After more than five hours, AEW WrestleDream 2025 has come to a close. With tons of titles on the line and plenty of hard-hitting action, we've got a lot to talk about. If you've seen the shenanigans and want to know what we thought, please do continue. If you want to know what happened, check out our AEW WrestleDream 2025 results feed, because beyond this point there be spoilers.
Adam Page defended the AEW Men's World Championship against Samoa Joe, a contest with a shocking ending. Mercedes Mone hosted an open challenge to any other title holders in the hopes of expanding her belt collection. Kris Statlander defended her AEW Women's World Title against Toni Storm, from whom she won it. We also got No. 1 Contenders for the Trios Titles, Don Callis Family drama and a shocking figure had an impact on the "I Quit" main event between Jon Moxley and Darby Allin.
Several championships were on the lines tonight, as well as plenty of pride. We got heel turns, betrayals, a title change, and much more. As always, there's plenty of ground to cover, and our team is here to share some thoughts about what worked and what did not.
Here's three things we hated and three things we loved about AEW WrestleDream 2025!
While I really enjoyed the tornado tag team match pitting the Hurt Syndicate against the Demand tonight, and I thought the in-ring action was fantastic, if there was one match that could have been cut from the long WrestleDream card, it could have been this one. I say that because this was Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, and MVP's third match against Gates of Agony (Toa Liona and Bishop Kaun) and Ricochet since All Out, including their trios match at that pay-per-view. Lashley and Benjamin also had a tag team match against GoA in that time frame, as well, where Kaun got the impressive pin over Lashley.
The runtime is a common complaint about AEW PPVs for some, while others say they get their money's worth, but for the sake of the argument for the former, the Hurt Syndicate could have easily won the number one contendership for the Opps' AEW World Trios Tag Team Championships during their street fight against the Demand at "AEW Dynamite: Title Tuesday." That stipulation was added to the "Tailgate Brawl" tonight, seemingly very last minute. "Title Tuesday" only had maybe two titles actually defended on the show, which I remember complaining about, and now, with this match, as good as it was tonight, ending in the same fashion with a similar stipulation, it just felt like this story could have been wrapped up on the October 7 show.
With so many matches on WrestleDream running for quite a good bit of time, including the Young Bucks versus Jurassic Express match and the TNT Championship bout pitting Kyle Fletcher against Mark Briscoe, as well as the last of the "Tailgate Brawl" matches bleeding in to the main card, if anything was going to be cut for time ahead of what we were all certain was going to be a long "I Quit" match, it should have been this one. It pains me to say so because it was a really, really good match, but AEW had a clear path to end this feud to give some more breathing room to this show, and I really think that should have been the path that the creative team went for.
Written by Daisy Ruth
Saturday's WrestleDream festivities featured a match long in the making: former Elite associate "Jungle" Jack Perry and Luchasaurus teamed up to claim their revenge on the treacherous Matthew and Nicholas Jackson former Elite members, former EVPs, and currently known as the Bucks (or lack thereof). For the Jacksons, $500,000 dollars was on the line, but for Perry and Luchasaurus, Saturday's match was their opportunity to avenge the mistreatment Perry suffered at the hands of the Bucks, and a way to put themselves back on the map of AEW's colorful tag team division.
I reckon they did it!
The stakes were high for Jurassic Express, and they fought like it. Perry's nimble in-ring style meshed perfectly with Luchasaurus' powerhouse abilities, and the two put on a stunning display that balanced hard-hitting lariats with devastating hurricanranasand poisonranas. At multiple times during Saturday's match, my jaw was dropped literally, wide open because of Jurassic Express' simultaneously powerful and agile performance. Perry and Luchasaurus wrestled for their lives, but their passion, however present it was, did not interfere with their in-ring execution. When they came together in the ring for some hard-hitting tag team moves, like their match-ending Countdown to Extinction, they moved together seamlessly. They are a cohesive unit, and they reminded everyone just who they were. Why AEW creative ever decided to break up the Jurassic Express is beyond, but after Saturday's match, I'm glad it's back in action.
