08/28/2023
AEW ALL IN: Wembley: Highlights, not in order.
It's been a tough week for wrestling fans as within 24 hours we lost one of the best of all time in Terry Funk and one of the most beloved dudes in wrestling today in Bray Wyatt. We all need some good wrestling after all the heartbreak, so let's see if AEW can deliver in the biggest event in Professional Wrestling history.
First off, what a hell of a show. So proud of AEW for breaking the attendance record and I'm very excited to see what WWE is gonna do to try and break it again. Wrestling might not be in the main stream right now, but it's legit bigger than ever and I freaking love it. Spoilers below
This might go down as the best show in AEW history, every single match delivered, some more so than others and minus the tag title match, "for reasons that I hope will become clear eventually" I fully believe that the right team/person one in each encounter.
Stadium Stampede:
Best Friends: Orange Cassidy, Trent? and Chuck Taylor with Penta EL Zero M and Eddie Kingston vs The Blackpool Combat Club: Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Mosley and Wheeler Yuta with Santana and Ortiz
As with every other time this match takes place, this was just fun car crash death match stupidity.
* Mox getting skewered and looking like a hardcore unicorn
* Everyone bleeding within the first 5 minutes, cause car crash wrestling
* Claudio showing why even as the only champion in BCC he's the most underrated member of the stable.
* Claudio and Kingston essentially doing a mini death match during the match
* Santana and Ortiz finally getting back on the same page and are hopefully about to return to the tag division, sign me up for them vs The Acclaimed
* Orange Cassidy being hardcore with possibly one of sickest Orange Punches he's ever delivered and sealing the win for his team. Him vs Mox next Sunday has the very high possibility of being my match of the year.
AEW World Tag Team Championship:
* FTR and the Young Bucks just continue to prove why their best tag teams of their generation.
Too many highlights to name, but this has potentially my favorite finishing sequence of all time, this match started at 100 and didn't let up until the final bell. Hope that Cash doesn't end up going to prison, as I'd love to see FTR/YB 4 before these guys retire.
AEW Women's World Championship: Saraya vs Toni Storm vs Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs Hikaru Shida "c"
* Saraya coming out to We Will Rock You, accompanied by her family who are pretty much wrestling royalty in the UK.
* Saraya turning babyface after Toni "accidentally" decks her mom in the face
* Saraya having Shida locked in the Scorpion Cross Lock only for Baker to deliver a curb stomp to Shida might go down as one of the best spots in either women's career, the way Shida's head hit the mat it looked like she got knocked unconscious.
* The Outcasts, legit the only badly booked stable in AEW coming to an end, with Saraya winning the AEW women's championship in her home country in front of her entire family.
6 Man Tag Match: The Golden Elite: Kota Ibushi, Hangman Adam Page and Kenny Omega vs Bullet Club Gold: "Switchblade" Jay White and "Rockhard" Juice Robinson with Konuske Takeash*ta
With the six of these men involved I knew going in that this was gonna be an all Strong Style affair and boy was I correct, I'm slightly concerned that all of these men gave each other brain damage but this was one hell of an entertaining strike fest
* Kenny Omega hitting V Triggers like they were going out of style, one of them looking like it killed Jay White
* Ibushi going for a Kamigoye on Takeash*ta only for Takeash*ta to turn it into his own leaping knee strike, I need to see a singles match between these 2 eventually.
* Hangman hitting with Takeash*ta with an inverted Buck Shot lariat and Takeash*ta just flopping to the ground was a hilarious highlight
* Takeash*ta literally stunning Wembley into silence buy pinning KENNY FREAKING OMEGA!!!! Setting up a one on one match between the 2 of them next Sunday at All Out and I can not begin to explain how hyped I am for this match.
"The Real" AEW World Heavyweight Championship: CM Punk "C" vs Samoa Joe: It boggles my mind that the first 2 ROH dudes that I remember watching almost 20 years ago when I first started watching wrestling outside the E are not only still feuding but are still somehow putting on instant classic matches.
*It was a typical Joe/Punk match, Joe dominates for 85% of the match, with Punk only getting a few hope spots in
*Joe has Punk in a seesaw position and just batters him with strikes for a good 15 - 30 seconds
* Joe literally yeeting Punk through the bottom of the announce table allowing Punk to blade and coming out of the table with the classic crimson mask
* Joe being Joe and turning a powerbomb into the best STF in the business like it's a natural thing to do.
* Punk hits Joe with the Pepsi Plunge and for the first time since like 2003 actually wins a match with the Plunge, which makes sense in hindsight as there was no way Punk was picking up Joe for the G.T.S with the amount of blood he lost.
* A lot of people including myself were kind of surprised that this opened the main card of the evening but this match started the show out on a high note and I feel looking back it worked perfectly as the opener.
