AEW RISING AND FADING STARS: Stadium Stampede once had an acceptable purpose and now it’s a net negative in several ways, Takeshita shines against Okada

Welcome everyone!

“No one does PPV like AEW” is their tagline and, in 2026, I do not think it can be argued. AEW has really built up goodwill with their fanbase through PPV’s over their first 7 years. The hardcore fans come out for them because they know they will get their money’s worth. How do I know it was hardcore AEW fans? Listen to them sing Jericho’s “Judas.” Most of the crowd was singing along. When you watch on Dynamite, almost no one sings along. People, like me, still know all the words to that damn song, even if we don’t want to.

Before we get to my column, let’s pour a little out for Darby Allin’s short but memorable title reign. Darby has been shutting up his critics for years now and I think this run further helped that.

So let’s look back at last week’s AEW and see what I thought.

RISING STAR OF THE WEEK

KONOSUKE TAKESHITA

We have finally reached full babyface Kokosuke Takeshita. It feels like the fans have wanted this for years and years at this point. Despite losing his friend, Kyle Fletcher, Takeshita is now slotted correctly on the babyface side. The crowd also told you how big this match was right from the start. Again, you could tell these are more than casual fans because Takeshita was not this over during his AEW Title match with Darby. Instead, this crowd knew they were seeing a historic match between Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada.

Takeshita is a guy who can easily become an AEW World Champion. What would make that more impressive is just how over he is without being able to cut the typical main event guy’s in ring promo. Takeshita has gotten over huge with in ring work and GREAT facial expressions in the ring. The sky truly is the limit for him. I’m excited writing this thinking about a future AEW World Title match between Takeshita and Will Ospreay.

That said, it will have to wait as Takeshita will, no doubt, be feuding with the Don Callis Family over the AEW International Title. Any way you look at it, this should be a huge stepping stone for Takeshita to fully put himself into the main event scene in AEW.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

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FADING STAR OF THE WEEK

STADIUM STAMPEDE

I will start by saying the original Stadium Stampede was fun. Do you remember why? It was 2020 and the world had been shut down. Pro wrestling was trying to find different ways to entertain its fanbase. This match got over the first time, in my opinion, because of the times we were living in. Personally, from the second I hear “Stadium Stampede,” it doesn’t bring up great memories.

Okay, let’s move past that and talk about the over done comedy. I am all for a small amount of comedy sprinkled into my wrestling show. A small amount. This year’s Stadium Stampede was way too much comedy and not good comedy.

The amount of violence in this match that is played for jokes was ridiculous. Everyone in the announce booth just laughing and having a good time makes it feel like nothing should be taken seriously. On top of that, AEW decided to do this match right before the main event, a match that had a very serious build.

I get it; not all things on a wrestling show are for me, but this just felt like an excessive amount of contrived spots. I prefer Anarchy in the Arena because those matches actually tell a story. Again, this was just a spotfest. Almost like guys from PWG made the match up… Oh, wait.

Another reason I didn’t like the match was it took the Young Bucks away from having a tag match on the show. The Bucks are on one of their better runs and, selfishly, I would rather they do more serious stuff than this. And don’t even get me started on Kenny Omega.