AEW TV 2026 discussion

[LaGoosh]

4 hours ago, BrodyGraham said:

so I sort of really like Lio Rush in this weird Gollum gimmick

I don't hate it. Though it feels like a half-finished gimmick at the moment. Needs a bit more to it visually. But it's definitely more interesting than your standard no gimmick flippy guy that AEW has so many of.

[DavidB6937]

10 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I don't hate it. Though it feels like a half-finished gimmick at the moment. Needs a bit more to it visually. But it's definitely more interesting than your standard no gimmick flippy guy that AEW has so many of.

I think that's it. I'm not sure it's actually good as such, but it's nice to see someone commit to something a bit different to stand out, because so many of them really don't. To the point where sometimes I'll get them mixed up.

[RedTwoster]

I try not to call people out on here for being thick as mince, but this person deserves to feel small:

On 4/13/2026 at 10:54 AM, RedTwoster said:

Jericho/Ricochet was also very good, although why on earth has he dropped the ‘Chris’ from his name? Him losing his first match back is clearly leading to something storyline wise, and I think he’s going to be a fun addition to Dynamite and/or Collision. 

You stupid fucking twat. OF COURSE he’s going to come back with a gimmick that’s as bad, if not worse than the learning tree. A genuine apology to anyone I upset or offended with the above opinion. 

Outside of that though, another fantastic show. I wasn’t particularly arsed about Darby/Ciampa heading into the show - it’s another predictable match at face value - but my god did they do a good job of building to it throughout the show. They left me wanting to see Ciampa win. He may be a heel, but that promo he cut had me willing him on - and throughout the actual match they had me believing that he might. 

It looks like they’re going to do the OC gimmick with Darby, of him fighting until he’s physically spent - but I would quite like to see them subvert our expectations and have him lose to Brody King next week. 

MJF was fun, Kevin Knight feels as insincere as Shida when he speaks. A heel partnership with MJF might do him wonders, he’s a natural heel. You can see why they’re pushing him though, there’s clearly something there with him.

I love Shida’s new character. I also think Mina Shirikawa is slightly underrated, she’s a great babyface when she’s kept apart from Toni Storm. 

Joe looked tremendous in his return, and I hope we get to see an absolute meatfest with Mark Davis at some point.

Speaking of Davis, MJF described him as the most underrated wrestler in the company and I’d tend to agree. The match with Ospreay was great and he’s been consistently superb since Jake Doyle got hurt. I’m not against that tag team reuniting, but there’s something there with him when it comes to being a singles star. I hope he’s able to capitalise on this angle, there are a lot of people I’d like to see him wrestle.

Moxley and co carrying Ospreay away is intriguing, but I hope they don’t do anything stupid with it. Have Moxley and co try to build the guy up again rather than make it a stupid ‘kidnap and torture’ angle (the ‘Kane special’) 

Momentum is on AEW’s side at the moment, so here’s hoping the strong run continues.

EDIT: Add me to the list of people enjoying Lio Rush’s new character, even if I’m not completely clear on what it’s actually supposed to be…

Edited April 23 by RedTwoster

[LaGoosh]

12 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

Joe looked tremendous in his return, and I hope we get to see an absolute meatfest with Mark Davis at some point.

Goddamn this is what makes AEW so fun for me. The roster is so deep that there's matches you had never even considered before and then someone off handedly suggests one like above and I'm like "Oh my god, yes! I want to see that match right now, please!".

[Supremo]

Renee Paquette doing a bog standard interview with Alex Windsor to set up a match on Collision in the very segment after Renee’s husband Moxley kidnapped Alex’s fiancée Ospreay, with no-one mentioning it. Come on, Tony. You’re better than this!*

* I’ll forgive the massive plot hole if it’s later revealed The Death Riders actually took Will out on his stag do.

Edited April 23 by Supremo

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Great show, I even enjoyed the main event, despite my dislike of Darby.

I did think Mina was a little sloppy in her match, she seemed to be slow and miss some queues. Hope it was an off night and she wasnt hurt.

[NeverYield]

Enjoyed MJF again, Samoa Joe looking fast and dangerous in his return, Darby and Ciampa put on a banger. All in all a good show, plenty of reasons to keep watching. 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

Renee Paquette doing a bog standard interview with Alex Windsor to set up a match on Collision in the very segment after Renee’s husband Moxley kidnapped Alex’s fiancée Ospreay, with no-one mentioning it. Come on, Tony. You’re better than this!*

* I’ll forgive the massive plot hole if it’s later revealed The Death Riders actually took Will out on his stag do.

