Winter is coming, and, I guess, is here. The first night of AEW Winter Is Coming 2025 was a special edition of "Dynamite" that saw the inaugural AEW Women's Tag Champions crowned, as well as World Champion Samoa Joe defending his title against Eddie Kingston. Plus, the Gold League took center stage for the evening's Continental Classic action.
Like always, there was plenty to love and plenty to hate, so let's get into it. We won't be breaking down what happened, as that has already been taken care of by the results page. Instead, we'll get into our feelings and tell you whether Winter Is Coming left us cold, or melted our icy hearts with fiery action. There was plenty to like, such as the blistering in-ring action, whether in the women's tag title match or in the Continental Classic. There was also plenty to hate, like the lack of Worlds End build, or the fact that Eddie Kingston just hasn't been himself lately.
Without further ado, here's what the Wrestling Inc. Staff loved and hated from the December 10 edition of AEW Dynamite: Winter Is Coming.
We're not even halfway through the 2025 Continental Classic tournament, and already we have seen some exceptional matches. Jon Moxley's matches with Claudio Castagnoli and Konosuke Takeshita were both great in their own unique ways. Darby Allin and Kevin Knight's match on Thanksgiving Eve was so good that it literally broke the unbreakable Darby Allin, and even Roderick Strong's most recent match against Orange Cassidy was a fine showcase of how to do two good friends who have their own personal gains to earn in the tournament. With all of that said, I think we may have our match of the tournament so far in Kyle Fletcher vs. "Speedball" Mike Bailey.
Going into it, a lot of people, including myself, thought that this would be another three points in the bag for "The Protostar." Excalibur, on commentary, hammered home the fact that he finished last year's competition with 12 points, implying that Fletcher would go one step further this time around and have a perfect record and earn all 15 points on offer. Combine this with "Speedball" only having one match in the tournament so far, causing Bailey to not have as much momentum going into the match as Fletcher, and this whole match was set up to make you believe that Fletcher would all but secure his spot at Worlds End with a victory. But of course, that isn't what happened.
"Speedball" is moving up the ranks in my own personal "Please stop taking bumps like that you're going to end up crippling yourself" list that currently has Darby Allin at the top of it, but when Bailey is taking Powerslams onto the barricade at ringside and landing so awkwardly that the abrasion on his back is visible throughout the rest of the match, he will be making a case for that top spot soon. Not to mention every time Bailey goes for the Double Knee Drop and misses. However, all that added to a match that, throughout the second half, people in the arena were jumping up and down with excitement.
An electric showcase of two incredible performers. We all know that Fletcher is a future AEW Men's World Champion, but "Speedball" deserves just as many flowers for this match, if not more. Finisher kickouts are everywhere in wrestling, but here they felt earned. Fletcher's been protected and "Speedball" has been battered to the point where every two-count had the place bouncing, and a cheeky roll-up finish might not be for everyone, but for this match, it was the right call. This match stole the show and has potentially stolen the entire tournament. Hopefully, these two can meet one-on-one again soon because this rocked.
Written by Sam Palmer
I understand that it can take time to come back from an injury. Ligaments need to heal, tendons need to stretch, and a wrestler needs to shake the baby-horse legs that come from spending too long away from the ring. With all due respect, Eddie Kingston still hasn't come back from his injury hiatus, not really.
He's been there in body, but his spirit seems -for lack of a better term- broken. The normally trash-talking pugilist hemmed and hawed his way through a backstage promo that left me scratching my head. Normally, I'd assume that Kingston knew he was winning and got so emotional that he got tongue-tied, but by the end of the night, it was clear that the dagger-tongued Mad King's blade had been dulled over his injury hiatus. I assumed that a main event world title match would light a fire under the perennial underdog, but alas, his match was much of the same that I've seen since he returned from his over-a-year on the shelf, the result of a knee injury at an NJPW Strong event. He's been sluggish, at times erratic, twitchy, and just overall "off" in the ring, and his promos have been similarly lackadaisical.
