AEW

Redemption

26th July 2026
Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Attendance: (as shown on Cagematch) 7,107
Watch On: HBO Max, MyAEW, PPV.com

By Hillary

Pre-Show

It’s that time again! AEW “Redemption” PPV was live from Montreal, Canada! This pre-show did a lot of recap heavy lifting to get us ready for the matches tonight (since the matches were largely thrown together last minute, this was a necessity), resulting in fewer matches (one match of the Conglomeration vs the Lethal Twist). In addition to recaps, and a warm-up match, we also saw a celebration of the Roujeau family at the top of the pre-show. I love the love of wrestling history, but I had absolutely no clue who they were. Apparently, per Excalibur, this family was key to the Montreal territory, which I mean, makes sense. I did enjoy that apparently one of them is now a mayor in Canada, so you know, WWE doesn’t just have all of the politicos (though I personally view Kane’s existence in politics as, ya know…maybe not the best brand ambassador). This started out with Daddy Magic coming out to the ring. The French did sell me on this segment. AEWs continued use of ALL THE LANGUAGE overflows me with joy. Rocky Romero came out representing the Don Callis Family and took a bunch of bumps to make the olds look good. It was a nice moment.

The Demand came out to be on comms for the one match in the pre-show. I am glad to see some Ricochet, even if it’s only at the side of the ring. In my last outing in this role, I noted that OC and crew were great for warming the crowd, and for me at least, this remains the truth. This was a solid amuse-bouche to a night of wrestling. This match was much better than I expected. My favorite series of moves included the heels taking an OC with his hands in his pockets and placing him on the ropes and then having an intersecting series of activities that included climbing around Cassidy to do counters on Roddy, top rope jumps, and team work against Cassidy. Lee Johnson and Blake Christian should be incredibly proud of themselves for rising to this occasion. I also enjoyed the heels distracting the ref and it backfiring on them as it gave Roddy enough time to get back into the ring before the three count. It was well executed overall, and I am VERY excited for a Ricochet-OC feud. YES, PLEASE.

Main Show

6-Man International Championship Number One Contender Ladder Match (‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey, Beast Mortos, Jack Perry, Komander, El Clon, Nick Wayne)

Speedball, Kommander, and Jack were the babyfaces of this match, with Speedball being the hometown hero (seriously there were so many Speedball chants, it made him feel like a much bigger deal than he has thus far been presented). From bell to bell this was non-stop action, with sequence after sequence of well done choreography. The entrances started on the pre-show, which ended with Jack’s entrance and Komander doing the Jungle Boy dance for him. This match was a spot fest and could likely have cut some time, given there is reasonable criticism against wrestlers for continuing to brawl when they were in arms of the contract. There were multiple jumps off the highest ladder on the ramp into the rest of the wrestlers below. Perry vs Speedball occurred when they came into the ring with that ladder. Mortos spoiled that end with his dazzling bejeweled mask. This match massively benefitted from being half inhabited by luchadores. A fun moment occurred when all men were on three ladders, brawling. This was broken up, predictably, but there was a moment I hoped for Beast Mortos to take it. Jack got out tables, which were placed on three sides of the ring. Mortos and Speedball broke the first tables. Then Komander put Nick Wayne through to cheers. They built a bridge of ladders which was held steady by two refs, which I was not aware was part of their kayfabe jobs. (The more you know!) The fourth table was set up and Wayne put Clon through it. Then there was Wayne vs Jack. This is the only matchup where plot allows for brawl over contract to my mind of these competitors. These are the two men corrupted by Christian Cage but who lived to tell the tale. Truly, this feud, should it continue to come to pass, will be one of Christian’s finest kayfabe legacies. In the end, AEW opted for the hometown win for Speedball. I kind of love that they are elevating them and he’s not going to disappear off of TV now that Kevin Knight is being elevated.

© AEW

Jon Moxley & Will Ospreay vs The Bucks Tag Match

It’s a Young Bucks match, so I had high expectations and I was not disappointed. I flinched with the head-on-head violence between Nick and Will at the beginning of the match, and I absolutely bought that it was a botch until it became clear that it was just a really, really well done plot. I am not going to debate the merits or lack thereof in a worked injury match. This one worked for me as I trusted the workers involved and the plot desperately needed the jolt. Even as of “Collision”, Will had been willing to murder Nick, so I’m unclear on what changed his tune, but the plot demanded we move on from all of this and the match overall delivered on the end goal desired. It showed that evil Ospreay is going to be short-lived and it enrages Moxley to a point of pure madness. The set up of a Nick injury pervaded the match, and it lent credibility to Will’s nightmares related to neck injuries and concern for people.

Matt checked on Nick, and then Will checked on Nick, which pissed off Mox something fierce. The sequences were tight and well-placed, complete with friendly fire, synchronized team combinations, and well-placed acting. Marina got some shots in, too. I appreciate the Bucks continuing to be willing to work with her, including kicking her later in the fight.

Nick’s acting was phenomenal throughout, and on several occasions I thought he was legitimately hurt. The only saving grace being that Rick Knox allowed the match to continue, and the story they were telling was so straightforward. All players knew their assignment, and I admit I think it helped me understand Moxley’s character psychosis better as well. It elevated how and why he is a tweener in a way that broke through to me in a way previous matches had not. The Bucks helped build a plot with Mox and Will…hopefully they use it to move that story forward. Also maybe Mox can have some character progression from this, too?

International Championship Match – Bandido vs Kyle Fletcher

This was a 25-minute masterclass. They worked a somewhat tired audience back into a froth, slowing things down initially, to build to my second favorite (non-Bucks) match of the night. The build up was methodical, with Bandido putting forth an impressive amount of offense to Kyle’s considerable and noticeable frustration. Kyle didn’t come into this match thinking it would be hard, and Bandido showed him otherwise. There was a moment in the match where there was a threatened count-out and a random child dressed in an Ospreay jersey at ringside audibly told Bandido he could do it. This fired him up…and I had guessed at the result already (largely because Speedball is a babyface and had already won), but the sequences after that fact made me double guess on more than one occasion. Both men went hard, and I would like to see more and more of Bandido in those positions. Watching him remains a delight.

The Dogs vs Bang Bang Gang Double Chain Match

The match of a thousand puns, also very long chains. Before the bell rang, we had the “who let the dogs out?” commentary AND CHANT. I am sad to report this was the best part of this match. It was too long overall and not fun to watch. I spent most of the match pondering on Jay White’s clothing choices; usually I come for Juice’s style, but the billowy white pants stuffed into cowboy boots must be called out. It was a choice. Juice’s cowboy boot selection was a delightful gold number for those keeping count of his fashion choices at home. One of the true delights of watching the living muppet that is Juice Robinson is his attire. I don’t have a lot to say about the match itself outside of the fact that I was surprised there was no blood given the aforementioned white pants. This type of match is not for me, so I don’t feel I can fairly evaluate it. The one in-match highlight for me was Jay White whipping Finlay in the nuts, and Juice loudly announcing that fact to the crowd (I am apparently a child). There was an end match shenanigan with Death Riders coming to help the Dogs, and the Gunns and Austin Ares trying to stop them. That was blessedly short and brought the endeavor to a close.

Intermission – Will/Renee

There was a backstage Mox-Will segment and I am not recapping as it was essentially,
“Let’s speed run the plot we should have slowly built to for at least the last month, if not longer.”

© AEW

TBS Championship – Maya World vs Hikaru Shida

Refreshingly, the women had some plot for this outing (or at least as much as the men)! I know the bar for plot in this particular pay per-view is in a sub-basement of hell, but still, it’s nice that the women’s matches feel more intentional on a card that felt anything but that. Also the makeup game for both women was on point. Shida as heel champion worked for me in this match. She bullied Maya and stopped her from tapping out of sheer hubris, which was a nice bit of character work and it leant into a seamless storytelling arc throughout the match. When Maya grabbed the ropes, Shida’s arrogance led to fury with the ref, full distraction, and allowed Maya to win in a surprise pin. Shida’s tantrum on the outside while Maya celebrated was a fantastic mood and vibe.

Men’s World Tag Team Championship – C&C vs Death Riders

UGH. Guys, I was not looking forward to this one, but I was more ready for it than another that has not yet arrived (patience, you will know it when we get there). The Death Riders saved me from hearing their music twice in openings tonight by sneaking up on Copeland as he came out to his entrance. Christian came jogging down during his entrance, and also got beaten up on the ramp. It was a good tone shift for the match. Claudio and Pac are both able wrestlers who were largely able to handle the carry job required of them. This match went on longer than I thought was necessary (a trend!), but the fans were on their feet and were really into the match. It was not my favorite thing…but in the end when looking at Copeland…he didn’t use windmill arms so I guess my nostalgia acts in AEW remain at least capable of doing chops? Look, if I have to watch WWE nostalgia on my show, then I can at least compare it favorably to the WWE nostalgia that….was not good that WWE put on, right? Right?

After the match we got the Young Bucks coming for C&C. The match at “All In” that I am most here for at present. RETIRE THEM, BUCKS.

Tommaso Ciampa vs “Painmaker” Chris Jericho

Hey, we found the match I was least looking forward to tonight. Thankfully, I was also just plain wrong. This match was absolutely worth every minute of my time. Wheeeeeee. How dare Jericho not play Judas for my pleasure…and the bedazzled black mask literally elicited a titter from my long-suffering, non-wrestling watching husband. It must have taken him a lot of time to bejewel his gear (laudatory). No one asked for this. Absolutely no one. But also, I am deeply appreciative to Jericho for his work anyhow. I do love Ciampa, and honestly, I enjoy a Jericho match more than I probably should. I enjoy a good plunder match, and the sand callback (from “Beach Break”) was fun, as was the chair/bat dueling.

There was one child who spoke for all of us during the match demanding FIRE to enliven the match. He represented us all. Then Jericho disappeared and Ciampa put on a Bruins jersey and started wrestling with stuffed animals. That bit was DELIGHTFUL. I would watch Ciampa fight with stuffies all night long…this was broken up by Jericho who started making out with the stuffie? This was surprisingly entertaining and a better experience than expected overall. All to say, the props in this were wonderful. I will not ruin the ending for you, as it is as ridiculous as it possibly could be in the most laudatory of ways. Do not ever count Jericho out.

© AEW

National Championship Match – Andrade El Idolo vs Mark Davis

I loved this match. I have heard others who wished it were shorter, but I can only judge by my own entertainment levels. Post-divorce Andrade is one of my favorite wrestlers in AEW right now and I absolutely love his vendetta against his former family. I like him topless with the white pants. I also love that the selfies still work with him as a babyface. Both men had explosive attacks and counters, and it was a fun bout overall. For me, the highlight was the Andrade jump backwards from the apron outside the ring onto Davis. Davis was no slouch, either, and both men were engaged and locked in on making an entertaining match. The sequences were fun, and while Andrade did have a fight with his pants, once freed from them, he freed the championship from Mark Davis. After the match, he went over to the Spanish announce team and shook all of their hands, which I also found charming.

Women’s World Champion Match – Thekla vs Willow Nightingale

I didn’t have a lot to say about this match, but it was good and had solid timing. The match got started with an epic pounce by Willow, and ended with an equally epic powerbomb. Thekla went for Willow’s injured ear, and thus for the rest of the night Willow grabbed and led Thekla about by the ear in a beautiful turn in fair play. Willow won, and I am so thrilled for her. Thekla got a lot of her own offense off, including a solid spear and a few fun submission attempts. There was one attempt I particularly liked where Thekla flipped over and forced Willow into a false smile to mock her. I would be remiss if I did not mention that Skye Blue ineffectually came out to fight with Willow to try to save Thekla towards the end of the match, but it did not amount to much of anything. The Conglomeration came out to join her in her celebration, with her very own backpack. As with all things Willow, hers is the prettiest, most colorful backpack.

Now onto Mercedes vs Willow at “All In”.

© AEW

Men’s World Championship Match – Kenny Omega vs Kevin Knight

I was not expecting what I got with this match, but I will start with this: Kenny Omega’s entrance woke me up after 5 solid hours of wrestling. It’s a vibe that works even when Kenny botches names or promos. He just is the final boss, or wall that a wrestler must overcome. The match was pitch perfect for the story they were telling, which was that the young upstart just wasn’t ready yet. He got in the ring with the champ…who effectively dismantled him. That Kenny did this to a Don Callis acolyte only added to the story.

Kenny dispatched Kevin, and in a fit of even more “plot”, the Death Riders attacked Kenny and Ospreay contemplated murder by plastic bag. He considered this for frankly far too long. Was I planning to root for Kenny against the absolute inevitability of Ospreay at Wembley before this? Yes. Was the One Winged Angel given to Ospreay deserved? Hell, yes. Am I going to cheer Kenneth Jerome Omega even more now? Yep! So while I am very glad the Death Rider-Ospreay divorce is cemented, I’m not convinced this leads to the outcome AEW really wanted. I don’t see Ospreay winning being the big positive thing AEW has been hoping for. We all know it’s coming, and I genuinely am not convinced people will be particularly happy about it, especially not against Kenny. There is this, too – Kenny as champ is the most we have seen him in years…does he go away when his time with the belt does? Him disappearing off TV again could add more fan disdain on AEW’s chosen champion if Kenny has no more follow-up.

Anyhow – that was the show!

The show had two actively weak matches, and went overly long on several others. Despite that, Jericho/Ciampa, the women’s matches, the ladder match, and the show’s main event are worth watching. For those not triggered by worked-shoot matches, I would add in the Bucks, but I’m biased. AEW is moving forward multiple plots towards where they need to be at “All In”, or just ending feuds in the most entertaining way possible. At least three “All In” matches were set as a result of this show, one potential break-up plot began with Mox and Will, and we have a match set for Arena México. This was not AEW’s finest outing but it didn’t have to be; it got a lot fixed and now we see the follow up for “All In”.

Despite all of my criticisms, I made it to midnight, which is my general “Is it entertaining?” barometer. I enjoyed the vast majority. I hope you will, too.

© AEW

AEW “Double or Nothing 2026”

24th May 2026
Louis Armstrong Stadium, New York City, USA
Live Attendance: 14,394 (according to Cagematch)
Watch On: PPV.com, Amazon, MyAEW, HBO Max

Review By: Hillary

Overall, this was an incredible show and an incredibly fast 5 hours of entertainment. It played in front of a sell out crowd in AEW’s first foray into NYC proper and it did not disappoint. The crowd themselves were so on fire so as to become an integral part of this show. On a night where no match advertised for the pay-per-view missed, there were a few highlights that illustrated the best of what AEW can be. There was something for everyone on this card and if you were unable to catch it in the last month, I urge you to give it a try, or at least check out some of the highlights I address below.

“DoN” Buy-In/Pre Show

Before I get started with the main card, I want to address the cactus-sized elephant in the room. I just said that the advertised pay-per-view card was excellent, which it was…but in this case my omission of the non-paid content was sadly intentional. Generally, when AEW has a pay-per-view, main card performance is a minimum expectation, and we get some amazing free matches to warm us up in the Buy-In. The highlight for me was Mick Foley. Him and the stray hopes of a Mamdani sighting kept me going in the lead up to the advertised show.

I found the Buy-In matches largely lackluster, and the hook provided in this wrestling amuse-bouche was largely story/promo-based. In particular, Mick Foley arrived on the scene and joined AEW after a very public separation from WWE due to its political affiliations. He was adorable in his initial entrance, especially with his seeming surprise at seeing his daughter in the crowd celebrating him. Foley had three separate appearances. The first was his introduction to the AEW crowd, the second was him hyping some of the main card matches, and the third and final appearance was what made the Buy-In somewhat worth the time I spent watching it.

Foley did mic work with both MJF and Darby in this segment and it ensured that Darby would maintain his face status with an MJF home crowd, while playing with audience expectations of the outcome. For those of us who desperately wanted to see Bald!MJF, it fed into our hopes and dreams. It gave the angle more life and made the conclusion, which on paper was foregone, seem like less of a lock.

Divine Dominion (Megan Bayne vs Lena Kross) vs Maya World and Viva Van

I need to start with the fact that I really like the five-minute challenge concept, and the continuation of Mercedes’s belt skirt invention. As mentioned at the top of this section, this match did not grab me. I WISH that it had as I dream of more women being on the main card, but that would require TK to build out a story and reason for a built up tag team match; neither story nor build has been seen to date. Would love a promo on the 5 minute match concept and more builds to get access just in general, but I digress. At this point this is a well-worn critique that’s been bandied about all month….but that’s not going to stop me from adding to it (sorry not sorry). I will also note, given the amount of time women get in general, there were too many botches that I found noticeable in this match, and I am bad at noticing these kinds of things.

The Death Riders (Wheeler Yuta, Claudio, Daniel Garcia) vs The Opps (Hook, Katsuyori Shibata, Anthony Bowens)

I can’t review this match fairly – so if you have a deep and abiding love of Hook or the Death Riders, skip to the next paragraph. This match was also not for me for both of the above players. Putting this combination on my television is like giving me the wrestling equivalent of a sleep aid. (Quick caveat! I do love me some Wheeler Yuta and Anthony Bowens, so I was very glad they made it to the pre show.)

This match was a well wrestled endeavor, but was not very memorable for me. The highlight was the interchange between Shibata and Claudio. Overall, I found this match boring, but watchable. This is the best I can say for it. It was inoffensive.

QT Marshall, Harley Cameron, “Big Boom” AJ, Orange Cassidy, Roddy Strong, Mark Briscoe vs Shane Taylor Promotions

Oh thank the lord Orange Cassidy and his energy (ironic, I know) came to the rescue. Conglomerating in and of itself brought more energy than either of the previous two matches combined. Orange Cassidy played to his favorites with a one-count punch, hand in pockets, and the new move – being a literal weapon thrown by Roddy. This match was short, sweet, and the best and most fun in the lead up to the main show. The match aftermath also served for the easy pop that was Eddie Kingston returning to his own home crowd. I popped for this, but it’s been a minute since Eddie, the embodiment of NYC, did anything substantive in the ring or in a story. It would be nice if this wasn’t a one-off and he was also able to build to something. Regardless, the pop itself set the right energy and tone for the start of the show.

© AEW

Main Show

Cope & Cage vs FTR [c] for the Men’s World Tag Team Titles

This match was a gimmicked “I Quit” match, which sadly doesn’t mean that the wrestlers were literally going to leave the company if they lost, but rather that they have to say “I quit” rather than be pinned. This match concept is absurdly funny, especially if you went in thinking it meant something entirely different. I’m a sucker for a good plunder match, and Cage’s mic work combined with FTR grunts whenever the mic appeared in front of the men provided much needed humor, and made the match itself unexpected as the outcome was telegraphed. I had low expectations going into this match; they were not only easily cleared but surprisingly so. I truly forgot with it being an “I Quit” match that it was also a title match. It was fun, and lighthearted, and while previous iterations of this match (this is FTR vs Cope/Cage III – three!) were slogs, this match played to all wrestlers’ strengths. Stokely is usually a bright spot and this remained true here. The continued character work by Christian and Copeland selling the ‘beleaguered babyface stuck with his curmudgeonly heel husband’ dynamic in the lead up to this match combined with the work in the match itself further elevated the story. The energy was maintained throughout, and the match was well paced. Let’s take a moment to pour one out for the AEW staff tasked with quickly resetting the ring after FTR dismantled it.

In terms of match story beats, commentary ensured to point out the home sharing of Beth and Cope to FTR at the top of the match, telegraphing Beth’s return. This story was harmed by not being able to let Beth return and do this match six months ago, but it still worked and was actively aided by the trash talk both sides used throughout – be it Christians taunting, Dax’s threats to Beth and Cope’s children, Cash’s inarticulate wailing, or the callbacks to Spike (the weapon, not the vampire from Buffyverse) and Beth’s return.

As per usual, Christian Cage remained the match MVP in what was truly a storied match-up of bald vs beard. There were flashier spots with tables and the Spanish announce desk, but the hilarity of the cinder block spot and the wrench-nose and crotch shots gave me life. Cinder blocks are not going to crush the arm inside it, as they are in fact not known for their flexibility/ability to constrict if something hits the cinder block. Not like bomb shelters are made with these blocks or anything….speaking of flashier spots, the flaming table bump by Stokely was excellent. I particularly enjoyed the creativity of the wrench and toolbox spots. I am a sucker for a good crotch spot…okay, so that didn’t sound as bad in my head as it did when reading it back (but I will keep it there for you dear readers). My other inside thought was that in a world where we have Jericho, Cope’s entry felt like a temu variant. All that said, this match set a solid vibe for the rest of the show. It was a solid start and previewed what was to come.

Konosuke Takeshita vs Kazuchika Okada

This was my match of the night. It has some detractors amongst our esteemed Social Suplex creatives, which surprised me as I have never previously self identified as a ‘moves’ sicko. I loved this match because of the story told in the ring, but also because while Okada has been hit or miss since his arrival in AEW, my deep love of Takeshida carries me onward. While this match was probably six months too late, they stuck the landing, which made up for the mistiming, and I am thankful to the Young Bucks for helping set the table to end this feud.

As a quick aside, I ADORE WHEN WRESTLERS USE THEIR NATIVE LANGUAGES. Takeshita’s pre-match set up in Japanese set the vibe for my interest in this match, and set the story. The crowd also set the stage beautifully. They were locked in from the bell.

Don Callis acting out when he was ridiculed by the crowd was delightful. Don telegraphing his turn on Take by calling him a hot head and misinterpreting Okada was beautifully done. As noted before relating to the tag team championship, the foreshadowing by the announce team was beautifully done and added to all of the stories being told throughout the evening. In addition to the verbal story, what was shown in the ring was compelling – Okada went from shit-eating grin and cocky foot-on-the-stomach covers, to getting angry to getting desperate, to finally, losing.

All this to say, I didn’t think I was a ‘moves’ sicko – but if this match is an example of that…maybe I might be? I love the way they told their story with Don Callis selling their moves. I enjoyed the athleticism, but it really only worked for me because I was invested in this story. I think there is something to be said that if this over-drawn out story wasn’t doing it for you, then this match wouldn’t be your vibe. The moves only work within the larger story and the investment in this series as a grudge match. I bought into Okada’s dislike and disrespect of Take, and Take being done with being bullied by the newer asset. Take, after all, was the first member of the DCF. The energy was sustained throughout the match, and will be a match of the year contender with a masterfully choreographed crescendo leading us to the pin.

The after match discussion leading to Kyle’s return was fascinating, with them yelling at Take for going for the throat. The use of a heel turn for Kyle who was already a heel was brilliant. The audience wanted that babyface turn for Kyle so badly, and the swerve to a babyface and then right back to heel was a delight. It correctly plotted out and prayed on audience trope expectations, and made for a very hot feud lead-in for these two. I may also have yelled at Kyle that I hate the socks with loafers look (seriously – such a small and important piece of heel work there). Truly a heel presentation. The Okada/Fletcher moment with the belt was also a nice potential feud forecast.

Athena vs Mina Shirakawa

I love both these women, and I wish that TK believed in booking the women with stories and time, as both of the women in this match deserve TV time and good booking. Mina has an amazing story continuation of trying to Clue-style figure out who killed Toni Storm. Athena is supremely talented and deserves her own story that is more than just being the “forever champion”. But I digress – I will take what I can get (and will only complain a little bit). The women were great, but these two always are. They deserved more than this.

They put in a lot of work to get the audience into the story and largely were very successful. The crowd was hot all night, and the crowd was more than obliged to do their part. The thing that struck me most in this match is that Mina is an example of someone who, if Tony put the time in, could lose her way to the top. (Yes, you read correctly. Lose her way to the top.)

© AEW

Kyle O’Reilly vs Jon Moxley

This was my least favorite match of the night (but the bar was set very high so this is not meant as an insult). The match was technical wrestling, which I am not huge on. It was also a match I had just seen one week prior, and this match did not elevate either of the previous two matches. Whereas the first match of the show was FTR/Cage and Cope’s strongest outing, this match between O’Reilly and Mox was their weakest.

There was no reason for Mox to get his win back other than that he is Mox and he has own universe these days. We need a name for this new universe – I am tempted to crib from He-Man using the logic train of Death Rider to go with ‘Masters of the Universe’? I’ll keep working on it – it needs to be punchier than the codyverse…cause it’s still more entertaining than said former universe. This one at least is more realistic about curing racism in America.

If you are a fan of Mox and/or technical wrestling, this match may very well be for you.

Will Ospreay vs Samoa Joe

I really enjoyed the quick start to this match. Commentary really worked to try and make a plot make sense with the Death Riders and the Opps. Also the idea of disrespect from choosing to play with other people furthers my Joe character issues as a person who may be unintentionally an attempt to be the literal physical embodiment of toxic masculinity. In this match it made sense. Joe worked heel. Ospreay worked babyface, and also worked to his strengths. For all of the discussion of the Death Riders, it felt like Will was playing to his strengths and largely his own style of wrestling (a style I sincerely wish there were more adherents of).

In West Wing, there was a saying: “Let Bartlett be Bartlett.” I posit that in wrestling there is a similar adage. Let Ospreay be Ospreay and he will not lead us astray in the ring. Ospreay was quick, bouncy, and as per usual sold like the dickens, until the lead up to pinning Joe when his no sells had a much needed impact due to a well told in-ring story…in this match against a giant, Will made Joe look powerful, and no more so than in the false finish they did with the tease of having Will pass out. Joe did his job at helping showcase Ospreay on his path to Wembley.

Swerve Strickland vs Bandido

Swerve’s entrance with the Hangman houseburning has yet to stop popping me. That said, I miss his old theme. I love both of these men and I wish both got more live screen time. I love lucha libre and I love that Bandido gave a lovely homage to Brody King in the lead up to his Senton Bomb on the outside. The mix of these two men’s styles was explosive and captivating. This might be tied for my second favorite match of the night with Stadium Stampede. The match itself felt tightly plotted – with Swerve being a formidable foe, and Bandido defeating himself via over zealousness. Bandido was never treated by Swerve as less than and was ready to exploit whatever opportunities were given him. The House Call and the 21-Plex reversal were gorgeous, but just focusing on those last two spots would be doing the overall match a disservice. Bell-to-bell this match was compelling, had explosive moves, flips, reversals, and built to a crescendo.

This match also had, I think, my favorite commentary call of the night, explaining that Prince Nana was available for Barmitzvahs. What does one pay Prince Nana to do at a B-Mitzvah? I mean, at least Bandido could lead a group macarena? But he is not apparently available for B-Mitzvahs…?! Why not?! He would be the life of the party and every bubbie would be handing him their granddaughters’ phone numbers. Yes, this was a thought process I had both times I watched, and no, this thought process did not detract from the beautifully flowing choreography these men provided me with. I look forward to their next meeting, please and thank you.

© AEW

Women’s 4 Way World Championship Match (Thekla [c] vs Jamie Hayter vs Kris Statlander vs Hikaru Shida)

Did I mention how much I wish all of these women had plots? At least for this one – there is a plot, but it was one where the women’s world champion did not feature. The hook for this match was the Shida turn on Kris. “Forbidden Door” seems like it fixed the ‘no Thekla plot’ issue, for which I am eternally grateful. I really enjoy Thekla’s unhinged live promos, and I feel this match would have been stronger had one existed in its build. Despite all that, giving Thekla three former champions to work against worked well enough for a last minute story and the women did a good job with the time they were given. The “Collision” promos done by Thekla and Jaime Hayter in particular did the necessary last minute selling needed for this match. As a reminder, this event occurred before Mercedes came back, and I really didn’t know for sure who was going to leave this event with the women’s belt. That might have been naive of me, but this was one of the few matches that didn’t feel nearly as narratively telegraphed in terms of the winner. I guess what Tony’s disdain of plots in the women’s division taketh away, in this case also giveth? A thought to ponder. I am so happy Stat is starting to reincorporate her alien character into her presentation.

The match itself was quite good. Hayter was low-key amazing whenever she was part of the central fighting, be it no selling with Stat or her very obvious chemistry with Thekla. Shida slow-burned her turn on Stat throughout the match, with the resultant kendo stick spot being placed at the right moment. Thekla trash-talked throughout the match, and played her role in the match pitch-perfectly. Thekla, of these four, was my favorite in terms of her current character work and wrestling storytelling. I think a good example of this was when Thekla got so distracted flipping off the audience that Stat was able to take advantage of the hold she found herself in and bit Thekla (yes, bit her) to release the hold. Stat was her normal amazing self. No wrestler was carried in this match. Each of these women held their own. This match was honestly even better on rewatch.

Stadium Stampede (Chris Jericho, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Jack Perry, Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin vs Ricochet, Bishop Kaun, Toa Liona, Mark Davis, Andrade El Idolo, David Finlay and Clark Connors)

Some pay-pe- view nights I need to ‘gentle parent’ myself after the penultimate match and go to bed only to watch the finale the following day. This was not the case for “Double or Nothing”. This match woke me up and got my adrenaline flowing. This is a match that benefits from multiple viewings just due to the number of things happening on screen at any given time.

The vibe was set immediately by both parties’ intros. The Dogs/DCF/Demand had cars that matched each of their particular characterizations and it provided some semblance of continuity that maybe this assortment of men should not have had (and in reality, on paper, absolutely did not have). The other side of the aisle with Jericho and the Hurt Syndicate and the Elite felt somehow more coherent. I suspect that’s just ‘cause there was more Elite than literally anything else, in combination with Jericho chewing the scenery as the true ‘carny’ he is. Remember how I called Cope’s theme temu “Judas”? Yeah – from the first line of the song I could clearly hear the audience singing it louder than the song itself. This song haunts my nightmares for days whenever I hear it. The earworm is real. Also, a brief call out that on this night, Jack Perry looked like his father’s son (extremely laudatory).

