Who would have thought that All Elite Wrestling would have packed 80 thousand people into one of the most prestigious stadiums in the world within four years? Not even the most ambitious fan would have predicted that. Thankfully for us, Tony Khan is a madman and produced an amazing show on a huge stage that lived up to its moniker. All In was a special PPV.
Let’s talk about it!
Zero Hour:
ROH Tag Team Championship: Aussie Open (c) vs. Better than You Bay Bay
Zero Hour is usually a fun pre-show exclusively to prep the fans for a night of wrassling. It’s not usually reviewed, except the Biggest Wrestling Event had an amazing pre-show worth reviewing! Especially the first match between everyone’s favorite Brochachos taking on the ROH Tag Team Champions, Aussie Open.
Commentary played this match story up like Adam Cole might not be a team player in favor of his World Title opportunity later in the evening; maybe Cole would allow Aussie Open to hand out a little extra punishment to MJF. Well, that didn’t happen, and this match was over fairly quickly. Playing into that angle would have been cool, though.
Despite Aussie Open attacking before the bell, causing an early upper hand, MJF and Adam Cole handled business. Max finally got his opportunity to hit the much-teased Kangaroo Kick (looked awesome too), and Better that You Bay Bay won the ROH Tag Team Championships with the DOUBLE CLOTHESLINE. A fun match with a fun result, albeit slightly surprising.
3.5/5
FTW Championship: Jack Perry (c) vs. Hook
ANDDD NEWWWWW!!!!
Up next was the FTW Championship match between Jack Perry and Hook, and it was pretty good. One of Hook’s best matches so far, and it’s impressive that they both wrestled with glass lacerations. Maybe real glass wasn’t the best of ideas, Jack? The Rolling Thunder prior to the windshield suplex was awesome.
The pace picked up once they finally got to the ring, with Hook obviously having the advantage in a wrestling affair. This ended up being the deciding factor, as Jack Perry missed a moonsault, causing Hook to lock in the RedRum to win the match. A good match to prepare everyone for what was to come.
3/5
All In
“Real” World Championship: CM Punk (c) vs. Samoa Joe
And so it began! The biggest event in wrestling history began with one of the best rivalries in Ring of Honor history. CM Punk defended his “championship” against a revitalized Samoa Joe in a hotly contested affair that displayed the best of both men. It was a great match to start off All In.
CM Punk did what he could to get in the head of Samoa Joe, but Joe’s too good for that. Joe’s menacing offense worked well here. Joe was dominant, playing off the crowd and dissecting the “Best” in the world. There was a fun spot where Joe threw Punk through the announce desk, and despite the desk looking like tissue paper, it was still a cool spot.
The best of Joe met the best of Punk. The “Real World” Champion used his endurance and resiliency to withstand Joe and find an opening. He also emulated some interesting legends. There was a huge pop for a Cena tease and a Hogan leg drop. Punk is at his best when he’s doing stuff like that. Not the other thing…
The finish came in surprising form, as CM Punk took advantage of a rare Samoa Joe top rope attempt. Punk then pulled out the Pepsi Plunge to win a great opening match!
4/5
Bullet Club Gold & Konosuke Takeshita vs. The Golden Elite
Up next was a trios match between storied contestants. Kota Ibushi and Hangman Adam Page reunited with their common tag partner, Kenny Omega, to take on Bullet Club Gold and Konosuke Takeshita. It’s not surprising that this match had astounding action, given who was in it. What truly stood out in this match was the pacing. Twenty minutes flew by through the ebbs and flows of a great match with a surprising ending.
Two things of note for this one: Omega’s vast array of previous injuries and the numbers game of Bullet Club Gold. Don Callis made multiple mentions of Omega’s injuries, which made sense as those injuries kept getting targeted; Omega’s knees and neck mainly. Between that, and The Gunn Club doing whatever they could to interfere, The Golden Elite had an uphill climb.
There were plenty of Golden Lovers tandem moves, most notably the Golden Trigger. Ibushi looked a little off on a few of them. Seems that Kota was still brushing off the ring rust.