Let's not forget to tip our caps to The Bucks. Even in loss, those guys really are who they say they are. Their tag team experience showed in every facet of the match, from the opening number to their multiple successes at isolating Luchasaurus from Perry (and vice versa). Matt and Nick Jackson worked like two well-oiled cogs in a machine, their in-ring leaps, strikes, and dashes effortlessly blending together until it looked like one, singular person running the ropes, delivering the pain. I know the Bucks are not the most outrageous nomination for one of the best teams in wrestling today, but their in-ring work speaks for itself. The Bucks exemplified a unified offensive front, and when push came to shove, they sold Jurassic Express' attacks wonderfully. It's one thing to look good when you're the one pushing enemy lines back with powerbombs and destroyers. It's another thing to look good, even at the receiving end of a Countdown to Extinction.
Jungle Express and the Bucks had my heart in my throat the entire time. No matter what each team threw at the other, their opponent just wouldn't stay down. Their action just kept going. And going. And going. And...
Written by Angeline Phu
Did we really need an over-20 minute, non-title tag team match?
Jurassic Express and the Buck's $500,000 Tag Team Match was, according to Cagematch, about 23 minutes. I don't believe that for a second, because that match as fun as it was took about 45 years to finish.
By Jurassic Express and the Bucks' fourth or fifth near-fall, I was exhausted. Was I having fun watching Perry nail the Jacksons with Poisonranas? Yeah. Was each Destroyer from the Bucks an aesthetic aerial arc that could be put in a museum? Yeah. However, when you have people kick out from those insane moves especially people who aren't champions, or who aren't known for being resilient sponges for pain like Darby Allin it dilutes the entirety of your performance. It doesn't matter how good the middle parts of your match were if you can't figure out a satisfying ending.
For as good as Jurassic Express and the Bucks' tag team match was, the ending was unsatisfactory. Honestly, how could it be anything but? When AEW throws match ender after match ender at me without actually ending the match, they're building up to this grandiose ending that you just can't live up to. Like, Countdown to Extinction was cool, but it's practically impossible for me to enjoy it when it was preceded by five or six other very cool spots that resulted in not match endings, but near falls. Pair that with the fact that Jurassic Express got jumped not even 15 minutes after their win, with no opportunity for them for us to savor it? What's the point?
You could make this very same argument for nearly all of WrestleDream. Kris Statlander did not need to land a second Saturday Night Fever just to get a pinfall over a submission. Mercedes Mone and Mina Shirakawa XII (or whatever they're on) didn't need to go on for longer than fifteen minutes. Brodido's title defense against Kazuchika Okada and Konosuke Takeshita was good, but thirty minutes at that point in the card was cruel.
WrestleDream was soul-suckingly long. I know there's the argument that Tony Khan and AEW want to justify the $40 to $50 price tag on their pay-per-views, but when the content isn't good, does it matter how long it is? That was nearly four and a half hours of wrestling, but I can't justify the $40 price tag on it. It's respectable that TK (presumably) doesn't want to waste our money with a scant show, but in doing so, he has wasted our time. Our minutes have no monetary value, but you cannot deny that it is currency valuable currency. We are left with our pockets empty anyway.
Written byAngeline Phu
I'll admit that, given there was none of it throughout the entire show, I was expecting a lot more blood in the "I Quit" match between Darby Allin and Jon Moxley. Maybe it's a Missouri thing? Maybe Tony Khan didn't want to scare Lou Thesz's widow? Who knows?
This was the main event because Darby and Moxley were going to do things to each other that couldn't possibly be followed, or so we thought. The main ingredient that has made virtually all of the matches between these two men pop so much is Darby's ability to withstand punishment, which ultimately makes Moxley look like the biggest bully in the world. That is essentially what this match was turned up until the volume button falls off and it worked wonderfully.
For the violence, one thing that both men have tried to do with their matches is bring something new to the table. After all, when are you ever going to see freakin' aquarium in a wrestling match?! But it's the little things and the focus on the bits and pieces of the match that make people wince and feel sick rather than hooting and hollering which gives the match a fresh feel. When you see wooden skewers, you immediately think they're going to end up in someone's head, but instead Moxley takes a solitary skewer and tries to rip Darby's fingernail off in real time. You can see someone get hit over the head with something a million times and not be phased, but when people start messing with fingernails, teeth, small joints that are highly sensitive, that's when you have people covering their entire face in horror, and they achieved that.
