Opening from the sports desk

Ed: “Good evening, fans—welcome back to the sports desk. It’s been a loaded week for All Elite Wrestling, and we’ve got the numbers, the matches, and the stories that matter.”

Headlines

• Mercedes Moné’s broken nose and surgery: Ed: “The AEW Women’s World Champion is still working through a broken nose, about six weeks removed from surgery. She’s wrestling with a protective mask and insists the injury won’t slow down her title defenses or her schedule—calling this run her destiny.”
• Ilja Dragunov to debut on Dynamite: Gordon: “The ‘Mad Dragon’ is now officially part of AEW and is set for his in‑ring debut on this coming Dynamite from Florida. No opponent announced yet, but he’s already name‑checking Jon Moxley, Samoa Joe, and Kyle Fletcher as the kind of competition he wants.”
• Eric Bischoff on Hulk Hogan and Terry Bollea: Ed: “In a recent interview, Eric Bischoff said that the man behind the Hulk Hogan persona sometimes lost track of who Terry Bollea was—living the character so intensely that the line between the two blurred. He pointed to later‑life reflections and documentaries as important glimpses of the real person behind the gimmick.”

AEW since October 14, 2026 — the week in full

AEW Dynamite #367 (October 14, 2026 – Cleveland)

Gordon: “We start at the Wolstein Center, where Dynamite pushed Clockwork Carnage and the Don Callis Family storylines forward.”

• Six‑man tag: Ed: “Callis’ crew—Jake Doyle, Mark Davis, and Wardlow—knocked off the Death Riders trio of Daniel Garcia, Gabe Kidd, and Jon Moxley, with Marina Shafir in their corner. A statement win that keeps Callis’ faction firmly in the mix.”
• Clockwork Carnage qualifiers: Gordon: “Adam Copeland punched his ticket by beating Josh Alexander, while Konosuke Takeshita outlasted Brian Cage. Both matches were hard‑hitting and tightened the field for the multi‑man world title bout.”
• AEW International Title – qualifier: Ed: “Kazuchika Okada, already champion, turned back Myron Reed in a qualifier, reinforcing that the Rainmaker is not just defending gold—he’s shaping the entire Clockwork Carnage landscape.”
• Women’s trios showcase: Gordon: “Triangle of Madness—Julia Hart, Skye Blue, and Thekla—scored a big win over Divine Dominion (Lena Kross and Megan Bayne) plus Mercedes Moné. That’s a major result against a team that included the Women’s World Champion.”
• Tag team main event: Ed: “Samoa Joe and Tommaso Ciampa teamed up to defeat United Empire’s Andrade El Idolo and Will Ospreay, adding another wrinkle to the web of contenders circling AEW’s top titles.”

AEW Collision #166 – Tag 1 (October 14, 2026 – Cleveland)

Gordon: “Same building, different night—Collision focused on qualifying bouts and the TNT title picture.”

• Clockwork Carnage qualifier: Ed: “Ricochet advanced by beating Ace Austin, giving the high‑flyer a spot in the chaotic world title environment.”
• Women’s tag match: Gordon: “Dani Luna and Hyan scored a big win over Dr. Britt Baker DMD and Persephone, a result that shakes up the women’s pecking order and puts Luna and Hyan on the radar.”
• AEW TNT Title – qualifier: Ed: “Darby Allin, defending the TNT Championship, defeated Hechicero in a qualifier—keeping the belt and securing his place in Clockwork Carnage at the same time.”

AEW Collision #166 – Tag 2: Saturday Tailgate Brawl – WrestleDream 2026 (October 17, 2026 – Orlando)

Gordon: “Before the pay‑per‑view proper, AEW ran a Tailgate Brawl edition of Collision from the Addition Financial Arena.”

• Divine Dominion vs. Sisters of Sin: Ed: “Lena Kross and Megan Bayne beat Julia Hart and Skye Blue, giving Divine Dominion a key win over another established duo.”
• Don Callis Family in trios action: Gordon: “Jake Doyle, Josh Alexander, and Wardlow, seconded by Rocky Romero and Trent Beretta, dispatched Alex Breeze, Papi D, and Rhys Maddox in short order—another showcase of Callis’ depth.”
• 12‑man tag chaos: Ed: “Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli, Daniel Garcia, Gabe Kidd, Wheeler Yuta) and The Dogs (Clark Connors, David Finlay) topped Bang Bang Gang (Jay White, Austin and Colten Gunn) and The Conglomeration (Kyle O’Reilly, Orange Cassidy, Roderick Strong). Marina Shafir and Willow Nightingale were factors at ringside, but the combined Death Riders/Dogs unit stood tall.”
• Best‑of‑five opener: Gordon: “Motor City Machine Guns—Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin—took the first match of their series against FTR, winning a long, competitive tag bout and going up 1–0.”

