10 Best Matches AEW Still Haven't Booked

2. FTR Vs. The Young Bucks

Kenny Omega Hangman Page
AEW

The level of anticipation AEW have built ahead of this match is unreal.

Ingeniously, they've taken a match fantasy-booked for years and conspired to make it as feverishly awaited in the fiction as it was in the theatre of the mind. Looking at the booking patterns, it is arriving in November at the earliest.

That is six months of organic, graduating tension that has dovetailed so deftly with the turmoil at the aching core of the Hangman Page and Kenny Omega tag team. A tentative alliance based on a mutual respect that seemed to draw FTR and the Bucks together, in spite of themselves, was revealed to be one step in a masterplan to fracture the Elite from within. What began life as a philosophical clash between the old school and the new is now something more than a grudge feud: FTR have cut in half the last trace of the brotherhood that has defined the Bucks' lives for the last five years. They can't use this now, for copyright reasons, but between May and September, FTR have become the Shatter Machine.

The match will of course be incredible: a details-rich spectacle in which, to pay off that early plot thread and the reason all of this exists, both teams borrow from one another's despised philosophies and arsenals. If FTR have to resort to a dreaded Canadian destroyer to put the Bucks away, holy sh*t.

Mindbreaker, indeed.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!