AEW’s eighth annual flagship PPV touched down in tennis country for one of the most stacked cards in company history: five title bouts, the opening round of the Owen Hart Cup, the return of Stadium Stampede, a heaving and frequently profane sold-out crowd, and a main event that produced a new champion and one of the year’s biggest character turns. Of note from the Wrestling Observer: the New York State Athletic Commission would not sanction blood or brawling through the crowd, which shaped how a few matches were laid out — particularly Stadium Stampede.

Buy In Pre-Show

Mick Foley arrives in AEW

Renee Paquette opened the Buy In and brought out Mick Foley to a thunderous ovation, his daughter Noelle in the front row. Foley called it “one of the biggest nights of my life” and said AEW was the reason he fell in love with pro wrestling again, dating his friendship with Tony Khan back fifteen years.

5-Minute Tag Team Eliminator: Divine Dominion (Megan Bayne & Lena Kross) def. Zayda Steel & Viva Van (w/Christopher Daniels)

Steel ran the clock immediately, bailing to the floor twice before Van tagged in and used her speed to low-bridge Bayne. Kross thrust-kicked Van on the outside, and the champs isolated her for two minutes. Van’s enzuigiri set up the hot tag to Steel, who hit a tornado DDT for two with a minute left. Kross laid in a hook kick, brought Bayne back, and Divine Dominion connected with a pump-kick combo and double chokeslam to put Steel away with roughly fifteen seconds on the clock. Post-match, Bayne booted Christopher Daniels and dropped Van with a second chokeslam before TayJay (Anna Jay & Tay Melo) chased them off with a pipe and 2×4.

Trios Match: Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, Daniel Garcia w/Marina Shafir) def. The Opps (Hook, Katsuyori Shibata, Anthony Bowens)

The crowd’s first really loud reaction of the night came when Garcia asked Shafir to slap him pre-match and oversold it. Castagnoli–Shibata stiff exchange was the highlight, with Shibata absorbing Garcia’s chops and asking for more before back-tripping him. Bowens looked sharper than he has in months — neckbreaker, leg lariat, twisting DDT on Yuta — but ate a triple-team finish, held by Yuta and Garcia while Castagnoli decked him with a charging European uppercut for the pin.

10-Man Tag: The Conglomeration (Mark Briscoe, Orange Cassidy, Roderick Strong) & Boom & Doom (Big Boom! AJ, QT Marshall) w/Big Justice, The Rizzler, Harley Cameron & “Vita Coco Man” def. Shane Taylor Promotions (Shane Taylor, Lee Moriarty, Carlie Bravo, Capt. Shawn Dean, Anthony Ogogo w/Christyan XO)

Sponsor-friendly mayhem — the match was literally presented by Vita Coco, with a mascot at ringside. Cassidy did his “one punch” comedy spot to start, Marshall sold being crotched on the top rope for almost the entire back half after XO interfered, and Cameron speared XO and pummeled her on the floor in defence of The Rizzler. The finish: Tower of Doom in the corner, Big Justice and The Rizzler sprayed Vita Coco into Bravo and Dean’s faces, and Briscoe/Strong/AJ hit a triple powerbomb for AJ to pin Bravo. Eddie Kingston, Ortiz, and Mance Warner then sprinted out to a deafening pop and chased STP off, continuing a feud carried over from ROH.

Foley returned to the ring with Paquette to talk up the main event and ran down MJF, who stormed out (no music) screaming “No, no, no!” MJF mocked the Knicks and called Foley a serial loser; Foley shot back that none of his losses came inside two minutes and fifteen seconds — a callback to MJF’s record-quick title loss to Darby on April 15 — and predicted Darby would shave him bald. MJF kicked Foley low. Darby ran out for the save. Foley delivered an emotional speech recalling the night Jon Moxley pulled him aside at a Six Flags Great Adventure indie show and told him to stick around to watch Darby because “this kid can do anything,” ending with: “Win one for the weird ones! BANG, BANG, Darby Allin!”

