Just Don't Give Up... | AEWeekly #221

Welcome to the #AEWeekly review discussion where PWM contributors reflect on the highlights of the last week in AEW. The eligibility week always includes the most recent episode of Dynamite and Collision, plus any social-media exclusives up until publication.

This week’s contributors are Greyson [@greysonpeltier.bsky.social] helping out once again, this week with the AEW MVP, Lauren [@sithwitch.bsky.social] exploring a key Story Beat, and Sergei [@sergeialderman.bsky.social] talking about the Best Interview and Moment, as well as editing and organizing it all.

 A page of links to prior installments may be found here: #AEWeekly

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Willow Nightingale

“Don't you DARE give up..."

by Sergei.

Pro wrestling lives in the ragged edge between reality and fiction in a way that no other form of drama / performance quite does. An actor in a play or a film may draw on a real emotion to play out their fictional one, but the two aren't going to overlap. And while that does happen in reality TV sometimes, I feel like that genre isn't honest enough about its own fakeness to ever feel real. But in wrestling, while there are times a performer is portraying something obviously far from their real life, (“I am an Eldritch being”) at other times what they are portraying on screen parallels what they are going through in their real life perfectly. The most obvious examples being the retirement speech or the celebration of winning a championship, like we saw from Willow Nightingale on Dynamite last week.

Normally, I'd be the first to say that the most important aspect of authenticity in pro wrestling is being convincing. What's truly in someone's heart is unknowable. But if anyone wants to question Willow's genuine authenticity, we can't be friends. Her speech kicking off her World Championship reign starts with the crowd chanting “you deserve it!” which chokes Willow up in probably one of the most genuine emotional moments ever. She goes on to say that this isn't just A dream come true for her, it's HER dream come true!

But then she grabs our attention by saying she really needs us to listen, “because this is for all of you” gesturing around at the audience “and this is for all of you” gesturing straight at us watching at home through the camera:

If life has been kicking you around, don't you DARE give up! Don't do it, okay? Keep fighting, keep pushing through. Because sometimes… sometimes the comeback is BETTER THAN THE DREAM!

And I can't even… just… thank you Willow… I think we've all felt a little kicked around lately, and could use someone to tell us to never quit on ourselves. As an AEW fan, I'm proud to call Willow Nightingale our World Champion.

Will Ospreay

“Mic Drop...”

by Sergei.

It's become a bit of a trope for a wrestler to literally drop their mic when they feel they've really gotten the last word. And it's so second-hand embarrassing if they do it when their line wasn't actually that great. But a week ago on Dynamite, Will Ospreay ended his promo and the show with a perfect mic drop. It was a great Moment (our Moment otW) but what made it so perfect requires a bit of set up to explain.

Ospreay's mic drop last words were “...and when I pull that trigger, you're gonna see it coming.” But what made it such a mic drop and such a moment, were the words he said right before that and the context of those words. Firstly: “But I'm not gonna do it like you… I'm not gonna do it from behind.” This, of course, is a reference to Omega attacking Ospreay from behind at the Redemption event to hit him with the One Winged Angel. Kenny's superfans and then (earlier in this segment) Kenny himself justified this with Ospreay's hesitation before tearing up the bag. And sure, hitting his finisher on Will from behind maybe was justified, they are rivals after all… but after lulling him into a false sense of security but offering him a handshake first? How is that anything but shady?

And then he says “I'm not gonna do it like Moxley does it and injure you before that day,” and I am SO glad SOMEBODY said it. Even purported babyfaces like Schiavone had been acting like Omega's attack on Ospreay made Moxley pushing him to preemptively take him out sensible and it's been making me feel CRAZY! Taking out Omega by suffocating him with a plastic bag while he's weakened, what does that even get you? Best case you injure him just enough to still make it to Wembley and you win the World title there – with the biggest asterisk of all time! Worst case, you injure him to the point he can't make Wembley, and then what? A tournament for World title? Maybe? And would the guy who put the champion out in such a heinous way even be IN such a tournament?

Moxley's actions make NO sense as an actual useful strategy for Ospreay, so you have to ascribe them to something else, and I call it insecurity. Mox is insecure about if he did the right thing the way he took out Danielson, so he wants Ospreay to make the same choice in order to reinforce that he was right all along. And/or he was insecure that Ospreay would stick with him, so he wanted him to become complicit and prove his loyalty.

But this isn't about Moxley, it's about Ospreay – and the words leading up to this mic-drop moment, and the stories informing the context of those words, made this a perfect mic drop!

Willow Nightingale and Mercedes Moné

“I've made history, honey...”

by Lauren.

