AEW WrestleDream 2025: Biggest Winners & Losers

AEW WrestleDream 2025 was a marathon of wrestling, even by AEW standards, which leaves us plenty to speak about within the cold light of day. There have been title matches, big money matches, Bush-era “enhanced interrogation” techniques, elderly scorpions, Opps turned bad, and, after all, plenty of winners and plenty of losers.

The next will probably not cope with what happened on last night’s PPV. Our steadfast results crew has already handled that. This also won’t really get into things like “good” or “bad,” “love” or “hate,” or the like, because the Wrestling Inc. Staff has already dived deep and are available back with loads of well-put thoughts on that matter. As a substitute, I shall be breaking down who got here out of WrestleDream 2025 looking like a winner and who got here out looking like a loser.

Sometimes a winner is a loser, like within the case of Darby Allin, who could be running out of the way to shock the audience. Sometimes losers are winners, like within the case of Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada, who quite frankly had more to realize in loss than in victory last night. Sometimes a winner really is a winner, like within the case of Jack Perry, who delivered in a make-or-break position in St. Louis.

Enough teasing, though, let’s get into the nitty-gritty and break down the winners and losers from AEW WrestleDream 2025.

Katsuyori Shibata is an elder statesman whose medical issues are well-documented and thoroughly memed. Samoa Joe is talking about retirement in the identical way Donald Trump keeps talking about whether or not he’s gonna make it to heaven. If there’s anyone who has probably the most to realize from The Opps turning heel and attacking the AEW World Champion, it’s Powerhouse Hobbs.

Hobbs has had a rocky road in AEW to this point, first in Team Taz, after which getting lost within the shuffle of the ever-growing Don Callis Family, but his tenure with The Opps has seen the previous AEW TNT Champion remind the audience why Jim Ross saw so many dollar signs when he first debuted in the corporate 5 years ago. The attack on Hangman Page now makes him the healthiest member of a top heel faction, when before he was simply the workhorse of a tentpole undercard attraction. It doesn’t feel like Hobbs shall be stuck defending the AEW Trios Titles on pre-shows for much longer, and while Joe might still be the major event heavy hitter of the group, it doesn’t change the incontrovertible fact that Hobbs will once more have a probability to prove himself against the Unified Champion or also have a more substantial run with the TNT Title. The turn gives Hobbs a number of options, and every one in every of them is a reasonably vibrant future, assuming the group capitalizes on the momentum they’ve from Saturday’s shocker, they usually finally let him off the chain.

Darby Allin and Jon Moxley told an enthralling story during the last 3-4 months, stuffed with violence, bloodshed, from which neither man’s ears will ever be the identical, and I actually haven’t got the urge to see either guy again for one more 3-4 months.

For the last 12 months, AEW has been consumed by Jon Moxley’s quest to show AEW right into a roster made from iron and steel, and the last 3 or so months have been Darby chipping away at that armor. Moxley made a promise: No retreat, no give up. On Saturday, Moxley stood naked in front of the AEW audience, and like he did at All In: Texas, he once more surrendered. If it were as much as me, Moxley could be fed to the wolves, and his Death Riders would give him a bit taste of “blood in, blood out,” and send him packing for some time.

Darby’s in a trickier situation because, by all metrics, he’s now “The Guy” in AEW, and I’m already sick of him. He conquered Moxley, like he conquered Mount Everest, because of some help from his guardian angel, Sting, who also passed on his trademark bat to the previous AEW TNT Champion. I’ve seen Darby deliver 1,000,000 different sorts of punishment. There’s literally no Dick Cheney-approved enhanced interrogation tactic that I have not seen him either inflict or have inflicted on him. There comes some extent where it gets repetitive, and no amount of sociopathic creativity can salvage it. His road from the literal mountain top to the metaphorical valley has literally been paved by blood and fire. I actually do not know where you go from here. 

Does he really want the AEW World Title? Do titles even matter to a man like Darby? There’s something a bit hole about the concept that Darby is about to go from saving the soul of AEW and conquering the natural world to…winning a title? Darby’s in a weirdly existential place for a seemingly made man in wrestling, and while that leaves loads of questions, it doesn’t change the incontrovertible fact that it feels more like the beginning of a denouement than his crowning moment.

