AEW TV 2025 Discussion

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, digforvictory said:

You surely cannot fire someone and then prevent them from getting another job for 12 months without paying them a fucking penny?

Especially when they are classed as independent contractors no less.

[Statto]

Admittedly my knowledge on this is limited to the fact I work for a US employer and know people over there who have them in their contracts, but I've always been of the received wisdom that any sort of no-compete clause fails to hold up in court if you choose to go to the effort of challenging it. 12 months unpaid sounds like utter nonsense.

It may be that I lost the thread with him having a couple of injury absences, but did they ever resolve Mark Davis being an unwilling participant in the Don Callis Family?

When he came back from his super-long layoff it was revealed that Kyle Fletcher (who has ascended to singles stardom in his absence) had somehow signed Davis into a managerial deal with Callis too, and that Davis had to go along with it or else Callis would terminate his contract with AEW which would mean he could no longer remain in the US (with his partner?). For a few weeks Davis was presented as an unwilling participant in the DCF nefariousness, but now he seems perfectly happy with it. Don't recall them ever explaining why he'd come to terms with it.

Noticed Shelton Benjamin was shouting his head off about something whilst taking the pin - presume he was less than pleased Kaun had taken ages to cover him meaning he had to sell Ricochet's finish as putting him down forever. Somewhat understandable but also not exactly squashing the recent rumours.

[Supremo]

20 hours ago, Supremo said:

Mox sitting stoically, staring into space as Pac violently murdered Darby, smashing his bloody face against the glass? Good shit. I want to see these two fight at the pay per view.

Take the progress where you can get it. We’ve come a long way from Moxley kidnapping the Midnight Express in a Disney Channel movie. This would at least air on Bravo or Men & Motors.

Cards on the table; I posted this before I finished the show. Foolishly, I didn’t consider the chance that this could be their bi-annual episode where they actually have a show-long storyline, where things bleed over numerous segments.

I take it all back. Whatever credit they built doing the silly cinematic segment was flushed away when they tried to continue it with an angle in the arena.

I love an effective in-ring angle. I love a silly, over the top cinematic skit. But never the twain shall meet. It was the most jarring thing ever watching Darby walk out of one dimension and into another. We jumped from Bravo or Men & Motors, straight to the Sci-fi Channel with Darby shuffling around like a fucking zombie!

Reminded me of the wildly underrated 90s movie, “Stay Tuned,” where that family are sucked into the TV and jump from show to show, channel to channel. Frankly, after this, I’m more inclined to watch, “Stay Tuned,” on Saturday rather than Wrestledream. It was a VHS favourite in the Supremo Childhood Family home!

Having now finally finished the full three-hour slog, this was the episode where my patience finally ran out. The buzz and goodwill from their relatively excellent Spring and Summer has all but fizzled away. Everything feels ice old and I can’t believe for the third straight year I’m left hoping that the Continental Classic can inject some much needed life into the product.

It’s such a shame. If only there was someone out there (Eddie Kingston), who was out injured (Eddie Kingston) and could have returned in a huge angle (Eddie Kingston), giving Hangman Adam Page something substantial to do (Eddie Kingston), providing a fresh, exciting direction to build the company around (Eddie Kingston).

Eddie Kingston’s borderline non-appearance on this show summed it up perfectly. A blink-and-you-missed it, hyper-aloof, backstage promo where he went, “I THINK I’M ON SATURDAY’S PRE-SHOW, BUT WHO FUCKING CARES.”

Eddie’s as pissed off with his return as I am!

Edited October 17, 2025 by Supremo

[Lorne Malvo]

I've watched every single AEW show since the company started. Every Dynamite, Collision, Elevation, Rampage, Youtube womens title tournament shot in Excalibur's basement. This is the first time I've not made it to the end of the show.

I've never found the booking and storytelling as frustrating as it has been the past month or so.

