For the vast majority of human history, everyone was mainly just into the same shit, and had the exact same cultural references. You think in 5000 BC, when you and your fellow Sumerians were starting your little agricultural society based around the cultivation of dates, people would have much time for your niche appreciation of tomato crops? They’d be like “nah kevin we all about the dates right now fr”. It was essentially a monoculture though, so everyone would at least be aware of the tomato subculture, even if they weren’t fans themselves. Everyone went bananas for dates*, and everyone knew that some weirdos like fucking Kevin inexplicably preferred tomatoes. For thousands of years, we have had the superstructure and the subculture, with a clear distinction and easy to judge distinction between the mass support of dates and the dangerous, fringe interests such as tomatoes.
(*but, crucially, not bananas)
Which brings us, naturally, to professional wrestling.
There are statistics to argue that professional wrestling is as big – or even bigger – now than it ever has been. Or at least as big as it’s been in the modern era, biggest since 943 thousand people somehow crammed into the Atlanta Omni in the 50s to watch George Hackenschmidt put Toots Mondt in a headlock for 97 minutes. Live gates are huge, merchandise sales are huge, the world’s Problematic Fave WWE are making billions upon billions of dollars in increasingly morally dubious ways. Sure, TV audiences are a fraction of what they were during the first (Hogan) and second (Austin) WWF/E boom periods, but do you know why that is? Because no fucker actually watches TV anymore! I asked a Zoomer what their favourite TV show was, and they didn’t actually know what I was talking about, had never heard of a ‘TV’ before, and actually refused to speak to me any further because they’d assumed I’d made a transphobic slur. Wrestling on TV may only get fourteen people and one ferret watching every week, but it’s one of the only things that gets any sort of repeat viewings, so stations like Fox will still throw a billion dollars at them in the hope of securing at least a handful of people to show Dominos Pizza adverts to (also eggs. Ferrets love eggs. You should always do market research). Attendances, money made, CM Punk clout farming (the three most crucial elements to measure cultural integration), wrestling might be bigger now than any point in my or anyone reading’s lifetime.
But wrestling doesn’t feel big does it?
In the late 20th century, the Rock and Wrestling and Attitude Eras of wrestling felt big because they were all still incorporated into the wider cultural superstructure. We all consumed the same media, we all saw the same news, we all watched the same TV. In the UK, we only had one TV station until 1998, and even then the only place to watch that was to hopefully glance the Queen (God rest her fackin’ soul, bruv) as she slowly paced from Lands End to John O’Groats broadcasting Del Boy falling through the bar through the television attached to her crown. It was a different time. But we were happy! Only a (sick, perverted) percentage of people were actually wrestling fans, but everyone knew who Hogan and Macho Man were because they saw their live sex show on Live and Kicking, everyone knew who Stone Cold and The Rock were after they saw them double team Judy Finnegan* in front of eight million TV viewers in 1999. There’s no comparable cultural touch stone in 2023, and it’s unlikely that ‘Head of the Table’ Roman Reigns, ‘Tall White’ Johnny Wright or ‘Hangman’ Adam Page can now elicit similar recognition. See, I just made up one of those and some people reading this article don’t know which one. The cultural superstructure was maintained throughout the 20th century because we were all forced to consume the same culture. Now though, we are able to contact and communicate with people from all over the world who are into our same perverted stuff, we all completely create our own ‘personalised’** and meticulously curated cultural superstructures. Differing interests are eventually purged until our entire cultural bubble is completely representative of your own interests. Wrestling seems big to me, but that’s because I’m a wrestling fan and I seem to have surrounded myself with wrestling fans online. I’m not sure if that means anything. Like you, reading this. Yes, you. You’ve ended up surrounding yourself with people who are really into stop-motion Trumpton pornography. It’s got to the point now where all you hear about and all the news you ever hear is about new advances in Trumpton porn. You know that you only need to allude to that famous Dora Minton scat/snuff video that was passed around in early 2019 to ensure at least a thousand upvotes on the subreddit. Let’s face it, we’re all dirty, dirty perverts who have surrounded ourselves with reflections of our depravity. And more power to us! But are we really going to lose ourselves in this delusion to the point where we convince ourselves that this translates to wider interest??