This did cross my mind, but I couldn’t remember if they’d ever acknowledged that Ospreay and Windsor were a couple on AEW television. They probably still could have given themselves an out by saying she ‘spoke to Renee Paquette earlier today’ or something like that.

I also hope FTR vs C&C closes Double or Nothing, even if the plan is for C&C to win. I want them to give both men the Darby treatment, with video packages, emotional promos and other wrestlers paying tribute to them - I want to be convinced they’re retiring. Heck, I’d be completely fine with them wrestling The Young Bucks on Dynamite, making it look as if they’re running that dream match now, before C&C call it quits. Then I want C&C to win, and a three way ladder or TLC match between those teams at All In. 

[BomberPat]

maybe I'm just in a bad mood, but outside of the main event I didn't really enjoy this show at all.

Something I've noticed a lot from AEW in recent weeks is that the follow-up to a big match will be a promo by the loser. Now, I like losses to matter, and I like the loser of a match to be angry about it, and give a sense of direction as to what comes next. But last week, after Ricochet beat Jericho, it was Jericho who got the "we'll hear from..." graphic. The last two weeks, it's been Adam Copeland getting the promo time to continue the feud with FTR. This week, it was MJF we heard from before Darby about following up Darby Allin's title win. It's very much "this is who the real stars of these stories are" stuff, and I can't not notice it now.

Didn't like MJF's promo. Started out a little generic, but at least fired up and angry about losing to Darby and feeling like he's being screwed, but then he forgets all that and completely changes tone to do crap comedy against Kevin Knight, then shits on the TNT Title as a lesser belt for boring wrestlers who aren't good enough right before challenging for the TNT Title. 

I don't like Lio Rush's gimmick. There's something there, but he hasn't found it yet. I hate the bit at the start of the match where he talks nonsense into the camera, that's as close to "change the channel" heat as anything in AEW for me now. Brody King not being freaked out or intimidated by it and just barrelling through him is the best use of that gimmick yet. I think what I dislike is that he presents himself as a little inhuman goblin man, but then is doing springboard cutters and really just wrestling exactly the same, except sometimes he crawls about a bit and pulls a face. Above everything else, it feels like a gimmick Lio Rush has come up with to give himself an excuse to not sell big moves.

Damp squib of a Samoa Joe return. The match was fine, but I shouldn't be finding out that Samoa Joe is back from a match graphic that the commentators didn't even comment on. He was World Champion and Trios Champion not that long before he left, and they can't come up with a better return than "Joe's back". Hook has been doing promos as leader of The Opps for months, and couldn't have planted the idea that Joe was coming back in one of them?

Absolutely hated Adam Copeland's promo. Okay, so they're doing a gimmick stipulation rematch with FTR for the belts - I don't dislike rematches in principle, but why not just do that in Canada? It feels very mechanically booked that C&C won the first match, FTR win the second, so C&C get to win the third. But C&C didn't need to win the first match, particularly as they were then written out for months afterwards anyway - why not just have FTR win the first, then do the big gimmicked up rematch in Canada, and give C&C the win there? Most of all, though, I hated that this was an Adam Copeland promo. They have a legendary tag team, after months of build to get them to reunite, and the feud is just Adam Copeland vs. FTR. Christian Cage is a complete afterthought, and Cope's the only one with any storyline motivation, and the only one getting any promo time. They've never presented as a team of equals, and barely as a team at all.

Davis vs. Ospreay was great, Death Riders back to kidnapping wrestlers was terrible. We're going to have another summer of shite Death Riders angles dragging every show down, I can feel it. What was the point of the pseudo-babyface Moxley run and the feud with the Don Callis Family if the plan was only ever to get back to this?

Ciampa vs. Darby was brilliant and mental. Darby having this kind of match every week is the perfect opposite of MJF's title reign.

[Ironic Indie Lad]

Doing one of my semi-regular attempts to get into current wrestling. I watched Dynamite this morning:

I thought MJF was pretty good in the opening segment. Usually I dont go for his "oooooh does that offend you, yeah?" type material but he was good here. Kevin Knight says "The Jet" way too much.

