The Best PPV Cards In AEW History

Ever since their inception in 2019, All Elite Wrestling has prided itself on being "where the best wrestle," to the point where they have made it the company slogan, and every top star has said it at least once on TV. While not everyone will agree, and even at the time of writing when it's very clear that the company is on one of its hottest streaks ever, there's one thing that people cannot take away from AEW, their pay-per-views have become must-see events.

From Double or Nothing 2019, all the way up to the most recent event, All In Texas at Globe Life Field on July 12, 2025, every pay-per-view that AEW has put out has produced at least one standout moment or match of the year candidate, and more often than not, multiple moments and five-star matches within a single show. Granted, if you include the Zero Hour pre-shows (or The Buy-In whenever Double or Nothing rolls around), there's a chance that you will be sitting down for an event that could last five, six, seven, or even eight hours depending on how important the show is which, in an era where people are too impatient to watch a 30 second TikTok video, is an extremely tall order. However, more often than not, the people who do watch every last minute of action are rewarded with some of the best wrestling pay-per-views of all time.

AEW have produced a total of 37 pay-per-views in total, a tally that could be taken to 40 if you include Fyter Fest and Fight For The Fallen 2019, as well as Wrestle Dynasty from January 2025, but despite that being a nice round number, none of those events were close to making this list, despite Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd being one of the must-see matches of the year so far. So sit back, relax, and fire up both HBO MAX and Amazon Prime as we're going to give you a list of the best AEW pay-per-views in the company's history, all of which will be listed in chronological order just so we don't cause more of a stir with our choices, especially considering that a number of top tier events didn't make the cut.

Well who didn't see this one coming?

Up until September 2021, AEW had produced a number of top quality pay-per-views that are fondly remembered by fans. The inaugural Double or Nothing in 2019, Revolution 2020, and Double or Nothing 2021 all hold special places in various people's hearts, but All Out 2021 was truly a landmark moment for the company, and is a show that for many fans hasn't been topped since. The company was in the hottest period it has ever been in, and quite possibly the hottest period any company has been in this side of the millennium. Some people have started to downplay the popularity of AEW in 2021 by highlighting various booking decisions that were a little questionable for the time, but for those who watched the company weekly, they were THE company in 2021.

All of this hype led to All Out 2021, their first pay-per-view outside of Daily's Place in Jacksonville, Florida since Revolution 2020, and the fans who sold out the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois knew they were going to see something special. After a match on the Buy-In that saw the Jurassic Express and the Best Friends defeat the Hardy Family Office, the show officially kicked off with the best version of Miro successfully defending the AEW TNT Championship against Eddie Kingston, before Jon Moxley and Satoshi Kojima pushed the Forbidden Door to its limits in a slugfest that was capped off by the AEW debut of Minoru Suzuki.

These matches were quickly followed by a one-two punch of one of Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D's better AEW Women's World Championship matches against Kris Statlander, and what many consider to be the greatest Steel Cage match of all time as The Lucha Brothers dethroned The Young Bucks to become the AEW Tag Team Champions. After that, the women's division were on full display in a Casino Battle Royal that was won by the debuting Ruby Soho, while Chris Jericho defeated MJF in their feud-ender that would have resulted in Jericho's retirement had he lost.

CM Punk's first match in over seven years went on next as he proved to everyone that he hadn't lost a step in his absence when he defeated Darby Allin, and while people may look at QT Marshall's match with Paul Wight as the only downer moment of the night, it was just a breather for what was to come in the main event. The AEW World Champion Kenny Omega defended his title against the Impact Wrestling World Champion Christian Cage, but it was the match's aftermath that had the world talking as Adam Cole arrived on the scene just two weeks after his final match with WWE, who was then upstaged by Bryan Danielson making his own debut less than five months after headlining WrestleMania 37. Quite simply, it's the closest AEW have come to perfection in their six year history, but they have come mighty close in the years since this historic night.

Fast forward two years from All Out 2021 and AEW returned to Illinois for the 2023 All Out pay-per-view at the United Center in Chicago, but a lot had happened in those two years.

The biggest thing that had happened was undoubtedly the backstage drama between CM Punk and The Elite that led to the infamous "Brawl Out" incident in 2022, but tensions hadn't settled down by the time Punk was back wrestling after time spent on the shelf. Things reached boiling point at All In London 2023 a week before this event as Punk had gotten into a backstage fight with Jack Perry, something that overshadowed what was the wrestling event with the highest paid attendance in history at 81,035 people. After digging deeper, a disciplinary committee decided the best thing to do was to fire Punk one day before All Out 2023 took place in the same building he made his wrestling return in, and accompanied with a number of other backstage problems, AEW was at its lowest point in history heading into the United Center.