AEW WrestleDream 2026 (October 17, 2026 – Orlando)

Ed: “Then came WrestleDream itself—a pay‑per‑view built around Clockwork Carnage and multiple title defenses.”

Key matches and title scene

• Motor City Machine Guns vs. FTR (Best‑of‑five, Match 1): Gordon: “The series opener continued on the PPV card, with the Guns beating FTR in a lengthy tag classic. They leave Orlando with momentum and the early edge.”
• AEW Women’s World Championship – Mercedes Moné (c) vs. Thekla: Ed: “Moné retained the title over Thekla in a physical match, leaning on that protective face mask and her Mone Maker finish. It’s her first major defense since the nose surgery, and she made it count.”
• Nick Wayne vs. Chris Jericho: Gordon: “Nick Wayne scored a signature win over Jericho, continuing his rise as one of AEW’s key young names.”
• AEW World Tag Team Championship – Young Bucks (c) vs. Don Callis Family (Kevin Knight & Kyle Fletcher): Ed: “Matt and Nick Jackson kept the belts, defeating Knight and Fletcher in a long match that still reinforced Callis’ team as top‑tier contenders.”
• AEW TBS Championship – Four‑way: Gordon: “Persephone retained against Dani Luna, Hyan, and Queen Aminata, surviving a crowded field and keeping the TBS title firmly in her grasp.”
• AEW National Championship – Andrade El Idolo (c) vs. Tommaso Ciampa: Ed: “Andrade held onto the National Championship in a grueling bout with Ciampa, solidifying his role as one of AEW’s cornerstone singles champions.”
• AEW World Trios Championship – 2/3 Falls: Gordon: “In a major shift, ‘Hangman’ Adam Page, Bandido, and Brody King—collectively Brodido—defeated Swerve Strickland and The New Level (Austin Creed and Kofi) to win the Trios titles. That’s a title change and a big narrative swing away from Swerve’s reign.”
• AEW Continental Championship – Jon Moxley (c) vs. Mark Davis: Ed: “Moxley retained the Continental Championship over Mark Davis, continuing his run as the workhorse champion who anchors AEW’s upper card.”
• AEW World Championship – Clockwork Carnage: Gordon: “The main event saw Will Ospreay defend the AEW World Title in the Clockwork Carnage match against Samoa Joe, Adam Copeland, Darby Allin, Kazuchika Okada, Ricochet, Konosuke Takeshita, and Mike Bailey. Ospreay emerged with the belt still in hand, scoring the decisive fall and proving he can survive a stacked field of elite challengers.”

Debut and ongoing stories

• Ilja Dragunov becomes All Elite: Ed: “During the WrestleDream festivities, Ilja Dragunov was introduced as AEW’s newest signing, with his first match set for Dynamite. He’s already talking about testing himself against Moxley and Joe—so expect him to be thrown into the deep end quickly.”
• Mercedes Moné’s title reign and injury: Gordon: “Moné’s defense against Thekla, combined with her comments about wrestling through a still‑broken nose, frames this reign as a grit‑heavy chapter in her career. She missed All Out due to the injury, but WrestleDream marked her full‑scale return to the top of the division.”

Big‑picture view from the sports desk

Gordon: “So where does AEW stand after this week?”

• World title scene: Ospreay remains champion, but he’s now survived a multi‑man war, which only raises the stakes for whoever gets the next singles shot.
• Trios division: Page and Brodido’s win resets the division and repositions Swerve and The New Level as chasers instead of champions.
• Women’s division: Moné is firmly established as the centerpiece, with Thekla, Triangle of Madness, Divine Dominion, and Persephone’s TBS reign all forming a layered picture.
• Tag division: Young Bucks stay on top, while Motor City Machine Guns vs. FTR begins a best‑of‑five that could define AEW’s tag narrative for months.
• New faces and shifting factions: Dragunov’s arrival, the continued rise of Don Callis Family, and the interplay between Death Riders, United Empire, Bang Bang Gang, and The Dogs keep the roster feeling crowded and volatile.

Closing: “This is my Wembley; this is my All In; this is my opportunity”

Ed: “Before we sign off, I’m reminded of a line from a certain veteran, Jeff Jarrett on Collision back in June 2024—when he said, ‘This is my Wembley; this is my All In; this is my opportunity.’ That wasn’t just about one tournament. It was about what it means when wrestling gives you a stage big enough to confront your past and chase something new.”

