AEW - MAY 2025

[Technico Support]

19 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

-Rhyno v Big Show

-APA vs Saturn & Malenko

-Matt Hardy vs XPac

-Dudleys vs Holly's

-Edge & Christian vs Eddie Guerrero & Jeff Hardy

-Kane vs Kurt Angle

-Benoit & Jericho vs HHH & Austin

I loved the main, but aside from that, none of those matches went longer than six minutes, and at least two were fuck finishes.  The main was less than 14.  So it was like 45 minutes of wrestling on a two hour wrestling show.  You can't just say "look at these big stars all wrestling each other!"  The truth is "look at all these big stars wrestling each other in shit matches that end before they start!"  I'd rather have AEW exactly as it is now than an optical illusion of a card like this.

[HumanChessgame]

I wonder if Marina and Roddy are a package deal.

Speaking of wrestling spouses, Dolan/Kelly is married to Zachary Wentz who is under TNA contract so I'd think that could be an in for her, unless TNA is that far under the same umbrella as WWE.

[Kevin Wilson]

1 hour ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

I'll just have to withdraw my argument then because we're coming from two different places. I'm sorry longer doesn't mean better. That Fit Finley vs Eddie Guerrero match sounds fucking dope to me and it probably only had 8 minutes.

Long matches for the sake of long matches is tedious (to me). I dont care if you run a 4 match Dynamite or a 6 match Dynamite if it's one week of a random rotation of variety and some weeks get 10 or 12 matches.

If you want to run 4-6 matches a week cut your roster. It does no good as far as building sustained pushes and getting people hot if you see the average mid carder once in a four week span.

I'm legitimately baffled there's people who enjoy a 4 match show and only seeing like 10 people out of a stacked roster that could support seeing way more talent. Including more women on a given show.

I understand better where you are coming from now, I don't agree with you but I get your stance. I'd just say I think you are in the vast minority of wrestling fans in 2025 and especially AEW fans that want that setup/style of wrestling on TV. That's not to say you can't prefer it, of course you can but I just don't think its a realistic dream. Even WWE doesn't do that anymore and they aren't as much a "workrate" company and have just as deep a roster, there isn't a general desire of fans to see that type presentation for wrestling at this point. Its been dead for 25 years and I think it was killed by a shift in what fans wanted from their tv wrasslin.

[SturmCRF]

I'd love to see more stuff happen on a typical Dynamite, and more women's matches, and more of the roster featured. But the thought of that eight minute Eddie vs Finlay match enrages me. Who doesn't want to see those two have a match twice that long? AEW is about as good as American TV wrestling has ever been at maximizing actual wrestling and minimizing bullshit finishes and in ring talking segments, and it still has too many of those things.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but more multi person matches are a great start. Make in ring talky segments, contract signings and such a very scarce occurence, what sport just allocates precious sport time to competitors talking at each other? Do a New Japan, emphasise short post match interviews, don't just tell your paying customers they have to spend 20 minutes watching MJF try to bribe people with sex workers when they could be watching a trios spotfest. Be wrestling for the sickos where only the best wrestle, leave the other guys to waste time and a month of Walter's career on jingoistic podcast bro fuckheads.

[ExcellenceofAirPollution]

part of the fun of Nitro was the massive roster (not good for the bottom line) and the seemingly random matches that would occur involving big stars and oddballs.  Lex Luger vs. a Villano?  Sure, why not!  Chono is on tour from Japan and he's wrestling Roadblock?  Yes please!  Hey, Marty Jannetty's back!   It was random and wacky at times in a way AEW could never be.  Well, they kinda can be in their own ways, but the wrestling landscape is totally different

And that show where Benoit/Jericho won the tag titles is widely considered one of the best episodes of WWE TV ever from one of the best creative years of WWE ever.....not fair to "randomly" pick that one to compare to Dynamite

Edited May 6 by ExcellenceofAirPollution

[JLowe]

I get tired easily of the multi-person matches and they can also be REALLY corny in AEW. I do want to see more people, but I want to see them wrestling either good or meaningful matches, not standing on the apron for 6 minutes before going in to do a mirror spot, roll around pinfall reversal spot, eat a run-in and lie around until it’s time for a tower spot or catching flyers.