Main Card

AEW World Tag Team Championship — “I Quit” New York Street Fight: Cage & Cope (Christian Cage & Adam Copeland) def. FTR (c) (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) w/Stokely

If Cage & Cope lost, they were contractually forced to disband as a tag team.

The Queens crowd sang the entire Cope theme acapella after his music cut out. From the bell it was a war: Harwood wrapped his arm in barbed wire; Cage countered by lashing it around the middle rope and drop-toe-holding Dax onto it. Cage and Cope whipped FTR with the referee’s belt before Wheeler took a chair to Cage’s surgically repaired left arm.

Then it got grim. Cage worked at Harwood’s nose with pliers and squeezed Wheeler’s testicles with them — neither man quit. Wheeler crossed from one announce table to another to spike Cope through the Spanish desk with an assisted Shatter Machine. Harwood and Wheeler trapped Cage’s left arm in a broken cinderblock and battered it with a chair. Cage’s response when the ref asked if he’d quit: “I…I…I banged your mother!” followed shortly by “Go f*** yourself!”

Stokely undid the top rope. Cage choked Harwood with it. Wheeler garrotted Cage with barbed wire and hit a Shatter Machine. Wheeler grabbed a mic, said “I…” — and Stokely sucker-punched Cope with Cage’s stolen watch to set up a second Shatter Machine on Cope. Beth Phoenix Copeland then made her entrance to a huge pop, beat the hell out of Stokely, but ate a counter from Harwood that sent her into the steps. Harwood doused the ringside table in lighter fluid; Wheeler charged with a spear and Beth pulled Stokely into the line of fire — Wheeler put Stokely through the flaming table.

Harwood prepped a Conchairto on Cope and told him to quit if he wanted to see his daughters tomorrow. Beth low-blowed Harwood from behind, Cage kicked him low again, Cope hit a piledriver, and Cage locked Dax in a Sharpshooter while Cope simultaneously cinched a Crossface. Harwood still wouldn’t quit. Beth flipped over a set of ring steps, revealed Spike (Cope’s barbed-wire 2×4), and slid it to her husband. Cope ground it into Harwood’s forehead and Dax finally said “I QUIT.” A genuinely brutal, vicious opener that more than lived up to the stipulation and the build.

AEW International Championship: Konosuke Takeshita def. Kazuchika Okada (c)

Don Callis joined commentary. The crowd was on its feet at the bell, hit “holy shit” chants before contact was made, and serenaded Callis with the appropriate compliments. Both men whiffed early finisher attempts before settling into a stalemate. Takeshita’s Exploder count climbed; Okada answered with a slowed pace and a pair of cocky covers that wound Takeshita up.

The match peaked with a string of mid-air counters: a Rainmaker into a discus lariat reset, then Okada hitting a Rainmaker that folded Takeshita off the apron to the floor, into a DDT on the outside. Callis abandoned commentary to physically beg Okada not to tombstone Takeshita on the floor — Okada listened, which let Takeshita recover and brainbuster Okada on the floor instead. Back inside, Takeshita took a Tombstone, an Emerald Flowsion, and trade after trade of reversals. Takeshita hit a Blue Thunder Bomb, ate another dropkick, finally landed his Power Drive Knee — and Okada kicked out at one to the loudest reaction of the night to that point. One home-run forearm later, Takeshita put him away clean with the Raging Fire.

The aftermath was the real story. Callis, Mark Davis, and Rocky Romero hit the ring. As they squared up with Takeshita, Kyle Fletcher’s music hit. Suited up, Fletcher walked to the ring, stripped his jacket, and stood with Takeshita. The Callis Family backed off. Fletcher embraced Takeshita, handed him the title — then took his head off with a lariat. Callis laughed. Fletcher spiked Takeshita with a sheardrop brainbuster, picked up the belt off the canvas — Okada reached for it, then deferred to Fletcher — and while Davis and Romero held the new champion up, Fletcher cracked him in the skull with the belt. Takeshita is out of the Don Callis Family. Fletcher is now the “first born.”