Mercedes Moné and Willow Nightingale have been intertwined with each other since before Mercedes joined AEW in February 2024. They competed in the finals for the inaugural New Japan Pro Wrestling STRONG Women's Belt, with Willow winning after Mercedes suffered an injury.  Mercedes’ first act after becoming All Elite was saving Willow from Julia Hart and Skye Blue. Since then, they have fought each other a half dozen times in tag teams and twice more in singles matches. They remain evenly matched, at 3-3 and 1-1 each.

They have both beaten each other for the TBS Championship, with Mercedes ending Willow's reign in 2024, and Willow returning the favor at the end of 2025. Currently, Willow holds the AEW Women's World Championship, a title which Mercedes has challenged for twice, losing both times: first to Toni Storm, and then to Kris Statlander.

Mercedes has so far seemed to be recovering mentally from the position she was in the last time she and Willow met, when Willow beat Mercedes, the second in the streak of Mercedes losing her fifteen belts. “I've been to therapy,” she reminded herself a few months ago, calming herself down when a match turned against her. Still, she has a history of violent crashouts after loss. She's already nursing anger for Willow (and Kris, and Harley Cameron) ruining her victory party and covering her with cake. When she crashed Willow's own victory celebration during this week's Dynamite, I know I wasn't alone in being a little disappointed at the lack of cake for a repeat performance.

Willow, on the other hand, is riding high. While she and Mercedes are even against each other on AEW, Willow still holds a victory over Mercedes overall, thanks to the inaugural NJPW STRONG Women's Championship. And despite the fact she only recently returned from rehabbing the shoulder injury responsible for her abdication of the TBS Championship in May, she has been on a roll. In the past eight months, she has been half of the inaugural Women's Tag Team champions, beat Mercedes for the TBS belt, and beat Thekla in order to become the first woman to hold all three women's belts in AEW. She has been cheered and celebrated, with any number of happy tears being shed on her behalf. The fans are overwhelmingly behind her, as seen on Dynamite, when the crowd's energy was palpable through the screen.

Mercedes and Willow make magic every time they meet in the ring, and the month leading up to All In should be a heady rush into their next encounter. Their confrontation on Dynamite certainly kicked off this chapter with a bang, with Willow throwing her previous victory in Mercedes’ face, and Mercedes threatening to take Willow's smile along with her belt.

It's Willow's heart versus Mercedes’ pride, and they are going to bring the house down.

Hangman Adam Page

“I’m just like you...”

by Greyson.

In the opening segment of this week’s episode of Dynamite, Hangman arrived in a tunnel, smiling and looking relaxed. He immediately encountered Will Ospreay, immediately after Will had walked away from the Death Riders, rebuffing their attempts to reconcile. Page made it clear he would have taken issue with Ospreay had he not made that choice.

Hangman then sought to relate to Ospreay in terms of both of their travails pursuing the Men’s World Championship: “I know what it feels like to be in your shoes right now, the entire world in front of you, and it feels impossible to do it alone.” Hangman showed appreciation for Ospreay's support then while making the point that Will might not be as alone as he feels: “that is not how half this roster made me feel last year, it’s not how you made me feel.” When Ospreay indicated he felt he couldn't trust Hangman as a longtime Omega ally, Page remained steadfast in his support, not pushy and not defensive about Will's understandable trust issues. Instead, he remained complimentary and expressed confidence in Ospreay’s abilities, calling Ospreay “one of the best” he’s been in the ring with and encouraging him to believe in himself.

It would later become exceedingly clear that when it comes to this situation, Hangman has far more in common with Ospreay than he does Kenny. In the final segment of the show, Omega proceeded to poke at a lot of the same insecurities and use rhetoric around them that is quite similar to the sort that he used leading up to his defense against Page, back when Omega dropped his title to begin Hangman's first Men’s World Championship run. 

Earlier that night, Hangman showed his readiness to lend a hand to those who've helped him in the past (specifically the Conglomeration who had been among that “half the roster” he'd mentioned earlier) by bringing a steel chair and a Buckshot Lariat – his first in months. Along with Brody King, he broke up the beatdown The Demand were looking to add insult to injury after taking their World Trios Championship. Then on Collision, Hangman followed up on that new connection, by proposing a team with Brodido, looking to get back into a title picture by challenging the Demand for their Trios gold at Grand Slam Mexico. The three men joking around about the team name proposed by Bandido –Spanish for “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” (“but which of us is the Ugly?”) was a certifiable BTE-type moment that showed that the full range of Hangman Adam Page is back: from caring mentor to master of comedy to fervent challenger. 

Instead of being resentful that he cannot pursue the title himself or seeking revenge (as he has famously done in the past), Hangman has chosen to be there for the others in AEW, guiding our likely future Men’s World Champion, and getting back in the fight himself to pursue a new dream. That is a leader and that is our MVP.