AEW TV 2026 discussion

[Merzbow]

Strange that Mistico hasn't been announced for a match before this despite him being on the official poster for Forbidden Door, he's on the freshly announced Collision card against Dante Martin so I'm guessing he'll actually be there at the PPV but I'd have much preferred him vs MJF than what we currently have.

[Supremo]

My Stone Cold is intensifying with Jon Moxley again. We’re almost at fever pitch.

Mox’s performance at last year’s All In earned him a lot of credit with me. That match with Hangman was so fucking good, and that selling for the finish was so spectacular. I was able to forgive the six months prior, with him mooching about like the Burglar in The Sims, committing cartoon crimes straight out of Disney Channel movies. I was even willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when the (originally brilliant) losing streak completely fizzled out.

You don’t want the Death Riders to naturally turn on you, and would rather tread water as a meandering Tweener, having weekly, overlong TV matches that prove you’re the Hardest Man Alive? Fair enough. Treat yourself. I’ll just fast forward every time your music hits.

However, I’ve now ran out of patience. The rot of Mox’s bullshit is now damaging other, far more significant elements of the show. He’s muddying the waters for what should be the top babyface fighting for the World Title at the biggest show of the year. He’s Debra at Wrestlemania 17. Pat McAfee at Wrestlemania 42. Adjust your sunglasses, and fuck off!

Famously, Moxley based his AEW feud with CM Punk around Rocky 3, so my presumption with this Will Ospreay thing was that the next 80s movie Mox had Torrented was Karate Kid 3. The moment it started, I figured Mox and the Death Riders would play the part of Daniel LaRusso‘s evil mentor, who (Karate Kid 3 spoilers!) gaslights and manipulates him.

The arc seemed certain that Will would eventually realise, overcome, destroy them all and then emerge better and more over than ever. And maybe that still is the plan, but fucking hell. Even if it is, they need to hurry up. They’ve still got about three quarters of the fucking stadium to sell!

I’m losing more and more faith by the week. The Death Riders haven’t felt less like evil manipulators. They’re running in to even the odds in Will‘s matches. They’re proving to be exactly what Will needs, with the suggestion being that he can’t succeed without them.

Maybe I’m being impatient. Maybe the moment Will lifts the Owen Cup The Death Riders will turn on him and he can demolish them all at Redemption. Forgive me for being cynical though. I’m still waiting for The Death Riders to attack Moxley after the Continental Classic. It’s been six months. I’m starting to think it’s a pipe dream. We don’t deliver such crescendos in the MoxleyVerse. The orgasm never comes. We just tease and edge you until the only thing that’s still hard is Moxley himself, because he’s dead fucking hard, don’t you know? Hard as nails. Moxley once threw a fox around the world on Record Breakers.

At least Seth Rollins has the decency to always be shit. With Moxley, he delivers such gold sometimes that it makes it extra annoying when he books himself into these funks. Even more so when he takes innocent victims with him. I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.

Very disappointed.

Edited June 18 by Supremo

[LaGoosh]

I'm torn on the Deathriders because I really enjoy them, love their entrances and they have great matches. If they went all in on them as a big babyface group I think it'd work. They are a brilliant group.

However I do agree to some extent with @Supremo. They are kind of just their at the moment and there's been no real storyline anchor for them for ages now. They perfectly set up the group turning on Moxley at the end of last year but then they just...didn't. Mox is now sort of a babyface and has never paid for any of his crimes. The Ospreay story is so wishy washy and half hearted that I'm not even sure what the point of it is. The little effort they've made with it is confusing. Ospreay owes them their allegiance because he did a few yoga sessions with them or something? I've got no idea what's going on with it. He's not even on screen with them enough so that when they inevitably turn on him it'll have no impact whatsoever.

Edited June 19 by LaGoosh

[BomberPat]

even if the Death Riders do turn on Will Ospreay, what does it achieve? It doesn't make them look like master manipulators, it makes Will Ospreay look like a prize dickhead and the most gullible man alive for ever thinking they were on his side. And if Will stands up to them - that's what the last pep talk from Kenny Omega seems to suggest - it's just a question of "why now?", why did he listen to them in the first place? He's not changed up his style enough to sell the story that they've transformed him as a wrestler - he still wrestles a Will Ospreay match, he just sometimes does an armbar, and the commentators tell us he's more aggressive even when he isn't particularly - and there's not part of the story that couldn't be told exactly the same way with Will feuding with the Death Riders than by them teaming with him. When it comes to segments like that one with Swerve, it actively undermines it.

The Death Riders have fun matches. I think Mox vs. Bandido could be a good time. But the "are they face/are they heel" question every week is one of the most annoying parts of following AEW. I've seen people argue that it's because Moxley is a tweener, or because it's shades of grey, but there's no such thing as a tweener in wrestling. It's not just goodies and baddies, it's about how you actually work a match. And they're not working as tweeners, they're working one segment as heels and the next as faces, that's not shades of grey, it's inconsistency, and the sort of thing that WCW would have been dragged over the coals about. You have PAC doing babyface run-ins and then wrestling as a heel in the very next segment.

The biggest problem is that it just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I'm sure Ospreay beats Moxley and maybe then the Death Riders start breaking up, but we've been at the "maybe this is what causes the Death Riders to break up" stage for over a year. It would be very Tony Khan booking to finally start breaking up the Death Riders at the same time that they finally start breaking up the Don Callis Family, though.

[The King of Old School]

I'm hoping after Ospreay wins the Owen, that he says to Moxley he can't really move on until he beats him or something.

Have Ospreay beat Moxley at Redemption, then he has that clear non death riders path to the World Title at Wembley. 

You could have the death riders turn on Moxley there or the Dynamite after to set up something for Wembley for them.

