The latest WWE and AEW News and Results
On this first edition of Wrestling Weekly for 2026, Les Thatcher and Vic Sosa dive into comments made recently by Arn Anderson and William Regal about injuries and risk taking in today’s wrestling and the response from Kenny Omega.
We also look at a successful end to the year for AEW with Worlds End and Dynamite as well as the text messages that surfaced from Vince McMahon in an ongoing lawsuit.
Thanks for listening and have a great weekend~!
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Lance Storm is back with tons to talk about including Kyle Fletcher’s neck bump on Saturday, what William Regal had to say about it, reactions from WWE stars who also had neck surgery, personal anecdotes from Bryan and Lance, the AEW World’s End PPV, and another match you MUST SEE from this weekend. A fun show as always so check it out~!
An update on Kyle Fletcher.
Bryan Alvarez is reporting that Kyle Fletcher is apparently fine following his match against Jon Moxley at AEW Worlds End on Sunday. During the match, Moxley took Fletcher to the top turnbuckle then dropped him with a dragon suplex, with Fletcher landing neck first upon impact. Fletcher continued to wrestle but ultimately passed out from a rear naked choke Jon Moxley applied.
“Fletcher appears to be fine after being dropped on his head in the Moxley match last night,” Alvarez writes.
In comments made after the match, Fletcher was upset about his loss, saying it was the second year in a row he was unable to make it to the finals. He also was upset that Don Callis’ screwdriver Okada used to advance to the finals wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
“I keep saying that I’m going to go down as the greatest wrestler of all time but if I can’t get the job done when it matters, who cares? That’s not even mentioning the screwdriver. Where was the screwdriver? That’s a lot of hard conversations I’m going to have to have.”
Moxley went on to defeat Okada later at Worlds End to win not only the Continental Classic, but also the Continental Championship.
AEW posted a video featuring post-match comments from Kyle Fletcher following AEW Worlds End on Saturday.
For the second year in a row, Fletcher was eliminated from the Continental Classic in the semifinals, this year losing to eventual tournament winner Jon Moxley.
During the match, Fletcher went looking for a screwdriver that had been placed in the turnbuckle. However, Kazuchika Okada had used the foreign object in the previous match to defeat Konosuke Takeshita. In his post-match comments, Fletcher said the screwdriver not being where it was supposed to be will lead to some “hard conversations.”
Fletcher said:
“I really didn’t think that I would end up here again. One year later, Worlds End, same place, same tournament, same result. Last year, I won the Blue League, this year I won the Gold League and lost in the semis. And losing to a former four-time AEW World Champion, former International Champion, former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, he’s one of the literal best of all time. But I don’t care.”
“I keep saying that I’m going to go down as the greatest wrestler of all time but if I can’t get the job done when it matters, who cares?”
“That’s not even mentioning the screwdriver. Where was the screwdriver? That’s a lot of hard conversations I’m going to have to have.”
“And now 2025 ends exactly where 2024 did. I am aimless. No championship, what’s next? What’s next for the Protostar Kyle Fletcher? I sincerely, truly do not know.”
In 2024, Fletcher won the Blue League with a 4-1 record before being eliminated in the semifinals by Will Ospreay. This year, he finished atop the Gold League with a 3-2 record, earning the top spot via tiebreaker over Kazuchika Okada.
Fletcher’s post-match comments are available below:
Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez praised the Fletcher vs. Moxley match at AEW Worlds End during the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio. A clip of the show is available below:
Image: AEW
Editor’s Note: The following is an opinion-based preview and reflects that of the author and not the website.
Another year in the books, friends. All in all, it was a pretty rough one for, well, just about everyone. But we soldier on, marching slowly into the sea. As always, a sincere thank you to anyone who’s read even a single word I’ve written over the past 365 days and an extra thanks to the site editors who keep letting me do this.
Extra, extra thanks to my wonderful wife, my sounding board, who patiently listens as I explain why Diddy is somehow a talking point on “the wrestling show that’s somehow always on.” I love everyone, but love her most of all.
