MAKIN’ MIRACLES: Reviewing the 2025 DPW Tag Festival

© Photography by Deadlock Pro Wrestling

It’s known on this blog at this point that I bloody love a one night, 5 match tournament with a 4 way elimination finals. They create incredibly succinct stories as well as producing some (usually) pretty reliably good wrestling. However, through our recent forays into these tournaments through RevPro’s British J Cup and DPW’s Carolina Classic, they’ve all been singles tournaments but that’s recently changed with DPW’s Tag Festival, a tag team answer to the Carolina Classic. We covered the first and second rendition’s about a month ago and with 2025’s Tag Festival having happened very recently, let’s get stuck in!

MATCH #1: DAVEY BANG & AUGUST MATTHEWS vs GRIZZLED YOUNG VETERANS

The main story of the night centred around the hubris of the GYV. Before their opening match, scouse loudmouth Zack Gibson of the GYV got on the mic to talk about how they have destroyed every single team that DPW’s faithful declared to be the ‘best team’ in DPW, and yet they still weren’t getting any respect. So, in order to force respect out of the fans, they signed a contract to state that the Tag Festival would be contended for both the tournament trophies AND their DPW World Tag Team Championships, not for the fans enjoyment, but so they could kill 2 birds with one stone and prove themselves as undeniably the best team in DPW.

Bang & Matthews hear this declaration and decide to waste no further time, jumping Gibson & Drake after they get in the ring and wasting even less time in trying to beat them, trying to utilise reckless offence and importantly flash pins to steal the win to make GYV look like utter goofs. Being the great wrestlers they are, GYV manage to recover and launch into a pretty good heat segment on Matthews. They keep him isolated in the corner for the majority of it with Matthews showing a lot of physical fire and desire to escape and find the hot tag on Bang. The problem with this comes in Matthews’ expressions throughout the whole affair. When he’s reaching for the hot tag as Gibson & Drake have him hoisted in the air at different points, there’s no real look on his face that communicates just how much he needs the hot tag; he’s more just… looking at Bang in the corner. It felt like they were ‘showing the strings’ and seemed more like Matthews was more concerned with his timing for the next planned spot rather than trying to inject any life into his attempt at the hot tag.

Once Matthews finds the hot tag, Bang gets in a lot of offence in on Drake to a nearfall before GYV regain control and B&M have to start relying on small windows of opportunity to get an opening for a victory. Taking out Drake on the top rope, utilising blind tags, much more high flying offence, it eventually devolved into a pretty routine formula which felt like a mismatch for the teams. Bang & Matthews were debuting underdogs and ended up just doing a typical GMSI routine instead of being ragdolls that occasionally got SLIGHT moments of hope, which could’ve put a bit more jeopardy on the GYV’s claim rather than the rudimentary tag formula that we ended up seeing unfold. Eventually, Gibson saves Drake from a 900 Splash and Bang is disposed of before the GYV hit the Total Elimination on Matthews for the win.

While I certainly think it could’ve been done better in regards to formula and individual performances, this was still a pretty tidy match that helped affirm the GYV’s claim as the best team in DPW. Not a bad start.

RATING: 7.5/10 (***.5)

MATCH #2: VIOLENCE IS FOREVER vs MIRACLE GENERATION

In a coming together of 2 narratives of the 2 previous tag festivals, we see a rematch from 2023 that is somewhat lead by a story from 2024. Miracle Generation and the violence boys slightly failed to live up to expectation in their previous tag festival match I thought; I think despite both teams obvious talent, sometimes the great talents just don’t have great chemistry and I believe that to be the case for Miracle Gen and ViF. While the match was still very good, given the output of both teams I thought they could’ve done better and once again, I found myself thinking that they fell slightly short of the mark here.

