We are essentially 48 hours after AEW WrestleDream 2024 from the Tacoma Dome so let’s discuss the show after my predictions and previews.
You can check my AEW WrestleDream 2024 Previews here.
You can read my AEW WrestleDream 2024 Predictions here.
I proclaimed in my All Out 2024 After 48 Thoughts that All Out was the best AEW pay per view of the year. WrestleDream 2024 surpassed it. Let me explain why.
All Out 2024 is still an absolutely brilliant pay per view but it had a few matches that missed the mark. Particularly Mercedes Moné defending the AEW Women’s World Championship and Bryan Danielson defending the AEW Men’s World Championship. I would have liked for those matches to have been better. It still had a spectacular main event and finale.
WrestleDream 2024’s main show did not have a single bad match. It did not have a mediocre match. It did not have an average match. Every match was at worst good and at best one of the greatest matches of the year. It’s hard to think of too many pay per views where every single match is legitimately good to great.
The weakest match was probably Katsuyori Shibata versus Jack Perry for the TNT Championship and that was still pretty dang good. It also had a strong post-match angle that I think set up quite a bit for the future of the company in that midcard/upper midcard slot.
The show was very much about strong angles, strong finishes, and strong matches. Everything was strong. Everything felt like progress. All Out might have been about burning down a house. WrestleDream was about fire allowing steel to take shape.
Favourite Wrestling Match
Switchblade Jay White versus Hangman Adam Page
I said I didn’t know who was going to win this but I knew it might be the best match of the night. For me? It was. This is the way I want pro wrestling to be.
Jay White and Adam Page worked hard, they hit hard, and they sold smart. Everything meant something, even if only a little. They each had a strategy and worked it to the end. The limb work went somewhere. The pace never slowed down to the point where you wanted to grab your phone. This was a perfectly laid out, perfectly executed pro wrestling. It might not have had high stakes like other matches but it was exactly what I wanted to see. I think both men are better coming out of it.
Jay White needed that win far more than Hangman Adam Page did. White winning clean by properly executing a strategy of effectively destroying Page’s leg showed he was smarter than essentially everyone else who had been up against Page lately. He used Page’s anger against him. He constantly found ways to neutralize his brutality. Jay is now a top babyface in the company thanks to Page eating this loss, and I hope this is far from over.
Another pay per view loss for Page? Yes. Did AEW fumble his heat coming out of All Out? Yes. Am I worried about him? No. For one, he’s one of the only guys in the company that gets pyro. Second, he’s absolutely treated now like a top threat in the company, and this long wasn’t looked like a goodbye to him but how Jay White shocked everyone and reminded the world how great he is. That’s a good way to do it. Page is in a good place.
We need a rematch at Full Gear.
Best Wrestling Match
Jon Moxley versus Bryan Danielson
I have struggled to predict the Blackpool Combat Club angle, but it seems like most are starting to understand what Jon Moxley is trying to do.
I’m not sure if it’s going entirely the way people want but I’m willing to go along with it, since I haven’t been able to figure much out myself. Jon Moxley is surveying the AEW landscape and saying nobody is stepping up to be the new stars. Nobody is stepping up to stop Bryan Danielson. Nobody stepped up to stop Swerve Strickland. Nobody stepped up to stop Samoa Joe. Nobody stepped up to stop CM Punk. Why aren’t you AEW Originals stepping up? Darby Allin? Orange Cassidy? Private Party? Daniel Garcia? Hook? Wheeler Yuta? Why are you still waiting your turn?
Moxley is forcing change whether he likes it or not. The crusade is about saving the soul of AEW. It’s about creating a landscape for these guys to move up. Hangman Page moved up then tumbled down. Maxwell Jacob Friedman moved up and lost himself in the process, twisting AEW into an unrecognizable image. Kenny Omega essentially gave up his physical health for the company and he’s now just a quick reference at times by Excalibur. The Young Bucks have lost themselves trying to be the good guys and now they just lean on being everything people accuse them of if they can’t be loved again.
Jon Moxley in this match set out to murder his friend. To shock everyone by his actions. To go too far for the sake of going too far. This was a wakeup call. The pageantry and praise for generations prior are gone. The celebration of the career of Sting. The celebration of the career of Bryan Danielson. These are both moments AEW got the final chapters of, but still have to spend in adoration of the companies before them. With Sting it’s JCP and WCW. With Bryan Danielson it’s ROH.
Moxley came to AEW already established on the indies and WWE but he came to create a Paradigm Shift. To bring great change. That change started to come, and was unfortunately derailed when they achieved their greatest acquisition, bringing a man who left the business back. That man destroyed AEW from the inside, broke what it was supposed to be, and the company is still picking up the pieces. The Paradigm Shift of 2019 was shattered in 2023.
So here’s a new Paradigm Shift. It’s going to be ugly. It’s going to be grotesque. It’s going to feel wrong because it is wrong. But wrong is what AEW needs now more than anything. Trying to please everyone has failed. Paying tribute to legends can only last so long. It’s time for AEW to get back on track. If the originals of AEW want to stop Jon Moxley and his crusade against All Elite Wrestling? They have to take the company back by force.