Promo

Credit: cagematch.net

Jeff Jarrett: “You know, a couple of months ago, I was approached and there were some different conversations going on about me being a possibility to be in the tournament, and when that first sunk into me that I was going to get an opportunity… just, a flood of emotion came over me, because it’s hard for me to imagine it’s been twenty-five years. But there’s so many things about Owen that I remember like it was yesterday.

We met in the early nineties; his father was a wrestling promoter and my father was a wrestling promoter. There are so many things we had in common, whether it’s funny stories that no-one could tell, funny stories about family dinners or family road trips. It’s just being the sons of wrestlers and promoters. It’s just a different life, but we both loved it. And as I grew to know Owen, and Owen grew to know me, and, uh, we traveled and went our separate ways and came back together, but in the late nineties, fate would’ve it that we would team up and we would become tag team champions. And I look kind of back on those days as favorite days of my career.

He left his house on a Saturday, and ironically, in 1999, both guys in their 30s, he had build his dream home and I had got to purchase mine, and we were both so excited about that stage of our life. He left home on a Saturday and flew to Chicago, and he was due to move back into his dream home when he got back off the road, off that trip… and he never went home.

There’s little things like that that stuck, and his passing in May 1999… May 23rd… it was a Sunday night, and on that Monday, the following day, I made a promise to myself that as time went on, I would be able to look Oje and Athena in their eyes, when it really meant something. They were little kids when it happened, but to let them know what a great man their father is, not just as a wrestler, but a husband, a father, a family man, a brother, a co-worker. I’ve never ever met anybody like him.

You know, fast forward eight years later, I lost my wife to breast cancer. And the first thing that made me smile that morning, as I walked down to my dock, and I knew her passing was coming because of the circumstances, but I walked down on my dock and pulled out my phone and I read ‘May 23rd,’ and I thought right then, ‘Owen, you have pulled the ultimate ribs of all ribs; the same day of your passing is my wife’s passing.’

Fast forward another nine years, and I entered into the darkest part of my life. I was in a hole that I had dug myself, that I had no idea how I was going to get out of. And through different counseling and different sessions, re-telling my life story, digging in and really figuring out what’s going on in my head, and the counselor looked at me as I kind of told the Owen story, and he said ‘let’s go back to that.’ And we spent the better part of three or four, and he looked at me dead in the eye and said ‘you’ve never grieved Owen’s passing’. He said ‘you’ve grieved your wife, you’ve grieved the up and down, of your lived life, but you’ve never grieved him”. So I cried for the next few hours, and really thought about it, and processed it in a lot of ways that put me on the road to true recovery.

And over the past seven years, things have happened in my life that I never thought would happen, ever. Both personally and professionally. I’ve got a wife, that in my wildest dreams I couldn’t ask for a better one, and I’ve got a family that I put back together. I spent the best of life with my father, just one good thing after another after another has happened, and I am so grateful for all of it. And coming in to AEW: Jay Lethal, another one of my best friends, Sonjay Dutt, my wife, Satnam Singh; truly, one in a billion, us as a group… I don’t take it lightly, I don’t take it for granted, that at this stage of my career, I’m having the absolute time of my life.

So when I was asked officially about being in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, all the emotion came back and I really took a hard look at it and thought to myself: I’m a twelve-time former World Heavyweight Champion, I’m a two-time Hall of Famer. The Owen means more to me than anything I’ve ever done in the professional wrestling business, in the ring, for me to have this opportunity. This is my Wembley; this is my All In; this is my opportunity.

You know, earlier this year, Toby Keith passed away, another good buddy of mine, and he had that song: ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was. All I’ve got to do is have that mentality for three matches. No disrespect to anybody in this tournament: Claudio, Pac, Jay White, no disrespect to any of them, but they didn’t even know Owen. That’s the truth of the matter: they didn’t even know him. I know Owen; I know his spirit, I know what’s about. And for me, to get the opportunity to win three matches and stand in the middle of the ring in Owen’s home town of Calgary… I’m going to do it. I’m absolutely going to do it.”

Gordon: “This week in AEW feels like that for a lot of people. Ospreay defending in chaos, Moné fighting through injury, Dragunov starting over, Page and Brodido grabbing gold, and a locker room full of wrestlers trying to make this moment their own arena, their own All In, their own opportunity.”

Ed: “From the sports desk, that’s the story: a company where every Dynamite, every Collision, and every WrestleDream is another chance to step up and say, ‘This is my shot.’ We’ll be here to call the next one.”