Incredible build but a lot of over booking, especially the main event and Seth being a special guest referee. The swerve above made no sense at all and how much better would it have been if Balor had the briefcase? I'm not happy about Jax!
This level of critique is a sign of a great product!
I think eventually all the big 4 will be 2 day affairs.
Certainly the Royal Rumble should be, with a Rumble on each day and the rest of the card flipped, so storylines make more sense. Imagine the Saturday is all the men's bouts and the women's rumble, and that leads into who is in the men's rumble as you could have someone who turned on a partner last night or lost a belt on the first night try and immediately win the Rumble to get the title opportunity. Likewise people costing eachother the rumble on the first night can get an immediate match against someone the next night, lots of opportunity for fresh fueds
AEW All In at Wembley tonight. The build has been decent, especially for MJF vs Will Ospreay.
Whilst all the signs point towards this being Bryan Danielson’s retirement match, a big part of me hopes we’re getting swerved (excuse the pun) and he comes away with the belt.
It’s a shame to see that AEW’s popularity is clearly dwindling in the US. The arenas feel quiet and hollow compared to where they were a few years back. I don’t think it’s necessarily a reflection of what they are doing, but maybe more the fact that WWE is back where everyone wanted them to be. The need for an alternative product isn’t so prevalent at the moment.
That said, 50,000 will be there tonight. It’s down from last year, but still a massive achievement for a company in its first 5 years. They’ll need to do something to reset themselves a little going forward though. Maybe a younger McMahon type figure could have a say….
I could have gone today, I went last year, but they just haven't captured my interest in any way recently.
Danielson will win tonight, they're hosting another PPV in October in his home state so he'll have a match there, which is way more likely to be his last match than in London.
Ospreay will beat MJF and use the Tiger Driver 91 to do so
I could have gone today, I went last year, but they just haven't captured my interest in any way recently.
Danielson will win tonight, they're hosting another PPV in October in his home state so he'll have a match there, which is way more likely to be his last match than in London.
Ospreay will beat MJF and use the Tiger Driver 91 to do so
Everything else is just filler
Absolutely, it's pretty predictable and they're the only 2 matches i'm interested in. The lack of interest is soley due to their poor booking and has nothing to do with WWE doing so well. I'll watch those 2 matches at some stage and if the internet praises something else that doesn't feature the young bucks.
50k is still very impressive, there also appears to be far less advertising.
I'm just crossing my fingers that the lack of All In London next year points to London inking a similar deal that Indianapolis did, where they're getting RR, SS and WM at some point, so we get London SummerSlam 2025, WM 2026 and maybe the RR 2027
I could have gone today, I went last year, but they just haven't captured my interest in any way recently.
Danielson will win tonight, they're hosting another PPV in October in his home state so he'll have a match there, which is way more likely to be his last match than in London.
Ospreay will beat MJF and use the Tiger Driver 91 to do so
Everything else is just filler
Absolutely, it's pretty predictable and they're the only 2 matches i'm interested in. The lack of interest is soley due to their poor booking and has nothing to do with WWE doing so well. I'll watch those 2 matches at some stage and if the internet praises something else that doesn't feature the young bucks.
50k is still very impressive, there also appears to be far less advertising.
So the sharp downturn in numbers for one promotion has absolutely zero correlation with an increase in numbers for the rival promotion?
I personally don’t have 8 spare hours to watch wrestling every week, so I’m going to prioritise what is the most interesting to watch at that time (currently it’s WWE by a mile). There must be many others in a similar position.
I’m at Wembley right now, and it does feel quite flat by comparison to last year. Was always going to be hard to match.
I thought it was rising tides raise all ships and competition is good? Nitro and Raw used to get great audiences and sold out arena's each week. There isn't a correlation at all. If AEW was producing good TV they would have good ratings, it's as simple as that.
I thought it was rising tides raise all ships and competition is good? Nitro and Raw used to get great audiences and sold out arena's each week. There isn't a correlation at all. If AEW was producing good TV they would have good ratings, it's as simple as that.
AEW’s initial popularity and success in the first few years coincided with a strong level of frustration from many with the WWE product that was stale and predictable under Vince.
They had the unique selling point of offering edgier content that hadn’t been seen for a long time in WWE. The better promos, the longer term storytelling, more violence - generally just not insulting fans intelligence the way PG WWE did.
Then WWE goes through a radical transition and the product is outstanding. I personally watch far less AEW now as a result. I don’t have too many problems with AEW’s content - but WWE is just getting more of my time because it became must see and is on an almighty roll.
The Nitro/Raw comparison isn’t a fair one. Taking it back to 1990s when the wrestling business and indeed television/society operated in a completely different way.
Anyway - Onto tonight’s show. The first hour or two had a feel of a midday kick off in League One where there was some pockets of excitement, but felt a bit flat in the crowd.
The casino gauntlet match turned that on its head completely with Ricochet, Okada, Zack Sabre Jr and Nigel McGuinness. One gripe I do have with AEW is the over-the-top assumptions that everyone cares about the indie darlings from NJPW etc (I really don’t have much interest). But the crowd tonight went absolutely mental for them.
The main event was the match of the night, and everyone went home happy with the outcome.
All in all, I still think Wembley is a bit too much for the type of show they try and put on - but if they brought it down a notch and put it in a 40-50k venue and sold it out then it would be perfect.
I find it interesting they've announced forbidden door London but not where it's taking place
They've announced a show at a 50k stadium in Brisbane! I assume it'll be an arena in London. Not sure they could have it at Fulham during the season.
