AEW WrestleDream 2025 is officially in the books, but fans are not yet finished discussing and analyzing the show on social media. One big topic of discussion was the fish tank spot in the "I Quit" match main event that saw Jon Moxley hold Darby Allin's head under water in a fish tank repeatedly. The spot caught heat online with some who argued the spot was too extreme for kids who could be watching the pay-per-view. One defender of the spot was WWE Hall of Famer, and ECW legend, Bully Ray, on "Busted Open Radio."He acknowledged that the match "wasn't for everyone," and it all comes down to parental discretion.
"If your 12 year old, 14 year old, I don't care, whatever age, is watching something that you don't believe is good for them and you let them watch anyway, that's on the parent," he said. "It's all about parenting. Everybody's looking to blame everybody from everything else. I put an 80 year old woman through a table. I beat up a grandmother. Mark Henry had sex with a grandmother, an 80 year old woman. My point is, in this art form of professional wrestling and sports entertainment, there's anything and everything and that's one the beauties of it. But, if you don't want your kids watching it, then shut the TV off."
Bully Ray explained he thinks the idea behind Moxley and Allin's fish tank spot came from the piranha death match concept in Japan that wrestlers like Mitsuhiro Matsunaga were involved in. He said he's so desensitized to things like that with AEW, and from all of professional wrestling. He reiterated that if a kid is up at midnight watching an AEW pay-per-view, that's on parents or whoever is allowing them to watch the show.
Bully Ray also told "Busted Open" co-host Dave LaGreca that he found all the discourse a bit strange, as people who had never seen AEW weren't likely staying up until midnight watching WrestleDream. He said that it doesn't seem like the kind of company you just buy a pay-per-view for and stay up watching without knowing what it entails. He believes everyone knows what they're getting with AEW, especially since it is sometimes "outrageous."
"When you use the word 'outrageous' with respect to AEW, I think of flamethrowers, Molotov cocktails, and yes, the fish tank," he said. "Is it outrageous? Absolutely. From a business point of view, do I believe that any more people are watching AEW for this thing? I think it would be outrageous to believe so. But this is the product that they put out there. They give you strong in-ring wrestling, like [Samoa] Joe versus 'Hangman' Page was just a strong championship wrestling match. The tag match. Good tag team wrestling. And then they gave you the s*** show of the 'I Quit' match. It just is what it is."
The Hall of Famer said that a hypodermic needle in the side of a wrestler's cheek, a la Page and Swerve Strickland at All Out 2024 in their lights out steel cage match, is a lot more jarring to him than the fish tank spot.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