There were so many men in the ring at the beginning. Arguably too many bodies. We started with chaos, but the spots quickly began with Kenny using his coat as a matador, as we were able to watch Kenny inspire Shelton Benjamin to jump into the fray of whimsical discord in real time. I think it was my first time really understanding what Benjamin could do in the ring. There are honestly too many spots (literally the entire match) to list, so I will just quickly note my two favorites, ‘cause really (really!), if you have not yet watched this match, you should do so as I am not going to write an essay on these spots alone (but let’s be clear, I absolutely could here). My favorite in-ring spot was Jack Perry’s continued use of powdered substances by hitting people with literal vacuum dust (ew!). I just feel like the explosion of dust causes a really nifty visual impact to the watcher. My favorite out-of-ring spot was the food fight. It reminded me of 1960s comedies (like Blazing Saddles) where they fully break the fourth wall and end up with pie on their faces. The food fight just felt very Warner Brothers Studios, and as WB is the current distributor of the product, it gave my deep, dorky heart much joy.

This match was not the orgasm of moves that Okada and Takeshita exhibited, nor the explosive and flippy extravaganza of Swerve and Bandido. It, however, had so much joy, and how can you not have fun watching a bunch of your entertainers having so very much fun? These three were my absolute favorite matches of the night, and their placement on the card was perfect in reviving me as I started to flag. If you have already seen it, I recommend a rewatch; if you haven’t seen it yet, I hope I have sold you sufficiently to enjoy a chaotic and joyful free-for-all.

© AEW

Men’s World Championship Match (MJF vs Darby Allin [c])

Yes, my favorite matches may have come and gone but the end was still great. As with the rest of Darby’s reign, the match itself was timely, and did not begin after midnight as far as starts go. Perhaps this will be the thing I miss most about Darby’s reign (alongside literally every match he partook in). It’s been a month since the pay-per-view, so I will lead with the obvious that MJF won this match.

Going in,though…I was not sure. AEW did a good job of making this less certain for me. I knew MJF was getting it back in my head…but my heart really wanted to see him bald and for Darby to cut a promo inviting Kenny to fight him for the championship, perhaps waxing as eloquently as he was capable of, that Kenny of all people deserved that chance. Alas, for the paths not taken.

The path taken had (for me) a highly entertaining story. MJF as a hysterical toddler works for me. I want more of it, please.The match itself was also quite good. I liked that Darby lost this not because MJF was the better wrestler, but because he beat himself. I think that the story leads to more feuds between the two in the future, and also leads to likely another run for Darby in the future at some point.

I also have enjoyed the “smart” babyfacing that ensured that MJF didn’t win through his usual tactics, and that those tactics in and of themselves had been telegraphed and weaponized against him. It should not have taken this many years for the babyfaces to realize MJF is gonna stuff his “Dynamite” diamond ring in his underwear, and fish it out to hit them with. Also, writing that felt icky, despite that the description is a largely factual statement on how MJF chooses to cheat. If you are gonna hit someone with your cock ring, it feels just that – instead – you should get racked in the balls.

Both of these men sold for each other, and that – combined with Mick’s story beats at the top of the show – provided a plot bookend that we rarely see in AEW, pay-per-view wise. I am not saying here that AEW doesn’t do stories, what I am saying is usually they are longer stories that are plotted out over the course of weeks or months. In this particular case, AEW managed to build on the previously plotted story, and build a simultaneous story within the pay-per-view itself with a start point of when MJF and Mick interacted, and an end point, when Darby pushed himself too far in an effort to be perfect, and it cost him his match. I liked the bookending of the show; and for me, that choice made the match feel more important. It also gave the match an air of uncertainty that I don’t think it would otherwise have had.

It also didn’t end with MJF standing tall but a Jet heel turn against Darby. Future me knows this leads to Don Callis. ‘Me’ watching the PPV was delighted by the possibilities and enjoyed the trigger pull.

Overall the show was fabulous from start to finish, with a little something for everyone – be they horny, ‘moves’ sickos, or people who just enjoy the telanovela that is a good wrestling story.

AEW News

AEW heads to Wembley Stadium on August 30th, with an “All In” main event for the AEW Men’s World Championship between Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay. Ospreay won the right to challenge by winning the Owen Hart Cup at “Forbidden Door”, defeating Swerve Strickland in the final. Ospreay, 33, has been the centre of all promotional material since the event’s onsale, leaving no doubt whatsoever that he would be part of the main event. The only question for this show was, therefore, who he would be challenging for the title. The answer was confirmed when Kenny Omega defeated MJF for the belt on the July 8th “Beach Break” branded “Dynamite” episode from Clearwater, Florida. This was the third and final title change in the run up to “All In”, a schedule that we reported back in April would take place between “Dynasty” and the end of July.

The title change was due to take place at the freshly launched “Redemption” PPV in Montreal, Canada, on July 26th, with the finish to the title match in Vancouver between Omega and MJF (with the Dynamite Diamond Ring) being a direct setup for a second match. The addition of another PPV was originally discussed as a replacement for “WrestleDream” in the year, smoothing out the fall PPV calendar, before the decision was made to make it the eleventh PPV of 2026. Montreal is also a city with a personal ‘redemption’ factor for Omega, as it was the location of his final match before being hospitalised with diverticulitis in late 2023. When asked directly by Jon Alba on the PPV press call whether the culminating match of the MJF/Omega series was due to take place at the show, Tony Khan opted to keep “some slight of hand on things” but stated that he felt they made the right move with the ratings for the “Beach Break” show and the following week. Both MJF and Omega had repeatedly begun to tease the PPV in their promos prior to the change, and TSN ensured there was absolutely no doubt over what the original plans were when they released a prescheduled tweet on X hyping up the title match for July 26th that was filmed by AEW.

The change to move it to TV was made shortly before the match was announced and, as reported first by the Wrestling Observer, was something that MJF pushed for. Not everyone was in favour of the switch but Tony Khan made the decision. It has been reiterated to us by several sources in AEW that the main reason for this was not down to injury concerns. The July 8th edition of “Dynamite” achieved a viewership of 773,000 and a rating of 0.12. The following week’s numbers were even higher, at 786,000 viewers and a 0.15. The week after being up in viewership after a major TV match/occurrence is not unusual, and actually mirrors Omega’s first title win back in December 2020, which was also on TV. Both Moxley and Omega brought that particular title win into the story in response to the change and rapid build.

AEW were quick to flash up the confirmed match graphic for “All In” with both Ospreay and Omega, and this announcement, combined with a ‘50% off’ sale originally scheduled for a week (but is currently still ongoing) and the batch release of Blue Light tickets for public sector workers in the UK, have seen them climb to 36,500 tickets distributed over the past month. The Omega-Ospreay match is not only the biggest possible match for the event and the third major match in their series, but it will also be Omega’s first singles match at Wembley Stadium, after injury and other changes adapted his scheduled match-up in 2023 and he was out with illness in 2024. We noted back in April that there had been a push for Omega to win the title at “Dynasty” which was ultimately unsuccessful, and there was a similar one in the run up to “Beach Break” for MJF to be added to the title match in London, but this was opted against in order to keep the dynamic solely between Ospreay and Omega. We understand this was also the preference of the two men in the main event. Both are expected to work babyface for the show, with Omega attempting to set himself up as the antagonist purely by being the champion Ospreay needs to overcome. There is always the option to go further if required, though, as – we are told – Omega’s primary aim, unsurprisingly, is to ensure Ospreay is the more ‘over’ babyface of the two going into the show.

The AEW Women’s World Championship match-up for Wembley was also confirmed at “Redemption” when Willow Nightingale defeated Thekla for her first top title win. She will face Owen Hart Cup winner Mercedes Moné, who is looking to convert her tournament win into gold in the second year of asking. The Nightingale/Moné match has been the long term play for London for a considerable amount of time but with the setup very different, as Nightingale was the originally scheduled Owen Cup winner until a right shoulder AC sprain forced her to withdraw from the tournament and relinquish her TBS Championship. There was some speculation that the injury was a work to get the midcard belt off of her, and this was heightened by her return occurring just a week after the TBS belt had found a new home with Hikaru Shida, but we can confirm that there was no work involved and it is a more a case of recovery time being quicker than expected than anything else.

Mercedes Moné was inserted into the Owen Hart Cup in her place and defeated Maya World in the final in an emotionally charged match up at “Forbidden Door” which resonated more with large parts of the fan base than anything else on the show. World, 24, stepped into a gap left by the injured Sareee in the tournament despite the recent passing of her brother, putting together a run to the final which gained respect and admiration from many fans. She may have lost the final but did win the TBS Title from Hikaru Shida at “Redemption”, ensuring there was significant feel good follow-up.

The adapted path represents a much changed dynamic for Moné and Nightingale going into “All In”, where strong arguments can be made for either to leave with the title. The rushed build and manner of the match at the PPV made it feel a little anticlimactic for Willow’s first title win on the night, but the excellent promo segment between the two in front of a raucous crowd in Detroit made this match feel much, much bigger than it did coming out of Montreal. A popular heel chasing a belt can be a difficult thing for a babyface to negotiate, but if last Wednesday’s segment is anything to go by, they may well be able to thread that needle.

The match third from the top is the AEW World Tag Team Championship bout between champions Christian and Adam Copeland and the challenging Young Bucks. The teams had a staredown to confirm the match at “Redemption” and then a sit-down interview on “Dynamite” (that was filmed in a single take) to begin re-centering the story after several months where the Bucks have been jolt-starting other programs rather than being focused on their own. The match has been an ambition for AEW since Copeland arrived in the promotion and has been planned as a two-on-two match since March. The idea of having FTR as part of the match was pitched briefly but has never been part of actual plans up to this point, with FTR’s break away from wrestling having been figured in for some time, and it also avoids a third match between the Bucks and Harwood/Wheeler in the same venue.

Also announced for the show is the final of the Continental Cup, which is based on the FA Cup from English football. It will see 16 competitors compete in a knockout tournament, with each match decided by a ‘blind’ draw. The winner will receive both the Continental Title and a cup which is a mimic of the trophy used for England’s premier cup competition. Moxley versus Nigel McGuiness or Jay White feel like the most likely final options going off the lineup. Alongside will be a men’s Casino Gauntlet, with Andrade already declared for the match.

The venue is advertising a curfew of 22:00 for the show, with Sunday nights at Wembley Stadium generally closing out at 22:15 at the very latest due to the presence of the stadium in a heavily residential area. This means that the lineup will see a lot more multi-mans than a stadium show in the US in order to get as many people as possible on the card.

© AEW

With the change to the scheduled main event, AEW “Redemption” from Montreal, Canada became more of a “road to” style PPV than something that felt standalone. The show was headlined by Kenny Omega vs Kevin Knight for the AEW Men’s World Championship in a strong showing for Knight, even in a match which was set out more to show the ruthlessness of Omega more than be a real showcase for the TNT Champion. It felt like the right match for the current situation whilst giving Knight his first PPV main event. It certainly will not be his last.

The issue with the main event change is that they had promised more going into the show than they ended up delivering, with the rest of the card featuring a number of thrown together matches and none of the title changes really having the build to feel truly significant on the night, despite all three feeling like worthwhile holders. The additional switch (on top of those mentioned above) was Andrade picking up the National Title from Mark Davis. Andrade looked as though he was heading towards an immediate World Title program in his presentation following his babyface turn, but with other changes was suddenly diverted towards the National Title. The 36-year old has won over the audience since his return from WWE and should be set for a strong end to the year regardless.

The main story throughout was the movement of Will Ospreay away from the Death Riders in an angle involving Kenny Omega at the end of the show. Ospreay contemplated plastic-bagging his Wembley opponent, before striking Moxley. The two babyfaces looked like they would celebrate together to end the night, only for Omega to hit Ospreay with a One Winged Angel before posing with the Young Bucks to close things out. Omega’s idea was to replicate his takeover of Bullet Club from AJ Styles with the show finish, just without the stomping out and heel turn. The angle followed a tag match between The Young Bucks and Will Ospreay and Jon Moxley earlier on in the show, which – as Matt Jackson noted on BTE – was pitched by the Bucks. The match featured a potential injury angle involving Nick Jackson where Ospreay refused to capitalise, which ended up costing his team the match. The match was added to the show in order to kick start that part of the narrative and also with the aim of adding value to a lineup which did not have a marquee main event.

The weakened lineup gave many talents the opportunity to wrestle on PPV who are not guaranteed to do so every month but also felt strange with just how much available (and unavailable) talent was missing. This included the previous four AEW Men’s World Champions prior to Omega, as well as the two Women’s World Champions still with the company prior to Thekla. The list of MJF, Darby Allin, Samoa Joe (filming), Hangman Page, Kris Statlander and Toni Storm (long term absentee) was added to with Kazuchika Okada, FTR, Konosuke Takeshita (G1), Swerve Strickland and Mercedes Moné. One of the key attractions for AEW PPVs are that they are much more of a guarantee of seeing the top stars in the promotion wrestle, and this PPV illustrates what happens when you take more than half of your main event roster away all at once. It reflected in the business of the show, with Dave Meltzer’s first PPV estimate putting it at between 115,000 and 125,000 buys, which would be the lowest since “Worlds End 2024”. The show also struggled from a live attendance perspective with the shaken up lineup, ending at 7,107 tickets distributed, having started out ahead of June’s “Forbidden Door” until four weeks out in regards to pace.

©  AEW

Khan was asked about two of the more high profile omissions on the press call prior to the event, in the form of Swerve Strickland and Adam Page. Khan noted that Strickland, who has not been part of AEW programming since “Forbidden Door”, was “in very good standing with AEW” and had been working on outside projects whilst he was “out of action”. He told the press he would be happy to answer further questions after the PPV, which led to a number of major news sites (including the Wrestling Observer) reporting there was a high prospect Strickland would appear at the PPV. I don’t believe it was the intention of his comments, as Strickland was not booked for the show when Khan made said comments. There were no follow up questions on the subject at the post show press scrum. The 36-year old was in attendance at the AEW tapings in Detroit this past Wednesday in order to meet with Khan and the creative team to work on potential ideas for his return during the road to “All In” and thereafter, with a plan locked in at the beginning of this week.

Adam Page, who was last seen losing the right to challenge for the AEW Men’s World Championship at the highly successful “Revolution” PPV in March returned in bizarre fashion, being announced for a “Collision” during what is normally considered the Friday night dead news hour. The episode was taped in Roanoke – in his home state of Virginia – but was not publicised on the “Beach Break” episode of “Dynamite” the Wednesday before and went against the worst night of competition “Collision” will likely ever face, with two World Cup games tracking with a viewership of 36 and 30 million as well as the return (be it rather short) of Conor McGregor to the UFC. “Collision” defied the odds, with a viewership of 409,000 and a 0.05. The move saved the rating, and Page set up his story for the next 18 months in the promo building up to his ultimate decision over the stipulation (which was not recapped on the next “Dynamite”), but it dismayed a number of people we spoke to in the company to see it handled with little care. One noted that had the return been advertised for “Redemption” it would have added value to a PPV which was lacking attractions and made Page feel like a bigger deal at the beginning of what could well be a career defining story.

Page returned a second time, this time unadvertised, three days after “Redemption”, and will at least make his in-ring return at the highly watched “Grand Slam”, where picking up the trios titles alongside Brody King and Bandido in Mexico has good odds. One other note from his return promo was stating that he had treatment for cervical radiculopathy during his absence, which is a pinched nerve in the neck. Dave Meltzer would later report that this was due to a herniated disk. The company had been in contact with the 35-year old around creative since the period just before “Double or Nothing” in May, with sources from the AEW side indicating that one person Page has expressed interest in working with in the near future is Kevin Knight. The former two-time AEW Men’s World Champion is said to still be very confident in his forthcoming story, which was his own approved pitch.

Another note to come out of Khan’s press call came from a strange story the previous weekend involving Sammy Guevara and Tay Melo. Guevara had been sighted on social media as having removed “AEW” from his bio, which was then publicised by the Fightful social media accounts. The story was debunked by Bryan Alvarez on the Tuesday before the PPV, but he did note that he had been told that Melo had asked for her release from the promotion late last year in order to go elsewhere. Khan addressed both subjects in one answer, stating that nothing had changed in regards to Guevara’s statement and he has a lengthy amount of time remaining on his current deal.

In regards to Melo, he stated that she did not ask for her release last year, as had been reported, but instead came to him after her match on the June 6th episode of “Collision” and asked to be let go. Khan said she wished to take a break from wrestling and would be granting her release. Melo took to social media this past week to make a post about a plant and its pot which heavily inferred that she wishes to go elsewhere, pretty much confirming that element to Alvarez’s story that Khan disputed. At the time of writing, Tay Melo remains on the AEW roster page.

What might have been the most surprising element of the PPV was not just that there were no returns, but also no debuts either. When AEW had to switch the scheduled main event for “All Out 2021” at short notice after an unavoidable change in circumstances, Khan spoke about how he wanted to ensure fans did not feel short changed and the surprise debuts on the show from Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole (on top of the debut match in the promotion for CM Punk) were very much part of that. Here, he focused his energy instead on his three top matches for “All In”, with the only debut of the week being that of the Motor City Machine Guns on a live Thursday edition of “Collision”.

The Motor City Machine Guns, who arrived in AEW full-time after a brief cameo in 2022, debuted in their home market of Detroit and were inserted into the Bang Bang Gang vs Dogs and Death Riders saga, aligning Sabin and Shelley with Shelley’s former young boy, Jay White. The pair had been offered contracts with the promotion in 2024 but opted to join WWE for a similar monetary amount before they were released this spring. They are expected to be joined in the tag divisions by Kofi and Austin Creed, who released their own ‘jail break’ video this past week. It puts the prospect of some pretty big tag matches on the table post “All In” but we also believe that the former “New Day” will wrestle outside of the tag title match on the London show as well.

Kairi Sane, long-time target of Kenny Omega for the AEW Women’s division, will be represented by super agent Barry Bloom following her departure from WWE. The 37-year old wrestled for STARDOM prior to her arrival in America and during the three years between her WWE spells. Tony Khan has commented in a recent interview on “Roar Around The Ring” that he needs to be selective when it comes to future hirings of talent due to the expanded roster already in place, which also reflects on the concern of many AEW talent at current over limited TV time and how constant new arrivals could affect their own outlooks. However, these are the additional names which feel most likely to find a home in the promotion of those WWE fired back in April.

One incredible story to come out of the PPV involved Jacques Rougeau, who was in attendance for the show in order to take part in a tribute to the Quebec wrestling family on the pre-show of the event. Dave Meltzer reported in Friday’s Observer that the ceremony did not have a video tribute “because Jacques told AEW he’d take care of that. He gave them a video to play. Unfortunately, the video was too long, had footage that AEW didn’t have rights to, music that AEW didn’t have right to and some AI stuff in it that AEW didn’t want to use. There was no way it could be used and now it’s the day of the show with no time to do anything else, so there was no video. Multiple sources said Jacques was throwing a tantrum backstage over that. He was told by one AEW official to calm down or they’d have to kick him out.” Rougeau posted the video to Facebook after the story was broken, and it did, indeed, feature AI, as well as music and footage that AEW did not own the rights to.

©  AEW

The “Forbidden Door” show on June 28th from the SAP Center in San Jose, California, did an estimated number of 135,000 buys, according to Dave Meltzer. To that point, it was the lowest of the year and second lowest of the PPV estimates since they went to HBO Max last September but it is still up on the afternoon show in London last year. The show was headlined by the men’s Owen Hart Cup final, similar to last year’s smaller market “Double or Nothing” show after many a discussion over whether this match or the “Death’s Door” cage match would close. The Owen match won out but the cage was presented as the main event on TV throughout the run up to the show. It is our belief that the cage was planned out ahead of the MJF-RUSH match.

Thekla made her final PPV defense of the AEW Women’s World Title on the show, against STARDOM’s Starlight Kid. Thekla, as first reported on “The Trish and Sarah Wrestling Podcast”, is planned for STARDOM dates throughout the next year, according to sources in Japan. This opened up with the Triangle of Madness winning the Artist of STARDOM trios belts from over Dream Trine on July 18th, giving the Austrian her second run with those titles. Stablemate Julia Hart was also announced for the 5 Star Grand Prix round-robin tournament as a replacement for the injured Bea Priestley. This was the top interpromotional match on the show that has moved away from keeping interpromotional matches as the centre of the card. Whilst none of the top matches would have been changed, there were a number of undercard matches which were adapted due to injury and visa issues.

Callum Newman had been scheduled to challenge Jon Moxley for the Continental Title (whilst also furthering his Will Ospreay story) but dislocated his shoulder during his scheduled IWGP title loss to Yota Tsuji at “Dominion”. Newman tried everything to get cleared for the show but found his path ultimately blocked (honestly for his own good) and was replaced by Bandido. Sareee and Tomohiro Ishii were also planned for the show but had to pull out due to injury.

Tony Khan also acknowledged a number of visa issues for his own contracted talent, with Komander, Beast Mortos, Hechicero, Mark Davis and Gabe Kidd all unavailable throughout June whilst awaiting resolutions on their renewals. The group all opted to work outside the US during that period, with Hechicero, Beast Mortos and Komander in CMLL, Davis working the likes of RevPro and Kidd opting to wrestle on any New Japan show available to him ahead of the G1. Everyone except Kidd has now returned to AEW TV.

The visa situation also affected Khan’s ability to bring in New Japan talent, with the promoter stating during an interview with Case Lowe on Chicago’s Q101 that he wanted Aaron Wolf and the Knockout Brothers on the show. In the case of Yuto-Ice and OSKAR, our understanding is that their visas arrived too late and therefore the idea of running them against The Young Bucks on the show had to be pulled.

The biggest omissions on the show were IWGP Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji and STARDOM’s biggest star in Saya Kamitani. Kamitani had worked MLW in the weeks before but was never planned for this show. Tsuji worked “Forbidden Door” in 2024 and had, at one point, been discussed for the AEW Men’s World Title match on the show before Will Ospreay stepped up for the main event with Swerve Strickland. He missed the 2025 show on vacation in Mexico and had made it clear back in January that he would only be defending his World Title in main events, thus ruling out a defense on AEW’s cross branded show at that point.

Tsuji went further in his comments in June, in an interview with Tokyo Sports, where his focus on establishing the IWGP belt as the top world prize and the organisation as one which does not defer to its larger counterpart saw him state that they must protect New Japan, and the first part of that would be a “boycott” on defending the title at “Forbidden Door” if it was to presented as a midcard attraction as it has been in two out of the four years and in an untraditional four-way in year one. Tsuji’s comments were quickly aggregated by the bigger western accounts but often left out his praise for Tony Khan later in the same article, where he said he likes Tony Khan and New Japan could learn from the way he offers thanks to wrestlers, very much mirroring the comments made after last year’s event by Hiromu Takahashi.

The aggregation was quickly jumped upon by Will Ospreay, who labelled Tsuji as “insecure” and stated he should have more pride in representing the company. It did not address the ambitions of re-establishing the top title in New Japan (an aim which goes far beyond AEW and is far more about the treatment in New Japan over recent years) or the ambition of improving things for wrestlers across the board in the Japanese promotion. Tsuji’s comments around the belt were supported by Shota Umino, who fulfilled the role now aligned to the IWGP Global Champion of the show of being the top title holder for NJPW defending on partner shows outside the main event, and in much more polite terms (and you would expect him to be far more diplomatic) by Hiroshi Tanahashi in his media building up the first night of the G1 in Chicago. We are told that Ospreay’s reaction was by no means building a planned matchup between himself and Tsuji.

Having not sent the AEW World Champions to Japan for “Wrestle Dynasty” and seeing as appearing on “Forbidden Door” has made no great impact on US ticket sales for New Japan, you can see the logic in not having their champion presented as a midcarder, but it also highlights some of the issues with the “Forbidden Door” concept in 2026 when a lot of the talent who Khan would be confident putting into the main event on such a show are either retired or have moved to AEW. If anything, you would think that the top CMLL stars would move above those in New Japan in billing, which is simply down to their stronger availability, easier travel and the level of success the Mexican promotion is having whilst New Japan is in transition.

©  AEW

This week’s “Grand Slam Mexico” card from Arena México, Mexico City on Wednesday night has the following match lineup:

Last year, this show delivered the highest TV rating of the year and will be remembered for the MJF-Místico match (with magical Místico entrance) and the show opening promo from Adam Page completely in Spanish. A realistic attendance estimate is not available with the amount of general admission on the map, but it is expected to be within the range of last year’s event. This year’s feels much more like an AEW show in Mexico City than an AEW homage to Arena México in the way last year did, with Mexican talent not being in as much focus and the presence of a street fight in a venue where crowd brawling and weapons are banned on every other night of the year. There are two title matches on the show, and if either the TNT or Trios changes hands here, it will be the first AEW Championship(s) to do so in Mexico.

The wrestler expected to get the biggest reception on the night is Adam Copeland, who has never wrestled at the venue before. We saw last year, with the likes of Adam Cole and Samoa Joe, how the crowd reacted to 2010s WWE talent, so this will be one venue where the Alter Bridge singalong will be massive. One man who was advertised but will not be wrestling on the show is Kenny Omega. Omega replaced MJF on the marketing material once the former champion stepped back from TV. This is the second year in a row where Omega has been advertised and has not been booked for a match. AEW’s live event advertising often being unrelated to who will actually appear at a TV taping is not new, but whilst we have have somewhat (be it daftly) accepted it for US and UK shows, there is an expectation in Mexico that people who are put on the poster have a match on the show. Promoters often offer alternative value in apology when talent has to be pulled. AEW have instead changed their marketing again this week, with Will Ospreay now the only male babyface in the advertising poster for the show. Our understanding is that Omega has never been planned for a match on this show and therefore should never have been advertised, and especially when considering how much more seriously this type of false advertising is regarded in the country.

The show has an allotted TV block of two and a half hours.

The September 9th show in Athens, Georgia, will be branded “Rebel Heart” in honour of Tanea Brooks, who worked in AEW under the ‘Rebel’ name. The show will be raising money for I AM ALS and Team Gleason and Rebel will appear at the show. Brooks was diagnosed with ALS back in March. Talent and staff from the promotion such as Tony Khan, Sting, The Young Bucks, Britt Baker and Adam Cole have been completing ice bucket challenges on social media* as they continue to raise money in her name whilst she battles the disease.

*(Editor’s Note: The Conglomeration – Orange Cassidy, Kyle O’Reilly, and Roderick Strong – also completed the ice bucket challenge on this past week’s “Collision” in Detroit, with the help of Rhyno and Insane Clown Posse.)

AEW have also confirmed more of their fall PPV lineup, with “WrestleDream” announced for October 17th in Orlando, Florida. The event will be held at the Additions Arena, which has previously held “Revolution 2022” and “Worlds End 2024”. The later event was counter-programmed with a WWE Holiday Tour house show in the market on the same night. “WrestleDream” will be followed by “Full Gear” in Phoenix, Arizona, on November 14th at the Mortgage Matchup Center. The only previous PPV in the area was last year’s “Double or Nothing” show in nearby Glendale, Arizona.

The planned $110 billion merger between Paramount and WBD has been put on hold after an antitrust challenge by the Writer’s Guild of America alongside the Attorneys General of 12 US states awaits a trial date. Paramount have pitched a potential November date for court proceedings, whilst the WGA and State AGs have asked for April in filings to the court last Friday. Paramount has a massive monetary interest in getting proceedings to begin as quickly as possible, as they will be required to pay Warner Brothers Discovery $7 million a day from September 30th if the deal is not closed at that point. The judge, as of 4th August, has decided upon March 2027 as the start time for the case to be heard.

Tony Khan has expressed publicly that he wishes for the deal to be completed and has also privately listed off the same sentiments on multiple occasions, believing the combination of the MAX and Paramount streaming services and his personal relationship with David Ellison will help AEW to grow its market share going forward.

One place where AEW may need to seek a new television deal is Mexico, where the Fox Sports channels which currently host their content will be dropped from cable provider Platinum Sports at the end of August. This follows on from MegaCable dropping distribution of the channels back in January. If Sky follows suit then the channels will cease to have financial viability.

Jack Perry’s new contract was announced on TV, when he signed his actual deal live on air. The Dark Order trio of John Silver, Alex Reynolds and Evil Uno have also all re-signed with AEW. The trio have been with AEW since May 2019 and had previously been renewed in 2023. Evil Uno’s new deal will also include a coaching role for AEW and Ring of Honor.

Fightful reported Tuesday that Max Caster’s contract is due up in October. The former World Tag Team Champion has been with AEW since 2020, when he began tagging with Anthony Bowens. He is also a former Trios Champion as well. Also up soon is Scorpio Sky, who has been with the company since its inception but has been used sparingly (at best) over the past three years. Already having departed AEW is Jake Roberts. The 71-year old praised Tony Khan in the Bill Apter interview where he announced his departure before blasting the current wrestling style.

WWE

Night of Champions 2026

27 June 2026
Location: Kingdom Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Attendance: ca18,000
Watch On: ESPN / Netflix

 Written by David Hayter

WWE returned to Saudi Arabia for “Night of Champions”, a show that has become a tentpole event in the promotion’s schedule thanks to Triple H’s decision to rehabilitate the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments. The crowns remain a gaudy reminder of a bygone era of cartoonish wrestling but, by ensuring that the winner will go on to headline “SummerSlam” and cramming the tournaments full of the promotion’s top names and future stars, WWE have succeeded in giving structure to the historically aimless no man’s land between the Big Four PLEs.

