The Boys are Back | AEWeekly #164

Welcome to the #AEWeekly review discussion where PWM contributors reflect on the highlights of the last week in AEW. The eligibility week always includes the most recent episode of Dynamite and Collision, plus any social-media exclusives up until publication.

This week’s contributors are Abel [@loza3.bsky.social] covering Match of the Week, Sachin [@sachin0mac.bsky.social] talking Best Interview, Lauren [@sithwitch.bsky.social] exploring a key Story Beat, Emiliana [@emilianartb.bsky.social] with the Moment of the Week, Peter [@peteredge7.bsky.social] giving us the MVP of the Week, and Sergei [@sergeialderman.bsky.social] editing and organizing it all.

 A page of links to prior installments may be found here: #AEWeekly

We'd love for this and any and all of our content to be the beginning of a conversation with our readers. To interact with any and all of our contributors please accept our invitation to join the Pro Wrestling Musings Community Discord. Then follow this link to the #AEWeekly Discord Thread.

Kenny Omega Vs Speedball Bailey vs Ricochet

"Where the best wrestle…"

by Abel.

Since the inception of AEW in 2019, at least once a year, there has been a match that perfectly encapsulated WHAT All Elite Wrestling is all about. It's like the Danny Devito scene from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "You get it." Show it to anyone, wrestling fan or not, and they will immediately get what the promotion is all about. This match is what you show to that friend who maybe hasn't watched wrestling in years and would immediately fall back in love. This year, that match was the instant classic match for the International title at Dynasty between champion Kenny Omega, challengers Ricochet, and Speedball Mike Bailey. 

In this 30-minute and 56-second masterpiece, all three wrestlers showcased what makes them some of the best in the world at what they do. It's tough to be innovative in wrestling when everything has seemingly been done before. However, there were innovative spot after innovative spot in this match. From the double pins attempts to the insane springboard and dives that had everyone in the arena and at home on their feet, it felt as though Ricochet, Omega, and Bailey did not let up for a single moment in the 1856-second match. The inverted top-rope One-Winged Angel was something out of my wildest dreams. They went 110 miles an hour for the entirety of the match. The trios match at Dynasty was one of the best-paced matches in recent memory. All three wrestlers earned that ice bath at the end of the night. 

Leading up to this match, everyone sensed that it might be the best match of the night, and oh boy, did it live up to the expectations. All three participants feel like AEW, even though they haven't been in the company since day one, like Omega. The fantastic thing about Speedball Bailey is that he did not dip his toes in the AEW waters; he fully dove in and successfully navigated the deep end.  Everything looked brutal, especially those Bailey knees and kicks. He, along with Ricochet, FEEL like AEW. 

Even after three and a half hours of nonstop action, the Philadelphia crowd was into the match the entire time. "Bald!" has never been chanted louder, in any context, in the history of the world. It made the fun much more fun and riveting. This translated well for the heel, as cowardly, bald Ricochet is the best Ricochet. This is the best work he has ever done in his career, translating to the AEW faithful. There were viral and gif-able --is that a word-- moments in this match that will live forever. The Speedball Bailey kicked to an announcer Ricochet, and his crane kick will live in AEW infamy. 

While Omega was the only logical winner in this match, there were points in the match that had us wondering if that was actually going to be the outcome. Everyone involved's in-ring storytelling was breathtakingly good. A month into his run, Omega is already reminding us why he is one of the best wrestlers of all time and a must-see attraction at this point in time. If someone didn't know he was out for a year and a half with a deadly infection, with the standard Omega is at right now, you couldn't even tell. 

After the match, Kazuchika Okada reminded Omega and the rest of us that he is the man to beat in AEW. The path is set for Champion vs Champion at All In, and this might be the most interesting build towards the PPV of the year. If the plan is to unify the championship, these two wrestlers are the best to do it, given the amount of lore they already have built-in. 

This match will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest triple-threat matches of all time and will sit in the pantheon next to TNA's 2009 Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels vs AJ Styles match at Turning Point. 

