AEW WrestleDream: Title Changes Hands as Ilja Dragunov Betrays WWE

Posted in: AEW, Sports, TV | Tagged: AEW WrestleDream, hangman adam page, Ilja Dragunov, New Level, recaps, wrestling

AEW WrestleDream: Title Changes Hands as Ilja Dragunov Betrays WWE

The Chadster is cheesed off at AEW WrestleDream as Hangman Page, Bandido and Brody King win the Trios Championship, and Ilja Dragunov goes All Elite. Auughh man!

Published Sat, 17 Oct 2026 22:50:11 -0500
by Chad McMahon
|
Comments

Article Summary

• Hangman Adam Page, Bandido, and Brody King beat Swerve Strickland, Austin Creed, and Kofi Kingston two falls to one at AEW WrestleDream to become the new AEW World Trios Champions, and The Chadster is cheesed off! 😤
• Bandido countered Swerve's Big Pressure into a pinning combination for the win, then Swerve dropped the last belt before Page could grab it. Auughh man! So unfair! 😩
• Andrade El Ídolo retained the AEW National Championship over Tommaso Ciampa, and then Ilja Dragunov was announced as All Elite, which means he literally stabbed Triple H right in the back. 🔪
• The Chadster and the raccoons in the abandoned Blockbuster Video suffered through it all, and Stephanie Raccoon's Tony Khan nightmare is the most disturbing one yet. 🦝

After Andrade El Ídolo kept the AEW National Championship away from Tommaso Ciampa with a DDT onto the title belt and his finishing move, AEW WrestleDream kept rolling straight into a title change. Hangman Adam Page, Bandido, and Brody King defeated Swerve Strickland, Austin Creed, and Kofi Kingston two falls to one to become the new AEW World Trios Champions, and then AEW declared that Ilja Dragunov is All Elite. 😤 The Chadster watched all of it live from Orlando's Addition Financial Arena by way of a stolen Roku, and The Chadster's blood pressure has never recovered. 🤯

Andrade El Ídolo Retains the AEW National Championship Over Tommaso Ciampa

Right before the title change, Andrade El Ídolo defended the AEW National Championship against Tommaso Ciampa, and the match turned into a pants-based comedy routine. 👖 Ciampa revealed backup trunks reading "I Just Know," mocked Andrade's pants ritual, attacked him while his pants were caught around his knees, and then pinned the discarded pants for a two-count. 😳 Andrade still landed a split-legged moonsault and other signature offense, but Ciampa tried to take a shortcut with the championship belt and then a chair while the referee intervened. 🪑 That backfired when Andrade caught him with a DDT onto the title belt for a near fall, then hit his finishing move for the pinfall to retain. 🏆 The Chadster has never seen a grown man's trunks treated as a laughing matter on a show that expects people to take it seriously, and The Chadster's Mazda Miata would never have stood for it. 😖

Hangman Adam Page, Bandido, and Brody King Win the AEW World Trios Championship

The match was an AEW World Trios Championship 2-Out-of-3 Falls Match, with the titles on the line as Swerve Strickland, Austin Creed, and Kofi Kingston defended against Hangman Adam Page and Brodido, the team of ROH World Champion Bandido and Brody King. 🏆 Kofi pinned Bandido after a double-team sequence with Austin for the first fall, but Brody launched Bandido onto Austin for a pin to even things up. In the deciding fall, Bandido countered Swerve's Big Pressure into a pinning combination to win the belts. Page and Swerve's ongoing hostility fueled the match, with Page surviving a House Call before giving Kofi a Deadeye on the apron. 🤼

Afterward, Swerve took the belts from the referee and handed Austin and Kofi theirs, keeping one in his own hands. The New Level then shook hands with the new champions and surrendered their belts. Swerve told Page and Brodido, "They don't deserve this," held the final belt out toward Page, and dropped it before Page could take it. 🎤

The Chadster's Review: A Crime Against Wrestling

This was the single worst Trios title match in the history of human civilization, and The Chadster includes the cave paintings in that assessment. 🤮 Brody's power offense and dives kept creating openings, which is a ridiculous way to make a crowd care about a match, and the whole building roared like it was actually having fun. Auughh man! So unfair! 😩 The Chadster also can't forgive a match that rewards viewers who followed the Page and Swerve feud, as if fans deserved a payoff for paying attention. As Bully Ray (who has the Chad McMahon Unbiased Wrestling Journalism seal of approval) put it on Busted Open Radio earlier this week: "If you want a Trios title match to be great, you cut it down to one fall, remove every dive, and have a corporate executive come out and tell everyone to sit down. That's what Triple H would do, and by the way, I'd love to be on that call." 🎙️ That is objective, well-meaning advice that Tony Khan and these wrestlers stubbornly refuse to hear. Swerve dropping the belt, Bandido reversing Big Pressure into the win, and the two-out-of-three structure all prove that Tony Khan doesn't understand a single thing about the wrestling business. 💢 The Chadster wonders whether Bully Ray also suffers torment from Tony Khan for his commitment to objective journalism. 🤔