Just look at the WrestleDream card;

Darby Allin vs Moxley - Okay, this one actually has quite a strong feud/storyline behind it. Except it doesn't feel anywhere near as hot as it should, due to Darby losing his big return match in a massively unsatisfactory fashion. He should be the Everest-conquering hero but already comes across as a loser and an idiot who gets beat up every week. 

Hangman vs Joe - A hastily thrown-together world title feud. They did good work the first few weeks to build some drama but this week they did the absolute bare miniumum in pushing this feud along. Absolute nobody buys Joe winning.

Statlander vs Storm - Really odd, this. It should be a simple world title match between two of the best in the world. Instead they're doing weird lying down/face-to-face promos where they talk like two sixth formers trying to 'out-wacky' the other. That bit where they threatened to hit each other with the belt made absolutely no sense at all for this story.

Jurassic Express vs The Young Bucks - Look, I'm not saying I need everything explained or for the company to hold my hand through every step of a feud, but we've had absolutely zero explanation for why Perry joined the Elite in the first place, why he's no longer with them, why he's teaming back up with the guy who turned on him way back. Just one simple promo explaning Jack Perry's motivations wouldn't go amiss. Instead it's the laziest 'used to be heel but now I'm a face' imaginable. 

Kyle Fletcher vs Mark Briscoe - There's a bit of background to this - it's match 5 in a series where they've won 2 each, Briscoe is finally getting a shot at the big one (although it isn't the big one) - but they've not really interacted in months.

Brodido vs Takeshita & Okada - No story here at all, just a vehicle to further the Okada/Takeshita feud.

Jamie Hayter vs Thekla - One of those on-again/off-again feuds where they've kind of let it peter out. You'd be forgiven for forgetting Thekla put Hayter on the shelf as it's hardly mentioned.

Hurt Syndicate vs Demand - Already sick of seeing them wrestle. A few promos/angles wouldn't go amiss here, instead it's just been match-match-match-match at the PPV.

Then you've got the massively fumbled returns of Eddie Kingston and OC who have both became 'just another guy on the roster' in record time. Heel factions being absolutely everywhere, between Death Riders/LFI/Don Callis Family. The Conglomeration going from a feel-good babyface faction to a bunch of clowns. 

They just seem to be in a massive rut right now. The Continental Classic can't come soon enough.

[LaGoosh]

11 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

where they talk like two sixth formers trying to 'out-wacky' the other

Speaking of sixth formers - Thekla's wacky promo where she banged on about how her name is means poison or whatever was incredibly embarrassing.

Agreed with all the booking criticisms. It's pretty dire at the moment. And the frustrating part is that an exciting, hot and logically booked show seems right at their finger tips but they are making mistakes, letting stuff peter out, holding patterns and inconsistencies all over the place that are dragging everything down. Literally no one (except for Kris Statlander maybe?) feels like they have any forward momentum. With a roster this good there's no excuses. 

Edited October 17, 2025 by LaGoosh

[DavidB6937]

I've definitely felt myself losing interest recently because they're not doing a very good job of heating things up at the right moment. There's often no consistency in hitting the sweet spot right before the PPV where everything feels hot and you're desperate to see the pay offs. That's not to say the PPVs aren't fucking great - they obviously are - but the build ups have always been questionable. It's been a long term issue that they've never fully been able to fix. Often they'll have one great show and then the next few will be rubbish and then it's the PPV which I go into feeling far less excited about than I should do.

[RedTwoster]

40 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Agreed with all the booking criticisms. It's pretty dire at the moment.

I’m still enjoying it, but I do feel like there have been avoidable missteps. But I do wonder if their plans were disrupted through injury and what we’re seeing is an inability from Tony Khan to adapt on the fly when that kind of thing happens. That kind of thing has happened in the past.

[Infinity Land]

Hangman's waiting around for MJF and his contract to come back into play. While MJF's off on his honeymoon/filming something.

FTR's waiting for Adam Copeland to come back from filming a tv show.

