AEW TV 2026 discussion

[Chico Torres]

2026 is a year dominated by Epstein and people getting exposed as nonces or nonce-adjacent. Once Hangman got Mandelson’d there’s no coming back from that especially after his shockingly bad response to being outed as bring best mates with a pedo.

[Lorne Malvo]

Grand Slam was a mixed bag, really. Moxley vs Takeshita and the mixed tag were both examples of how fucking great this company can be at times. Just joyful wrestling.

The ladder match was good but please let that be the end of these two guys fighting.

The womens tag title match was fine I guess. I've lost interest in the division already to be honest, and I think Khan has too.

The main event was decent. A different pace and dynamic to most AEW world title matches. Truthfully I think they made the right decision with MJF retaining - outside of one viral chant a few weeks ago, I don't think Brody King has the support to justify a world title main-event run yet. 

The bigger problem is MJF's next opponent being Hangman. I've just had a real uncomfortable feeling watching him this last month - even before the Scurll pic there was his shite little 'sex pest' digs to MJF, then him playing up to the horse-cock stuff, his brutal non-apology, now this week taking selfies with the fans. I'm sure at some point I'll get past it, because as somebody who watches wrestling I'm naturally a massive hypocrite, but he's dead in the water to me right now. Ice cold.

[Chili]

The thing with the Hangman issue is the only way it gets 'resolved' in the feeling of ick about it is the passage of time because wrestling. Because you can't acknowledge it on TV as a 'thing' because it's just not going to go down well, it's not very of the promotion to do so, nor do I think Page would go for that, or it's actually fair on him to do so given he's not Scurll's only buddy in the industry (not that that absolves the silly beggar either). But at the same time, it's there isn't it. But you can't turn him heel, unless there was an unrelated storyline reason, but that's not going to happen really, and you can't 'depush' him or cool him off either as he's in a prominent story. It's just an awkward quandary where our modern exposure to these people behind the curtain clouds our enjoyment of them on television. Obviously he could just sever the association, but the genie is out the bottle and it would be seen as even more hypocritical, sour, performative or something form of damage limitation. I always keep forgetting that they actually have Scurll's wife under contract. 

For me, it's a let down, especially because I think we all obviously invested a lot of time in Adam Page on screen down to power of his performance as this generally good egg (which a lot of him still is, but fucking hell Hanger what the fuck were you thinking), but it's an industry full of varied cunts so I can sort of switch off as it's just a TV show (though I always feel a bit mentally desensitized and I start to worry that I don't care enough or express it), the only time I can't is if it plays into actual on-screen stuff. Or something like bringing Lesnar back. It blows my mind that anyone can turn off and watch him specifically given an active case. It's a shit situation as a fan, in a way I wish I never knew and it was like the early 90's where I admired all these people as heroes without knowing there were coke heads doing deplorable things to women in cheap motel rooms whilst off their bonce on somas.

Edited February 15 by Chili

[LaGoosh]

6 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

womens tag title match was fine I guess. I've lost interest in the division already to be honest, and I think Khan has too.

I would also say that the Babes of Wrath is now actively harming Willow. She's a singles star. She needs to be pushed as one. Putting one of the best wrestlers in the company with someone who is essentially still a rookie and finding their feet isn't what she needs. She needs to be their John Cena.

[Lorne Malvo]

3 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

I would also say that the Babes of Wrath is now actively harming Willow. She's a singles star. She needs to be pushed as one. Putting one of the best wrestlers in the company with someone who is essentially still a rookie and finding their feet isn't what she needs. She needs to be their John Cena.

It's classic AEW to give her the big TBS title win over Mercedes on a holiday episode of Dynamite that nobody would be watching, and also dilute that title run by having her be tag champ at the same time. 

The first few years of WWE's womens tag division were pretty brutal in terms of the audience not giving a shit about the belts, and I think the AEW womens tag belts have quickly gone the same way to be honest. 

[RedTwoster]

3 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

I would also say that the Babes of Wrath is now actively harming Willow. She's a singles star. She needs to be pushed as one. Putting one of the best wrestlers in the company with someone who is essentially still a rookie and finding their feet isn't what she needs. She needs to be their John Cena.

I do think Harley has improved to the point you could absolutely see her being a singles star in her own right sooner rather than later. Her team with Willow has surely played a part in that.

Having said that, if they were looking to build a major babyface star post-Storm, as they seemed to want to do with Statlander, Willow was the blatantly obvious choice. If you wanted to make Stat champion, it should have been as a heel.

I do find Willow a bit grating, but it’s pretty obvious I’m in the minority and her ‘big push’ is massively overdue.

I’ve said it before - but Tony Khan is squandering a huge opportunity with the female roster. There’s really no reason not to build towards parity with the men as far as TV time goes - and ensure a 50/50(ish) split when it comes to PPV main events.

