AEW Dynasty 2025: Biggest Winners & Losers

AEW Dynasty has come and gone, and the show did not leave without plenty of bluster and controversy. Only two titles changed hands and plenty of stories were set in motion for AEW Double or Nothing and beyond, but that's what the results page and the "Loved/Hated" column are for. It's time to talk about the winners and the losers of AEW Dynasty 2025.

We will not be discussing the traditional wins and losers of pro wrestling, but instead what the results of said PPV mean for the wrestlers, the fans, the company at large.

It was a night full of winners and losers to be honest. ROH, Wheeler Yuta, Toni Storm, plenty of people came out of Sunday's show looking good, but there were also some woeful losers. Without further ado, the winners and the losers of the 2025 edition of AEW Dynasty.

AEW always has one homegrown talent who feels like they're on the cusp of breaking out, only to slide back into some kind of midcard uncanny valley; a place where they are still seen as "one to watch," even as the youth fades from their face and the light dies behind their eyes. The list includes the likes of Sammy Guevara, Ricky Starks, and now Daniel Garcia.

While Ricky Starks (now Saints) is riding a wave of momentum from his WWE debut that has culminated in winning his first NXT title in less than two months, Garcia has been wandering around "Collision" with the AEW TNT Championship. He lost said title on Sunday to Adam Cole, thus becoming yet another AEW homegrown talent who is being pushed aside in favor of reheating some of WWE NXT's nachos. Every year feels like it is going to be "the year" for Garcia, and while he's still plenty young, the kind of yo-yo-ing the company has done with his momentum would wear on even the strongest morale.

I feel like I've asked the question "Where does Daniel Garcia go from here?" too many times to answer it sufficiently anymore. I only hope there is some kind of plan before Garcia ends up feuding with Ethan Page in a Florida warehouse.

Ring of Honor keeps going back to Chris Jericho like that one friend who keeps going back to their toxic ex. This is not the first time I've celebrated the end of a Jericho ROH World Title reign, and easy money says it won't be my last, but like a supportive friend, I am not thinking about the future, and instead getting ready to take my friend to brunch and celebrate "the now." They're free and that's a good thing.

Former ROH World Champion Bandido is once again the champion and it's not a moment too soon. Jericho's interminable schtick has dragged on since October, and for a brief moment, after he pinned Bandido, I thought that Tony Khan was dumb enough to do what Eric Bischoff had done before him and unmask a wildly popular luchador. Luckily, I was wrong. 

The referee, Bryce Remsburg, restarted the match after cheating from Jericho, opening the door for Bandido to hit his 21-Plex and win the ROH World Championship for the second time. There will likely be a rematch at Supercard of Honor but for right now, the mimosas are flowing and happy days are here again. ROH with someone as exciting as Bandido as its champion has a real case of shaking off the bad vibes of Jericho's reign. Athena has been something of the standard-bearer for the promotion in the 165 days since Mark Briscoe lost the ROH World Title, but with her own reign now nearing 850 days, she has definitely been straining under the pressure, luckily Bandido is able to help.

I like Big Bill. I like Bryan Keith. I hate that they are seemingly indentured to Chris Jericho for the foreseeable future. Jericho hasn't just been an anchor on ROH, he's also weighed down Keith and Bill, never letting the two monsters wander too far, lest they wander off for good and he's left alone with his broken reputation and rock star fantasies.

Bill and Keith were mere fodder for The Hurt Syndicate on Sunday, padding the win-loss record of the AEW World Tag Team Champions in a stiff, solid match. I have no qualms with The Hurt Syndicate. They're a good group and they make for good tag champions. I just wish that Bill and Keith had brighter futures.

The two men are the most entertaining thing about Jericho, and in a proper world Jericho would probably just be managing them, but this is no proper world. Instead, it is a world where Jericho gets a world title anytime ROH has a whiff of a TV deal and Bill and Keith are left to be enhancement talent to the stars.  A two Lance Archers-for-the-price-of-one deal. They could split off from Jericho, but there is no way he would let them go. Much like Garcia, I don't know where they go from here without entering some kind of interminable feud with Jericho, that would likely end in Jericho going over.

As a classic film fan, and a fan of women's wrestling, I went into AEW Dynasty worried that Toni Storm had nowhere else to go. Her feud with Mariah May was just self-contained enough that I wasn't sure what the AEW Women's World Champion had left to do without her chief antagonist. Also, Megan Bayne's push has been just sturdy enough that it felt like she was coming in to dethrone Storm and give her time to dream it all up again.

I was wrong. Toni Storm snuck out of Dynasty with the title in hand and did it just shrewdly enough that she heads into Owen Hart Cup season looking vulnerable. Maybe Storm will best the winner of the Cup or maybe she won't and a new champion will be crowned, either way it was her win on Sunday that made the summer so dramatic. 

Bayne still has hope of dethroning Storm in the future. Storm has become slightly more conniving without undermining the rich character she's created over the past couple of years. It was a tremendous bit of business and probably my most satisfying title fight of the night. Where other storylines have become needlessly complicated in the name of keeping fans guessing, Storm has landed on a classic bit of wrestling psychology: The champion who will do whatever it takes to win.

Cope and Christian Cage are kinda emblematic of the whole AEW main event scene at the moment. Back in March, Christian cost Cope the AEW World Title in a convoluted display that clearly indicated these two are going to be indefinitely continuing their feud from before Cope was hurt last year. This means that Jon Moxley got to hold the title a little longer, despite everyone seemingly hating this half-baked title run.

Now the same has happened with Swerve Strickland, Hangman Page, and whatever the hell the Young Bucks are doing there. Jon Moxley is probably the luckiest man in the world since he's able to keep his AEW title reign going during what is probably the worst work he's done since he was in WWE. He is all but guaranteed another couple of months with the title, as Darby Allin's Everest climb will keep him from coming back and being the foil to Moxley's anti-AEW sentiments for much of the summer.

It really does feel like we're stuck with Moxley until Allin plants an AEW flag on Everest and comes back. There is a big glass ceiling that could be broken at any moment, but it feels like the company always finds a way to distract whoever shows up with a hammer.

The lone glimmer of greatness in the interminable Deathriders storyline is that Wheeler Yuta seems to actually be picking up some kind of momentum. The former ROH Pure Champion secured the win on Sunday, helping retain the AEW World Trios Championship for him, PAC, and Claudio Castagnoli.

Too often, Yuta has been something of a punching bag at best, or a human shield at worst, for the Deathriders, despite the fact that his emotional turmoil during the group's betrayal of Bryan Danielson was central to the group's founding. Getting a win over a seasoned team like FTR and a WWE Hall of Famer like Cope puts Yuta on a slightly higher level, finally gaining some status after years of being the group's plucky underdog.

While the group has stalled out narratively, and the brawls on "Dynamite" have grown repetitive, there has been actual, tangible growth shown by Yuta. Where some had worried that the group was stunting his growth, he's proving to be a plant that doesn't need direct sunlight to grow, instead getting stronger and more resilient in the shadows. It will be interesting to see where all of this leads for the young Deathrider.