Ace Austin Reportedly Impressing AEW With Recent Performances

If you’re one of those wrestling fans that values wins & losses over all else, Ace Austin’s run in AEW hasn’t been stellar. He’s had ten televised singles matches and won one, with the one win coming on the October 25, 2025 edition of AEW Collision where he beat Bryan Keith. Austin was more known as a tag team wrestler prior to arriving to AEW, his team with Chris Bey in TNA & New Japan Pro Wrestling was picking up a ton of steam until Bey was forced out of action with a neck injury.

As we know, wins & losses only play a part of the story. Ace got a very positive review for his loss on Saturday’s Collision to Claudio Castagnoli on a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio. I know mentioning Dave Meltzer’s name gets a certain type of reaction with our readership, but he does have inside knowledge and some influence within AEW. Here’s what he had to say about Ace’s match with Claudio on Collision:

Meltzer on Ace Austin:

“As far as Ace Austin’s standing, I think he did himself a world of favors with this performance because people are talking about him, including in the company, being very impressed by him…I don’t know that it’s gonna get him a bunch of wins, but I do think it will get him some television time and, you know, being thought of as, ‘Hey, we got a TV match for Mike Bailey or whatever, and we need a win, and hey, we know Ace Austin, he can do that job great.’”

Tony Khan’s booking often involves wrestlers taking repeated losses against more recognized talent before moving up the cards themselves. Konosuke Takeshita & Kevin Knight come to mind as more recent examples. After Saturday’s performance, Austin does seem to be turning some heads in AEW. Ace calls himself “Inevitable”, perhaps his time will come sooner than we think.