Do that and you may well be in a position to steal some of WWE’s bigger female stars, as well as keep your own. The talent is there for AEW to do something special, as is the audience investment. 

[BomberPat]

I think Grand Slam was good, but definitely stronger in the first half than the second.

I never expected Brody King to win, though held out some hope that they would read the room and hotshot the belt on to Brody while he's mega-over and getting them mainstream publicity - the moment Hangman won the number one contender's match, though, the result was never really in doubt.

I liked the finish to Hangman/Andrade being Hangman seemingly being the only top star in AEW who actually watches the show, so knowing what Andrade was going to do and getting there before him. It makes the matches that came before matter even more when they play into the wider story. But also, I'd been enjoying Andrade playing spoiler so much, and it was really quite exciting to have Hangman, Swerve, and Kenny all gunning for the World Title, only to have Andrade come out of nowhere and knock two of the three out of the running, so part of me was hoping he would do the same to Page and create some real uncertainty around the title picture, while putting all three of the presumed contenders in a position of "well, now what?" - particularly when it's three characters with a lot of history of both feuding and having uneasy alliances. 

Moxley vs. Takeshita was fantastic. They are both really good, I just wish this wasn't what either of them were doing right now. It's one of the weirder bits of AEW booking to get a story as hot as it can get, and then cool it off for no reason. Nobody came out of World's End hoping that the big feud coming out of the Continental Classic would be Takeshita and Moxley, they wanted Takeshita and Okada to finally blow up - two months later, and they've barely interacted, they've just made Takeshita look like a sad puppy for being disappointed that his mates forgave Okada. He should have been coming in with righteous anger at everybody - at Okada for screwing him over, at Kyle Fletcher and Don Callis for planting the screwdriver in the first place and potentially being in on it, and at Don for having used him all these years in the first place - but instead it's business as usual, spending half his time tagging with the Don Callis Family B-Team. On the other side of the ring, you had Jon Moxley turn babyface through the sheer power of wrestling, yet he's still knocking about with Marina Shafir and Wheeler Yuta. These are stories that need paying off, not kicking down the road.

Women's tag was fine, but I agree on Willow being held back in that act and that division. The tag team with Harley is fun, but it's the sort of thing you do to keep a former champion busy to free up space for new challengers, not what you do with someone while they're actively a singles champion coming off their biggest ever win. It also dilutes that there was a long story about whether Willow could trust Kris Statlander or not that the pay-off to that story wasn't Willow and Stat tagging together - realistically, the only meaningful resolution to an "are they friends or not?" story - because Willow already had a tag team partner. They do at least put in the effort to be a proper team, with coordinated gear and the like, same as Megan Bayne and Penelope Ford, who are a decent heel foil, though I think Megan is probably better served as a threatening singles act.
Lena Kross is fantastic, so I'm happy to see her debut here - and it's very funny seeing Megan Bayne get up on her tip-toes trying to square up to her, when we're so used to Megan being the tallest woman in the division. Only criticism is that if I were AEW I'd have forked out for new gear for Lena to match Penelope and Megan, just to make that shot of the three of them standing together more impactful.

Ladder Match was fine. Some mad spots, but nothing groundbreaking, largely because ladder matches have been done to death, as has this feud. Ultimately I don't mind that this was the match, as it did its job - Kyle Fletcher winning the feud and getting a big victory in his home country, though I do wonder why we had the detour into Tomasso Ciampa, rather than just having Kyle win the title here. Especially after showing a backstage bit of Fletcher talking to Okada, I was convinced we were getting an Okada run-in and Ciampa coming out to make the save, but no.

Mixed Tag was superb. I went in absolutely convinced that Toni was losing her hair, with the only shadow of doubt being that they had done a skit for social media of Toni and OC trying on different wigs, and I thought they wouldn't have done that before the match if either of them were actually losing their hair. The finish I predicted was OC losing, but Toni volunteering her hair in his place - when Yuta starting running away, I thought maybe they would have the Death Riders do that instead; I could just see Marina reacting to it by grabbing the clippers and defiantly shaving her own head. Moxley doing the disappointed dad act and marching Yuta back to the ring was good, but it's back to the question of what the hell they're doing with the Death Riders, that they're still led by babyface Mox even in matches like this where they're the hated heels. Maybe this is the catalyst for a change in that dynamic, but we've had about two dozen catalysts at this point. I found the post-match really weird, that Toni, Luther and Orange Cassidy were joking around with Yuta while shaving his head, while Marina Shafir and Moxley just stood and watched - it's been months where Toni Storm would have been at Marina's throat on sight, but now they're just sort of knocking about in the ring together? I'd have had Marina storm out, while Moxley stuck around to make sure Yuta went through with it, just to tidy that situation up.

Marina Shafir is fascinating. I can't tell, minute to minute, whether she's a good wrestler or not. Objectively, she isn't, she can barely wrestle. But she's so compelling to watch, and every match she has is great, because she's only booked in these chaotic messes. I really wonder what a post-Death Riders run looks like for her, and logically, you'd think she has to seriously go for one of the singles belts at some point.