[SovietShooter]

A lot of good stuff, so just a general response...

Professional wrestling is best when it is a "three ring circus" - a little bit of everything for everyone. There are plenty of of things I like, and just as many I dont. If I am watching Dynamite and something I don't enjoy comes along, I just play on my phone or something until the next segment. Not everything has to be exactly what I like for me to enjoy the overall product.

Conversely, I also understand that not everyone has the same taste as me, and would enjoy just matches with no talking segments or anything outside of a "pure sports build". So I can't get pissy when a show isn't everything I like. 

While I do think AEW's tv shows can often follow a formula, I think they do a pretty good job of mixing things up.  At least compared to like 90's AJPW or 00's WWE. 

[NoFistsJustFlips]

Yeah maybe this era of wrestling just isn't for me. Because the random pairings and unknown match lengths are what I really enjoy. Like if a Dynamite was 6 straight tag matches that did a single heat and all had the same match structure that would be tedious af. (They haven't done that just demonstrating a point). To me that's what having all these long matches feel like.

Monotonous. It's just the same thing over and over. Sure the quality of work is generally very good to great. But it's just too samey for me. Ideally, when two guys come out to have a match I want to have no idea how much time they have. Is this going to be a 6 minute hoss fight where dudes just throw bombs? Is this gonna be a heavy limb work match where someone's going to have to over come damage? Is this gonna be an 8 minute sprint with wild spots? I don't want to have the blueprint before the bell rings.

And more than anything that's what Dynamite feels like it's been for awhile now. Most matches are the same formula. The same time. The moves change. But the content blurs together (for me).

Edited May 7 by NoFistsJustFlips

[COLETTI]

One thing I've loved about AEW is them bringing in people for short runs or one-shots, which is something the only other widely televised promotion didn't dare do for yeeeeeeears. They've cut down on it a lot in the last year or two but hey, Rhino~!!!

[Casey]

The last Dynamite had (roughly) an hour and 10 minutes of wrestling in a 2 hour show. But with commericals that's more like... an hour and 40 minutes? For my tastes, that's TOO much wrestling. But what Nitro was doing is too LITTLE wrestling. There's a nice balance somewhere in the middle.

Go back and look at some of those early Dynamite episodes from 2019-2022. 20+ minute matches were kind of rare on Dynamite. I looked at one results page from 2022 from like, March to June, and there was only two matches that met or exceed that time - and it was a battle royale, and Blood & Guts. It feels like AEW/TK heard online complaints that the shows were too angle heavy like WWE and overcompensated to an insane degree.

There was one week where Cope & Mox did 20+ minutes and the same night the live crowd had to suffer through a 20+ minute Daniel Garcia/Adam Cole opening match for a Collision taping.

[SovietShooter]

Since they started the WCW vault on YouTube, on Sunday mornings I've been watching the newest upload of WCW Saturday night shows.  This studio show has a sneaky balance of wrestling to promos. Like, yeah, most of the matches were squashes, but on a 90min show (w/out commercials) they had nine matches - and Ole Anderson vs Magnum TA went 21min, and Ric Flair vs Ronnie Garvin went 16min. 

[username]

I think they can get around with the number of matches/wrestling they have now... but not with the roster size they have. They are actually short an hour compared to when Rampage was a thing and they simply cannot feature the roster/talent they have with the format/number of hours of tv they have. Unfortunately WWE and AEW assume if they don't sign someone good the other will grab them so people get snapped up so quickly, we should have both main companies with more sensibly sized rosters and a vibrant indie scene instead of this.

I know there is a type of fan who is like "I don't need to see wrestlers I like appear more than once a month or do anything of consequence", I ain't.  I remember people telling me that Beast Mortos losing out in the Continental Classic wasn't a bad thing and he'd come out of it better off, we're in May now and if he spent all of 2025 injured instead not a lot would have been different. Stuff like this is what drives me and I assume some others up the wall, and we may struggle going "I wish it was more like X" when X had its own issues but it is coming from a point of legit frustration that not even all the bestest best matches in the world can fix.

