All Elite Wrestling returns to pay-per-view tonight (Oct. 17) with WrestleDream 2026. The show comes our way from Addition Financial Arena in Orlando, Florida.
The event begins at 7 pm ET with both the Tailgate Brawl special on TNT and the Buy In pre-show on YouTube. That leads right into the PPV main card at 8 pm ET. Fans in the USA can purchase it from PPV.com, HBO Max, Amazon, DAZN, Fubo, and YouTube, or their cable or satellite provider. The show is also available on MyAEW for fans in the UK and many
international markets.
Tony Khan knows how to make AEW’s bizarre new gimmick a wild success
AEW only had a three week turnaround from All Out to WrestleDream, and some of that TV time was spent ignoring story development in order to pay tribute to PAC. Those time constraints were probably a factor in the creation of a new “Clockwork Carnage” gimmick match for the AEW world title that will be featured as the main event of WrestleDream.
It takes a while to read and process all the rules for Clockwork Carnage. For the sake of simplicity, AEW has described it as a mashup of a Casino Gauntlet match (phase one) and an Iron Man match (phase two). If there is no funny business with the clock, it should last around 33 minutes, with 18 minutes for the first phase and 15 minutes for the second phase. Let’s see how exactly it works.
The match features eight wrestlers competing across two phases. The Entry Phase starts with two men in the ring at random. A new competitor enters the match every three minutes until all eight stars have entered the fray. If anybody is pinned or submitted during this phase, they are eliminated from the match. Whichever wrestlers survive will make it to the Scoring Phase. This part of the match is a 15 minute scramble to see who scores the most pins or submissions. That wrestler will walk out of WrestleDream as the AEW world champion.
It can be hard to make a somewhat complicated new gimmick match work in pro wrestling, but Tony Khan picked the right strategy to ensure Clockwork Carnage is a success. That obvious strategy is to take advantage of his very deep roster by loading up this brand new gimmick match with seven tremendous workers and Darby Allin.
Will Ospreay is the defending AEW world champion and the best wrestler in the world. The seven challengers are Samoa Joe, Kazuchika Okada, Ricochet, Adam Copeland, Konosuke Takeshita, Speedball Bailey, and Darby. It’s an extremely impressive collection of star power and talent for the debut of Clockwork Carnage.
How many competitors will be eliminated during the Entry Phase? How many falls will it take to win the Scoring Phase? Will finishing moves that normally don’t win a PPV match on the first try suddenly be way more effective at scoring pin falls tonight? What happens if there is a tie?
Tune into WrestleDream to see how AEW pulls off the debut of Clockwork Carnage, and if the new concept looks like one with staying power to be an annual favorite in the promotion going forward.
The rest of the card
These remaining nine matches are also currently advertised for tonight at WrestleDream:
Swerve Strickland & New Level (c) vs. Hangman Page & Brodido in 2-out-of-3 falls for the AEW world trios titles
Hangman thinks it’s just a matter of time until Swerve shows his true self to Kofi and Creed, while Swerve points out that the cowboy is no better than him in terms of sticking by his teammates. The idea is that one of these teams will likely dissolve soon. How will that tension factor into the finish of this 2-out-of-3 falls title match? These guys had the best match of the show last month at All Out, and they can put on an even better performance with the extra time that they should receive here.
Mercedes Mone (c) vs. Thekla for the AEW women’s world championship
The CEO suffered a broken nose when she won the belt at All In, so she is wrestling with a face mask on in her first PPV title defense. The Toxic Spider beat Willow Nightingale to earn this spot and is one of the best shit talkers in AEW, but it’s hard to see Mercedes losing the title so soon.
Jon Moxley (c) vs. Mark Davis for the AEW Continental championship
Davis has used his devastating piledriver to pick up some recent wins against the Death Riders, and that includes pinning Moxley with it on the go home show. Moxley is going through some shit right now, in part because his fellow Death Riders PAC died, and now Davis will feel all of that pain tonight.
Andrade El Idolo (c) vs. Tommaso Ciampa for the AEW National championship
Ciampa is on a quest to win championship gold again in AEW. After failing to win the International title from Okada last month at All Out, now he gets to fail at winning the National title from Andrade at WrestleDream.
Young Bucks (c) vs. Kevin Knight & Kyle Fletcher for the AEW world tag team titles
Knight and Fletcher have massive egos but are getting along just fine as a tag team, probably because they sent Steven Borden to the injured list while beating him and Darby Allin last month at All Out. But something will have to go wrong between the Callis guys here since they both seem to think they are the Michael Jordan of the team.
Persephone (c) vs. Queen Aminata vs. Hyan vs. Dani Luna for the TBS championship
Dani Luna made her AEW debut last month at All Out, where she lost against Persephone. Luna and Hyan picked up a tag team victory over Britt Baker and the champ on this week’s go home show, and then Queen Aminata ran in to chase away the heels during a post-match beatdown. Hyan, Luna, and Aminata all want the TBS title, so they’re getting a chance to win it in this 4-way title bout.
Chris Jericho vs. Nick Wayne
This is the rubber match after Jericho and Wayne split their first two encounters. Jericho kicked Wayne in the dick on the go home show and said he still has some tricks that The Prodigy doesn’t know about. Wayne says Jericho has to apologize to him for saying mean things after the old man loses again.
Divine Dominion vs. Sisters of Sin [Tailgate pre-show]
The Sisters of Sin spit mist in Divine Dominion’s face in a trios match on the go home show, leading to victory. Now it’s time to see if Megan Bayne and Lena Kross have a plan to counter that move and get their win back.
Motor City Machine Guns vs. FTR [Tailgate pre-show]
MCMG crashed the go home episode of Dynamite to set up a best three out of five series of dream matches against FTR, with the winning team presumably earning a shot at the Young Bucks’ AEW world tag team championship. This is the first match of the series, and this dream match is so highly anticipated that it’s taking place on the pre-show.
Bonus: Mystery man reveal
AEW has a new mystery man who will be debuting at tonight’s show. It has to be Ilja Dragunov, right?
What will you be looking for at WrestleDream?