Anyway, yesterday I went to an AEW professional wrestling show along with 81’034 other perverts at Wembley Stadium.
(*it’s a wrestling term you fucking sickos! They ‘double teamed’ Judy in the sense they performed a 3D through a table! Then they spit roasted her. That’s not a wrestling term
**or at least marketed to us in a way that gives the impression of being personalised – a lot of the interests people think they discovered and cultivated themselves were actually presented to them because an algorithm had worked out that a person with their interests was also likely to invest money in a similar product. Other people, I mean. Not me. I’m pure. And also a genius. It works like this for other people though.)
I feel it needs to be noted beforehand: this isn’t normal.
Well, yeah, a 39 year old man going to see pretend fighting in Europe’s second biggest stadium is obviously not normal. But can we just leave that at the door, please? Freakin’ Spanish Inquisition going on here?
What is (also) not normal is 81’035 people buying tickets to a wrestling show. The highest paid attendance that WWE (the absolute, Problematic Fave, Superdooperstructure, Cultural Touchstone of professional wrestling for the last 50 years) has ever got was 80,709 in Texas in 2016. This was bigger. And also bigger than any other paid gate on record for a professional (y’know… fake…) wrestling event. And this is All Elite Wrestling (AEW), a wrestling company that isn’t even five years old yet. The 21st century has firmly ensconced fake wrestling into a subculture, and this is the secondary organisation within that subculture. And here are eighty one thousand and thirty five fans. It was – as the kids say – quite something.
I’m going to briefly (lol) go over my live experience here, and then later in the week write my proper review of the card itself after I watch the TV version unbiased by being surrounded by more than eighty thousand sweaty marks. This also means that this review will only be using photos that I took at the event myself, so they will be – as the kids say – absolutely fucking bobbins. Don’t worry, when I review the event with a more critical eye I’ll get the professionals in.
Because I can’t pretend this review will be in any way unbiased and properly critical. I was in that crowd, surrounded by a stadium full of weirdos as perverted as me, and it was FUCKING AMAZING!!!
Yeah, sods to your precious journalistic integrity, I’m pretty sure every match was a five star banger and it was the greatest event – wresting or otherwise – that the human race has yet been able to even envision. I’m going to touch on each match here, but please bear in mind that it is all complete insignificance. The feeling of being in the biggest crowd that I’d ever been part of, all going mental for fake fighters that I wouldn’t usually even dare bring up in public, a crowd that were there emotionally and spiritually as well as physically, is obviously going to trump any petty bourgeoise concepts such as ‘quality of show itself’. Even if the show was dull as dogs’ cock, I’d still say it was one of the greatest nights of my life. As a bonus, it seems the show was an absolute fucking bop. But I also appreciate how the experience may have turned me into a dribbling lunatic, so my opinion should be treated as being in any way reliable. At the same time: fuck you, I feel like a Golden God after last night.
I’ll touch more on the events of the preshow later on. And I’m pretending that I’m writing this as soon as I leave Wembley Stadium, without even opening Twitter to find the best memes to annoy my friends with, so let’s pretend that I don’t know about CM Punk strangling Jack Perry after Perry’s preshow match. This is, obviously, great gossip and spectacular content, but there’s a time and place for tea and this isn’t it.
Ah, Punk. Never change.
Well, speaking seriously for a moment, you absolutely should change. Your thin skin and complex super/inferiority complex is making you an absolute workplace hazard. Do you have a therapist? If so, sack them, they ain’t working. Not their fault, just that your complex psyche would need the absolute best to even start unravelling that mess.
As an online content creator though? Lady, he’s putting my kids through college. Never change.
Punk v Samoa Joe opened the main card. A legendary feud played out in front of 700 people in Ring of Honor almost twenty years ago, now being continued in front of more people who watched Hogan v The Ultimate Warrior in 1990. Here comes my hot, sizzling journalistic take: that’s so cool.
I’ve written extensively on the importance and the genius of Chick Magnet Brooks before, and amongst those 80 thousand fans I would say that at least 60% of them have Punk to thank for either getting them into fake wrestling, or getting them back into fake wrestling (hi there) and would be seeing him perform in person for the very first time (again, hello). Crowd responses have been hugely mixed ever since Punk was allowed to continue wrestling after coming out as an undeniable piece of shit human being around a year ago, but surely the Wembley crowd would simply celebrate someone who was as important to their fandom as Hogan or Austin was to previous generations’.
