Real Reason AEW PPV Started With A Match Already Underway

AEW hosted its third annual WrestleDream PPV on Saturday, October 18, 2025, at the Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis, Missouri.

Before the actual PPV, there were a few matches on the pre-show, as usual. The last pre-show match featured FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood) (with Stokely) defeating JetSpeed (“Speedball” Mike Bailey and Kevin Knight) by pinfall. The WrestleDream PPV started with this match already underway, which led many fans to wonder what the reason could be behind this.

Wrestling Observer, in its latest report, noted that there wasn’t a problem with time management. In fact, the FTR vs. Jet Speed match was always planned to mostly happen during the pay-per-view. The idea was to try something new: start the match during the pre-show, but not finish it until the PPV started. That way, it would be more unpredictable, instead of fans always knowing the match will end right before the PPV begins.

The report added that this match was a good choice to test the idea because both teams started the match at a fast pace. That made the pre-show exciting, and since the match continued onto the PPV, the main show started with high energy right in the middle of the action.

Why Was Bryan Danielson Missing From AEW WrestleDream?

Bryan Danielson recently joined the Dynamite and PPV commentary team in AEW. However, he was absent from the show on Saturday. Speaking on the WrestleDream post-show media scrum, AEW President and CEO revealed that The American Dragon couldn’t attend the show because of a family commitment.

Khan said, “Bryan had a family commitment, I told him, ‘Hey, if you have a family thing tonight, it’s probably the night to go to your family commitment. Because I don’t wanna put you in a position where you might be risking your job if you get up from the desk and interfere in this match.’”

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