Women’s Owen Hart Cup Quarterfinal: Athena def. Mina Shirakawa

Shirakawa was loudly cheered, and the match had two awkward moments — Athena nearly hit her knee on the steps on a missed strike, and an electric chair spinning slam landed badly for her — but worked as a competitive showcase. Highlights: Athena’s running dropkick to Shirakawa against the LED barricade killed the screen completely, Shirakawa’s springboard Tornillo from the ring to the floor, and Athena’s brutal Super Dragon-style curb stomp. Shirakawa locked in a figure four; Athena reached the ropes. The finish came when Shirakawa loaded up the Glamourous Driver, Athena countered into a Pumphandle Tombstone Piledriver and went up for the O-Face for the pin. Athena moves on to face the winner of Skye Blue vs. Sareee.

AEW Continental Championship — No Time Limit: Jon Moxley (c) def. Kyle O’Reilly

A grinding, grappling-heavy fight. The Conglomeration wished O’Reilly luck backstage and Roderick Strong literally emptied his Trios title out of O’Reilly’s backpack so he had room to bring the Continental home. He didn’t. O’Reilly’s leg buckled early after a missed corner kick that hit the post; Moxley pounced on it with dragon screws, kneebars, a half-crab, and a sustained focus on the injury. O’Reilly answered with a cross armbreaker rolled into an ankle lock, and at one point cinched the ankle in the dead-centre of the ring. Both men traded lariats and collapsed in a heap. Moxley eventually landed a vicious lariat into a Death Rider DDT, then countered O’Reilly’s own ankle-lock attempt into a grapevined ankle lock of his own. With the injured leg compromised, O’Reilly tapped. The Death Riders and Conglomeration faced off after — but Moxley waved them off and shook O’Reilly’s hand to a big ovation, then handed the belt to Marina Shafir.

Men’s Owen Hart Cup Quarterfinal: Will Ospreay def. Samoa Joe

A grudge match more than a tournament bout. Ospreay (training partner of the Death Riders, who watched from the crowd) blindsided Joe with an OsCutter before the bell. He worked early with a 450 splash and went for La Mistica, but Joe weathered it and hit a Coquina Clutch against the barricade that visibly aggravated Ospreay’s surgically repaired neck. Joe’s chops dropped Ospreay each time, but Ospreay kept rising — sit-up after sit-up while absorbing kicks to the chest, a la a junior-heavyweight Misawa.

Joe powerbombed him into a Boston Crab transitioned to the Rings of Saturn; Ospreay made the ropes. Joe locked in a second Coquina Clutch — the ref checked Ospreay’s arm three times, and on the third drop, his fingers grazed the bottom rope. Joe set up a Muscle Buster off the top, Ospreay slipped down and connected with a Hidden Blade. Joe kicked out at one. A second Hidden Blade to the back of the head finally put Joe away. The two men bowed at each other on the ramp. Ospreay advances to face the winner of Mark Davis vs. Jack Perry.

Men’s Owen Hart Cup Quarterfinal: Swerve Strickland def. Bandido

The match-of-the-night candidate that probably should have been higher up the card. Bandido (the reigning ROH World Champion) opened with a one-armed gorilla press slam over the top rope to the floor, plus a senton off the apron onto a chair. Swerve worked the neck — a unique transition from the apron into a release German into the corner, a clothesline to the back of the head, frequent shots to the throat. Bandido answered with a frog splash and his trademarked twisting moves.

The two showstoppers: Swerve, after a fireman’s carry trash-talk tease, planted his feet on Bandido’s shoulders and dropped a House Call to the face — an absurd, unbelievable visual; and Bandido answering immediately with a poisonrana off the apron to the floor that spiked them both. Bandido finally hit a 21-Plex inside, couldn’t hold the bridge because of the neck damage; on the rebound attempt, Swerve hoisted him up into a Vertebreaker and connected with one more House Call for the win. Strickland advances to face the winner of Claudio Castagnoli vs. Brody King.