[HarryArchieGus]

12 hours ago, JLowe said:

I get tired easily of the multi-person matches and they can also be REALLY corny in AEW. I do want to see more people, but I want to see them wrestling either good or meaningful matches, not standing on the apron for 6 minutes before going in to do a mirror spot, roll around pinfall reversal spot, eat a run-in and lie around until it’s time for a tower spot or catching flyers.

Amen! Further, I'd love for first fall rules to be buried alongside McMahon. The ECW elimination style 3-4 ways rarely unsatisfied like the roulette first fall bullshit (especially title matches). I'd also love it if there were 85% less 'stereo' spots. Nothing worse than a wrestler stopping his offense to check if his partner is in position to do the same move to the other tag partner. Well maybe worse is the opponent who suddenly falls terribly ill to ready some stereo suplex spot. 

[AxB]

I never understood why, whenever wrestlers did a big Tower of Doom spot, the person/ people on the bottom (doing the powerbomb) would also sell it. Like everyone else in the spot is taking a big bump from a point of elevation, but the person at the bottom is going from standing on the mat to... still standing on the mat. Is hitting a Powerbomb (where you don't even have to do the lifting part) so exhausting?

[Mister TV]

AEW this week will be at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, it's a really cool unique building and I'm interested if they'll incorporate it at all. There's a bunch of weird rooms where the Freemason's do whatever they do and there's things like a pool on maybe the 7th floor that never got finished because someone realized when it was filled with water it'd crash through celling below. I coach roller derby and we practice/play at the Masonic, we have practice Thursday night right above the theater AEW will be using.

[The Natural]

30 minutes ago, AxB said:

I never understood why, whenever wrestlers did a big Tower of Doom spot, the person/ people on the bottom (doing the powerbomb) would also sell it. Like everyone else in the spot is taking a big bump from a point of elevation, but the person at the bottom is going from standing on the mat to... still standing on the mat. Is hitting a Powerbomb (where you don't even have to do the lifting part) so exhausting?

I've never liked the Tower of Doom spot.

[SturmCRF]

13 minutes ago, Mister TV said:

AEW this week will be at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, it's a really cool unique building and I'm interested if they'll incorporate it at all. There's a bunch of weird rooms where the Freemason's do whatever they do and there's things like a pool on maybe the 7th floor that never got finished because someone realized when it was filled with water it'd crash through celling below. I coach roller derby and we practice/play at the Masonic, we have practice Thursday night right above the theater AEW will be using.

https://youtu.be/Ip5gWThSTHQ?si=AGh4451taIXiPpoQ

Awesome, current best active band in the world The Armed did a concert film thing there a couple of years ago, looks like a great venue. 

[stuntmanc]

15 minutes ago, Mister TV said:

AEW this week will be at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, it's a really cool unique building and I'm interested if they'll incorporate it at all. There's a bunch of weird rooms where the Freemason's do whatever they do and there's things like a pool on maybe the 7th floor that never got finished because someone realized when it was filled with water it'd crash through celling below. I coach roller derby and we practice/play at the Masonic, we have practice Thursday night right above the theater AEW will be using.

That sounds really interesting.  I definitely hope they lean into what they have with it.

[Go2Sleep]

21 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

Nitro 12/22/97:

• Fit Finlay vs. Eddie Guerrero
• Meng (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Steve McMichael
• Hector Garza, Juventud Guerrera & Rey Misterio Jr. vs. La Parka, Psychosis & Silver King
• Hammer vs. Chris Benoit
• Rick Steiner (w/Ted DiBiase) vs. Scott Norton
• WCW United States Heavyweight Title Match: Curt Hennig (c) vs. Disco Inferno
• Lodi & Riggs vs. Harlem Heat (Booker T & Stevie Ray)
• Buff Bagwell vs. Chris Jericho
• Randy Savage (w/Miss Elizabeth) vs. Lex Luger

You could probably get a better opponent for Benoit, and hopefully the Harlem Heat match was a 2-minute squash, but honestly, I'd love a show like this. Finlay/Eddie and the lucha 6-man could use some time, but everything else sounds really fun if kept under 5 minutes. The other thing is WCW had tons of workrate banger ppvs from this time frame (Starrcade from this month wasn't one of them, but nevertheless) that weren't 6 hour arms-races because how do you make your ppvs feel more special than your weekly shows when the weekly shows are filled with 10+ minute competitive workrate matches?

