AEW Worlds End 2025: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

The third annual AEW Worlds End pay-per-view is over, with two title changes to close out the show. As is typical for AEW, it was a four-hour marathon designed by and for "sickos," some of whom might write for this very outlet.

We weren't able to cover everything here, with outcomes like Kris Statlander's successful title defense left by the wayside. However, the internal reaction here at Wrestling Inc. to the two title changes were positive for one and quite the opposite for the other, and you're in the right place if you want to find out which was which.

To get into every single thing that took place at Worlds End, and there's a lot that took place, go ahead and check out our results page. Otherwise, prepare to discover what we loved and hated about the final AEW PPV of 2025.

Have you ever seen such an electrifying start to an AEW pay-per-view?

That is high praise, especially when AEW is known for pulling out all the stops when it comes to their pay-per-view matches, but it's deserved for Jon Moxley and Kyle Fletcher. Moxley, the runner-up in the Continental Classic's Blue League, took on Fletcher, the winner of the Continental Classic's Gold League, in Classic semifinals at "Worlds' End," and even though it was just the second match of the night, I found myself sitting at home wondering if I had just watched the main event. This match was everything that makes an AEW match great: incredible in-ring wrestling, grueling and harrowing-to-take spots, an incredibly engaged audience, and plenty of finisher kickouts.

I have to admit, Moxley has not been my favorite AEW talent in 2025. He just seemed so untouchable for how mediocre some of his performances have been, aside from honorable mentions like his Texas Death Match against "Hangman" Adam Page. However, this match gave him some of his edge back. Where Moxley was once content with coasting by with the help of the Death Riders to retain his title (which he kept in the shadows for whatever reason), he now faced his opposition head on, with no fear and a chipped incisor to show for it. Not only did Moxley put on one of his best performances in 2025 against Page, but he somehow – without cutting any babyface promo or having any official babyface turn – managed to get the crowd chanting his name. He managed to turn face by sheer in-ring technique alone. Everybody knows that Moxley is a guaranteed entrant AEW's inevitable Hall of Fame, but Saturday's match just added to the mountain of evidence needed to make such a claim. What a match, Moxley.

Don't sleep on Fletcher, however! I don't think Moxley could have had such a match with any other competitor. Fletcher is equal parts strength and agility, and his high-octane moveset complemented Moxley's hard-hitting, decapitating strikes perfectly. Moxley put on a character work masterclass, sure, but Fletcher brought the match itself to life. Moxley might have secured his place in the AEW Hall of Fame with this performance, but Fletcher made this match into an insanely high bar to clear for the rest of the evening, if not an early Match of the Night call entirely.

Moxley and Fletcher's Continental Classic semifinal might have only been the second match of the night, but if you had told me that was the "World's End" main event, I might have believed you. It was just a damn good wrestling match, and you'd be hard-pressed to find one like it in either man's recent repertoire.

Written by Angeline Phu

I know there were quite a few factors keeping Darby Allin and Gabe Kidd from meeting in the AEW ring until tonight, including Allin's latest injury, the one that took him out of the Continental Classic, but this match still felt like too much, too late. To make things worse, if you weren't watching the holiday episodes of AEW over the last week (and if you were smart enough to avoid social media, as well), you were probably confused to see the card. It really did feel like it was thrown on there extremely last minute.

Sure, Allin and Kidd have gone back and forth over the second half of 2025, including as participants in the lights out steel cage match at AEW x NJPW Forbidden door, the time that Allin put Kidd in a body bag and drug him out of the arena with his truck on an episode of "AEW Dynamite," and I believe most recently, when Kidd drug Allin out of the Blood & Guts match. I'm just not sure how many fans would remember it all, as there have been weeks and even months in between their interactions, and Kidd wasn't ever the main focus of Allin's ire, it was Jon Moxley. 

If AEW was going to do this, it should have been as soon as they were able, though, that may very well have been at Worlds End. It also just feels kind of strange to have Allin and Kidd in this match, an extremely bloody bout for a normal singles match, at that, when Allin is seemingly done with the Death Riders. I know most all of the faction was busy with other things tonight, but you'd think at least one of them would be ringside for Kidd if he's still their mercenary. 