AEW have signed most of NJPW's best talent, for me having the show in Japan would make more sense. The likes of Osprey and Okada are big draws there. Not sure why they're not having all in here in 2025 but will do in 2026. 🤷🏻♂️
Funny how things change so quickly wrestling. Pre wrestlemania I thought Raw was very poor and Smackdown was must watch. Now it’s the other way around.
really decent episode of raw last night.
Really putting the heat on Bronson Read. His finisher is becoming the most dangerous move in the business. Crowd go wild when he goes to climb up for it.
I have them around the same. I can't stand the Wyatt Sick, especially as they're smashing Chad Gable and the Creed Brothers. Still enjoying Punk and Drew and The Bloodline.
The Wyatt Sicks is an interesting one, at the moment Bo is basically playing as a cover band of his brother, playing all his hits and looking ok doing so, but we all know it's not the real thing.
He needs to break out of that mould, and they need to become their own thing to truly succeed.
Bronson is doing a great job, he missed the huge Australian show last year due to the early birth of his daughter, so I'm sure he'd have been in this position a bit sooner if it wasn't for that.
As for AEW, it went exactly as I said it would, Ospreay hitting the TD'91 to win, BD winning, and the rest really just being filler. Anyone who's followed recent stories and speculation knew that McGuinness got cleared a few months ago for this exact spot, and that Ricochet was turning up in AEW, so they weren't huge surprises.
It's a shame because we all need them to do well, but they just seem to be in a bit of a rut right now. Longer term storytelling would help massively
The strange thing is someone will use incredible mental gymnastics and defend it. I've only seen the clips on Instagram so I'm blissfully ignorant of your third paragraph and intend to keep it that way!
Comments
This level of critique is a sign of a great product!
The last couple of years, Summerslam has been as good as wrestlemania in my opinion.
With Summerslam moving to 2 nights nezt year, HHH clearly sees it as equally important
Certainly the Royal Rumble should be, with a Rumble on each day and the rest of the card flipped, so storylines make more sense. Imagine the Saturday is all the men's bouts and the women's rumble, and that leads into who is in the men's rumble as you could have someone who turned on a partner last night or lost a belt on the first night try and immediately win the Rumble to get the title opportunity. Likewise people costing eachother the rumble on the first night can get an immediate match against someone the next night, lots of opportunity for fresh fueds
It’s a shame to see that AEW’s popularity is clearly dwindling in the US. The arenas feel quiet and hollow compared to where they were a few years back. I don’t think it’s necessarily a reflection of what they are doing, but maybe more the fact that WWE is back where everyone wanted them to be. The need for an alternative product isn’t so prevalent at the moment.
That said, 50,000 will be there tonight. It’s down from last year, but still a massive achievement for a company in its first 5 years. They’ll need to do something to reset themselves a little going forward though. Maybe a younger McMahon type figure could have a say….
Danielson will win tonight, they're hosting another PPV in October in his home state so he'll have a match there, which is way more likely to be his last match than in London.
Ospreay will beat MJF and use the Tiger Driver 91 to do so
Everything else is just filler
50k is still very impressive, there also appears to be far less advertising.
https://youtube.com/shorts/ex1MbYQOTks?si=sO4SoaLu286GcptV
Should be a great show with a great atmosphere.
I personally don’t have 8 spare hours to watch wrestling every week, so I’m going to prioritise what is the most interesting to watch at that time (currently it’s WWE by a mile). There must be many others in a similar position.
Then WWE goes through a radical transition and the product is outstanding. I personally watch far less AEW now as a result. I don’t have too many problems with AEW’s content - but WWE is just getting more of my time because it became must see and is on an almighty roll.
The Nitro/Raw comparison isn’t a fair one. Taking it back to 1990s when the wrestling business and indeed television/society operated in a completely different way.
The casino gauntlet match turned that on its head completely with Ricochet, Okada, Zack Sabre Jr and Nigel McGuinness. One gripe I do have with AEW is the over-the-top assumptions that everyone cares about the indie darlings from NJPW etc (I really don’t have much interest). But the crowd tonight went absolutely mental for them.
AEW have signed most of NJPW's best talent, for me having the show in Japan would make more sense. The likes of Osprey and Okada are big draws there. Not sure why they're not having all in here in 2025 but will do in 2026. 🤷🏻♂️
https://www.wrestlingnewssource.com/news/89054/Sid-Eudy-Legendary-Wrestler-Known-as-Sycho-Sid-Passes/
Twenty Two?
really decent episode of raw last night.
He needs to break out of that mould, and they need to become their own thing to truly succeed.
Bronson is doing a great job, he missed the huge Australian show last year due to the early birth of his daughter, so I'm sure he'd have been in this position a bit sooner if it wasn't for that.
As for AEW, it went exactly as I said it would, Ospreay hitting the TD'91 to win, BD winning, and the rest really just being filler. Anyone who's followed recent stories and speculation knew that McGuinness got cleared a few months ago for this exact spot, and that Ricochet was turning up in AEW, so they weren't huge surprises.
It's a shame because we all need them to do well, but they just seem to be in a bit of a rut right now. Longer term storytelling would help massively
Oh dear is all I can say
To quote CM Punk, "Why do you keep doing this internet stuff?"
Actual attempted murder, a recreation of a spot that 35 years ago nearly got wrestling on TBS cancelled.
And then a scene where one wrestler drugs another before giving him a chairshot to the head?! Fucking yikes