The hard truth is that the tournaments do not have the same level of intrigue or excitement that surrounds either the Royal Rumble or Elimination Chamber. And yet, to WWE’s credit, by building believable winning storylines for everyone from Jey Uso and Charlotte Flair through to Raquel Rodriguez and Dominik Mysterio, they succeed in injecting both good wrestling and genuine uncertainty into what are often patterned and predictable episodes of “RAW” and “SmackDown”.

Then there is, of course, the sports washing. It has been normalised to a frightening degree in 2026, but “Night of Champions” remains an odious and obsequious affair. The kowtowing to the Saudi regime is less overt than in years past (or perhaps the snivelling sycophancy of Gianni Infantino doling out FIFA Peace Prizes has set a new standard in moral debasement, by way of comparison), but there are still moments that stick in the viewer’s craw. Take, for example, the moment when Michael Cole and Corey Graves simply stopped paying attention to what was going on in the ring to tell us of the beneficence and splendour of their hosts. Did you know you can get real American breakfasts in Saudi Arabia’s wonderful hotels? That’s right, if you can come to “WrestleMania” (OH GOD PLEASE COME, please watch!) you can eat real bacon. Well, isn’t that just swell.

Truth be told, on this show, the biggest issue with Saudi Arabia was the heat. With temperatures hitting 31 degrees during the night, the crowd were visibly tired and the wrestlers were noticeably slowed by the heat. The result was that many of the promotion’s most dynamic stars, most notably Iyo Sky and Bron Breakker, were taking it slow in the early going of their matches, which is understandable when poor Iyo was forced to wrestle in a full-body suit, overlaid with a bodice and gigantic fluffy boots – no wonder her hair was clotted with sweat when she was finally crowned Queen.

Despite this, the bigger pacing issue had nothing to do with the in-ring work, but instead the horrific layout of WWE PLEs in the ESPN era. In order to maximise eyeballs and advertiser revenue, Triple H placed the card’s three most intriguing matches on what is essentially the free pre-show. The King and Queen of the Ring finals were dispensed with within the first hour and the cage match blow-off to Seth Rollins’ long-running feud with Bron Breakker all occurred on free TV. When the paid PLE began, the mood noticeably dipped as Trick Williams and Tiffany Stratton came out to wrestle in two glorified “SmackDown” matches where the result was not in question. Then, of course, it got far worse. The adverts began to roll, recaps were aired, the pre-show panel was brought back and time was killed as they padded out time in advance of the main event.

Make no mistake, the main event itself was excellent (as we will discuss below), but the structure of WWE cards is simply bizarre. They dump all the crowd’s adrenaline in a rushed first 90 minutes, then proceed to take the paying customer completely for granted, cooling them off to a ridiculous degree. There’s nothing wrong with a hot opener, but from STARDOM and Arena México to the Tokyo Dome and “All In”, every sensible wrestling promotion at least attempts to build towards a crescendo as the show progresses. WWE’s PLEs, by way of comparison, are not designed for human consumption, but for maximising revenue at the expense of the customer experience.

Before we explore the highs and lows of this topsy-turvy PLE, there is one final observation worth making: the production on this show was genuinely horrific. For whatever reason, Michael Cole’s microphone was riddled with scratchy background noise and would constantly peak. This is a problem given how much Cole loves to yell inane aphorisms at the audience and, as a result, the viewers at home had their ears assaulted by squeaky, sharp, bludgeoning blasts of sound throughout the broadcast. Corey’s mic was at least capturing his voice nicely, but for whatever reason, the commentator track was incredibly loud and at the forefront of the mix, while the crowd noise was shunted into the background. The resulting audio mix was truly unpleasant and noticeably undercut the show’s best moments.

Sami Zayn Finally Wins The Big One In Classic Sports Entertainment™ Style Triple Threat

Having watched his real-life best friend Kevin Owens become a world champion multiple times over as he languished in the midcard, deep down, the now 41-year-old Sami Zayn must have believed his moment had come and gone. Time and time again, Sami had built himself all the way up, only to be knocked back down again.

He had main-evented “WrestleMania” alongside KO, but that momentum never translated into a sustained singles push. He had ended Gunther’s legendary Intercontinental Championship reign in a “WrestleMania” classic, but found himself (like so many others) passed over for Jey Uso when WWE needed a fresh face on top the very next year. Having turned himself into an icon in Saudi Arabia and despite WWE having no clear direction heading into “WrestleMania”, when he faced off with the eminently beatable Drew McIntyre at the Royal Rumble 2026 he was squashed like a bug. Then, of course, there was Montreal. Sami was white hot, he’d turned on The Bloodline, Roman’s reign was long in the tooth and he had his entire home city screaming for him – and he lost decisively.

Sami, it seemed, was destined not to be a world champion, but the perfect “yes man”. When WWE needed a veteran to make its latest bumbling giant (see Braun Strowman) they’d call Sami to do the job in every sense of the word. When Vince McMahon needed a lovable goof to take pratfalls and get squished beneath a giant mousetrap for Johnny Knoxville, they, of course, turned to Sami Zayn. But when there was an injury in the world title scene and they desperately needed a dependable and credible worker to step in and hold down the world title for a month or two, they called Kevin Owens.

Not one to be discouraged, Sami did what he always does in 2026: he missed the opportunity of a lifetime, dropped all the way down the card, put over a new star, dusted himself off and started building himself back up all over again. Having spent January cutting fiery, show-closing promos promising to win the world title, as we alluded to above, he would be swatted aside like a fly by Drew McIntyre in Saudi Arabia. Sami would then be the butt of Trick Williams and Lil Yachty gingerbread man jokes as he put over the green prospect not once, but twice. However, Sami always has a plan and while he was doing each of these seemingly humiliating jobs, he was weaving a clever, character-driven narrative.

He was being spurned and punished for doing the right thing. He’d lose opportunities precisely because he acted honourably and he’d have to be patronisingly lectured by his friend Cody Rhodes about getting to the top one day, as he watched the promotion’s supposed moral compass willingly cheat. Sami Zayn was crashing out and coming apart at the seams, he was becoming whiny and unlikeable, but he wasn’t actually doing anything wrong; in fact, everything he said was right. He was a victim of circumstance and as boos began to ring out, Sami embraced his own self-righteous rage, becoming the “last real good guy”, persevering for his “ride or die fans”.

Having forged one of WWE’s best and most nuanced sanctimonious heel characters in years, something strange started to happen. Sami was gaining momentum again, as his long-running background plotline with Cody Rhodes started to sneak into the foreground as he became the Special Guest Referee for Cody’s title match against Gunther. Then, while all eyes were on the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments, Sami Zayn found himself in the WWE World Title Triple Threat Match in Saudi Arabia – huh, how about that – and what’s more, every character on the roster was loudly declaring that he couldn’t possibly win.

So, of course, in the Kingdom of Saud, Sami Zayn defeated Cody Rhodes clean in the middle of the ring to finally, after all of these years, stand tall as WWE World Champion. The match itself was excellent, a pretty much picture-perfect execution of WWE’s famously patterned Triple Threat main event. Like a game of musical chairs, the wrestlers would switch in and out of the ring, delivering dramatic spots and last-ditch desperation saves, with the only question being who would come out on top when the music finally stopped. On this night it was Sami, but in laying out the match they did everything in their power to keep fans guessing until the very end.

The secret of the match was not simply that Cody, Gunther and Sami kicked out of each other’s finishing moves, it was that they knowingly played on WWE’s most famous patterned finishes to ensure that fans wrote Sami off and bit on Cody and Gunther’s nearfalls. The best example of this came towards the end of the match. Sami Zayn took a huge backdrop through the announce table courtesy of Cody Rhodes.

This took Sami out of the match as Gunther went on a rampage, powerbombing Cody repeatedly through tables and locking him in the Sleeper. Now, fans familiar with WWE’s agenting will know that this is actually a very good thing for Sami Zayn. The person on the outside is positioned to make the dramatic save and make the spectacular come-from-behind comeback.

Tonight, however, Cody, Gunther and Sami went one step beyond. When Sami rose from the wreckage of the table to stop Cody from passing out in the Sleeper, they flipped the script. Everything played out as usual, Gunther started to talk smack, Sami fired up, hit the Helluva Kick and…he didn’t win. You could almost feel the oxygen get sucked out of the arena when Gunther kicked out; that was Sami’s WWE moment™. Years of Pavlovian conditioning had taught the audience that their hero’s chance had come and gone. Brilliantly, the match continued to actively tease the audience. Gunther would obliterate Sami with a lariat, Cody would fly in with a Cody Cutter, Sami would lock Gunther in the Sleeper and then the traditional Hollywood ending reared into view.

Cody snuck behind Sami and Gunther to hit a double Cross Rhodes. Gunther would bump to the floor and Cody would maintain his grip, rolling through for the inevitable second and title-reigning Cross Rhodes, but then something strange happened. Sami slipped out, flipped Cody into a cover and the referee counted three. The swerve had worked perfectly. The crowd were clearly hopeful that Sami would win, but after the Helluva Kick failed they were no longer expecting it – so when he actually won there was an explosion of emotion in the crowd as the Saudi fans leapt to their feet and started bouncing with joy.

Now there is one big critique of the finish and it falls squarely on the shoulders of one Cody Rhodes. When Sami executed the reverse pin, inexplicably for the biggest moment of the match, Cody slowly forward rolled into position and, for this, the most dramatic of pinfall teases imaginable, Cody just lay there comatose. He didn’t struggle, flail his arms or really shake his legs. He was a statue, making no active effort to even present the illusion that he’d been surprised and was attempting to desperately kick out. If I were Sami I’d be, well, first extremely overjoyed about living out my dreams, but secretly furious that Cody didn’t bother to do the bare minimum in what will be the singular most replayed moment of my career.

For many this will be an ultra-patterned WWE main-event-style Triple Threat Match, albeit one with tremendous heat and compelling nearfalls, but for better or worse this is WWE’s vision of sports entertainment executed to perfection.

Oba Femi Is Crowned King While Jey Uso Is Set To Crash Out Into The Next Chapter Of Bloodline Drama

The surreal nature of the WWE/ESPN deal meant that two of the event’s most anticipated matches, with genuinely intriguing and potentially open-ended finishes, were dispensed with within the first hour of the broadcast.

Oba Femi strode to the ring to face Jey Uso and the storyline seemed set in stone (even if, apparently, it was too mystifying for Bryan Alvarez to understand). Roman Reigns had instructed Jey Uso to go out and prove he was a killer: he had to win the King of the Ring on his own merits, go on to defeat Cody Rhodes and claim his place at the head of the table – because, as Roman pointed out, there are technically two heads of every table. The trouble, of course, is that Roman has been taking a shine to the more violent, free-spirited and (obviously) cooler Jacob Fatu, who makes it his life’s mission to punk out Jey Uso at every turn. The context was clear, Jacob sees Jey as a gimmick pretender, another fake tough guy playing pretend main eventer, and Jey simply had to bring home the crown or risk being exposed as a level below the real main eventers.

Oba, meanwhile, has been on a path of destruction and was the obvious winner of the King of the Ring the second the bracket was announced. The only question that remained was how would they get through this match while both protecting Oba’s aura and without completely crushing Jey? The answer is that they just about managed it. Oba was dominant and destructive, but during the match’s seven minutes he did end up selling a fair amount. Dramatic selling certainly isn’t Oba’s strong suit, but he was passable here. Jey would hit repeated Spears and Uso Splashes to show he could get the upper hand on Oba, but that’s it. When it came down to it, Oba would kick out with ease and murder Jey at the first time of asking with the Fall From Grace.

The path ahead appears clear. Jacob will continue to humble Jey, presumably setting up a “SummerSlam” showdown, and Oba is headed to the “SummerSlam” main event – the only question being whether WWE can organically engineer a scenario where Oba ends up facing off with Brock Lesnar rather than Roman Reigns.

Iyo And Liv Work Hard In The Heat, In A Match That Exposes The Differences In Women’s Wrestling Between East And West

Iyo Sky and Liv Morgan found themselves in the position of having to actually deliver a wrestling match following an opener that depended heavily on finisher spamming. It was clear in the early going that they were going to pace themselves to survive in the heat wearing full-body suits. Both women were taking it incredibly slow in the early going, but the match was well worked, with Liv targeting Iyo’s knee and getting the heat, while Iyo would make plucky comebacks and rally the crowd. The pair were clearly saving their stamina for the final stretch, as the match came alive once Iyo started to make her comeback. The best moments in the match centred around Liv’s new Liontamer-style half crab. The first time Liv went for it, Iyo would backbridge through into a double stomp, but when Liv did lock in the hold, Iyo did a phenomenal job of babyface selling and dramatically fighting for the ropes.

Selling in this match was a big issue, as Liv and Iyo’s performances contrasted with the difference between East and West. Iyo was incredibly generous in her selling, screaming in pain and doing everything in her power to convince the audience that Liv was a killer, while Morgan simply failed to return the favour. Like many American-trained women’s wrestlers, Liv focused on delivering her flashy spots (including a neat rebound Codebreaker), but when it came time to make her opponent look good, she did the minimum (similar to the recent Hazuki–Maya World match-up on a late May “Collision”). This was particularly egregious during the striking battle. Liv was hitting some nice low leg kicks and Iyo was selling them like she was taking strikes from a top UFC fighter, whipping her leg away and showing real pain. When Iyo threw strikes in return, Liv would simply flick her hair and barely bother to register the strike or make any expression. Then, when it came time to feed for Iyo’s hot comeback, Liv got up slowly and repeatedly turned in the wrong direction.

Liv wasn’t doing anything malicious, that is how she sells and it’s how she’s been trained to work, but it does illustrate a philosophical difference that undermines so much of what continues to hold back the development of top American talent. In Japan all the workers, even murderers like Syuri and Sareee, are giving performers who are taught to master ring positioning, bumping and selling first – it is drummed into them that their primary goal in wrestling is to make their opponent look good. In America, and particularly in WWE’s Performance Center (although it has improved in the last few years), the focus clearly remains on flashy, athletic signature spots first and ring craft second.

Regardless, once Iyo and Liv got rolling they had the crowd in the palm of their hand and the building was rocking when Iyo finally landed her Spanish Fly and Over the Moonsault combination to claim the Crown. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, WWE decided to completely ruin this finish for everyone watching around the world by having Danhausen curse Liv Morgan before the match. Substantial credit deservedly goes to Iyo and Liv for keeping the crowd invested in the nearfalls, when WWE committed such a blatant act of self-sabotage. One only needs to read the reviews on Cagematch to see that this decision ruined the enjoyment of many fans watching at home, who felt they’d been told the winner of a match that, before it started, could legitimately have gone either way with both women having strong and long-standing storyline reasons for winning the match.

The decision is even more baffling considering that Iyo won 100% clean with no slips, trips or hijinks affecting Liv Morgan. Bizarre.

Seth Rollins Cuts The Legs Out From Underneath Bron Breakker, Overshadowing An Entertaining Cage Match

It feels like there is really no point in discussing this really rather good cage match between Seth Rollins and Bron Breakker, because the match itself has been swallowed whole by the discourse. So let’s rattle through this efficiently. Like Iyo Sky and Liv Morgan, Seth and Bron clearly paced this match to survive in the heat, with the opening sections of the match being worked at a snail’s pace, with weapon shots used to pique the crowd’s interest. However, the two persevered, slowly progressing through the gears in the confines of a cage that restricted rather than elevated Breakker’s athleticism. The match peaked with Breakker taking two hellacious table bumps. First, he was superplexed from the top of the cage through a table that simply imploded on impact, shattering into shards that sliced Breakker’s flesh just above his eye. This didn’t slow Bron down. Bathed in blood, he fought back, took control and then speared himself at an insane velocity through a table in the corner.

However, all of that hard work will be forgotten as the manner of Bron’s defeat grabbed the headlines. Despite Michael Cole screaming on commentary that this was a star-making performance that proved Bron belonged at main-event level, that is not what fans watching at home witnessed. They saw Bron Breakker crawl to escape from Seth Rollins when it was clear he was outmatched. Bron would then slam the cage door to briefly take control, only for Seth to Pedigree and Curb Stomp Bron for a nearfall. This was a great moment, the Saudi fans were on their feet, but then the insanity began. Rather than setting the scene for a dramatic comeback, Bron and Seth engaged in some hideously overwrought dramatic acting as Bron begged off from a further Curb Stomp. Time stood still, Breakker posed, stood up and took a flying Curb Stomp to be definitively beaten.

There is nothing wrong with giving Seth Rollins a strong win to build him up for a potential “SummerSlam” main event with Roman Reigns, but there was no need to have him crush one of the promotion’s top young talents under his boot so effortlessly. This was not a star-making performance for Breakker, instead it was a finish that cemented his status as a midcard also-ran.

Tiffany And Jade’s Atrocious Forever Feud Ends With An Abomination In Riyadh

Let’s get the praise out of the way early, because while this match was horrible there were glimpses of the simpler and more straightforward match that should have taken place. There were flashes where Jade was doing her power offence and Tiffy would fire back with a big slam where the match was enjoyable. There is a formula that works for Cargill: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Big moves, minimal selling, minimal movement and maybe one big switch-up spot before the finish. Rhea Ripley knew this and structured her match with Jade to allow her to bump for Jade and create all the movement, before plotting out an exciting finishing sprint. Unfortunately, Tiffany Stratton seemed intent on cramming every half-baked idea possible into this unnecessarily complicated match.

Tiffany Stratton is a bad wrestler. She actually possesses the identical weakness of Jade Cargill without the good sense to filter her performance. I got to witness her work in London this past week from the floor and it is bewildering how bad she is at the music between the notes. She fumbles, stumbles, buffers and simply loses the plot far too often, awkwardly crashing her elbows down on the keys to strike the most discordant of notes. Jade is equally bad, if not worse, in this regard, but Jade at least has the common sense to try and minimise her shortcomings. Her striking and selling are pitiful, but she did try to catch and base for Tiffy as best she could as Stratton led her through one bad idea after another, culminating in a hideous attempted crucifix driver.

There’s no sense in belabouring the point: the match was no good. However, it is worth contemplating the future. When we examine Tiffy and Jade’s careers to date, it’s Stratton whose fate seems the more uncertain. Jade knows her limitations, but has a good act going with The Baddies; they are a useful heel act on “SmackDown” and Jade can be plugged in as the giant obstacle for the babyfaces to overcome. She can keep it simple and contribute. Tiffany is a busted flush. Still over enough to warrant a push, but she is cursed by high expectations. Fans clearly think of her as a star, but a faded one. She was touted as the next great diamond in the rough, but she’s fugazi. It’s hard to hide from the truth at the moment, no one has served up more high-profile stinkers than Tiffany Stratton.

Her fame is a curse. She’s trapped in a too-big-to-fail position when she so clearly is a failed experiment. If Triple H was brave he’d take a good hard look at his roster and realise that he should mortgage Stratton’s remaining celebrity to make the next generation of stars. Tatum Paxley, Sol Ruca, Kendal Grey, Lola Vice, Kelani Jordan, Zaria and Jacy Jayne should be decimating Stratton in the years to come – it’s time to accept reality, Tiffany has regressed since her debut and the Performance Center rookies passed her by years ago.

Trick Williams Retains In A Glorified Smackdown Match

There’s honestly nothing noteworthy to be said about this match. Despite cutting some great promos in the build, the fans in attendance saw this match for what it was: a top of the hour “Smackdown” match that somehow made its way on to a PLE. Ricky Saints was creative and entertaining in the way he got the heat and Trick was in good form here, hitting his spots with aplomb, but this had no business on a six match card. The standards for PLE matches are simply far higher in 2026. No one expects a four star match from Trick Williams, but the fans do want drama, stakes, twists and turns or at least a sense of fun; this match had none of that. It merely existed.

Clash In Italy

31st May 2026
Location: Inalpi Arena, Turin, Italy
Attendance: 12,977
Watch On: ESPN / Netflix

Written by David Hayter

If “WrestleMania” Night One was a grotesque monument to TKO’s insidious corporate incentive to squeeze ever more money out of WWE’s vanishingly thin slivers of actual wrestling content, then “Clash In Italy” perfectly encapsulates the risk-averse malaise that has infected WWE’s creative in the last 12 months. Unlike the first night of “WrestleMania”, “Clash In Italy” was not an actively bad wrestling show. WWE presented five high-profile matches and, while most undershot their lofty expectations, they were all reasonably well wrestled, exciting enough and easy to watch (with the possible exception of the main event). Instead, the real issue (and reason this show is generating such fierce backlash) is nothing to do with the wrestlers, the work, the star power or even the numbing commercialisation: the problem is the booking.

Triple H is not a mystery. His creative is not remotely enigmatic or capricious; instead, he’s a classic steady Eddie. He takes it slow. He’ll often start a storyline or a series of storylines with a bang on a hot episode of “RAW”, but then he’ll return to gradualism: slow, imperceptible steps towards a final destination months or, occasionally, years away. His focus is always on the tentpole events, most notably “SummerSlam” and “WrestleMania”, where grand coronations usually take place. It’s not exactly a thrill ride, because Triple H is a safe and steady driver: you can trust him to programme the satnav correctly and he’ll get you to your destination in one piece (even if you do end up having a little snooze along the way).

Problems arise when you have to get to your destination in a hurry. If your wife is in labour, Triple H will continue to take it slow and he damn sure will not take a shortcut under any circumstances. He really struggles with roadworks and accidents. When TKO adjust the schedule or injuries lay his best-laid plans to waste, Triple H tends to stall (sometimes for months at a time). Still, while that isn’t ideal and it certainly isn’t revolutionary, it’s not necessarily bad as long as Triple H and WWE have the right destination in mind – and therein lies the problem. Fans are starting to lose faith, and they think Triple H might actually have gotten a little lost. WWE, with Paul Levesque in the driver’s seat, feels like it’s been circling the same roundabout for almost two years now and their fearless leader is afraid to bite the bullet and make a turn.

In the three biggest and most important men’s matches on the card, Triple H decided to play it safe and serve up more of the same. Roman Reigns will remain the WWE World Heavyweight Champion and Jacob Fatu will have to serve and acknowledge him, the retired Brock Lesnar decisively defeated the hottest act in the promotion, Oba Femi, tying their record at one apiece, and Cody Rhodes retained the WWE World Championship, handing Gunther his first loss since retiring John Cena.

Despite the vitriol these outcomes have inspired online, none of them are bad or incorrect decisions per se. In isolation they can all be justified in storyline, they will give direction to the coming weeks of television and they all point towards pay-offs further down the line (Triple H’s favourite). The soul-crushing reality is that these results didn’t take place in isolation; they all happened on the same show and fans had to sit and watch as the exciting ideas they’d spent weeks fantasy booking were replaced with yet more of the same: the same old faces at the top of the card, rinsing and repeating the same old storylines.

The worst offender was the victory of Roman Reigns. Sure, it will be undeniably intriguing watching feral Jacob Fatu have to take orders and play nice with his family members, but it’s not half as exciting as making a violent madman the Head of the Table. Not only would The Bloodline have to fall in line behind this maniac, the unrepentant and tyrannical Roman Reigns would be pushed into subservience where his first among equals façade would surely crack.

Then there’s Oba Femi. His match with Brock Lesnar was once again great (more on that below) and, of course, we will all happily watch a third installment, but why not have Oba Femi win? Let the new charismatic and unstoppable monster of WWE not only run rampant, but run right over Brock Lesnar, the most dominant force of the last 20 years. Sure, tying the series at 1-1 is an easy booking trope to set up a third match, but a more exciting option would have been to have Oba win again, forcing Brock into a full-blown crisis of confidence that would cause him to do something truly reprehensible to convince Oba to give him one final shot at redemption.

Finally, Cody Rhodes’ meandering reign as the face of WWE continues. In truth, Gunther has already had a run as the face of “RAW” and it wasn’t hugely inspiring from a creative point of view (his work was, of course, excellent), but after he retired AJ Styles and John Cena it seems like booking terrorism to have him lose to Cody Rhodes in such ignominious circumstances. Cody’s run on top has been blighted by a lack of opponents he can truly sink his teeth into and perpetual involvement from outside forces (namely TKO). He could have used a new giant to slay and Gunther would have been a perfect immovable object to put in his path; sadly, he’s already conquered the Ring General in pitiful and confused circumstances.

At every turn Triple H chose the pedestrian option: safe, stale and tired creative that is doing no favours to a talented roster full of young talent with genuine top-star potential.

All Brakes, No Gas: Roman Forces Jacob Fatu To Wrestle At His Pace

The “Backlash” main event between Jacob Fatu and Roman Reigns was a revelation: a dynamically plotted, all-action affair where Jacob bent Roman to the point of breaking by forcing him to wrestle at a ferocious and violent pace. Understandably, expectations were high for the rematch. This is Tribal Combat, an unleashed Jacob Fatu in a no-rules environment in front of a feverish Italian crowd…what could possibly go wrong?

Enter Roman Reigns or, more specifically, enter the Head of the Table. For the last few months, Roman has been on a tear in the ring, having some of the best singles matches of his career, but both the CM Punk “WrestleMania” main event and his first encounter with Jacob Fatu at “Backlash” had one thing in common: Roman wrestled his opponent’s match. Make no mistake, Roman is a strong wrestler, he’s charismatic, his execution is always crisp, he has great dramatic timing and, for a big, muscular hulk of a man, he bumps well. The trouble lies in the psychology. Since turning heel, Roman knows only one way: the talk and brawl.

Since becoming the Head of the Table and being left to his own devices, Roman is not interested in wrestling fast-paced back-and-forth battles. He prefers slower, more drawn-out, story-based matches where he will literally narrate the plot of the match to the camera as he beats down his opponent. There’s nothing wrong with this match layout. Roman always saves some neat twists, kick-outs and counters for the grand finale and he never misses a spot. Unfortunately, while these matches are never really bad (they have a high floor), they top out at around a 7 out of 10, maybe an 8 with a particularly compelling underdog babyface like Sami Zayn. However, in 2026 Roman is the biggest babyface in wrestling, so the sight of him methodically stomping and clobbering Jacob Fatu at a leisurely pace is confusing, to say the least.

In this context, rather than the Tribal Combat stipulation making the match more exciting, it made it considerably duller. For now Roman had the opportunity to talk and brawl; he could now walk and talk and brawl across an entire arena for 25 minutes before getting to the meat of the match. In fairness to Fatu and Reigns, there may have been extenuating circumstances. Word got out about Jacob Fatu’s injury during the week and there was speculation he would not be able to compete – and he would wrestle in a knee brace. So perhaps Jacob’s all-action style was an impossibility, but nevertheless the 30-minute marathon the pair delivered was reasonably compelling, but largely uninspired. Jacob would hit a pair of suicide dives (one early, one late), Roman would deliver a neat Drive-By that sent Jacob’s skull crashing into the ring post, and Roman would hurl the steel steps over the top rope onto Jacob Fatu on the floor – and in terms of big spots that was it for the most part.

The rest of the mid-portion of the match was a lot of punching and walking and, of course, talking. Heads would be bonked into the occasional object. Roman and Jacob would both find quirky locations to stand tall and deliver 10-punch or 10-headbutt count-along sequences (wrestling fans love to count!). At one point, during a particularly meandering sojourn, Roman alighted upon a refreshments stand and decided to throw buckets of ice on Jacob before throwing snacks out to the crowd (what a lovely fellow). Suffice it to say, it was painfully slow going.

They did eventually arrive at something resembling a point. Roman would grab a toolbox and smash it into Jacob’s hands, rendering the Tongan Death Grip largely useless and easy to counter for the rest of the match. When the pair eventually returned to the ring, we were at last treated to some dynamic action. Jacob brutally cut off Roman’s trademark spear, first by obliterating Roman during his “hoo-ah” pose and then later by countering it with a pop-up Samoan Drop. Roman would of course get his spear for a good nearfall and Jacob would also land his Mighty Moonsault for one of his own.

The finish was really rather clever. Roman was unloading with Superman Punches, but Jacob was shaking them off with his psychotic voodoo-style dancing to fire up the crowd. Roman, becoming increasingly flustered, would resort to his own heel tactic of kicking out at the last moment while simultaneously low-blowing his opponent. With Jacob down, in another callback to their superior “Backlash” match, Roman removed three of the turnbuckle pads. This time it was no accident as he rammed Jacob’s head into the turnbuckle dozens of times before spearing him through a nearby table. Despite taking an inhumane level of abuse, Fatu still rose to his feet, but while Roman was shocked, he was ready and hit his double-rebound spear to secure the victory.

Putting the risk-averse booking to one side, the psychology and storytelling in this match were rather good. Unfortunately, they were dragged out across a patience-testing 30 minutes of generic clobbering.

Brock Batters Oba In A Magnificently Meaty Sprint

Putting the lamentable decision to have Oba Femi lose to Brock Lesnar to one side (it is discussed above), this was a hell of a six-minute match. This was a simple story told to perfection. After claiming Oba Femi had caught him off guard in the build-up to “WrestleMania” and the ensuing squash match, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman came into “Clash In Italy” with a plan. Oba was smart to their tricks, keeping his eyes trained on Lesnar during the ring introductions, but, in one moment of naivety, he turned to take off his necklace and Brock pounced. Five F-5s followed, with Oba staggering to his feet more slowly each time. Brock would go for the pin and Oba would kick out.