I don't know what is going on with Eddie Kingston, but he is becoming a shell of the wrestler who came into AEW with fire and fury. I don't know what it will take to reignite the flame in Kingston's heart. He's been talking about saving up enough money to move to Alaska, and it was as if you could see the mountains in his head. He's already there, checked out, and someone needs to bring him back.
Written by Ross Berman
While the build-up to the main event of the 2025 Winter Is Coming edition of "AEW Dynamite" has been brief, one thing that Eddie Kingston wanted from his AEW Men's World Championship match with Samoa Joe was one thing: "The Old Samoa Joe."
Not the Joe of today who walks around in suits, is constantly being guarded by The Opps (and The Opps Dojo jobbers who get killed every week), and is essentially doing everything that he himself used to look down on veterans of the past doing. He wanted the Joe who broke countless records in Ring of Honor, left a trail of bodies behind him jumping from indie show to indie show, and made a name for himself as the "Samoan Submission Machine." It's safe to say that Eddie Kingston got exactly what he wanted.
The match that closed out "Dynamite" was one of the most physical title matches we have seen from AEW in a long time, and that was always going to happen given the two men involved. Kingston's arsenal at one point in time was simply limited to chops and doing whatever he remembered seeing while watching an AJPW match from the 1990s, but tonight, he tapped back into an element of his character that made him so popular in the first place. That never-give-up attitude, constantly trying to stay in the fight regardless of how much punishment he's sustained. He's a big guy, but when he's an even bigger underdog, Kingston ends up being the biggest babyface on any card he's booked on.
As for Joe, he was ruthless. Still sticking to mostly the same bag of tricks he has come to know, but with an extra bit of sauce on some of the strikes. Joe has always been one of the best strikers in the game, but there were glimpses of the Joe that faced one of Kingston's heroes in Kenta Kobashi 20 years ago. I'm not saying this match is on par with that ROH slugfest from 2005, but given who we just saw wrestle, you can't help but think that match was a direct inspiration to how this one played out.
It even got to a point where I genuinely thought for a split second that they were going to give it to Kingston. He's the type of guy who would do great with a short reign, and Joe would probably be happy to do the honors. However, Joe drained the life from Kingston in the closing stages to retain his title in one of the best "Dynamite" main events of the year. A match I personally can't wait to rewatch.
Written by Sam Palmer
"Winter is Coming" came and went with a World Championship defense from Samoa Joe, new Women's World Champions crowned in the Babes of Wrath, but not much for the Women's World Champion, Kris Statlander, to do.
Where does one really go after defeating the two biggest names on the roster? Beating Toni Storm for the title and then pinning her again ensured that only Mercedes Mone stood as a credible threat to her reign, and then she beat her; so in stepped Thekla and the Sisters of Sin, Julia Hart and Skye Blue, and Statlander joined forces with Jamie Hayter to battle them.
Hayter has been teasing that she will help Statlander repel the Triangle of Madness before turning her attention to the title she wants back. But none of that interesting stuff, stuff that would yield some form of direction for the Women's Champion going into Worlds End, was aired during this annual special episode of AEW's flagship show. Rather, what did happen was the camera cut to backstage, showing the Triangle of Madness attacking enhancement workers backstage without ceremony. Statlander ran in, made quick work of Hart and Blue before Thekla narrowly escaped. That would be all. No Hayter, no promo, nothing to suggest anything either way. Sure, Hayter and Statlander are billed to be facing Hart and Blue during "AEW Collision," but there is no reason why the World title should be held up for that or for any reason with time ticking down before the next show.
It just felt like the show had been stacked without a thought for building up to the pay-per-view at the end of this month, and if the Women's World Championship is truly viewed on par or even a rung below the World Championship, then a brief backstage segment on a purportedly important TV special is hardly reflective of that. Even beyond the champion herself, there is no one really being actively built to challenge for the title in the future.
There's just a general lull over the picture as a whole. Everyone who would be considered a challenger was either not present or occupied with something else whether it be Storm with the Women's Tag title match or Marina Shafir with the Death Riders. It's just a gaping hole in an otherwise really great TV show. Any other "Dynamite," then things can be justified to an extent, but a special episode omitting the top champion communicates a lack of importance; it was just another belt in a sea of belts this week, and that's unfortunate.
