AEW TV 2026 discussion

[LaGoosh]

Dralistico is fucking shite, that cunt should count himself lucky Tony Khan is willing to pay him to stay at home.

[Infinity Land]

There's a lot of wishful thinking around Rush in AEW. I thought Rush had been in a couple of C2s. Turns out it is just the one, back in 2023. It's never worked out. Both sides can be blamed for that at times. Once a real working relationship with CMLL was developed and Rush & Dralistico never turned up it felt like things would finally end. 

WWEAAA would love to have LFI and they would love that schedule.

[LaGoosh]

Yeah it's a shame how Rush's run has gone. I think he's fantastic. Whenever they've actually got behind him it's been great but a combination of injuries, visa issues and presumably personality issues means it never lasted long. I think if they stuck with the tag team with Beast Mortos it could have been a good run. Being associated with Dralistico always seemed to drag him down too.

[AshC]

Gotta get Rush booked in Liverpool, surely. 

[LaGoosh]

Turns out Rush's visa expired and his new one won't be ready till January hence why he's not been around. 

[Supremo]

The run of success AEW is having with the ship jumpers this year is getting ridiculous.

Ciampa, Andrade and the New Level all doing some of their best ever work, slotting in perfectly, and now this. How has the weird cringe goblin from Smackdown suddenly turned into an absolute hunk? Did he brush past Steven Borden or something backstage, catching a lethal dose of handsome?!

I apologise Draganov, I wasn't familiar with your game.

Edited 23 hours ago by Supremo

[Kamran]

Speaking of Draganov, his opponent for Dynamite has been confirmed:

Plus, we've got:

[The King Of Swing]

Random thought. 

I hope Mark Davies, gets a run in this year's CC. He's been one of my favourite wrestlers of 2026.

Seriously though. With how loaded the AEW roster is, this year's tournament could be an all timer. 

[LaGoosh]

Every CC so far has been an absolute banger. It's been my favourite thing in wrestling every year it's ran. With this roster I see no reason this year will be any different. Can't wait!

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

10 hours ago, The King Of Swing said:

Random thought. 

I hope Mark Davies, gets a run in this year's CC. He's been one of my favourite wrestlers of 2026.

Seriously though. With how loaded the AEW roster is, this year's tournament could be an all timer. 

Agree with Davis. I think back to him and Fletcher on the All In pre-show against MJF and Cole and thinking 'both these guys look good, I hope they get given a chance'. 3yrs on and look at them now. Just shows how AEW is willing to give guys a chance and work out characters and improve skills rather than the 'sink or swim' attitude that WWE seems to have with new guys coming in.

 

Also its hard to pick which 8 guys should be in the CC this year. Mox is certain but the other 7 is hard. 3-4 probably pick themselves (Claudio, Connors or Finlay, Davis, Allin?, MJF?) 

[RedTwoster]

That was a fun show. I really enjoyed the way they built Dragunov up throughout the show - the metronome, giving his debut the main event. He didn't feature enough in WWE to feel like he'd been diminished and he feels like a bit of a blank slate to me, kind of like when they signed Swerve. The way they present him makes him feel like a very big deal. 

And talking of a big deal...I think I've changed my mind about Nick Wayne. 

We have a situation in which Chris Jericho might have actually made someone. Wayne has come on leaps and bounds on the mic, and this storyline is the best thing Jericho has done since his feud with MJF. And that means Jericho has benefitted from this feud too - he's no longer someone I dread seeing (...we'll see how long this lasts, though)

I'm totally OK with the story continuing in some form, it's been fun. 

Davis and Doyle smashing through The Bucks shocked me - although this was in part because I completely forgot that the titles weren't on the line. I know they're going to want to build to Bucks/New Level, but I kind of hope they have D&D smash through The Bucks a second time. Don't make it the competitive match people are expecting - do the exact same thing and make them the new Tag Team champions. 

Every week I say how much I love Okada, and I'm going to do it again here. Don Callis saying "Nothing matters more than money" before that absolute twat-bag chipped in with "...and family!" made me laugh out loud. Okada is my favourite character in wrestling. PLEASE put the World title on him in 2027, Tony/@Hannibal Scorch

The Mercedes/Shafir confrontation felt big time. They probably should have had Marina win more matches before doing this but the presence she has almost negates the fact they've not done that. I can't wait for the actual match, and to see what kind of match Mone can pull out of her. 

I guess I'll wait to see how it plays out, but I think they made a huge mistake turning Jay White. He's always been a rather bland heel, but as a babyface he's always been tremendous. He had real top babyface vibes to him, but they've decided to take another path and we'll see how it all plays out. I'm not convinced, but it may be a decision made on the back of PAC's death, replacing whatever story they'd previously planned to run with. I can't imagine Gabe Kidd would have remained babyface had this tragedy not occurred. 

But yeah, I felt like shit this morning - run down with either covid or the flu. Dynamite was exactly what I needed it to be to perk me up. 

