25 Best Wrestling Moments Of 2025

17. Stokely Hathaway Gets Over

Stokely Hathaway was an enigma for a long time.

One of the best (and, yes, only good) Wrestling Twitter posters, Stokely never seemed capable of applying his genuine wit to effective television. He suffered from unfortunate luck - The Firm idea was goosed the second Brawl Out happened - but elsewhere, he just didn’t translate. The Kris Statlander pairing was damning; if the idea was for fans to resent Stokely for corrupting one of AEW’s more wholesome characters, it never took. Most people just wondered why Stat was playing heel in the first place. Good for the odd funny line, Stokely actually dragged down his clients.

Then he met FTR, and it clicked.

The Stokely/FTR pairing elevated an in-decline tag team that was really only good for good matches on Collision before their heel turn. Stokely’s misplaced arrogance was best harnessed when he had two vicious pricks backing him, allowing him to say whatever he wanted, and he was tremendous when he spoke too freely and got himself in trouble. His match with Adam Copeland was regrettable, in that AEW vastly misjudged the extent to which fans were into the idea of ‘Cope’ doing a mean-spirited, intense stand-up routine, but Stokely was in superb form trying to get it over.

“I’m short, I’m bald, I can’t get any hoes. I’ve been fighting my entire life!”

Stoke’s patter was so good that he made a habit of making FTR corpse, but mercifully, AEW refused the temptation to force it. Instead, Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler went about it quietly, coming off like smug, nasty pricks who were too pleased with themselves.