AEW TV 2026 discussion

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

Is there much outside interference? I maybe being ultra generous to them, as per but, I can't think of that much going on. There's a bit of distraction, like Bandido/Kofi being aware of five people at ringside and taking their eye of it but, blatant interference seems very minimal.

Also, I wouldn't eliminate it. Some of my favourite finishes ever contain blatant interference. Savage at Royal Rumble 91, LOD at SummerSlam 90, Heenan cheating for Rude at Mania 5. It's something that should be used sparingly and done well but is a great heat-seeking device in an era where they're needed more than ever.

It could be that I'm disproportionally annoyed by it, to be fair - but the Don Callis Family are prone to it, and distractions don't feel uncommon. It's more the referees looking stupid that annoys me than the idea of interference I suppose and I think your final line is a good way of utilising it. 

To be honest, any complaint I have about AEW right now is nit-picking to a level at which I'm picking the nits of the nits. Unless they do something insane by the time 2026 comes to a close, I think you could make the case for AEW in 2026 being the best year of programming for any wrestling company ever. 

[Chris B]

My general headcanon is that Tony Khan doesn't mind a bit of interference. He's a promoter - there are matches where he cares about it, but overall, he's up for whatever makes an exciting show. But there's times he'll make clear not to do this.

[LaGoosh]

Moxley doing his badass entrance looking like The Absolute Fuckin Man and getting a heroes welcome then that div Gabe Kidd bouncing in from off screen on all fours looking like an absolute knob made me burst out laughing. 

Great show. Basically a PPV level event.

I'm not really sold on Kofi as a singles guy. His work looks so light and soft compared to everyone else in the company. But the Hangman/Swerve stuff was just so good. I like the idea that New Level teamed with Swerve because they thought he was a cool dude but with Hangman bringing out his true colours perhaps they're starting to realise that they're teamed up with an absolute psychopath. 

Joe/Perry was easily Perry's best singles match ever. I'd watch a whole series between these two. We must never take Samoa Joe for granted.

Renee's outfit this week. Good lord.

AEW is so consistently putting on brilliant matches that Darby/Kyle will be forgotten about by next week but any other generation would be remembered as a classic. Kyle is so close to putting it all together. He's just missing some character stuff to bring it to that main event level. He was a wonderful bully in this. 

I like when Darby comes up with a new wacky bump he enjoys doing and seems to try and find as many insane variations of it as possible. He's loving that backdrop flip onto his face at the moment. 

I've always been a huge Queen Aminata fan. Pulled off a great promo and a great match. She's so mean and nasty with her offense. She really deserves a consistent push.

And ofcourse a minor classic TV main event. Okada is so good. Just plays everything like it's beneath him. Works the crowd like a magician. They absolutely had me with that Rainmaker kick out. I would have been happy with a title change. Hopefully one day - Okada is a brilliant character. If they turn MJF babyface again one day a big feud with Okada would be magical.

[Kamran]

49 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

AEW is so consistently putting on brilliant matches that Darby/Kyle will be forgotten about by next week but any other generation would be remembered as a classic. Kyle is so close to putting it all together. He's just missing some character stuff to bring it to that main event level. He was a wonderful bully in this. 

That running dart, face-first into the guardrail looked brutal!

51 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I've always been a huge Queen Aminata fan. Pulled off a great promo and a great match. She's so mean and nasty with her offense. She really deserves a consistent push.

She always comes across well, I hope TK pushes her more. She mentioned earlier in the year that her contract was up in Feb 27, lets hope she's re-signed. I noticed she debuted a new theme, I was a fan of the old theme but I'm not so sure about the new one yet. Although saying that, most of the comments online seem to be really positive about the new theme. I'd love to get another Thekla/Aminta feud, they have such good chemistry together, would be even better if it were over the world title.

Old Theme

New Theme

 

[JLM]

As a huge fan of Aminata and Coming to America, I bloody love that. I think the original theme is an easier listen but this one feels a bit more big time and stand out. 
 

 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

7 hours ago, BomberPat said:

as it stands, Clockwork Carnage is Ospreay and Joe, with six more still to be announced. Speedball declared their intention to qualify, so let's guess they're in as well.

Kevin Knight, Kyle Fletcher, Jon Moxley, Hangman Page, Mark Davis and Swerve Strickland are all out of the picture as they have other matches on the PPV. I'm guessing Okada is out, unless he gets a qualifier despite losing to Will already.

Maybe Andrade gets in there, but given he has the title shot contract, I assume they hold off on him challenging for a while. Jericho seems to be consciously staying away from the World Title, and I expect has another match with Nick Wayne at the PPV. I don't think they have Kenny Omega in there; whenever he next faces Will, I think that has to be a singles rematch. 

It's surprisingly tough to come up with five more main event-level wrestlers for those spots. Maybe that is justification enough for this match not headlining. The best I can come up with for the remaining five is Ricochet, Gabe Kidd, Takeshita, then maybe Orange Cassidy and someone from the Don Callis Family - but with Davis, Fletcher and Knight accounted for, and Okada presumably missing out on a spot, that leaves maybe Jake Doyle or Wardlow? Definitely a match that could benefit from a wild card.

Darby Allin?

 

Could possibly be

Ospreay

Joe

MJF

OC

Ciampa

Riccochet

Allin

Speedball

 

Then either Seamus or Dragunov comes out after the match to make a 'statement' entrance and challenge to the winner.

 

Maybe you could chuck one of the Hurt Syndicate in so that they could 'lose' without being pinned or submitted

Edited Wednesday at 05:35 PM by Tim Healys Chutney Spoon

[Supremo]

Can everyone please stop failing to mention Double J Jeff Jarrett when they’re fantasy booking participants for the Clockwork Carnage match.

Tony Khan is a suspect lurker. Let’s ensure he realises how important it is that he includes The King of the Mountain himself. It took ages for us to manifest Bryan Danielson wrestling Jeff Jarrett. If we play our cards right, we can get the Will Ospreay/Jeff Jarrett dream match boxed off in half the time.

There’s a fan video of what I assume is a Collision spoiler from last night’s show that I can’t wait until Saturday to talk about.

Spoiler

The Death Riders huddle becoming a fan circle pit is so fucking brilliant. Hopefully it continues on every show. Wild considering how I’ve spent the last year praying they split the Death Riders up that PAC’s death has turned them into a huge babyface act that I hope now stay together forever.

My pro-wrestling senses are tingling though. I’m getting flashbacks of Dean Ambrose turning on Seth Rollins on the same night Roman Reigns announced he had leukaemia.

They wouldn’t try to strike when the iron is hottest and have the Death Riders turn on Mox now, would they?

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:21 PM by Supremo

[SoloJones]

Really enjoyed the majority of the show, and would likely watch more PPVs all the way through (or at least the majority of the matches) if they were paced like this and were closer to 2 hours in length than 4 or 5. I did think Kofi vs Bandido was pretty rough, and at this point if either of Next Level are getting long singles matches I'd rather it was Austin Creed. The bit where Hangman and Swerve came out felt big time though, so it did the job.

Queen Aminata is stunning, and I thought the match was a lot of fun, but once again women are basically an afterthought with no other segments (unless I missed something?). 

Surprised how much I enjoyed Joe vs Jack Perry. Definitely doesn't sound like anything special on paper but Joe sold enough at the right time, and Jack was there for everything. The molten hot crowd for Joe definitely helped too. I could do without the spitting at the end though, such a lame trope of modern wrestling. If I'm too fucked to fight back, I probably wouldn't be able to muster up gobbing in someone's face either.

Fletcher vs Darby was fantastic, really nothing to add there. Main was great too and I enjoyed the tag - the finish to which really surprised me in a good way. Especially given the show last week, you'd assume it was a no brainer that Death Riders were over here, but it really doesn't hurt for them to drop the fall. Great TV all in all, though so many good matches in a row was a little nackering, I wouldn't want it quite like this *every* week.

Edited Wednesday at 06:50 PM by SoloJones