Aw, Dude

2023catchphraseresurgent

Published September 10, 2026

Aw, Dude is a catchphrase from an October 2023 AEW Collision promo battle where wrestler Adam Copeland (Edge) fumbled a comeback against Ricky Starks and blurted out the sheepish phrase mid-argument. Fans read the moment as Edge losing the exchange, and the clip picked up steam through 2024 and 2025 before exploding across X and TikTok in September 2026 as the wrestling meme of the moment.

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Overview

Aw, Dude is a wrestling-adjacent catchphrase pulled from a promo exchange between Ricky Starks and Adam Copeland, better known as Edge, on AEW Collision1. During the trash-talk segment, Starks jabs at Edge's bug eyes, and Edge, seemingly caught flat-footed, mutters an almost cartoonish, wounded, "Aw, dude," before trying to insult Starks back. Wrestling fans latched onto that half-second reaction as Edge visibly losing a promo he was supposed to win2.

The joke works because the delivery lands like an offended dad on a group chat rather than a hardened wrestling heel. People use the clip and the phrase as a reaction to any perceived L, especially when someone gets clowned and has no comeback ready. By 2026 the line was being quoted daily by wrestling fans on X, cited as one of Copeland's most quotable moments in the AEW run3.

Origin & Background

Platform
AEW Collision (broadcast) / X (viral spread)
Date
2023

The original moment aired on October 14th, 2023, during an AEW Collision promo battle between Edge and Ricky Starks1. Starks ridicules Edge over his bug eyes, and Edge, unable to fire back cleanly, lets out a defeated "Aw, dude" before the two keep swinging insults4. The full segment was uploaded to YouTube, where it stayed available as the reference clip fans kept re-sharing4.

AEW produced the broadcast and the wrestlers cut the promo themselves, so there is no single meme "creator", the phrase is lifted directly from Copeland's live reaction. Its meme life began later, in the reposts, edits, and quote-tweets that fans built around the two-word slip2.

How It Spread

Between late 2023 and 2025, the clip stayed alive as one of those wrestling moments that kept getting reposted for new audiences. On October 14th, 2024, exactly one year after it aired, X user @TheDrainmaker reposted the segment and pulled in more than 2,400 likes over the next two years1. On February 27th, 2026, X user @notwhydeegee2 shared it again with the caption calling Edge "fucking STEAMING", which added another 2,400+ likes in seven months7.

The true revival hit in September 2026. On September 6th, X user @TripleFraud posted that "aw dude" was possibly Copeland's greatest contribution to wrestling and that fans were saying it multiple times a day, drawing over 6,400 likes in three days3. The next day, September 7th, @BigBeann61 uploaded a silent-film-style edit of the moment that pulled in more than 4,000 likes in two days5.

On September 8th, 2026, X user @embestar answered a viral The Sims edit with an Animal Crossing version of the same scene, gathering over 5,000 likes in a day6. That same day, TikTok user @turboowrestlin reframed the clip as a "case that doesn't sit right with me" video, which crossed 142,000 views within 24 hours8. Between the platform edits and the daily quote-posting, the phrase re-entered wrestling Twitter's active vocabulary nearly three years after it aired1.

How to Use This Meme

The catchphrase is typically dropped as a reply when someone else takes an obvious verbal L, gets caught lying, or posts something embarrassing. Common convention on X is to quote-tweet with just the words "aw dude" or to attach the raw AEW clip. Video editors often remix the moment into different aesthetics, silent-film filters, Animal Crossing, and The Sims renditions all circulated in September 202656.

Frequently Asked Questions