Nah, they booed the shit out of him, and it was fucking amazing.
Perhaps the biggest issue in the WWE dominated wrestling landscape over the past 20 years has been fans hating and booing wrestlers the company desperately wants them to like. Part of the reason AEW founder Cody Rhodes returned to WWE was that the AEW fans were starting to reject his old school, smiles and vitamins, white meat babyface character, desperately wanting/needing him to turn heel despite the steadfast efforts of Cody himself. Fans disagreeing with the ideology presented to them is absolute poison to atmosphere (as anyone who watched WWE between 2003 and maybe 2021 will attest to).
However, as I mentioned before, Punk is a motherfucking genius. His character since he returned, two months ago, to the company partially run by the people he punched in the face, has been a wrestler who seriously believes he’s in the right despite the crowd loudly despising him. Sorry, I should have put ‘character’ in inverted commas there. While he’s still technically a babyface (and that heel turn, when it comes, is sure to be Richter scale), he 100% understands how he’s perceived and plays to the boos. When you’re performing moves made famous by (the deservedly hated) John Cena and Hulk Hogan, you’re simply baiting for boos, and the response was nuclear.
When the match started I planned to give Punk and (the equally legendary) Samoa Joe equal flowers to credit them for their revolutionary contributions to the pretend sport that I love. But, come on, what is this? The Democratic national convention? Fine people on both sides? Fuck that liberal bullshit, power of crowds, man. Seconds in, I was booing one of my most important cultural icons ever like he’d just thrown my cat in the bin.
Oh, and I can’t explain this to non-wrestling fans, but the ‘nope’ spot – Samoa Joe walking away to miss a CM Punk flying attack – was a near religious experience. I think this might have been the best match of the show, but at the same time I’m a delirious fool and I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.
Next was the first match played under the stipulation of ‘Give Me Singles Matches, You Fuckers’. Bullet Club Gold vs The Golden Elite. Six Wrestlers. Two brilliant teams. At least five wrestlers everyone would prefer to watch in a singles match (we all love Juice Robinson, but his greatest skill is to stand outside the ring and shout at people). The crowd chanted the name of Kenny Omega endlessly, in perhaps a subtle and nonintrusive protest at hiding the greatest in-ring performer of the last decade in a six-man. It was also at this point I had a wild epiphany: I honestly didn’t think this many people had even heard of Kenny Omega, never mind be hardcore fans. I felt even more sorry for Adam Page. Even less conspicuous in the match, and someone rightly thought of as AEW’s ‘main character’. I started to daydream that Page finally beating Omega for the title at Full Gear 2021 – concluding a beautiful story that had been present for AEW’s entire two years and beyond – was held at Wembley Stadium rather than in Minnesota. That title win happened to closely coincide with the debut of Punk on AEW and… the two things can’t really coexist…
It was hard to judge the quality of the match, as I was too immersed in hero worship and fantasy booking. The brilliant Konosuke Takeshita got a fluke pin on Omega to obviously set up a match on next week’s PPV (in fucking Chicago?! Fuck those guys!)! I wanna see that match! And I wanna see Adam Page… Do something!! There’ll be any more opportunities to see The Hangman, I guess – dude is like fourteen years old or some shit, and may not even be close to his prime yet – but I’m conscious that Omega has been getting brutally dropped on his head for roughly two decades now, and may not have many more mindblowing classics left in him. In 12 months time he might be similar to how his longtime partner Kota Ibushi was during this match: an absolute and adored legend, but barely able to walk to the ring and having to have his partners work hard to cover his imperfections.
Next came probably the one match on the card that could be deemed a proper ‘Dream Match’, the greatest in their field battling over the rights to call themselves the best ever. One. I’ll probably get into AEW’s awful build up to this event in my next post, but I feel that I should note here – after complaining about the usage of the wrestlers in the previous match – that I should just put my cards on the table and state that the All In 2023 card was pretty weak. We got one legitimate dream match (this one I’m about to talk about, even if it’s been done twice before), one match with an amazingly booked angle (the main event), and one match in a legitimately legendary rivalry (Punk v Joe) that we saw on free TV a couple of weeks ago. The event was amazing, the crowd was amazing, the whole experience was amazing, but did AEW always know that was going to be the case so knew they didn’t need to show all their cards…?
