AEW WrestleDream 2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s review of AEW WrestleDream 2026, the show that featured a wild tag team championship match, saw the trios titles change hands once again, and introduced Ilja Dragunov as All Elite! Unfortunately, we'll be talking about none of those things here in the column, though we will discuss nearly everything else, from Mercedes Mone vs. Thekla to the Clockwork Carnage match and many matches in between.

If you missed the show, please feel free to catch up on everything that went down in Orlando on Saturday night by checking out our AEW WrestleDream 2026 live blog, which contains all the info you need on every match and happening on the broadcast, not just the ones that stuck out the most to the WINC crew. Those specific matches — the ones we felt strongest about, for better or worse — are the focus of this column, along with the WINC staff's subjective opinions. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about AEW WrestleDream 2026!

AEW WrestleDream featured some instant classics and a variety of middling-to-great matches, but it cannot be understated that enhancement matches do not belong on a major event.

Now, technically the Tailgate Brawl isn't a pay-per-view event but rather the free show that feeds into it, but that doesn't change the fact that having an enhancement match at a major event is egregious to anyone that didn't make it onto the card.

Jake Doyle, Josh Alexander, and Wardlow came out for a match against Alex Breeze, Papi D, and Rhys Maddox that would have been considered nigh-on pointless on TV. It was less than three minutes of them obliterating their opponents, with Doyle then feeding them one-by-one to Wardlow for a Powerbomb Symphony. That was it. 

It was a match, if one could call it that, that sat between a nine-minute contest and an 11-minute contest. And realistically the time would have been better allocated to either of those, and Tony Khan, as much as it may have pained him, didn't need to have a six-man tag here. 

One can perfectly understand wanting to get Wardlow out there to get some wind under his sails. One can perfectly understand wanting to get the crowd warmed up. Where the understanding breaks down is the rationale that either of those things equated to an enhancement match at a major event. 

No one coming out of that venue was going to be talking about Wardlow. In fact, a lot of people might have popped to the bathroom and returned completely oblivious to the fact there was even a match. So why do it? What value did it add? Wardlow has been powerbombing nigh-on nameless wrestlers for years, he should be beyond it by now. If he isn't, then that is an indictment on either the talent and/or the booking. That's without considering the litany of wrestlers who did not make it onto the event that could have been in the spot instead, working an actual match against Wardlow and company. It just makes the mind boggle honestly.

Written by Max Everett

It's unfortunately a bit of a rare occurrence to see the women of AEW get the time in the ring to show off the awesome things that they can do between the ropes. It's been one of the bigger criticisms of the company and something that I have definitely said myself before, but luckily that was not a problem at all in the AEW Women's World Championship match between titleholder Mercedes Mone and Thekla.

While I would argue that Mone retaining against Thekla was a rather predictable outcome, I still thought that the two women put on a really good showing and were able to tell a proper story throughout their match by building it up and using some good in-ring psychology, such as Thekla trying to avoid the Mone Maker as much as she could. It made for a good opening contest — not including the spill over of the first Best of Five Series match between FTR and The Motor City Machine Guns — and set the tone for a card that was overall filled with some pretty great matches.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

In case you weren't aware, Nick Wayne beat Chris Jericho (cue the fireworks) at the Grand Slam France edition of "AEW Collision" and he was very pleased with his work even if it was a little underhanded. Jericho naturally wanted a rematch considering they were tied at one win each over the past few weeks. That match took place at AEW WrestleDream 2026, and much to my surprise, it wasn't bad until the ending.

Despite the fact that he is still getting cheered by the live crowd and people still sing "Judas" whenever he shows up, I'm still of the belief that AEW as a company has evolved past the need forChris Jericho. That belief is what made me appreciate this match for the most part because Jericho had his working boots on, gave Wayne a lot of the heat, had a lot of things make sense, everything was building quite nicely. However, they had to tie in the way Wayne won in Paris and that's where everything fell apart. 

Wayne kicks Jericho twice in the groin which does nothing because Jericho was smart enough to wear a cup — good thinking. Then Jericho starts using the cup to beat up Wayne, and unless I'm being stupid here, that is a foreign object which should really result in a disqualification. But it was in the heat of the moment so I can let it slide if need be, even though referee Bryce Remsburg was right there watching all this happen — like if that had been a title belt or something else it would have been a DQ and I can imagine those cups aren't made of foam. After that, Jericho kicks Wayne in the groin behind the referee's back, for the love of the game I'm assuming, but he kicked him so hard that he missed the Judas Effect and ended up being rolled up and pinned to lose ... what?

I can see what they were going for, and the visual of Wayne ducking the Judas Effect purely because he's feeling a pain no man wants to feel was well done, but the whole ending was just a mess. Besides, this is a match that really would have been better suited on TV anyway. Give them a main event spot on "Collision" or an opening match spot on "AEW Dynamite," it would have felt like a much bigger deal instead of being the toilet break match on an excellent pay-per-view.

Written by Sam Palmer

Andrade versus Tommaso Ciampa was always going to be a good match. In fact, it stood a really good chance of being a great match purely because of the wrestlers involved. But one might have been making like Simone Biles with the mental gymnastics to even guess that this match was going to be as as funny and straight-up entertaining as it was. 

