Man, talk about a show that overachieves... AEW's fourth annual WrestleDream is in the books, and for a show that had an already rushed three-week build derailed by the death of Pac, plus an untried gimmick match in the main event, this show delivered huge. The four-hour-fifteen-minute running time flew by and even the weakest main show bout approached four-star territory. Also we got the debut of Ilya Dragunov, who should fit right in. Plus, holy shit that tag title match.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. As I figured would happen, the main show kicked off mid-match as FTR and the Motor City Machine Guns had already gotten underway about eight minutes earlier. I think I'd have preferred the introductions and just the very beginning of the match take place on the pre-show, because those eight free minutes felt like they were sort of killing time until the actual PPV started. Once on the main show this match was quite good, though I think they missed their peak by a few minutes at the end. This felt like a good old-school tag match in the vein of Anderson & Blanchard vs. Rock N' Roll Express. After 26 total minutes and some close nearfalls, the Guns won with a tandem package bomb for the win, putting them 1-0 in the series. Good opener that would've benefited from some trims. ****
The first actual main card match was the Women's World Title bout, surprisingly. Mercedes Moné and Thekla got about fifteen minutes and loaded it up with some great action. Most of the reviews I've read/heard about this one have been middling for some reason, but I liked this match a lot. Thekla found an inventive counter for the Statement Maker early on, simply spider walking her way free. But the next time she tried that, Mercedes picked her up for a lungblower, which was a cool spot. Moné hit multiple Meteoras, Thekla hit a great Spider Suplex in the corner, Mercedes took off her mask and hit Thekla, tried the Money Maker but Thekla countered with a rollup for a nearfall. Thekla went for the curb stomp but Mercedes dodged and hit the Money Maker to retain. Pretty great opener. ****
Next up was the first of multiple pleasant surprises, the Chris Jericho-Nick Wayne rubber match. I wasn't expecting this to be nearly as strong as it was, given Jericho's age, but this was his best performance in a long time. Wayne looked and carried himself like a star here; he's really grown into the smarmy young heel character. Early in the match Jericho hit a Death Valley Driver on the ring steps which looked incredibly painful. There was a great moment where Nick went for Wayne's World and Jericho hit the Codebreaker in midair. Late in the match Wayne spun the referee around so he could kick Jericho low (a callback to their previous match), but Jericho no-sold it. Wayne did it again with the same result, and Jericho pulled an athletic cup out of his pants and smacked Wayne with it. The ref took the cup away and Jericho kicked Wayne low and went for a Judas Effect, but Wayne fell down to avoid it, and then got a flash pin to win the match. Really fun. ****
Holy jumpin' shitballs, the Young Bucks-Fletcher/Knight match... This was one of the best tag matches I've ever seen and an instant MOTY candidate. 22 minutes of absolute perfection. It would be impossible to recap everything that happened, but a few highlights included Knight hitting a standing dropkick on Matt, while Matt was sitting on Fletcher's shoulders. So like, a seven-foot leap. Then there was the Meltzer Driver on the floor, a Kevin Knight coast-to-coast dropkick on both Bucks, a double chicken fight resulting in each top guy hitting a Poison Rana on the bottom guy, a top-rope Poison Rana by Nick Jackson to Kyle Fletcher, Knight hitting a UFO Splash three-quarters of the way across the ring, and so on. At the end of the match Knight accidentally hit a springboard lariat on Fletcher, and the Bucks nailed him with the BTE Trigger to retain. Fletcher vs. Knight is in the works. This match was unreal awesome. *****
Given the impossible task of following that was the TBS Title four-way with Persephone defending against Queen Aminata, Hyan and Dani Luna. The crowd was very quiet at the beginning but these four worked really hard and won them over, resulting in another overachieving match. This is another one I feel like most reviews have shortchanged. This was about 14 minutes of nonstop action and everyone looked great for the most part. Hyan at one point picked up both Persephone and Luna for a Samoan Drop/Fallaway Slam combo, which was crazy. Persephone at one point hit a moonsault to break up a pin but mostly missed, but quickly hit Hyan with a picture-perfect one to retain the title. Probably the weakest match on the card by default, but I liked this one quite a bit. ***3/4
The Andrade-Ciampa National Title match was next and was also quite entertaining, though it leaned a little too far into indie comedy. The main story of the match was Ciampa playing mind games involving Andrade's pants shtick. Andrade did his usual selfie spot with a crowd plant, and Ciampa returned the favor later by taking a selfie with his daughter. Later Ciampa beat Andrade to the punch with his disrobing routine, removing his trunks to reveal another set that read "I Just Know," which got a pop. Andrade took control and went to remove his pants but Ciampa hit him with a running knee and Andrade was trapped with his pants around his ankles for a bit. After the pants were finally off, Ciampa attacked the pants and tried to pin them but they "kicked out" and Ciampa did the nearfall overselling bit. This was dumb as fuck but the crowd ate it up. Finally they got serious again, and Ciampa brought the belt into the ring as well as a chair. Aubrey Edwards took the chair and Ciampa tried to DDT Andrade onto he belt, but Andrade DDTed Ciampa instead, followed by the DM for the win. Very good match but the pants bit should've been left out. ****