“It’s not your company anymore.”
My original reading of that line was he could be going up against The Elite, and I was wrong. But I wasn’t far off. He was telling the originals of AEW that the company isn’t theirs anymore, and they need to fight for it back. They must stop the Crusade.
More Thoughts After 48
Heat: I have heard complaints about there being so much heat on this show. Moxley destroyed Danielson to end his full-time career. Kyle Fletcher turned on Will Ospreay. Mariah retained against Willow. When you actually look at the total card? Babyfaces went over more than the heels. It just doesn’t feel like it because the heel victories felt far more important.
The show ending was absolute heat because it needed to be. AEW tried to do heat with The Elite doing a MeltzerDriver to Tony Khan and they got a few good weeks out of it. After that? It was back to status quo. Fun heels fighting against the top babyfaces. The stakes were never that high. This feels high. Bryan Danielson was essentially sacrificed.
Also you got All In. All In was a celebration of the company. A triumph of the American Dragon. WrestleDream is the crushing of that triumph. It’s setting AEW up for 2025.
Sneaky: I complained about the lack of Orange Cassidy, Kyle O’Reilly, and The Outrunners prior to the show. I got my predictions up in the afternoon. AEW President Tony Khan slipped in an eight man tag match including those men together for the Zero Hour. Sneaky. We still need more.
Adam Cole: It’s great to see the return of Adam Cole. I’m not a big fan of him but it’s pretty clear the AEW fans are. There’s a good place for Cole and it’s in that upper midcard slot fighting the likes of MJF, Jack Perry, and Konosuke Takeshita. Glad to see his return. You know where he really might fit? The Conglomeration with his FutureShock friend KOR.
Katsuyori Shibata: Shibata had one of the best single performances on the pay per view and was definitely working at a higher level than Perry was. I was hoping maybe that was because he might go over but sadly he got beaten by a pinned shoulder during a choke. It’s Daniel Garcia’s time to take out Jack Perry and that’s definitely being set up. I do hope Shibata can win a few matches and face Jon Moxley soon. I think that match would be incredible.
Konosuke Takeshita: It’s pretty clear with this win that something happened that couldn’t allow the Kazuchika Okada program to go forward. Winning the AEW International Championship is still great for him. AEW has to ensure that he stays important while as champ. He doesn’t have to wrestle every week for it (it’s not a TV title) but I would love to see him active at least most weeks. He can’t be the king of Rampage anymore. He needs to be on Dynamite and treated as an important champion.
Private Party: A lot of people were disappointed that Private Party couldn’t beat the Young Bucks, but I think their performance goes a long way in actually putting them on the path to being a credible tag team in AEW. Their next program should be one that they win.
Swerve Strickland: Good god he looked like a superstar. Coolest man alive. It was good to see him stay close to Prince Nana, who didn’t turn on him when Cage of Agony did. I figure Bobby Lashley didn’t debut here because AEW had too many angles as it was for the night, which is fine. I did like the interactions with Shelton Benjamin, and hope Shelton is up for the challenge.
Brody King: Great match from him. I wish he came out at the end of the night to check on Bryan Danielson with the babyfaces. It would have made the moment a little more important if even a beast like him cared about running off Blackpool Combat Club.
Wheeler Yuta: It seems like he finally understood what the Combat Club’s intentions were, and as much as he hates it? He agreed with it. Being the one to put Danielson out of his misery with the final bag felt wrong in all the ways it should. He’s the only AEW Original on the inside. I doubt his alliance lasts forever.
Orange Cassidy, Hook, Daniel Garcia, and Darby Allin: The last shot of the night focused on these four men. I could see these four coming together to try to stop the Blackpool Combat Club, but I also think there’s a traitor in one of them. It’s not OC. It’s not Garcia. It’s not Darby. It’s probably Hook. I also think making this about Darby Allin versus Jon Moxley down the road is the way to go. If they successfully hold it off until Revolution? Boy that heat will be blistering once they get to it. One year since Sting retired and now Darby is going for the Men’s World Championship. Can you imagine it? I can.
Full Gear 2024 is in the Prudential Center in New Jersey on November 23, 2024. This means the Nightmare Booking Mode is over. AEW can stretch their legs a little and really try building things up. Battle of the Belts is in a few days and not much has been built up for it but those shows haven’t mattered for a while.
There’s a Collision in Cedar Rapids, Iowa which has sold under 1,000 tickets so far and is in two weeks which I’m sure people will lose their minds about (Cedar Rapids has a population of only 138,000 people so I don’t know why AEW is even going there)
The hope for AEW is that the heat they’ve created on WrestleDream results in more people buying tickets and being interested to see how things work out. The way to do that is for Tony Khan to make a heavy shift with how he books his shows. There has to be a focus on the top angles and the top workers. We can’t be spreading the wealth every show. The stars have to be heavily promoted weeks before the show so people know what they are getting.
WrestleDream is by far my favourite AEW show of this year. It’s also a palate cleanser for the company. It’s time to focus.