AEW Women’s World Championship — Fatal Four-Way: Thekla (c) def. Jamie Hayter, Hikaru Shida, Kris Statlander

The first time four women who’d held the AEW Women’s World Title contested it in the same match. Statlander and Shida — recent allies — worked together early on Hayter, who blocked a suplex and dropped both with a double clothesline. Thekla’s eye-gouge on Hayter shifted the momentum. Spots that landed: a Saito Suplex from Hayter that planted Shida on her head, Statlander’s discus lariat to Hayter, Thekla’s spear to Statlander, Hayter’s headbutt to Thekla, Statlander’s backdrop driver — a sequence that left everyone down to a huge ovation.

Hayter dropped Thekla with the Hayterade; Shida broke up the pin with a running knee. Shida then hit a Falcon Arrow and locked Hayter in an ankle lock — but tried to apologize to Statlander for the earlier knee strike and used the apology as cover to sucker-punch her. Statlander unloaded, sent Shida into the steps on the floor, returned, hit Staturday Night Fever on Thekla — and Shida broke it up with a kendo stick shot to her former ally’s back. Hayter and Shida pulled each other to the floor and brawled until they wiped each other out with clotheslines. Thekla simply stomped on Statlander’s head for the pin. The Triangle of Madness leader continues to look every inch the long-term champion.

Stadium Stampede: Chris Jericho, The Hurt Syndicate (Bobby Lashley & Shelton Benjamin), The Elite (Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson, Jack Perry) def. The Demand (Ricochet, Bishop Kaun, Toa Liona), The Don Callis Family (Mark Davis & Andrade El Idolo), and The Dogs (Clark Connors & David Finlay)

The largest Stadium Stampede ever — 14 wrestlers — and the first since All In London 2023. Cinematic entrances: Team Ricochet arrived in tricked-out vehicles, The Demand in matching baseball uniforms riffing on the Baseball Furies from The Warriors; Team Jericho appeared in suits with Metallica’s “Devil’s Dance” overlaying the entrance. Per the NY State Athletic Commission’s restrictions, the brawl couldn’t spill into the crowd or feature blood, which steered AEW into goofier, more comedic territory than last year’s Anarchy in the Arena.

A non-exhaustive list of insanity:

• Liona linked all seven of his teammates from the ring up the ramp into a stretched-out abdominal stretch on Omega; MVP smashed the chain with his cane.
• The Bucks, Omega, Benjamin and Jericho stacked dives — stereo topes, a Benjamin flip dive, Jericho off the turnbuckle to the floor.
• Lio Rush appeared backstage out of nowhere to help Lashley fight Toa Liona, eventually biting Liona’s hand.
• Luchasaurus, in a blonde wig, misted Andrade as he tried to take a selfie with a fan.
• Andrade was shoved into Satnam Singh’s catering plate, kicking off a full food fight; Singh gorilla-pressed a random extra through a table.
• The Bucks superkicked Clark Connors onto an up-escalator, sending him back down for another superkick on his return trip.
• Backstage in a tennis training facility, Luther the Butler handed Jericho an enormous oversized tennis racket, which Jericho used to batter Ricochet before turning on a ball machine on him.
• Jericho suplexed Ricochet onto a pile of tennis balls in the ring — “BALLS” chant from the crowd.
• Jack Perry tried to murder Mark Davis with the Jurassic Express school bus, ramming a golf cart and another vehicle.

The finish: Lashley back-suplexed Liona through a table and speared Davis through another; Bucks delivered stereo top-rope elbows through tables onto The Dogs; Omega hit a One-Winged Angel on Andrade through a table on the outside. Ricochet was left alone in the ring, ate a Benjamin knee, a Lashley spear, an assisted flying knee from Perry, and a BTE Trigger — then Bishop Kaun shoved Ricochet out of the way and took a seven-way superkick. Jericho hit a Lionsault for the pin. Post-match, Jericho set up a lone table on the floor, pointed to the sky, and dove through it in tribute to the late Sabu.