Seeing the hesitancy in Lesnar, Heyman screamed for the Kimura Lock and Lesnar applied it with relish. Brock couldn’t break Oba’s arm and instead Oba would power up to break the hold. Then, not only did panic set in, but war broke out. The pair were soon tumbling arse over teakettle to the floor where Brock would hit another F-5 through the table. Exhausted, exhilarated and turning a deep shade of sweat-coated red, Brock retreated to the ring to accept his count-out victory. What followed was a beautifully crafted moment. At a count of six, Oba didn’t begin crawling to the ring, instead he simply and calmly stood up tall, dusted himself off and returned to the ring with immaculate poise. Brock panicked and Oba began his comeback in earnest. However, having shot-put Lesnar halfway across the ring there was a final twist in the tail. Oba popped Brock up into powerbomb position, then flung him high for the Fall From Grace, but Lesnar popped all the way out and landed like a luchador on his feet to surprise Femi with another F-5. This one did the job; the Beast had conquered the Ruler.

Make no mistake, this match was fantastically entertaining and, despite its simplicity, you could tell a lot of thought went into its composition. The booking reeks of cowardice, but neither the workers nor the agent (likely Paul Heyman) can be faulted for their efforts.

An Abysmal Foot Under The Rope “Controversy” Cuts Short A Potential Great Gunther Match

Eyebrows should have been raised when, after a brief grappling exchange and a Stardust cartwheel, Gunther and Cody Rhodes started wrestling at a terrific lick. Gunther famously takes things slow, building slow-burn epics. We don’t usually find our domineering Austrian friend chopping opponents in mid-air to disrupt springboard offence and trading slick counters within the first two minutes. Something was unmistakably up, but the folks watching at home and losing their minds in the arena were too busy enjoying the intensity of the action to realise they were about to be screwed out of a classic by heavy-handed booking.

For 11 minutes Gunther and Cody were faultless. Gunther was satisfyingly crisp in his offence and Cody was excellent in his rabble-rousing comebacks. Every time Gunther felt like he was gaining control with a brutal boot and killer chop, Cody would find a flip counter and fight back with a snap powerslam or flash Pedigree. Their chemistry was abundantly apparent as Cody dived and rolled over Gunther only to be absolutely brutalised by a Tyrannosaurus Dropkick and a gorgeous sky-high powerbomb. The counters kept coming and their contrasting styles (Cody is all softness and gloss, Gunther stiff blows and tight precision) served to highlight one another’s strengths. The crowd deserve tremendous praise. While they did indulge in annoying chants after every kick-out, they also added tremendous drama by screaming in horror every time Gunther locked in (or even threatened to apply) the rear naked choke.

When Gunther finally applied his dreaded Cena-slaying hold, the crowd were approaching fever pitch. Cody dramatically made the ropes and the stage was set for 10 minutes of wild nearfalls and expertly crafted drama in a match whose outcome felt genuinely up in the air. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Gunther would brutally lariat the neck tattoo off Cody’s neck only for Cody to hit his first Cody Cutter and Cross Rhodes for a dramatic near…wait, what? The referee counted three? So no nearfalls. Don’t worry, Gunther’s foot was under the bottom rope, surely the referee will be alerted and the match will be restarted. Gunther was furious, the referee was under pressure, but for Cody the match was over.

The irony, of course, is that this match took place on ESPN, where any sports fan who happened to tune in would be wondering why there was no VAR to correct the decision. The finish was truly dreadful. It can’t rightly be described as flat as the live crowd popped for it, but it was a frustrating rug pull. Gunther and Cody were on course for an excellent WWE-style World Title match and, rather than delivering closure on a PLE, Triple H served up a weak contested finish which squandered Gunther’s first singles defeat since retiring both AJ Styles and John Cena. A foot-on-the-ropes finish could work, but Gunther should have at least actively placed his foot on the rope and the referee should have simply missed it. Instead, Gunther lay destroyed by a single Cross Rhodes with his splayed foot happening to have fallen under the rope. The finish read to anyone watching, not as Gunther being screwed, but as Gunther being handily beaten. Had the referee spotted the foot under the rope, he’d have survived based on luck, not skill. This is a finish that helps no one, removes excitement and anticipation from a potentially excellent feud, and actively undoes the hard work they’ve put into rebuilding Gunther following his defeat to Jey Uso in 2025. Yuck.

Rhea Ripley Leads Jade Cargill Through A Loveably Clunky Match With (Another) Awful Finish

Rhea Ripley really is a phenomenon and the only woman, outside of Jordynne Grace, who can get a good match out of Jade Cargill. However, where Grace forced a hesitant Jade through a match by battering her half to death and literally pulling her into position, Rhea instead decides to selflessly take giant bumps for Cargill while guiding her through complex match layouts. It doesn’t always go according to plan, but that’s half the fun of watching these two giant Amazons tear strips off each other.

Jade still has hesitancy issues and appears incapable of going with the flow. Early in the match, after Rhea had hit a crisp dropkick through the middle rope to the floor, disaster struck. Rhea went for a cannonball off the apron, Jade was supposed to catch her but failed and Rhea, rather majestically, continued to flip and landed on her feet. Truth be told, what Rhea did looked so cool for a woman her size that no one would have known anything had gone wrong if Jade hadn’t immediately begun to awkwardly buffer and clobber Rhea as time stood still. To Jade’s credit, when she did make a decision she threw Rhea ribs first into the apron, then threw her up into the air for a slick rebound knee strike. This incident set the tone for the match: this battle was going to be both wonky and wild. The out-of-control nature of the action and Rhea’s willingness to take crazy bumps would make for an enthralling battle.

In fact, the more controlled stretches of the match were a major detriment. The only dull portion of the match came when Jade got the heat, slowing the action down with mechanical offence and generic crowd work. Thankfully, after a few minutes of tedium the insanity resumed. Jade missed an elbow drop and Rhea’s comeback was on. Jade’s bumping was dire, but Rhea was on a roll and the arena was literally shaking as Rhea prepared to German suplex Cargill. The pair then decided to embark on a series of wild, almost disastrous counters. Razor’s Edges were flipped out of into back body drops, Rhea hit her playing-dead enzuigiri, every strike in their respective arsenal was dodged before Rhea hit one of the most out-of-control Razor’s Edges in wrestling history.

Then it happened. Rhea had Jade in the electric chair position and Jade tried to victory roll her over the top rope. The physics of this spot were preposterous. On the third attempt Jade managed to flip over the top rope, but remarkably, Rhea’s back cracked brutally against the ring apron and Jade somehow ended up flat on her back under the bottom rope. Not to be deterred, Jade sat up, Rhea kept on rolling to her feet and gave her an electric chair drop from the floor to the apron. It was absolutely amazing in every sense of the word.

The complicated counters would only intensify, with Jade reversing Rhea’s “WrestleMania” finishing sequence by surviving the slip-behind to hit a swinging DDT before following up with a Blue Thunder Bomb. Not to be outdone, Rhea would hit a top-rope back suplex and then go on to use Iyo Sky’s wheelbarrow double stomp counter to Jaded, paying homage to her BFF by hitting Iyo’s emote. Then, once again, the match went off the rails. B-Fab and Michin came down to ringside to put Jade’s foot on the rope after Rhea finally hit the Riptide…only B-Fab botched grabbing Jade’s foot twice and Jade had to essentially do it herself, defeating the purpose of the interference to begin with.

Nevertheless, despite the botch and despite doing the rope-break spot in back-to-back matches, Rhea and Jade persevered. Charlotte would emerge to wipe out the baddies and, when Jade hit Jaded, Flair would return the favour by putting Rhea’s foot on the rope. From there on in, it was academic: headbutt, Riptide, 1-2-3. This match was bowling-shoe ugly and endearingly chaotic.

Sol Ruca Just About Gets Over The Yips To Become The First Black Woman To Win The Intercontinental Title

Poor old Sol Ruca has had a torrid time on the main roster. Her botched Sol Snatchers and three-match losing streak have turned her into such an online meme, that the fact that she actually had two really rather good TV matches with Liv Morgan and Iyo Sky has been totally overlooked. Instead, she’s the botch-aholic who can’t even hit her own finisher. The tragedy of it all is that you can see the hesitation and uncertainty written all over her face. Anyone who’s ever had a kink in their golf swing or lost the timing on their jump shot will recognise the look of pained concentration Sol wore as she geed herself up for her springboard front-flip lariat. She nailed that spot (or rather, Becky dodged the clothesline and hit a Manhandle Slam), but it was clear from her expression that the effortless ease and self-confidence that made her such a star in NXT had dissipated.

The good news is that Sol got through this match and hit her Sol Snatcher decently enough to win the IC Title. The bad news is that, yet again, rather than focusing on her highs, the internet is awash with clips of her latest low. Sol, who must have landed countless perfect Space Flying Tiger Drops in NXT, got her feet caught on the ropes, came up short and just got enough distance to avoid crashing on the apron and instead skidded to a landing right in front of Becky, who was waiting to catch her. It really is a shame, because the amount of spectacular flips and counters Sol pulled off in this really rather entertaining back-and-forth clash far outweighed her mistakes.

The agenting of this match certainly left something to be desired. Becky was clearly trying to tell a wrestling-based storyline, with her repeatedly cutting off the corner of the ring to desperately block Sol from being able to hit the Sol Snatcher, however much of the match was structured to jam in as many of Sol’s flips and tricks as possible in a contrived, highly choreographed, immersion-breaking manner. That being said, when Sol’s tricks work, they really work. There was one particularly brilliant sequence where Becky Lynch hit a superplex, rolled through to follow up with a DDT and Sol countered with a handspring into a superkick for an excellent double down.

There can be no question that Sol has the physical talent, the look and the charisma to be a top star. She can also wrestle. She came a long way in NXT and her matches with Iyo Sky and Liv Morgan were proper back-and-forth, modern, psychologically sound contests. WWE need to resist the urge to have her do elaborate flips for the sake of doing flips and Sol needs to take a deep breath and get out of her own head. As soon as Sol relaxes and starts being herself again, she’s going to blow people away. This match was an enjoyable ordeal that Sol made it through; hopefully in the months to come she’ll stop stumbling and start to thrive.

“The Great American Bash 2026”

28 June 2026
Location: WWE Performance Centre, Orlando, Florida, USA
Attendance: ca300-500
Watch On: CW/Netflix

Review by David Hayter

The “Great American Bash” should represent a pivotal fork-in-the-road moment for NXT as the developmental brand seeks to re-establish its sense of self in the wake of so many high-profile departures to the main roster. The old guard, most notably the leading lights of their excellent women’s division, are on the way out and a mix of can’t-miss prodigies (Kendal Grey) and intriguing, not-quite-ready-for-prime-time diamonds in the rough (Mason Rook, Romeo Moreno, Jackson Drake) starts its ascent. In other words, NXT is in a state of flux and the “Great American Bash” should have been their triumphant relaunch event. They had spent a couple of months engaging in randomised control trials on their weekly TV show, but now they were ready to present their vision of NXT 3.0 (3.5? 4.0? I’ve lost count at this point) to the world live on Sunday night on The CW.

There just so happens to be one glaring hole in Shawn Michaels’ best-laid plans: no matter what NXT creative intended this show to be, in reality it has been used as a sacrificial pawn in TKO’s long game to perhaps, maybe, marginally undercut AEW’s future negotiating power when it comes time to negotiate a new TV deal. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. WWE has been aggressively undermining its competitors for 40 years at this point. They have shown time and time again that they will cut off their own nose to spite their face. However, there is a real-world downside to constantly counter-programming AEW’s uber-hyped, algorithm-dominant and routinely excellent PPVs: no one is talking about NXT anymore.

It’s not just that the Sean Ross Sapps and Dave Meltzers of this world don’t have the time or the bandwidth to cover the shows live, it’s the fact that WWE fans themselves have stopped talking about NXT’s big events. WWE has started to establish a norm where their own fans have become accustomed to skipping what used to be must-see “TakeOver” events and, to be clear, the modern NXT PLEs are routinely well worked and entertaining in their own right, but they now feel arbitrary. They are shunted around in the schedule, hastily promoted affairs that rob these seismic moments in the brand’s history, like Kendal Grey winning her first NXT championship, of their grandeur. On Monday morning, despite stealing the show, no one was talking about Kendal and only the tiniest sliver of the “RAW” audience will have seen her show-stealing match with Lola Vice.

NXT will never be the key to WWE’s financial success; at best it has either been a loss leader designed to develop new talent and suppress the American indies or a show full of green athletes who just about pay their way via an undervalued TV deal. It is, in the grand scheme of things, small fry – but it is also the engine of WWE’s future development. For years WWE has been able to revitalise the main roster product by debuting hot acts from NXT with ready-made entrances, catchphrases and established finishing moves. However, that process grinds to a halt if their fanbase simply stops watching NXT’s big shows; there will be no more “Whoop That Trick” or “La Primera” if their latest call-ups have to essentially start from the beginning all over again. We’re already seeing this with the latest generation of call-ups, with Ricky Saints and Blake Monroe both struggling to make a name for themselves when faced with the apathy that stems from unfamiliarity.

A Star Is Born: Kendal Grey Has Her Cake And Eats It Too (Literally)

With Jacy Jayne now busy establishing herself on “SmackDown”, the logjam at the top of NXT’s women’s division has been unclogged and the promotion is now free to elevate its prodigious female stars at the same rate at which they shot Oba Femi, Trick Williams, Ricky Saints, Ethan Page and Carmelo Hayes to the top of the men’s division. Just two years into Kendal Grey’s career and a mere two months into Lola Vice’s long-awaited title reign, Kendal has been decisively crowned as the new face of NXT.

Tonight’s main event match was laid out carefully to ensure that Lola Vice was presented as a credible champion, while still establishing that Kendal was simply the superior wrestler, having the edge in every exchange. After some initial grappling and striking exchanges, when Lola finally hit her running senton to the floor, Kendal would slickly roll into a half-crab counter. When Lola tried to shove her way free, Kendal would simply hop onto the barricade and hit a diving Shades of Grey. Lola was shown to be an adept shoot fighter with clever transitions of her own, but whenever she locked in a rear naked choke or a cross armbreaker, Kendal would find a way to slither into an ankle lock or a bridging cradle of her own.

When Lola did get the edge it was normally because Kendal pushed her own boundaries too far. Kendal effectively cut herself off with a twisting double-jump moonsault that Lola would evade and quickly transition through a guillotine and triangle choke combination in the hopes of securing a submission victory. Her efforts, however, were forlorn. Kendal would roll through into a locomotion Northern Lights suplex and, even when Lola hit her heavily protected spinning back-fist finisher, Kendal would rebound off the ropes and obliterate her with a gnarly spinning back elbow. The pair were superficially being presented as equals, protecting Lola in defeat, but the action was always aimed towards making Kendal look like the unstoppable wrestling machine who’d eventually put an end to Lola’s resistance with a second-rope Shades of Grey.

The era of Kendal Grey is upon us. The question now will be whether she has the promo skill and character depth to rival her already excellent (by American standards) in-ring skills. For the time being, she can lean heavily on her lovable, bubbly and charismatic partner Wren Sinclair to do the emotional heavy lifting, but the pair have now stood tall and literally stuffed their faces with a two-tiered celebratory cake – but what comes next? Can Kendal carry a promotion when her challengers are not Jacy Jayne, Tatum Paxley and Sol Ruca, but Kali Armstrong, Layla Diggs and Izzi Dame?

“Blind In One Eye” Tony D Brushes Aside NARAKU In Anticlimactic NXT Championship Clash

Talk about disappointment. Tony D’Angelo and NARAKU had been telling a preposterously camp story that saw the former House of Torture leader EVIL protecting the sanctity of the wrestling ring (no, really). It was all a ruse, of course. Once NARAKU had secured his title shot he quickly revealed himself to be a pantomime villain, complete with an evil cackle, who would hide a fireball (no, I’m not joking) inside the contract for this match. When Tony opened the contract to check NARAKU’s signature, flames erupted and Tony’s eye was, apparently, burned out of its socket. The angle was so unabashedly over the top that it actually built up considerable interest in this match, especially as NARAKU appeared to tease the arrival of a new House of Torture.

Sadly, the match, which oddly opened the “Great American Bash”, was a massive disappointment. Both men worked hard, with Tony spearing NARAKU through a wall to start the match and NARAKU throwing him through a barricade in return. Once Tony got his dramatic entrance out of the way in the early going, the match settled down into a meaty and hard-hitting affair that showcased the former EVIL’s bruising ring craft and Tony D’s raw power. The match was worked at a gentle pace, but they were working their way through the gears and appeared to have the crowd hooked and, at that exact moment, it was over. Tony D made his comeback, ran through some good throws and slams, hit Dead to Rights and won at the first time of asking.

Unless NARAKU is on the verge of being called up to the main roster, this booking appears baffling. The one-eyed Tony D and NARAKU were in the midst of one of the best-worked and fundamentally sound heavyweight title clashes since Oba Femi gave up the title, but rather than building to a dramatic and possibly disputed finish, Tony simply crushed NARAKU. This result was so painfully decisive, it’s hard to imagine where NARAKU goes from here.

The Ragdoll-Bumping Tatum Paxley Will Be Sorely Missed As She Serves Up Another Match of the Night Performance

Word on the street is that Tatum Paxley isn’t long for NXT. Tater undoubtedly deserves her call-up to the main roster, but honestly, good luck to HBK, Matt Bloom and the crew when it comes to replacing her. Tatum has been a revelation in NXT and her rise has been instructive in demonstrating that there is one intangible more valuable than any other in wrestling: innate likeability. Paxley, the former powerlifter, was naturally adept in the ring and developed an ability to bump, sell and fly at a far faster rate than the usual NIL converts, but that was never what made her special. She was someone who, from her earliest days, was routinely saddled with the most horrific of gimmicks, but always found a way to endear herself to the audience.

First, she was the annoying toady of the truly tedious Diamond Mine faction (a faux shooter/MMA unit). Tatum was positioned as the try-hard loser who simply wasn’t talented or credible enough to make it in Roderick Strong’s faction. Then she began her current trajectory, as a crazed, ultra-clingy loner, incapable of making friends, who’d play with dolls, speak in a demented high-pitched voice and cling to Lyra Valkyria like a safety blanket. Both gimmicks were abysmal on paper, but Tatum always found a way to showcase babyface fire, to bump like a madwoman and to have the crowd chant her name. Beneath all the layers of wretched written artifice was a weird little person that the fans adored and, whether it was a subtle glance, a car-crash bump or a well-timed primal scream, Tatum knew how to whip them into a frenzy.

Unsurprisingly, NXT creative are discovering that their “characters” don’t get over so well without Tatum’s elite level of charisma and connection, and ultimately Tatum’s success may lead to the downfall of many others. Tate Wilder is now the world’s tamest “adrenaline junkie”, the well-spoken and talented Tristan Angels is stuck playing a “priggish English gentleman”, and the magnificent Romeo Moreno is an “artist”, albeit one who never produces any actual art – don’t even get me started on whatever Izzi Dame’s character is supposed to be. Good luck to them, is all I can say.

As for Tatum, she’s enjoying a final victory lap, using her brilliant bumping skills to put over the next generation of stars. Zaria has been the greatest beneficiary, now freed from the overwrought and overwritten drama of the ZaRuca breakup. Zaria now gets to look like a monster as she flings Tater around the ring. Tater is clearly having the time of her life, finding a way to embrace her creepy alt-girl gimmick to bump like a possessed ragdoll, further evidence of Paxley’s ability to take WWE’s terrible creative and turn it into a genuine USP in the ring. Zaria and Paxley are a perfect pairing, with Zaria’s raw power providing a natural narrative counterpoint to Paxley’s ability to absorb punishment. Paxley has a great natural spring in her step that helps her get up sky-high for both her signature floor enzuigiri and Zaria’s parade of slams.

The result was a cracking rematch highlighted by a series of brilliantly executed sequences. At one point, Tatum would hit a superplex, do her Voodoo Girl roll-through and psyche-up only to charge full steam into a brutal spear, but it wasn’t only Paxley’s offence that would backfire. Zaria would find herself trapped in the Tree of Woe, but would bridge up in a superbly shot visual while Paxley was preparing her front-flip coast-to-coast dropkick. Rather than Paxley panicking (a staple of WWE agenting for babyfaces), she instead hopped off the top rope, charged Zaria and hit a devastating sunset bomb from the apron to the floor. By this point, the crowd were losing their minds and totally bit on Tater’s big nearfall when she combo’ed a Cemetery Drive on the floor with one in the ring. It wasn’t to be, however, as Zaria squirmed out of the cover at the last second. Tatum would get one final hope spot with a great victory roll counter, but the writing was on the wall as Paxley would giggle dementedly while Zaria battered her with unprotected forearms, curb-stomped her into the mat and then F-5ed her lifeless corpse to retain the title. This was great.

Borne & Heights’ Shoot Wrestling Experiment Is Intriguing, But Not Entirely Successful

Tavion Heights and Myles Borne deserve genuine credit for trying something genuinely new within WWE. Both men have a strong amateur wrestling pedigree and when the former stablemates faced off for the North American Championship they valiantly attempted to have an intense, grappling match. The opening moments of the match were genuinely thrilling as they dived headlong into meaty collisions and ground their heavy frames into one another in a battle for position. Unfortunately, while their execution was impressive and Tavion Heights’ suplexes and throws were devastating, the match didn’t really draw in the fans and struggled to build towards a dramatic crescendo. Both Borne and Tavion are tremendous athletes and Myles is a well-rounded worker, but Tavion is sorely missing a connection to the crowd. His work simply fails to draw out anything resembling human emotion and his character is painfully flat. He’s happy, but not sympathetic; he’s an Olympic-level powerhouse, but he’s not remotely intimidating.

Tavion is desperately in need of a heel turn (which appears to be on the horizon, with the promotion foreshadowing him potentially joining Darkstate). He needs to unlock a level of aggression, intensity and urgency capable of elevating his technically precise in-ring execution. Tonight wasn’t his night and, wisely, Myles would retain his title by slipping out of a throw in mid-air and seamlessly countering into the Borne Again.

Pick Your Poison From The Miserable Midcard: Short and Sloppy, Long and Tedious, or Goofy and Contrived

Suffice it to say, the “Great American Bash” started hot with D’Angelo and NARAKU leading into Paxley vs Zaria, and it ended with a bang thanks to Kendal Grey and Lola Vice, but by God, the middle of this card was a slog. In fact, just as AEW’s “Forbidden Door” was starting, NXT decided to present their product in its worst light. Before we even get into the three mid-card matches, I should inform you that they began to cut repeatedly to a panel at NXT’s official watch party. This involved Blake Howard interviewing a painfully obnoxious Dave LaGreca, who felt the need to scream his opinions, and the wonderfully sarcastic Kevin Owens delivering some kayfabe analysis. As much as I personally enjoyed KO’s dry asides, these completely pointless segments were absolute death TV.

The Tristan Angels and Shiloh Hill match certainly started well enough, with Shiloh’s over-enthusiastic, high-impact big-man offence pairing nicely with Angels’ pratfall bumping style. Unfortunately, this otherwise inoffensive TV-level match took a ridiculous turn when Shiloh decided to hide under the ring and drag Angels down with him. At which point all the lights in the arena were turned off and a camera showed us Tristan crawling towards a ringing mobile phone which, for some unknown reason, he decided to answer. Using a voice disguiser, Shiloh’s voice played over and over, shouting, “The fog is coming,” and then a Jason-masked Shiloh appeared to jump-scare Angels with a rear naked choke. The silliness didn’t end there. Angels escaped and when he popped out at ringside, SHILOH HAD TELEPORTED BEHIND HIM for another sneak attack.

All of that complete and utter nonsense was not even the finish of the match; it was the set-up to take the match into a second commercial break. When they returned, a perfectly serviceable wrestling match was taking place, which Shiloh won with The Whisper of the Beast off the second rope. Shiloh and Tristan are both impressive, but this match did them few favours.

Speaking of doing someone few favours, the decision to put Arianna Grace in the speed division is frankly perverse. Arianna, like her father Santino Marella, is a great comic performer and pretty hopeless in the ring. To Grace’s credit, she has improved in the ring and is now capable of having passable TV matches, but sprinting is beyond her. Wren Sinclair isn’t the greatest worker either, but she at least has a technical submission style suited to trying to secure flash submissions. Their sub-five-minute battle wasn’t a disaster by any means, but it was slow, clunky and lacking anything resembling crispness. Wren’s personality ensured the crowd remained engaged throughout, but let’s hope that, after getting revenge by knocking Charlie Dempsey off the apron before submitting Arianna with the Final Wren-ch, Wren can move on to more credible and capable opponents.

Finally, the worst match honours belong to Saquon Sugars and Dion Lennox. This is a genuine disappointment, because in terms of promos and character development this has been one of NXT’s best programmes. However, the sad truth is that when the bell rang, no one cared. The ultra-aggressive ring style Dion Lennox had started to develop has seemingly evaporated and Sugars’ swagger and indie energy were dampened in this strange styles clash. From a critical point of view, there was only one blown spot and they were not as slow, sloppy or green as some of the other wrestlers on the card, but they were ungodly boring. This match felt like it dragged on longer than the entirety of “Forbidden Door” (including the pre-show) with little in the way of heat. Sugars put the match out of its misery with a reverse splash. Don’t make my mistake, hammer that 10-second skip button.

WWE Bite Sized Round-Up

Editor Updates

In the past two weeks, WWE saw fit to crown Sami Zayn the WWE World Champion in a match in Saudi Arabia. Albeit a great moment for so many fans – including myself, one of the most avid Sami fans up until about 2023 when I realized he was never going to win the big one (funny how that works) – it came all too late and far too short, as CM Punk would replace Cody Rhodes in his slated “RAW” world title rematch against Sami Zayn in the main event, after Cody was injured by Gunther in retaliation early in the show (I am pretty sure they have been feuding for a while, though I could not tell you exactly what is happening there). Sami Zayn was world champion for nine days. He is now the second of my personal greatest wrestlers of all time to lose their world championship to CM Punk.

The King and Queen of the Ring Tournaments: Elevate An Otherwise Lifeless Month For WWE

Outside of the usual intricacies of the Bloodline drama and Sami Zayn’s “Last Real Good Guy” character arc (which is arguably tied to the Bloodline), there hasn’t been much of anything to sink your teeth into for WWE fans in the past two months, particularly on the undercard. Well, thankfully, the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments arrived and served to rejuvenate the product. The wrestling, particularly in the dramatic four-way quarter-final matches, was legitimately strong and WWE smartly built up a host of believable winners with strong character and storyline motivations underpinning their potential advancement.

On the men’s side it was a story of shocks, as LA Knight and Seth Rollins, two potential favourites, crashed out in the opening round, while Je’Von Evans and Oba Femi advanced. Much of the tension, however, revolved around two competing storylines: Oba Femi’s ascent (surely he had to win, but would he face Roman or Cody this early?) and Jey Uso’s mission to either prove himself as a serious contender to Roman or prove Jacob Fatu right in his assessment that Jey is nothing more than a punk ass.

The women’s side was more intriguing still, with the developing storyline that Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio were reaping the benefit of Judgment Day interference in their own matches, while being dismissive and failing to help Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez in theirs. The pathway was open for four possible winners: Liv Morgan, to set up a unification match with her long-time rival Rhea Ripley; Iyo Sky, who hates Liv and is undefeated against Ripley; Raquel Rodriguez, who has tense undercurrents with Liv and a mission to dethrone Rhea; and finally Charlotte Flair, who has been positioned for months as Rhea’s next challenge through their frenemies storyline. In the end, it wasn’t so much about who won; it was just refreshing to see WWE actually building both long and short-term storylines that gave fans a reason to get invested in the first place. More of this, please.

Oba’s Big Decision: WWE Paint Themselves Into A Corner For No Apparent Reason

Oh, dear. Well, it turns out the trouble with building up an exciting tournament full of layered storylines built around a desire to win the world title is that, when someone actually wins, you actually have to go through with it and deliver the title match.

Or maybe, it turns out, you don’t.
Yes, after Oba Femi brilliantly ran through the King of the Ring tournament and was standing in the middle of the ring on “RAW”, on the verge of announcing who he was going to challenge while being serenaded by chants…Brock Lesnar’s music hit.

What proceeded was, in actual fact, an excellent and white-hot angle, with Brock cutting one of his once-every-two-years freewheeling promos before low-blowing Femi and setting up a Hell in a Cell match at “SummerSlam”. In isolation this angle was fantastic. The issue is that, to deliver the match, they had to have Oba immediately abandon the world title shot he’d just earned like a complete idiot, in a move that does make some sense for his character, but effectively tells the audience: Hey, you know that tournament you spent a month enjoying and speculating about? Well, it doesn’t matter. More fool you for believing we’d follow through on our promises.

Ultimately, this will matter little. Brock vs Oba is a hot match that WWE fans want to see, and Seth Rollins cut a surprisingly good promo to set up his (supposedly) final showdown with Roman Reigns. The WWE audience will largely forgive and forget, but the larger issue is the malaise in creative. They could have avoided lying to their audience by simply stating that the winner of the King and Queen of the Ring either got a match of their choice or to ‘main event’ “SummerSlam” if they wanted Oba to win. This would have worked well enough: there were other solid contenders in the tournament to make you question whether Oba would win outright and, in 99% of scenarios, it would be logical for the characters to pick a title match. There are ways around lying to your audience and, frankly, it doesn’t take that much thought to come up with them – you only have to care about and respect your audience the tiniest bit.

