WRESTLEDREAM III - 10/18/2025

[SovietShooter]

Interested to see where they're going from here with the Opps heel turn, especially with Opps vs Hurt Factory on Wednesday for the trios belts. Doesn't seem like Hangman vs Joe needs to be continued, but it almost has to now. 

[The Natural]

Really looking forward to Kazuchika Okada vs. Bandido on AEW Dynamite next week.

[The Green Meanie]

27 minutes ago, SovietShooter said:

Interested to see where they're going from here with the Opps heel turn

This also complicates their relationship with Hook.

[The Natural]

The Stinger never dyes.

[tbarrie]

Just finished watching, because I'm still too old and easily tired to watch an evening AEW PPV in one sitting.

Hell of a show. Awesome match after awesome match, and some good unexpected story beats as well. Even the Young Bucks match was fun if you didn't mind all the Young Buckery.

[A.M.B.]

Hated the finish to the main. Whether it makes sense or not that Mox isn’t as tough as he portrays, Darby still should have gotten to do one really brutal thing to him given all he’s gone through. One really painful spot to make up for the 100 Darby took. Very underwhelming, and I’m tired of AEW’s gratuitous violence, but this was the one time it was necessary. 

[Cobra Commander]

"guy who folds in the face of adversity" is a sort of guy that we see a bunch in boxing/MMA but it's not really a character type we get in wrestling, is it?

[Pete]

3 hours ago, The Natural said:

The Stinger never dyes.

Honestly, it's a brave look. The man is 66 and no one would fault him if he wanted to turn back the clock a few years.

[HarryArchieGus]

5 hours ago, AxB said:

If the Mox vs Darby match seemed less bloody and violent than you were anticipating, you have to consider it happened in Missouri.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/missouri/20-CSR-2040-5-030

 

I thought the match was plenty violent. And excellent up to what felt like a soft finish. I don't think they needed something overtly violent to make that work. 

 

5 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I felt the whole point was once the Death Riders were taken out Mox went out like a bitch. He did everything he could possibly do to get Darby to quit,  frustration built and then his safety valve was taken from him. Game over.  It's heel shit.  

I get all that, but it still felt like a weaker finish. They seemed to have some slight timing issues following the (wonderfu) Sting apperance. I felt like it needed a bit more of a struggle to really work. Glad it worked so well for so many tho. I'm gonna take it for another spin today. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

It definitely could have been timing issues as well.  It felt like 12:30 ET was the hard stop on the runtime and they went right up to the last second. 

[Cobra Commander]

with the length of AEW matches and the amount of time since the WCW TV title was a thing, it feels like they could have a title with a 10/15 minute time limit where the concept of "this match has to end in 10/15 minutes or it's a draw" would be fresh for a few weeks

[HarryArchieGus]

Oh wow, loved Jetspeed-FTR running over into the PPV. Kudos to St. Louis for the hot opening. These teams have a better paced Collision match in them, but this was non-stop rock n roll! Thekla-Hayter followed with an excellent piece of business. I love Hayter getting that win. Further love for this Willow/Harley team. 

[SovietShooter]

6 hours ago, A.M.B. said:

Hated the finish to the main. Whether it makes sense or not that Mox isn’t as tough as he portrays, Darby still should have gotten to do one really brutal thing to him given all he’s gone through. One really painful spot to make up for the 100 Darby took. Very underwhelming, and I’m tired of AEW’s gratuitous violence, but this was the one time it was necessary. 

 

12 hours ago, AxB said:

The whole point of the match was that Moxley was mentally breaking as it went on. He was dominating the offense, but he was fighting from a place of weakness, and growing weaker and weaker. He was relying on the Death Riders to get him off the defensive and back on the attack every time, so once they were taken out and he was damaged and trapped in a submission, he had to give up.

I think if they wanted to go the route of "Mox went out like a bitch", they should've went full bore with it, and have Mox just quit before Darby was able to do anything to him. Go the route of "Mox can dish it, but he cannot take it".  

 

[Craig H]

5 hours ago, Pete said:

Honestly, it's a brave look. The man is 66 and no one would fault him if he wanted to turn back the clock a few years.

He looks even more badass. Alvarez described him perfectly - He now looks like the old man down the street you really don’t want to fuck with.

I’ll just add that if you’re a good neighbor he probably has killer, not Mags Bennett killer, moonshine for the adults and really good chewy and crunchy molasses cookies for the kids.

[Craig H]

Btw, Jetspeed vs FTR is another example of listening to the board (or more realistically parallel lines of thought) of someone making a suggestion on here of wishing one of these preshow matches would spill over into the opening of the PPV and it was perfect here.

Edited October 20, 2025 by Craig H

[NikoBaltimore]

On 10/18/2025 at 1:35 PM, The Natural said:

I'd like that. Good shout. Hope it manifests for my friend @NikoBaltimore and his wife.

I haven't seen the full show yet as I was sleeping in and out watching the last hour live.  But I know Mina was the one and I like her a ton though I love and thank you for thinking of us.  I know Nyla's doing stuff in other companies and it's great but from all accounts she's still AEW through-and-through.  I really hope at some point she comes back on TV as we really miss seeing her on there.

[Cobra Commander]

24 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Btw, Jetspeed vs FTR is another example of listening to the board (or more realistically parallel lines of thought) of someone making a suggestion on here of wishing one of these preshow matches would spill over into the opening of the PPV and it was perfect here.

i'm pretty sure I've mentioned the concept of having a show start on one show and end on the other during one of the Dynamite/Collision back to back nights and they've probably done that a few times too

[username]

As stated I disagree strongly: you advertise something for a show you deliver it, don't go "only got time for a few minutes, now pay $40 or oh well". You wanna go that route have a pre-show match run short and have the ppv opener start 5 minutes early to give the people a taste of something extra, always better to overdeliver than shortchange.

