AEW Continental Classic Simulator

Introducing the latest feature from Pro Wrestling Musings: An online tool for simulating the AEW Continental Classic. It allows you to choose the entrants, choose the winners, and it does all the tricky math and tells you who is mathematically eliminated or who goes on to the league semifinals...

Here is a link to the new Tournament Simulator webpage where you will find it...

Read on for a detailed how-to for using this new tool:

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

That’s right, All Elite Wrestling’s Continental Classic is right around the corner! It’s the one time of the year when an even dozen top talents face off one to one with no excuses or shortcuts.

But it’s ALSO the one time of the year when being an AEW fan means rather a lot of math... From the very first C2 round robin tournament back in 2023, I’ve been looking to make a tool to make that easier and more sure. (And more fun!) I put out this C2 explainer back then to clarify the finer points of figuring out who is in the lead over whom, and also to explore how the structure of the tournament impacts the storytelling possibilities.

In the same timeframe, I was working on an online tool to simulate the C2 to aid in fantasy booking and exploring possibilities and options. But I set it aside when I realized it wasn’t going to be done in time. The following year, I was almost set to put something out when Juice Robinson got injured and was replaced in the tournament by Komander. I realized that I had no way to account for a mid-tourney substitution like that, and needed to completely rethink my approach.

Last year, I plain forgot.

But this year, I have built it well in time. I have thoroughly beta-tested and dummy-proofed it, and worked out all of the kinks and the bugs.

(I think?)

the C2 Simulator is READY, and live on the site.

And below I have a detailed how-to with profusely illustrated step-by-step instructions:

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So, at the top of this article, there was a link to our new “Tournament Simulator” page, and here it is again: link

Now, follow that link and scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a set of links like this:

On the right is a placeholder in expectation we may in the future add simulators for other pro wrestling tournaments, especially the NJPW G1 Climax this coming summer. In the middle tile, there are links to iterations of the C2 simulator with the results of past editions pre-filled. But in the left tile is the main event, the latest and greatest All Elite Continental Classic simulator with the roster and results blank for YOU to fill in with whatever you want!

As I write this the version number is 1.5, but as you all play with it and find issues that need fixing or suggest features you would like I have no doubt that number will go up. Click on that link and it will take you to a Sheets workbook that looks like this:

The first tab of the workbook is called “Primer” and it has instructions a lot like these instructions, but these are much more detailed and we have pictures! You may be tempted to just start fiddling with it now. If you do that, you will come back to this how-to confused and possibly angry! “It won’t let me DO ANYTHING!” There is a reason for that – this is the exact instance of the AEW C2 Sim tool that everyone sees when they follow that link. If you could change it, the next person to use it would over-write your changes and it would just be chaos!

The solution is to make your own instance of the tool, which is really quite simple! Just go to the “File” menu and choose “Make a copy” as you see below:

Then you will get a pop-up like you see on the left below. You probably want to change the name of your instance to something OTHER than “Copy of AEW C2” so that your instance has a unique name. Probably something with your own name or nickname in it, so if you share it later, people will know that it’s yours! If you do think you might want to share your tournament Sim with others later, be sure to check the box “Share it with the same people”. That will set your instance the same as the main one is for me: only you can edit it, but anyone can see it.

This will save this instance of the C2 Sim in your Google drive, so if you go to the Google Sheets page later, it will be right there. If you make a fantasy book or a pick ‘em and want to keep it, but also have a new blank instance to play with you can always repeat this process to get a new blank C2 Sim instance.

Now! Let's finally actually get to it! Your own instance will also start you on the “Primer” tab, which you can read thru if you like, but the information there is pretty redundant with the information here.

So your next step is to switch to the next tab to the right of “Primer” called “Roster”. This will bring up a page that looks like the below, with a light-gold field right under the heading “Gold League Competitors” with the rest of the fields dark. This is meant as a clue to start there. You may also notice that the field with a brief explanation at the top has a little black triangle in the top-right corner. That means there is a note there, and if you hover over it, you can get more details. Details that are redundant with this explanation, but FYI:

If you click on that light gold field, it will bring up a drop-down menu of current and former AEW competitors that the Sim is preset with. Both Men’s and Women’s division competitors are there, so if you want to simulate a Women’s C2 or even an intergender C2, you can easily do so.

If the competitor you want to add to your Gold League first happens to be an “A” name, you could use the drop-down menu to scroll down and click on their name and add them. But if the first letter of their name is further along the alphabet, you’d have to scroll way too far, and there’s an easier way. Just start typing the name in the field, and the drop down will narrow to just names that start with those letters.