Field Notes: Reflections on the Evolving WWE Audience After Attending Two TV Tapings At The O2 Arena in London

First and foremost, I love attending wrestling shows to watch the product. During my time in London I’ve had the pleasure of watching decades’ worth of WWE, AEW, NJPW, RevPro, PROGRESS and EVE shows, alongside a smattering of random indies and special one-offs. However, one thing I’ve always enjoyed tracking is the make-up of the crowds, as, since the birth of AEW in particular, there has been an intense and often aggressive discourse over who has the better, truer, richer, smarter, insert preferred X, fans. Throughout most of this period it has been like watching two bald men fight over a comb, as one side would celebrate having a marginal advantage in one category, often whilst ignoring the elephant in the room: that both companies’ fans fell below the average in a host of desirable categories.

Nevertheless, attending the shows in the UK (I cannot speak for America), I observed pretty much what I’d always observed since the 1990s. WWE has its superfans brandishing absurdly expensive replica belts, AEW has its hardcores and there are, of course, the fair-weather fans who hop on board during boom periods, but by and large the vast majority of the crowd are the same sort of people you’d see attending wrestling shows up and down the country. However, in the last two years, something has decidedly changed for WWE.

When I went to “SmackDown” in January, I reported that the extremely high ticket prices appeared to be absorbed by families at the expense of your typical, rowdy, laddish, middle-aged or young male fan. Because I monitor ticket sales until moments before the show to get the best seat at the lowest price, I was aware of exactly who in my row had bought what tickets and, without fail, it was groups of guys and couples buying late, and families filling up the premium seats. Fast forward to June and this trend has accelerated, but it’s not the only change.

Starting with the most mundane observation, the number of fans wearing non-WWE merchandise has reduced to near zero – in fact it’s reduced to precisely one: just me. Across two days, walking around and talking to people, first in my Utami Hayashishita shirt and then in my Starlight Kid/El Desperado shirt, I didn’t bump into a single fan wearing any independent, Japanese or even AEW merchandise. This is quite a dramatic change. As recently as January, I had a nice chat with a man in a Kenta Kobashi shirt waiting in line for “SmackDown” and, back in the day, you’d see Bullet Club, nWo and even Orange Cassidy shirts galore; that seems to have died an absolute death. Conversely, when I attended “Forbidden Door” in 2025, believe it or not I saw plenty of people wearing OTC, Finn Bálor and, yes, even YEET shirts (including a group of three guys all unironically repping Jey Uso). For years, this was the norm at wrestling shows: the vast majority wear merch of the company putting on the event, but there’s always a mix of people representing promotions from all across the world.

Now, it’s time for the more interesting observations and, before I say this, I want to stress that this is neither a good nor a bad thing. Pre-emptively I can see people viewing this commentary as either attempting to signal some kind of worthiness or implying I’m pointing this out as some kind of negative, but that is not the case. I’m reporting on the shifting demographics of the WWE crowd because I think it’s genuinely interesting. So my biggest takeaway from attending “RAW” and “SmackDown” is that WWE’s number of Black fans, Arab fans and particularly Pakistani or subcontinental Muslim fans has skyrocketed. The majority in attendance are, of course, white and male, but as someone who has gone to hundreds of wrestling shows in London, the “RAW” taping in particular felt the most like being in a crowd that reflected modern multicultural London. I also noticed, based on the fans in my block on the floor, that The Bloodline (all members, including Solo) were over huge with WWE’s more diverse fanbase.

The number of women appeared to be up, too, partially due to the number of families (there were a lot of mums with sons and dads with daughters at “SmackDown” in particular), but among those not attached to a family, Iyo Sky, Rhea (when mentioned) and, perhaps oddly, Danhausen seemed to be hugely over.

The biggest group of fans disappearing from the WWE crowd is without doubt the traditional hardcore wrestling fan. The groups of usually guys aged 30–55 who look like they’ve walked straight out of Download or Reading Festival (the 2000s Reading, not today’s crowd) and have for so long provided the archetypal look of your typical softly alternative PROGRESS crowd. Your classic metal or indie dad. This is not an insult, I attend these festivals and, frankly, it’s what at least half my friends look like to this day. Perhaps it’s the prices, maybe it’s the product, but in my mind this rowdy, boozy, chant-starting portion of the WWE fanbase is dwindling despite “RAW” drawing a solid 13,000 fans. Interestingly, at “Forbidden Door” and “All In”, this demographic was out in force, so perhaps WWE is driving off its long-term fanbase who were open to watching both Cody Rhodes and Eddie Kingston.

Now for my biggest observation: the modern WWE audience does actually enjoy watching wrestling, but they don’t have a clue how to interact or engage with it. Anyone who watches “RAW” and “SmackDown” in recent months will have noticed the emergence of WWE crowds who are rowdy for entrances and promos, but seem to sit on their hands during wrestling matches. This has led to the common meme that WWE fans hate wrestling or don’t want to actually watch wrestling. Aware of this meme, while I would have preferred to have been part of two hot and rowdy crowds, I found it genuinely fascinating to sit down and watch wrestling in one of these more passive crowds.

My biggest takeaway, and I’m sorry to disappoint people who wanted some good trolling material, is that WWE’s new audience does in fact enjoy wrestling. Through every match, and I watched some really rough matches during these tapings, the audience was engaged and focused on the ring, often oohing and aahing at spots, but what became abundantly clear is that they don’t know any of the rituals. They don’t clap for moves, they don’t instinctively sense that this is the time to rally behind the babyface and they certainly do not start or create any chants (only pre-existing chants would catch on). Ironically, the only match the fans rejected was led by the remaining hardcore fans, who hijacked a Jimmy Uso vs LA Knight snoozer with football chants. Elsewhere, no chants would catch on, not even “Hey Bayley”.

The result is that the matches are wrestled in an eerie, engaged silence until a “This is awesome” chant breaks out (a ritual they seem to know). What is strange is that the fans do seem to want to get involved, but they genuinely don’t seem to know how. There are only two wrestlers who got more over with their wrestling during these tapings and they were both luchadores: Dragon Lee and Rey Fénix. Of course, it helps that they had easily the most spectacular matches on the card, but having been raised in Mexico they are constantly milking the crowd for engagement, clapping their hands, making eye contact, doing every little trick in the book to get the crowd going – and it worked. They took the trance-like crowd and worked them masterfully.

Giulia is another person who succeeded in working the crowd in her match with Kiana James. This was a genuinely surreal spectacle to watch live. The crowd was quiet, but they clearly wanted to cheer Giulia. There were constant attempts from scattered locations all around the arena to start “Giulia” chants, but they would never catch on. The crowd seemed unwilling to ever join in with a new or unfamiliar chant, but whenever Giulia called for a reaction or asked the crowd to clap, they were right there with her.

This strange feeling that the crowd needed to be led was confirmed in the ultra-heated dark match main event on “SmackDown” that saw Seth Rollins & Oba Femi defeat Bron Breakker & Austin Theory. The crowd were living and dying with every second of this match, in large part because Seth, as a babyface, and Bron, as a heel, worked the crowd relentlessly. Bron literally picked on fat fans around ringside and whenever anyone tried to start a chant, Bron would actively mock them, which caused the chants that failed to catch on earlier in the show to start to echo around the arena.

As patronising as this sounds, I think, especially in this Netflix-heavy, heavily patterned era where fans can pick and choose what they want, WWE needs to start actively leading its newer, more unfamiliar and less indie crowd. In other words, they need to include more of that Arena México house-show-style crowd work into their matches until their young fans figure out how you’re supposed to act and react at a wrestling show.

Because, ultimately, the fans do like wrestling. I was legitimately amazed that when I popped to the loo (and to get a drink) during a Danhausen match, the concourses were empty. WWE fans were not flooding to concession stands the second the promos ended and the wrestling started. Equally, and to the crowd’s credit, when Rey Fénix defeated Nathan Frazer in their show-stealing “SmackDown” match, the 6–8,000 fans in attendance shot up to their feet to give the match a long standing ovation. Amazingly, chanting “Let’s Go Fénix” appeared to be beyond them, but they were obviously loving the match.

WWE News

WWE ran the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota, over the weekend for a two night “SummerSlam” event. Each night was broadcast on ESPN Unlimited in the US and globally via Netflix. Night one ended with an estimate of 36,000 tickets out, whilst night two was lower at around 32,000. Both in a venue with an expanded capacity of 73,000. A two night “WrestleMania” in the same venue (ironically what Minneapolis thought it was getting) would have struggled to generate sales close to a sell out, so a lesser branded WWE PLE always felt like it was going to struggle. Last year’s edition of “SummerSlam”, held at New Jersey’s Metlife Stadium, drew over 50,000 fans each night, per Wrestletix estimates. 2024’s event at the Cleveland Browns Stadium distributed 56,523 tickets, whilst the previous year’s show at Ford Field in Detroit saw a crowd of 51,477. The smallest crowd for a stadium “SummerSlam” show post-Covid was for Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2022, at 40,117. WWE did not tout the attendance numbers on the show, nor in the TKO press call on Monday, opting to not have a self publicised number to compare against AEW’s “All In” show at Wembley Stadium; ironically mirroring what Tony Khan’s promotion did with their big summer show in August 2024

WWE have the capacity to drive a high number of late sales with reduced pricing, with last week’s ticket discount offers moving them from the lower 20,000s to their current mark. Tickets were available from as little as $25, which is a third of the cheapest priced standard admission ticket and also the lowest price that has been available for a US PLE since TKO took over the company. It is an indication of how price is a more dominant factor in demand for these upcoming shows than the current offering, but there is still less demand than there was a year ago as well. Whilst most pundits will be concerned with the final attendance numbers for the ability to compare with AEW’s upcoming Wembley show, the importance for them in the promotion is in how many are distributed to fans from outside the local area, and how much those individuals spend during their visit. Those are the critical factors when it comes to securing site fees going forward for events without the “WrestleMania” branding. With major events not receiving the level of demand upon sale over recent years, the pressure is increasing to be able to deliver large numbers for these stadium shows, with the next challenge lined up being “Survivor Series” at Houston’s Daikin Park in the fall.

The card featured two of the biggest possible men’s singles matches available in the company right now, with CM Punk and Cody Rhodes clashing for the WWE Undisputed belt and Roman Reigns successfully defending the WWE World Heavyweight Title against Seth Rollins. Punk’s summer return has played off 2011 nostalgia, whilst the no-babyface clash between Reigns and Rollins was also built on something that happened over a decade ago, this time being the break up of the Shield*. It also represents another major show where the men’s main event scene is dominated by the same individuals as they were over the previous two years, minus the retiring John Cena. Punk won the match thanks to a returning Randy Orton taking out Rhodes. Not exactly making things any younger there.

*(Editor’s Note: Who could have seen this coming?)

There was a potential opportunity to break up the main event monopoly with rising star Oba Femi, who won the men’s King of The Ring Tournament at June’s “Night of Champions” event in Saudi Arabia, where the prize was a title shot at “SummerSlam”. Femi relinquished the shot, in favour of a Hell In A Cell match, under the reasoning that if he was to opt for a World Title match challenge then Lesnar would just interfere, despite not having interfered during the preceding tournament. If WWE had wanted to go all out with Femi they could have run matches on back-to-back nights in order to establish him at the very top, but instead the promise of a coronation at “WrestleMania” is currently being made. The danger of that particular scenario, though, is they will need to have people to feed to Femi during the fall in order to keep his momentum, and there is also no guarantee that WWE will actually see things through, as already seen in the case of Bron Breakker earlier this year. Coincidentally, Breakker did not make this card. Femi-Lesnar did headline night one though, withLesnar giving him the big endorsement at the end, whilst also finishing off his ‘babyface’ makeover post his return.

It is also of note that the Femi-Lesnar match was not marketed as a potential retirement match and that career killer Gunther, who was once rumoured to be set to face Lesnar on this card instead wrestled General Manager Nick Aldis. It could be worse, though; he could be Dominick Mysterio, whose job was to put over comedy gimmick wrestler Danhausen in a ‘human monies on a pole’ match. It is never nice to find yourself in the Miz spot, and especially if you are the AAA Mega Champion. Rounding out the men’s side of the card was a No. 1 Contender matchup between Sami Zayn and Finn Bálor that became a four way with Gunther and the returning Kevin Owens, as well as a United States Championship match that saw Trick Williams drop to the recently returned Baron Corbin, and Chad Gable beating Penta for the Intercontinental Title in his hometown.

On the women’s side of the lineup, a ladder match took place for an Interim WWE Women’s Title after the decision was made not to strip champion Rhea Ripley after she suffered a meniscus knee injury. It was won by Chelsea Green. The Women’s World Title was a rematch from the “Night of Champions” Queen of the Ring Tournament final, as Liv Morgan made her first actual defense of the title against IYO SKY. The Bella Twins and Paige faced Fatal Influence in a six-woman match following the tag title switch at “Saturday Night’s Main Event” and was a bit of a mess after Brie Bella suffered a shoulder injury in the opening moments. The Bellas turned on Paige after the match.

The show will only be broadcast on ESPN+, which suggests that the split formula for the past several PPVs of airing the first two matches on ESPN to drive signups for the service to watch the final three is not working. We will have a full review in our next issue.

WWE have continued their efforts to essentially ‘control the narrative’ over the past week, with the announcement that they will be taking over the programming on SiriusXM’s channel 156, with the channel being rebranded as “WWE Radio”. The move follows a deal with media site Front Office Sports (which has already produced a number of co-opted articles since the deal was struck and abandoned all critical analysis of issues/news stories around the promotion). The news also comes in the same week that Andreas Hale, who reported on the Janel Grant lawsuit for ESPN, was part of the latest round of cuts by the media giant.

WWE Radio will begin on Monday, July 27th, and will feature live broadcasts from WWE’s signature PLEs, beginning with a live commentary call from Booker T and Vic Joseph of the events for radio listeners. The new lineup will feature the slate of podcasts that the promotion has launched over the past year from the likes of Stephanie McMahon, The Undertaker and Cody Rhodes, on top of shows from WWE pre-show panel regulars Sam Roberts and Pete Rosenberg.

The one show which will remain from the previous listings will be “Busted Open”. Hosts Dave LaGreca, Bully Ray, Mark Henry and Tommy Dreamer will all remain part of the show, but AEW’s Thunder Rosa has been cut from the show and the show has had a promotional intro from MJF removed from its opening. Its presence within the WWE lineup removes any cover whatsoever of this being a program for independent thought, after years of being sold in that manner despite working as a co-opted outlet with WWE. A number of industry sources have also relayed their belief in recent years that there was already monetary investment in the show prior to this current deal.

WWE’s strategy, to essentially create their own media outlets for favourable coverage rather than having to work with the established ones, is not new, with the NFL the leading entity in pursuing those types of media relations. It continues to act as a challenge to independent coverage, though, as access to both wrestlers and higher-ups now comes solely depending on the relationship outlets have established with the company. The ability to provide ‘transparency’ only in the way that suits the company will be something that feels comfortable for them but a deal like this also increases the reach for their narrative to be heard, and that is becoming ever more important to WWE in their ongoing cold war with AEW, where they see control of what is being spoken about as half the battle.

It is perhaps the under-discussed part of the counterprogramming strategy that WWE has adopted when it comes to AEW PPVs, with both “All In” and “All Out” shows upcoming having to contend with competition from WWE’s secondary brands AAA and NXT. The conversation often suggests that this is mainly aimed at reducing AEW’s PPV buys for these shows, but everyone is aware that a number of these counter offerings are not of the level to have an impact; they instead, though, hope to muddy the conversation so that at no point is a large AEW show able to dominate wrestling discussion. The move of the WWE Undisputed Championship onto Sami Zayn at “Night of Champions” carried a similar feeling, with that ‘moment’ being the top news story for the weekend that also contained AEW’s “Forbidden Door” show. The goal feels, in essence, as though it has not changed from the Vince McMahon days, with the idea to present WWE and its outer ecosystem as wrestling, with any other company not close to its level. With AEW’s next set of TV deal negotiations upcoming, this is only likely to be on the increase over the next twenty four months.

Another example of not letting AEW’s presence exist without reprisal has come from the announcement that WWE will run watch parties at Madison Square Garden during “WrestleMania” weekend next year, whilst also running AAA and NXT shows in the adjacent MSG Theater across the two nights. Dave Meltzer reported that suspicions around the events are correct – that they are present to counter a suspected AEW event in New York City during that weekend. Whilst I am not a fan of AEW running on WWE’s premier weekend and believe they should focus their stadium efforts on their own “Revolution” show on another weekend in the spring, Tony Khan has hinted more towards it on each occasion he has been asked about the possibility.

WWE have not announced a weekend for the Saudi shows at this point, outside of April 2027, but will hope that it blocks out even the minute possibility of an approach for Madison Square Garden and ensures that even if AEW choose to run somewhere else within the tri-state area that it will not be able to dominate even in the local landscape on that particular weekend. The renovations to Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens are not expected to be fully completed until next summer, which will also see the opening of a new football stadium for New York FC.

The lawsuit filed by Janel Grant against WWE and Vince McMahon will be voluntarily dismissed with prejudice, following a filing by all parties this past Friday to the US District Court of Connecticut.

Acceptance by Judge Sarah F. Russell will move the case solely to arbitration, as dictated by the Non-Disclosure Agreement Grant signed back in January 2022. WWE and McMahon have centered their legal arguments in this case predominantly over it being in the wrong venue due to the agreement specifying that disputes have to be settled through the arbitration process. The case will now move behind closed doors, where the outcome may only become known if it is impactful enough to be present in TKO’s financial filings.

The lawsuit was filed in January 2024 after details of several Non-Disclosure Agreements, hush money payments and alleged misconduct were given to the Washington Post in July 2022. A member of wrestling media revealed Grant’s name on the same day, citing that it was well known in WWE. A criminal investigation into the payments and NDAs was launched in July 2023 but went dormant after the election of Donald Trump in November 2024. The suit held allegations of sexual assault, sex trafficking and coersion.

Grant has faced intense public scrutiny since filing the lawsuit two and a half years ago, posting this past week on her Instagram how it has left her struggling and barely able to leave her home. John Laurinaitis, who was originally named as a co-defendant in this case before reaching a confidential settlement with Grant in May 2025 alongside agreement to aid the plaintiff, has been announced for this week’s Wrestlecon in Minneapolis. The contrast between the two is quite striking.

© TNA

TNA

Slammiversary 2026

June 28th, 2026
Agganis Arena, Boston, USA
Wrestletix Attendance Estimate: 2,963
Watch On: TNA+ and Youtube

By Trish Speirs

TNA began their “Road to Bound for Glory” with “Slammiversary” from the Agganis Arena in Boston, in front of just short of 3,000 people. It was under half of the attendance of 7,018 for their top billed PPV in nearby Lowell, Massachusetts, last October. The company stated that they chose to run in the Boston area once again, after originally considering a return to the New York area, due to expected traffic in the tri-state area from the FIFA World Cup, whilst also making veiled shots towards AEW around venue blocking. The solution was, therefore, to run in another World Cup-adjacent host city. Bit of a head scratcher, that one.

The show also took place in the afternoon due to AEW’s “Forbidden Door” show also being booked on its traditional weekend at the end of June. Any supposed annoyance Silva had over the clash (which WWE will have known from the venue booking) was invalidated when NXT announced their own televised PLE for later the same night to go head-to-head with the AEW show. For those who were here for this one, though, they were treated to a largely competent show with a crowd that was enthusiastic for the most part.

The show opened with a tribute to Joe Doering, with the entire TNA roster out on the stage. Cody Deaner paid homage to the former TNA and All Japan wrestler who sadly lost his battle with brain cancer the same week. Doering was 44. The tribute was followed by the heavily nostalgia-driven opening video for the promotion which pushed the X Division and the Knockouts division as TNA’s standout achievements.

The first man out to the ring was Amazing Red. Commentary noted that this was Red’s first appearance in the promotion in 15 years, whilst also rewriting history a little to overplay his impact on TNA and the X Division, but this would end up making more sense when Frankie Kazarian announced during the post-match that they were inducting Red into the TNA Hall of Fame in October.

Amazing Red was there to compete in Ultimate X, a match where the competitors have to scale luminous yellow wires from the roof to grab the hanging X Division Title. Cedric Alexander entered as champion, having recently stopped Leon Slater from achieving a record-breaking reign (and that certainly was an eyebrow raiser). Slater would compete in this match as well and was the crowd favourite throughout. Frankie Kazarian, KC Navarro, the recently signed Fabian Aichner and Mr. Elegance completed the lineup.

The match started fast, with Navarro shining in early exchanges with Slater before various failed efforts to scamper along the wire (including Mr. Elegance going full fireman’s climb), and a mix of dives to the outside. The spots culminated in a double doomsday blockbuster off the turnbuckle from Slater, which had a pretty unique set-up and heavily popped the crowd.

The crowd were heavily behind Slater winning by this point in the match and only got louder as he and Red once again scaled the wires, with seemingly no one else in sight. Slater did manage to unhook the belt but it drooped down from his hand and was snatched by Cedric Alexander, who won the match by being stood with it in the ring. The idea and execution of this was not perfect; Slater ended up looking like he simply passed Alexander the belt rather than having it torn away from him, whilst also ending up looking pretty dumb. This wasn’t a standout match by any means, but it did make for a fun opener.

© TNA

Ultimate X was followed by what felt like a full on WWE special, where Elijah fought AJ Francis for the rights to his music, his name and his likeness. Guess this is the modern day equivalent to a shampoo commercial. That seemingly put them in a catch-22 when it came to Elijah’s entrance, though, where he used many of those things before Francis eventually told him to stop because it was all under his ownership. It is clearly a fine balance between doing things for the bit and ensuring the babyface in the match does not walk out to silence. The jumping knee from Elijah at the bell would probably have worked well on its own, honestly.

This was a bit of a plodding effort, but it had just enough big impact spots in order to keep the crowd with it. It also featured the second AJ Styles tribute spot in as many matches, where this time the heel attempted the Styles Clash, only to be cut off by the babyface. Weird.

The match didn’t take long to get to its closing stretch, beginning with Francis’ manager Expressions grabbing Elijah’s guitar, only to end up being pasted over the head with it himself. The music man survived a full on Styles Clash before hitting a destroyer after a rope walk for the three. He celebrated getting back all his intellectual property with a new theme and a new guitar case out of thin air, which contained a lovely, fairy light adorned guitar. If this match had to be on the card then the number two spot was the right one for it.

I’m not sure I can describe the match that followed as anything else but weird, as Rosemary, having raised tag partner Allie from the undead realm, took on The Elegance Brand for the Knockout Tag Titles. Heather and M By Elegance were introduced by the faction’s Concierge, who became the second manager in a row to use every cheap ‘your town sucks and your sports teams suck’ trick in the book in an effort to get the crowd behind the babyfaces. It really didn’t work on this occasion, though.

The crowd were at least vaguely interested in Rosemary but seemingly had little time at all for this match whenever Allie was on offense, with patches of boos coming through each time. This was the first match with long periods of no heat, and none of the tennis style screaming from any members of the Elegance Brand (both inside and outside the ring) were able to cover for it. I am not sure this was made any better either by the signature highspot for the match, a coast to coast, which was also a heel spot.

They eventually did get Rosemary back in the ring and there was some reaction to her cleaning house before the interference spots backfired on the heels, the Concierge got “poison” misted and a codebreaker from Allie led to a reverse DDT from Rosemary for the pin and the Tag Titles. The crowd reacted with polite applause. The in-ring work was OK, but it remained weird from beginning to end.

Next up was Mustafa Ali defending his TNA International belt against two mystery opponents. The heel champion deficit was explained by it forming part of the war between General Managers Daria Rae and Santino Marella, who both opted to add an unnamed opponent to the match. Ali arrived with an entrance embracing his belt, along with a flag parade for the entirety of the ramp and surrounding the ring. The first surprise entrant was former TNA World Champion Rich Swann, and he was followed by Uhaa Nation, who returned to his former name on the independents following his release from WWE. Nation got a strong reception from the crowd, and the match structure set out to make the most of it, with Uhaa disposing of Ali to the outside with a press over the top before opening exchanges with Swann also saw him get the majority of the offense.

Ali would eventually return to the ring after a couple more cut offs, as the trio set up the spot of the match, when Ali delivered a top rope Avalanche Styles Clash on Swann onto Nation’s back. This looked incredible, and made me even more annoyed at the Styles Clash spots in the opening matches, as this is the one that should have been protected. Ali survived a series of powerbombs from Nation before Swann got in some crisp-looking flying, culminating in a tornado DDT on Ali where he used the back of Uhaa to launch off. Ali was pretty much in survival mode at this point, collapsing to the mat after surviving a pin attempt post-frog splash from Swann.

Nation looked to be the one in best shape as the match entered its final part, with more powerbombs and suplexes to go around before he was distracted by Tasha Steelz on the apron, who pointed to further help for Ali arriving on the ramp in the form of Special Agent Zero. The diversion worked, as Ali caught Nation unawares to hit a tope onto Nation once he had reached the ramp. The next bit was pretty hilarious, as Zero was tasked with burying Nation with the ring steps on the outside in order to eliminate him from the finish but struggled, and instead built something more akin to a children’s play fort than something which would keep someone as powerful as Uhaa away from the ring. This got even more funny when TNA showed a replay of said ‘burial’.

Everyone just decided to treat it as a match ender for Nation, though, as the focus flipped to Ali and Swann in the ring for the finish, where Ali managed to catch Swann with a backslide into a London Bridge for the pin. This was a strong debut for Uhaa Nation, with TNA looking like a suitable landing spot for him in the first part of his post-WWE career. Mustafa Ali also continues to provide consistent value in his champion role; I would definitely not be in a rush to take the International belt away from him at this point.

© TNA

In the early stages of the Moose-Eddie Edwards match that followed I wondered how exactly they were going to execute the required brutality which would force their accompaniments to throw in the towel in this ‘No Surrender’ match as the action all felt pretty standard street fire fare. A steel chain around the knee for Edwards’ finisher – The Boston Knee Party – felt as hardcore as it would get at this point. This one accelerated quickly, though, as soon as Moose’s family, sitting at ringside, were brought into proceedings.

Moose found himself ziptied to the second rope, receiving a series of kendo stick lashings, with Moose’s accompaniment (JDC) considering throwing in the towel. Moose told him not to and JDC spit on Eddie to centre the attention of Edwards on himself rather than the tied-up former System member. It appeared to be too much for Moose’s wife, though, who crossed the barricade and made her way into the ring, ready to throw the towel. Edwards grabbed her by the hair, getting big heat from the crowd in what is also his hometown, especially after he threw her to the mat. Moose was irate as Edwards then threw Moose’s son into the ring and threatened to put the child through a table. The young man got the last laugh, though, with a low blow on Eddie before Moose roared out of the zip ties and hit Moose with a standard spear and then a weird-looking spear with the chain wrapped around his chest. He set Edwards up for a third spear through a table, but Edwards’ wife Alisha threw in the towel.

After all the heat and then release built with the family involvement in the match, the ending felt very sudden and less impactful than some of the things before it, but this made more sense with the post-match ending of Moose driving both Alisha and Eddie Edwards through the table at the same time, proving Alisha’s surrender to have been ultimately meaningless in protecting Eddie from that fate. Moose celebrated with JDC and his family in the ring to close it all out.

The excitement of the crowd at the end of the gimmick match did not carry over to the TNA Knockout Title match that followed however, as the grudge match between Lei Ying Lee and Xia Brookside struggled to get anything from the crowd. Some of this was down to both competitors feeling as though they were in the wrong roles in this match. Brookside had recently turned on former friend Lee for a shot at her first ever singles title but is also much smaller than the champion. It felt like a mismatch in the early going, as Lee beat her from pillar to post, both inside and outside the ring, before Brookside dodged a kick that ended up striking the ring post instead. This was the opening for Brookside to target the first sign of weakness in her opponent all match, following this up with a run of holds and strikes all going after the leg. Something was a bit off here, though, and the crowd either still didn’t believe in Brookside as a threat or just weren’t that interested. The most bemusing thing for me was the finish, after a second half of the match which had been focused on Lee’s knee was seemingly thrown out for an exposed turnbuckle spot into a Darkside DDT to give Xia the win. It felt very anticlimactic, to say the least.

What followed after this was TNA going back to a tried and tested formula, as they repeated having a four team ladder match for the TNA Tag Titles at “Slammiversary” for the second year in a row and, unsurprisingly, the match also came out with the same winner. Not sure whether this can be seen as praise or an indictment, but regardless, from the moment they entered the arena, The Hardys were the most ‘over’ act on the whole show, with only the reactions to Leon Slater in the show opener coming close. And they didn’t have to share anything in this match either, as they were the only babyface team out of the four (not sure you can do more telegraphing than that).

This also meant some big moves coming from the heel teams, with the Righteous’ Dutch hitting a Senton Atomico to everyone on the outside early on before John Skyler escaped being pushed from a ladder by turning his fall into a moonsault onto everyone on the floor. The heels didn’t work together to take out the match’s most experienced team either, instead turning on each other, and leaving a path open for Matt and Jeff. The Righteous took a detour in order to bring in the ladder from the Wicked Garden match they defeated the Hardys in back on June 4th before taking care of the System’s Brian Myers at the ladder top by shoving their toxic flower (named ‘Lily of the Valley’) into his mouth. Myers was able to push Vincent from the ladder, but the ‘poison’ got to him and he collapsed to the floor.

The Hardys then arrived back for the big finale, with the last exchanges coming down to The Great Hands and themselves after Dutch and Bear Bronson had been tossed from their ladders onto a table each on the floor. Matt and Jeff got the better of them, though, being able to stack both Skyler and Hotch onto a ladder bridge on the floor before Jeff Hardy launched himself at them with a wicked senton from the Wicked Garden ladder. The crowd went almost as nuts for Jeff removing his shirt as they did for the high risk move. Of all the things to happen on this night, it was very much clear that this was what they were here for. Ladder climbing was swiftly completed in the aftermath and the Hardys recovered the belts to become TNA Tag Champions for a fourth time. This was the kind of chaotic mess you would have expected coming in, and the crowd enjoyed every part of it.