Anyway, shut up Alex, it’s FTR vs the freaking Young Bucks, innit?
And, first of all:
Na-na, na-na-na-na, na-na-na! Wheeler’s got a gun, got a gun! Wheeler’s got a gun!
Secondly:
…
…
…
This was obviously, technically an amazing match. One that I imagine I will sprinkle stars all over when I review the wrestling properly later this week. However, there seemed to be a weird disconnect with the crowd. It was face v face, but the other matches that you might have expected a ‘divided’ crowd on – Punk/Joe, the main event – the crowd absolutely picked a side, and I feel that during this match the fact that no consensus was reached kind of shackled the atmosphere a bit. I had assumed that the crowd would be massively behind the Young Bucks what with Mr Wheeler’s recent flaunting of his second amendment rights, but they probably skewed slightly behind FTR. However, not strongly enough to really ignite the atmosphere. At least not as much as chants about Wheeler’s gun.
You want my sizzling hot take? Both of these tag teams are playing babyfaces when they make way more sense as heels. Absolutely the two best tag teams in the world (and up there among the best tag teams of the 21st century), but just kinda annoying people? It can’t just be me, right? Don’t you just want to slap all four of these idiots? No? Anyone?
OK, it’s already 20:35, need to pick up this pace a bit.
Next was the Stadium Stampede match, when a friend disclosed personal feelings toward a wrestler that I hadn’t previously known existed:
I was sceptical whether the Stadium Stampede concept – one which made so much sense when COVID kept fans from attending and the wrestlers were able to let their imagination run wild – would work in a full stadium. I’m happy to say, however, that it didn’t, and so my initial impressions were correct and I am something of a genius. There weren’t enough screens showing enough action (separate screens following separate wrestlers that fans could switch between would have worked so well), and so anything happening outside of the ring was a bit of a mystery. There was an amazing reaction when Eddie Kingston first came out and ran to the ring like a mad men, but for him to then run off fighting Claudio into the innards of Wembley Stadium made everything a little hard to follow. Again, I’m guessing this makes a lot more sense when I watch the TV broadcast. When things were in the ring and in full view though, it was amazing carnage. And there was a moment when I was watching Jon Moxley get wooden sticks stuck into the top of his head until blood poured down his face where I really stood back and considered “Eighty thousand people have paid to watch this…”
Then, the woman’s match. As in The Women’s Match. The only one. Not even the preshow had a second match. It’s a joke, and I might discuss it more in my next piece. One of the biggest crowd reactions of the night was when they turned the camera on Mercedes fucking Mone (FKA Sasha fucking Banks) in the crowd. I can’t help but wonder if the absolute biggest name in women’s wrestling would want to risk coming to a company that so obviously considers women’s wrestling an afterthought.
The match was pretty brilliant though. Even if it (naturally) felt a little rushed, they did the absolute best with the few minutes they were allocated. It was also brilliant to see Toni Storm’s new ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’ gimmick, though I think her coming out to the national anthem was a bit of a miss. I know that Americans and other nationalities are all up in their feelings about disrespecting their national anthems, but that doesn’t really exist in the UK, and the response was more of a shruf wondering why she was coming out to such a dirge of a tune.
Though you’d be hard pressed to argue that Saraya deserves the title win based on her work in AEW, she definitely deserves the hometown pop in general as a British wrestler who has had an astonishing career and, at times, gone through a lot of shit. And, I’ve not checked this, but might she be the first wrestler to win a title in front of 80’000 people four years after the release of the biographical movie of their life was released?? Big respect to the Norwich ends. Also, her mother (British wrestling legend Julia Hamer-Bevis, present her with the rest of Saraya’s family) named Saraya after her own wrestling gimmick, which is the most carny thing ever. I fucking love it. Respect.