Max Caster

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

by Sachin.

It's terrible to watch a clown cry. To see the tears wash away the paint, coarseness of the voice finally coming out, bitterness in tone. Defeat in their gaze. 

For the past few weeks the layout of an after interview of a Max Caster open challenge has been predictable.

An inquisitive cameraman follows him, he (Max) tries to duck the interview and starts walking away, cameraman persists with his questions so max starts to comically run away but due to the beating he took in the match he gasses out outside or in the parking lot and provides some easy, unconvincing and repetitive excuses for his loss, maintains his delusion and runs away. All this has been very amusing to watch.

This week the beginning of the interview was similar but everything that followed showed change and perhaps growth?

He can't do a thing in pro wrestling without me. it happened through our entire run here at AEW and now it's happened again. I'm making a name for myself, I'm proving that I'm the best wrestler alive and he's got to come back and have his big moment with me, against me. ANTHONY, carve your own path, pal, okay? I've been here working, YOU decided to pick Billy Gunn, YOU broke up the team, I wanted to keep going but no you had to break the team up. So you know what I did?  I stayed here and I wrestled and I put my name on the line. I said I was the best and I proved it.

Things got real. Max has been working harder than Anthony. When The Acclaimed split up I was genuinely under the impression that Max Caster's AEW run was over and Anthony would carry on in the singles division, but Max showed great self-awareness and carved a unique place for himself on the roster. Perhaps it's not the job a kid dreaming to be a wrestler would've wanted, but it gets him on the show consistently, entertains people and provides a value for money segment that does its job as intended.

Whereas in the case of Bowens, he might have more upside than Caster, and I want him to succeed as much as anyone, but he's gonna have to be better than a lot of other wrestlers before one can truly say that he is a 5 Tool Player.

Simply put, Caster is benefiting from aiming low while Bowens is shooting high and willing to face the risk. Both are valid approaches and it's all in the execution.

When they wanted to hire you, they said: No, he has no charisma. He looks good, he wrestles well, handsome guy but no charisma. Nothing going on here, so they said you know let's put him with Max. Max is smart, Max can talk, Max is entertaining and Max can wrestle too. Max can carry him and you know what I carried you up until you got hurt. But I continued wrestling alone in singles matches, on PPVs I kept the ship afloat till you came back.

But you got hurt again and you sat there in a wheelchair doing NOTHING. I had to take Austin and Colton and make a name for ourselves and you came back after that and then you said hey it's all good we're The Acclaimed. And things popped off, things were going well but when they weren't going well you quit on the team.

By the standards of a delusional heel there isn't much delusion here. However there's a great bit of omission and manipulation of facts by Max to project himself as the good guy and present Anthony in a bad light. If you were only reading this promo you'd probably not be suckered in but what genuinely blew me away was the conviction and heart with which every word was said by Max. He believed it. Please go see this promo. Given its a social media exclusive you may find it difficult to find it so - here.

Go prove it. To me and everybody else that you can survive without me, that you can be popular, that you could be well liked and loved by the fans even without me. I promise it won't happen. I saw you were here just hanging around acting like - “Oh we're here to visit, we're just here to talk about things”. Not saying "Hey Max, my brother, I'm gonna answer your open challenge and embarrass you in front of Philadelphia. Embarrass you in front of the world." FUCK YOU.

For real. Fuck you dude. You wanted an answer for a long time, That's my answer. That's how I feel. Prove that you're better than me. But you know what you can't be better than the best. Can't be better than the Best Wrestler Alive. Prove it. To you.

The pain and hurt in Max Caster's voice as he says all this is why I am asking you to go watch it. I'm not trying to engage in hyperbole (I only do that ironically). This was Eddie Kingston-esque. This was Hangman-esque (don't come after me). You can feel that he feels betrayed. His voice seems genuine. 

Max is not dumb, not even in kayfabe. After every match the usual excuse he makes is that he was ambushed and he wasn't ready but he doesn't deny his loss. It always ends with him saying he'll continue trying as he is The Best Wrestler Alive Human. 

