start - Collision is on TNT, so it should feel more like the TNT Champion's show, but Kyle Fletcher is generally all over both shows, and people not interacting with that belt at all are only on TNT.

If they're not making a clearer distinction between shows, I'd just like to see people split between them a little better - rather than having Eddie Kingston fight LFI on Collision for three weeks straight, why not let part of that story play out on Dynamite one week, with someone who had been on Dynamite for the previous two weeks wrestling on Collision?

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

Something I think AEW have always struggled with is forgetting about wrestlers when they're not on-screen. I don't need the Monday Night Wars thing of Stone Cold being in every other segment

I agree with this but a side point - when I rewatched Raw from 98-99 a few years back I was surprised by how little screen time Stone Cold had. Some episodes he would literally just turn up at the end for 2 minutes before it went off the air. What they did do however which was very clever is have the commentary and other characters talk about him throughout the show. They built anticipation for him all show, his presence was all over it but the actual Stone Cold action was kept short and sweet so he wasn't over exposed. Absolute genius, really.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Moment if the show, for me, was when Yuta threw himself over the announce desk. Everyone was just out of synch enough to make it funny to me 

[SaitoRyo]

I assume PAC's new look with the tights, singlet vest, proper boots (no more kickpads) and those long socks is an homage to Dynamite Kid. 

[LaGoosh]

That Street Fight was great. Messy as hell, felt like they had barely anything planned other than "let's just smash eachother up" and it was all the better for it. 

I really enjoy the moody silly red light Deathriders entrances. 

That's my Dynamite review for this week.

Edited October 8, 2025 by LaGoosh

[Hannibal Scorch]

3 hours ago, SaitoRyo said:

I assume PAC's new look with the tights, singlet vest, proper boots (no more kickpads) and those long socks is an homage to Dynamite Kid. 

Rumours are he stopped the direct debit on his sky account

[RedTwoster]

Taz says he’ll be taking a significant amount of time away from Dynamite (link to Wrestlinginc) for health reasons. Totally understandable of course, but for me, this is an enormous blow for AEW; as much as losing Ospreay and Swerve was. Taz’s enthusiasm and wit is part of what makes Dynamite so good. If there was a ‘best announcer’ category at the UKFF Awards, I firmly believe he’d have been Wrestle Me-ing it for the bulk of AEW’s history. Get well soon, Taz!!

[mim731]

Collision Spoiler, probably, if it airs.

Spoiler

Apparently Kota Ibushi was stretchered out with a serious injury in his match with Josh Alexander, match stopped mid way through. Rumoured to be a broken femur, but I couldn't find any confirmation of that in the usual places. Poor guy can't catch a break. Seems like all the damage he's taken is catching up to him. Hopefully it's not as serious as rumoured. No idea if the match airs though, but spoiler tagging just in case.