With all that said, let’s run down the final big AEW show of the year: tonight’s Worlds End from Chicago, Illinois (8 PM PPV start time).
If you’re like me and toil away in the white collar mines, this is also the season of end-of-year check-ins: a famously delightful and productive exercise (sic). Personally, it’s the highlight of my year, especially if you’re someone I work with and happen to be reading this (I actually like my job very much).
In that spirit, it feels like the right moment to check in on the remaining four wrestlers and where they stand now and going forward.
Predictions: Fletcher over Mox, Okada over Takeshita, Fletcher over Okada to win the CC
A match called “Mixed Nuts Mayhem” (!?!?!?!?) was added on Christmas Day. I will not be previewing it. There are limits. The sickest thing Tony Khan has ever done.
Prediction: I abstain.
The older I get, the saltier I become. That’s not exactly a profound or unique statement, but a true one. I have less and less patience for the Gabe Kidd type. The repeated insistence that he is, in fact, a madman? None of it works for me, brother.
As the year went on, it became clear that Kenny Omega made their Wrestle Kingdom match work through the sheer force of his own greatness. The man held together by tape and love dragged an incredible match out of a slightly above-average wrestler. There’s a non-zero chance that was the last ‘Kenny Omega Match’ we’re going to get. Gabe Kidd! January optimism turned December disappointment — same as it ever was.
Allin occupies a rare space in wrestling. He exists almost entirely outside of the World title scene yet constantly elevates whatever he’s involved with. He’s now the “big name” others are brought in to have big matches with. He has become a true attraction. This little freak somehow achieved a 99th-percentile outcome before his body gave out which is a remarkable talent.
Prediction: Allin
Austin Gunn has, no pun intended, a bit of the juice. He can be corny, funny, serious, and he can come out to “Many Men.” Once he figured out who he was as a performer, the in-ring work followed. Watching someone put it together in real time is always a treat, and it’s clear who the breakout star of his family is.
The Bang Bang Gang are fun, loud, and still figuring out how seriously they want to be taken. FTR has long since solved that problem. A street fight narrows the talent gap temporarily. It lets Juice Robinson’s manic charisma shine through and gives Gunn more room to lean into his natural swagger.
Eventually, this becomes what most FTR matches are: a lesson in timing, positioning, and why fundamentals still matter, even when the rules might not.
Prediction: FTR
The Babes of Wrath have become something surprisingly compelling. They’re a team built on vibes, volume, and Willow Nightingale’s undeniability. Harley Cameron certainly brings an energy, though a brand that I grow less fond of as time passes, but this act only works because Willow is a genuine star hiding inside a fun enough gimmick. At some point, that tension between her joy for life and drive for success must be resolved, or she’ll never reach the heights she deserves.
Across the ring are two wrestlers who seem like they wandered in from a more serious division. Mercedes Mone and Athena have nothing to prove. They have collectively done it all while their opponents have barely done anything. What they do need is purpose. Athena continues grinding away in largely unseen ROH. Mone floats in and out of programs, parading her collection of belts while seething about the one she can’t win. This is a transitional program, nothing more, nothing less. Even though Mercedes and Athena should never, ever lose to The Babes, somehow they will.
Prediction: Babes of Wrath retain
Jamie Hayter is trapped where Kris Statlander used to live: talented, credible, clearly capable of more, but unable to shift the energy around her. Blood and Guts was a proper spectacle, but that was a group effort. Her injury layoff didn’t just stall her momentum; it erased it. The in-ring work still hits. The strikes are still crispy. Between the bells remains vibrant, but everything surrounding it feels inert. Timing is everything in pro wrestling and Hayter’s timing has been cruel.
Statlander is no longer a what-if. She’s established. She’s bona fide. She wrestles like someone who belongs at the very top. Her reign has been about legitimacy more than spectacle. It’s solid more than spectacular. For a wrestler who spent years lost in the creative wilderness, that consistency is everything.
If you’re frustrated with Hayter’s position, Statlander is the proof of concept. This is what making it out the other side looks like. Hayter doesn’t need to win to benefit here (though it wouldn’t hurt); she needs to remind people who she is. Statlander needs to keep doing what she’s been doing: beating excellent wrestlers clean and stacking wins.
