AEW Worlds End 2025 Discussion

[Kamran]

COUNTDOWN TO AEW WORLDS END

BUY IT

Amazon Prime / PPV.com / Triller  / YouTube

MATCHES

• AEW World Championship: Samoa Joe (c) vs. Swerve Strickland vs. "Hangman" Adam Page vs. MJF
• Continental Classic Final for the AEW Continental Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) or Konosuke Takeshita vs. Kyle Fletcher or Jon Moxley
• AEW Women's World Championship: Kris Statlander (c) vs. Jamie Hayter
• Darby Allin vs. Gabe Kidd
• AEW World Tag Team Championship - Chicago Street Fight: FTR vs. Bang Bang Gang (Juice Robinson and Austin Gunn) 
• Mixed Nuts Mayhem: Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli, Daniel Garcia, Wheeler Yuta, and Marina Shafir) vs. The Conglomeration (Mark Briscoe, Orange Cassidy, and Roderick Strong) and "Timeless" Toni Storm
• AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship: Babes of Wrath (Harley Cameron and Willow Nightingale) (c) vs. Mercedes Moné and Athena
• Continental Classic Semifinal: Kazuchika Okada vs. Konosuke Takeshita (If Okada loses, he will lose the AEW Continental Championship and AEW Unified Championship; guaranteeing a new Continental Champion in the final)
• Continental Classic Semifinal: Kyle Fletcher vs. Jon Moxley

Zero Hour (It does not look like we have a Tailgate Brawl show this time, so this should be free to watch on YouTube/Triller etc)

• Jetspeed and Jurassic Express vs. The Demand and Josh Alexander
• Eddie Kingston vs. Zack Gibson
• Sisters of Sin (Julia Hart and Skye Blue) vs. Hyan and Maya World

POSTERS

Edited December 27, 2025 by Kamran

[Kamran]

The PPV is tonight!

AEW have put up a Continental Classic semifinals preview with Bryan Danielson, Renee and RJ:

 

Edited December 27, 2025 by Kamran

[Supremo]

MJF wins the World Title at the pay per view. Jeff Jarrett beats MJF for the World Title on the last Dynamite of 2025. Literally December 31st. Prophecy complete. Life finds a way.

[I Bent My Wookie]

17 minutes ago, Supremo said:

MJF wins the World Title at the pay per view. Jeff Jarrett beats MJF for the World Title on the last Dynamite of 2025. Literally December 31st. Prophecy complete. Life finds a way.

I'll allow it, but only for a year long reign where the last outlaw keeps overcoming challenges, Page fully redeeming himself by showing respect, Swerve going mad and murderous again but Jarrett finds a way to eventually lose the title to Bandido, figuratively and literally The Next Outlaw. 

Bandidos whole arc revolves around Brody King beating him for the ROH title starting a blood feud, their Final Battle can literally not even have to be about the title but a Fight Without Honor, or be for the title and have ROHs main belt and the AEW be unified as The King of the Paramountain after they successfully buy out WB and take AEW programming onto their umbrella networks. 

Book it Tony, there's still time... 

(I haven't slept since 9am yesterday and next door keeps singing A Neverending Story). 

[Kamran]

Zero Hour begins in about 20 mins:

 

[LaGoosh]

Fucks sake. Yeah let's put the title on the boring dork who's last title reign nearly tanked the entire company. Can't think of a single interesting feud or title match I want to see out of this. I've seen every one of these shit "Triple B" promos before. Absolutely rubbish.

[I Bent My Wookie]

I really only want to see @Supremo option now, that or they do stick a rocket to Bandido and have him win his title match. 

Otherwise there really isn't a way forward. Swerve and Hangman are insane enough they'd probably chase the Opps as revenge for them getting involved, Fletcher/Takeshita/Okada are even more tied up in each other now, Kenny isn't healthy enough and the other baby faces just aren't a main event level (though theres a thing to be said Mark Briscoe has pinned the World Champion in the last 6 months). 

Otherwise you wonder if Ospreay is healthy enough to drag another good match out of MJF or if hes still long term injured. 

It does pose a question for Wednesday which will make it good viewing if I don't go out for my birthday, but yeah what a way to nearly end the year taking a step back. 

[RedTwoster]

I didn’t like this show. Not in terms of match quality or anything like that, but in terms of the direction it sets for the company.

Moxley wins the CC. I shouldn’t mind that, but we’re now in a ludicrous situation in which the company has 5 men’s singles titles, only one of which - the World title - has any real value or purpose. 

Then you have MJF winning the World title. I kind of expected this, but it still doesn’t mean it was a good idea. It makes the Samoa Joe title reign even worse, it didn’t serve any purpose whatsoever. Page/Swerve/MJF would have worked just fine, or they could have had MJF give notice that he was cashing in his title match immediately after Hangman/Swerve, knowing they’d beat one another senseless.

Unless MJF undergoes a dramatic character change, I can’t see why anyone would be excited by the prospect of him being the focal point once again. 