The story here is a simple one. Ku’s publicly troublesome knee continues to play a factor in his and Dom’s matches as Dom has to be the one to carry the load and do the brunt of the work. There’s also the lingering desperation of Miracle Generation to finally make it their year, especially with the added tag team championships now in the balance, shown through Waller’s relative lack of remorse in the early stages as, intentionally or not, Ku’s knee continues to take a lot of offence. Once Dom gets the hot tag, he rampages for a bit before he and Kevin commence a pretty good heat segment on Kylon King with both teams displaying really good awareness of both the metaphorical ‘line in the sand’ but also the illegal man and when to incapacitate them, or interfere to maintain an advantage.

Dustin soon gets the hot tag and the match unfolds as you’d expect with consistent back-and-forth action ramping up the tension. Ku’s knee somewhat fades into the background as a storybeat which I do kind of get because considering the state Ku’s knee is already in, the less damage done to it, the better. Even still, there’s a couple moments where Ku uses the knee to inflict damage (take the Busaiku Knee counter to a Dustin Waller handspring) that isn’t displayed by Ku as having done anything. There’s a few moments of timing which further highlights the unfortunate slight lack of chemistry between the teams but it’s made up for with some really great moments of Dustin being the one to push through for his team as the beating heart and overall MVP of the match.

The finish comes as a result of VIF getting a bit too cocky. Ku drops Waller with a BRAINBUSTAAAAAH and Dom drops King with a Muscle Buster because everyone loves a bit of 00s ROH but as they line up King for the definitive Chasing the Dragon, Waller has just enough wherewithal to sweep out Dom’s leg, taking him down as King counters the suplex into a Small Package to come away with the victory. On first watch I thought this underdelivered but I actually found myself enjoying it more on rewatch. It’s really well paced, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, all 4 put in good showings and ultimately, the right team won. A pretty good match.

RATING: 8.3/10 (***.75)

MATCH #3: ADAM PRIEST & TREVOR LEE vs JAKE SOMETHING & THE BEAST MORTOS

One of the best parts about DPW in 2025 has been, as you’d expect, Adam Priest. His world championship run has been fantastic and it’s been complemented by his budding friendship with the slightly suspicious Trevor Lee, in a friendship that seemingly came about because no one else likes either of them, so why not buddy up?

The 2 are PERFECT southern heel foils. Bull-ying Mortos with a red Matador’s cloth, dirty tactics, braggadocious attitudes, they’re the perfect opposite of the single most ‘dudes rock’ team to have ever existed in Jake Something and The Beast Mortos, a team of big fuckers who want to win big things. The match is structured fantastically, Priest and Lee are always trying their typical shenanigans but the nature of their team means you can only go so far before you inevitably get in your own way. Trevor decides to mock Mortos with the Matador’s cloth and on the third time of getting Mortos to run through it, he’s positioned so Mortos runs right into Priest on the apron and it leaves Trevor isolated with a beast to contend with. It’s brilliant high-school bully tactics with incredibly timed comeuppance. They even cut off their own control segments because the natural chemistry isn’t there, but it’s the dirty tactics that come into play to maintain an advantage for a lengthy heat segment against Mortos.

Despite his nature in AEW, Mortos is a fantastic babyface in peril here. He’s incredibly endearing due to his beastly ways and as one of the best bases in wrestling, he’s perfect at bumping for everything the villains do to him. Mortos soon finds the hot tag to Jake who comes in like a steam train transporting a metrick fuck-ton of beef, running through both men with reckless abandon. The final few minutes of the match commence with the tricks of Trevor & Priest starting to fail, with Trevor deciding to save Priest from being sent Into the Void by Jake, instead taking the bullet for his… friend? Sure, we’ll go with that.

A super fun match that was everything it should’ve been. Great heel work, earnest face work, hell yeah, dudes rock.

RATING: 8.5/10 (****)

MATCH #4: THE WORKHORSEMEN vs THE COWBOY WAY

Even on rewatch, I feel conflicted about this match.

On paper and going into it, it was the match I was most excited for. Manders & Shire have been a tag team revelation in 2025 as both have been putting on career best years regardless of singles or tag settings, and the Workhorsemen have been one of the best teams of the 2020s and with both teams having such a similar style of wrestling, you’d expect this to be a barn burner and it just… wasn’t.

It might just be a personal thing, but I think I’m burning out on ‘war of attrition’ type matches where everything is just bombs being thrown in an attempt to hack the opponent down. I don’t think they leave much room for layered matches and any true exploration of the people involved or the matter at hand. Wars of attrition absolutely have their place in wrestling and I get why they went with that formula for this match, but it just didn’t stick with me too much here. It doesn’t help that the pacing feels kinda off and the match ends super abruptly after some pretty decent work from Henry in isolating Shire by taking out a trapped manders before working with Drake to hit a Cannonball into a Double Stomp to get the win.

There wasn’t much substance in this match, either. It was mainly both teams unloading moves with the occasional stand-off or sick moment, like Shire muscling up Drake to hit a damn impressive UFO. All in all, I feel like there’s a MUCH better match in these two teams than this one. Something of a disappointment, and I really hate to say that.

RATING: 8.1/10 (***.75)

FINALS: GRIZZLED YOUNG VETERANS vs MIRACLE GENERATION vs JAKE SOMETHING & THE BEAST MORTOS vs THE WORKHORSEMEN

It’s been established multiple times in previous reviews how the first ⅓ of these finals go and this one is no different. All 4 teams blasting everything they can muster at each other in an attempt to get the first elimination. It’s intermixed with a really fun few opening moments of the GYV’s badmouthing coming back to bite them on the bottom as all 6 other men take turns absolutely mugging them in unison, before the GYV are rolled to the outside and it becomes a manic free-for-all of bodies and strikes flying about with haste. It comes to a close when after a big hefty dive from Jake Something to the outside, that dastardly Trevor Lee appears on the stage to distract Jake. From behind Jake appears Adam Priest but Jake catches him in his step and tries to send him Into the Void but Priest just slips free, allowing the GYV to get up and Totally Eliminate Jake, to much Mortos sadness.

Like with the first third, the second third has the subtle focus of the absence of our defending champions. GYV spend the entire segment of the match on the outside after being wiped out by the Workhorsemen, cleverly letting them and the Miracle Generation do all the work on each other with some MEATY strikes being thrown from all sides and some great as ever fire being shown by the Miracle Generation. Again, like with the first third, it ends when James cleverly blind tags Waller, letting the Workhorsemen hit a sequence on Waller before Gibson incapacitates Henry and James sneaks in to stack up JD to come away with the pinfall, eliminating the Workhorsemen leaving only the Miracle Generation left between themselves and assured dominance, with the GYV still being relatively fresh compared to the Miracle Gen.

But everything comes down to spirit, to power, and to faith. Zack loves to quip the infamous ‘And now you’re gonna believe us’ song, most recently/famously used by both his & my beloved Liverpool FC during their championship winning season in 2020. And it all depends on what you believe: Do you believe in the favoured odds… or do you believe in miracles?

Throughout everything, Dustin and Kylon keep fighting. They keep standing up to the test, they walk arm in arm into battle, helping each other up whenever necessary spurred on by the cries of ‘WE BELIEVE!’ from the DPW faithful, even with Zack constantly challenging both men on whether or not they believe in themselves. Waller proves himself to be the MVP of the entire tournament, taking an absolute battering from the vets but still finding the resolve to keep pushing forward. Through a Spike Tombstone to Kylon on the outside and a Total Elimination into a Ticket to Mayhem on Waller, they have JUST enough to survive for Kylon to dispose of Gibson before taking out James with their Powerplex to fulfill their destiny, becoming both DPW Tag Festival winners and DPW World Tag Team Champions.

A fantastic ending to a very consistently good tournament, with the perfect winners and a great story. Very few blemishes on display here.

RATING: 8.8/10 (****.25)