Prediction: Statlander
Strip away the noise, the borrowed outrage, the winking-at-the-camera seriousness, and what you’re left with is a ridiculous amount of star power sharing one ring. That’s the frustrating part. This didn’t need help.
Samoa Joe is gravity. He warps the match simply by standing there, turning every exchange into something consequential. Swerve is violence with intent, a main eventer who has long since crossed the moral event horizon and never looked back. Hangman remains AEW’s emotional barometer, even when his righteousness becomes something more interesting and dangerous. MJF is still the company’s great disruptor, incapable of existing in a scene without bending it toward himself, sometimes for better, often for worse.
If we could wipe away the last few weeks of Diddy-related promo work, this match would be much better served. All they needed to do was ring the bell for this to feel special. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re in for another MJF title reign, especially with Dynamite Diamond ring wearing Bandido waiting for the winner on January 14.
Prediction: MJF
Kyle Fletcher has already gotten to face a lot of his dream opponents, but a match against Samoa Joe remains on his bucket list.
While appearing on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Fletcher named Joe as the one opponent he really wants to face. Fletcher said he’s been watching Joe for a long time and would love to test himself against him.
“I think the one that I keep talking about is: I really want to get in there with Samoa Joe,” Fletcher said. “I think that would be a really cool one for me and a really cool test for me. It’s someone that I’ve been watching for a decade-plus.
“So that’s someone that I would love to get in there with. Other than that, I’ve been pretty blessed. Like, I’ve been lucky enough to get in there with a lot of the people that I looked up to growing up. So I don’t know if there’s a lot of people left, man. It’s pretty cool.”
Joe is the current AEW World Champion after defeating Hangman Page for the title last month at Full Gear. It’s Joe’s second reign with the belt.
At 26 years old, Fletcher has already held the TNT Championship once. He re-signed with AEW earlier this year and has the big-picture goal of becoming the greatest of all time. Fletcher knows it’s a huge goal, but he’s someone who always wants to be striving for something.
With material goals like winning championships, Fletcher has always felt a bit empty after achieving them. He can’t fully define what being the “greatest of all time” means to him. But Fletcher wants to feel like, whenever his time in the ring has done, he has fully reached his potential.
“I think to me, it means when I’m done, when I’ve wrapped it up, I want to believe in my heart that I reached my fullest potential. I think I have hopefully a lot of potential still to come, a lot of things, a lot of goals that I want to achieve. And I think, yeah, when I’m all said and done, I want to feel like I did everything I could,” Fletcher said.
“I want to be spoken about for years after I’m done, years after I’m not on this earth anymore. I want to be spoken about in that best-of-all-time conversation. And that’s kind of, it’s not something that is tangible. It’s not something that is something that I can get to a certain point and be like, ‘All right, I’m done it now.’ It’s something that I’ll always be working towards, which I think is what I want.”
Before he signed with AEW, Kyle Fletcher gave some consideration to making WWE his pro wrestling home.
Fletcher, then in a tag team with Aussie Open partner Mark Davis, signed with AEW in 2023. He’s since become a singles star for the company, holding the TNT Championship once and reaching World title contention. He told Chris Van Vliet on a new episode of Insight that he and Davis had a Zoom call with WWE following their departures from NJPW. They considered WWE as an option — but AEW ultimately felt like the right fit.
“It was a toss-up for a while. We had one kind of like official — at the time it was myself and Mark Davis as Aussie Open. We had a Zoom call with [WWE]. We kind of spoke about what the deal would entail and that sort of thing,” Fletcher said.
“And I think when it got to that point, it just didn’t feel like the right fit at the time. So it was, we didn’t get super close. It was kind of like at the point where there was options there, but AEW was just the right fit for us at the time, for sure.”
Van Vliet asked Fletcher what made AEW the right fit.
“I think we were lucky enough that we’d worked there a couple of times. We got brought in as a part of New Japan to do a couple of things. And I think it was the vibe there,” he responded.