Tony Khan has spoken about making the creative process in AEW less collaborative. There’s certainly such a thing as too many cooks spoiling the broth. On the other hand, one cook alone might need to learn some new recipes so that you want to eat the broth. In other words, there’s surely a happy medium when it comes to the size of the team setting the direction for AEW. Khan needs a bit of help to prevent him from defaulting to his worst habits. A small team of the best people charting the course could surely only be a good thing for AEW. 

[westlondonmist]

I don't really understand the Continental Classic result. Just feels like such a boring choice. That with the title match result is so odd. Lots of talent in the men's division but nothing hot. 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

Reading the promo that Mox cut after the win, would it be beyond the realms of possibility that they are turning the Death Riders or at least Mox face and putting him in a programme with MJF for a while until perhaps Ospreay returns or Hangman/Swerve finish up with the Opps? 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Reading the promo that Mox cut after the win, would it be beyond the realms of possibility that they are turning the Death Riders or at least Mox face and putting him in a programme with MJF for a while until perhaps Ospreay returns or Hangman/Swerve finish up with the Opps? 

That’s perfectly possible, but it would also highlight the pointlessness of it all. What’s the point of the Continental belt, if the champion quickly goes after the World title? What was the point of putting the World title on Joe? What was the point of creating a Unified title that wasn’t really unified? If there’s a continental title, it should be defended in the tournament yearly, and not outside that - the winner should get a World title shot, and there should be some kind of prestige behind the whole thing. Maybe they move the tournament so that the winner headlines All In.

They have this fantastic format that they’ve somehow managed to make even more unsatisfying - not through the Moxley win, but through unifying and then un-unifying belts - belts that meant very little anyway, but are now even less meaningful. It’s all very frustrating.
 

[BrodyGraham]

What 'meaning' does anything have in wrestling besides what the booker intends?

Let's face it, the CC exists largely because key talent wanted to do the G1 and Tony didn't want them getting busted up in an environment he couldn't control. It's class, cos the G1 is class but it's purpose is to ape Japanese wrestling.

I've always made sense of the AEW belts by narrative or utilitarian differences. What do those belts mean philosophically?

In my head canon, and these are open to subversion as the story dictates it goes something like:

AEW title. Top guys belt.

TNT Title. Midcard American TV storytellers belt. A la WWE US title. The Sports Entertainers belt.

International Title.  Upper Mid Card work rate belt like the WWE or IWGP Intercontinental titles

Continental Title. Prize for the CC. Fighting Spirit/Japanese style title. More sports based. Like the Never Open weight belt or ROH Pure title.

National Title. Indy outreach belt to foster better relationships with it's potential talent pipeline.

That might read like bollocks, but it makes sense to me!

 

[Supremo]

Don’t fret about Captain Edge-lord winning the belt.

2025 isn’t over yet!

[RedTwoster]

3 hours ago, BrodyGraham said:

What 'meaning' does anything have in wrestling besides what the booker intends?

That just excuses bad booking, does it not? Wrestling is fictional, but like any form of storytelling the decisions you make should build investment in the world and stories in that world. At the moment, everything is a bit messy, and AEW has missed some open goals (Okada) and made some bad choices along the way (making Joe champ, being a key one).

3 hours ago, BrodyGraham said:

In my head canon, and these are open to subversion as the story dictates it goes something like:

AEW title. Top guys belt.

TNT Title. Midcard American TV storytellers belt. A la WWE US title. The Sports Entertainers belt.

International Title.  Upper Mid Card work rate belt like the WWE or IWGP Intercontinental titles

Continental Title. Prize for the CC. Fighting Spirit/Japanese style title. More sports based. Like the Never Open weight belt or ROH Pure title.

National Title. Indy outreach belt to foster better relationships with it's potential talent pipeline.

That might read like bollocks, but it makes sense to me!

It’s nice that you have a head canon, but none of this makes sense even if it were the intention. In what way is the TNT title a ‘sports entertainers’ belt? What does that even mean?

What’s the difference between a ‘work rate belt’ and a ‘sports based belt’ and how does either label apply to the international title?

The idea of an ‘Indy outreach belt’ is initially what the All Atlantic belt was presented as, but it didn’t work. I don’t see how it can work either, what’s the benefit of it? How is it any more of a talent pipeline than general scouting or their partnerships with AAA and NJPW? It’s a nothing belt, but I’d say that applies to all of those titles outside of the World title right now.

And worst of all, it’s keeping some of their best wrestlers away from the World title - it’s insane that they didn’t build to Page/Okada - that would have been a blockbuster match, and a red hot choice for Hangman to drop the title to. I suspect that Tony Khan views all titles as more-or-less equal, meaning that it doesn’t really matter if Okada is World Champion, Unified Champ, Continental Champ or International Champ. It all amounts to the same thing, so there’s no need to have him challenge Hangman.

[The King of Old School]

What the fuck is a "work rate belt"?