 

Main event, as I said, struggled for the lack of investment in Brody winning. I would have liked a more obvious callback to the previous match, and give the false hope of Brody winning again by just repeating the same sequence of moves he squashed MJF with on Dynamite. I find MJF matches very frustrating, because when he keeps it as simple as he did here, like the Mistico match in CMLL, he shows how good he can be - he's as good as any heel in the business right now at stooging for a babyface, and making them look great, but only in matches, he's got actively worse at doing that in promos and across stories in general, and that feels very conscious and political, that he knows where he's best at protecting the value of the MJF character. It feels very meta, a bit Cody-verse, like I'm watching someone use AEW to create a showreel of how good they would be for WWE. Given that the story has been that MJF was scared of Brody, and that Brody had MJF's number, I wouldn't have had MJF kick out of the Ganso Bomb - if Excalibur was right on commentary, it's the first time anyone's kicked out of that, and I wouldn't give that to MJF. Because that either makes MJF tougher than anyone else Brody has fought, and him being afraid of wrestling him being misguided, or it makes Brody look like he can't get it done at the top level when his killshot finish isn't enough in an actual big match environment. I'd have had MJF get out of it at every attempt, and leave the hanging thread that maybe Brody could have won if only he had managed to hit that move.

[LaGoosh]

5 hours ago, BomberPat said:

like I'm watching someone use AEW to create a showreel of how good they would be for WWE

I feel the same but more a showreel for Hollywood than WWE.

I feel like MJF very much has his sights set on more acting work and AEW is the best place where he can balance a wrestling and acting career with full control.

[Statto]

5 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Kyle Fletcher winning the feud and getting a big victory in his home country, though I do wonder why we had the detour into Tomasso Ciampa, rather than just having Kyle win the title here.

I'd guess that Fletcher winning the unofficial best of 7 series and getting the belt back here was probably the original intention - but despite TK getting some pelters here for not being willing to deviate from "The Plan", he absolute can't resist doing so when someone who was one of his faves in RoH in the 2000s becomes available (the fact he was fresh from WWE obviously doesn't hurt). 

6 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

The first few years of WWE's womens tag division were pretty brutal in terms of the audience not giving a shit about the belts, and I think the AEW womens tag belts have quickly gone the same way to be honest. 

The one thing it's got going for it over the WWE equivalent (still now) is that they are at least trying to put it across a proper tag division of set teams with matching gear, team names (of varying quality) etc. I like that. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

Re: Ciampa my own theory is he couldn’t go. Australia requires you to have a visa to visit but if you’re going to work you need a different visa. Even if he had one with WWE it wouldn’t be transferable, so that’s probably why it happened on Dynamite. Still had a banger of a match for his home crowd though. 

[The King Of Swing]

Marina holding Yuta's hand as he got his head shaved was tremendous. 

Honestly current Death Riders is one of the bright spots in AEW, for me. Can't even explain why but I actually enjoy the weird face/heel dynamic. 

I know I'm probably in the minority on that. 

I'm also into Swerve/Omega but that feels like it should be on PPV, not TV. Screwy finish maybe? 

[Kamran]

Coming up on Dynamite this week:

[BrodyGraham]

I know it's already been posited, but MJF's absolutely bringing up the Scurll thing this week, isn't he? If they've any sense they've already given him pelters just in case he's even thought about it. I dunno if they've any sense when it comes to MJF though?

I can't help but feel that Takeshita is beating Mox at the PPV and we're getting a triple threat for the unified title between the 3 meaningful members of the Don Callis family sometime in the not too distant future. That should be tasty but when are we getting a proper Takeshita/Okada match?

Kenny Vs Swerve is loads of fun on paper, but it's absolutely just gonna be a trailer for the inevitable match at Revolution.

[BomberPat]

Kenny Omega might not be at Revolution - he's booked for a Street Fighter 6 event in Japan that day - so I expect this is the full Swerve/Omega match rather than a teaser for a bigger match at the PPV. Given how little is announced for this show, it's probably going to go long too.

I don't think MJF will bring up Scurll, I think even he will recognise it's a really stupid thing to do and risks undermining the babyface and the promotion for a reference that a tiny percentage of the audience will understand. Marty Scurll is a non-entity - he has never wrestled for AEW, hasn't wrestled anywhere of note in the last six years, and isn't worth bringing up for a lazy zinger. I think it's more likely that, if MJF wants to lean on worked shoot bollocks, that we'll get some CM Punk references.

I assume the Brawling Birds debut will either be against The Iinspiration, or they will make an appearance after the fact.

[LaGoosh]

In concerning news, reports are saying that the Wetherspoons Dementor is still under AEW contract and his contract was frozen for him to take time off and go tour with his band.