There's nothing tragic about starting all over again as long as you start again. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. Max is aware of what he has become but he has to cling on to the slimmest bit of opportunity as desperately as possible as it's all he's got. He knows he has failed himself. He wants Anthony to do his best and leave him behind. Prove it to himself. That's as close as he can come to telling his friend Good Luck. 

The Main Event

“Whose House?"

by Lauren.

The main event of AEW Dynasty 2025 was controversial, but rife with emotion from the wrestlers and audience alike. Jon Moxley defended the AEW Men's World Title against Swerve Strickland, who came out dressed as Static Shock, a DC/Milestone comics hero perhaps best known for having a cartoon in the early 2000s.

Swerve has done cosplay for big matches before, most notably as Killmonger from Black Panther, as well as one of the Warriors from the eponymous 1970s movie and a costume that paid tribute to Commander Shepard of the Mass Effect games. He won his title in that Killmonger costume while definitively a villain. It may be a coincidence that this time he dressed as an unambiguous hero, or it may be indicating a shift in character and motivation.

Mox on the other hand, dressed simply, though his pants were adorned with a crown on one leg. He was accompanied by Marina Shafir, who only reluctantly gave up the briefcase that has hidden the AEW World Championship from sight for the past several months.

The match itself was hard-hitting but relatively bloodless considering the histories of both competitors. Swerve took a hit to the head that busted him open fairly early on and blood streamed down his face, but Mox remained unmarked. This has been nearly a constant during his reign, with the exception of a brutal street fight with his precious challenger Cope. Death Rider Mox does not bleed for fun.

Partway through the match, Hangman Adam Page came down to the ring and set up for a Buckshot Lariat. But he hesitated. Hangman swore that he would never allow Swerve to again hold the title, but the two also had a short but meaningful encounter the Wednesday before. The two screamed at each other as usual, but one important exchange broke through Hangman’s rage. Swerve acknowledged that he deserved Hangman’s wrath. It may have been the second most important “I know” in pop culture history, right behind Han Solo and Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back. Hangman was forced to ask himself: which was more important, his own rage or the good of AEW?

Ultimately, the question was decided for him. First, the Death Riders came in to defend Mox, only to be run off by the Opps. And then, when it looked like Swerve had victory in his hands, the lights went out. When they came back up, the Young Bucks had him in position for an EVP trigger. They laid Swerve out, allowing Mox to swoop in for the win.

The Bucks have been gone from AEW for months, since losing their tag titles. They had a brief return to New Japan during which they gained and lost tag belts. Now they've come home.

It remains to be seen what they choose to do about the state of the company they helped create. Their relationship with Mox seemed tense but courteous the last time they spoke. They fired Hangman and Kenny from the Elite, with the former too unhinged and the latter too ill to suit their purposes. was attacking Swerve meant to be an olive branch to Hangman? Have they officially allied with the Death Riders? Their TikTok suggest that the act was revenge for Swerve and Nana rejecting their gift of Young Bucks Reebok sneakers, but that seems petty, even for them.

Whatever happens in the future, they played kingmaker, leaving both Swerve and Hangman stunned in the ring. The horrid little gremlin boys are back, Mox remains king, and the fate of AEW hangs in the balance.

The Young Bucks

"Previously, On AEW…"

by Emiliana.

I remember when I was kid, I used to be very confused as to why the “Previously, on” recap segments of my favorite TV shows would recap things that happened in the last few episodes, and then sometimes they would add in small little details from episodes that happened a long, long, time ago. And as I got older, I realized that they were pulling bits of information from those long forgotten episodes to justify what was about to happen, to show you how this next step was logical, that it didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Now, by my big age of 29, I can see these “Previously, On” recaps and realize that those old, oddly specific details are important to this next episode’s plot and maybe even guess what will happen.