AEW has been getting a little better about this lately, but the main reason a lot of their shows feel repetitive is that if everything is a workrate match, nothing is. One thing I will say I love about AEW's format is they vary their overruns enough that you can't clock the finish of the main.

[Curt McGirt]

1 hour ago, Mister TV said:

There's a bunch of weird rooms where the Freemason's do whatever they do

Control the world, duh 

(that's a joke)

Edited May 7 by Curt McGirt

[The Natural]

4 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Control the world, duh 

(that's a joke)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fI4bRqjobbw&pp=ygUTc3RvbmVtYXNvbiBzaW1wc29ucw%3D%3D

Edited May 7 by The Natural

[just drew]

This is why I'd love to see AEW add a studio show. Similar to Dark. Small, enthusiastic audience. Basically old nxt but not necessarily developmental. Although they probably need one of those, too. I'd love for AEW to start using their streaming partnership more advantageously. "Hey, let us run another hour a week of matches you can stream on MAX." Work out a revenue share that works for everyone. It'd have to be cheaper than another 90 Day Fiance spinoff...

[RazorbladeKiss87]

2 hours ago, SturmCRF said:

https://youtu.be/Ip5gWThSTHQ?si=AGh4451taIXiPpoQ

Awesome, current best active band in the world The Armed did a concert film thing there a couple of years ago, looks like a great venue. 

I'm generally suspicious when hardcore or hardcore adjacent bands get written up by non-hardcore outlets but The Armed is a pleasant surprise. 

[twiztor]

On 5/6/2025 at 10:14 AM, RazorbladeKiss87 said:

My favorite thing about Willow is how genuine she seems. I know that social media is curated but I've always had the vibe that her real personality is close and it comes through in her wrestling.  Willowmania probably isn't far from what they could have if they push her correctly.  I feel you could have a Bayley style fandom of younger fans but also have the Millennial parents backing her too. 

i think a Bayley-style fandom is 100% what they should be trying to foster. That's a perfect call.

Marina as a bodyguard doesn't quite work for me, but it's because the male wrestlers can't do anything to her. For me, it just takes the sting out of her involvement. Not that i'm specifically advocating for man-on-woman violence, but why put yourself in this unwinnable position if you're TK?

15 hours ago, SovietShooter said:

A lot of good stuff, so just a general response...

Professional wrestling is best when it is a "three ring circus" - a little bit of everything for everyone. There are plenty of of things I like, and just as many I dont. If I am watching Dynamite and something I don't enjoy comes along, I just play on my phone or something until the next segment. Not everything has to be exactly what I like for me to enjoy the overall product.

Conversely, I also understand that not everyone has the same taste as me, and would enjoy just matches with no talking segments or anything outside of a "pure sports build". So I can't get pissy when a show isn't everything I like. 

While I do think AEW's tv shows can often follow a formula, I think they do a pretty good job of mixing things up.  At least compared to like 90's AJPW or 00's WWE. 

agreed on the circus aspect.

i've certainly noticed match lengths on Dynamite being extended. I really hate that nearly every match goes through a commercial break, specifically because my brain is being trained that nothing matters (big spots aside) pre-break. I think 7-8 minutes is my sweet spot for average match length (on TV; PPV matches should be longer), but i also understand that's personal preference. Big matches can still go 20 minutes, regardless of their placement on the card, but something like Takeshita vs. Buddy Matthews doesn't need to go that long- Takeshita is way higher in the pecking order and should dispose of him in a relatively short timeframe. The length of the match should correlate with both wrestlers' spot on the card, at least to some extent.

I also agree with another post that alluded to feeling like some Dynamites feel like nothing really advances, or that storylines only advance incrementally. It really feels like all of the major storylines are advancing at a similar pace (mostly leading to the next PPV), whereas it would be beneficial to see that vary more. I think maybe that's where TK could tend to improve- everything either cycles monthly, or it feels like someone's push/title challenge came out of nowhere. 

[Casey]

7 hours ago, just drew said:

It'd have to be cheaper than another 90 Day Fiance spinoff...

The reason reality TV blew up in the first place is that it's extremely cheap to produce.