© TNA

The show’s main event saw Mike Santana defend the TNA World Championship against Call Your Shot gauntlet winner Nic Nemeth. Santana had a promo earlier on the show which very much felt like a goodbye to TNA, and so it proved, as he dropped TNA’s top belt to Nemeth in just under fifteen minutes.

The two men had a tough task from the off, with Santana getting some anti-New York chants from the outset and also having to follow a feel-good plunder match with a standard wrestling one. They decided to spend the early part of the match outside the ring as they attempted to regain the crowd with some crowd-pleasing brawling before Ryan Nemeth was out only to get thrown out after no physicality. The referee, distracted by the younger Nemeth, allowed Nic to smash Santana with his Call Your Shot trophy, leaving the TNA World Champion busted open. There was then a nonsensical spot where Nemeth appeared to want Santana to be counted out, despite not being able to win the title that way, but it only goes to a count of nine.

Nemeth was fully in control at this point, working over the wound, using the ropes for chokes and laying on a series of submission attempts. Santana escaped a first sleeper attempt backing into the corner and then a second sleeper with a power out before countering the third effort to strike him from behind with the Rolling Buck Fifty for a two count. This took them into a series of counters which finally got the crowd to where they wanted them, and both wrestlers kicked out of pinfall attempts at the very last moment.

Santana attempted his Spin the Block finisher for a second time but was caught with strikes by Nemeth into the knee and the head. The champion showed all his fighting spirit by kicking out of the cover at one, but this was to prove a final act of defiance rather than a comeback, as his third attempt at his finisher hit but all he could do was collapse onto Nemeth in the aftermath. Nic had just a slight bit more energy left than his foe in order to hit the Danger Zone and make the pin in order to once more become TNA World Champion.

TNA’s “Slammiversary 2026” was a compact show which didn’t overstay its welcome, meaning that its low points passed relatively quickly; it was supported by a good crowd, and the match structures and entrances alike tried to get them involved as early on into each match as possible. It was also an event which relied heavily on nostalgia once more. However, for an event hastily thrown together amongst a seemingly revolving door of talent arrivals and departures, it was more than passable on the day, even if it didn’t give too much guidance as to where the promotion goes from here.

TNA News

Mike Santana has departed TNA Wrestling after his contract expired after “Slammiversary”. Santana had long been expected to depart TNA once his contract became due, so it was no surprise to see him debut in NXT. The 35-year old will now work under the name ‘Cruz Montana’ in WWE’s developmental territory and will compete for the NXT Championship at the end of August. The next major contract due up is Leon Slater in the fall.

This wasn’t to be the end of the departures over the past month, though, as a number of talent asked for and were granted their releases. Eric Young, who had left WWE following the return of Vince McMahon, is expected to return to Connecticut after being granted his release, whilst the team of Judas Icarus and Travis Williams (collectively known as Sinner and Saint) have also decided to move on. Myla Grace, who has been working with the company since last summer, opted out of her short term deal – and Steve Maclin, who ironically was involved in a storyline where he was fired earlier in the year, was given his release after expressing frustration with the pay structure and the creative having not improved since the promotion debuted on AMC. Both Grace and Maclin wished to keep these releases quiet, and were therefore surprised when it was publicly announced via press release.

Tessa Blanchard was effectively forced to pick between TNA and the AEW-aligned CMLL, and understandably chose from a personal and professional standpoint to stay with the Mexican promotion. Mara Sade, who is currently competing in the Women’s TV Title division, is also now out of contract. TNA announced her departure, as well of that of Jody Threat, in a press release yesterday. 

The talent moves have also corresponded with firings within the office, with Tommy Dreamer and Sami Callihan both let go from the company. Callihan worked for TNA as both a producer and in marketing and believed that he was being contacted about a creative role when he received the call in regards to his firing. He is now working as a producer in AEW on a trial basis, according to Fightful.

Dreamer, 55, had his departure announced via press release as by ‘mutual agreement’, but it was very apparent just hours later that he had been fired from his role leading creative. The former ECW wrestler had taken over as head of the department in early 2024, following the departure of Scott D’Amore. In recent months, a number of departing wrestlers have expressed their frustrations with the creative situation in the company, so his removal should not be seen as a major surprise. Hunter Johnston, known more under his ring moniker of Delirious, will ascend to lead the team, alongside Eric Tompkins, who was appointed head of production last year.

In the aftermath of his firing, and with him no longer holding a position of power which protects him, a number of independent performers came forward with allegations of inappropriate conduct, beginning with referee Dan Perch who alleges that Dreamer told him that he would have him blackballed from the industry. This led to indie wrestler Kennedi Copeland recalling how Dreamer insisted on having a ‘spanking spot’ rather than a cane spot because she was a woman, whilst Atlanta-based wrestler Dani Jordyn stated that she was pushed into doing a crotch grab spot that Dreamer insisted on in a match. Jordyn, when recalling the situation, said, “He didn’t care to ask. I did not want to do this, said how uncomfortable I was, but I’m just a woman, right.” AEW’s Carlie Bravo also recalled once being told by Dreamer that he could not hire him because “he didn’t know if he could market ‘cocky black guy’ to the world” despite him being talented.

Tommy Dreamer has not commented on any of these allegations and missed no time at all in his role as presenter for the WWE Radio show “Busted Open”. The program has also not addressed any of the issues at any point.

TNA ran a TNA World Title match between Jeff Hardy and Champion Nic Nemeth on Thursday night which has been taped for a future episode of TV, whilst advertisements presented it in a way where many fans believed it to be for Thursday’s live broadcast. The promotion also threw out the sort of publicity stunt we would have expected from them in past forms, by inviting Lebron James to their tapings. Unsurprisingly, James was never going to be present at the shows.

© MLW

MLW

News Round-Up

By Trish Speirs

Whilst it is slightly amusing that Major League Wrestling teased a new distribution deal (whilst essentially going dark for months) only for “Fusion” to be announced for distribution in previous homes Youtube and beIN Sports, the promotion had announced some additional deals with streaming outlets to compliment their original media distribution. The weekly show will also stream on the Veeps service, powered by Live Nation. MLW will also provide Veeps with four PPV events per year for the service, which offers both paid and free content. As you would expect with the company behind the venture, the main content on Veeps are live concerts. “Fusion” has also replaced AEW programming on New Japan World after the Jacksonville promotion opted to remove their content with the launch of the MyAEW service, which is also available in Japan.

The weekly TV has now caught up to the Charleston, South Carolina tapings in April, including the branded “Fantasticamania” show. The delay is creating some rather unique situations, such as Bishop Dyer appearing on the July 19th episode of “Fusion” post his return to WWE. MLW now has a gap in their TV taping schedule, with the next scheduled tapings back in Charleston on September 14th, meaning that the recent tapings in Queens, New York, and the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia being aired across the summer should lead to them being up to date by the time September comes around. Further tapings are scheduled for Philadelphia on October 3rd.

Panini have released a physical card series as part of their ongoing deal with the promotion entitled “Ring Royalty”. The hobby boxes are available through most major card outlets, with the most valuable cards being limited number Místico autographs.

US Independents

Raja Jackson, son of former UFC fighter Quinton ‘Rampage Jackson’, will serve 90 days jail time at the Los Angeles County jail following his August 2025 assault of independent wrestler Stuart Smith, who works under the moniker of Syko Stu. Jackson, 26, had agreed to a deal with Los Angeles County prosecutors back in May that would see him serve three months in jail followed by a two-year period of probation and also pay damages of $81,000 to Smith. Jackson did not speak at the court hearing.

Jackson was in attendance at a KnokX Pro Wrestling Event in Sun Valley, California, last summer, where an earlier incident with Smith and a beer can was a prelude to a vicious assault that was captured in full on a live stream. Smith had mistaken Jackson for a worker and had apologised for the spot before the show. The pair had agreed to a spot in the ring, where things got completely out of hand. Jackson had been riled up by viewers of his live stream throughout the course of the event, and was irate by the time of his scheduled run in, slamming Smith to the mat to the point he was knocked straight out. Jackson then punched Smith 20 times whilst he laid unconscious on the mat, causing the 45-year old to suffer a serious head injury and a facial fracture.

Smith told the court that “What happened affected me deeply and I do not minimize the seriousness of it. The injuries I suffered led to a long and difficult recovery that I am still trying to recover from, including treatment for a severe traumatic brain injury, a shattered maxilla and a bone graft procedure.” He stated that he is still suffering from the incident with reduced cognitive function and memory loss, which has impacted his ability to work over the past year. The victim does not hold ill will against his attacker, though, telling the court that “I hold no grudges against Mr. Jackson, people can make terrible decisions in difficult moments.”

Former Ring of Honor wrestler Erick Stevens has announced he will be stepping away from wrestling once more. The 44-year old had returned to the ring in summer 2025 after a previous three year absence. In a statement on X, Stevens wrote:

Stevens worked wXw’s 16 Carat Tournament back in early March as well as against Fuminori Abe at Josh Barnett’s “Bloodsport” event during “WrestleMania” week. His last appearance was for New Texas Pro on May 24th.

New York-based promotion House of Glory hosted both AEW and TNA Title defenses on their June 19th show in Chicago, Illinois, with Lio Rush successfully defending the RoH TV Title in a six-way, whilst TNA International Champion Mustafa Ali defeated Rich Swann. Current TNA World Champion Nic Nemeth lost a House of Glory Men’s World Title challenge to Charles Mason on the show as well.

19-year old Avery Jones made his debut in Royston, Georgia, for Squared Circle Action Wrestling. Jones defeated Ashton Martin in his first professional bout, with the pinfall counted by his father – WWE’s AJ Styles.

© AAA

AAA

Noche de Los Grandes

30 May 2026
Location: Arena Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico
Attendance: ca 12,500
Watch On: YouTube

Over a year into WWE’s incursion into the Mexican market via its purchase of AAA, “Noche de Los Grandes” feels like both a celebratory proof of concept and a crucial test as the promotion puts forward its first Mask vs Mask, “WrestleMania”-level main event. The question is simple: can this stitched-together amalgamation of lucha libre tradition, American imperialist glitz and AAA’s car-crash TV spirit finally stand on its own two feet and deliver an event capable of making the wider wrestling world sit up and take notice? Or, if (God forbid) you’re a TKO executive, can this event draw enough eyeballs to snag a lucrative television rights deal in the United States?

The promotion’s one-hour television/YouTube show has been an undoubted success story. It is an incredibly easy-to-watch hour that blends fast-paced action in the ring with wild and wilfully camp telenovela-style storylines. The war between the El Grandes has understandably grabbed the headlines, but it is not the promotion’s only success story. The ballad of Mini Vikingo was an absolute triumph as El Hijo del Vikingo put his 17-year-old superfan in hospital in what, at the time, felt like a way to get heat for Vikingo’s feud with Dominik Mysterio, but ultimately built to a mind-blowing match where the veteran star put over his mini-me in a star-making performance. Despite featuring matches that often feel like high-flying showcases, the show has legitimate flavour, be it La Catalina ruining Lady Flammer’s celebration, Dominik Mysterio establishing himself as a rock star, or Abismo Negro and El Fiscal fighting for their heritage.

The centrepiece of it all, however, has been the El Grandes. Ludwig Kaiser, Pete Dunne and especially the loose-hipped lothario Tyler Bate have been having a whale of a time playing Los Americanos and have become national treasures in the process. It turns out all those ‘international exclusive’ promos during “RAW” on Netflix, which garnered such muted reactions in American arenas, were striking a chord with viewers at home in Mexico. Ludwig, even when he was playing heel, had a fundamentally different approach from Chad Gable when playing the El Grande role. Chad presented himself as a parody of lucha libre. His character name was literally his coffee order and his non-Spanish-speaking presentation, which billed him as hailing from the Gulf of America, was designed as a crass MAGA-era troll job on the Mexican people designed to draw heat. Ludwig was the inverse; he worked hard to get booed in America, but he focused on speaking to “his people” in Spanish and stressing repeatedly that the United States had no culture and no beauty.

The Strange Road To Lucha de Apuesta: Apathy In America, Mayhem In Mexico

The funny thing is neither Chad Gable nor Ludwig Kaiser’s presentation of El Grande Americano actually worked. In the United States, on both “RAW” and “SmackDown”, they were both greeted with crickets and their matches, while technically excellent, were flaccid, heatless affairs wrestled in front of apathetic audiences. Unless Rey Mysterio was involved, American fans simply did not care – to the extent that Dragon Lee, who was getting great reactions teaming with AJ Styles and feuding with Gunther, found himself totally cooled off whenever he stood across from an El Grande. The one exception was in NXT, where Los Americanos were treated like heroes and were booked as babyfaces in a series of strong trios matches, suggesting WWE’s hardcore fans had adopted Ludwig as a favourite.

Still, if the El Grande feud was floundering stateside (not helped by Triple H’s copy-and-paste booking), the feud was flourishing in Mexico. Ludwig’s promos had turned him first into a beloved in-joke and then a full-blown national hero. His Spanish-language promos may have been designed as ironic rage bait for American audiences, but AAA’s fans had taken his words to heart; he was effectively articulating a love for their culture and he appeared to walk the walk. He spoke Spanish, he was dating the babyface announcer Andrea Bazarte, and he was diving headlong into the craziness of AAA’s distinctly non-traditional lucha libre. This is the point many critics often miss: AAA has never been an authentic presentation of lucha libre. It was supposed to be a punk rock alternative to CMLL and it turned into a lovably self-indulgent car crash over time. Its fans have always gravitated towards anti-heroes, irony and rebellion. The product has always been crass; it was aiming for The Replacements and ended up as the Beavis and Butt-Head of professional wrestling. So of course their fans were going to go crazy for the idea of the prim German rudo playing the role of a Mexican hero.

With fans already swelling behind Ludwig Kaiser, and with Chad Gable being treated as the promotion’s central antagonist from day one, it was simply a question of whether the angles could deliver – and boy did they. Starting with comedy, they slowly ramped up the intensity. Determined to prove that Chad Gable was a fraud who could not speak Spanish, El Grande hired Pimpinela Escarlata to go undercover as a roving reporter to catch Chad out. In a deliciously camp angle, Chad, under pressure from Pimpi’s questioning, would viciously attack Pimpi backstage, generating an ungodly amount of heat in the arena.

The feud would only intensify from there, building to one of the year’s greatest angles when, after a few weeks of Ludwig getting the upper hand, Chad would snap, dragging the blind comedian Alexis Arroyo over the guardrail and locking him in the ankle lock as he was being interviewed by Bazarte. Ludwig’s girlfriend would try to save Alexis, only for Chad to begin physically intimidating her, at which point Ludwig flew in and an absolutely feral brawl broke out, with Chad throwing truly reckless suplexes on the floor. From then on, the feud simply couldn’t fail. The heat was nuclear and even Ludwig’s arrest couldn’t derail his momentum. In fact, given Mexico’s famous outlaw spirit, it seemed to only enhance his credentials and, come the night of the show, he would lead a literal parade of fans to the arena and whip the crowd into a frenzy with the famous words of Chavela Vargas: “Los Mexicanos nacemos donde nos da la gana.”

The only question remained: with the scene so perfectly set, would WWE be able to do justice to, and deliver, an authentic ‘mask vs mask’ match?

© AAA

Mask vs Mask: Pomp, Circumstance, Closure and a Bloody Good Wrestling Match

The scene was set, the crowd were feverish, and it was time for the ring walks. The Original El Grande Americano made a long, slow, dramatic walk through the bowels of the arena. He was nominally being played to the ring by a mariachi band who remixed his theme to the tune of “Stars and Stripes Forever”, not that you could hear it beneath the deafening chorus of “culero” and “Shorty G” chants.

Chad’s entrance had incredible heat and included him literally fighting a fan as he tried to rip an El Grande mask away from a young man in the front row, but he couldn’t hope to compete with Ludwig’s grand arrival. A fresh and fully masked mariachi band took to the stage to lead the crowd in a rousing rendition of “Cielito Lindo” before Ludwig emerged looking immaculate in a tan leather jacket emblazoned with “Viva México”. Then, in the moment of the night, he burst through the curtain to a wall of noise and (oh no!) his cowboy hat slipped off – it was a truly fortuitous botch, because a quick-thinking band member picked up and popped the Stetson back on Ludwig’s head, giving the German the opportunity to live out his Clint Eastwood fantasies by dramatically adjusting his hat like an absolute bad-arse desperado. Ludwig was then mobbed as he made his way to the ring.

The Monterrey arena was a cauldron and at long last it was time for lucha libre, and the match started with a deliberate nod to history. Chad Gable stole a guitar from the mariachi band and thwacked Ludwig over the head with it in a direct recreation of the 21 September 1990 clash between Cien Caras and Rayo de Jalisco Jr. In terms of traditional lucha libre, that was the first and last moment that truly felt distinctly Mexican. Make no mistake, there were gallons of blood shed (mostly by Chad Gable) and some great mask-ripping moments, but this match felt more like a combination of a wild American soap-opera-heavy brawl mixed with the piss and vinegar of Psycho Clown vs Dr Wagner Jr. The majority of the major moves were, of course, European, as both men delivered a menagerie of suplexes, throws and one particularly gnarly inverted Angle Slam.
The match also mirrored the modern “Avengers Assemble” style layout that has come to define big blow-off matches in the wake of Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns II (which, for better or worse, is turning out to be one of the most influential matches of the modern era). Here, though, every moment of outside interference was foreshadowed months in advance and gave a rabid audience the closure they were looking for. The match was expertly structured to build from one great pop to the next. The first moment came when Rayo and Bravo sprinted to the ring to rescue El Grande after he was put through a table by the Creed Brothers. Tyler Bate would eventually dive from the second tier of the arena all the way down to the stage to wipe out the rudos.

Then, in a masterful Stunt Granny-esque farce, as Chad was watching Tyler’s dive from ringside he spotted Alexis Arroyo in the crowd and yes, in a wonderfully ridiculous “only in wrestling” moment, the blind man began beating Chad with his cane and soaking in the chants. That joyous pop was quickly drowned out, however, because when Chad returned to the ring he was greeted with a guitar shot from a mystery masked mariachi band member…who took off their mask to reveal none other than Pimpinela Escarlata! In an incredible moment that’s best captured on live fan-cam footage, Pimpi was shimmying to wild applause in the foreground as Ludwig hit his flying headbutt for an incredible nearfall behind her.

If there is one criticism, it’s that the producers of the match (Pete Dunne and Jeremy Borash) didn’t realise that no one is more popular than Pimpi in Mexico. Because Andrea Bazarte was next. Banned from AAA in the build-up, she bought a ticket and, in a shimmering gold dress, arrived just as Chad was beating El Grande to death with a bull rope to cheer on Ludwig and inspire his comeback. Make no mistake, she wasn’t as popular as Pimpi, but she rallied a crowd who were already going crazy and caused just enough of a distraction to allow Ludwig to recover.
From there on in, they couldn’t fail. Chad would survive a vicious deadfall on a chair and La Cavernaria before locking Ludwig in a series of ankle locks. The finish was picture perfect. Having already collapsed once when attempting to charge, Ludwig would lure Gable into an attack and, when Ludwig’s leg gave way, Chad flew like a rocket into the ring post. With both men bloodied and battered and supporting each other’s weight, Ludwig would run the ropes, tease collapsing, but gut through the pain to absolutely cream Gable with the running headbutt and claim his opponent’s mask.

Not all the credit should go to the theatrics; the work itself was genuinely excellent in places. Chad Gable was on an absolute mission from the match’s opening moments. The first major spot of the match saw Ludwig being overhead belly-to-belly suplexed onto the apron, where, in an insane moment, he monkey-flipped Chad high into the air so he could fly head first into the ring post. That sequence set the tone. Ludwig was going to hit his spots and play hero, but Chad Gable was going to push his body to the limit to steal the show.
Fittingly then, the post-match ceremony completed Chad’s babyface turn, with him admitting that he put on the mask to disrespect the luchadores he hated (in kayfabe), but now he had learned to respect them and respect their culture. The only down note was the break from tradition where Chad gave accurate information to the crowd, save for his name. He used the worked name “Gable” rather than “Betts”, not that any of the 12,500 in attendance seemed to care. He had just delivered the performance of his career at 40 years of age in front of a sold-out arena with his family present, in what has already gone down as a classic.

For Ludwig, he ended the night a hero, kissing Andrea in the centre of the ring as “Cielito Lindo” played once more. He is the people’s champion for the time being, but his next order of business is Dominik Mysterio and that might be problematic. Ludwig is now the straight babyface, facing off against the cool heel in Mysterio, who has been cheered heartily since first stepping foot in a AAA ring.

© AAA

Psycho Circus On The Verge Of Implosion Following Viking Raiders Defeat

This was undoubtedly the biggest disappointment on the card. Both teams are more than capable of delivering a wild and out-of-control car-crash brawl, but instead they combined for a disappointingly short and, at times, heatless “RAW” match. The Viking Raiders simply are not over as anything more than generic foreign heels and Pagano and Psycho Clown were in a strange mood. Psycho seemingly couldn’t be arsed to properly play babyface in peril, which led to a bizarrely inconsequential heat segment. Pagano was worse still, clearly forgetting everything they had planned the second he stepped foot in the ring. The result was some gloriously awkward staggering and lumbering around between random offensive spots. Psycho would eventually tag back in to deliver a legitimately excellent comeback with a slick ring-post suicida, Code Red and Psycho Driver on the big-bodied Ivar before the Pagano car crash continued. Pagano would forget his spot and Erik had to throw himself out of the ring to set up a tope.

However, this entire match existed for one reason, and that was to set up the eventual break-up of Pagano and Psycho. In the finishing sequence, Pagano would block Ivar’s lariat with a kick, which sent Ivar’s elbow crashing back into Psycho’s face. Moments later, Pagano would accidentally lariat Psycho, setting up the finish. This was all in service of the post-match angle that saw Psycho flip out on Pagano and literally tear his own face off in classic Psycho fashion. Pagano would walk out on his partner and, when the Raiders returned to beat down Psycho, Pagano would observe and then proudly and dismissively turn his head and walk away.

Parade of Interference Sees Vikingo Emerge As The New Latin American Champion

In years past Vikingo vs El Hijo del Dr Wagner Jr would have been an in-ring classic and, for around three minutes, we were given a glimpse of what they could achieve as they traded running shooting star presses and giant cannonballs respectively. However, this match wasn’t about the action in the ring; it was all about the drama and interference. Dorian Roldán would distract the referee, allowing Omos to knock Wagner off the top rope, setting up a great nearfall following Vikingo’s 450 splash and, from there on in, it was all gaga. Galeno (Wagner’s brother) ran in to brawl and batter Omos with a chair, foreshadowing a giant-vs-giant match they appear to be building for “TripleMania”. Then, with everyone’s eyes on the giants, Mini Vikingo flew in with a springboard dropkick to give Wagner the edge temporarily, but it wasn’t enough. Omos would recover to KO Wagner with a horrible-looking punch that set up Vikingo’s 630 splash. This wasn’t much of a match, but the crowd was living and dying with the elaborate twists and turns down the stretch.

© AAA

Rey Fénix Captures the Cruiserweight Title In Hot Opener

“Noche de los Grandes” will of course be remembered as a one-match show, but the television broadcast got off to a hot start thanks to Rey Fénix and Laredo Kid. It’s hard not to feel sorry for Laredo Kid. He was once the hottest young act in lucha libre, but he has been lapped by a generation of talent in CMLL and, despite his considerable talents, he lacks the slickness of Capitán Suicida or the flash of a Futuro. In many ways he is yesterday’s man. Nevertheless, he is talented and he was the perfect opponent for Rey Fénix, who has spent far too much time awkwardly battling the lumbering lower-card acts on “SmackDown”.

Rey was tight and flashy in his offence, hitting his spinning, rope-walk and rebound kicks to perfection, while Laredo embraced the rudo role. The finish centred on the exposed turnbuckle pad, with Kid using it as a distraction that allowed him to sneakily low-blow Fénix before hitting a Frog Splash for a nearfall. He’d be hoisted by his own petard soon enough when Rey dodged a corner splash and hit the Mexican Muscle Buster to claim the Cruiserweight Title.

Las Tóxicas Fall To Defeat, As La Catalina Looks Set To End Lady Flammer’s Forever Reign

La Catalina is a natural fit for AAA. She simply has too much personality and joie de vivre for CMLL’s depressing women’s scene. She is a vivacious and infectious babyface who is far better suited to a promotion that places a bigger emphasis on promos, angles and personalities. She was certainly a house of fire from the off in this fun six-woman tag, working noticeably snugger than La Hiedra as she mafia-kicked her into oblivion.

Las Tóxicas are shaky workers, but they are an effective unit, well versed in cheap heat tactics and with enough solid triple-team sequences to keep the crowd engaged throughout the heat. The early portion of the match built to Bayley’s hot tag and it was quite the sight to see the WWE star run through one of the promotion’s best hot-tag routines against a trio of workers who had absolutely no idea how to feed for an American-style comeback and had to be constantly directed.

After a few timing flubs, when the finish came it was really rather excellent. La Catalina hit a moonsault on Flammer, but the pinfall was broken up. After a brief ring-clearing brawl, the long-reigning champion Flammer and La Catalina were left to juke it out. Flammer went for a Bronco Buster against the bottom rope, but La Catalina moved, which caused Flammer to bounce off the bottom rope with her thighs, springing back up to her feet to eat a superkick and a Shining Wizard for the 1-2-3. The work in this match ranged from sloppy to rock solid, but it was a wonderfully entertaining undercard match that had the crowd hooked and cemented La Catalina as the woman most likely to end Flammer’s reign.

Lince Dorado Earns The No. 1 Contendership, But Mini Vikingo Stars

Lince Dorado, perhaps the least over act in this all-action opener, would walk away victorious as the new No. 1 contender for the Cruiserweight Title. The five-way started with a series of clever exchanges, with Raúl Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde, and Lince Dorado and Octagón Jr, squaring off respectively. There were some issues early. The LWO members both know each other’s moves inside out, leading to a stand-off, but as every move was reversed the crowd were denied the opportunity to see any spectacular moves actually land.
Still, if Raúl and Joaquin cancelled each other out, then Octagón and Lince struggled with rhythm and flow, overly telegraphing each spot and, while Octagón’s flying was spectacular, the action was never compelling.

That all changed when Mini Vikingo returned to the ring. The mini immediately gave the match its emotional anchor. He was a natural técnico with dazzling dives and elegant rope walks, and, best of all, watching a 17-year-old taking a beating always looks inherently gruesome. It’s rare that a move as flamboyant as Mendoza’s rope-walk torpedo dropkick draws shocked gasps of concern, but that’s the effect of working with Vikingo.

The final section of the match was a blitzkrieg of flashy offence, from double-jump torneos and shooting star presses to back-suplex face crushers and poisonranas. This was an undeniable success as an opener, but it did highlight AAA’s thin mid-card following years of AEW and WWE raids.

AAA News

AAA now enters a period of their calendar which will feature five named shows in the span of three months, having begun with “Verano de Escándalo” from Aguascalientes, Mexico, on Saturday night. The branded show will be aired across a three week period, with the first part having aired live. Top headlines from the show were La Hiedra and Laredo Kid picking up the AAA Mixed Tag Titles from Lola Vice and Mr. Iguana, and the new version of Los Perros del Mal defeated El Grande Americano and Dominik Mysterio after Mysterio abandoned his partner to a two-on-one deficit. The bigger surprise came after the WWE special “can they co-exist?” tag, when Mysterio joined with Dorian Roldán and Omos to seemingly become the new leader of the El Ojo faction.

Mysterio replaces El Hijo del Vikingo in the spot, who is expected to be out for nine months after having surgery on a torn ACL that occurred during match run-throughs at a set of NXT tapings. Vikingo had been expected to have an increased presence on WWE TV in the US over the summer, as AAA’s wrestling parent company attempts to secure a TV deal for its Mexican arm in the US. The injury has led to these plans being revised, as well as Vikingo dropping the AAA Latin American Championship, whose next holder will be determined through a tournament of three-way matches.

Mysterio aligning with Roldán’s group means that there are now two top heel groups in the promotion, and will give him a clear heel alignment in AAA ahead of an expected match with El Grande Americano over the summer. The bigger question over the Americano-Mysterio match is where it will take place, considering the “Triplemania” show in Las Vegas on September 11th may be more critical in regards of potentially securing a US TV offering, but AAA fans in Mexico will expect the biggest upcoming match in the promotion to be on the Mexico City version of the event from Arena CDMX on September 13th.

WWE are also already teasing a potential Mega Title match between Dominick and CM Punk for the Chicago “When Worlds Collide” show with NXT on September 26th just to make things feel even messier. Prior to the September events, AAA will run in Edinburg, Texas, on August 29th as part of a doubleheader with NXT, as part of WWE’s continued counter programming efforts against AEW PPVs. The September show is already at 6,900 tickets, tracking ahead of AEW’s “All Out” show at Hoffman Estates. 

WWE’s figure partner Mattel have announced that they will be producing a full line of AAA figures, which are expected to be released in the autumn of 2027. La Parka, Mr. Iguana, Psycho Clown and El Hijo del Vikingo were listed in the press release announcing the upcoming toy range for the first series.