Let’s say I wanted to include that brave little Italian man, but I have NO idea how that’s spelled. As long as I remember that his name starts with “f” (OR that it starts with “a”) and I can select him easily. As you can see below, I just typed in the letter “f” and my choices narrowed from hundreds of competitors to just 5, and that works whether the first or last name begins with the letter:

But, what if you DON’T see the competitor you want to add? Well, first consider: are you sure of the spelling? And is it possible you are searching for a different nickname than the one in the validation set? For example, I have “Adam Page” and not “Hangman” and “Mike Bailey” not “Speedball”, but “MJF” not “Max Friedman”.

But maybe you want to include a new roster member who hasn’t been added to the validation set yet. or someone a bit more obscure like Griff Garrison. I know, I know: “Who the hell is Griff Garrison?” OR, equally you can use the C2 Sim to fantasy-book a tournament with talents who aren’t currently on the roster, or maybe a Legends tournament of GOATs from all eras?

Let’s say for example we have decided to do a C2 style tournament of the all-time great joshi wrestlers and we want to add first the greatest monster of joshi, Daughter of Kong, Aja Kong. If she were on the validation list, we would see her name even without starting to type it, she would be between “Adam Page” and “Alex Windsor”.

So in that situation you go to the LAST tab all the way to the right, titled “ADD” and you will see a screen a lot like the one below. The column headed “Preset names:” has all of the competitors I put into the validation list at the very beginning. The column headed with “Add:” has names I decided to add later (the first of whom was the brave little Italian man) and is the place for you to type in any more you want to include. The column with the header “Starting List:” combines and alphebetizes the two, and that’s the list that the “Roster” tab drop-downs gives you to choose from.

Now just carefully type in the name you want to add to what’s available in the empty light-green field. On the left below is the “before” where I have begun to type in the name, and as you can see on the right, once I finish typing and hit enter, the name “Aja Kong” has been added between Hangman and Mrs. Ospreay.

Note: do NOT try to just type it in there in the “Starting List” column. Or in general type things into fields that aren’t made for data entry, which will be light-gold if they are Gold League, light blue if they are blue league, or light green like you see above in the “ADD” tab if it’s not League-specific. As you see, as soon as I type in Aja Kong, the sim gives me a new light-green space below that to add the next joshi legend if I wanted to.

If you mess with the fields that aren’t for data entry, you will very likely break your iteration of the C2 sim. If that happens and you aren’t able to undo, your best bet is just to start over: go back to main sim and use “Make a copy” to make yourself a new blank C2 Sim iteration.

Now, if I go back to the “Roster” tab and click on the first Gold League entry field, now you see the option to add Aja Kong right there at the bottom of the screen:

But now let’s say, for example, that I’ve changed my mind and want to simulate a likely enough C2 for 2026 chosen from the current roster, and I choose Ilja Dragunov as my first entrant. Once I find and enter Ilja, you can see from the change of color to light gold that the field right under Ilja is ready for the second Gold League entrant.

So I enter the second Gold League entrant into that space, and then continue that way until all 12 competitors are entered, and that will look (for example) like the below:

You’ll notice as you go along entering competitors, that the validation drop-down will no longer offer as an option the competitors you’ve already picked above. Once all 12 are selected, then it’s time to choose the results of the 30 round robin matches that determine the scores and who advances to the League semifinals. So next you would switch to the tab called “Matches” and you see a screen like this:

The field being the only one colored light green is your clue that the first “League” field in the top left is where you start, click on that and you see the option to choose one of the two leagues. Once you select one, the fields in that row in the “Competitor” and “Result” columns change to light blue or light gold indicating that they are now ready for entry:

If you click on the drop down in the “Competitor” column, you get the option of just the competitors in the league you chose for this row / match. Select the one you want to win your first match (or if it’s going to be a draw, either entrant in the match.) Then click the drop down in the “Result” column and you get the choices of “defeats”, “draws with”, or “replaced by”.

Once you select the first competitor and the result of the first match, then you can choose the second entrant to go in the “Opponent / Substitute” column, so that field shows as ready. When you click on that field, it will also show the Gold League entrants as options, but only the ones that the first competitor chosen is able to face. Since this is still just the first round of matches, that means all five who are not himself. Once you select the entrant for that column, the field in the “League” column in the second row changes to a data entry shade to show it is ready and you repeat the process to enter the second match.

As soon as you’ve entered at least one match in the “Matches” tab, you can see how the scores stand so far by checking the “Scores” tab. But as we will see, you can also go back and see the scores at any point earlier in the tournament even after later matches have been entered, so we’ll stick with this tab until we enter all 30 round robin matches. So next lets look next at injury substitutions.

In the 2024 C2, Juice Robinson was injured partway through the tournament and had to drop out. So AEW instituted the rule that a substitute could take over an entrant’s place in the Classic. In this situation, the sub is treated basically as the same competitor: they assume the original's score and record and who they still need to face in the round robin matches. Figuring out how to make my workbook account for this greatly delayed this release!