[Go2Sleep]

I loved the arch stage setup. The thing I miss most about 90s/early 00s ppvs was the unique staging. Overall decent show, but some questionable booking decisions.

Didn't mind the pre-show blend-in with Jet Speed and FTR. All 4 guys fighting with the pyro in the background was a great visual. I'd laugh if someone did actually buy the show to literally see how that match ended and then got that finish, though.

I don't get the Opps turning heel as a group. Maybe Joe doesn't want a celebratory retirement tour like Bryan, but Hobbs and especially Shibata turning makes little sense. If Joe turns, and the dissension causes them to lose the belts to HS, fine, maybe Joe could put Hobbs over as his last act. Even better though, would be Hook getting back in the group by displacing Joe. Joe and Hanger did a nice job with the quick build, but this is absolutely not a feud that needs to span multiple ppvs. 

I thought the I Quit was underwhelming. I get what they were going for, but I don't think they nailed it. Structurally, it reminded me of the awful Cena/Miz I Quit with Alex Riley out there the whole time. This was obviously better than that because unlike Miz, Mox can play a convincing psychopath, and they were willing to go a bit farther with their spots, but it just didn't feel satisfying for the build up. Sting is always welcome, but it felt like Darby really needed to hit something big on Mox even if he would've quit easily. They couldn't even get a good visual of Mox in the broken glass with all the water in the ring. Hate to say they needed to find a way to set Mox on fire, but it kinda felt like that's what was missing. Using what they had, piling some broken glass in the flag, wrapping it around Mox's head and Darby punching it repeatedly would've been more satisfying as well. Usually AEW nails these violent blowoffs, but not this time.

[Cobra Commander]

also, opening with a match in progress was a JCP TV thing even if AEW likely didn't intentionally plan it out to be like that

[DangerMark]

Get a grip, of course they did.

[SovietShooter]

3 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

also, opening with a match in progress was a JCP TV thing even if AEW likely didn't intentionally plan it out to be like that

Along the same lines, how many times did I see a big time main event match come to the ring and start wrestling, only for David Crockett to say "Folks, we're out of time, the cameras are rolling!"?

[NoFistsJustFlips]

11 hours ago, username said:

As stated I disagree strongly: you advertise something for a show you deliver it, don't go "only got time for a few minutes, now pay $40 or oh well". You wanna go that route have a pre-show match run short and have the ppv opener start 5 minutes early to give the people a taste of something extra, always better to overdeliver than shortchange.

I get it. Theres tons of things that grind my gears that no one else seems to care about. This is one of those things for you. Its a smart booking decision. It adds a touch of realism. The bell rang with under 3 minutes til the pre show ended. Had it ended on time, youre really short changing one of those teams.

Wrestling needs less formula, and more unpredictability. No one cares that a random tag match thrown together for the pre show two days out didnt end on free TV. And doing it the other way around with a PPV match starting early really messes up the replay / VOD of the event. They cant stitch together the beginning of the PPV with the end of Tailgate Brawl. Theres contracts and language preventing all that. At that point youre stealing away from paying customers too, vs trying to convince free customers into paying customers.

Makes good business sense. Makes good realism sense. I think everyone is on board with what happened but you. And I know thats a frustrating feeling, but it is what it is.

[twiztor]

10 hours ago, Go2Sleep said:

I loved the arch stage setup. The thing I miss most about 90s/early 00s ppvs was the unique staging. Overall decent show, but some questionable booking decisions.

Didn't mind the pre-show blend-in with Jet Speed and FTR. All 4 guys fighting with the pyro in the background was a great visual. I'd laugh if someone did actually buy the show to literally see how that match ended and then got that finish, though.

I don't get the Opps turning heel as a group. Maybe Joe doesn't want a celebratory retirement tour like Bryan, but Hobbs and especially Shibata turning makes little sense. If Joe turns, and the dissension causes them to lose the belts to HS, fine, maybe Joe could put Hobbs over as his last act. Even better though, would be Hook getting back in the group by displacing Joe. Joe and Hanger did a nice job with the quick build, but this is absolutely not a feud that needs to span multiple ppvs. 

I thought the I Quit was underwhelming. I get what they were going for, but I don't think they nailed it. Structurally, it reminded me of the awful Cena/Miz I Quit with Alex Riley out there the whole time. This was obviously better than that because unlike Miz, Mox can play a convincing psychopath, and they were willing to go a bit farther with their spots, but it just didn't feel satisfying for the build up. Sting is always welcome, but it felt like Darby really needed to hit something big on Mox even if he would've quit easily. They couldn't even get a good visual of Mox in the broken glass with all the water in the ring. Hate to say they needed to find a way to set Mox on fire, but it kinda felt like that's what was missing. Using what they had, piling some broken glass in the flag, wrapping it around Mox's head and Darby punching it repeatedly would've been more satisfying as well. Usually AEW nails these violent blowoffs, but not this time.

pretty much my thoughts completely. 

also, i really enjoyed Stat's pre-match video. I know they downplayed the alien thing for a while now, but i'm glad to see it's not completely gone.

[Cobra Commander]

Okay, FTR, the most JCP-pilled guys in the company, being involved in a crossover match that was shown sorta like a JCP TV match is worth nothing