Then the moment we’d all been waiting for: a double bill of old men hurting themselves. Kicking off with Darby Allin (who’s name really fit the bill tonight) and 64 year old Sting against my boy Swerve Strickland and the comparative spring chicken: 49 year old Christian Cage. Firstly, Darby Allin is an astonishing human being, who evidently lost all ability to feel pain. His insane small sack of bones pin balling around the ring has even more impact when watched live. Like, he’s actually doing that. This was obviously all about Sting though. He and Darby came out to Metallica’s Seek and Destroy, Sting’s old WCW theme in the days before licensing. Knowing how emotionally dedicated that band are to their money, it probably cost more than hiring out Wembley Stadium to license it for the night. But, fuck me, you could feel the money spent, and it was an absolute gift to all of us in attendance. Also, in real life, Sting always looks like he’s just about to collapse, you can really sense his pension age but rather than taking away from the experience it only adds to the excitement: motherfucker could die any minute! There was a moment when Sting – 64 years old, did I make that clear? – jumped out of the ring onto an opponent on a table on the outside. Sixty four years old! Amazingly, the spot didn’t cripple him. Even more amazingly, after seeing how the table didn’t break properly, this crazy old fool just did the fucking spot again!! Fuck it, give him the world title, I don’t care.
Next there was the 52 year old Chris Jericho taking on Will Osprey, who is arguably the best wrestler in the world. Bruv.
Just want to make it clear: a couple of cunts. For very different reasons which I’m not going to go into here, but they’re both cunts. Jericho is obviously a bit of an egomaniac (which you kind of have to be to get anywhere in wrestling. Have I ever mentioned CM Punk?), and him performing his own theme tune live at Wembley was so obviously a nice little ego massage so that he can later claim that his shitty little band once played to 80’000 people.
However, at the same time: fuck me, it was absolutely incredible. I can’t comment of Jericho’s performance, as I was completely overwhelmed by 80’000 people singing along to a middle aged man’s mid life crisis, where he believed that a) He was in Mötley Crüe, and b) Being in Mötley Crüe was still the coolest thing it’s possible to be. Fuck your rational thoughts: WHAT HAVE I BECOME!?! NOW THAT I’VE BETRAYED…!!
Jericho v Osprey was a match of cognitive dissonance, bruv. The crowd went batshit bananas for Jericho’s theme, and yet booed Jericho throughout because he was against Osprey. Osprey was the heel, and despite his otherworldly talents he’s obviously an odious creep, both as a character and as a human being. However, he’s from Essex. In fact, nobody has ever been more from Essex than Will Osprey. If he wasn’t a wrestler, he’d be working the streets of Malaga trying to convince tourists to go to the beachside club that his uncle owns. But, as we all always suspected, Essex is basically London, right? So the crowd loved him. I even found myself chanting his name. I can now understand the kind of crowd psychology that would influence people to make rash decisions like the laughable January 6th riots. Jericho would know all about that of course. However, despite the technical alignments, Jericho was absolutely at his heelish best and once again the wrestlers didn’t resist the crowd’s sympathy’s. Very good match, though there were moments and spots where it seemed like the two wrestlers weren’t on the same page. Maybe not, and I will obviously investigate further.
OK, it’s past 10pm. I’ve been writing this in a takeaway for the past three hours. I kept ordering food and drink. I’m the only one here. The guy behind the counter has suddenly told me that they “don’t allow working”. Back to my Airbnb I go. Honestly, London is such a piece of shit.
Perfectly scheduled on the card, just as the crowd was maybe getting a little exhausted, was the House of Black v The Acclaimed trios match. I’m also exhausted, so I’ll just say that to join in with 80’000 people singing “Oooooooh, scissor me Daddy” was a surreal event that would be impossible to explain to outsiders. In fact, don’t bother, they already think you’re a pervert.
Then, the main event. The headline match of the biggest wrestling show ever. I can (and, soon enough, probably will) complain about how slapdash the booking and build of so many of All In’s matches were, but Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Adam Cole (bay bay) have created an incredible story that has inspired audience investment like few others in recent years. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you can stick your fucking Bloodline up your arse*. Originally feuding against each other, they formed a tag team and became best friends, in a completely believable angle that convinced us all that the biggest heel in wrestling** had turned a corner, and just amplified how Adam Cole (bay bay) was maybe the world’s most likeable man. But it has to end, doesn’t it? Have you ever heard of wrestling before? One turns on the other, hearts are broken, boos are mixed with tears.