At the end of the day, Konosuke Takeshita took advantage of Kenny Omega to pick up the surprise win. The Cleaner built momentum, but Takeshita popped up out of nowhere to surprise Omega with a rollup…and it worked! The surprise rollup usually garners an eye roll, but this one worked because Omega has a weak neck.
Incredible match!
4/5
AEW Tag Team Championship: FTR (c) vs. Young Bucks
And here was the first major surprise of the evening! FTR defeated the Young Bucks in the third matchup between the best tag teams of the past decade. This match was a great finale to the previous two matches, with a couple of callbacks and both teams knowing everything about one another.
It’s FTR and the Young Bucks. The action and story were great. Because they knew everything about one another, both teams blocked and dodged big moves, so both teams started using the other’s moves. FTR hit the BTE Trigger and The Bucks used the Shatter Machine. This was very well done. It’s such a smart way to tell a trilogy of matches. Of course, they’d start mimicking each other.
FTR sold me hook, line, and sinker after Cash Wheeler missed the Springboard 450 again, which led to the aforementioned Shatter Machine and BTE Trigger by the Bucks. Cash kicked out at two, which then led to FTR hitting their own Shatter Machine to win the match.
Fantastic match right there. FTR and the Bucks could literally fight forever, and I’d be in the front row.
4.25/5
Stadium Stampede
And then we got the complete insanity that was the Stadium Stampede match…aka Anarchy in the Stadium. This match had every weapon ever created, and then some. Penta el Zero Miedo almost died and then was reborn, Orange Cassidy became Crimson Cassidy, and Jon Moxley brought freaking wood skewers. You see how that turned out for him…
(Side note, Is Moxley okay, like mentally?)
This match was just sweet, sweet chaos through and through. Eddie Kingston cared only about Claudio, Moxley and Cassidy went at it, and everyone else just beat the shit out of each other. Trent’s mom, Sue, made an appearance to bring cookies and weapons because of course, she did. What a Mom!
The match finally ended after Orange Cassidy taped a bunch of glass to his hand and hit an Orange Punch on Claudio to cease the madness. This match was wild.
4/5
AEW Women’s Championship: Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Saraya vs. Toni Storm vs. Dr. Britt Baker
ANDDDD NEWWWWW!!!!
The quickest match of the evening, as unfortunate and unsurprising as it was, was the 4-way for the AEW Women’s World Championship. It was a shame too, because Shida, Saraya, Storm, and Dr. Britt were on their way to an all-time great women’s match in Wembley. This match was fantastic until it ended abruptly. The happiest of happy endings for Saraya though!
Let’s take a moment to appreciate how amazing her comeback was. We all know that terrible neck injuries forced retirement at a very young age, which makes this win in front of her hometown all the more incredible. Her family was ringside, which also nicely played into the match.
The story revolved around the two Outcast members, as both of them wanted to win. Obviously. Toni Storm also incidentally threw Britt Baker into the stands and struck Saraya’s mother. This incensed the former Divas Champ, which was a cool sight. Those two played that angle brilliantly.
All in all, these four women took turns beating the crap out of each other. This included a hellacious curb stomp onto Toni Storm that had to hurt. It was a perfect match up until the abrupt ending. Saraya used the Knight Cap DDT while Britt Baker was distracted with the Lockjaw on Hikaru Shida. Saraya just pinned Toni Storm right next to Britt for the victory.
This match deserved double the allotted time. It was well on its way to being the match of the night. They could have given more to the Saraya and Toni stuff or played more with the history of Shida and Britt. Hopefully, this match gets run back at All Out. Great start, but a weird finish.
3/5
Coffin Match: Darby Allin & Sting vs. Swerve & Christian Cage
Sting is the GOAT. Participating in a coffin match at 64 is nothing short of insane, let alone in front of 81,000 people. And it was a great match too. One of the best coffin matches that AEW has produced.
It was nonstop action, with wild stuff happening all over the place. Sting brought a Cricket bat, Darby performed crazy moves with his hands taped behind his back, and Sting hit a leg drop through a table. Swerve and Cage tried to stop the undefeated Sting and Darby, but they just couldn’t. Even (actual TNT champion) Luchasaurus tried to get involved to no avail. Nick Wayne interfered enough to piss off the Dinosaur and get carried off.
