This Saturday will see AEW present the 2026 edition of WrestleDream, but the promotion had one last stop in Cleveland, OH, before the big PPV. The show was a super-sized double edition of "Dynamite" and "Collision," which saw the field for WrestleDream's Clockwork Carnage Match fleshed out, as well as two titles defended amidst the chaos. As always, you can read all about what happened on the AEW Dynamite + Collision 10/14/2026 Live Blog.The Wrestling Inc. Staff sat through all three and a half hours of the show, and have many thoughts to share. They will laud things like the "Dynamite" closing tag match or the blistering TNT Title Match/Clockwork Carnage Qualifier that closed "Collision. There was also plenty that didn't work, and they will tell you all about it. The comments section will also be open, should you feel the need to keep the conversation going.Without further ado, here's what the staff loved and what they hated, starting with what they hated.
There's a limit to how many qualifier or tournament matches for any given special-stipulation match or prize you can feature on a single show. AEW really pushed the limit for me tonight by putting all five remaining qualifier matches for the upcoming WrestleDream AEW World Championship Clockwork Carnage speciality match on this single three-hour "Dynamite" and "Collision" special.Five qualifier matches in three hours got really tiring and old after the second one, and I wasn't super excited about it. It made the show feel like it dragged on a bit at certain points, as my interest in the Clockwork Carnage qualifiers was made worse by commentary also repeatedly talking about the Clockwork Carnage match throughout each of the qualifiers because there was only so much they could say about it before it became repetitive.I also found the winners of all the qualifiers to be very predictable, which was exacerbated in the two that unnecessarily had the International and TNT Championships on the line. There was no way that Kazuchika Okada and Darby Allin would be losing their respective titles, and AEW really didn't need to put them on the line in the first place since the qualifiers naturally had stakes attached to them anyways. It felt like overkill and was far too much on top of something that already was a lot to take in.Written by Olivia Quinlan
The best of a bunch of really good matches this week came as Konosuke Takeshita battled Brian Cage in a Clockwork Carnage qualifier. One could throw all manner of platitudes at the bout, saying that it was reminiscent of a 90s AJPW battle or that Takeshita brought out a version of Cage unseen since his Lucha Underground days. That much would be true, after all.Takeshita just had the keys to the locker where prime Cage has been kept all these years. Seriously, Cage not only hit a 619 in this match, but he went to the top rope and pulled out a super hurricanrana. And that was after he had beaten layers of dermis off of Takeshita's chest and jaw.For his part, Takeshita got the big man up for a Blue Thunderbomb as though Cage was some of the stature of Mascarita Sagrada, an exemplification of how fluid and/or hard-hitting everything felt. Ultimately, Takeshita got the win he needed. But this was certainly one of those matches that reminds you why Cage is on the roster. It should be commended that he is able to move so well considering the immense amount of luggage he is carrying, especially when it is done to great effect, as was the case here.Of course, the lion's share of the praise will and should go to Takeshita for his ability to pull that out of Cage. Another example as to why Takeshita is an upper echelon worker on his way to be argued for the best of this generation. But, most important of all, enjoyable TV that left one wanting more. Which, fortunately, the rest of the show catered to.Written by Max Everett
One of the most highly anticipated matches heading into AEW WrestleDream 2026 this Saturday is the Two-Out-Of-Three Falls match for the AEW World Trios Championships.Swerve Strickland and The New Level will run it back once again with Hangman Page and Brodido after their show-stealer at AEW All Out 2026, and the six guys have been doing great work building to the match, leaning on the idea that neither team knows if Swerve and Hangman can keep their cool for long enough to remain focused. You would think that would lead to a good angle to leave fans salivating ahead of the match in Orlando, Florida, but instead we got this, and this was bad.Due to family commitments, Swerve wasn't at "AEW Dynamite" this week, according to Prince Nana, but Kofi and Austin Creed are still hot enough that they can go out without him and cut a promo hyping up their match on Saturday. However, they thought the best route to go would be to bring actor/comedian Mojo Brookzz along with them, with his whole deal being that, for some reason, he wanted to fight Brody King. On paper, it sounds funny and could have worked, but as time went on, this died a death that marked the first real miss for The New Level in AEW.Brookzz cut a promo that was effectively him detailing what fans already knew, before dropping some one-liners that didn't exactly land, considering he makes people laugh for a living. Hangman Page, that's the guy who burns houses, right? Bandido, he wears a mask because he's ugly. Brody King, I want to fight him; only King wasn't at "Dynamite" either, which meant that a comedian was literally setting up a joke that was never going to have a punchline. If you don't have King come out and murder him, the joke doesn't work, and while I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I've watched his Netflix special. For Brookzz to be all setup and no punchline doesn't make him sound like a good comedian, does it?Kofi and Creed didn't really do much either, rambling incoherently in a way that sounded like they were just riffing until they found a new catchphrase that could stick with the crowd. I don't mean this in a negative way, but it was a very "WWE-esque" segment from Kofi and Creed, and while you can take the men out of the company, sometimes you can't take the company out of the men. This whole thing didn't really work, but fortunately they are going to wrestle this Saturday, which we can all agree will be much better than whatever this was.Written by Sam Palmer
