Hightides July 2025

Whats up gang, Tyler here. I'm sitting here having a smoke and thinking about the good times from the past month. And it was a big month for hightides. Big events, big moments, hella chilling - so let's dive right in to our first look back at the Hightide moments from July! 

AEW had a strong start to July, celebrating the 300th episode of Dynamite and the 100th episode of Collision. It honestly feels like there would be more than 100 episodes of Collision, especially considering this was the show originally built around Punk. That feels like a lifetime ago for some reason. Collision is leaps and bounds better than what AEW was trying to do with Rampage, I am so glad this show overtook that as AEWs second weekly TV program.

Dynamite 300's biggest moment came in Okada vs Ibushi for the first time in AEW. This match was an absolute banger that delivered. In a tribute to Goldberg and his time in Japan, Okada and Ibushi  went just under fifteen minutes during their bout. (Jokes, folks).

Okada won the match and as the Don Callis Family began to beat down Ibushi, Kenny Omega made a surprise return. He made the save for Ibushi, setting up for a long tag team run as a reunited Golden Lovers (another joke ayyyyyo). What this really did, was set up a match between Omega and Okada for All In: Texas. 

Originally I was dreading the Superman tie in matches but they ended up delivering. The first of the two saw Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay defeat Dralistico and Beast Mortos. Visually, this was a perfect heroes vs villains match. Swerve and Ospreay truly are the fan favorite heroes with Dralistico and Beast Mortos truly looking like villains. If people who are new to the product tuned in because of their love for Superman and comics, this match was the perfect advertisement for that viewer. 

The second tie in match saw Konosuke Takeshita and The Bucks defeat Bandido, Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong - because the hero doesn’t always win (fuck dem kids!). This match had less of a comic book vibe to it but it was a great match nonetheless. I just can’t get over how much I liked that first match. Pro wrestling lives in the world of sports and the world of fantasy, and that’s such a cool thing that bridges different communities.

Collision 100 saw the return of Scorpio Sky after a damn near two year absence, answering Max Caster's open challenge. Big pop for the boy too, which I’m sure has to feel amazing when you return after so long. Sky put Caster away with four minutes still up on the clock, so boom he’s clearly not messing around. 

Sky's return saw him paired up with Christopher Daniels and Top Flight. A stable formed around a veteran, accompanied by a legendary manager and two goons with the goal of making the veteran a champion feeeeeels a lot like Seth Rollins' group BUT I will say this - Seth’s stable feels very “character” and villainous, whereas Sky’s group feels very MMA. Like when a camp is formed to get a certain fighter to the top. So I honestly love this for Sky and the group as a whole. Also - Christopher Daniels was on the Chris Van Vilet podcast this month, go check that out! 

WWE put on three PLEs this month: NXTs The Great American Bash, Saturday Nights Main Event, and Evolution. Ironically, the quality of each event is listed in that order too.

Out of these three events, the Bash was the weakest. Even so, the event had a great hightide moment with Ricky Saints vs Ethan Page in a grudge match that showed they are leagues above everyone else. The subtle things, like the pace and the way they laid in their hits, truly got across that these were two dudes who hated each other. And what a finisher, I mean honestly - did anything else on this card top an Egos Edge from the stage through two tables? I was CONVINCED Saints was heading to the main roster after this but that doesn’t appear to be the case yet. Hopefully post Summerslam. 

Saturday Night’s Main Event only had four matches on the card, but the big moment was the end of Goldberg's WWE career at the hands of Gunther. Gunther gave Goldberg his longest match in over ten years, coming in at just under fifteen minutes. I was pretty pumped about the match, but there were some controversies surrounding it - I wrote a defense for Goldberg in the Beachside Courthouse, check it out if you haven’t already! At any rate, the opportunity to see a living legend wrestle is a great treat that I wish cynical fans would stop criticizing so harshly. 

Evolution was by far the best WWE event of the weekend. Every single match was entertaining, with the best match of the night being a sleeper pick in the Battle Royal for the number one contenders spot at Clash in Paris. What everyone assumed would be a throw away match for the expected winner in Nikki Bella, instead delivered major storyline developments and ended with a shocking win for Stephanie Vaquer. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember a battle royal match that ever got me as invested as this one did. 

Funny enough, the only real lowtide moment from Evolution came from the two men providing commentary. The moment in question is when Blake Monroe turned on Jordynne Grace during her title match against Jacy Jayne. Michael Cole and Wade Barrett completely undersold the turn by almost not even acknowledging it at first, which then turned to confusion about what Monroe was doing, to then finally confirming a heel turn near the end of the segment. The commentary and the visuals on TV were not aligned, and by the time commentary caught up to speed with what was happening, the shock value was completely dead. So cheers, fellas! You did it! 