[WyattSheepMask]

If Megan Bayne put any more effort into those Knee-Strikes in that backstage brawl she’d be just about phoning it in 

Edited 1 hour ago by WyattSheepMask

[tiger_rick]

I had a great time with this show too. I don't really want to break it all down because it didn't really need it. It just skipped from segment to match to promo with people I think are really fucking good, no-one doing anything stupid and someone who I think is a superstar in pretty much every shot. AEW often reminds me just how much I love wrestling and how long it had been since I actually enjoyed it rather than using it to search for little nuggets.

I can still live without Don Callis and I don't think Nick Wayne worth watching. They're my only objections. Chris Jericho was really good. 

I didn't like Thekla being in the middle of that heel beatdown. I get they've probably moved on from her with Marina next up and Toni on her way back but I liked her as a face.

8 hours ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Also its hard to pick which 8 guys should be in the CC this year. 

There are 12 in the C2.

18 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Every CC so far has been an absolute banger. It's been my favourite thing in wrestling every year it's ran. With this roster I see no reason this year will be any different. Can't wait!

Hard agree. Just finished listening to a pod earlier and they were busy speculating about who might be in it, Mox apart, and it's just so fun. Narrowing it down to 11 guys is ridiculously difficult and almost everyone they mentioned feels like someone who'll a) have banger matches and b) should win. 

[BomberPat]

That felt like a really eventful show, in a way Dynamite hasn't for a long time. I have some nitpicks, which will be liberally littered through this post, but mostly I thought it was brilliant, with only the Opps/Jack Perry and women's tag backstage brawl being particularly weak segments.

The Davis & Doyle/Young Bucks tag was superb. I assumed we'd get a standard Bucks TV match, with Renee talking about them working hurt just being to add some colour, but instead that line sowed the seed for what the match would be, and it was perfectly delivered. Love Davis & Doyle as a team, and they're the perfect choice to run that angle with, as are the Bucks - their match formula is so established as them escalating offence and kicking out of bigger and bigger near falls, to just get absolutely demolished meant more happening to them and it would had it been anyone else in their spot.

The next tag was fantastic too, but they shouldn't have been formatted next to each other. Two Don Callis Family heel tag team wins in a row could have been avoided, and putting more space between the Bucks getting battered and then one of them coming out to make the save would have done more to keep Davis & Doyle's win feeling legitimate. I thought it was odd when this match was announced, that the first in-ring meeting of Fletcher and Ospreay since the cage match would be a barely promoted TV tag, and the reaction to them squaring off cemented that for me - it should have felt monumental to get those two back in the ring, and could have done with more weight being put behind promoting that. I wasn't at all interested in the prospect of a Copeland/Okada match, but then it became clear that this was all building to Blood & Guts rather than a pair of singles matches.

I'm willing to forgive Blood & Guts feeling cobbled together given PAC's death likely changed all of their plans for the match, and Christian's injury changed their plans for Cope. They have some ridiculous talent in there, it should be great fun, and they've done a good job of actually making it all make sense in short order. My criticism, though, is that we've had months of Ospreay recruiting members of the United Empire, only to get to the big faction warfare gimmick and not be teaming with any of them. I feel bad for Wardlow, too - I think the ship has sailed on him as a top act, but he's reduced to maybe the seventh most important guy in the Don Callis Family. I would have had Don bring him back with loads of hype, only for Wardlow to reject him and just run roughshod through the Don Callis Family B and C teams.

Mercedes and Marina felt massive. Mercedes mouthing "...fuck" when Marina's music hit, but then trying to big herself up and act tough once she was in the ring was a great character note. I don't know what the match will look like - Marina somehow manages to be brilliant and compelling while I still can't actually tell if she's any good by any of the usual metrics of whether someone's good at wrestling or not. She's been incredibly well protected for her entire run, to the point that I can't picture her in a Mercedes Moné match.


The Dogs turn was weird. Jay White had some great babyface promos behind him, but the Bang Bang Gang were treading water and maybe will be better off as heels. The Dogs kicking out Gabe Kidd is probably the worst solution to the Dogs/Death Riders problem - I prefer The Dogs as a tag team to a trio with Gabe, but any version of this story that stays with Gabe as a Death Rider feels like the wrong direction. Again, I assume the PAC situation plays into it. I also found it very odd how much they allowed Claudio to fight back and batter everyone in what should have been a new super-faction showing their dominance.

The Jericho/Nick Wayne stuff highlights something about Jericho - as a veteran, he's at his best when working with someone who reminds him of himself. Assuming he has a ton of creative input into this, it feels like Nick Wayne is just playing a younger Chris Jericho - you could picture Jericho doing the "I just beat...!" celebrations after a screwy win over someone like Goldberg in WCW, and the veteran trying to talk sense to the younger wrestler routine feels like him calling back to his feud with Shawn Michaels.


It's fantastic how important they have managed to make Ilja Dragunov look immediately. The presentation, the teasing of the match with the metronome, how much they talked him up - brilliant stuff. Have they ever trailed a debut match all the way through a show like this before?


A tiny thing that made me laugh - Excalibur running down the card for Collision, said that the Rascalz have been winning some Trios matches and want to get back into Trios Title contention....and so Myron Reed is having a singles match. And I checked, and the Rascalz have had six trios matches in AEW, and they lost five of them.

Edited 1 hour ago by BomberPat