Brody King is someone I have enjoyed in the past and he seems to be getting a good singles push now. I saw some clips before of the new Lio Rush character already and thought it was just yet another annoying spooky bollocks character. Seeing it in full though and he does seem to be onto something. Definitely better gimmick than being absolutely tiny but brilliant at flips.

I cannot believe Jericho has just returned from a lengthy time off. To borrow a phrase from the youngsters, unc has fell off hard and lost all aura. He is such a non entity now that I cant quite believe it. Yet another crap gimmick!

Copeland promo was decent. Have to assume they win at DoN because I cant see C and C splitting up right now. I still think its going to be Copeland and Cage v FTR v Bucks in Wembley in some sort of ladder / TLC match. I hope so anyway. 

I know its actually because I stopped watching for months, but it feels like Ospreay has never been away to me. He's taped up to the max but he seems to be moving fine. Davis has a better look than he had in the past which is good as its hard to imagine Aussie Open ever being a regular team again now. Good match. I think I actually enjoyed Ospreay more because the match was based around him selling an injury. I was thinking "this better be the fucking finish" when there was a piledriver followed by an apron piledriver...and it was!!!!!!!! 

Seeing Samoa Joe is always going to be good. One of my favourites of all time for the ROH title run alone. Good squash!

I like Darby as world champ. It's very un-WWE which I think is for the best. My opinion is always that you need to be different if you are going to compete with WWE. Why would anyone want to just watch a version of WWE with less star power? Clearly there is going to be a rematch with MJF soon and I would be disappointed if they just switch it straight back to MJF. 

Ciampa just reminds me of the absolute worst of NXT which is probably very unfair. He is immediately improved just by having no associate with Johnny Gargano. 

The Air Raid Crash off the top to the outside was an absolutely insane spot

Darby / Brody in a world title match has the potentially to be quite a spectacle. They will kill each other.

I enjoyed this overall and will try keep up a bit more on the road to All In. 

[burchybabi]

Rumours are they are adding another PPV to be called Redemption in July, assuming so there’s not as long a gap from Forbidden Door to All In.

[Supremo]

Assuming this Darby Title run is here for a good time rather than a long time, I hope they have Darby defend against Samoa Joe soon. Their chemistry is always incredible. Wouldn’t mind seeing Darby vs. Mark Davis, too.

Every single day Adam Copeland morphs more and more into Vigo from Ghostbusters 2. FTR vs. Cope and Christian in a Street Fight at Double or Nothing makes me worry we aren’t getting an Anarchy in the Arena match. Aren’t there some weird rules about blood in New York? Maybe they’re going to delay Anarchy in the Arena for a different show, or ideally do Stadium Stampede at Wembley again.

[HarmonicGenerator]

8 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

This did cross my mind, but I couldn’t remember if they’d ever acknowledged that Ospreay and Windsor were a couple on AEW television. They probably still could have given themselves an out by saying she ‘spoke to Renee Paquette earlier today’ or something like that.

Ospreay made repeated reference to Renee being Moxley’s wife in the buildup to Dynasty, and Windsor fought Marina on the preshow of that same PPV because she was acknowledged as Ospreay’s partner. Absolutely mad decision to run that interview segment where they did, really stupid stuff.

I also see we’re already back to the Hurt Syndicate fighting The Demand on Collision. Joy.

I’m not quite as down on this show as Pat, but I’m not as high on it as everyone else. Still enjoyed it way more than what I saw of WrestleMania though.

[Statto]

It really bugs me that they acknowledge Renee as being Moxley's wife but never have her appear bothered in the slightest by some of the heinous shit he does. Just don't acknowledge it, no need.

I was really pleased when they finally did the ref stoppage with Ospreay. They've been teasing it for weeks but he just keeps bouncing back from getting repeatedly dropped on his (apparently incredibly fragile) neck and I truly thought they were going to have him take a PILEDRIVER ON THE APRON (a move that really should be writing a 100% healthy wrestler off TV for a month) and still carry on & win. 

I've enjoyed Ciampa way more in AEW than I ever imagined. Praying Gargano never turns up to ruin it.

[Hannibal Scorch]

Everyone is assuming MJF is lock in to be the next TNT champion. Except he’s fighting Kevin Knight. In Virginia. Where a certain cowboy, with a grudge, is from.