AEW ‘WrestleDream’ news, notes and review: Surprised with the Cagematch rating

The AEW “WrestleDream” pay-per-view presented on Saturday night was the first in a long while that I thought was an almost total dud – too many hat-on-a-hat matches, just one title change, for the trios titles at that, a way, way overwrought main event.

So, I go peak at Cagematch to see what the rating was from the hardcores, and … was surprised.

The Cagematch voters, at this writing, have the show at an 8.39 average rating, ranking fifth among the eight PPV shows put on by AEW to date in 2026.

Cagematch ratings for 2026 AEW PPVs

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1. “Double or Nothing” (May 24): 9.60
2. “All In” (Aug. 30): 9.51
3. “Forbidden Door” (June 28): 9.30
4. “Revolution” (March 15): 9.17
5. “Wrestledream” (Oct. 17): 8.39
6. “Dynasty” (April 12): 8.38
7. “All Out” (Sept. 26): 8.07
8. “Redemption” (July 26): 7.15

My favorite matches

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Motor City Machine Guns defeat FTR (27:11)

This was the first match in a best-of-five series for a shot at the AEW world tag team titles.

These two teams are throwbacks to when tag wrestling involved things like actual tags and basic heel-face psychology.

Naturally, Cagematch readers gave it a 7.69 average rating.

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Jon Moxley defeats Mark Davis (23:28)

Moxley, as the Continental champ, has decided to showcase believable wrestling, after a stinker of a world title run last year that was run-in after run-in after run-in.

Davis, for his part, is one of the better workers in the company.

Cagematch readers gave this one an 8.76 average rating.

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Mercedes Mone defeats Thekla (14:34)

Heel vs. heel, but both were able to play to their strengths.

Cagematch readers average rating: 7.55.

Hated: The two Young Bucks-style matches

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Young Bucks defeat Kevin Knight/Kyle Fletcher (22:39)
Adam Page/Bandido/Brody King defeat Swerve Strickland/Kofi/Austin Creed (23:40)

Rick Knox reffed both matches, if that tells you anything.

The inconsistent at best adherence to basic tag team rules makes these kinds of matches unwatchable.

They’re not pure tag matches, not pure tornado matches. Sometimes guys tag in, sometimes they just wander in, and then after a few minutes of guys just wandering in at will, they’ll go back to tagging in.

Just dumb.

Cagematch has an obvious Young Bucks bias: the tag title match got a 9.08 rating.

The trios title match got 8.37.

Let’s never do that Clockwork Carnage match again

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But if you’re going to do it, how about not having an underneath four-way match for the secondary women’s belt with four nobodies?

And also, if you’re going to do this crap again, how about we don’t go through weeks of qualifying matches and 32:23 of this match and not have it end with the champ retaining?

Cagematch fans gave the match a 7.81 average rating; not sure what that says.