My All In Build Up
“I can’t believe it’s been a year already.” My partner tells me this as we walk from the coach to Wembley Stadium.
She’s right. It’s hard to believe that 365 days have passed. In wrestling sometimes, a week brings a month’s worth of news. The landscape of wrestling between now and then has radically changed again.
What didn’t change on the journey was the anxiety and nerves. The dyslexic concern was that I had misread a vital travel detail. Even that I had the wrong date for All In couldn’t be shaken.
But then we’re at Wembley. My partner pops to the toilet. I’m left standing alone looking around at all the other fans. I become calm. I study the various wrestling shirts. Admire the cosplayers: adults and kids dressed as Orange Cassidy and Darby Allin.
There is a feeling already that despite what gets said on social media and online, this will be a good day, but I was wrong…
We eat while others queue in huge snaking lines that seem to get longer. We pass the merchandise, but it’s limited, and we buy nothing but a program. When we eventually get to our seats, I notice the layout change. Our view of the ring is even better than last year despite we are higher up in the stadium.
Next to me are five empty red chairs. Across the way, an entire block of red seats is glaringly empty. To their right is a black cloth covering a horseshoe section of the stadium. Zero Hour starts. Two hours until showtime.
The first pre-show match starts with the 16-man tag. Each match gets better and better…
It was the best day of my wrestling fandom.
The Feeling
I’ve written elsewhere about how last year’s All In inspired me to start writing about wrestling. It’s 10 AM here in the UK and I’ve had about six hours of sleep. And there’s something I cannot describe still buzzing in my veins and synapses.
A good but almost bastardized name for it would be the feeling.
It’s something my partner, a casual wrestling fan who prefers the comedic and bad aspects to it to work rate and five-star matches, also is feeling. Like a positive hangover. One that made her want to commit again to the long journey to London to Forbidden Door next year. Then All In in 2026.
It’s something I’m sure the family sat in front of us, with their two young daughters, felt. Both seemed anxious. Perhaps their first wrestling show. One had headphones for noise sensitivity and the other was reserved.
That didn’t stop them from clapping with Willow Nightingale. Or doing Mercedes Mone’s CEO dance. The girl with the headphones took them off to absorb the crowd singing along to The Final Countdown. The anxious girl did not hold back either. Early on, when the crowd loudly told Stokely Hathaway “You F# up” after spinebusting Tomohiro Ishi. However, she tried to hide it by shielding her mouth with her hands so her parents might not hear her.
Those empty red chairs across from me were a quarter filled by the start of the show. Those five empty chairs next to us turned into three. Two were filled. Did that impact my enjoyment of the various stories? The victories of the home country wrestlers? The surprise appearances and crushing defeats?
No.
Business and attendance are not metrics of enjoyment. They don’t measure the impact on individuals.
What it Means to Be All In
Comparing All In to WrestleMania is a flawed comparison. Like any comparison, it’s limited by ignorance of context. Yet, looking at the history of the three All In events that have taken place, there is a similarity in terms that these have been events that have tried to do something unprecedented.
Both were gambles. But the biggest difference being AEW in ideas and principles, even before it was formally named was about being an alternative. Before Tony Khan financed it. Before it became a company and challenger brand.
Critics of AEW who claim Dave Meltzer loves the company forget the first All In was organised to prove the wrestling analyst and historian wrong.
“I’ll take that bet, Dave,” are Cody Rhodes’ famous words. His counteroffer claims that a company like ROH could never sell out a 10,000-seat arena.
They did it. The Elite showed that beyond WWE, wrestling could be successful. Wrestling could be done differently.
How this has shaped the industry I’ve written about in multiple articles. Giving options to wrestlers for places to work (the signing wars). Even impacting WWE’s practices (here). Everyone has benefited from AEW’s existence.
And yet, like any alternative, there is always going to be criticism. How fair or correct this is as subjective and objective and varies depending on your metrics.
When AEW announced All In London in Wembley Stadium, few believed they could sell out that venue. They did. And they returned to success again this year.
Over 50,000 tickets sold. And bizarrely some accounts who denied the previous attendance record said AEW sold 30 thousand less seats than last year.
Next year, All In comes to Texas. Wembley again in 2026. Being All In means taking the biggest risks to prove the status quo wrong.
Investment Paying Off
Many online when criticizing AEW want to talk business. Butts on seats and money and backstage issues and contracts. The easily measurable things.
There are things we cannot measure so clearly. Sports events have an impact that only becomes present years later. Not all investments are made with money and show profits like in tax returns. When it comes to the investments in human beings, there is only anecdotal evidence.
The fact is, whether you like AEW or not, it has and will inspire other human beings of all ages to get involved in wrestling. Whether that is just as fans, in a social media conversation, or wanting to become a part of the industry.
