I’m going to start off this loved section with a small hate which is, of course, Private Party’s AEW Tag Team Championship reign. I was so happy for them when they beat The Young Bucks in October and really hoped it would go somewhere, and then it just didn’t, and now it’s over, and I’m a bit sad about it. Not that it’s over, but because it was pointless.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way, can we all take the time to appreciate how much of a beast tag team Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin looked like? There was a part of me that thought they’d pull some crazy stuff out of the bag and give Zay and Quen the victory, but Tony Khan pulled the trigger on an act that looks great, feels hot, gets treated like a big deal, and the fans are behind! Like, this is 2025 AEW, that never happens!
Going over the match from bell to bell, I actually really enjoyed this for what it was. It wasn’t necessarily a squash or anything as Private Party got their fair share of stuff in during the opening moments, but not too much to make the match feel less believable. Like Zay and Quen are champions, there is a world where they can gain the advantage against a team like The Hurt Syndicate, it’s not that hard to imagine. However, once Zay went through, say it with me, THE SOLID OAK ANNOUNCE TABLE, which by the way Excalibur, if it was so solid, why does it collapse like an IKEA flat pack furniture set built by a four year old every time someone goes near it? But yeah once Zay went through that, there was only one result coming; the right one.
Shelton throwing Quen from pillar to post, and the fact that Quen kept trying to get back in the ring only for Shelton to continuously drag him back out was a nice touch. Both champions being thrown around the ring as if they were weightless was a fantastic sight to see, and the fact that they absolutely killed Zay in the end made Lashley and Benjamin look like two killers. A fantastic performance from the challengers, the champions made them look great, and the right team won, what more could you want?
The AEW tag team division has been long overdue a facelift, and now it has two men holding the titles who are strong enough to lift said face. Add in the potential duos of Brody King and Buddy Matthews, any combination of The Don Callis Family, and dare I say Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay (they aren’t going to last but let a man dream please AND thank you) and 2025 could finally be the year that AEW reclaims its crown as the home of tag team wrestling.
Just one more thing guys; lose the baseball caps. You look like two dads about to coach a little league softball team.
Written by Sam Palmer