(*well, since Sami Zayn left the story, anyway. It should have been him, Roman, it should have been him
**apart from Dominic Mysterio of course. You can stick your fucking Bloodline up your arse. Did I already say that?)
The tag team – Better Than You Bay Bay, and yes, of course I bought the t-shirt – were also wresting in the pre-show for the Ring of Honor tag titles. So that’s when it will happen, right? They’ll be some confusion, some mistake to lose them the match and to sow seeds of discontent. But no. They just won the motherfucking titles. We got to see the Kangaroo Kick and the Double Clothesline (if you don’t know, I really don’t have time to explain), and we went wild. It also confused the hell out of me: so what does that mean?? Who’s turning on who now in the main event?? I initially thought MJF, which we all did, because he’s MJ-freaking-F and he’s turned on every partner he’s ever had. But then I started seeing little Easter egg clues that convinced me that they were going to shock us by having lovely Adam Cole (bay bay) turn on MJF. But then I started to think that I was supposed to notice these red herrings, and it was all done to convince me of the implausibility that MJF would somehow be the good guy, so I convinced myself that MJF would turn. I think.
There was talk that having the two main eventers come out early in the show would lessen the impact of their appearance in the final match. This turned out to be bollocks: the crowd reacted to the two wrestlers like they’d never seen them before and they had just arrived to save their lives with a bonus gift of Milk Tray.
I don’t know how premeditated it was, I don’t know if Adam Cole (bay bay) consciously started it, I don’t know if the chicken of the crowd reaction came before the egg of Adam Cole’s (bay bay) more heelish antics, but the crowd were nearly fully behind MJF. Mind you, Adam Cole (bay bay) did tear off MJF’s Better Than You Bay Bay t shirt and… I dunno, dude… there’s no coming back from that. For the match, MJF – one of the most despicable characters in all of wrestling – was a fan favourite, and I became worried that he was so beloved that his inevitable betrayal of the (usually) lovely Adam Cole (bay bay) just wouldn’t take with the crowd. He’d have to win by somehow jumping a queue and then stabbing David Attenborough to death to get this crowd to hate him. The crowd was loudly invested all match, screaming both their support and their disgust. There was shenanigans, there were moments when each wrestler considered illegal tactics to screw their opponent, before deciding they couldn’t bring themselves to hurt a friend that way. There was a spot with a chair that was pure joy, and more evidence of how these two geniuses have created an angle with enough emotional heft to headline Wembley, and yet still incorporate elements that can make the crowd piss themselves laughing. They double clotheslined each other and collapsed. They each happened to land pinning their opponent, so the referee called the match a draw. Boos, of course. They restarted, MJF finally won with a roll up.
So we were obviously getting the turn in the post match. And now it has to be Adam Cole (bay bay), right?? There was obvious stress, the turn that the match had obviously been leading towards was definitely coming, and finally… MJF convinced Adam Cole (bay bay) of the importance of their friendship, and they hugged each other to deafening cheers. It was… a happy ending? It was… kinda beautiful… I can’t remember another storyline like it, and it’s fascinating to think about where the two wrestlers go next (especially as Ring of Honor tag champs). The crowd rejoiced, and it ensured moods were high even as everyone was forced to wait hours for a tube because of dogshit planning by TFL. Oh. Scissor me. Daddy. It was a brave decision by AEW, completely ignoring tropes to actually present the outlandish concept that, hey, sometimes friends just remain friends…
Then Tony Khan came out to announce – in his unique, clinically disturbed way – that AEW would be doing the same thing again in 2024. Is that when the turn is going to happen? I’ve often complained that AEW doesn’t really have its own version of Wrestlemania – its standard four PPVs a year don’t really have an obvious Big One and are honestly hard to distinguish on name alone. Now, maybe it has? And it’s going to be one that I can go to each year? Be still my beating mark. Maybe book some decent feuds for 2024? Two women’s matches? Daniel Bryanson, Jamie Hayter and Pac all back from injury? CM Punk v Hangman Page? Shut up and take my money.
For one beautiful night, AEW was the superstructure, and it honestly felt like everything. It’s a crazy subculture, is a bizarre cult where we worship demigods (and occasionally Demogods) sticking forks in each other’s faces and slamming themselves face first into the floor purely for our entertainment.
You guys know it’s fake, right?
Necessary Evil 
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