Inspiring Generations
I’m part of the generation of British teenagers who saw England win the Rugby World Cup. This inspired a generation of kids to get into rugby. During the Olympics this summer, interviews with multiple athletes spoke about the triumphs of their predecessors. Their success became their inspiration to become Olympians.
It’s going to be years until a potential generation of new wrestlers states that AEW and All In were their reasons for getting into wrestling. Whether it’s the two children who sat in front of me. It could be the girl who got to chop MJF during the first International Championship match with Will Ospreay. Who knows if/when another Izzy Moreno will emerge?
It could be the generational talent like Birdie or Buddy Danielson. Post-main event, Buddy wrestled with his dad. He was even threatened with a tiger-driver by his father, the new AEW world champion Bryan Danielson.
Wrestlers today sign with WWE partly because it was always their dream. Take Stephanie Vaquer or NXT’s Nathan Frazer.
We will reach a stage where wrestlers will want for AEW (if it refuses to die) because it was their childhood dream. Inspired by events like All In that proved wrestling exists beyond the WWE way.
This is the future.
Inspiring The Now
In five years, AEW has already inspired and changed the mindset of the current generation. Many have joined AEW. Mercedes Mone was ready to go back to WWE for WrestleMania. Attending All In 2023 changed her mind.
Will Ospreay pick AEW over WWE for factors beyond money? I’ve written about various reasons why wrestlers would choose AEW beyond money in the real bidding war of 2024 here. Bryan Danielson has repeatedly said this has been the most enjoyable part of his career.
Yes, wrestlers will leave AEW. The Lucha Brothers have been part of some of AEW’s greatest moments (you can read about them here). They might leave because they have hit a ceiling (which you can read about here). That’s part of the process.
Others, like Ricochet, will come to AEW, not just for a pay cheque, but because this is where they want to perform their art. Regardless of discord about the hard cam area. That isn’t going away. Unfortunately, it will ignore the intangible feeling that fans and wrestlers experience from the alternative.
Easily Ignored
In the week prior and the hours following All In, the amount of negativity around AEW online was noticeable.
Mocking, dismissive, and trying to turn the conversation with a comparison back to WWE. Even on Reddit on the AEW-centric groups, members were talking about the bombardment of downvotes for their posts. In other prominent wrestling forums, anything disrupting the narrative of AEW is bad-faced downvoting. Things bashing AEW could get upvoted.
Going onto one Facebook community I am a part of, the only references to All In were jokes. A photo of two fans taking a knee with “Stand up for WWE” shirts outside Wembley. Another was a photo criticizing Brian Cage and Sammy Guevara wearing Wolverine-themed gear on the preshow and being on opposite teams. Strange and insignificant, but that’s part of the course with bad faith.
When I last looked there was a photo of AEW champions, updated with Bryan Danielson but with CM Punk crossed out. Punk’s exit from AEW has been a wound that the company has been unable to close. Even in trying to take advantage of The Elite’s Corporate turn, its limited success has been overshadowed by creative inconsistency. Plus, the a lack of immediate impact on business.
I’ve written in more depth about both sides of “AEW is under attack” here. The Folks who don’t like AEW, whether analysts, grifters, or fans are not going to give All In this year or any year its flowers.
There’s no point waiting for that to change. What happens and is said online doesn’t change that feeling I felt last night.
That’s what wrestling is about, regardless of promotion.
The Future
All In for the past two years has been like WrestleMania in the sense that it’s been AEW’s biggest event of the year. Last year’s was AEW’s peak of 2023. Then like the WWE of old, it went through creative struggles afterward.
Unlike WWE, those problems led to discussions about the company’s death. There are worrying issues with ratings and attendance that AEW has to address. Now and in the long term. Beyond wrestling, AEW needs to level up in other areas to compete with WWE (as I’ve discussed here).
Yet, AEW continues to bet on itself.
Grand Slam goes to Australia next year. Forbidden Door returns to London next year for the bank holiday weekend. All In goes to Texas in 2025 and Wembley in 2026. If AEW is dying it is refusing to go quietly.
AEW next year bets on itself and will seek to prove doubters wrong by filling the Globe Life Field Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
AEW will continue to be the alternative. For many All In will be forgotten in a week. The cycle moves on. There will be new things to criticize and the same things in the anti-AEW playbook to reference.
However, that feeling I experienced with All In last year that got me writing for Last Word hasn’t left. It’s grown stronger. If even a fraction of the fans who attended All In feel a similar way, then the legacy of the promotion’s biggest event lives on. A feeling perhaps that fans who have attended over events have also felt and not lost. No amount of negativity online has diminished that feeling.
As my partner, the casual wrestling fan who now loves the theatrics and storytelling of AEW said: “This is going to be an annual tradition.”
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – AEW – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. As well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights at 8 PM ET on TBS. AEW Rampage airs on TNT at 10 PM EST every Friday night. AEW Collision airs Saturday at 8pm Eastern on TNT. More AEW content available on their YouTube
