AEW WrestleDream
AEW WrestleDream is a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the American promotion All Elite Wrestling. Established in 2023, it is held annually in October as a memorial show to New Japan Pro-Wrestling founder Antonio Inoki; AEW and NJPW have had a working partnership since early 2021. The name of the event is a reference to Inoki, who AEW President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Khan called "wrestling's greatest dreamer".
History
On October 1, 2022, Antonio Inoki, the founder of the Japanese professional wrestling promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling, died. Prior to his death, the American promotion All Elite Wrestling began a working partnership with NJPW in early 2021. This resulted in the annual co-promoted event, AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door, which was first held in June 2022.In April 2023, AEW filed to trademark "AEW WrestleDream". During the All In media scrum on August 27, AEW president Tony Khan officially announced that AEW would hold a pay-per-view event titled WrestleDream, which would be held in honor of Inoki, who was someone Khan looked up to in the professional wrestling industry. The event was scheduled to take place on October 1, 2023—the one-year anniversary of Inoki's death—at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington, marking AEW's first PPV to be held in the U.S. state of Washington. The name of the event refers to Inoki, who Khan called "wrestling's greatest dreamer". Despite not being a co-promoted event with NJPW, the event saw the participation of NJPW wrestlers Satoshi Kojima, TMDK, Katsuyori Shibata, Zack Sabre Jr., and Will Ospreay, who would later sign with AEW, as well as Inoki's former student Josh Barnett.
On April 11, 2024, a second WrestleDream was confirmed to be held on October 12, 2024, in Tacoma, Washington, thus establishing WrestleDream as an annual October event for AEW. The third WrestleDream, which took place on October 18, 2025, was the first to take place outside of Washington, as it was held at the Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis, Missouri.