“To me it was, I don’t want to say the freedom, but I think there’s a whole lot of trust there that I can produce the wrestling I want to produce and I can wrestle the way that I love to wrestle. And I think experiencing that beforehand and knowing that, I think that was what kind of drew me towards AEW.”
Fletcher, who re-signed with AEW earlier this year, now lives in Chicago with his girlfriend Skye Blue. He never got to experience all four seasons in Australia, so he’s loving the fall and winter weather in Chicago.
John LaRocca and Garrett Gonzales return with a brand-new Fight Game to discuss some of the most interesting topics in pro wrestling this week.
After doing our Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down segment, we hit on our major topics of the week which included:
Click Here to Listen (sub needed)
Week two of AEW Continental Classic action kicked off on Wednesday’s Dynamite from Fishers, Indiana, with three matches and two front-runners already.
In a rematch from 2024’s Dynasty, Kazuchika Okada got his first Gold league victory after defeating PAC in the show opener. Okada failed to defeat Kyle Fletcher in his opening match while PAC defeated “Speedball” Mike Bailey in his.
Fletcher and Kevin Knight then put on a show in their Gold league bout, one that Fletcher won after pinning Knight. Fletcher is now 2-0 while Knight is 1-1.
The Blue league main event saw two members of the Death Riders do battle as new CMLL World Champion Claudio Castagnoli upended faction leader and a bloodied Jon Moxley following an uppercut and pin.
Castagnoli now has six points and will look to make it nine when he faces Mascara Dorada on Saturday’s Collision while Moxley will face IWGP World Champion Konosuke Takeshita.
| Wrestler | Current Points |
| Darby Allin | 0 |
| PAC | 3 |
| Kevin Knight | 3 |
| Mike Bailey | 0 |
| Kyle Fletcher | 6 |
| Kazuchika Okada | 3 |
| Wrestler | Current Points |
| Orange Cassidy | 0 |
| Konosuke Takeshita | 3 |
| Jon Moxley | 3 |
| Claudio Castagnoli | 6 |
| Roderick Strong | 0 |
| Mascara Dorada | 0 |
Upcoming Matches (Saturday’s Collision):
Kyle Fletcher says the grind of his recent success can be overwhelming, but he loves every second of it.
Fletcher will wrestle Kevin Knight in the Continental Classic on Dynamite Wednesday night. He’s 1-0 in the tournament after defeating Kazuchika Okada in his first match last week.
During an interview with Zach Johnson, Fletcher said he is living his dream right now, even if he doesn’t have time for anything else.
“I don’t have time for other things. I go home and all I want to do is lay on the couch because I’m exhausted,” Fletcher said.
“I’ve been traveling. I’ve been wrestling. I have no sleep. I’ve been eating terribly because there’s nothing to eat after I finish wrestling. So, it’s all these things and it’s all very hard and it becomes very overwhelming when you think about all the pressure that it brings as well as that.”
“But all that is to say, I am living my dream right now. I would not have it any other way. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’m not going to stop working as hard as I’m working because I love it and I love the grind and I love every single part of it.”
Fletcher also spoke about his next opponent, Kevin Knight, saying he feels Knight is in the same position he was not long ago.
Fletcher said of Knight:
“He’s so capable. It feels like he is in the spot that I was a few years ago. He’s just coming to AEW. He’s a part of a great tag team Jet Speed right now. He’s doing some great things and now he’s in the Continental Classic getting able to show what he’s made of on his own.”
Fletcher finished last year’s round-robin with a 4-1 record to top the Blue League. However, he was eliminated from the tournament in the semifinals with a loss to Will Ospreay. His only round-robin loss in the tournament was to the wrestler who just beat him for the TNT Championship at Full Gear, Mark Briscoe.
Fletcher’s full interview with Zach Johnson is available below:
On the latest edition of Doc Young’s Wrestling Weekly, Les Thatcher and Victor Sosa look at AEW’s follow up to Full Gear, which is the beginning of the Continental Classic tournament.
WWE is on the road to Survivor Series, but Roman Reigns made it clear he’s thinking beyond that. He wants someone’s World title, but does that belong to Cody Rhodes or CM Punk?