I'm usually not a huge fan of AEW throwing various top competitors, ahead of their pay-per-view matches, into a tag team bout on the go-home show before the event, but I really liked AEW World Champion Will Ospreay and his North American United Empire stablemate, National Champion Andrade El Idolo, against Samoa Joe and Tommaso Ciampa. Their match was the main event for the "Dynamite" portion of tonight, and I thought it was really solid.On a show with so many qualifiers for the Clockwork Carnage match, which Ospreay and Joe are both part of, this felt refreshing. It wasn't as flashy as it could have been, considering Ospreay was involved, but it was still a lot of fun. I really liked seeing the match-ups between the men who aren't facing one another at WrestleDream, even if it was in tag action. I now need to see more Ospreay vs. Ciampa and Joe vs. Andrade, especially. Truthfully, Joe and Ciampa would make for a good, interesting tag team if Joe wasn't stuck with the struggling Opps.The match was hard-hitting and fast-paced, but not wild enough to be too crazy with an hour-and-a-half or so of the show to go. I'll always love a good Joe walkaway spot, too, and him walking away from the Os-Cutter of all things made me laugh, and he even almost had Ospreay pinned off of it.I also really liked the fact the heels got the victory here, as I don't believe either man is winning at WrestleDream. Ciampa hit a DDT to Andrade on the National title behind the referee's back, allowing for Joe to get Andrade in the Coquina Clutch, and "El Idolo" passed out. Joe has been out for a while, so this was another solid win for him, his second since returning. It also set up Ciampa and Andrade's National Championship match for Saturday, with commentary announcing it was official for WrestleDream. It was a solid bout to end "Dynamite" and was a fun way to send these guys into their respective matches at the pay-per-view.Written by Daisy Ruth
While I thought maybe Josh Alexander would be one of the big upsets in tonight's Clockwork Carnage qualifiers, I'm always happy to see Adam Copeland get one of these spots in unique multi-man matches, as I figured he's winding down his career at this point. That was confirmed tonight, which was a big bummer, but I am glad that years after his first retirement, Copeland is able to go out on his own terms.He made the announcement after revealing his tag partner, Christian Cage, suffered a collapsed lung and multiple broken ribs during the triple threat ladder match for the AEW World Tag Team Championships at All Out. Cage was injured a few minutes into the bout, but still finished the match. Copeland said that Cage's injury made him do some soul-searching, and said 2027 will be his final year in the ring.That would be a bummer just by itself, even though I figured a retirement announcement for the team was coming sooner rather than later, but Copeland was interrupted by Don Callis and Brian Cage. Of course, AEW wanted to get the Don Callis Family some more heat by interrupting such an important announcement, which came out of nowhere, considering Cage's injury status hadn't been reported in the weeks following All Out. I'm okay with the heat portion, but Callis had a line in his promo where he told Copeland he wasn't sure if he'd make it to 2027, or even to Clockwork Carnage on Saturday.That's when Lance Archer and Kevin Knight attacked Copeland from behind and beat him down. For the rest of the "Dynamite" portion of the night, at least, I was expecting some backstage update from Renee Paquette that Copeland was out of the match at WrestleDream, and maybe there was another surprise planned qualifier for the long show. That wasn't the case, and Copeland remains on the graphic for the pay-per-view.If AEW is going to have Callis make vague threats like that, I probably would have kept the line about 2027, and left anything out about Saturday if the enormous faction wasn't going to follow through on taking out the veteran. On a pretty strong episode of "Dynamite" where there wasn't much to dislike, this seemingly throwaway line just irked me a bit when I didn't have to overthink Copeland's WrestleDream status at all, apparently.Written by Daisy Ruth
If you're going to do something predictable, at least make it entertaining, and in the case of Darby Allin vs. Hechicero, that's exactly what it was: entertaining.A lot had been said about the qualifying matches for the first-ever Clockwork Carnage match at AEW WrestleDream 2026, with the main criticism being that they were all too predictable. Anyone with a working set of eyes would have been able to figure out who was qualifying, especially in the matches that saw Kazuchika Okada and Darby Allin put their AEW International and TNT Championships on the line. A quick Google search would have informed you that Hechicero is actually working for RevPro on the same day as WrestleDream, so unless he has some sort of teleporter, Darby was always going to qualify.It's the fact that the result was never in doubt between Darby and Hechicero that makes their main event match from this special three-hour broadcast of "AEW Dynamite" and "AEW Collision" even more impressive, because they went out there and had a great match. Hechicero hasn't been in AEW for nearly two months due to how busy his schedule has been with CMLL and New Japan Pro Wrestling, so his welcome-back match being against someone who will absolutely take all the punishment in the world was the ideal play.We don't often see the meaner side of Hechicero due to him being involved in so many Don Callis Family multi-man matches, so when he gets to flex what he's made of, he really does prove why he's one of the best technicians working today. Constantly targeting Darby's injured knee in some truly grotesque ways, like locking in a Surfboard and rolling through while still keeping the hold on so Darby's limbs get all mangled up, beautiful stuff. Plus the Monkey Flip into the guardrail looked nasty as well.Darby has received some criticism as of late for being a little bit overexposed and too strong in his booking, but when he's able to shoot himself out of a cannon to hit the sickest Tope Suicidas and bump all over the place to make Hechicero look like a killer, keep him on TV as far as I'm concerned. He uses his body as a weapon better than most people in the business, and you can rely on him to have one of, if not the best matches on the show almost every time, and that's how I feel about this one.Predictable or not, this rocked. The result might never have been in doubt, but when you can put on a match like this, you can watch it over and over and not get bored at all.Written by Sam Palmer
