By Will Pruett, ProWrestling.net Co-Senior Staffer (@itswilltime)
Before we start talking wrestling, I want to point you towards the other great American art form: Musical Theater. Friends, you should go see the pro shot of Hadestown in a movie theater while you can. It’s beautiful and will make you cry. And now, onto the wrestling!
– Will Ospreay’s breakup with Jon Moxley was the main focus of this pay-per-view, going from the second match on the card to the post-main event slot. I did not enjoy the execution of this story, even though the end result was correct. To begin, Will Ospreay seemed completely unsure of himself, like a lost puppy looking for guidance. This is not a good look for your lead babyface going into his crowning moment in the biggest show of the year. Steve Austin was not looking for guidance like a sad boy listening to Death Cab for Cutie in February of 1998; he was kicking ass. Will Ospreay should be kicking ass.
This story with Moxley has also centered Jon Moxley more than it has Ospreay – including Ospreay giving up his identity and his own entrance on this show to be with Moxley. This is not a great way to present any top star, particularly one you hope reaches the heights Will Ospreay can. Ospreay taking a moment to contemplate the chair neck smash move or the plastic bag asphyxiation prior to deciding to do the right thing and not murder Kenny Omega was still too much. I want the top babyface of a promotion to be a wrestler you can believe in and know will do the right thing. Ospreay did not present himself that way here.
– The commentary team did a horrible job in the post-main event moments with Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay, particularly by questioning whether Omega was no longer “doing things the right way” when he hit the One Winged Angel on Ospreay. Ospreay had just spent a significant amount of time thinking about killing Omega with a plastic bag. Omega was well within his rights to do a wrestling move to Ospreay. I do appreciate that both Moxley and Omega are no longer competing to be Will Ospreay’s dad. I assume Ospreay was listening to “Cat’s in the Cradle” as he left the arena.
– Kenny Omega’s AEW Men’s World Championship defense against Kevin Knight was a very good match and a hint that Classic Kenny Omega may be coming to Wembley Stadium. Omega wrestled this match with a pep in his step we have not seen in a long while. The magic of Kenny Omega has always been the combination of athleticism and timing that only he possesses. A few times in this match, that timing was on display, and it was glorious. Kevin Knight was not a made man after this match (unlike Kyle Fletcher’s match with Hangman Page at All Out 2025), but this was a significant step in Knight’s development into a top star.
– I have some real questions about putting The Young Bucks and Will Ospreay in a match on pay-per-view where they don’t get to wrestle as spectacularly as they normally do to fill a storytelling need. I would be fine with this on a major episode of Dynamite, but when you’re paying to see the best wrestlers wrestle “where the best wrestle,” you expect to see the best wrestling. Ospreay and Moxley vs. The Young Bucks was not the best wrestling, and while it accomplished the storytelling goals set out for it, it was not an entertaining twenty-minute match.
– There is not a wrestler alive that Kyle Fletcher does not have chemistry with. I cannot think of a wrestler I don’t want to see wrestle Fletcher. Kyle Fletcher has developed into a top ten wrestler in the world and is bordering on top ten in AEW history. Bandido vs. Fletcher was excellent and probably the only match on this card I will want to watch over and over again. Someday Bandido will shed the albatross that is the ROH World Championship and actually be able to win a competitive match on an AEW pay-per-view. Even with Bandido wrestling a match no one thought he would win, he still turned in an amazing performance.
– Willow Nightingale achieved her crowning moment on this show, and it was a little weird, proving that nothing at AEW Redemption was without complication. Willow absolutely deserves to be AEW Women’s World Champion and deserves a major match at Wembley Stadium next month. I wish Willow vs. Mercedes Moné was happening with Willow in the role as underdog challenger, not with Willow already being champion. It’s a weird coincidence of timing in this division. Similarly, I wish Thekla’s title reign had a slightly better send-off than it got here, as Thekla grew into the role of AEW Women’s World Champion rather well over the last few months.
– The moment between Adam Copeland and Christian Cage and The Young Bucks was awkward. Once again, a chapter of the story was missing in AEW, and it was a major one. Why did the graphic pop up immediately for Cage and Cope vs. The Bucks at Wembley? Why didn’t we see a challenge on Dynamite with a promo setting up the story of their feud and match? We have been treading water with Cage and Cope as champions for a couple of months; why not tread for another three days to get to Dynamite? AEW often misses small, important story moments while telling compelling stories, which is what happened here.
– Maya World defeated Hikaru Shida to win the TBS Championship on this show via a surprise finish. I enjoyed this match and this moment for World on her birthday. I would love to see fans get more chances to invest in World as we go into All In. This does not just mean putting World in matches, but giving her promo time. Give fans the chance to get to know her beyond commentary mentioning her late brother and that she is kind. Let us catch up to what those backstage know of Maya World so we can cheer for her success even more.
– “The Painmaker” Chris Jericho is the dumbest thing I have seen in wrestling in decades. The clown makeup is silly. The faces are awful. This WWE house show style hardcore match with more blood was dreadful. Jericho vs. Ciampa was a slow, artless slog of a match with no drama and no real excitement. It was a horrible example of Jericho taking 20 shortcuts to an exciting match and still falling horribly short. Every time Ciampa kicked out in this match, I was angry, because it meant this match would keep going and I would keep being tortured by its existence.
– Speaking of bad matches on this show (which, if you could not tell by now, I am not a major fan of), Jay White and Juice Robinson vs. David Finlay and Clark Connors in a chain match was awful. This match was long, boring, and unexciting. I legitimately found myself falling asleep during this one. White deserves better than mixing it up in bad comedy during this comeback. He is too good to be wasted in spots like this.
This was the worst AEW pay-per-view of the year and likely their worst pay-per-view since at least 2024. In some ways, that speaks to the consistency of AEW’s output on pay-per-view and how great their shows usually are. That does not change this being a weak show that likely could have been a double taping of Dynamite and Collision on the road to All In.
Will Pruett writes about wrestling and popular culture at prowrestling.net. To see his video content, subscribe to his YouTube channel. To contact him, check him out on Bluesky @itswilltime, leave a comment, or email him at itswilltime@gmail.com.
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