AEW WrestleDream 2026 Discussion

[Statto]

That did cross my mind on the second point, and not unrelated - one of the things I did like about the whole deal was McGuinness imploring Ospreay to tap out quick when caught in the Coquina Clutch, and sacrifice a fall rather than take more punishment.

Ospreay ultimately didn't do that, and Nigel painted it as a potentially critical tactical error - Ospreay had taken a load of damage, lost a lot of time off the clock and still ultimately given up a fall to Joe.

[LaGoosh]

I think as a proof of concept Clockwork Carnage worked and a B-level PPV main event with only 1-2 weeks build was the perfect place to debut it.

Going forwards though I definitely think it's better suited as a Blood and Guts style Dynamite Special Episode though.

At the same time they shot themselves in the foot a bit because Okada/Ospreay is an easy PPV main event that they kind of threw away on free TV. Though again I can understand why they did it - a big title match in a new foreign market makes total sense.

[BomberPat]

I think Clockwork Carnage works a lot better as a match for a title shot than for a title - the TV in the run-up to Clockwork Carnage suffered for Ospreay as World Champion not being enough of a focal point, and not having a feud to get his teeth into to really sell the pay-per-view, and with qualifying matches running right up to the week of the pay-per-view meaning there wasn't enough time to properly build it as a main event World Title calibre match. 

Now, it may be that I've got cause and effect the wrong way around here - Ospreay spent at least part of the build off in Japan doing NJPW stuff, so it might be that they went with Clockwork Carnage precisely because Ospreay wasn't going to be around enough to build a big heated feud, in which case it's smarter booking than I was initially giving them credit for.

There were story points in there that I enjoyed - I thought Excalibur did a great job of putting over the importance of both phases of the match, I really liked him making sure to get across that the eighth entrant has the advantage because they're the only one guaranteed to enter into the second phase, and saying early on that Takeshita could pin Will early and while it wouldn't make Takeshita champion, it would guarantee that Will wasn't leaving with the World Title. Nigel, meanwhile, was arguing that he wouldn't be trying to eliminate people early, he would be spending the first phase trying to defend himself and reserve his energy, effectively hoping that the other wrestlers would punch each other out. That kind of discussion of the strategy behind a match like this is one of the ways you really make it work, and ties into Statto's point about Nigel suggesting Will should give up a fall to save himself further damage - that's how Nigel McGuinness would approach that situation, but not how Will Ospreay would, and therein lies the story. I'd be interested to see if future Clockwork Carnage matches take that kind of thing into account and do things differently, because there's so much scope to play around with the format - if they all just end up much like this one, where the people lower down the pecking order are eliminated early, the "proper stars" go through to the second phase, and then the result runs right down to the wire, it will be disappointing when there's so much they could be going.

It put me in mind of two of my favourite wrestling moments - first is the ECW World Title three way match between Taz, Mike Awesome, and Masato Tanaka. It was elimination rules, and Taz, the champion, was eliminated really early in the match - Joey Styles screaming about how now whatever happens, you're guaranteed a new World Champion. It's not what you're expecting, and it instantly gives you a hook - the champion going out in the first phase of a Clockwork Carnage would be really interesting in that way too. The other is the Kurt Angle/Brock Lesnar Iron Man match, where Brock hits Kurt with a chair, dropping a fall by DQ, but he knows he's done enough damage that he's going to pick that fall back up again moments later anyway - I don't think I'd ever seen that in an Iron Man match before, and that tactical mentality of "I can afford to take a fall here" should come into play a lot more in multi-fall matches, rather than each fall being treated as equivalent to how they'd be seen in a single fall match.

[RedTwoster]

21 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Going forwards though I definitely think it's better suited as a Blood and Guts style Dynamite Special Episode though.

Agreed, or as a PPV Casino Gauntlet substitute to crown a number one contender or something. 

As far as Dynamite specials go, I really wish they'd ditch Blood and Guts as an annual event. Admittedly, I hate Wargames-style matches, but I do feel like it forces them to book in a certain way to justify a multi-person match, when it doesn't always benefit the show. I'd prefer to see them whip out the gimmick sporadically, maybe some years you don't see it at all. Maybe some decades you don't see it at all (...as I say, I really do hate that match type).

[LaGoosh]

I also liked how Copeland was mostly outperformed by his younger more athletic and powerful opponents throughout but managed to get two quick sneaky pins near the end - played into his "ultimate opportunist" thing he used to do. Very well done 

[RedTwoster]

2 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I also liked how Copeland was mostly outperformed by his younger more athletic and powerful opponents throughout but managed to get two quick sneaky pins near the end - played into his "ultimate opportunist" thing he used to do. Very well done 

I know you're not his biggest fan, but I unashamedly love the man. I love how he's leaning into the fact he's getting older and wasn't what he once was, something very few older wrestlers do, or at least, they didn't in WWE. 

He was also THE big heel when I was younger - when I started watching, the big bad was Lesnar on Smackdown (and Triple H on Raw, but I didn't have Sky Sports so just saw whatever the Raw highlight show was), when he left it was JBL (...and Triple H) and after that, for the longest time, it was Edge - and I thought he was brilliant as this reprehensible, opportunistic, selfish twat. 

I'm so pleased that he's retiring in AEW, it's pretty much guaranteed they'll give him the kind of send off that I'd want him to have. 

[TheBurningRed]

My brain keeps seeing 'orange' and not carnage. And it makes me want to re-watch CM Punk vs Raven in that great Clockwork Orange House of Fun match.

[Supremo]

Late to finish the second half of this show, I’m shocked more hasn’t been said about that incredible Tag Title match.

A genuine Match of the Year candidate, it was almost too good, all but killing the rest of the show when nothing else could live up to it. It was followed by matches specifically designed and gimmicked to be fast-paced and/or crazy (Trios two-out-of-three-falls, Moxley’s bloodbath, Clockwork Carnage) and yet none of them came anywhere close to Nick Jackson going fucking mental, seemingly on 30x speed. Liquid pro-wrestling. I lost my mind the longer that madness went on.

Do you think anyone alive still genuinely considers the fucking Usos as the greatest Tag Team of all time? Because The Young Bucks are so many leagues ahead of them at this point that it’s not even funny. They’ve hit that Bryan Danielson tier, where they’re not only demonstrably the best ever, but they’re somehow hitting their stride and delivering their best ever work at a point when most careers are winding down. It’ll be a sad day when they pack it in. They’re the absolute best.

Cannot fucking wait for that New Level vs. Young Bucks match. They should headline Full Gear.

Edited 14 hours ago by Supremo

[LaGoosh]

I think the Bucks are absolute masters at that type of high octane party match. The best to ever do it. They never disappoint when it comes to big matches. However I find their weekly TV matches pretty awful for the most part. I don't think they've ever worked out how to do their schtick in a normal TV match. I think it’s the one thing that holds them back. It's either all the fireworks or none at all with them.