The Trios Title match was next and while not quite up to the level of their All Out match, this was pretty great, particularly whenever Swerve and Hangman were interacting. The first fall was solid but felt like a first fall, culminating in The New Level hitting Midnight Hour on Bandido to go up 1-0. The pace continued to quicken throughout, and the challengers tied it up in the second fall when Page hit the Buckshot on Swerve, which allowed Brodido to hit their monkey flip 450 onto Austin Creed for the pin. The third fall really took this match up a notch as everyone started hitting crazy shit. Bandido did a top rope backflip powerslam on BOTH New Level guys, Swerve hit a vertebreaker on Brody, and finally Swerve countered the 21 Plex into Big Pressure, which Bandido then countered into a flash pin to win the belts. Whatever Swerve and Hangman have in store for Full Gear, get ready for violence. ****1/4
The semi-main slot went to Jon Moxley vs. Mark Davis, and I felt like this was the wrong match for this slot. The crowd was silent for the first half of this one, but miraculously (and thanks in part to a LOT of blood), they came around and the match built to a very emotional peak. It was truly a tale of two matches. Davis dominated the early parts and ended up opening a large cut on Mox's forehead with an elbow strike. Mox gushed EVERYWHERE. Davis continued to smother Mox with ground and pound offense to the point that it looked like Mox might not be able to continue. Marina Shafir and Daniel Garcia showed up behind the barricade to talk him off the ledge, and from then on Mox was back in the match. Davis charged into the corner but hit the post and was also busted open. Mox locked in a Brutalizer but Davis escaped, and Mox transitioned to the Bulldog Choke. Davis fought the move for a while but Mox leaned on top of him and Davis passed out. Post-match he celebrated with the Death Riders, almost in tears. The story of Mox holding everything together as the leader, to the point that he couldn't anymore, was quite compelling. I'll have to rewatch this one because the first half of it felt very slow and I was ready to dismiss it as a near-miss until the emotion took over. On balance I'll go **** for now. Side note: Why didn't the 20-minute time limit apply to this one?
The main event was of course the brand new Clockwork Carnage match, and while I had my doubts going in, this proved a pretty successful new gimmick. I'd make some tweaks, as I'll get to in a minute, but things started off fast and furious (and kinda stayed that way), with Will Ospreay and Konosuke Takeshita as the first two. The others entered in the following order: Speedball Mike Bailey, Ricochet, Darby Allin, Kazuchika Okada, Adam Copeland, and finally Samoa Joe. Only two guys didn't make the scoring period, and unfortunately those two were Bailey and Takeshita. Once the scoring period began the pinfalls were lightning fast, sometimes overwhelmingly so. Toward the end there was a four-way tie, but with only seconds remaining Ospreay hit Copeland with a Hidden Blade to take the lead and retain the title. For a match that lasted 32 minutes or so this absolutely flew by, to a fault really. For next year they should extend the entrance intervals to four minutes - three really isn't enough to do very much - and extend the scoring period to 20 minutes to spread out the pins. That would bring the total time to 44 minutes, which is the equivalent of a very short Royal Rumble. I'm also hoping we'll eventually see the match go into a sudden death overtime as the announcers mentioned it might. Ospreay set up multiple potential challengers in this one, since Joe and Darby both pinned him, and he had a post-match face-off with Copeland (For the record though, I have zero interest in Copeland getting a PPV title match). So overall a very fun concept match that I think they can better execute in the future. ****1/4
By my count this show that felt like a B-PPV going in had eight ****+ matches, one of them a MOTY candidate, and only one match that fell just short of ****. This was one of the most consistently good shows they've ever done. I wouldn't place it in their S-tier or anything but goddamn was this show an easy watch. Even at 4:15 this show never dragged at all for me. AEW's PPVs are simply at another level from everyone else's.
Best Match: Young Bucks vs. Fletcher & Knight
Worst Match: I hate to even call it that because it was quite good, but the TBS 4-Way by default
What I'd Change: Make the FTR match a little shorter, make the main event a little longer, move the Moxley match earlier in the show and shorten it by a good five minutes.
Most Disappointing Match: Initially I was disappointed with the Moxley match but on reflection I think it's better than my first impression would indicate
Most Pleasant Surprise: Jericho-Wayne
Overall Rating: 9/10
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