AEW Dynamite & Collision – 11/19/2025: 3 Things We Loved And 3 We Hated

The final AEW broadcast before this weekend’s Full Gear event has come and gone, and the supersized “Dynamite” and “Collision” dual broadcast had plenty of table setting and plenty of stakes for Saturday’s big show. As always, there was plenty to love and plenty to hate, especially at the 3-plus hours of the broadcast.

We won’t be getting into “what happened” on Wednesday’s show, as that has already been taken care of on the fastidious results page. Instead, we will get into our feelings and discuss what worked, what didn’t, what was good, what was bad, and all those other messy matters of opinion. There was plenty to love, from the heated exchange between Kyle O’Reilly and Jon Moxley, or Samoa Joe and Hangman Page’s continuing animosity. There was also plenty to hate, including the continuing will-they/won’t-they between The Young Bucks and The Don Callis Family, which crawls at a snail’s pace toward a pretty obvious conclusion, or the lack of build for the upcoming AEW World Tag Team Championship match.

Enough bloviating, it’s time to get into the good, the bad, and the ugly from Wednesday’s “Dynamite” and “Collision” double bill in Boston, MA.

I’m well aware I’m contradicting myself from some other point here in our article when it comes to predictable things, but “Ultimo Mone,” Mercedes Mone, “13 Belts Mone” (or 14 physical belts right now, really,) whatever you want to call her, getting Red Velvet and an ROH women’s championship in the main event of a Wednesday night show is a pretty big deal, especially when it’s in Mone’s hometown of Boston.

No shade to ROH or Honor Club, or even “AEW Collision,” but there were likely a lot more eyes on this match tonight, even though it ran later than a normal “Dynamite” night. A lot of people dislike Mone and her belt collector gimmick, but she’s helping elevate others, and that showed tonight. Of course, she wasn’t going to lose before her Full Gear match against Kris Statlander on Saturday, but if you look past the predictability of it all, there’s a lot more good to come of this. Mone holding an official ROH title means she’s likely to lose that title eventually on their show, or another ROH talent will be on “Dynamite” or “Collision” to compete for it and win.

Velvet had held the ROH Women’s World Television Champion since last year, but had been on the shelf with a neck injury. But tonight, you could barely tell if you didn’t know, with how well she and Mone worked together in the ring. While it stinks Velvet lost so predictably, it doesn’t suck that Mone is now officially the ROH Women’s World TV Champ, as she had been the woman to hold the interim title since defeating Mina Shirakawa at WrestleDream.

There was a lot to like about this tonight, and the match was very well-paced for how late in the night it was. We all may have known it was coming, but sometimes, unlike the case of the Young Bucks and the Don Callis Family, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Written by Daisy Ruth

It’s that time of year again, folks. The time where the in-ring action takes center stage, 12 of the best wrestlers that AEW have to offer dominate our television screens, and all of the fans on social media who have never heard of a round robin tournament forget how to do basic maths. The Continental Classic is back for 2025, as confirmed on this week’s episode of “AEW Dynamite.” It will kick off on the Thanksgiving Eve edition of “Dynamite” next week, and given how good a year AEW has had in 2025, this year’s tournament could be the best one yet.

So why have we got this down as a hated, you ask? Well, unless you were keeping a close eye on the show tonight and looking at all of the announcements that were popping up in the lower third, or if you are a long-time AEW fan who just knows that everything after Full Gear is Continental Classic season, you might have missed the news entirely.

While I am a big fan of the tournament itself, I have always had one major problem with its presentation. It is marketed by people like Tony Khan as the AEW equivalent of the G1 Climax in New Japan Pro Wrestling, so much so that Kazuchika Okada became “The greatest tournament wrestler of all time” last year because he won the competition. That’s how much this tournament means, but to have the announcement for something that is as important as this competition just be a graphic in the lower third of the screen during a match on “Dynamite” is truly baffling.

If there was ever a time when AEW should lean in to the pomp and circumstance that comes with professional wrestling, it’s with the Continental Classic. Long-time fans are now conditioned to expect the tournament, but there are a lot of new fans who have started watching AEW this year who might not know about it. Just having a normal announcement for it doesn’t make it seem important to those who aren’t aware of how major it is in the grand scheme of the company at the end of each year.

Have the big press conference with all the participants. Bring it up weeks or even months in advance. Sell the tournament as the thing to watch this winter because, as we’ve experienced over the past two years, a lot of stories that aren’t C2 adjacent take a backseat, meaning that this is going to be the main reason why you watch AEW after Full Gear. It will be a great tournament for sure, but I just think more effort could go into its presentation.

Written by Sam Palmer

There was little to be done or said going into this weekend’s Steel Cage match between Samoa Joe and “Hangman” Adam Page for the AEW World Championship, with Joe and The Opps having turned on the man they helped crown before his first unsuccessful attempt at the title at WrestleDream. Their title rematch for Full Gear was booked, but with the added animosity that three Buckshot Lariats and a failed title pursuit will come with, and Page had been forced to run a gauntlet of Opps, beginning with Powerhouse Hobbs last week in a Falls Count Anywhere match; he won before Katsuyori Shibata and Joe attacked him, attempting to trap him in the Blood & Guts cage, prompting Page to make their bout a Steel Cage match.

This week saw the next stage of that gauntlet as Page went head-to-head with Shibata in the ring, and where Hobbs brought raw force and power to the fold, Shibata excelled at being the sly and meticulously tactical counterpart, wearing an already labored World Champion down with the primary focus on damaging him for Joe’s title match this weekend. When the referee wouldn’t turn his back for an opportune low-blow, Shibata feigned an Irish whip into him, prompting the turn-away flinch that allowed him to obscurity to get the shot off. When the referee pulled him for offence against his opponent on the ropes, he humored the referee while continuing to flick his feet out at Page behind him. All of this while Joe himself was on commentary, arguing with Bryan Danielson and making excuses for his teammate when he was very clearly breaking the rules; he continued to get irate as the match continued, with Page always getting the better of his opponent and driving him to further anger.