This was a match that delivered on all the physical hallmarks one would expect from a bonafide instant classic, working at a fast pace both fluid in transitions and impactful in moves. But then it took it a step further as Ciampa sought to make a mockery of the hallmarks to Andrade's run over the past months.

The "Psycho Killer" started off with a mockery of his selfie spot with the crowd, getting the better of his opponent and taking a selfie with his wife and daughter. Then, as the crowd increased its demand to see Andrade remove his trousers, not only did Ciampa starve them off that pay-off but decided to shed a layer himself, revealing trunks that answered Andrade's signature question with: "I just know." 

Andrade got back on top and sought to once more shed the trousers, only for Ciampa to come back at him while he was caught half-way, ensuring Andrade spent the next few minutes wrestling with his trousers at his ankles, delivering a moonsault in that condition and finally shedding them.much to the pleasure of the crowd.

That would have been funny on its own. The match would have been a great time if it were to end by this point. But then Ciampa extended the hostility towards the shed trousers, stomping them and delivering a double ax-handle before applying the finishing touch with a Project Ciampa before going for a cover. To be clear, he went for a cover on the trousers, and Aubrey Edwards counted it. Not only that, the trousers kicked out, much to the shock of Ciampa. That man was flabbergasted by the resolve of that garment. 

The match unfortunately ran dry on trouser-related spots after that, but that doesn't mean the closing stretch didn't deliver. Ciampa tried to outsmart the referee as he brought the belt into the ring, got stopped, and then brought a chair into the other side of the ring to get stopped again, only to run back to the belt with that distraction. Andrade hit the Widow's Bell onto the belt that Ciampa had envisioned for him, and got the win through that cunning alone. 

That is wrestling encapsulated — an off-the-scale athletic performance that leveraged the absurdity of the medium to entertain a super-invested crowd.

Written by Max Everett

WrestleDream closed with a new (for AEW, at least) concept match — Clockwork Carnage, the brainchild of Will Ospreay and Pro Wrestling EVE. I appreciate AEW trying out a new concept, but a pay-per-view main event wasn't the right time or place. The match would be a great main event on a themed show, like Winter Is Coming. It also should not have been for the world title, but to name the No. 1 contender.

At times, the match had no urgency. During the 15-minute period where a wrestler is trying to earn the most pinfalls, a good portion of the field wasn't actually trying to score pinfalls. It was usually just two to three guys. It should've been more chaotic with every wrestler attempting to gain a pinfall constantly, not just at certain times within the 15 minutes. Samoa Joe locked Ospreay into a Coquina Clutch for about two minutes, so where was everyone else? Cope and Ricochet were down after going through a table, but the others should have been going for pinfall attempts at the same time. Someone could've attempted to pin Joe and Ospreay. The two minute mark hit and that's when things picked up some, but it still could've had more urgency.

Ospreay said in an interview that if he wasn't in the main event, it should've been Mercedes Moné versus Thekla. Ospreay is right; that match should've been the main event. It is well past time for women to be the main event, but that match was truly a world title match. Clockwork Carnage felt more like winning the match was the priority with the title being secondary. If you have a world title closing the show, that should feel like the most important thing. Instead it was "how is this brand new match going to work?" By running the match on TV first, they could have worked out timing issues and learned where to kick up the urgency and chaos.

I hope that they do the match again and work out some of the kinks. The more often they have the match, the better it will be. It should be worked out on TV a few more times before bringing it back to a pay-per-view and it should not close the show.

Written by Samantha Schipman

On paper, Jon Moxley vs. Mark Davis sounds like a very fun time. Two guys who will go the extra mile to beat the snot out of each other until one of them can't move anymore is something a lot of people can get behind, but when add the weight of everything that has happened recently, this means so much more.

Moxley isn't a guy who will often let the cracks beneath the surface become visible. He has the hard exterior and the in-ring persona of someone who only cares about one thing — the sport of professional wrestling. However, he hasn't been allowed to do that for the past three weeks because of what happened to Pac. As made clear by this match, as well as the backstage segment on "AEW Dynamite" this past Wednesday, he is a man in pain, and that pain was apparent here tonight.

Compared to all the other matches on this show, this was a drastic change of pace but one that was necessary. It was the in-ring story of a man who knows that the only way to get past what he's going through isn't over or around it, it's to go through it — but that can be a problem when the thing you have to go through is one of the toughest competitors in the entire company, one who has become so consistent this year that he's genuinely in the running for one of my personal favorite wrestlers in the world in 2026. Just look at the strikes that busted Moxley open — vicious, methodical, straight up nasty in their execution and morbid in meaning because of what they are doing to the champion.

All Davis needed to do was beat whatever life was left in Moxley's body out of him, make him sit there and think "What am I doing to myself?" For a moment, that looked to have happened until Marina Shafir and Daniel Garcia told Moxley, in the most Death Riders way possible, to essentially get up and fight, and that's exactly what he did, resulting in a finishing stretch that would make even the happiest of babyfaces take notes.

If I had to nitpick for the sake of constructive criticism, Davis waiting for a count out win in a title match seemed a bit weird considering it took commentary to remind me that Continental Rules mean a title can change hands like that, which I don't think I ever knew. Also, maybe having Moxley win with the Brutalizer would have been more of a crescendo, but I can see why AEW went in this direction. Either way, this was my pick for match of the night.

Written by Sam Palmer