AEW World Championship — Title vs. Hair: MJF def. Darby Allin (c)

Cinematic intros: someone catching a taxi through New York to hit the match in time, Darby skating through the sewers, climbing a ladder onto the stage and pausing to glance at the barber’s chair set up for MJF.

The story of the match was Darby’s body breaking before the work was done. He opened with three headlock takeovers for trios of near-falls — a deliberate callback to Foley’s pre-show speech. He went for a suicide dive seconds into the bout, MJF moved, Darby’s heels clipped the middle rope and he spiked directly onto the floor against the announce desk. MJF immediately powerbombed him on the apron, then drove him knee-first into another powerbomb in the ring. Darby fought back with a Diamond Dust off a tombstone attempt, a Coffin Drop attempt MJF rolled clear of, and a suicide dive that finally landed.

MJF turned the steel steps on their side, package-piledrove Darby onto the steel, and brought him in for the kill. Darby pushed MJF into the ref, took a low blow, and tried the same headlock-takeover finish — payback for Foley — but MJF kicked out just before three. MJF prepped Salt of the Earth, Darby countered into the Scorpion Death Lock, then chased him to the top for a Coffin Drop that landed on MJF’s knees. The two then traded a ridiculous sequence of pinning combinations: Sunset Flips, backslides, headlock takeovers from both sides, ending with Darby landing a Code Red for two.

MJF dragged Darby up the ramp and into the barber’s chair, teasing shaving him pre-emptively despite that not being part of the stipulation. Darby locked in a guillotine, knocked MJF onto a table next to the chair, climbed the scaffolding behind the Double or Nothing sign — roughly 20 feet up — and dove off with a Coffin Drop through the table. Darby came up with a heavy gash on the back of his head.

He hauled MJF back to the ring with everything he had, hit another Coffin Drop, applied the Scorpion Death Lock, then collapsed clutching his skull. Bryce Remsburg checked on him. MJF shoved Remsburg off, grabbed Darby for the headlock takeover, but Darby countered into one last Scorpion Death Drop. Spent and unsteady, Darby went up for one more Coffin Drop — MJF rolled into the ropes to knock him off balance, met him at the top, and dropped him with an Avalanche Tombstone Piledriver. A headlock takeover for the pin. MJF, at 30, is a three-time AEW World Champion. His hair is intact.

And then the show ended on its biggest shock. With Darby loaded onto a stretcher and strapped down, MJF stood over him to pose with the title — the same desecration he’d inflicted on Hangman Page earlier in the year. TNT Champion “The Jet” Kevin Knight, Darby’s recent ally, ran out to chase MJF up the ramp. Then Knight climbed the turnbuckle, dove off with a UFO Splash onto Darby on the stretcher, and flipped the whole stretcher over with Darby still strapped to it. MJF clapped from the top of the ramp. Knight stood over Darby and stared down at him as medical personnel scrambled. Cut to black.

Title Changes

• AEW World Championship — Darby Allin → MJF (3rd reign)
• AEW International Championship — Kazuchika Okada → Konosuke Takeshita
• AEW World Tag Team Championships — FTR → Cage & Cope

Big Storyline Beats

• Mick Foley is officially All Elite (confirmed by AEW/F4W).
• Kyle Fletcher returns, kicks Takeshita out of the Don Callis Family, and aligns with Okada and Callis.
• Kevin Knight turns heel on Darby Allin, presumably aligning with MJF.
• Cage & Cope save their tag team careers and capture gold.
• Owen Hart Cup semifinals (announced): Will Ospreay vs. winner of Davis/Perry; Swerve Strickland vs. winner of Castagnoli/King; Athena vs. winner of Blue/Sareee.