That anger reached its boiling point as Page got the win, his boot slipping off as Shibata grappled with him, thus allowing him to hit Shibata with said boot and get the winning Buckshot off. And as Page reminded Joe of what he did the last time he was in a cage with someone, for the briefest flicker, his anger turned to fear. Joe will be going into Full Gear without the backing of the Opps and having seen his plan to expose the “Hangman” blow up in his face, and that makes for a dangerous “Samoan Submission Machine.” Page is banged up, defiant, and filled with the confidence – or hubris – that comes with beating all three Trios Champions in singles action. That’s a great concoction for a hyper-reactive match when all is said and done, selling interest in the upcoming marquee match with some great TV. What’s not to love?

Written by Max Everett

I’ve had plenty of mixed feelings on the direction of The Young Bucks in recent weeks, and while I think Matt and Nick Jackson are doing some excellent work right now, especially when it comes to the acting they’re doing throughout this angle, I think things are now a little too obvious going in to their $1 million trios match alongside Josh Alexander against Jurassic Express and Kenny Omega. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it was just so blatantly obvious tonight.

The ongoing will they/won’t they with the Bucks joining the Don Callis Family has run its course, and it will thankfully (hopefully?) the storyline will be wrapped up on Saturday when they refuse to join, and side with Omega, Luchasaurus, and Jack Perry when the match is over and the rest of the DCF is headed down the ramp to beat up the babyfaces. That’s basically what we saw tonight already, with Callis coming out to demand that the Bucks beat up Omega to prove their allegiance to him, if they weren’t going to outright say they were joining the faction.

It also doesn’t seem to really be about the money or the “Broke Bucks” anymore, and if the Bucks win the million dollars, do they really need to align themselves with Callis? Sure, he’s been the one getting them the opportunities, but with the money in hand, I’m sure they could just attempt to go their separate way, though they’d likely get beaten down for it with how many members of the Don Callis Family there are. Taking a beating, but still having money in the bank at the end of the day, seems like a pretty okay tradeoff to me. A black eye and some bruised ribs seem like a better deal than getting lost in the massive stable alongside Callis, of all people.

While I really don’t mind all of this in general, on a solid combo episode of “Dynamite” and “Collision,” the fact that it now seems all too predictable was a weak point for me on a show where there wasn’t much to hate at all. I very well may be surprised by how things shake out at Full Gear on Saturday, but if I’m right, I’m excited to see the Bucks as babyfaces alongside Omega once again. If I’m wrong, at least we get a new storyline angle that I didn’t see coming.

Written by Daisy Ruth

The card for AEW Full Gear 2025 looks set in stone, and one of the matches that has quietly become one of the most anticipated on the show is the No Holds Barred match between Jon Moxley and Kyle O’Reilly. Following a career-best performance in the men’s Blood and Guts match last week, it was only right that O’Reilly got the big singles match against the man he forced to submit last week, and the segment they were both involved in this week did a lot to get me excited for their match.

For starters, the tag team match that saw Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli take on Orange Cassidy and Roderick Strong was very fun. The Death Riders are fully rattled after everything that has happened to them over the past few months, which has brought out an extra mean streak when it comes to their regular tags and singles matches. Claudio is an animal right now, and considering I personally wasn’t that high on him earlier this year, he is wrestling like a Terminator right now, and it really is a joy to watch when he’s in there with guys that he can ragdoll around the ring. As for Moxley, he’s also becoming more and more unhinged, but it just feels so good to see him get what had been coming to him in the first half of the year, putting in some great heel performances in the process.

Cassidy and Strong also have a good showing here, Strong in particular. If that man isn’t in this year’s Continental Classic tournament, then something will have gone seriously wrong in Tony Khan’s mind. Cassidy was probably the weakest in the match, but that’s a testament to how good everyone else was as he still proved why is one of the most reliable workhorses in AEW.

After the match, O’Reilly came out and completely no-sold Wheeler Yuta and Daniel Garcia while once again getting Moxley to tap out to the ankle lock. He then cut what was the most passionate promo of his AEW career, challenging Moxley to a No Holds Barred match that is well earned. The TV feud between the two men that has played into Moxley’s insecurities and the fact that his demeanor is starting to crack has been excellently told, and the fact that we are going to see a payoff to that is fantastic. O’Reilly sounded like he wanted to kill Moxley tonight, and at Full Gear, he will get the chance to do so. It’s now a question of whether Moxley’s mask has fully slipped, or if he is able to get back to the man who ruled AEW with an iron fist.

Written by Sam Palmer

All feelings aside about how the storyline between AEW World Tag Team Champions Brodido and their Full Gear challengers Full Gear in general has played out (and trust me when I say that I’ve definitely not been a big fan of it), AEW have still put in a lot of time and effort over the course of the past few weeks to create major tensions between Brodido and FTR. The AEW World Tag Team Championship match feels like it’s one of the more notable matches on the Full Gear card due to the fact that there’s actually been proper build-up to the match, so to do nothing else other than brief videos from both teams as a means of sending messages to one another is incredibly disappointing.

With the three-hour run time plus five minutes of overrun on this show, there was plenty of time to fit in a face-to-face verbal exchange or even just a ringside brawl so that Brody King, Bandio, Dax Harwood, and Cash Wheeler could at least have some sort of interactions with one another ahead of Full Gear. It was a missed opportunity to do one last thing to generate some additional last-minute hype for the match, which is a mistake that AEW has proved to make in the past and surely will again at some point in the future.

Written by Olivia Quinlan