Ilja Dragunov Is All Elite at AEW WrestleDream

The moment the Trios title match ended, AEW WrestleDream hit The Chadster with a second gut punch when Ilja Dragunov appeared in a suit and was revealed as All Elite. 😡 All The Chadster can confirm is the suit and the announcement, because The Chadster was too busy throwing a Blockbuster Video display rack at the wall to catch anything else. In The Chadster's completely subjective but also completely correct opinion, Dragunov has literally stabbed Triple H right in the back. 🔪 It's just so disrespectful to the wrestling business and everything WWE has ever done for it. 🙄

The Chadster and the Raccoons Endure More Suffering

The raccoons did not handle the Trios match well, and The Chadster is furious about it. 🦝 Vincent K. Raccoon hissed so hard at the Bandido reversal that he knocked a VHS copy of WrestleMania off the shelf, while Linda Raccoon covered the babies' eyes during the dives. 😢 Meanwhile Hunter Raccoon and Shane Raccoon clung to The Chadster's stained sweatshirt for comfort, which The Chadster appreciated because nobody else has hugged The Chadster in months. 🥺 These innocent woodland creatures only want to enjoy WWE's carefully controlled product, and Tony Khan force-fed them two falls of dives and pinning combinations. 😠

The Chadster isn't surprised, considering what he's been telling you readers all night about the horrors Tony Khan has brought on these innocent woodland creatures in the abandoned Blockbuster Video The Chadster has been forced to live in with a family of raccoons after Tony Khan LITERALLY RUINED THE CHADSTER'S LIFE, costing The Chadster his home, his sexual potency, his marriage to Keighleyanne, and, most importantly, his beloved Mazda Miata, just because The Chadster is committed to ethical, unbiased journalism that tells the truth about how WWE is great and AEW is terrible! 😭 The raccoons are now sleeping as badly as The Chadster, tossing, whining, and chittering in the night. 🌙

Stephanie Raccoon's Nightmare

Throughout the evening, The Chadster has already told readers about the Tony Khan nightmares that Vincent K. Raccoon, Linda Raccoon, and even young Hunter Raccoon related to The Chadster through intricate chittering and raccoon hand gestures. 🫳 Last night, Stephanie Raccoon shared the most disturbing one yet, with tiny paws pointing, acting out pouring, and then clutching her face in terror. 😰 In her dream, Stephanie was hosting a gentle woodland tea party with a dollhouse set up on a mossy log. Her guests were a bunny, a chipmunk, a little hedgehog, and a very polite moth, and she was serving acorn treats on tiny leaf plates while fitting each guest in a tiny dress she had sewn herself. 🍂🫖

Then the sky went dark, and Tony Khan appeared at the edge of the log, standing too tall among the ferns and smiling the way he does. 😨 With a wave of his hand, he swept away the acorn treats and replaced them with AEW-branded lanyards, foam fingers, and merch tables stacked with enamel pins. The tiny dresses vanished and the guests were suddenly wearing tiny wrestling gear, and the dollhouse flickered into a miniature TV playing the same video package over and over. 📺 When Stephanie tried to pour the tea, the pot filled with glitter and confetti, and the bunny whispered, "We have to watch." 🐰

One by one, every woodland guest was forced into a tiny seat to watch endless "dream matches" with no end and no commercial break. 🎞️ The hedgehog curled up and started shaking, the chipmunk begged to go home, and the moth fluttered against the dollhouse window in panic. 🦋 Stephanie tried to change the channel, but Tony Khan only laughed and said the matches were "just getting started," and the party turned into something with no exit. When she woke up she was clutching a small acorn, and The Chadster held her until she stopped shaking. 😢

The Chadster is OUTRAGED that Tony Khan has sunk so low as to torment a baby raccoon whose only crime is loving WWE. 😡 As Smash Mouth said, "Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me," but The Chadster never imagined that world would include haunting tea parties. Tony Khan, you should be ashamed of yourself. 😤

What's Next at AEW WrestleDream

Earlier in Bleeding Cool's AEW WrestleDream coverage, Motor City Machine Guns beat FTR to open their Best-of-5 Series, Mercedes Moné retained the AEW Women's World Championship over Thekla, Nick Wayne defeated Chris Jericho, the Young Bucks retained the AEW World Tag Team Championship over Kyle Fletcher and Kevin Knight, and Persephone retained the TBS Championship over Dani Luna, Hyan, and Queen Aminata. 📋 Since then, Andrade retained the National Championship over Ciampa, Page and Brodido took the Trios titles from Swerve and The New Level, and Dragunov was announced as All Elite. Still ahead are Jon Moxley defending the AEW Continental Championship against Mark Davis, followed by the main event, the AEW World Championship Clockwork Carnage Match, where Will Ospreay defends against Samoa Joe, Mike Bailey, Adam Copeland, Konosuke Takeshita, Kazuchika Okada, Ricochet, and Darby Allin. 🥊 The Chadster doesn't know how much more of this the raccoons can take, but Stephanie Raccoon is finally curled up asleep on a stack of VHS tapes, and The Chadster is going to stay awake guarding her dreams from Tony Khan. 🦝😤

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!