This one was just a lot of fun from start to finish. Swerve and Christian never stood a chance, except for a fun part where Sting used his bat to keep the coffin from closing. That was creative.
Darby Allin finally put away Swerve by hitting the Coffin drop onto the coffin. It probably wasn’t on purpose, but Swerve could have an argument that his hair wasn’t all in the coffin and request a rematch. Another awesome match on a card full of them.
4/5
Chris Jericho vs. Will Ospreay
Up next was one of the most anticipated matchups of the entire evening. Will Ospreay is a head and shoulders above everyone else in wrestler of the year rankings. He’s a legend in the making, faced off with a true legend, who’s arguably better than he’s ever been at 52 years old, and they had an incredible match. Jericho surprisingly kept up with Ospreay throughout, too. Ospreay didn’t need to tone anything down.
Jericho had the two best spots of the whole match. He hit a brutal high-angle German Suplex that would have crippled any normal human being, and then also hit a sweet counter of the Stormbreaker into the Walls of Jericho. How they pulled that off is still baffling.
Guevara was at ringside and used Floyd the bat to try and knock Ospreay out but to no avail. The Aerial Assassin would not be denied this hometown win. Two Stormbreakers and a Hidden Blade finished off The Ocho in an incredible match.
4.5/5
- Nigel McGuinness made a quick appearance in the ring. They set the paid attendance record with 81,035 tickets sold. That’s a crazy number.
AEW Trios Championship: House of Black (c) vs. The Acclaimed
ANNNDDD NEWWWWW!!!
Billy Gunn is a champion in 2023. Absolutely incredible.
The House of Black were dominant champions and defended their belts in a House Rules match. The Acclaimed chose a No Holds Barred match as the added stipulation, which was a phenomenal choice. This allowed the trios nonsense to crank up to eleven. AEW Trios matches are always high-octane and a blast.
We got some Acclaimed nonsense, this time at the expense of Julia Hart. They hit the Scissor Me Timbers on poor Julia, and it was hilarious. The rest of the match was just quintessential back and forth trios action. Brody King was a monster, Daddy Ass defied father time, and the good guys got the win after multiple finishers were needed to finish him. This was a perfect pace cleanse to pop the crowd. Especially with the emotional rollercoaster about to happen.
3.75/5
AEW World Championship: MJF (c) vs. Adam Cole
“A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The main event of All In had everything: wrestling, brutality, excitement, and a metric ton of melodrama. It was all but certain that MJF and Adam Cole were turning on each other, going from friends to bitter enemies over the AEW World Championship. The swerve that actually happened was that nothing happened. Well, a lot happened, but friendship won out in the end. The Brochachos went through hell and came out of the other side hugging it out.
These two had a fantastic match. They told a story of starting out nice, then becoming a little less than nice as the match played out. Adam Cole really amplified the douche level as his frustration began to build. He used steel ring steps, ring posts, and dirty tactics to gain any kind of advantage. We all know that MJF is a scumbag, so he withstood it all.
What MJF didn’t do, was play dirty back. Why not? Because he truly loves Adam Cole. This story is all about a huge character change for Max. He wouldn’t use the Diamond Ring, the AEW Championship belt, or a steel chair when Bryce Remsburg got knocked out. A lot of people expected MJF to turn at some point too, but that’s not going to happen. He has everything he’s wanted: money, the championship belt, and a best friend.
Adam Cole, on the other hand, wants that title. Roddy Strong tried to convince Cole to cheat to win said title, but Cole couldn’t betray his true best friend. This caused MJF to take advantage, manage a small package, and steal the final victory. Cole’s indecisiveness caused the loss. Fantastic storytelling here. Perfect blend of action and story.
5/5
OVERALL
What a show.
AEW’s All In was an elite PPV, despite the mass amount of injuries and late alterations to the card. The spectacle added to the awesome matches and wild stories. This show was one to remember alongside 2021’s All Out and 2023’s Revolution.
Verdict: 5/5