“It’s the End of the World As We Know It…”
The end of the year approaches, and AEW caps off the year with the annual Worlds End Pay-Per-View event. A year full of some great storylines with fantastic wrestling. It feels like the wrestling was better than expected, the stories pulled viewers in with more excitement.
The PPVs have certainly been one hit after another. From the beginning of the year, PPVs seemed to be “decent on paper” and yet each one turned out to be spectacular. The best evidence was Full Gear where a card, which many looked at as an enhanced special edition of Dynamite, turned out to be one of the top three PPVs of the year.
Let’s get to the 2025 closer!
Pre-show:
The Sisters of Sin defeated Hyan & Maya World
Shortly after, it was announced Hyan and Maya were “All Elite” and given contracts. They seem like a fun duo and would likely benefit from continued in-ring work on Ring of Honor programming. Skye Blue and Julia Hart are seductively menacing as always. Great way to start things off for the live-crowd.
Eddie Kingston defeated Zack Gibson
Speaking of ROH, Kingston and the Grizzled Young Veterans seem to have a feud brewing. Eddie and Gibson went back and forth until “The Mad King” spiked Gibson with the DDT. After the match it was two-on-one until Ortiz ran out for the save! Nice to see him back on TV.
Mascara Dorada and Bandido defeated Rocky Romero and Mark Davis
Fast and fun match. Dorada and Bandido kept the pace moving while Romero and Davis tried grounding the fliers. This was a hot one on the pre-show.
Jurassic Express and Jetspeed defeated The Demand and Josh Alexander
A really good match to lead into the main show. This will likely lead to Perry getting a title match against Ricochet.
The main show starts super-strong with Kazuchka Okada defeating Konosuke Takeshita.
A shocker to be sure, but not without shenanigans. The wrestling was top-notch. Old school wrestling fans surely appreciate the slow build, gradually increasing both pace and ferocity of the battle. As the match continued, Takeshita began overpowering and outwrestling Okada. Their facial expressions amplified the seriousness of the encounter. The story between these two have been brewing ever since Okada joined the Callis Family. It appeared as though Okada was envious of the younger wrestler’s success and fearful of being surpassed. As it felt this was to be true, Okada resorted to underhanded tactics and assisted by Don Callis with a screwdriver planted in the turnbuckle pad, Okada was able to gain the win.
As Takeshita said in a post-match promo: “This. Isn’t. Over.”
Jon Moxley defeated Kyle Fletcher
Just days before the end of the year, another match slides its way into being considered a Match of the Year candidate. Both Fletcher and Mox tried outsmarting the other. Evenly matched in both wrestling, brawling, and in the psychological arena. As the match continued, Fletcher began overpowering Mox, especially after his face hit the ring stairs and cracked a tooth. Ouchie. Fletcher worked over Mox’s leg through the rest of the match, which is unusual for him, but gave us all a glimpse into how Fletcher can adapt to any style in the ring based on his opponent.
Mox turned up his brutality, tossing Fletcher off the top with a Sleeper Suplex nearly breaking his neck. The crowd became louder and louder in favor of Mox, something the announce team couldn’t believe. Mox, having what I am sure many would call “a Steve Austin” moment. Mox, a beaten and bloody mess would not give in. Fletcher worked an ankle lock, then trapping the leg. Mox came back with two Paradigm Shift DDTs but Fletcher kicked out of both and returned to the submission. Fletcher in desperation searched for the screwdriver, but it seems all was not according to plan. Mox then able to outmaneuver and lock in the sleeper choke, and despite nearly escaping Fletcher could not and would pass out. Mox moves on.
FTR retains the AEW World Tag Team Championships against Austin Gunn and Juice Robinson
A good match to hold us over from two outstanding singles matches. A brutal and bloody affair with some crushing spots. Cash seems to always take a solo dive through a table. Weapons came into play but did not become the focal point of the match. Dax and Cash simply outwrestled and outsmarted the challengers. A brutal finish saw Dax hitting Austin with piledriver after piledriver after piledriver. The Gunn Club were valiant challengers, unfortunately not enough to become champions again.
The Babes of Wrath defeated TBS Champion Mercedes Mone and ROH Women’s Champion Athena
Rolling from the men’s tag team title match into the women’s championships gave it an added feeling of excitement. Athena and Mone are like an Odd Couple pairing, each with their own egos and motivations. However, the Babes of Wrath bring both the fun and the fight to their matches. Willow and Harley continue to work extremely well together as Mone and Athena score with a number of double-team maneuvers, however late in the match have more miscommunications which ultimately lead to their downfall. While Athena appeared to be the aggressor, Mone’s ego got in the way and led to her taking the pinfall.