Chris Jericho vs Will Ospreay: if you know me, you know the love that I have for both of these guys, so to say I was hyped for this would be an understatement.
I've got way to much to say here, So I'll just say that Ospreay showed why he's the best wrestler in the world today and had an instant classic with one of the all time greats. Seek this match out, it's worth it.
Ospreay has had the best year of any pro wrestler on earth this year and I'm very excited for the bidding war that's sure to erupt when his contract with New Japan expires early next year, BILLY GOAT runs the wrestling world, and I can't wait to see where he ends up.
AEW Trios Championship No Holds Barred: The Acclaimed: "Platinum" Max Caster, Anthony Bowens and "Bad Ass" Bill Gunn vs The House of Black: Malachi Black, Buddy Matthews and Brodie King
To me this was the weakest match on the card. It might have something to do with how late we were into the show or that pretty much everyone watching was so obviously conserving their energy for the main event, which was the following contest. The Acclaimed win the big one becoming only the 4thd team ever to hold the trios titles. Good match and the crowd pulling out the Fireflies and Buddy carrying a lantern to honor Wyatt during the HOB entrance was a beautiful touch.
AEW World Heavyweight Championship: Adam Cole vs Maxwell Jacob Freidman "MJF" "C"
AEW has been hyping up Better Than You Bay Bay as the bromance of the summer and seeing MJF go from self obsessed scumbag to vulnerable, caring friend might go down as the greatest slow burn Babyface turn of all time.
This match was an emotional rollercoaster and might go down as the greatest match in AEW history.
* Earlier in the evening BTYBB beat Aussie Open to win the ROH world tag team championships, which throws a lot more into the emotional mix
* From early on MJF worked face and Cole established himself as the heel, giving the match a firm foundation and sending the heart rates of every single person watching through the roof at the thought of Cole turning on MJF.
* They wrestle like faces till Cole has Max in the corner, Max thumbs Cole in the eye and Cole becomes absolutely vicious, setting Cole up as the heel for the match.
* Max has Cole set up for a Tombstone on the announce table and tries to talk himself into hitting his best friend with it, but he can't do it. Cole then proceeds to hit max with a tombstone on the table maybe 30 seconds later
* Cole delivers a brain buster to Max on top of the steel steps, dropping Max directly on his head on the corner of the steps, eliciting a chorus of boos
* Cole delivers a Panama Sunrise to Max on the outside, Max looks unconscious and the ref starts counting, only for Max to make it back inside the ring at 9 3/4, because London.
* Cole is down and MJF is sitting in the corner and pulls out the DDR, only for him to hesitate and put it back in his trunks. Max is a changed man and the audience goes insane.
* Cole and Max try to summon the spirit of Eddie Guerrero and pass a chair back and forth between them with the referee down, Cole then proceeds to flop onto the mat, Max then proceeds to put his head in the chair and fall to the mat, causing the entire group I was watching the show with to absolutely die of laughter and Cole himself to have a dumbfounded look on his face as the ref comes to.
* Cole and Max are on opposite sides of the ring, they call out "Double Clothesline" and proceed to clothesline each other landing on top of one another in pinning positions, the ref makes the count and the match is declared a draw, Adam then steals the mic from the ring announcer and asks Max for 5 more minutes, Max says forget 5 more minutes, we're going to we get a FU***NG winner in Wembley!!!!! We're going into sudden death!!!!!
* Right as the ref rings the bell to declare sudden death Cole goes for a roll up, starting a chain of roll-ups that end with Roderick Sting coming down to the ring and low blowing Max, Cole goes for the pin after hitting Lower the Boom, and Max kicks out!! Cole gets distracted and MJF hits the surprise roll up and pins Adam Cole, MJF is still your world champion!!!!!!
* Cole sits in the corner and is a wreck, Max walks up to him and tries to console his best friend by reminding him that they still have the ROH tag titles, Cole then proceeds to throw the ROH tag titles of the ring, MJF then yells at Cole, "I get it, you never cared about me, you only wanted to get close to me so you could steal my title, your a selfie POS, so if this title means so much to you, then take it" Max gives Cole the world title and stands in the center of the ring, telling Cole to just hit him already, while Strong stands on the apron begging Cole to hit Max, Cole hesitates and then throws down the championship, walks across the ring and hugs Max!!!!!!!!!!!!! Better Than You, BAY BAY are still together!!!!!!!!!!!!! and ALL IN goes off the air with the best friends celebrating as confetti pours from the rafters.
Shortly after the cameras turn off Adam and Max thank the crowd for being there as AEW made history and then they announce that AEW will return to London in 2024 for ALL IN: 3!!!!
So it looks AEW have officially replaced Double or Nothing with ALL IN, as their WrestleMania like event, which honestly makes sense as it's because of the original ALL IN that AEW even exists today.
My god what a freaking show!!!!!!!!! 9.5/10.
