25 Worst Wrestling Moments Of 2025

18. Kyle Lore

The Rock WWE WrestleMania 42 Announcement
AEW

The October 7th edition of Dynamite featured a match between Kyle Fletcher and Kyle O'Reilly. Fletcher's TNT Title was on the line, it followed the standard AEW formula of "match good" and there was the added bonus, sort of, of Don Callis Family/Conglomeration lore.

More than enough for a TV match then, but the two had wrestled once before and been greeted with "Kyle" chants so O'Reilly decided to contribute something to social media that took a largely satisfied audience and split it in half. Revealing some preposterous Kyle Lore hours before the bell, O'Reilly's post got so deep into magical mystical bollocks that it inadvertently got sections of the audience asking far bigger questions than "who will win this title match?"

This was less than ideal to say the least, and was indicative of a wider problem many have found with AEW this year - is everything just played for laughs? The company that was once best at winks and nudges has all-too-often gone too far in that direction, playing down the severity of situations of late and doing significant harm to the very purpose of the wrestling promotion in the process. If that sounds like an overstatement, consider this - in kayfabe, did the post by O'Reilly make the match seem more or less important? Or did it campaign for "Kyle" chants because it got a moderate pop the last time?

Plenty of fans speculated that the entire thing was generated by AI too, just in case it wasn't already an unbearable enough vision of things to come.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett