AO3 top ships & other stats for AEW for the past year (as of mid-2025)
this is based on @centrumlumina's AO3 Ship Stats 2025 which was just published. wrestling ships are never going to make it to that list, so here is our very own!
💋 methodology
in the All Elite Wrestling fandom tag, under filters, scroll down to 'Search within results' and add this search parameter: created_at:["2024-07-28" TO "2025-07-28"]. you can also use the 'Date Updated' field instead, which will also show fics that were created before the specified range but updated within the range. i chose to limit the search to creation date.
AO3's filters then show the most popular tags under each search category.
you can copy my search directly with this link. it will show significantly fewer fics if you are not logged in: 44% of fics posted in the last year are only visible with an account. if you are even slightly interested in wrestling fic or any rpf, i really recommend making an AO3 account.
you can use these same search parameters to compare year to year - keep in mind these searches do not account for deleted fic. so the number of works actually posted in any given year may be different now than it was that year. (i could not find whether the search accounts for backdating, sorry.)
this list will contain the results in screenshots and then plain text after. the screenshots are filled with empty space to make them align properly. i will give some commentary because this is my blog and i can write whatever i want, but feel free to skip all that if you just want to look at some numbers :3
1474 works total! let's dig in under the read more.
Categories:
M/M (1038)
Gen (215)
F/M (178)
Multi (133)
F/F (130)
Other (48)
Ratings:
Explicit (549)
Teen And Up Audiences (307)
Mature (268)
General Audiences (258)
Not Rated (92)
Warnings:
No Archive Warnings Apply (1076)
Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (316)
Graphic Depictions Of Violence (73)
Rape/Non-Con (48)
Major Character Death (18)
Underage Sex (4)
starting with the categories (what type of ships do people write about, if any?), the ratings (how steamy or family-friendly is it?), and the warnings (does the work contain any of the mandatory warning labels+does the author choose to disclose that beforehand?).
i don't think there are any real surprises here. M/M is most popular here just like the rest of AO3. more on that later. i don't have stats on the average amount of explicit fics, but i do think AEW fandom tends to be a lot raunchier than most other fandoms.
Fandoms:
All Elite Wrestling (1474)
Professional Wrestling (727)
World Wrestling Entertainment (127)
新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling (48)
Impact Wrestling | Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (28)
Ring of Honor (26)
Original Work (8)
DDT Pro-Wrestling (8)
Real Person Fiction (6)
Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (6)
Additional Tags:
Kayfabe Compliant (161)
Anal Sex (138)
Fluff (127)
Angst (115)
Hurt/Comfort (111)
Smut (104)
Established Relationship (93)
Oral Sex (85)
Not Beta Read (73)
Blow Jobs (60)
first, the other fandoms AEW fic gets tagged alongside. the All Elite Wrestling tag, as all other wrestling fandom tags, is a subtag of Professional Wrestling. so it is not necessary to tag them both: if anyone is looking at the Professional Wrestling tag, works with the AEW tag will automatically be included. however, this doesn't work the other way around. so if your fic is about AEW characters, make sure you add the AEW tag!
i find it funny how there are no real 'crossover' fandoms. from the numbers alone you also can't really tell how the other wrestling promotion tags are being used. maybe someone's tagging every single promotion a wrestler has ever been in (pls don't do that), or maybe it is a cross-over between different promotions!
next, there's a list of the additional tags. i'm counting 4 out of 6 as smut-related, so, that's fun i guess. can another fic writer please explain the use of the 'Not Beta Read' tag? i don't get most of my fic beta read either (because i primarily write smut and i would need a very specific kind of person to give me feedback on that) but i don't see the point in declaring it? is it a warning to readers, like oi, here might be typos - or what? and a question for readers: do you pay attention to that tag? do you ever filter it out or scroll past a fic that has that tag? (feel free to tell me on anon lmao)
Relationships:
"Hangman" Adam Page/Swerve Strickland | Isaiah Scott (73)
Orange Cassidy/Chuck Taylor (56)
Orange Cassidy/Hook (54)
Matt Jackson/Nick Jackson (Professional Wrestling) (49)
Darby Allin/Jungle Boy | Jack Perry (48)
Matt Jackson/"Hangman" Adam Page (36)
Kyle Fletcher/Will Ospreay (35)
Adam Cole/Roderick Strong (27)
Adam Cole/Maxwell Jacob Friedman (26)
Mariah May/Toni Storm (26)
Characters:
"Hangman" Adam Page (253)
Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley (220)
Matt Jackson (Professional Wrestling) (197)
Nick Jackson (Professional Wrestling) (166)
Wheeler Yuta (148)
Will Ospreay (145)
Swerve Strickland | Isaiah Scott (136)
Orange Cassidy (129)
Kenny Omega (124)
Darby Allin (121)
and now we get to the real reason i wanted to make this post!!!! to talk about ships!!!! 🎉
they barely made it, but, for the first time ever, this top 10 year-to-year contains an F/F ship!!! SEE, TONY, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LEARN HOW TO BOOK WOMEN! real talk: i am not often an F/F writer, so the F/F writers are fully justified in rolling their eyes at whatever i have to say, but i do enjoy reading it a lot. toni storm is easily the realest rawest queer fem rep in mainstream television wrestling, and i always wish there was more F/F fic. did you know that, only a year ago, the most popular relationship in the AEW F/F tag of all time was ambrollins? THANK YOU femslash writers!!!
i haven't ran the data on this or anything, but i'd wager that kyle fletcher/will ospreay are the highest ranked new entrants to this top list. buckcest still stands tall with 49 works despite all the rounds of discourse around it and the searing lack of BTE. adamjf carries on no matter their booking, which i can respect.
speaking of respect, i'm not gonna check this for every ship, but 33 out of 48 darby allin/jack perry fics in the past year were written by @aerodaltonimperial, who also wrote one (1) single orange cassidy/hook fic and ALL the other 53 were written by @corneroffandom and i think both deserve a big shoutout. guys, if this post makes you grumpy about your faves not showing up in the top 10, you can just open an empty doc and get writing! (or bully your friends into doing it :D)
which brings me to the number 1, which i'm obviously biased about: strickpage wins AO3 feud of the year! completely deserved, in my opinion, these men have worked their absolute asses off to get people thinking about the two of them getting it on. good job guys!!! now everyone lets celebrate by all writing even more strickpage, yayyyy!!! <3
observations on the most popular characters: mox, yuta, and kenny are all in the most characters list but not in the ships list, which means either there's a significant amount of gen for these three (spoiler: there really isn't) or they're just the biggest sluts on the list. unless i missed someone (pls correct me!) strickpage is the only one in the ships list that features any person of colour and swerve and yuta are the only ones in the characters list, which, hm. i don't think my white euro ass should be the one to spell out conclusions from that but AEW is not lacking in non-white representation at all so the difference is definitely notable.
on a more positive note, i'm DELIGHTED to see yuta remains AO3's favourite midcarder and i think we should all keep that up also. (this doesn't have to contradict with my request for more strickpage guys... strickpageyuta is a ship that's right there...) he, too, is certainly working VERY hard to be put into situations on archive of our own dot org!!!
if you made it all the way to the end (i won't know if you merely skimmed this post, i promise) please reblog or reply with your thoughts! if you wanna compare data to other years, or do this for WWE, or in any other way use this idea, please feel free and tag me! i also wanna hear if anyone feels like bragging about contributing to any of the trends on this list!
ok i know everyone is thinking about full gear rn but im thinking about how in the first dynamite with death riders, one of the first things mox says as this new persona is "thy shall not cast pearls before swine"
which- already insane but. if you look into the history of this phrase its even more metal. like, the fact that its from the bible, said by jesus (jewish) and pigs are not kosher! making the meaning of the phrase essentially- dont waste your amazing shit by letting creatures so unholy as to not be worth eating see it. beautiful. 10/10. perfect way to like. start off this new fascinating gimmick
so rewatching some old promos, i've noticed that there will be phrases often repeated by commentators, probably as part of getting a gimmick or story over- and these phrases will often evoke mythological or biblical imagery in a way that foreshadows later plot.
now- after one early death riders promo (9-4-24) Excalibur describes Mox's statements as "sphinx like" and i simply. cannot stop thinking about the implications
now- i dont know if you all know your ancient theater, but Oedipus actually had a pretty notable interaction with a sphinx once- kind of the interaction when it comes to sphinx riddles.
see- while Oedipus is mostly known now for his unfortunate taste in women, he also was very well known for two things- killing his father, and freeing Thebes from a curse his father caused to be put on Thebes in the first place. the curse,,, of the sphinx.
now, i dont know how this whole death rider thing is going to end but, i feel like between the whole "someone has to take me down and prove this city promotion dosen't need me devouring people left and right before yall will be free of me" thing and also the "kill your dad" thing which both show up pretty soon after this promo, it feels like this might have been a bit of foreshadowing.