But this isn’t a regular TV show. This is wrestling. And we don’t have “Previously, On” segments at the beginning of the show to remind us that the last time we saw the Bucks, they were shredding legal documents and making their escape from the Death Riders. Instead, we have guys like Nicholas Jackson posting on social media that he’s in Las Vegas the night of AEW Dynasty in Philadelphia. We have the Young Bucks posting on the video app mean little meme videos about how much the fans miss them for weeks on end. And it’s true, we did. But not like this.

All of these tidbits hinted at the possibility of return. I know I certainly didn’t trust that Nick Jackson was actually in Las Vegas, or that he wouldn’t be able to take a flight and make it in time for Dynasty. My reaction was simple: I don’t trust him. But my mind was set on only one logical spot for him and Matthew to come back - the tag team title match, or hell, even the international three-way to back up Okada.

By the time both these matches rolled around, they had lulled me into a false sense of security. The card had been better than it looked on paper, and I was getting ready to watch the main event, complete with a headache and nausea in the pit of my stomach that one of my favorite wrestlers would come out of the match the same way he came into it - strapless. I was excited because I knew my favorite wrestler in the entire world would make an appearance in the match to assure the win for his greatest rival, and I would end up with the main event I wanted for July, live in front of my eyeballs, in the middle of the Texas heat.

But what I never counted on, for one godforsaken second, was that I would see the Bucks meddling in my main event scene. And yet, how could I be so naïve? How could I have been so dumb as to believe that I would get everything I ever wanted in the way that I wanted it? This isn’t my show, this isn’t my company! I am a mere number on the Nielsen rating, a statistic on the board. A ticket sold, another mark who fell for the delusion that a billionaire and I could ever be on the same page about anything. It’s like watching Game of Thrones and believing that your favorite character will make it out alive and live happily ever after. You clown. You utter buffoon.

I watched the press scrum after the show with a numbness similar only to when Hangman lost the world title. I waited, unsure what for. I guess I just wanted someone to ask anything that would alleviate the coldness I felt. Finally, we got to the TK only segment. Some bold man asked a question that I never in a million years could have worded so politely and professionally in that moment. He asked whether Tony takes into account the reactions of the fanbase when results like the main event happen, and if he calls audibles in situations like that down the road. I don’t know that I liked the answer, and I guess that’s fine. He talked up Mox greatly, and mentioned that the Bucks are founding fathers in AEW, and that (essentially) being disruptive is something the Bucks have always been. That this was in character. And yeah, maybe he’s right. The Young Bucks have always been the kinds of guys to disrupt the status quo, business as usual, but in this case right now, I wouldn’t call what they did disrupting the status quo.

Instead, what we got was more of the same - shenanigans in the main event for the sake of Jon Moxley keeping the title and continuing his reign of terror for another month. When the Bucks said they were gonna “change the world,” I was really hoping they meant for the better. But this is a piece meant to highlight the best moment of the week, and so we’re gonna talk about the good possibilities that could come of this after mourning our losses.

This week saw the long-awaited moment of admission from Swerve Strickland to Hangman Adam Page that he deserved to have his house burned down. And while I could wax poetic about how much that means, I’m sure you could find at least three separate, better essays on tumblr about how important that moment was. I only bring it up here because Hangman made a choice at the end of the match between Strickland and Moxley. In a bit of confusion, he ultimately chose to deadeye the Death Rider - though whether he did this on purpose, the commentary team didn’t seem to know, and his actions didn’t seem very certain.

All that we know for certain is that Hangman’s choice would be all for nothing, because the Bucks showed up, EVP-Triggered the former world champion Swerve, and handed the win to the leader of the Death Riders.

Two men were slighted at the end of this main event: Swerve….and Hangman.

There is a high possibility that both of them will be looking to balance the scales with our EVPs. After all, Swerve sided against them at Blood & Guts. Hangman only sided with the Bucks to get his hands on Swerve, and he never got back at them for suspending him. And after an admission such as Swerve gave on the Wednesday prior, it feels almost a given that they may put whatever animosity they have left and put it to the side. Perhaps, the greatest enemies in AEW may have to reconcile their differences and take down a greater enemy.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Bucks have changed the world after all.