Now that we got those events covered, let’s remember why WWE put three PLEs out in the same weekend… AEW All In: Texas. Without a doubt, All In was leaps and bounds the better wrestling event over anything going on that weekend. Every single match delivered beyond expectations, so let’s focus in on three hightide moments from the event that stood out to me:

Athena wins the gauntlet match and earns a future AEW Women’s title shot in her home state of Texas, after fans borderline demanded Athena be on the card. AEW is a company that rewards fans for being fans and that's why it will always be beloved. Some people see that as a negative thing, I see it as caring for your audience. Athena deserves the love she is receiving, currently holding down Ring Of Honor as their women's world champion. Side note, she just had her 30th successful title defense on Collision a few episodes after this All In win.

Swerve and Ospreay vs The Bucks put on arguably the match of the year. Swerve and Ospreay couldn’t challenge for the AEW title for over a year if they were to lose; The Bucks would be relieved of their EVP titles if they were to lose. While the company is only six years old, this felt like an old guard vs new guard in a sense. Swerve and Ospreay are both wrestlers who are absolutely perfect for AEW. Having them win is the right call and hopefully we see them both in the title picture sooner than later. 

Hangman Adam Page puts an end to Jon Moxley's iron grip on the AEW World Heavyweight Championship. Whether you loved or hated the Moxley Death Riders title run, it all accumulated on AEW's biggest stage of the year. Moxley’s message of “who wants it more than I do” to being beaten so badly he taps out by the fury Hangman delivered is beautiful storytelling. There is also a real life element here where Hangman truly climbed his way back to the top of the company after arguably being responsible for the start of AEW’s ‘low’ period (which we don’t need to dive into at all). Hangman being the one to defeat Moxley is a true moment of triumph. 

Outside of the PLE and PPV events, we saw the return of Roman Reigns on Monday Night Raw. To set the stage; CM Punk just won a grueling gauntlet match for the number one contenders spot to Gunther World Heavyweight Championship. CM Punk pinned Bron Breakker, causing a post match beatdown with Bronson Reed getting in the mix. Jey Uso came to help but ultimately gets beat down as well. Then boom, WHAT A POP, Reigns returns to clear house and help his cousin. Having Reigns back is a huge boost to Raw and having him carry a feud with Seth's group while Seth is out injured, helps keep Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed looking like major players. 

My personal favorite hightide is the SmackDown tag division turning all the way up this month. It started with the Wyatt Sicks picking up the WWE tag team titles, which the entire tag division sold as their worst nightmare. The next week had a fatal four way match for the number one contenders spot. Andrade and Rey Fenix, the newest team in the division, picked up the win in an incredible match that put over the new team. To further put the team over, a very well done video package for the team played. Then they got the symbolic win during the match. This is how you introduce a new team and quickly get them on the same level as everyone else. Meanwhile in the background during all this time, all the other teams have been bickering about who will be able to actually win the belts. This all exploded at the end of Rey Fenix and Andrade's title shot when every team found themselves ringside brawling. Adam Pearce comes out in a frenzy to announce a 6 team TLC match for Summerslam. Absolute insanity. Perfect week to week storytelling. I am going to say it…. I’m jazzed up right now.

With this month being a slam dunk in events, from show anniversaries to stacked PPVs, the last big match comes in the form of a rematch between Hangman and Moxley for the AEW championship belt. With the All In matching being an absolute car crash, barn burner, slobber knocker of a match, this rematch was never going to match the heights of the first one.

This match came with a “everyone banned from ringside” stipulation, which honestly annoyed me at first because that stipulation literally means nothing when people come down to the ringside anyways. It feels like that’s the case every time, regardless of the show or company. I supposed with the All In match being so crazy, they needed to have a different type of dramatic ending for this one but still. I also found it odd that this match didn’t open or close the show… it went on second. Maybe I’m just conditioned a certain way but that definitely felt weird. I know those are complaints when this is supposed to be Hightides but I just felt like I needed to at least talk about this match in some capacity. Also technically hightides are made from lowtides, so let’s see what the fall out from this match brings. 

Well gang, that wraps up this month. July was pretty stacked with events and moments, let’s see in August holds up. We got Summerslam, NXT Heatwave, and AEW Forbidden Door to look forward to! Check out our instagram page to see the Hightides the night of the show (sometimes morning after). 

Peace and love, keep ya tides high.