Written by Max Everett
I love a good underdog story, and I love one when it includes the likes of two of my favorite women in AEW, Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron, the Babes of Wrath, who made AEW history tonight when they became the inaugural AEW Women's World Tag Team Champions. They faced off against the Timeless Love Bombs, and I really thought AEW was going to give the win to Mina Shirakawa and "Timeless" Toni Storm so that the titles' lineage would start out with the more mainstream star that is Storm, someone who AEW President Tony Khan obviously has a ton of faith in.
While I personally think Cameron and especially Nightingale are mega stars who have both proven themselves, I really thought that Shirakawa and Storm were going to get the victory. I was pleasantly surprised tonight, and I'm so happy for the Babes of Wrath, especially Cameron, who works so hard and has come such a long way.
The match itself had a few good spots, including Nightingale and Storm flipping Cameron and Shirakawa, respectively, over to help them counter the figure four that Shirakawa initially had locked in. Cameron had a good spot herself where she countered the Glamorous Driver into Her Finishing Move, which helped Nightingale out before she hit the Babe with the Power Bomb for the victory. I liked that Cameron had a big spot to help out, but it was Nightingale to get the pin.
I was glad that Renee Paquette was in the ring for a brief interview with the new champions, who were obviously very emotional, following the match. Nightingale was cute when she said how proud of Cameron she was, then brought it back into more of a storyline angle when she mentioned how no one had really been there for her this year (meaning her issues with former friend Kris Statlander), but Cameron had. Cameron mentioned how Nightingale was her second-ever match, and now that they're champions, it feels like a lot of things came full circle for her, as it's her first title in AEW.
There was a lot to like about this tonight, and the Timeless Love Bombs showed their respect to the new champs post-match, so there wasn't a brawl or anything to ruin their moment. I'm excited to see what's next for Cameron and Nightingale, and I hope they have a nice little run with the gold.
Written by Daisy Ruth
I think I actually wrote something similar to this not too long ago, and I certainly wrote about a similar situation in the fall of last year, AEW packing its own schedule to the point where the pay-per-views, you know, the big events that you build to every month, just get forgotten about.
AEW Worlds End 2025 is set to take place on December 27. At the time of writing, the show is just over two weeks away, and the big selling point of that show is the finals of the 2025 Continental Classic, as was the case last year as well. Now we won't know the final four until closer to the show given the tournament format of the Continental Classic, so we can let that slide. What I can't let slide is that, outside of the C2, there is nothing announced for the show, and no one has any idea what will be on it, which doesn't seem to be a good strategy in my book.
Think back to last year and the road to AEW WrestleDream 2024. There was a three-week span where Grand Slam, the Fifth Anniversary of "AEW Dynamite," and Title Tuesday happened one week after another. All of those shows ended up being built up more than the pay-per-view they were designed to be hyping up, and that feels like what's been happening and what's going to happen in the coming weeks. The C2 always dominates airtime around this time of year for AEW, but tonight's show was loaded, the shows in Cardiff and Manchester are full of great matches, and then AEW goes back to the Hammerstein Ballroom for the conclusion of the Blue and Gold Leagues in the C2. That's all well and good, putting on big matches on TV, but your TV is meant to build to your pay-per-views, that's literally how wrestling has worked for decades, not the other way around.
Mark Briscoe vs. Daniel Garcia for the AEW TNT Championship. FTR vs. The Bang Bang Gang for the AEW World Tag Team Championships. The first in-ring reunion of The Elite since 2023. All of that is happening in the UK and not at Worlds End, and while the fans in Cardiff and Manchester will be eating good, the fans who have bought tickets for Worlds End are probably thinking "What have I bought tickets for?" Not to mention Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page teaming up for the first time, the final of the AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship tournament, and a literal AEW Men's World Championship match on tonight's show. Yes, it might be nitpicky, but Worlds End feels like the least of AEW's concerns right now.
Written by Sam Palmer