© CMLL

CMLL

Round-up by David Hayter

5th June 2026: Villano III Jr & Soberano Jr Cement Their Rockstar Status On One Of The Best Cards Of 2026

Is Soberano Jr finally putting it all together? He already has the women of Mexico City in an absolute chokehold with his immaculate looks and bad boy charisma, but his wrestling has always left something to be desired. He’s spectacular, but clumsy. He has plenty of spring in his step, but struggles to put together compelling main event matches that build to a satisfying peak. However, his show-stealing clash with Komander suggests he’s finally on the right. Granted, it’s impossible to have a bad match with the AEW flyer, but Soberano more than held his own in this match. In fact, were I to nitpick, it’s Komander’s selling that leaves much to be desired, as there are moments where you can see his brain working as he suddenly remembers he’s supposed to be in pain and hesitates before launching into an oversell.

Still, Komander matches have never been about the music between the notes; he’s a show-stealer on offence and he brought all his creativity to this clash. In one brilliant sequence, Soberano springboarded over a 6-1-9 sweep attempt only to run full speed into a standing Spanish Fly, but, not to be outdone, Soberano would then evade Komander, hanging him up on the middle rope and instantly following with a crunching springboard moonsault. From there on in the pair went hell for leather, delivering a barrage of flying offence with the kind of genuine bite that had Arena México shaking. The nearfalls were truly insane, but after surviving a rope-walk shooting star press, Soberano Jr would murder Komander with a venomous brainbuster and Emerald Flowsion combination to secure the victory. This was phenomenal.

Los Villanos have let their success go to their heads in the most wonderful of ways; a week after Villano III Jr claimed the Copa Jr, he ditched the pink and was rocking red and black as he guitar-soloed his way down to ringside. Yes, that’s right, he now has a riotously camp superstar entrance. Unfortunately, being CMLL, the sound mixing is so bad I genuinely have no idea if he was actually playing or just miming.

On this big night for Los Villanos they teamed with Bárbaro Cavernario, who was in fine form, to take on Black Tiger, Sammy Guevara and The Beast Mortos. Sammy was very up and down in his performance, but seemed to be enjoying himself; his selfie spot proved a hit with fans. Mortos was oddly off his game, coming up a full rotation short on his tornillo suicida, leading to an ugly collision with Bárbaro on the outside. Bárbaro was by far and away the best worker in the match, but this was a great night for the Villanos; they were both truly “on”, nailing their flying and banishing the inconsistency that has blighted their careers to date. Villano III Jr would, of course, pick up the win, besting Mortos with a new cocksure and swaggering version of his headstand Arabian press. It’s clear the young Villano is fed up with waiting patiently for his spot; he’s following in Zandokan Jr’s footsteps and taking over his promotion with an outrageous level of charisma, best captured in his fiery post-match promo.

Unfortunately, in challenging Sammy and Mortos for the ROH Tag Team Titles, Los Villanos are guaranteed to lose yet another title challenge at a time when it is absolutely essential that they are visibly seen to be overcoming the stumbling blocks and stop-start pushes of years past.
A fantastic night of action would be topped off in style with a fabulous feel-good showdown between El Sky Team and Galeón Fantasma. Neón and Dorada were in fine fettle, making some of the most death-defying spots in wrestling look like child’s play. Not to be outdone, Místico clearly wanted to keep pace with his heirs apparent, as he had a noticeable spring in his step despite working through injury. Not only did Místico hit a giant plancha, but he even pulled off an absurd sky-high springboard tijeras on Difunto as he was standing atop his stablemates in a human pyramid. The biggest winner of this match was undoubtedly Furia, who showed that he is capable of being a main-event-level base, even if he clearly lacks the outlaw swagger of Difunto and Zandokan Jr. This was Místico’s best performance in months.
In writing the CMLL round-up for Social Suplex, I have routinely warned readers not to overlook the dazzling action that can be found in the opening matches on Arena México cards. Capitán Suicida, Futuro, Brillante Jr, El Hijo de Pantera and so many of the world’s best fliers can be found busting their arses in these bristling 10-minute blasts of free-flowing action. However, on occasion I fail to take my own advice.

When the card for 5th June came out, I’ll admit I saw an opening match of Espíritu Negro & Rey Cometa vs Cerebro Negro Jr & Infarto and rolled my eyes, assuming it would be a bit of a snoozer. In truth, there were some clumsy spots as these older and achy bodies ground into gear, but once they got going they produced a shockingly dynamic and creative back-and-forth battle.

CMLL doesn’t always get it right, however. Brillante Jr., Diamond, Oro Jr. vs El Coyote, Pólvora, Vaquero Jr. seemed to drag on for an improbably long time. Thankfully, El Coyote is starting to get over huge as a rudo (with the director finding plenty of his masks in the stands), so the match had good heat, but it was only the final few moments of the deciding fall that offered any real flair. Oro Jr was showcased extensively, running wild on all three rudos, but he doesn’t have the poise or the balance to pull off his springboard or rope-walk spots convincingly. Brillante Jr would clean things up and pick up the victory with a Starship Pain, but Diamond and Oro Jr will definitely shine under the Friday night lights.

Lady Frost is quickly making her name for herself in CMLL with her wild inverted tornillo dives and flashy offence and, despite some shaky fundamentals, was put over Garra Negra strong in typically sloppy women’s trios action.

© CMLL

6 June 2026: Dire Sound Issues Ruin Komander & Mortos’ Saturday Night Showcase

Fury Boy was one of the breakout stars of the 2025 Escuelas tournament. Sadly, that class seemed cursed following the event, with a series of injuries and botches blighting their development. Tonight at Arena Coliseo he reasserted his credentials as one of the next great stars of lucha libre. While Blue Shark, Kamelot and Rey Espartano were going through the motions of a solid opener, Fury Boy was displaying a level of slick fluidity that singles him out as a future Friday night star. Unfortunately, large chunks of this match were missing from CMLL’s official recording, including the finish.

When the feed returned, the sound was horrible even by CMLL’s usually pitiful standards, with the commentators in one channel and the arena noise sounding like it was recorded underwater. Which is a shame, because El Hijo de Pantera and Pantera Jr always put on a hell of a show. Disturbio did his best to kill the vibe with his slow-motion, interminable heat and camp crowd work, but whenever Robin was allowed to mix it up with a técnico the match picked up. The Panteras’ eventual comeback was spectacular, with stereo tope con hilos paving the way for Pantera Jr to secure the 2-1 victory with a moonsault press.

Elsewhere on the card, Blue Panther Jr and Dark Panther struggled through two tedious falls against Crixus & Guerrero Maya Jr before coming to life for a chaotic car-crash final fall. In between losing his train of thought on a series of spots and nearly crashing and burning after catching his feet on a dive, Blue Panther Jr did hit an insane release top-rope overhead belly-to-belly suplex that sent the two rudos crashing into one another. This bowling-shoe ugly match was put out of its misery when Panther Jr hit an ugly flying elbow.

After a really rather wretched women’s match, Último Guerrero defeated Beast Mortos in a very well-worked, if frustratingly slow-paced, match that didn’t veer far from Último’s trusty formula while still delivering plenty of meaty action. The finish came when Último kicked out of a corkscrew splash and hit the super reverse suplex to secure the pinfall. Komander & Templario stole the show with an excellent all-action tag battle with Villano III Jr & Ángel de Oro. The big story here was how comfortable, composed and, at times, graceful Villano III Jr looked when trading kips and flips with Komander. Even in defeat, this was Los Villanos’ most complete performance to date. It’s a testament to how popular Komander is in CMLL that the crowd, who dutifully cheered Villano, were happy to boo the young rudo against AEW’s premier flyer. Templario would pick up the win here with the Super Castillo.

8th June 2026: Komander, Neón & Xelhua Break AEW’s Unwritten Rules In Puebla as Onix Debuts

Onix made his CMLL debut in a lightning match against the dependable, if unspectacular, El Perverso. The debutant didn’t tear up any trees and isn’t blessed with a distinct look, but he did work hard and slickly enough to win over a rowdy, late-arriving crowd in Puebla. Onix already has a smooth reverse Victory Roll and he’s not afraid to bump, taking a vertical suplex on the hard arena floor. Onix will likely struggle to stand out, as while he has a diverse range of offence, he doesn’t have anything truly distinct in his arsenal and he lacks the ring speed and crispness of the best luchadores. Nevertheless, this was a good debut that he won with a sit-out pop-up powerbomb.

Later in the card we were treated to a CMLL special, a nominal rudo-rudo clash between Los Calaveras and Los Villanos, two of the popular acts in the promotion, neither of which should be losing on Puebla shows, least of all to each other. This match was rough around the edges and all the better for it, as it proved perversely enjoyable having no veteran team on hand to ensure the action remained slick and controlled. Instead, this was the male fans’ favourite young bad guys (Los Villanos) against the women of Mexico’s favourite young heart-throbs. On this night it was Los Calaveras who came from behind to win 2-1; first, with a preposterous multi-directional double standing surfboard, then finishing their opponents off with simultaneous Lionsaults.

Mortos and Difunto upped the ante, showing the young pretenders how to deliver heavy-handed offence alongside some impressive flashes of flying in their lightning match. Mortos was put over strong here, surviving Difunto’s rope-walk basement dropkick before spearing Difunto out of mid-air and murdering him with a flurry of unanswered power-based offence culminating in a discus lariat.

The ring announcer then introduced the main-event trios match, with Yutani, Bárbaro Cavernario & Zandokan Jr going one fall to a finish against the dream team of Xelhua, Komander & Neón. Except the wrestlers had other ideas, deciding instead to wrestle a classic best-of-three-falls match. This was particularly notable as the edict had been that matches featuring AEW would be one fall. Putting that quirk to one side, the trios engaged in a superb main event. Yutani and Zandokan clearly love the Puebla crowd and derive great joy from winding them up as Bárbaro busied himself bumping like a madman for the técnicos.

Neón and Xelhua are a fabulous team. Neón is all flair and evasion tactics, luring his raging bull opponents into Xelhua’s beautiful backbreakers. The técnico team would grab the 1-0 lead with a pair of technical pins, only for the rudos to even the score via a running senton from Bárbaro. At this point, the match simply couldn’t fail. Zandokan was an absolute rockstar, with half the audience seemingly wearing his mask, but that didn’t stop Neón and Komander from being heartily cheered. Yutani and Zandokan are experts at being outrageously camp and entertaining without giving the crowd anything heroic to cheer in the ring. The action came thick and fast down the stretch, culminating in the brilliant visual of Bárbaro and Neón slapping giant clouds of sweat off each other’s chests as they went mano e mano. However, it was Komander who would yet again come out on top after landing a gorgeous rope-walk shooting star splash on Yutani.

To new CMLL viewers, I strongly recommend watching one of the loaded Arena Puebla shows. You often get treated to a mix of new characters and top stars in heated matches with a good effort level up and down the card.

© CMLL

9th June 2026: Edgar Ruins The Main Event and Angelito Goes Rudo

Don’t watch this show, the best match on the card was ruined as Edgar (CMLL’s lovable but hapless lead referee) blew another call, this time counting three as Volador kicked out at the 14-minute mark of the night’s main event. This isn’t the first time this has happened and it certainly won’t be the last. However, the more interesting story is that CMLL have actually kick-started a storyline in their minis division. To lay my cards on the table, I tend to skip matches in the minis division. They are fun, often well worked, but the complaint is typically that nothing really happens and nothing really changes – that was, until today.

Kagilua and Angelito could not get on the same page at all in this match, with Kagilua starting the match by booting his partner out of a submission hold. Still, after that early spot the match appeared to settle down, with the rudo trio of Mercurio, Minos I & II putting the boots to the plucky Angelito. Poor Pequeño Magía found himself stuck in the middle as he forlornly attempted to make a comeback on all three rudos while Kagilua was busy accidentally kneeing Angelito in the head. The tension would come to a head with Angelito hitting an errant slingshot senton on Kagilua, leading to a shoving match that allowed the rudos to secure the triple submission.

Post-match, in a confusing angle, Kagilua and Magía would put the boots to Angelito, only for the rudo trio to make the save, at which point Angelito begged off and then joined the rudos to a chorus of boos. Make no mistake, this match featured some great wrestling and it was great to see a big angle in this division, but it’s also a bizarre choice to turn Angelito rudo, considering he was the most dynamic of the técnicos.

12th June 2026: Baffling Booking Sees Los Villanos Lose (Again) On Otherwise Excellent Friday Night Card

Sammy Guevara and The Beast Mortos couldn’t have been worse. It’s not their fault, of course; they just happened to be on tour in CMLL at the exact moment when Villano III Jr was riding high, having won the Copa Jr. So, of course, despite having Los Calaveras as well as a host of other young stars that could have been fed to the ROH Champions, CMLL willingly decided to hand Los Villanos yet another big loss. This booking decision would be ill-advised in any circumstance, but it’s particularly painful when Los Villanos are so beloved, yet blighted by a reputation for losing the big one as a tag team.

Thankfully, while Los Villanos couldn’t control what goes on in the booker’s office, they can, of course, dictate each and every spot in the ring. On this night both teams were in fine fettle. Los Villanos seemed to enjoy the opportunity to float and flip across Mortos’ broad shoulders, and Mortos certainly relished having two ultra-popular bodies to bump for his power-based offence. There were some contrived and sloppy moments, but even the silliest spots proved enjoyable, particularly when, after some considerable effort, Los Villanos got Sammy up into a double military press and teased that they would throw Sammy into whichever part of the crowd cheered the loudest, before eventually lawn-darting him at Mortos instead.

The finishing stretch was frankly preposterous, but incredibly heated as the team blitzed out every high spot in their arsenal before Mortos managed to avoid the Arabian press and land the Spiral Tap to retain the ROH World Tag Team Titles.
The main event kicked off a fortnight celebrating Tiger Mask’s retirement as he teamed with Komander & Neón to defeat Bárbaro Cavernario, Black Tiger & Último Guerrero. There’s no doubt that affording a legend such respect is a classy move on CMLL’s part, but the ultimate result is main-event trios matches that, while entertaining, fall below the usual Friday night standards. The good news, at least, is that the crowd seemed to really get into the Tiger Mask vs Black Tiger sequences, but whether Black Tiger gets over in the long run remains to be seen.

Titán and Yutani are a combination that simply cannot fail, even within the limiting constraints of the ‘lightning’ match. This concept remains an awkward addition to CMLL. The workers do not treat these matches like ‘high speed’ matches in STARDOM; they are not blitzkrieg sprints. Instead, they tend to be five minutes of standard action with a main-event-level finishing sequence snuck in before the time expires. That said, everything Yutani and Titán produced in this match was picture perfect, which is no surprise as Titán might be the most well-rounded wrestler in the business today. Titán would work this heavily nationalistic crowd into a frenzy before submitting Yutani with the bridging Sharpshooter.

Persephone made a victorious return after being “blinded” and written off TV for the best part of a month. Here she teamed with Olympia & Kyra against La Jarochita, Lluvia & Thunder Rosa in a match that was all the better for being kept simple and focusing on a handful of standout spots. Persephone picked up the win by cutting off La Jarochita’s dive with a spear.
Los Viajeros del Espacio would come out on top in high-flying trios action against La Fuerza Poblana, but note to CMLL: you have a raft of new fans watching live because Mexico is hosting the World Cup, so how about you don’t have five out of the six wrestlers in the match wearing blue and white? Futuro smartly wore purple and at least gave himself a fighting chance of winning over some new fans. In spite of the awkward clash of colours, both teams did themselves proud with top-tier innovative undercard action, blending package shoulder breakers and overhead belly-to-belly suplexes with insane monkey-flip-assisted tope con hilos and Spanish Flies that had Arena México rocking. The only let-down was the finish, which saw Valiente Jr hit with a flat-feeling Code Red.

13th June 2026: Tech Issues Blight Brilliant Ángel de Oro & Komander Clash

Ángel de Oro remains one of CMLL’s stealth MVPs and he brought his A-game when he took on Komander in front of a rowdy Saturday night crowd.

Unfortunately, the recording of the live event appears to have been corrupted with yet another abysmal muffled sound mix and slowdown in the video. Still, you don’t need perfect sound to appreciate the sight of Ángel de Oro giving Komander a running powerbomb on the floor, or Komander feigning a loss of balance to lure Ángel into a flurry of preposterously intricate springboard offence.

The CMLL hardcores have clearly caught on to Ángel de Oro. After years of greeting him with the droning boos customary for a rudo, they’ve now started giving him the Último Guerrero treatment. His offence was heartily cheered and when he hit a tope suicida the arena came unglued and fans leapt to their feet to high-five their hero. Ángel was alive to this unexpected reaction and started playing to the crowd as the match progressed. Still, it was all in vain. Komander would fight free from the seated surfboard and rip through his rope-walking comeback to knock off Ángel.

© CMLL

14th June 2026: Baffling Copa Dinastía Semi-Finals and Short But Sweet Komander/Suicida Clash Make For A Newsworthy Sunday Night

CMLL simply crammed too much into this card for its own good. The result was that one of the most anticipated matches of Komander’s CMLL tour, his clash with the phenomenal Capitán Suicida, had to take place within the confines of a lightning match. Speaking of lightning matches, Thunder Rosa and Reyna Isis managed to sleepwalk through a nine-minute slow-motion clunker that culminated in a tame-looking torpedo dropkick finish. The Capitán would not repeat their mistakes as he uncorked an insane free-form inverted tijeras, a tornillo, a Swanton and a leg-captured back suplex within the first two minutes – it’s good to know someone got the lightning match memo. Not to be outdone, Komander immediately dipped into his absurdly deep springboard arsenal. The pair certainly made the most of their nine minutes with a barrage of state-of-the-art action, but they had no time to tell a story or really build up any dramatic stakes. Komander would kick out of Suicida’s inverted twisting senton and walk out victorious after a mind-blowing and truly vicious combination of rope-walk offence. CMLL simply must deliver a rematch without the burden of a time limit.

Copa Dinastía Herederas got underway in truly bewildering fashion, with four cybernetic-esque semi-final matches designed to produce two finalists who will go on to compete head-to-head in the final. The rules this time out were that the winners were the first two workers to secure pinfalls or submissions, which is the inverse of the usual rules where the last two workers standing advance.

The women’s semi-final was something of a revelation. The match wasn’t remotely fluid and had some terribly soft-looking sequences, but the women really did bust their arses by setting up a parade of impressive early dives. Tessa Blanchard was the first to advance as she showcased a level of dynamism and intensity surely lacking among CMLL’s luchadoras as she uncorked a parade of Ace Crushers. The match slowed down considerably after Tessa sauntered off and mercifully ended when Lluvia yanked India Sioux off the top rope into a sit-out slam to reach the final.

The ‘old boys’ semi-final was endearingly ugly as Blue Panther ran wild with lariats and Valiente nearly killed himself with a tope suicida in the opening moments. Felino and Pantera seemed comfortable enough flying from the top rope, but genuinely struggled to execute their tilt-a-whirls. Euforia was the anchor of the match, doing a tremendous job of drawing heat with just big boots and stomps en route to securing his place in the final via a stolen pin. Blue Panther and Valiente worked the hardest and seemed determined to turn the clock back – and it was Valiente who was rewarded with a place in the final thanks to a pop-up powerbomb on Pantera.

The longest match of the night was the Hermanos semi-final and featured some excellent action as Los Villanos squared off with Los Guerreros, while Hijo del Pantera went toe-to-toe with Los Hermanos Chávez. Mercifully, CMLL resisted the temptation to put the veteran teams over and instead went with the younger, hotter fliers. Villano III Jr and Último Guerrero displayed fabulous chemistry and that will be a must-see singles match if it ever gets booked. The young Panteras were brilliantly mixing it up with the tag champions and were put over decisively, advancing to the final at the 12-minute mark. Los Villanos had a longer road, coming from behind and surviving all of Los Guerreros’ and Los Hermanos Chávez’s best double teams before coming storming back with stereo moonsaults to advance. This was excellently plotted out to make stars of the younger generation. However, CMLL often makes the right calls on Sunday night, only for the new stars to lose decisively on Friday.

The men’s semi-final had a wonderfully roughneck energy as it erupted into a brawl around ringside before Averno returned to the ring to rip at Máscara Dorada’s mask. Unlike the previous semi-finals that showcased certain key match-ups, the men’s match played out as a glorified trios match with El Cobarde, Valiente Jr and Máscara Dorada coming together to fight off Volador Jr, Averno and Zandokan Jr. Valiente Jr had the most eye-catching offence on display, in large part because several of his sequences went wrong, but he composed himself and (with a helping hand from Zandokan Jr) got back on track to finish each sequence with a flourish.

There were brief glimpses of the magic Zandokan and Dorada can produce together, calling back to last year’s classic encounter, but the focus here was on wild non-stop action and triple nearfall sequences. Zandokan spent most of the match taking generous pratfalls for the técnicos before he masterfully captured Valiente Jr in mid-moonsault before hurling him up into a beautiful sit-out powerbomb to secure his place in the final.

With one spot left in the final, it was time to sprint. With a parade of finishers in full swing, Averno arrived on the scene for a masterclass in rudo trolling. With the entire arena bellowing “Dorada”, Máscara hit a 450 on Volador Jr for a great nearfall, then destroyed Cobarde with an overhead belly-to-belly into the turnbuckle and followed it up with a Shooting Star Press to the back. Rather than simply getting the pin, Dorada played to the crowd and signalled for a 450, which allowed Averno to boot Dorada out of the ring and pick up the easy pinfall on Cobarde, who was soundly defeated at that point.

15th June 2026: Rina Makes A Winning Debut, While Komander Does A Strange Job

Rina is one of the best young wrestlers in the world and is already a bona fide superstar back in Japan. No one comes from STARDOM to CMLL to learn; it’s more of an opportunity to embrace a new culture and enjoy some lively crowds. Unfortunately, Rina isn’t exactly loving life in Mexico (according to her blog in Shupro). She hates the hard rings, doesn’t like that cards can just randomly change at the last moment, can’t stand the idea of toilets with no seats, and Mexican food has given her diarrhoea. Thankfully, she had a better time in the ring working alongside Candela, who was in good form and stole the show. Tabata remained slow and unimpressive, but avoided any obvious errors, and Kira was largely on form with her flying, even if the rest of her work left a lot to be desired. Rina would win with the Pink Devil (Gory Bomb) in a better-than-usual CMLL women’s match, albeit one that largely overstayed its welcome.

CMLL booking has been brilliant in recent years as the promotion continues to make new stars at an impressive clip, but it is also truly baffling. Case in point, Komander, like most AEW talent, is booked like a terminator running through the promotion in a dazzling run of main events. So when it’s finally time to put someone over, who does CMLL select? None other than T-shirt Volador Jr working at half speed in a solid, but unspectacular, match in Puebla. Go figure. At least the finish was the highlight of the match: Volador Jr evaded the rope-walk shooting star and immediately caught Komander with the Mexican Destroyer.

The Tiger Mask retirement tour rolled on with another trios main event. As would quickly become a theme, the match was good, but not great, with much of the action dedicated to mask-ripping and crowd work rather than actually wrestling.

16th June 2026: Pendulo’s Got Something, But Doesn’t Get It, And The Minis Show Out

Pendulo has clearly caught the eye of CMLL management. Despite a host of hit-and-miss performances, he continues to be booked and given big opportunities. Similarly, his opponent in tonight’s lightning match, Kamelot, has also started to regularly feature on CMLL’s big shows. Unfortunately, while both men are clearly talented, they cannot seem to tie everything together into a satisfying whole. Pendulo is particularly frustrating, as he is athletically gifted, but for every move he nails to perfection, there will be two or three sloppy sequences. Kamelot, for his part, was having a nightmare, openly missing moves and even getting hung upside down when attempting a feint or a missed dive (I’m still not exactly sure). The point here is not to ridicule the two men; lucha libre is incredibly difficult and their struggles are a reminder of just how spectacular the Neóns and Máscara Doradas of this world truly are. And, to be fair, in between all the stumbles and bumbles Pendulo did hit a sky-high and spectacular inverted springboard tope. Kamelot would win by submission with a straitjacket stretch where he trapped Pendulo’s arms between his legs and lifted him in a squat.

Angelito’s rudo turn is now in full swing and I, for one, am here for it. It’s great to have a heated storyline in the minis division. Angelito, Mercurio & Minos I & II won in two straight falls here, which bizarrely set up a title match for Kagilua after Angelito stole a victory with his feet on the ropes. The action in the second fall was excellent.

With a crowd packed full of football fans, this was a perfect opportunity for an undercard match to whip up and wow an unfamiliar crowd. Oro Jr, Diamond and Brillante Jr. took up the mantle and it was clear from the opening bell that they were determined they were here to blow the Colombian tourists’ minds. Brillante Jr proved ungodly slick, Oro Jr put on an armdrag masterclass, and Diamond simply sprinted at a million miles an hour, remarkably landing all his free-form tijeras with ease. Credit too goes to Cobarde, Guerrero Maya Jr and Raider, who were charismatic and ultra-stable bases who allowed their opponents to operate at a frightening pace. Raider deserves to be singled out for praise. He hit a stunning running powerbomb from the ramp to the ring and followed it with an Avalanche JP Coaster to tie the contest up at 1-1. The técnicos would eventually come out on top in this excellent encounter when Brillante Jr countered an avalanche Alabama Slam into a Frankensteiner.

The card rounded off with a typically frustrating victory for Los Dragons, a trio who are built in the image of their leader, Dragon Rojo Jr, mixing flashes of incredible athleticism with soft, sloppy execution and consistent mishaps. Esfinge & Komander would pick up the win over The Beast Mortos & Volador Jr in a perfectly serviceable main event.

© CMLL

19th June 2026: An Overstuffed “Fantasticamania” Peaks Early

Fantasticamania was a strange proposition this year, but also a very important show for CMLL as it was their first show to air on MyAEW with English commentary. The show that they decided to put on for an expanded audience was neither an authentic edition of CMLL’s product nor an international supershow. Instead, it sat awkwardly in between the two approaches. The biggest disappointments came in the double main events. Tiger Mask’s retirement tour delivered more of the same with a pleasant and enjoyable match that most viewers will have forgotten the moment the técnicos secured victory. It was essentially an old-timers’ match that didn’t show off either the magic of Místico or the incredible athleticism of their modern product.

The semi-main event proved even more frustrating. Hechicero & Konosuke Takeshita teamed together despite the fact that Takeshita had turned babyface and abandoned the Don Callis Family. The CMLL fans didn’t know about this or care about this infighting, but they were forced to endure an array of bickering teammate spots. It would have been far better to simply book Takeshita in a straight match and let him tear it up. Los Guerreros would come out on top, but this match did nothing for CMLL and didn’t really make much sense for AEW fans either.

Thankfully, the action on the undercard was far better. Los Viajeros del Espacio simply cannot fail on a Friday night and they had Arena México shaking as Yutani, Shoma Kato and Okumura happily took on the hard-hitting base role. Shoma Kato was trusted to work the final stretch and looked good as Brillante Jr recovered from a Snap Dragon to pick up the win with a crafty Code Red.

India Sioux successfully defended her CMLL Japan Women’s Championship against Rina. This was, of course, a styles clash, but Rina has already learned to keep it simple and dedicate most of her time to working the crowd to draw heat. The result is a match that couldn’t hope to compare with her show-stealing STARDOM matches, but was well above average for a CMLL women’s match. After Rina escaped La Cavernaria with an eye rake, the pair would exchange some decent nearfalls with the crowd biting on Rina’s flying double knees and Pink Devil. Unfortunately, while India is one of CMLL’s better workers on offence, you could literally see Rina dragging her into position on multiple occasions. To her credit, India got through the match and the crowd were with her when she eventually hit the Wing Clipper to retain.

Templario & El Sky Team (Neón & Máscara Dorada) effortlessly stole the show against the fantastic rudo trio of Robbie X, Titán & Taiji Ishimori. Robbie X has been having the absolute time of his life since joining NJPW and he was clearly in the mood to show out alongside the world’s finest flyer. The veteran Scot more than held up his end as he went toe-to-toe and dive-for-dive with Neón. He even got to experience the full-throated vitriol of Arena México when he pump-kicked Kemalito into next week. This was something of an unsung heroes’ match, with Ishimori and Templario perfectly mirroring one another. Both men suffered nasty injuries and had to spend an entire year looking like shadows of their former selves – but just when it appeared the wrestling world had written them off, they both simultaneously re-found their finest form on either side of the Pacific Ocean. Titán never disappoints and he was a marvel here working with both Neón and Dorada. This brilliant match climaxed with Neón hitting his double jump moonsault and Dorada following up with a Shooting Star Press.

The other match worth going out of your way to see was ELP’s victory over Bárbaro Cavernario. Unfortunately, despite being one of the best workers on the planet, Bárbaro is always the one sacrificed to put over the mid-ranking foreign stars. Phantasmo is a very good worker in his own right, but you can’t help but feel that Bárbaro’s caveman gimmick ensures he’s perennially popular and therefore tempting for bookers to beat repeatedly. Bárbaro was afforded a small layer of protection as the referee was briefly bumped, allowing ELP to hit the dick punch and Greetings from Camwood Park to secure the 1-2-3.

20th June 2026: Rina Delivers An Excellent Triple Threat; Los Villanos Lose (Again)

Rina returned to winning ways in a surprisingly strong triple threat match with Tabata and Candela. Tabata appears to have developed from appalling to merely bad, with flashes of promise. CMLL is clearly desperate for Tabata to figure it out, as while she has been pulled from rotation on multiple occasions, they have routinely sent her to STARDOM to develop. It’s easy to see why; Tabata is drop-dead gorgeous and should be a star if she ups her game. To her credit, this was her best match in a long, long time. After a slow and soft start, Tabata made a fantastic comeback, including a great tilt-a-whirl backbreaker and super reverse suplex that sent Rina crashing into Candela.