While blood doesn't necessarily bother me, I'm sure this match is once again going to spark plenty of discourse online. The one thing I don't exactly understand is the constant biting, as it seems like it should be a blatant disqualification. This was yet another match, which both major companies are guilty of, where way too many finishers were traded between the competitors. Toward the end of the match, Kidd hit a piledriver which didn't keep Allin down too long at all, as he was able to win with a roll-up, despite just being injured a few weeks ago. 

While I felt like this show flowed extremely well, after a few AEW pay-per-views that felt way too long, this is still one match that I could have done without. I feel like I dislike it even more because I really have no idea where AEW goes with either man, especially Allin.

Written by Daisy Ruth

AEW Worlds End 2025 was a pay-per-view that despite being almost as long as every other AEW pay-per-view this year (outside of All In Texas), flowed a lot better and didn't feel like a marathon to get through. That is obviously down to pacing, but a big aspect of it is the variety on the show, and you can't get a more varied match than the Mixed Nuts Mayhem match between The Death Riders and The Timeless Conglomeration that Roderick Strong is still trying to find a way out of.

In between the hyper-intense Continental Classic and the high stakes title matches was this absolute party of a match that, if we're being honest, no one really had any expectations for. In fact, you would be forgiven in thinking that this match was advertised for the Zero Hour pre-show because of how random it was. However, this was a classic case of a match overdelivering to the most extreme extent, which ultimately gave the fans in the building and those watching around the world a refreshing break from the super serious wrestling that had taken place prior to it.

It would be very easy to just run through a list of things that happened and leave it at that, and believe me, a lot happened in this match. From Marina Shafir chopping her own husband, something that every married person in the world probably saw and went, "Girl, I feel you on that one," to Orange Cassidy and Toni Storm tango dancing while also being able to fend off Wheeler Yuta and Daniel Garcia, to Claudio Castagnoli actually giving Toni the Giant Swing, this was a riot of a match that had everyone thoroughly entertained from start to finish,

Everyone will say this is a match that wouldn't look out of place on a 2010s PWG show, and you'd be right. With that said, this match actually felt more to me like a house show match that had broken out of the live circuit and landed right in the middle of a pay-per-view by accident. The Death Riders hamming up their heelish antics for comedic effect against a bunch of beloved babyfaces who aren't taking themselves too seriously, with the babyfaces coming out on top. It's a match ripped straight out of the house show playbook and it was wonderful.

If AEW did house shows, this would be the kind of outlandish main event you would get in certain towns. Since they don't you get a match like this in the middle of a pay-per-view, which in turn helped the pay-per-view flow more smoothly. It was mixed, it was nuts, and it was a match. What more could you want?

Written by Sam Palmer

It's a rough night for NJPW exports, isn't it?

While AEW loves showcasing the talent it has acquired from its incredibly successful partnership with NJPW, tournament tycoon and NJPW darling Kazuchika Okada and current IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Konosuke Takeshita have stood out from the rest. Both men have been booked incredibly well on AEW programming: Okada's 647-day run with the AEW Continental Championship saw him go over household names like Claudio Castagnoli, Will Ospreay, Kenny Omega, and Swerve Strickland, while Takeshita racked up a record-breaking 13 points in this year's Continental Classic Blue League — four whole points ahead of other semifinalists Okada, Jon Moxley, and Kyle Fletcher. Okada and Takeshita have been some of the strongest booked talent in AEW this year, NJPW or not, and yet at "World's End," it seems that the two could not end 2025 in such a satisfying manner.

We all knew that Takeshita was not going over when he stood across the ring from then-AEW Continental Champion Okada in Saturday's opener, but the manner in which he lost is almost unbecoming of both men, and that's even before we even get to the controversial finish. I don't claim to know every nook and cranny of Okada and Takeshita's match repertoire (even though I should: they're two amazing wrestlers), but I couldn't help but feel like Okada and Takeshita were off their game in Saturday's Continental Classic Semifinal match. Their strikes just didn't have the same bite. They moved slowly around each other, electing to clunk into the other man instead of steamrolling through him. There's no reason for them to be moving so carefully around each other. They are bitter rivals in a fierce struggle for the power-hungry Don Callis' attention. Why are they hitting each other so gently? To the finish: I understand what AEW might have been going for. I understand that, by forcing the great technician Okada to turn to Don Callis' screwdriver, Takeshita is simultaneously set up for face turn whilst being put over (like Okada can't beat him without weaponry). However, Okada turning to the screwdriver is just so unbecoming of him, that it makes Okada's subsequent loss even more embarrassing.

