AEW Worlds End 2025: Draws & Duds

This Saturday, the AEW roster invades the Now Arena in Chicago for AEW Worlds End 2025. The event comes on the heel of Christmas Day in the United States, which happens to also be the day this article is being published. So consider this your gift from Wrestling Inc. as we break down which matches we're here for and which ones we're side-eyeing!

Normally we'd hit a few more matches for an eight-match AEW card (as opposed to a four-or-five-match WWE card) but hey, it's the holidays and everyone is pretty busy. But not too busy to at least give you one contest we're looking forward to and one that doesn't move the needle (spoiler alert: they're both world championship matches, if you couldn't already tell). Here's our biggest draw and our biggest dud for AEW Worlds End 2025!

This match probably would have been a draw even before MJF added himself to it, especially for those who remember the first Joe vs. Swerve vs. Hangman triple threat. MJF's arrival, however, gives the match even more juice, because of all the relationships involved — and because of the potential title change.

Normally my rule is that the champion retains in four-way title defenses, and I think that's likely to happen here. But the prospect of MJF earning his second title reign is actually pretty tantalizing. It would be full circle for him as far as Worlds End is concerned, considering Joe ended his first title reign at the same event two years ago, and it would be very in character for MJF to get "revenge" for that loss by pinning somebody other than Joe himself. Doing so would get the belt off the aging Joe and back onto one of AEW's younger stars, and it would set up singles title matches with potentially all three of the others down the line. I don't know how personally compelling I'd find the prospect of a second MJF world title run, but you can't deny the idea has legs in terms of future opponents and possible directions. It would certainly be one hell of a way to end 2025.

Even if MJF doesn't win, the match is one a lot of AEW fans are going to tune in to see. With the exception of MJF and Strickland, pretty much everybody has history with everyone else in this match, and the storytelling possibilities are endless. Who doesn't want to see Page and Swerve mix it up again now that they're frenemies instead of arch-nemeses, or salivate at the prospect of everyone in the match (including Joe) beating up on MJF? Between the personalities in the ring and the unpredictability of the outcome, anyone who buys a ticket for Worlds End, in person or from home, will be seated for this one.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

This match doesn't fall into the category of being a "dud" because it's going to be a bad match, because it won't. It actually has the potential to be a sleeper hit on a card that is centered around the most physically demanding wrestling tournament in North America where only the best performers make it to the final stages. No, the AEW Women's World Championship match between Kris Statlander and Jamie Hayter falls into this category for the simple fact that there really isn't any heat behind it despite the talent levels of the women involved.

Statlander winning the title at All Out seemed like a genuine surprise as many people thought that Toni Storm would hold the title until Mercedes Mone finally got her act together and managed to win the one belt that she didn't have. Of course, that isn't what happened, and since All Out, Statlander has beaten both Storm and Mone on consecutive pay-per-views, but the downside to beating the two biggest stars in the division is that every match that happens afterwards doesn't carry the same weight. Beating the former champion clean in a one-on-one setting followed by a win over the woman who got the better of her a year earlier sounds like a fool-proof plan to make Statlander the biggest star in the division, but where do you realistically go from there?

Enter Jamie Hayter. She's a woman whose entire character has essentially become a woman who was champion a few years ago and has dyed her hair ginger. That might seem harsh but outside of feuding with Thekla throughout the summer, she hasn't actually had a meaningful arc since returning from injury at AEW All In London in August 2024. She's a phenomenal wrestler and one of the heaviest hitters in AEW, but she hasn't given fans enough of a reason to get behind her heading into Worlds End. For a woman that was once the AEW Women's World Champion, she now feels like a filler challenger before Statlander faces someone more interesting.

The all-babyface dynamic of the bout is another thing that works against it as you might have two women who the fans will want to cheer for, but it makes the bout feel less important and a bit more predictable than it would be if Statlander was facing someone like a Thekla, Megan Bayne, or even a Marina Shafir. Granted, Hayter could turn heel afterwards to set up a rematch for the beginning of 2026, but even then that doesn't seem like the best direction for her. Overall, the match between Statlander and Hayter will certainly be good, but there should be more heat behind it.

Written by Sam Palmer