While the Babes celebrate, Mone continues her slow descent into madness. Her backstage promo goes unhinged, and we might see Mone soon lose the very championship which began this quest.
Darby Allin defeated Gabe Kidd
Bloody and barbaric as Jim Ross would call it. Nothing pretty about this, two guys who beat the crap out of each other and set out to simply destroy each other, and nearly succeeded. Darby always comes out looking like the underdog until he frustrates his opponent to the point where they realize Darby can’t be stopped or killed for that matter. However, while Kidd appeared to have the advantage, Darby cleverly wrapped and rolled him up for the three count. This feud felt more to get Darby a good spot since his injury, hopefully this sets everyone back on the right path.
Mixed Nuts Mayhem Match: The Conglomeration and Toni Storm defeated the Death Riders
This was refreshing after five insanely intense matches, we get a wonderfully comedic match which also has some great series of wrestling action. At one point the Death Riders run a marathon of strikes on one members of the Conglomeration while trapped in the turnbuckle. Later on, Shafir and Roddy had a moment in the ring. We all know they are married, but it’s one of those unspoken things which seemed to add to the excitement. Shafir overall looked great, and it seems her continued exposure in the ring has been proving successful. It seems her feud with Timeless Toni Storm will continue on. Speaking of the Timeless One, she had no problem mixing it up with the men, hitting Storm Zero, and even being swung around by Claudio. Briscoe hits the Jay Driller for the pinfall victory.
Kris Statlander retains the AEW Women’ s World Championship against Jamie Hayter
Solid match. A bit slow from the start, but in a good way as this seemed to have similarities with the Okada/Takeshita match. Each woman tried out-wrestling or out-powering the other. Hayter seemed to play more of the heel role, whether it was necessary or not is unclear. But as the match picked up both women delivered an exciting and unpredictable match. Both women are powerhouses and display uncanny strength. Statlander nearly killed Hayter with a cradle driver off the top turnbuckle. Statlander finally hit the Saturday Night Fever for the win.
Jon Moxley defeated Kazuchka Okada to win the Continental Classic and the Continental Championship
With this win, the titles are no longer unified. Okada remains the AEW International Champion, and Mox becomes the third to be Continental Champion. Mox continued to sell the leg at the onset, showing the damage Fletcher did earlier was no joke. Okada used this to his advantage. His ego once again became his undoing as Mox rallied back to the excitement of the live crowd, as he refused to stay down from more than one lariat, spiking Okada with a huge Death Rider Driver DDT for the three count.
After the match, with Claudio, Yuta, Garcia, and Shafir in the ring, Mox gave an impassioned promo about the sanctity of professional wrestling, being part of a company which pushes wrestlers to be better and push to their limits and beyond. This for sure is a babyface promo and very much calls back to what Mox wanted from the company when he initially formed the Death Riders and took the AEW World Championship. However, this seems to have evolved into something different and quite intriguing moving forward.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman defeated Samoa Joe, Swerve Strickland, and “Hangman” Adam Page to become AEW Men’s World Champion
After a night full of great matches, one would think this would struggle to follow up. However, you have four of the best wrestlers and personalities in the company. Swerve seems to have joined the Green Lantern Corps, and Hangman did great working together and then transitioned to going at it one-on-one. Everyone took turns against each other, but notably, MJF always seemed to find himself on the outside, which seems to be a staple for him in multi-man matches. MJF used this to his advantage more than once, striking when others were down in an attempt to steal the win. The longer the match went, the longer it felt like a stalemate with no clear outcome. However, the Opps came out to assist, causing chaos all over. As Hobbs and Shibata brawled around the ring with Swerve and MJF, an angry cowboy turned his attention to Hook. This allowed Joe to capitalize, but MJF managed to sneak back in, hit Joe with the HeatSeeker Piledriver and win the championship.
Once again, MJF proves how to use his smarts rather than subjecting himself to more harm than the others. This was the right way to have Joe lose the championship, but I am surprised to see Joe take the pinfall. However, this could be MJF’s way of crossing off one of his paybacks off the to-do list, avenging his loss at their last encounter at the 2023 World’s End.
It’s been a great 2025, and now MJF, Mox, FTR, Okada, Statlander, Mercedes, and the Babes of Wrath lead AEW into 2026. Let’s Go!