Thanks for listening and have a great weekend~!
Following Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite, the 2025 Continental Classic is off and running as the show saw four matches, two in the Blue League and two in the Gold League.
In the opener, former TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher picked up a Gold League pinfall win over reigning Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada to earn three points. Okada had to relinquish his title at the beginning of the tournament as the winner will become the champion.
In the first Blue League match, former AEW World Champion Jon Moxley got things off to a positive start by submitting Mascara Dorada in an interesting clash of styles. Moxley has competed in the tournament before with this being Dorada’s debut.
In the Gold League, Kevin Knight made his tournament debut one to remember as he defeated Darby Allin to earn three points while in the night’s main event, Claudio Castagnoli defeated Orange Cassidy in Blue League action to earn his first three points. Castagnoli will face Death Riders teammate Moxley next Wednesday.
| Wrestler | Current Points |
| Orange Cassidy | 0 |
| Konosuke Takeshita | 0 |
| Jon Moxley | 3 |
| Claudio Castagnoli | 3 |
| Roderick Strong | 0 |
| Mascara Dorada | 0 |
| Wrestler | Current Points |
| Darby Allin | 0 |
| PAC | 0 |
| Kevin Knight | 3 |
| Mike Bailey | 0 |
| Kyle Fletcher | 3 |
| Kazuchika Okada | 0 |
Upcoming Matches (Thursday on Collision):
Upcoming Matches (Next Wednesday on Dynamite):
On a new Josh Nason’s Punch-Out, Josh takes a break from the pro wrestling year in review series to delve into the current day and the AEW Continental Classic.
The tournament kicks off tonight so returning guest & our AEW pay-per-view previewer Mike DellaCamera returns for a 30-minute talk about the leagues, the matchups in the Gold and Blue league, and our picks for both the semifinals and finals at Worlds End.
Listen for free here or on either Spotify or Apple Podcasts (search Wrestling Observer).
Two current champions and a former one are officially in this year’s AEW Continental Classic and they are all in the Don Callis Family.
Confirmed during a backstage segment on Saturday’s AEW Full Gear, reigning Unified/Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada and IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Konosuke Takeshita are in as is former TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher.
Okada won last year’s tournament and is looking to keep his Continental title while Takeshita will be making his tournament debut. Fletcher also competed in last year’s tournament, losing in the semifinals.
In the aforementioned segment, Callis said Okada was back in and said when Okada and Takeshita got into sync, they’d be unstoppable. Okada then blamed Takeshita for their Tailgate Brawl loss that cost them the CMLL Trios titles and a frustrated Takeshita said he was in the tourney as well.
An irate Fletcher walked in and called both men out for not having his back earlier and costing him the TNT title to Mark Briscoe. He said it wasn’t a problem as he was entering as well. Callis tried to play it off as positive all of these faction members were entered.
The tournament begins this Wednesday on Dynamite, but the blocks have yet to be revealed. The round robin tournament is in its third year with the winner expected to be crowned at December’s Worlds End.
New AEW TNT Champion crowned at Full Gear 2025.
In the 10th overall match of the night, fans across the world and in the Prudential Center witnessed Mark Briscoe defeat Kyle Fletcher to become the brand new TNT Champion. In an almost 25-minute violent match, Briscoe was able to keep Fletcher down for the three-count.
A bout filled with multiple rough spots and bloodied moments, the former ROH World Champion hit Fletcher with a Razor’s Edge through a barbed wire table and followed up with the Jay Driller to pick up the victory. The ‘No Disqualification’ match was preceded by an equally violent ‘No Holds Barred’ match between Jon Moxley and Kyle O’Reilly, where the latter earned the victory.
The TNT title match also saw Briscoe being stabbed in the head multiple times with a screwdriver, dropped onto thumbtacks, thrown off the top rope and much more. Despite the punishment, the 40-year-old displayed remarkable resilience and overcame all adversity to capture his first official AEW gold.
Here are the latest results from AEW Full Gear 2025 (as of this writing):