[LaGoosh]

It's just a shame they didn't do the split at the end of last year. Mox should have lost the Continental Classic final - it was all set up perfectly. They should have turned on him and have Claudio as the new leader (as he was really over as the silent evil killer of the group at that point). Then Mox should have been spending 2026 on a redemption tour, mending all the bridges he had burned down and coming back to destroy his own creation.

[Supremo]

In retrospect it makes perfect sense that Moxley and Cope was the most cursed combination imaginable because both appear to be going through the worst case of Pro-Wrestler Mid Life Crisis.

Like all their instincts for narrative and character logic are forcibly put aside so they can be portrayed as the toughest, meanest and hardest.

Moxley losing the Title to Hangman and then going on a huge losing streak that exposes him as a fraud and seeds doubt amongst the Death Riders was a great story. It made all the sense in the world. I knew where it was going and I couldn’t wait! Maybe he’d bring back, “Wild Thing,” after the inevitable Babyface turn! Moxley vs. Pac! Moxley vs. Claudio! This is going to be great!

But then imagine writing down what happened next. Moxley - still a heel - will turn it around, win the Continental Classic, and then just continue wrestling and winning all the fucking time. Any doubts The Death Riders may have had about him will be abandoned. They’ll all flip flop between being heels and babyfaces on a segment by segment basis. More matches. More than you ever thought possible.

And then for reasons never explained Will Ospreay will return from them attempting to break his neck, feud with them for a month, then decide to do some Yoga with them instead. What the fuck is going on?! Messy, shitty, confusing bollocks.

Can you lose intelligence via blood loss? Asking for a certain wrestler.

Edited June 19 by Supremo

[abucalves]

The Death Riders stuff feels like it has really killed Ospreay's momentum. It was such an easy story in the lead up to Wembley, and there is still time to change it. But it's a bit of a slog

Also a lot of chat on Twitter about his "smashed the life out of her" bit, and for me it goes down to my thing with Gabe Kidd, I've been around people that speak like that in real life, and I find them annoying.

Edited June 19 by abucalves

[BomberPat]

50 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

It's just a shame they didn't do the split at the end of last year. Mox should have lost the Continental Classic final - it was all set up perfectly. They should have turned on him and have Claudio as the new leader (as he was really over as the silent evil killer of the group at that point). Then Mox should have been spending 2026 on a redemption tour, mending all the bridges he had burned down and coming back to destroy his own creation.

I think Moxley winning the Continental Classic still had some really weight behind it - obviously the actual follow-up on Okada and Takeshita took forever to go anywhere, but Takeshita getting screwed out of it was electric at the time, and there was a story there in the guy who had been telling everyone about the importance of fighting spirit and uplifting the company actually having to live by his words and prove himself without his mates being able to run interference for him. If the Death Riders weren't going to kick out Moxley, that could have been a point for Moxley to realise he didn't need them and to begin a redemption tour. But they've done none of those things, and Mox as Continental Champion just seems to be a vehicle to let him wrestle whoever fancies wrestling this week, logic be damned.

[HarmonicGenerator]

36 minutes ago, abucalves said:

Also a lot of chat on Twitter about his "smashed the life out of her" bit, and for me it goes down to my thing with Gabe Kidd, I've been around people that speak like that in real life, and I find them annoying.

I'm obviously not going to go on Twitter to read these, but I thought that line, and the one after it, were absolutely dreadful. Ospreay, AEW, and all men at their worst. Between this and the arse-backwards logic of his Death Riders association... I still want to see Ospreay vs. Omega at Wembley, but I wouldn't mind if Swerve won the Owen.

I even said after last week's Collision that "I’ve long stopped trying to figure out what the Death Riders actually are and just take them from match to match, which makes them much more enjoyable". I need to qualify that with "provided they're operating in a vacuum away from the other main storylines". Which this week, they really weren't. Ospreay just cannot use the broken neck thing as a way to get cheers and sympathy when he's mates with the people who actually did it. It was so ridiculous him and Swerve talking about last year, trying to get the title off that horrible Moxley, when Will's all pally with him on this show. Even Swerve couldn't make it make sense.

Thought this was another not great Dynamite, maybe not helped by the fact MyAEW was freezing constantly. I got a sense of dread when we opened with the Premier Athletes, and it did improve from there, but there was a lot that wasn't working for me this episode.

[RedTwoster]

30 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

Thought this was another not great Dynamite, maybe not helped by the fact MyAEW was freezing constantly.

I’ve realised through reading this that was the first show I’ve managed to watch on MyAEW without it freezing. It’s a shame that this was probably just luck and not a case of them sorting things out with that service. I think my opinion on shows is being skewed by how frustrating the viewing experience is or isn’t. 

[LaGoosh]

Curious. MyAEW has always worked perfectly for me - I haven't had a single freeze.

[The King Of Swing]

Outside of the Osprey stuff, I still enjoy the Death Riders.

Mostly for the fun multi matches and their goofy group stuff. 

[Chili]

Yeah, I don't mind it, but I think @Supremohas heat stroke or something because I recall you bloody loved Mox in the CC. 

I'll be entirely honest though that I'm not fully paying attention as I'm casually watching AEW at the moment. I do kind of get what the Ospreay/Death Riders stuff is aiming at, but it's not like Hangman/Omega where they're good enough to tell you and you fill the gaps, it needs better explanation as why Ospreay is all enemy of my enemy is my friend with them, making Swerve more of a shithead would help too. At the moment he's just a heel who has proper grafted to get to the finals too.

[RedTwoster]

4 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Curious. MyAEW has always worked perfectly for me - I haven't had a single freeze.

What is it you watch it on? I usually watch it on a browser via an iPad, although I recently installed the Roku app so that might end up making a difference.