With all of that on the minds of the AEW roster, they showed up and wrestled as if the rent was due, and put together a show that many consider to be one of the best of 2023. After a Zero Hour that saw Hangman Page win the Charity Battle Royal, The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn (with Dennis Rodman because Chicago of course) defend the AEW World Trios Championship against Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal, and Satnam Singh, and the team of Hikaru Shida, Willow Nightingale, and Skye Blue defeat Athena, Mercedes Martinez, and Diamante, the main card got under way. Better Than You Bay Bay defended the ROH Tag Team Championships for the final time against The Dark Order, Samoa Joe defend the ROH World Television Championship against Shane Taylor, and Luchasaurus obliterated Darby Allin to retain the AEW TNT Championship.

Miro had his last great match for AEW against Powerhouse Hobbs, which ultimately gave birth to the "MEAT!" chants you hear today, and Kris Statlander defended the AEW TBS Championship against Ruby Soho to take us to the halfway point. However, the final five matches of the show sent the show into another stratosphere of quality. Bryan Danielson's return to AEW after breaking his arm saw him defeat Ricky Starks (who was supposed to face CM Punk before he got fired) in a violent strap match, the Blackpool Combat Club defeated the team of Eddie Kingston and Katsuyori Shibata, and Konosuke Takeshita became the first man ever to defeat Kenny Omega twice in one week in a five-star classic.

Rounding out the night was the tumultuous team of The Young Bucks (who were booed out of the building) and FTR (who were CM Punk's good friends) take a loss to Bullet Club Gold, and Jon Moxley beating Orange Cassidy to a bloody pulp and winning the AEW International Championship concluded one of the most important shows in AEW history.

The beginning of 2024 was arguably one of AEW's strongest periods from a consistency standpoint as the company attempted to sweep the chaos and turmoil of the end of 2023 under the rug, especially the Worlds End pay-per-view that couldn't make it on to this list even if it gave us money. A strong weekly TV product and a number of inspired pairings for matchups all led to Revolution 2024 being not only one of the biggest AEW pay-per-views of all time, but for many, the closest the company had gotten to topping All Out 2021.

The Zero Hour pre-show kicked off with the Bang Bang Scissor Gang (remember them?) defeating Private Party, Willie Mack, and the Zero Hour specialists at this point, Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal, and Satnam Singh in a 12-man tag team match, before Kris Statlander and Willow Nightingale continued to prove why they were better friends than anyone on the roster by defeating Julia Hart and Skye Blue.

After a teaser for the return of PAC aired as he had been injured for eight months, the main show began with Christian Cage adding another AEW TNT Championship defense to his collection by beating Daniel Garcia. That was then followed by a hard-hitting Continental Crown Championship match between Eddie Kingston and Bryan Danielson, with the "Mad King" picking up the win, and forcing Danielson to shake his hand out of respect in the process. Wardlow then won an eight man All-Star Scramble match to earn himself an AEW World Championship match, before Roderick Strong defeated Orange Cassidy to become the new AEW International Champion, and was even met by a returning Kyle O'Reilly after the match, who had been out of action for nearly two years.

Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli defeated FTR in one of the best tag team matches that no one talks about, "Timeless" Toni Storm got one over on her former friend Deonna Purrazzo to retain the AEW Women's World Championship, and fresh off of signing a full-time deal with AEW, Will Ospreay picked up the win over Konosuke Takeshita in one of the best matches of the entire year. Samoa Joe retained his AEW World Championship in a three-way match over Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page who couldn't get out of each other's way, but the main event, and the show itself belonged to Sting.

On his final night as a professional wrestler, and with his sons by his side and his friends from the past in attendance, Sting successfully defended the AEW Tag Team Championships with Darby Allin against The Young Bucks in a Tornado Tag match that is widely regarded by many as one of the greatest retirement matches of all time. 2024 would be an up and down year for AEW all things considered, but on this night in Greensboro, North Carolina, an icon got his long overdue flowers, retired with an undefeated AEW record, and capped off one of the pay-per-views in All Elite Wrestling's short history.

We're going to cheat with this one and include the back-to-back run of All In London, and All Out 2024 (making it a hat-trick for All Out shows on this list). The shows took place two weeks apart from each other, but were equally as historic as AEW's second trip to Wembley Stadium, while not having as many people in the building, was a better show than the one in 2023, and All Out ushered in a dark and cold new era where people will get suffocated, injected with needles, and dumped onto cinderblocks.