Rina was the glue here, holding together the match and ensuring she was always in place for her opponents’ offence. These are the fundamental skills that are sorely lacking from CMLL’s women’s division. Candela was her usual hit-and-miss self, but today she had her act together, landing the spectacular dives that the Arena Coliseo crowd expected to see. Rina would win by hitting the flying double knees on Tabata and then lifting Candela up for Pink Devil and dropping her lifeless body onto Tabata. This was the best CMLL women’s match in a long time.

As for the rest of the card, it managed to outshine much of Fantasticamania. Arkallis, Rayo Metálico & Stigma were busy wowing the crowd with their triplicate dives when it seemed that the rudos got the signal to go home, as the fun was abruptly ended at the 15-minute mark when La Ola Negra picked up the win with a Mexican Destroyer out of pretty much nowhere.

In yet another sign that CMLL management just doesn’t take Los Villanos seriously, they found themselves on the losing end yet again, this time against the visiting Unbound Company. Teaming with Bárbaro Cavernario, Los Villanos were back to their inconsistent ways, with Hijo del Villano III slipping and tripping on a handful of spots, but the Coliseo crowd still adored them. Robbie X wrestled the match as an underdog técnico, but the crowd were simply rabid for the rudos, gleefully cheering along with every cheap heat tactic. After some strong back-and-forth action, Titán would isolate Hijo del Villano and pick him off with the flying double foot stomp.

Soberano Jr & Templario would come out on top in the hot boy special main event, as the crowd lost their minds for Soberano’s antics. One particularly lucky lady was very pleased to see one of Yutani’s dives send the Latin Lothario crashing onto her lap. In a wonderfully absurd sequence, Templario and Soberano took turns ramming Yutani and ELP crotch first into the ring post, and in between each posting Soberano would invite a different woman to come up to ringside to kiss his biceps. The action in this match was compelling and expertly executed, but this was all about aura farming, particularly when Soberano and Yutani finally squared off and took turns trying to out-slimeball one another before exchanging crisp chops. It’s a credit to the workers that after milking the crowd for heat for so long, they still managed to peak the match perfectly as they ripped through the gears to deliver some fantastic nearfalls. Yutani and ELP would land a Frog Splash and Thunder Kiss combo only for Templario to dive in and make the save at the very last moment, which allowed Soberano enough time to recover and hit a gorgeous tornillo to send the (female) fans home happy.

21st June 2026: The Copa Dinastía Wraps Up In Front Of A Big Father’s Day Crowd

Rina wrapped up her excursion with a win over Garra Negra in an entertaining, albeit sloppy, lightning match. Garra Negra has a great look and has gotten herself over since getting increased exposure through CMLL’s all-women shows. She has a nasty habit of trying moves that are a bit beyond her athletic ability, but her ambition is admirable. Working with Rina was undoubtedly a good learning experience for Negra, as Rina structures her matches in a very logical manner that dramatically builds towards a peak. Negra got a nice nearfall from the Angel’s Wings before getting completely lost on a submission counter sequence, at which point Rina said “fuck”, lifted her up for the Pink Devil and followed up with the flying double-knee drop to put Negra out of her misery.

Tessa Blanchard would defeat Lluvia in the women’s final. The match started with a frosty crowd, but Tessa heated them right up by delivering a brutally disrespectful slap to Lluvia, who was covering up in the corner. The body of the match was largely unimpressive, with both women keeping it simple and relying on stomps and crowd work for the most part. The finish was abrupt: Tessa sidestepped a cannonball dive, sending Lluvia crashing to the floor, and that effectively ended her resistance. They wrestled for a couple more minutes before Tessa hit the Ace Crusher Combo, seemingly at random, to claim the Copa.

The stop-start push of Los Villanos continued as they walked away victorious in the Hermanos Final, defeating another perpetually under-pushed team in Los Panteras. As you’d expect with these two teams, the action wasn’t always crisp, but it was inventive and relentless. The Panteras in particular were on top of their game, as they worked through a series of excellent rana and monkey-flip combinations. With the result genuinely up in the air, the young teams were able to milk the crowd for some fantastic nearfalls. First, when Villano III Jr combined a springboard Ace Crusher into a Liger Bomb for two, and then when El Hijo de Pantera returned fire with a great wheelbarrow bomb from the top rope. However, the Villanos would outlast their opponents, blocking a Frankensteiner and nailing an avalanche double bomb to end their opponents’ resistance.

Euforia defeated Valiente in the old boys final. They worked hard for the nine minutes, but the finish was an almighty struggle, with Valiente repeatedly losing his balance as they set up an ugly avalanche powerbomb. The men’s final was something of a disappointment. Zandokan is still feeling his way back into form and is relying heavily on shtick in lieu of actual wrestling to pad out his matches. He faced off against Averno, one of the greatest bases in wrestling history, but on this night neither man appeared inspired to take unnecessary bumps. After seven minutes of aimless heat and hijinks with Zandokan’s parrot mini-mascot, the pair finally began to work, but it never really got more intense than a tope suicida in second gear, a nice sit-out Emerald Flowsion, and an Asai moonsault, all delivered by Zandokan. The finish was an absolute mess of botched distractions and fouls as both men chose to break their own winning covers to point at their opponents’ seconds (yes, it’s as bad as it sounds). Eventually, with the referee’s back turned, Zandokan punted Averno in the nards for the roll-up victory.

The best action of the night came when Soberano Jr & Neón defeated Robbie X & Taiji Ishimori in a fun sprint that saw Soberano play técnico. Despite ditching the bad boy act for the night, the women in attendance still deafeningly screamed for Soberano whenever he beckoned. Místico sent the crowd home happy by defeating ELP in a surprisingly long and competitive 17-minute main event. ELP did a tremendous job playing a cocky heel who’d routinely get hoisted by his own petard.

22nd June 2026: Puebla Hopefuls Show Out In Tag Tournament Opening Round

One of the coolest things about watching CMLL is that on certain shows, the promotion will just throw open the doors and let the raw (or extremely experienced) locals rip it up. Only a very select few graduate from cheap local shows through to fully fledged Arena México superstars, but it’s always refreshing to check in on the state of Mexican independent wrestling.

The Puebla tag tournament kicked off on this show with Prayer & Rey Apocalipsis defeating Asturiano & Makro. Rey seemed intent to show off his technical rolling skills, while Asturiano impressed with his slick gymnastics, with each man trying to upstage the other at their own game. Given over 16 minutes to work as the sold-out crowd slowly filed into the building, Prayer & Rey really showed their ability to hold a match together and work the Puebla crowd for heat. Makro was probably the least impressive worker in the match, but he was nevertheless willing to sacrifice his body with a pair of wild topes. However, an electric chair drop and Lionsault combination would see off the técnicos.

Meyer & Tiger Boy would prove impressively fluid in their victory over Sombra Diabólica Jr and his father. The second tournament match was certainly helped by only going 12 minutes, allowing the local stars to work at a faster pace and produce some rapid-fire nearfalls down the stretch before Meyer defeated the elder Sombra with a big splash.

26th June 2026: El Sky Team Capture The ROH Tag Team Titles As CMLL Ties Its Sell-Out Record

With not even half the year in the books, CMLL has already tied its total number of sell-outs from 2025, which, lest we forget, was one of the greatest years in terms of live attendance for any wrestling promotion in history. CMLL might be having a less interesting year in terms of storyline development and talent elevation, but in terms of entertaining the masses and attracting new audiences, they remain unparalleled.

They celebrated this accomplishment by having Místico & Máscara Dorada capture the ROH World Tag Team Titles from Sammy Guevara & The Beast Mortos in a good main event, albeit one that relied too heavily on Sammy’s corny attempts to draw heat. As is often the case with AEW talent, they only do jobs very selectively and, while Místico & Dorada will no doubt help ROH to draw, CMLL would have been much better served having Los Villanos win these belts. Instead, this is the sort of match and result that does little for either CMLL or AEW in the long run. Still, it’s churlish to complain, because after months of Místico seeming sluggish working through injury, he was in majestic form against Mortos. The finish was particularly fantastic, with Dorada saving Místico (who’d just been low-blowed) by hitting a springboard crucifix driver on Sammy and following it up with a shooting star press to the floor from the second rope. With the ring cleared, Místico was free to take out Mortos with La Mística.

The rest of the card, perhaps surprisingly given this was a World Cup and presumably more casual crowd, was loaded with angles. Volador Jr defeated Flip Gordon in two straight falls as part of a tag match, likely positioning himself as the No. 1 contender to Flip’s Historic Middleweight Title. Tessa Blanchard was positioned as a contender for Persephone’s title, albeit in a rather pathetic way: she was choked out and, when Persephone wouldn’t release the hold, she was disqualified. In the two remaining trios matches, Bárbaro Cavernario put his feet on the ropes to beat Dragon Rojo Jr, and Zandokan Jr used an eye poke to beat Star Jr, likely foreshadowing future singles matches or tournament showdowns.

This card looked better on paper than it was in the ring, in large part because it was so angle-intensive.

27th June 2026: Excellent Trios Action Elevates Card, But The Wrong Teams Emerge Victorious

Los Dragons are routinely criticised for their inconsistency, but to their credit they were in dazzling form as they romped to victory over Los Calaveras & Yutani. There’s no denying the técnico team’s flying was as impressive as their flame-clad attire is corny, but in 2026 it is baffling to see Yutani and Los Calaveras doing so many jobs. Of course the técnicos must win on occasion, but we are long past the point where the Calaveras in particular should have been elevated to the upper echelon. Similarly, the flashy combination of Brillante Jr., Diamond and Oro Jr are really starting to come together as a harmonious and cohesive trios act, but they too were jobbed out to Cobarde, Felino Jr and Hijo de Stuka Jr. There is no shame in losing to a talented rudo team, but it’s time CMLL knocked the 50/50 booking on its head and started elevating the next generation. Fear not, if the booking is frustratingly aimless, the action is absolutely fantastic and these trios matches, combined with a fun opener won by Disturbio & Troyano, made for a good evening’s entertainment in front of a rabid crowd.

29th June 2026: Puebla Tag Title Tournament Rolls On As Los Villanos Forget To Kick Out In The Main Event

This week’s quarter-final matches in the Puebla tournament were less impressive, but still enjoyable as the father-and-son team of Hijo del Perverso & Perverso came up trumps against Centella Roja & Hijo de Centella Roja. The action itself was well executed and professional, but this may have been the most generic lucha match layout in history; you could practically close your eyes and imagine the exact spots they’d perform in the exact order they would perform them.

The final quarter-final was far more entertaining. The extravagant combination of a melted wizard and a Spartan warrior that is Konjuro & Rey Espartano might be uneven in their work, but they certainly are not boring or generic. Astro & Millennium, for their part, were on point with their dives, double teams and brought plenty of energy and speed to this 16-minute clash. The finishing sequence here was legitimately fantastic, with Konjuro and Rey just about kicking out of a 450 splash and plancha combination for a great nearfall, only for Rey to come raging back with a simultaneous one-man powerslam and powerbomb combination. With both the técnicos down, Konjuro would finish them off with a satisfyingly beefy moonsault. Great stuff.

Los Villanos had a rough night in their highly anticipated clash with El Galeón Fantasma, when Hijo simply forgot to kick out of Zandokan’s powerbomb and the referee counted three. They’d wrestle on a little while longer before giving up the ghost and accepting defeat.

© CMLL

3rd July 2026: Místico Loses! Tessa vs Persephone Heats Up, and Volador Dethrones Flip

Magia Blanca was in a strange mood at Arena México. He spent the first few minutes of the opening trios match killing the Friday night crowd with some incredibly slow and uninspired matwork and would go on to brutally botch a flying headscissors. Thankfully, his teammates Rey Pegasus and Tornado understood the assignment and entered the ring like a house of fire as they sprinted between impressive dives. Their intensity inspired the rudo team of Cerebro Negro, Infinito & Virus, who suddenly upped the intensity of their beatdown with a flurry of low dropkicks. Within a matter of moments they had CMLL’s record sell-out crowd rocking with an insane onslaught of dives topped off by Rey’s rope-walk, double-jump tornillo, which wowed the crowd. The técnicos would come out on top in what ended up being a great opener, but boy did it stink in the early going.

The all-rudo clash between Los Herederos and Los Forajidos was all plain sailing by way of comparison, with both teams showing they are more than mean cheap-heat merchants. Cobarde, Stuka Jr and Felino Jr took the first fall with a sumptuous powerbomb, Swanton and plancha combination. Los Forajidos would tie things up by powerbombing Los Herederos on top of one another before locking them in a triple surfboard. The third fall was a little aimless, but picked up down the stretch as Stuka Jr made a bonkers comeback on all three men before being thrown through the air as part of a wild running human pyramid plancha. It wasn’t enough, however, as El Coyote’s strong push as a rudo continued as he snuck in to steal the victory with La Magistral.

Star Jr & Dragon Rojo Jr might be infuriatingly inconsistent, but they simply couldn’t fail against Zandokan Jr and Bárbaro Cavernario. Zandokan’s shtick was incredibly over, with the rowdy crowd laughing along with all his antics. In truth, they didn’t do much wrestling in the early going, instead milking the crowd for heat as Zandokan stole the first fall with his feet on the ropes. The 16,000-strong crowd were having the time of their lives as, after Bárbaro giant-swung Rojo into a dropkick from Zandokan, the mascot Parroquito followed up with a 619. The crowd might have loved the rudos, but they were more than happy to roll along with Rojo and Star’s comeback. However, their topes came to naught, as when Bárbaro feigned a knee injury Zandokan kicked Star Jr low and left him laying for Bárbaro’s slingshot splash. Losing in two straight falls did little for the técnicos, but the World Cup crowd couldn’t have cared less; they loved this silly little match.

Tessa Blanchard’s march towards a title match with Persephone gathered pace in a tag match, where the pair teased a confrontation throughout with the referee keeping them apart. For some bizarre reason this match was wrestled under American tag rules, presumably to allow Keyra & Persephone to get the heat on Garra Negra and deny the hot tag. The rudos of course took the first fall, but when Tessa did finally tag in it was fantastic as she ran wild with Ace Crushers and stared Persephone down as Negra pinned Keyra with the Angel’s Wings. Persephone spent the entire third fall ducking Tessa, but finally found her confidence when they were forced to square off. The finishing stretch provided a good tease of their upcoming title match, with Tessa slipping out of the Splash Mountain Bomb and Persephone blocking the Ace Crusher before falling to the Tiger Driver. This was a good match by CMLL standards with decent heat. The post-match angle was the highlight, with Persephone and Tessa whipping up the crowd with hot promos that sold legitimate bad blood leading to a pull-apart brawl.

Hopefully the Flip Gordon and Volador Jr feud can finally be put in the rear-view mirror. Flip has made a name for himself in CMLL, but his NWA Middleweight Championship reign has been blighted by repeated matches with Volador; this was their third clash. They work well enough together and Volador is happy to eat all of Flip’s moonsault variations as the women scream, but it’s time for something new for both men. Regardless, this was an extremely well-worked match, even if the pace was decidedly slow with lots of safety-first set-up for each spot. The nearfalls were particularly excellent here, with Volador kicking out at 2.9 from Flip’s 450, then, in return, Volador evaded a springboard moonsault and caught Flip with a Mexican Destroyer for another believable near miss. The finish was somewhat anticlimactic, however. After returning to the ring after some fun crowd brawling, Volador simply sidestepped a springboard dropkick and hit a slow springboard Destroyer to capture the NWA Middleweight Championship.

The Arena México crowd loved this moment, giving Volador a standing ovation and chanting his name during the title presentation.

The main event simply couldn’t fail as the elderly Atlantis returned to the main event scene to team with Máscara Dorada and, of course, Místico. Tonight, Los Hermanos Chávez and Hechicero found themselves in the rudo role. The interesting wrinkle here was that between El Sky Team and Los Hermanos Chávez they held three recognised world tag team titles, putting astute watchers on alert for an angle.

The resulting match was somewhat below usual Friday night standards, in large part because getting the heat on Atlantis slowed the pace right down. Still, if the second fall felt a little plodding and sloppy, the crowd full of World Cup tourists loved seeing Atlantis pull the técnicos level with a neat and surprisingly graceful hurricanrana.

Nevertheless, if the second fall was worth skipping, the final fall was fantastic and newsworthy in its own right, as Atlantis cleaned house with a never-ending run of tilt-a-whirl backbreakers and slams before Máscara Dorada pulled off his acrobatic whirly-bird act with considerable aplomb. That, of course, set the stage for Místico, who was visibly back to his best. Then something wonderfully unexpected happened. Místico hit La Mística on Hechicero and Los Hermanos Chávez broke it up! Oh, and it gets better. When Místico got his rhythm back, Ángel de Oro proceeded to stuff La Mística and shove Místico into Dorada, causing him to crotch his own partner on the top rope. Niebla Roja then hit an avalanche Jaded on Máscara Dorada, depositing him directly on top of Místico, and Chávez proceeded to score simultaneous pinfalls.

With the crowd in legitimate shock, Ángel then grabbed the mic to challenge El Sky Team to a winner-takes-all triple tag team title match. Místico rallied the crowd with a big técnico promo, only to be jumped by the rudos and unmasked. This was a shockingly big angle to pull out during World Cup season.

4th July 2026: England Fans Invade Arena Coliseo as Zandokan Enjoys Being A Babyface For The Evening

It’s no secret that since returning to the ring, Zandokan has been taking it somewhat easy and feeling his way back into form. However, what Zandokan lacks in stamina he more than makes up for in charisma, and he was having the absolute time of his life on Saturday night as El Galeón Fantasma squared off with La Máquina de la Destrucción in an all-rudo clash. In this environment Zandokan’s heel tactics were recast as glorious trolling. He would grab Fantasma’s mini-parrot mascot and pose as he stacked and sat atop his three fallen opponents to end the second fall and, when El Galeón ran the train in the corner, Zandokan would stop dead in his tracks to deliver a brutal bitch slap to Explosivo. There were flashes of truly fantastic wrestling, most notably from Difunto and El Elemental, but this match was all about ensuring the live crowd were having the time of their lives. Naturally, Zandokan would send the fans home happy by picking up the win with his gut-wrench powerbomb finisher.

As the Coliseo show progressed something strange kept happening. No matter what was going on in the ring, scattered chants of “Mexico, Mexico, Mexico!” would break out. This was particularly odd, considering that the vast majority of the matches were all-Mexican affairs. However, after Titán picked up the victory for his team in the night’s excellent main event with a flying double foot stomp on Yutani, it became clear what had been going on. A small group of England fans were in attendance with their flags flying. Throughout the show, the fans on both sides appeared to be good-natured, but there was a strange energy in the room during the post-show as Mexican fans gathered beneath the two remaining England fans (who were on the upper tier) and began showering them with chants and abuse as they waved their flags. Ultimately, it seemed pretty harmless, but this was the first time the World Cup had really felt disruptive or distracting to the CMLL product.

© CMLL

CMLL News

CMLL continued to build towards the 93rd “Aniversario” show in Arena Mexico on September 18th with a heavy heat angle involving top star Místico on July 17th’s Viernes Espectacular”. El Sky Team faced the Los Infernales team of Averno, Euforia and Mephisto in the main event of the show, where the babyfaces won by disqualification after Averno had torn off Místico’s mask after the luchador appeared to injure his knee on a missed tornillo to the outside. The unmasking was accompanied by a continuous focus on inflicting damage on Místico’s left knee going into the post match, when the heel team carried on their attack whilst Místico was being stretchered out, throwing him off the medical bed and continued to beat on the injured joint.

Místico was ruled out of this past week’s events in order to sell the worked injury. He returned to Arena Mexico on Sunday night. The CMLL Light Heavyweight Champion appeared on last Wednesday night’s “Informa” magazine show in order to demand a mask vs hair match with Averno. It wasn’t the only request for an apuestas match on the show either, as Templario and his former mentor Último Guerrero also vowed to compete in a similar match. It would appear that this is the set up for an apuestas tournament on the anniversary show, which has only a literal handful of tickets remaining before the promotion can declare a full sell out.

The next notable show will be the “CMLL International Grand Prix” show on August 7th, which will once again carry a Mexico vs the World theme. The Mexico team will consist of Místico, Hechicero, Ángel de Oro, Bárbaro Cavernario, Soberano Jr., Templario, Titán, Volador Jr., Xelhua and Último Guerrero. The World team has Bandido, Blake Christian, Claudio Castagnolli, Orange Cassidy, PAC and Roderick Strong from AEW, Austin Aries from MLW, Rohan Raja from Maple Leaf Pro, Leon Cage from Rev Pro and Yujiro and Douki from New Japan Pro Wrestling. CMLL will also be running a Thursday night show the same week, which falls between the traditional Friday night show at Arena México and the AEW visit to the arena on Wednesday night. They will continue to run Thursday night shows for the rest of the August holiday season.

CMLL President Salvardor Lutteroth visited their Japanese partner for “Dominion”, just ahead of their change in share ownership. In the aftermath, CMLL announced the first joint show between the two promotions, entitled “Lucha Kingdom” on November 16th, 2026. The show will take place on an unusual night, being a Monday, but it is also a public holiday in Mexico. Sales have started softly, but there is also no announced talent or matches for the show at this point either for a day where the tourist factor is unlikely to play much of a part. UK partners Revolution Pro Wrestling have announced a return of “FantasticaMania UK” for another year, with two shows at The Hanger in Wolverhampton, England, on October 17th.

© the crash

Mexican Independents

By Trish Speirs

IWRG held their annual ‘Jaula de las Locas’ cage match from Arena Naucalpan on July 12th. The match puts ten women and exótico* wrestlers in an apuestas match where the person who is unable to escape the cage loses their mask. Princeso, revealed after unmasking as Fernando Zaid Cruz Perez, 33, lost their mask to Jessy Ventura after appearing to be knocked out completely following a double clothesline from Bugambilia, who then made their escape from the cage. The two other remaining wrestlers contesting the match called for aid immediately. Medical support was forthcoming, but the match did continue around it, with Sagittarius and Ventura going on to climb out of the cage. Perez was back wrestling, be it unmasked, just four days later. With concussions, globally, we still have a long way to go.

*(Editor’s Note: I had never heard of an exótico wrestler before, so I looked it up, and Wikipedia says – paraphrasing – that they are basically like drag performers. So, a male wrestler dressing femininely with a feminine persona or gimmick, in this case.)

Monterrey outfit Riot Lucha Libre held their La Riña 4 Tournament across July 18th and 19th, with the final seeing El Vengador defeating René Rocks in order to claim the tournament victory. However, the biggest news to come from the show was an announcement by veteran wrestler Chik Tormenta that she is now a free agent, having cut ties with WWE’s AAA. Tormenta, 41, has worked limited dates for AAA since the WWE takeover. She accompanied the announcement by also wrestling on the show.

Blue Demon Jr. has released an autobiography, entitled “El Último Demonio”, that has been ghost written from interviews with the wrestler by Oscar Fernandez. It is available internationally as an Amazon Kindle download.

© Mystery Wrestling

Mystery Wrestling & C*4 Wrestling

Fighting Back: The Infinite Rumble 2026

22nd June 2026
Centre Aydelu, Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
Watch On: Youtube, Twitch

Review By: Ariel Diaz

On June 22, 2026, Mystery Wrestling began their second 24 hour stream as part of “Fighting Back: Wrestling With Cancer”, a fundraising effort for the Canadian Cancer Society in memory of Phrank Morin. Phrank was a part of the Ottawa indie wrestling scene, especially C*4 Wrestling. 2026 marks the 15th year of “Fighting Back”, which has raised over $700,000 CAD for the Canadian Cancer Society.

This year, Evil Uno and Mystery Wrestling set a goal of raising $30,000 CAD, a comparable goal to the $33,000 CAD raised last year. The 2025 Mystery Wrestling fundraiser gave us a successful attempt to beat the record for the world’s longest wrestling match, and this year they ran the Infinite Rumble, which also managed to break records, including beating last year’s time with 21 hours, 58 minutes, and 49 seconds as well as having the most rumble participants in professional wrestling history with 243 entrants. Stu Grayson alone beat the following records: longest consecutive time spent in a rumble match (5 hours, 23 minutes, and 39 seconds), most eliminations in a rumble stint (32 eliminations), most combined eliminations in rumble history (51 eliminations), longest combined time in a rumble match (6 hours, 49 minutes, and 42 seconds), and breaking the most world records in one match. That’s right, not only did Stu Grayson spend almost five and half hours straight in the match, he used typical Mystery Wrestling shenanigans to get himself back in the match after being eliminated. Twice. How’s that for no nonsense Stu?

Stu Grayson isn’t the only one that needs to be commended. Evil Uno remained on commentary throughout a large majority of the stream. As much as I would have loved to be stubborn and try to stay up with the stream myself for the full 24 hours, I did have to sleep and haven’t gone back to watch whatever happened in the wee hours of the night, and while I was watching I observed that Uno only took fairly brief breaks to get a bite to eat, stretch his legs, or switch out his masks. While at the desk he was commentating, monitoring incoming donations, and coordinating the remote commentary guests joining in via Zoom throughout the day. That’s a lot to handle on no sleep!

That’s all before mentioning the team effort a feat like this really is. While there weren’t 243 individual wrestlers in the match – although who’s to say who was behind any of the many masks that made an appearance – you can’t deny how incredible it is to see so many people show up to donate their time for a great cause. There’s no official count for how many people participated in the Infinite Rumble, but if we peek behind the curtain for a second it’s plain to see that so many of the wrestlers pulled double, triple, and quadruple duty. Uno also shared at multiple points that the wrestlers took over the booking of the match, planning bits and contacting other wrestlers throughout Canada who might be interested in participating.

The match itself was a wild ride. The rumble format definitely helped keep everything feeling fresh throughout the 24 hours. If a wrestler was eliminated they were able to take a break before maybe coming back in as a different character, whereas last year everyone wandered in and out at random. There were definitely tired moments – when I woke up on the 23rd and tuned back in to the stream, Uno was mentioning having an existential moment in the middle of the night and I can only imagine what caused that – but there were also plenty of jokes and references that you can tell the wrestlers had a blast planning out. One big highlight was a video package for the debut of El Hijo Del Bucket, the son of the bucket (yes, a bucket) Stu murdered late in the night of last year’s stream. Another highlight for me personally was having Jason Todd, one of my favorite DC characters, enter the match, although that resulted in me yelling in anguish on my couch as Joe Kerr later entered and recreated Jason’s death before eliminating him. I’d like to know who came up with that bit so I can tell them that I love them, and also that I hate them. Overall, this was something probably best enjoyed live, but if you’d like a taste of the cool and/or silly things that happened, Mystery Wrestling has been posting clips on their social media.

Now back to the important stuff: by the end of the stream, $34,661 CAD had been raised for the Canadian Cancer Society. The next “Fighting Back” event will be on August 14th, when C*4 Wrestling will be presenting the 15th “Fighting Back: Wrestling With Cancer” show, with all profits going towards the donation total. If you would like to donate to their $50,000 goal, please go to: Fund Raise My Way.

Canada

C*4 Wrestling News

Ontario’s C4 Wrestling will host their fifteenth edition of “Fighting Back” on August 14th at the Preston Events Centre in Ottawa. The yearly events, in aid of the Canadian Cancer Society, have so far raised $700,000 CD for the charity and have expanded to include fundraising efforts from other Canadian promotions on top of the named show. C4’s commitment to fundraising for the charity, which offers patient support to victims of cancer and provides critical funding for continued research into the disease, was inspired by the loss of wrestler Frank “Phrank” Morin. Morin received a terminal cancer diagnosis whilst performing on the Canadian independent scene, including regularly for C4, and lost his battle with cancer in spring 2011. He was only 23 years old.

Talents who have committed to the show so far are Ring of Honor’s Eddie Kingston and Ortiz, Zoey Serrano (known in WWE as Zoey Stark) and Joseph Sawyer, who wrestled in WWE under the moniker of Joe Gacy. Sawyer, a previous C4 alumni, is donating a percentage of the profits of his WWE ring gear auctions to the fundraising efforts. You can hear C4 promoter Mark Pollesel discuss the show as well as life as a promoter who has endured over two decades in independent wrestling on the Social Suplex Network this coming week.

Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling (MLP) News

Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling continue to adapt to their new taping format this summer, as the presence of a show on TSN2 and the TSN app in Canada changes their format away from regular PPV events to regular sets of TV tapings and more sporadic larger offerings. “MLP Mayhem” will air at midnight on Wednesday evenings in Canada, having premiered on July 15th, and will also be broadcast further afield on the MyAEW platform.

MLP’s next set of scheduled tapings will take place on the 7th and 8th of August from St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario. In addition to recording “Mayhem”, the promotion will also be recording for new weekly Youtube show “Ignition”, which is probably as close to the name “Explosion!” as they could get. The next PPV will not take place until October 3rd, with “Northern Rising” set for the former Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Tickets for that event are on sale now, with Adam Copeland the top billed name.

Rest of the Americas

Brazilian Wrestling Federation (BWF) News

Here is your bi-monthly reminder that BWF airs “Telecatch” weekly on Band (Rede Bandeirantes), which is a free-to-air channel in Brasil, meaning anyone in Brasil with a basic TV antenna can watch it with no subscription. It airs at 1am each Saturday night heading into Sunday morning.