AEW Double Or Nothing 2026: Biggest Winners And Losers

AEW went Double or Nothing last night in Queens, NY, and the show was jam-packed with motion. Title matches, a Stadium Stampede, bus crashes, head blood, tables, Mick Foley getting hit within the beanbag, the show had all of it, and you possibly can examine all of it over on the AEW Double or Nothing 2026 results page. The Wrestling Inc. Staff also went deep into their feelings and discussed what they loved, and what they hated.

Now, all that’s left to assign Winners and Losers. As all the time, it’s going to not be a literal account of the winners and losers, but as a substitute more of an assessment of who looked good, who looked best, and who…well…simply didn’t.

Sometimes losers are winners, like Darby Allin, and sometimes winners are losers, like Cope and Christian, who’re -quite simply- mislabeled as tag team specialists, and are heading for deep water, fast, of their young reign as tag team champions.

As all the time, the conversation can proceed within the comments section. Without further adieu, here’s the winners and losers from AEW Double or Nothing 2026.

I wasn’t initially sure what to make of Darby Allin’s temporary sprint as AEW World Champion. I initially wrote it off as an AEW original, who has waited patiently, getting their turn within the highlight, but now that it’s over, it is a much weirder, far more interesting reign than I gave it credit.

Loads of world title reigns are the identical. The champion faces the standard coterie of primary event stars, the defenses are stretched out over weeks and months, often the identical match -barring any stipulation- that showcases everyone without giving up an excessive amount of before the conclusion of the reign. Not so with Darby’s quasi-suicidal 39 days as champion.

Allin’s reign was something of an oddity. The challengers weren’t the standard primary event scene, often as a substitute feeling like popular stars auditioning for the primary event treatment, while Allin made fans legitimately wonder if he can be healthy enough to drop the title to the following champion intentionally. It was the type of reign that might be easily digested by any future AEW fans, who can queue up his various TV defenses on YouTube and knock it out in a day, without feeling like they’ve wasted time on redundant storyline beats. Now that it’s over, and might be measured in totality, it was the championship equivalent of living fast and dying young, which was perfect for Allin.

This is perhaps essentially the most controversial Losers I’ve ever written, but it surely’s my column, and I’m free to write down what I like inside reason. 

Adam Copeland and Jay Reso are two incredible wrestlers, who were fortunate enough to be a tag team alongside the cream of the crop of WWE’s tag team golden era. It’s inconceivable to be as talented as they’re, wrestle The Hardys, The Dudleys, The APA, Jericho & Benoit, and a group of others, and never develop into considered one of the “best tag teams of all time,” but I’ve never truly considered Cope and Christian/Edge & Christian/The Brood/Whatever You Want To Call Them because the tag team greats their popularity suggests. The concept that they should return to their tag team roots just doesn’t pass muster for me. It’s like if Simon & Garfunkel were two Paul Simons, and folks tried to suggest that their best work was once they were together, despite the indisputable fact that on this universe there can be two Graceland albums, and for that matter two Hearts and Bones albums, and thus just completely unfaithful.

Creatively, I believe them being AEW Tag Team Champions is a dead end, and I also worry that they do not have the physical ability to hold that they thing.

Adam Copeland’s TNT Title reign ended as a consequence of an injury he suffered, attempting to maintain up with the present generation, and I worry that -should the 2 find yourself tangling with FTR and The Young Bucks, because the tea leaves appear to suggest- we’re heading for an additional Copeland derailment. I can see the “Adam Copeland injured in Wembley TLC Match” headlines already. I believe Cope and Christian could’ve lost the match on Saturday, riding off into the sunset as a tag team, leaving fans wondering what could’ve been, and as a substitute are heading for the deep waters of getting to truly deliver a level of greatness that is simpler to assume than it’s to comprehend.

I blinked, and suddenly Thekla took over the AEW Women’s Title division in ways not seen since Britt Baker. I’m not complaining within the slightest. She’s a badass wildcard, who will throw down on the drop of the hat. While Marina Shafir is clearly Jon Moxley’s protege, Thekla is Jon Moxley’s daughter, a minimum of spiritually, and I’m beginning to think she is perhaps just as essential to the Women’s Title division, especially since Toni Storm is MIA.