Omega v. Fletcher or even Andrade should be happening but aren't for different reasons. 

Brodido are being used as a backdrop either for the Okada & Takeshita odd couple tag run or the beginning of those two turning on each other. Potentially with Takeshita disappearing with NJPW commitments. 

AEW Women's tag titles announced a month ago. Blood & Guts a couple weeks ago. Neither have really moved on beyond announcements.

Nothing feels of consequence right now. Maybe that flips on the way to Full Gear being the bigger show that follows on to the Continental Classic. But we've all been here too many times to know these holding patterns in booking really kills interest in the company. 

[RedTwoster]

49 minutes ago, Infinity Land said:

AEW Women's tag titles announced a month ago.

Fucking hell, I’d completely forgotten about them. That’s mental. 

[Infinity Land]

17 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

Fucking hell, I’d completely forgotten about them. That’s mental. 

Give it time ⏲️. The ROH Women's Pure title was announced back in the Spring and still hasn't crowned a first champion. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

Whilst I’m not going to pretend it’s lost some momentum since All In, and I blame that on the PPV’s going from 4-5 to 9 a year, it’s still not Q3/4 2023 levels of dullness. I’d love TK to get a deal which means they can reduce the frequency. 5 is the perfect number. I’d even take 6 as a compromise, but 9 is far too many

[Chili]

I agree with everyone who has said wrestling TV needs shorter matches because while I'm keeping up with them via YouTube (french studies keep me far too busy at the moment), seeing they advertised Roddy Strong and Claudio, knowing Claudio would be going over after an unnecessarily long TV match was a big 'fuck that' moment. It's in a bit of malaise at the moment and I hope it picks up again. WTF are Eddie Kingston and OC doing fucking about in their current positions. 

[Infinity Land]

42 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Whilst I’m not going to pretend it’s lost some momentum since All In, and I blame that on the PPV’s going from 4-5 to 9 a year, it’s still not Q3/4 2023 levels of dullness. I’d love TK to get a deal which means they can reduce the frequency. 5 is the perfect number. I’d even take 6 as a compromise, but 9 is far too many

I don't have a problem with the PPVs. That's never really been the issue with AEW. It's just trading complaining over the poor builds 9 times a year, for the dragged out poor builds 4-5 times a year. 

I'd rather have Rampage over Collision. It was a tighter show. Same amount of promos usually built around the two bookend matches. Matches edited down instead of dragged out to fill TV time. .

Dark/Elevation over Ring of Honor. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

26 minutes ago, Infinity Land said:

I don't have a problem with the PPVs. That's never really been the issue with AEW. It's just trading complaining over the poor builds 9 times a year, for the dragged out poor builds 4-5 times a year. 

I'd rather have Rampage over Collision. It was a tighter show. Same amount of promos usually built around the two bookend matches. Matches edited down instead of dragged out to fill TV time. .

Dark/Elevation over Ring of Honor. 

But the builds for the 4-5 ppvs were better, because you had more time to build them up, not just a couple of weeks. 

[LaGoosh]

1 minute ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

But the builds for the 4-5 ppvs were better, because you had more time to build them up, not just a couple of weeks.

Hmm, not always. I remember often the shows would meander for weeks with nothing much going on then they would rush a bunch of stuff and fill out the card last minute. I think 5-ish PPVs a year with TV specials is the way to go but really everything is a booking problem. It'd be easier to do 9-10 PPVs a year if they didn't load every card up with 12 matches for example. 10 PPVs with 7 match cards would be easier to book stories for in the lead up, you wouldn't have to spunk matches left, right and centre and the PPVs themselves would be way more enjoyable to watch.

53 minutes ago, Chili said:

I agree with everyone who has said wrestling TV needs shorter matches

I've found recently that when I can't really be arsed to sit through a whole show I'll just skip most the in-ring action, watch the angles/promos then watch the 7 minute clipped match on YouTube. 7 minutes is more than enough to get what you need to out of most TV matches.