AEW WrestleDream 2025: Draws And Duds

This Saturday, All Elite Wrestling presents the third annual WrestleDream PPV, and the first to take place outside the Pacific Northwest, coming to us this year from St. Louis, Missouri! There are eight matches set for the card as of this writing, including contests for both the men's and women's world championship, as well as the latest singles match between Darby Allin and Jon Moxley that's broadly expected to push the death match envelope to their extremes. And as always, while the WINC staff is excited about some of these bouts, there are others we're giving a bit more of a side-eye.

Given that this is an AEW event and includes significantly more matches than your typical WWE PLE, we thought we would fulfill the promise of the plurality in the "Draws and Duds" title expanding our scope a little bit! Which matches (plural!) from WrestleDream have us hyped up, and which would we rather see relegated to an episode of "Dynamite?" It's time to find out the biggest draw and the biggest dud as we look ahead to AEW WrestleDream 2025!

Since their grotesque coffin match at AEW All Out on September 20, Darby Allin and Jon Moxley have been involved in nearly every closing segment on "AEW Dynamite." Darby has threatened to light Moxley on fire with both a flamethrower and a Molotov cocktail, the latter of which being prevented by AEW security who speared Darby in to a bunch of trash cans in a move that even someone like Bill Goldberg or Rhino would be proud of. Moxley has had Darby beaten down and told to his face that he will force him to say "I Quit" for the simple fact that he can't. In short, someone is probably going to die at AEW WrestleDream.

This match actually has the longest build-up out of anything on the WrestleDream 2025 card. Moxley's mission with the Death Riders started at last year's WrestleDream pay-per-view when he thought he had compromised Bryan Danielson to a permanent end, something Darby got a front row seat to as he was forced to sit and watch after being attached to the ring ropes. Darby was at one point the only man in AEW to really care about taking down the Death Riders, and even after traveling across the word to realize his personal dream of climbing Mount Everest, Darby was still thinking about Moxley at the top of the largest above-ground mountain on planet earth.

Since Darby returned at All In: Texas, he has vowed to take everything away from Moxley, which started with the AEW World Championship as Hangman Page left Globe Life Field with the title around his waist, but the hatred that Darby has for Moxley runs deep. We've already got a taste in the form of the aforementioned coffin match, as well as the frequent appearances of fire and the both men's mutual love of stabbing each other with forks, but all of this has built to this unhinged, demonic crescendo that taps in to something primal within people.

With the reputation both men have, it is very obvious that they will go to the most extreme lengths imaginable to force the other to say "I Quit," but the segments on recent episodes of "Dynamite" have escalated this match to the point where they legitimately have to do something life threatening otherwise it will be a let down. However, that is what makes this match such a draw. Even the most squeamish AEW fans will watch this match. They might have to cover their eyes for most of it, but they will watch because people are just too curious not to see what Darby and Moxley will do to each other.

Written by Sam Palmer

I hate doing this, because it's about damn time a non-title women's match got booked on an AEW PPV again (it has been actual years). That said, of all the women's matches to give that spot, I would have chosen several before choosing this one, and the fact that it's on the card speaks to me more about the card's overall weakness than the worthiness of the Hayter/Thekla feud.

Just to recap: Back in May, Thekla debuted by attacking Hayter in the ring. It's not like they have history from Stardom or anything; it took until this past Wednesday's "Dynamite" for Thekla to explain why she attacked Hayter, and the explanation was essentially "because she was there." According to reports, Hayter and Thekla were supposed to start feuding after Hayter's loss to Mercedes Mone at Double or Nothing, but Hayter suffered an injury in that match and ultimately wouldn't return to the ring for nearly four months. As such, Thekla's attack served to write Hayter off TV, despite the fact that it didn't exactly seem impactful enough for that kind of storyline.

Since Hayter's return at Forbidden Door, Tony Khan has been booking the women's division primarily around a series of multi-woman matches and encounters, broadly leading toward the first-ever women's Blood & Guts match on November 12. Hayter and Thekla were involved in one of these, and then they were involved in the four-way women's title match at All Out — though neither was involved in the finish that saw Kris Statlander pin Toni Storm to win the world women's title. Aside from that, their feud has entirely consisted of brawls taking place ringside or backstage, and it's essentially been swallowed up by the broader Blood & Guts build. Functionally, that means this Hayter/Thekla match doesn't have a ton of history besides "You hit me with a couple regular wrestling moves and put me out of action" and then a lot of punching. It also means the match will likely be far from conclusive, as it's basically a stepping stone to another, bigger match. It's far more suited to an episode of "Collision" than to WrestleDream, and I can't imagine it's pulling any weight when it comes to getting fans to order the PPV.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

AEW will have this issue from time to time, where they have two great wrestlers, who are on an upward swing, whose storylines might be on pause, or maybe they're waiting for a new one, but either way, it will take these two wrestlers and smash them together like action figures because they have nothing to do but both men should probably be on the PPV.

Such is the case with Mark Briscoe and AEW TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher. Fletcher is coming off a feud with Hangman Page that, personally, convinced me that the kid has what it takes to be an AEW main eventer. Mark Briscoe is coming off, or maybe still in the middle of, his feud with MJF, which has grown a little long in the tooth, but either way, it's a feud that has raised the stock of the former ROH World Champion.

So, of course, one of these guys needs to lose a match.

Even if Mark Briscoe is cost yet another title by MJF, it doesn't feel like either man is in the right place for this match, other than simply not having a match at WrestleDream. Fletcher will either get a win over Briscoe, bolstering his position after losing to Page at All Out, or, even worse, would be losing the TNT Title to him in the middle of his ascension. None of those options are all that appetizing to me, and I'm left feeling very "dud"-y about this match. It sounds good on paper to have two incredibly popular wrestlers in a match, but the ramifications are just kind of boring. There's an old saying, "...and then the bell rings," about how two wrestlers have to be able to wrestle to have a match, but there should be another saying about the other bell, at the end of the match, when the talent and the booker have to deal with the fallout.

Written by Ross Berman

AEW will have this issue from time to time, where they have two great wrestlers, who are on an upward swing, whose storylines might be on pause, or maybe they're waiting for a new one, but either way, it will take these two wrestlers and smash them together like action figures because they have nothing to do but both men should probably be on the PPV.

Such is the case with Mark Briscoe and AEW TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher. Fletcher is coming off a feud with Hangman Page that, personally, convinced me that the kid has what it takes to be an AEW main eventer. Mark Briscoe is coming off, or maybe still in the middle of, his feud with MJF, which has grown a little long in the tooth, but either way, it's a feud that has raised the stock of the former ROH World Champion.

So, of course, one of these guys needs to lose a match.

Even if Mark Briscoe is cost yet another title by MJF, it doesn't feel like either man is in the right place for this match, other than simply not having a match at WrestleDream. Fletcher will either get a win over Briscoe, bolstering his position after losing to Page at All Out, or, even worse, would be losing the TNT Title to him in the middle of his ascension. None of those options are all that appetizing to me, and I'm left feeling very "dud"-y about this match. It sounds good on paper to have two incredibly popular wrestlers in a match, but the ramifications are just kind of boring. There's an old saying ("and then the bell rings") about how wrestlers have to be able to wrestle to have a match, but there should be another saying about the other bell, at the end of the match, when the talent and the booker have to deal with the fallout.

Written by Ross Berman