Okada progressed to Continental Classic finals, where he squared off against one Moxley. I get that Moxley had an incredible match just moments prior, where he amazingly turned face by in-ring performance alone, but when Okada's main storyline surrounds tensions within the Don Callis Family, I don't see a whole lot of reason to suddenly put Moxley over. Moxley dethroning Okada for the Continental title shocked me, and if this is setting up for an International title loss for Okada...NJPW's alumni are in for a rough time.

Written by Angeline Phu

Going into this event I had delusions of a Kyle Fletcher versus Kazuchika Okada Continental Classic final, the Death Riders sick of their leader's failings and turning on Jon Moxley much in the same way they had with Bryan Danielson. I was wrong and I don't really care because what happened instead turned out to be really, really good. Okada went through over Konosuke Takeshita, making use of a screwdriver we would later learn was intended for Fletcher to use against Moxley, and thus effectively screwed Fletcher out of screwing Moxley out of the win; screwdrivers aside, Moxley and Fletcher was immensely good, match of the year candidacy good. 

So it was Moxley and Okada in the final, facing one another in singles action for the first time. This wasn't as good of a match as the one with Fletcher but maybe that's because the one with Fletcher had informed much of the story; Moxley had sustained damage to the knee, with a proven susceptibility in recent weeks to submissions, and thus Okada sought to target and punish that for the majority of the bout. 

Moxley was wrestling in a way more befitting his babyface character, overcoming Okada's dirty plays with his own – a low-blow for a low-blow, for example – but ultimately the emphasis was on his overcoming. When all was said and done, Moxley pinned Okada effectively clean in the middle of the ring – no interference, no asterisk, with every rule-break answered in kind – and become only the third-ever Continental Champion. All in all, Moxley wrestled around 43 minutes of action tonight, chipped a tooth in the first match, got dropped on his head a fair few times and still managed to become champion. If that wasn't enough to scream face turn, then he took to the microphone afterward to thank the crowd and all of the participants of the Continental Classic – he basically turned face, whether that is actually the case or not is yet to be seen. 

Moxley's story as champion is as interesting heading into the reign as it was unfolding during Worlds End. Claudio Castagnoli beat him in the league stage, and very well could have been the one standing in Moxley's position. Daniel Garcia was holding the title as if it was his own. There's just a lot of ground to cover that may not have been possible with Okada; he gets to proceed with his feud against Takeshita, and more than likely Fletcher, with the International Championship. 

There was something to be enjoyed in every match and the way they fed into one another made for an altogether great show. Moxley is champion again and I love it. 

Written by Max Everett

In 2023, AEW was bogged down with the awful Devil storyline with MJF. At Worlds End of that year, Samoa Joe defeated MJF to become Men's World Champion. Two years later at the same pay-per-view, MJF pinned Joe to become a two-time World Champion. MJF had no business being in this match in the first place, but he continuously falls up and had a contract that he could cash in (mind you, the whole reason he joined the Hurt Syndicate was to get his Triple B back).

Joe prematurely ended Hangman Page's title reign at Full Gear last month (with the help of HOOK & for what exactly?). He then lost his title in his second title defense. If this was his last reign as World Champion before retiring, it was a complete waste. MJF should've just beaten Hangman for the title tonight. It seems like they just wanted MJF to defeat Joe to get him back from two years ago. Most people have tried to forget The Devil storyline even happened, yet here we are being forced to remember it.

The last time MJF was champion, he held the title for 406 days. During that reign, he tried to avoid wrestling as much as possible and his whole personality was "The Bidding War of 2024", where he consistently referenced WWE. We already spent eight months with the title locked in a briefcase when Jon Moxley was champion. I really hope that we don't have a repeat of MJF's first reign. He's already got a title defense at Maximum Carnage against Bandido, where he'll make a stipulation to get his Dynamite Diamond Ring back and become more insufferable. More wrestling and less mic time is all I can really hope for with this reign (other than it not being another long reign). And for the love of wrestling goddesses, please build up new challengers for the title picture. 

Written by Samantha Schipman