25 Best Wrestling Moments Of 2025
WWE and AEW were underwhelming in 2025 - but which moments overdelivered?
It wasn’t the best year, 2025, was it?
It’s wild to recall how white-hot WWE was on January 5. Then the Netflix debut happened, the masturbatory celebration of which set the tone for the year. WWE put itself over without earning any plaudits. In the same year in which Unreal crowed to the world that WWE is a sophisticated storytelling machine, the wires fell out. John Cena’s heel run was scandalously ineffective. R-Truth was released and rehired, only to find himself putting his phone in a toaster a few months after he was portrayed as the lead character at Money In The Bank. CM Punk and Seth Rollins continued to feud over Punk leaving in 2014 in a programme that feels almost as long as his absence from the company.
AEW, meanwhile, enjoyed its best year since 2022. Outside of the superb build to All In: Texas, that isn’t necessarily a huge endorsement.
For better or worse, AEW has actually answered a question that has plagued the promotion since day one: what is AEW? What’s its philosophy, its identity? Why does it feel like a different show from one segment to the next? Who is it for?
Tony Khan is now going full bore into his Where The Best Wrestle campaign. AEW still tells stories - they always did - but at last, you know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a minimum of one trios match every week, a near-constant deluge of back-and-forth action, and main event programmes premised on the soul of the promotion, and who gets to be its representative. The AEW roster is great in the ring. Khan leans on that far too much.
The great war between WWE Vs. AEW is meant to drive creative competition. WWE is fighting with impromptu matches; AEW is firing back with All-Star eight-man tags. It’s a bit uninspiring.
Beneath the lack of imagination in mainstream wrestling, 2025 did yield some incredible moments…