I went into WrestleDream terrified that we were about to see Kazuchika Okada and Konosuke Takeshita change into wacky mismatched tag team champions who cannot stand one another. It is a tried and true trope, but it surely appears like the Unified Champion and the newly minted IWGP World Heavyweight Champion have higher things to do than bicker with one another while they squash The Gunns or someone.

Technically, everyone won on Saturday, as Brodido’s underdog run with the tag titles now features a win over two bona fide stars. Okada won’t be the identical “Rainmaker” he was within the 2010s, but a win over Okada remains to be a win over Okada, and doubly so of the brand new IWGP Champ, Takeshita. Tensions have been brewing between the 2 Don Callis Members of the family, and the selection to have the cracks of their bond cost them the AEW tag titles was one which made everyone look good. It’s just wrestling 101 that a loss should make me say, “Man, I gotta see what’s next for those losers,” and Saturday’s tag match did just that.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Okada or it’s Takeshita, but either of those men leaving Don Callis’s sweaty clutches shall be a win for AEW, and let’s face it, humanity basically.

It’s an unlucky fact of the “Ultimo Mone” gimmick that many champions shall be sacrificed on the altar of the TBS Champion’s glory, but there was something so unceremonious in regards to the way the Interim ROH Women’s Television Champion was thrown into the combo. Sure, she has history with Mercedes. Sure, she was already an audible attributable to an injury to Red Velvet. Sure, the show needed a filler match because Kota Ibushi got hurt. It doesn’t change the incontrovertible fact that the construct to a fairly large title-for-title match was nil. It was an open challenge that was announced roughly 24-36 hours before the PPV, about as unceremonious as one can get.

It was a great match. I’m undecided there was a single bad match all night. But this was definitely one which left me rubbing my chin on the result. I do not know where Mina goes from here. Sure, she’s technically free of the Interim Title to do whatever she wants, but she’s got a number of rebuilding to do after such an absent-minded display. I believe that is what really rubs me the fallacious way about this match, it just kinda made Mina look headstrong and silly. Wrestling is admittedly stuffed with headstrong fools, but it surely still felt like a number of money was left on the table by just throwing this match on the market with little notice.

Jurassic Express as a unit won on Saturday, but Luchasaurus is a really tall, athletic guy who seems to “know his role,” so to talk, so I’m undecided he’ll ever be in peril of wrestling not needing him. Jack Perry, nevertheless, was in a make-or-break position on Saturday and got here out proving why everyone in AEW is so determined to make the “Beverly Hills 90210” scion work.

Perry is the definition of “a project,” someone who got here into AEW with tremendous potential, and who’s slowly being molded right into a singles star. His time as “Scapegoat” did more harm than good, some through his fault, and a few simply through company missteps like playing the backstage footage of him getting Punk’d out (pun intended). His return and reunion with Luchasaurus had fans cautiously optimistic, but after watching him deliver the identical type of exciting tag motion, though as a much thoroughly matured performer, was already enough to purchase him some goodwill for his bus-driving days, but once Kenny Omega showed up, it really cemented that Perry could still be that hope for the long run that AEW saw in Jungle Boy. He is not out of the wilderness yet, but he delivered barely enough to point out that that is now a tag team comprised of a person and his dinosaur, versus a boy.

I can not explain it (but I’ll try, in any case that is kinda what I do here), but Eddie Kingston seems lost. Perhaps he’s just waiting for Continental Classic season, so he can show what he can do, but it surely appears like the previous AEW Triple Crown Champion is totally unmotivated. His promos don’t have any fire, and he’s just kinda hanging around Hook.

It appears like yearly might be “Eddie Kingston’s Yr,” apart from this one. He’s a natural babyface, Dusty Rhodes from Yonkers, and yet AEW seems unable to search out a strategy to truly capitalize on this longtime fan favorite.

Again, his return from injury remains to be latest. He could be healing. He might just be hanging out. It doesn’t change the incontrovertible fact that Kingston seems rudderless for the time being, and AEW can either make that text, and provides him a story about being a tumbleweed within the wind or they may give him something to do. It also doesn’t quite help Hook to have a monument to squandered potential cheering him on, so it could be in Hook’s best interests for AEW to provide Kingston something to do, too, lest he and Hook begin to feel like that episode of “South Park” where Stan Marsh hangs out with a drifter pretending to be his future self. So, unless Kingston is acting as some type of grand ruse to get Hook to keep away from drugs, he should probably get something to do, quick.