Thekla is that perfect mixture of believably dominant, but additionally every defense has me pondering, “Well, actually, this is perhaps the one where she loses.” The four-way match on Sunday was a who’s-who of the present women’s division, even resurrecting Jamie Hayter from her tag team purgatory, and Thekla still found herself on top of the mountain.

The ladies’s division has an inclination to depend on people just a little more prim and proper than Thekla. She has a violent dirtbag streak in her that’s fun to observe. She jogs my memory just a little of prime Thunder Rosa, and if Rosa goes to be off on the fringes of the division, then I’m glad that there is still a few of that energy alive within the division.

Alright, this one kinda hurts to confess, but I actually feel like Bandido has hit some type of ceiling in AEW. I do not even know why. He’s an important wrestler. Tony Khan clearly feels that he’s ok to hold ROH, and he even had a wildly entertaining tag title reign with Brody King, but it surely seems like they only pull him out once they must recover from the Swerve Stricklands of the world. I do not buy that there’ll ever be a Bandido AEW World Title reign. Possibly it’s his finisher, it’s too complicated. I do not know the specifics, I just know that Bandido is best than first-round sacrifice to Swerve Strickland.

The Men’s Owen Hart Cup Bracket is so tilted towards a Strickland/Ospreay final, that it robbed each opening round matches of their drama. Nevertheless, Will Ospreay and Samoa Joe a minimum of had the novel story of “Samoa Joe cuts off all of Ospreay’s signature Ospreay-isms,” making for a fun ride to an inevitable conclusion, whereas Swerve vs. Bandido was just a little more plodding, despite the breakneck speed and high-impact offense.

This is not a terminal case of loserdom or anything, Bandido can all the time bounce back, but it surely just felt just like the ROH Champ deserved higher

Kevin Knight is coming into his own as AEW TNT Champion, and turning him into Darby Allin’s latest enemy seems like a superb move on everyone’s part. Allin obviously needs one other feud on his way back to the AEW World Title, and Allin’s history with the TNT Championship already makes him an ideal contender for Knight’s title, but now that there’s a bit of private injury and injustice added to the combination, AEW has the ingredients for greater than just a fast title defense.

A feud with Allin could make an already good heel turn into an important one, and an already solid TNT Title reign right into a starmaker. The open challenge has run its course. It’s now time for Knight to encourage challengers who actually need to end him, along together with his reign. By betraying the AEW fanbase, Knight is not only in line to feud with Allin, but additionally his likely shocked tag partner Mike Bailey.

There’s all the time been money in a Knight vs. Bailey match, but with an actual heel/face dynamic, and Bailey hoping to win his friend over from the darkside, AEW could have one hell of a comic book book Wembley Stadium match on its hands. Knight’s reign already had my interest, but together with his primary event heel turn, I’m legitimately excited what the long run holds for considered one of Magic City’s biggest fans.

Kyle O’Reilly has develop into Jon Moxley’s perosnal enhancement talent. He was given a number of wins early of their feud, and now he appears to be the almost-ran of the AEW Continental Title Division.

That is considered one of the downsides to narrative convention. Jon Moxley needed to be humbled by O’Reilly, who beat Moxley by surprise, in order that he had a reason to improve inside the Death Riders, and now that he’s done the training, and put within the work, all that was left was to prove to O’Reilly that he won’t be fooled again. It’s a great story, and it was a great match, but it surely doesn’t change the indisputable fact that O’Reilly can not say he “looked good in defeat” or whatever else you normally say to salve these sorts of losses. No, he’s only a loser, for now.

There’s all the time time to rehabilitate him on this yr’s Continental Classic, but that does not change the indisputable fact that O’Reilly just doesn’t appear to be he’ll ever have the opportunity to beat the obstacle that’s Jon Moxley, now that Moxley has learned the teachings he was alleged to learn.