The arrival of Sting (or Old Man Sting as he now likes to be called) was a fantastic touch. The one person who has always had Darby's back and has faced some of the meanest people in all of wrestling to where he can look at Moxley and think "This is the guy who's been giving you a hard time?" Throwing Darby the bat was the symbolic passing of the touch (clich I know), forcing Moxley to say "I Quit" while he had the AEW flag around his neck was what Darby said he was going to do, and the leader of the Death Riders was finally put to the sword one year on from murdering Bryan Danielson.
I say this for every violent AEW match, it's not for everyone, and nor should it be. You can hate it all you want, but I love seeing two men try and kill each other in a wrestling ring. Darby Allin, Jon Moxley, take a bow, and have a lie down.
Written by Sam Palmer
I want to be clear about this, I have no issues with Mercedes Mone as a wrestler and I honestly don't mind the belt collector gimmick at all. I truly think it works for her as the "CEO" character. But tonight, her open challenge fell pretty flat, and her breaking Ultimo Dragon's record by winning an interim title didn't seem like the best possible decision.
One of the things I was looking forward to most was Mone's open challenge to any other champion. I liked that she issued said challenge at Arena Mexico last night, making it feel like a last-minute thing. Ifigured it would be someone from Japan or someone who I didn't know, and I was excited to see Mone wrestle someone fresh and exciting on the show. I guess I should have known from Tony Khan's announcement about the match also being for the other champion's title, in addition to Mone's TBS Championship, that the competitor was going to come from within AEW and/or ROH. And while I really love Mina Shirakawa, when her music hit, I have to say I was a little disappointed.
Shirakawa was the interim ROH Women's World TV Champion, and that's the belt Mone won, via sneaky methods while holding the ropes. I, of course, can't say it doesn't count, because AEW is also counting the Owen Hart Memorial tournament belt which while nice and I'm not denying the effort Mone had to put in to win that, it's not exactly a world championship. I'd say this makes a little sense, as I thought it would put Mone on ROH television, but we saw later on in the show that she's going after Kris Statlander and the AEW Women's World Championship after their confrontations before and after Mone's match tonight.
This was all well and good to get Mone to 11 championships on an AEW pay-per-view to break Ultimo Dragon's record, and Icompletely understand why Khan would want to do that, but it just fell flat, all other qualms about tonight's show aside. Shirakawa put up one hell of a fight against Mone, so I can't knock the match itself too much, but when we've seen them wrestle a few times now, it just wasn't something I could get excited about. If they wanted to break Mone's record in a big way, Khan could have booked her to beat Statlander at Full Gear for the main women's title on the show.
Written by Daisy Ruth
WrestleDream offered a double shot of Samoa Joe goodness as he made his challenge for "Hangman" Adam Page's AEW World Championship, and though he ultimately came up short in that goal, it hardly seems as though things are over between them.
Joe and Page had exactly the sort of match that one could expect from them, with Joe the ever-present threat even when he was effectively down and out. Twice he did his signature walk away, and then a third time he didn't even have to do it as Page overshot a moonsault, but that was the only real gaffe in an otherwise really compelling contest between them. It certainly didn't feel from the build that Joe posed any form of threat to Page's reign, but underestimate the "Samoan Submission Machine" at your own peril, and he exemplified that ideal with several moments where it appeared as though he had just managed to squeeze the life out of the champion in the ring.
Ultimately, and at each turn, that proved not to be the case and Page would retain his title; Joe tanked two Buckshot Lariats before the third put him down for the count. So that was the good match wrapped up, and another significant scalp to add to Page's second reign with the title. But there was more to come, The Opps' Katsuyori Shibata and Powerhouse Hobbs came down to the ring to help their teammate back to his feet, feigning respect for the champion as they celebrated with him one last time. Then, Joe turned, striking Page down with a stiff lariat as Shibata and Hobbs joined in, cementing their turn as a trio, a return to form for Joe and Hobbs but a relatively new experience for Shibata.
Standing tall at the end of the segment were the Opps, having spent the past few months fending the Death Riders off from their Trios titles, as well as the world title around Page's waist, and thus ensuring that their path was clear for the foreseeable. Also coming out of WrestleDream the Hurt Syndicate are the number one contenders to the Opps' titles, thus presenting the possibility of the new heels against the babyface anti-heroes of Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, and MVP. In any case, it provides three new top tier heels to chase the babyface world champion and whomever he now surrounds himself with, and that remedies a problem coming out of the Death Riders-dominated period of AEW that has now come to an end.
Written by Max Everett