But now we are all set up to handle injury substitutions in the simulator. Let’s say for example, Wheeler Yuta finally got on the board after the halfway point of the round robin by beating his own leader Jon Moxley, but in the process he gets hurt and needs a substitute for his last match. In any row after Yuta drops out and before the substitute’s first match, choose Yuta in the Competitor column and “replaced by” in the Result column. Then when you click on the Opponent / Substitute it will give you the option of all available substitutes (i.e. anybody who isn’t already in the tournament.)

If, for example, Daniel Garcia is chosen as the injury substitute for Wheeler Yuta, the next time you go to enter the competitor for a Gold League match, the drop-down options will show Garcia in place of Yuta:

As you approach completing the round robin matches for a League, your options narrow down to those who still have matches left... until for the 15th match in the league, you will only see as options the two entrants who haven’t yet had 5 matches:

Once we finally enter the 30th round robin match, then the field for League in the next row no longer changes to a data-entry color, so we know we are done. There are still the semi-final and final matches, (and possibly play-ins) but those are on another tab.

Now we move on to look at the scorecard. Switch to the Scores tab and you will see a scorecard a lot like the ones you see on AEW TV during the C2 tournament.

Because all of the matches have already been entered, this is showing the final scores. If you want to see the interim score midway in the tournament, one way is to switch to the Scores tab before you enter all of the matches. But if you want to look back in time to before the matches you’ve entered so far, you can do that without deleting any matches by using the Score Thru drop down.

(Note that the historical C2 sims have the Score Thru field too, but those are read-only until you make your own iteration. So follow the steps for making your own copy, the same as you did to make your own the blank one, if you'd like to use the drop-down to see the scorecards at a particular point in the actual tournaments.)

Click on the blank field labeled Score Thru and you will see a drop down listing all matches entered so far:

Select a match from that list and the Scorecard will change to show the score at the point in time up to that match. To go back to the Scorecard taking into account all matches, just delete the field. So if we wanted to see the scores and confirm that Yuta was already mathematically eliminated before his match with Jon Moxley, just scroll down to the option of Yuta vs Moxley and then choose the match immediately above that. Select that one and then the Scorecard will show the points up to that match.

Because this is before the injury substitution, the name changes back from Daniel Garcia to Wheeler Yuta. And because the name is crossed out, we know that he is already mathematically elminated. (This just means that if he won all the matches that are left and anyone ahead of him lost all their matches, he couldn’t reach runner-up standing to advance to the League semi-final.)

Keep in mind that being tied on points is not enough to be tied in the League standings. For example, at the point in the tournament shown above, Dragunov and Moxley are tied for points, but since Ilja won their head to head match, he would be the current runner up in league standings.

Now it is time to move on to the knockout stage of the tournament. Delete the Score Thru field so that you are back to the final score. Now switch to the Finals tab and you will see this screen showing who advanced to the semi-finals in each league. Click on the Winner field and you get a choice of those competitors. Select one and they advance to the C2 Final match. Once you select both League winners, all that remains is to choose an overall C2 winner and Continental Champion.

You may have noticed a bit of extra space on this Finals tab and wonder when that comes into play. I mentioned earlier that ties in points are settled by head-to-head results, but there are some situations where that doesn’t work. Competitors can be tied for League standing if they are tied for points and have draws against each other. OR, three or five competitors can be tied in the standings if they are tied in points and are rock-paper-scissors in wins among each other. If either situation applies to a League winner or runner up, this can lead to the need for a multi-man or play-in or both in the semi-finals.

For example lets look at a couple of incredibly unlikely situations in the League matches that would cause the messiest possible knockout stage. For example, let’s imagine in the Gold League if EVERY SINGLE MATCH had ended in a draw, and in the Blue League, one competitor won all five of his matches, and every other match was a draw.

Note how, even though all matches are entered, not one name is struck through to show that they are eliminated. That’s because in these two bizarre situations, every single competitor advances to the knockout round as seen below:

Note that one of the competitors in the Blue League semi-final is still blank, that will automatically fill in with who you choose as the winner of the play-in tiebreaker. They have mentioned the possibility of the need for a play-in on commentary in previous C2s but it’s never happened. But a three-player semifinal actually happened in the Gold League in the very first C2 when the three point leaders had each pinned one of the others. This was valuable for their booking because it allowed them to eliminate Swerve Strickland without him eating a second pinfall, since they were building him to be the next World Champion at the time.

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Now that you know how it works, go wild! Have fun fantasy booking any sort of C2 you want... Or once they announce the entrants for the next C2, make a pick ‘em with your idea of how you think the real C2 will (or should!) go... Send us your pick ‘ems and we will refer to them when we do our C2 coverage, especially anybody who reveals they are Tony Khan's secret twin because they hit the exact outcome!

I hope you all enjoy this new tool. If there are any issues, problems, questions, click on “Contact Us” in the top right of the PWM site menu and you will see a few different options for reaching out to us. (Also for sending those pick ‘ems!)