All In's pre-show had multi-man matches galore, as well the return of Jamie Hayter, and The Conglomeration's Willow Nightingale and Tomohiro Ishii defeating Kris Statlander and Stokely Hathaway. The main show saw PAC finally get his Wembley moment with the Blackpool Combat Club by winning the AEW World Trios Championships, Mariah May pick up the biggest win of her career by beating Toni Storm to become the AEW Women's World Champion, and Hook finally end Chris Jericho's reign of terror with the FTW Championship. The Young Bucks retained the AEW Tag Team Championships against The Acclaimed and FTR, and the Casino Gauntlet match that saw surprise appearances by Nigel McGuinness, Zack Sabre Jr., and Ricochet was won by Christian Cage.

Will Ospreay restore the heritage of the AEW International Championship by delivering the Tiger Driver '91 to MJF, Mercedes Mone beat Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D., to retain the AEW TBS Championship, and Jack Perry retained the AEW TNT Championship in a Coffin match, but the night was capped off by the biggest peak of AEW's year as Bryan Danielson dethroned Swerve Strickland to become the AEW World Champion.

Two weeks later at All Out, which returned to the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates for the first time since 2022, a Zero Hour full of more multi-man matches was followed by MJF picking up a relatively surprising win over Daniel Garcia, The Young Bucks retaining the AEW Tag Team Championships over the Blackpool Combat Club, and Will Ospreay's AEW International Championship match with PAC was another pay-per-view classic from the Englishmen. However, Willow Nightingale and Kris Statlander's Chicago Street Fight took everyone by surprise with how dangerous it was, but no one was surprised when Kazuchika Okada retained the AEW Continental Championship against Orange Cassidy, Mark Briscoe, and Konosuke Takeshita.

Mercedes Mone made another defense of her AEW TBS Championship against Hikaru Shida, before Bryan Danielson successfully defended the AEW World Championship against Jack Perry, with Danielson being violently assaulted by the Blackpool Combat Club afterwards. Finally, Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland killed each other in a Lights Out Unsanctioned Steel Cage match that was so unsettling and so graphic that when Page looked to go back for seconds after braining Strickland with a chair for the win, you could literally hear people scream in the audience. A violently wonderful way to cap off a double header of events for the ages.

Recency bias might suggest that All In Texas should be in the spot, and while that show certainly had higher peaks, with Hangman Page dethroning Jon Moxley being the highlight of AEW's 2025 so far, the run of success the company was on in the lead up to All In Texas can also be credited to the success of the most consistently excellent show of AEW's year so far; Double or Nothing. While Revolution and Dynasty both had their merits, with Revolution being on course to matching the 2024 edition of the event, both shows were let down by disappointing main events, whereas Double or Nothing had no such problem.

A trimmed down Zero Hour given the length of some of the matches on the main card saw Anna Jay and Harley Cameron pick up the win over Megan Bayne and Penelope Ford, and the high-flying team of Bandido, AR Fox, Hologram, and Komander defeat RPG Vice and CRU. With the fans warmed up, Mercedes Mone and Jamie Hayter kicked off the show in fine fashion as Mone went on to win the 2025 Owen Hart Foundation Women's Tournament, adding another belt to her growing collection in the process. That was followed by FTR getting the better of the technical dream team of Daniel Garcia and Nigel McGuinness, which itself was then followed by blood-soaked stretcher match between Ricochet and Mark Briscoe.

Three championship matches in a row came next as The Hurt Syndicate defended the AEW Tag Team Championships against The Sons of Texas, Kazuchika Okada defended the AEW Continental Championship against "Speedball" Mike Bailey, and "Timeless" Toni Storm got one over on her close friend Mina Shirakawa to retain the AEW Women's World Championship. 

Then came the signature match of Double or Nothing, Anarchy in the Arena. The Death Riders and The Young Bucks joined forces to take on the makeshift team of Kenny Omega, Swerve Strickland, Willow Nightingale, and The Opps in the only match that could have both The Pointier Sisters and Drowning Pool played over the speakers within the space of 5 minutes. Blood, explosions, and forklifts, this match the whole of Phoenix rocking throughout its entirety.

The Don Callis Family continued their dominance by picking up a big win over Paragon, and in the main event, Hangman Page overcame the odds to defeat Will Ospreay and win the 2025 Men's Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, earning himself a shot at the AEW World Championship at All In Texas in the process. From top to bottom, Double or Nothing might just be the single most consistent card that AEW has ever done, and if you wanted to make the argument that it surpassed All Out 2021 in terms of quality, it would genuinely be hard to argue with. However, given the company's level of consistency and quality when it comes to their pay-per-views, there's every chance that this fab five (technically six) could look wildly different in next year or the year after.