For years, and possibly to this day, the muscle memory answer to the question of the greatest wrestling PPV of all time would be Wrestlemania 17. The epic denouement of the Attitude Era! Austin’s heel turn! TLC II! Shane’s Coast to Coast! “You think your special… you do… I can see it in your eeeeeeeeeyes…”.Peak fake fighting perfection!
…in retrospect, of course. Mania 17 in 2001 might not just be the greatest wrestling show of all time, but the greatest example of “Fuck it, it’ll be good on the night, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” in wrestling history. Because 25 years later we can conveniently forget that the build to that historic 2001 show was pretty much dogshit.
That historic TLC II match was just the WWF throwing their hands up and thinking they may as well do the exact same match they did at Summerslam 2000, because the sweaty marks seemed to enjoy that. The Shane v Vince McMahon match is one of the greatest examples of Sports Entertainment soap opera to have ever been sweated out, but it all stems from a questionable handing of the WCW purchase in storyline that would eventually lead to the biggest example of money left on a table that you would later take a big curly dump on and set fire to in wrestling history. HHH v Undertaker was an incredible match, but only happened because the company had nothing for either star to do; the great Chris Jericho and William Regal opener was built by having Jericho piss in Regal’s tea (no, honestly); and the incredible match between Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit – two of the greatest workers of that or any era – was announced the week before the show. And that historic Austin v Rock II was a complete shitshow. Remembered now as the storyline peak of their legendary rivalry and historical second match in their Mania trilogy (though not as good as their Mania 19 match #FightMe), WWF at the time instead chose to focus the feud on Stone Cold’s wife Debra becoming the Rock’s manager, because this was an era when WWF couldn’t conceive of any major wrestling angle not involving Jerry Springer level domestic nonsense. And, to ensure the challenger looked as strong as possible going into the match, they decided to have him lose to HHH on the PPV a month before! People now like to remember the story behind the match being how Austin was so desperate to get his hands on Rock’s title that he was willing to win by any means possible, but that whole idea was only introduced in a sit down interview with Austin, Rock and JR, on the Smackdown nine days before the show. It was also during this interview that Austin said the immortal words “Let’s just go ahead and take Debra out of the equation. BAM! She’s a non-factor…”
It’ll be alright on the night…
When I last attended and reviewed AEW All In at Wembley Stadium back in 2024, I described the company as being “ice cold for quite a while now”, and also said that All In 2023 took place during “their weakest period artistically”. These were both true, because everything I say is true because I am a fucking Übermensch savant, but AEW at the moment might be the hottest it’s been since its 2020/21 heyday. It’s really settled into its position as an alternative to the WWE market leaders, not as a TNA-lite WWE tribute act. It’s accepted how it is a very good second promotion, how it will never be anything close to a real competitor to WWE and that it’s more than successful enough to not need to be anything more. It will never be a real competitor to WWE in the same way that FC United will never be a real competitor to Manchester United – the gulf in history, fanbase and finances is so vast that it’s simply unimaginable (though at least Manchester United aren’t sending their under 21 teams out to counterprogram FC United matches). And AEW actually is a wrestling show, with actual wrestling making up 90% of its programming, and mainstream audiences don’t really like wrestling that much. Actual wrestling is a relatively small and insignificant part of WWE’s multimedia empire, which is why its reach and popularity is so vast and varied. Their fans like that, and that’s fine,
But despite AEW being on a bit of hot streak right now, the build for All In 2026 had been a bit… lacking . At All In 2024 you at least felt like AEW were really pulling out their very best to sell their biggest show of the year. We had Mariah May beating Toni Storm in a crucial point of arguably the best story AEW had ever done; a Mercedes Moné v Britt Baker match that – while it may have turned out to be an utter turkerino – was made to feel like the absolute biggest women’s match in the world; and a Daniel Bryanson retirement match that felt like the biggest fucking thing in the world. And last year’s All In Texas – by far the greatest one yet as soon as they take it out of the UK, so thanks for that, Tony – was built incredibly well to the point where almost every match felt like the whole world was in danger of ending, capped by Hangman Adam Page’s emotional despatching of Dean Ambrose and the Death Riders storyline to start a long and successful title reign (yeah, about that…). In comparison, AEW’s build to All In 2026 rarely felt like it was actually their biggest show of the year, and so many just felt like the company shrugged and just thought “Meh, the match will be great though”.
And they were right, the matches were fucking incredible. Back in 2024 I was giddy enough to call that year’s All In “the best wrestling event ever held in the UK”, which is laughable. It wasn’t a patch on this show, which must be one of the most consistently brilliant wrestling shows put on anywhere in recent memory.
It kicked off at 6pm* in the midst of the (ahem) Trios Roulette Royale for the Trios Championship (**.75), and the PPV proper starts just before the seventh and final team were about to enter the match. Those smart enough to only tune in at the 6pm start were lucky enough to be unaware that AEW had somehow timed to have the sixth and penultimate team enter the match about twenty minutes before, and wouldn’t have watched the wrestlers forced to fill time until the show’s official start time. Gabe Kidd chose to do so by repeatedly headbutting the corner ring buckle, whatever gets you through the day, mate. But they needed to make it to the paid portion of the show to debut that new team, who would obviously be… Jeez, this might sound dumb in retrospect, but I really wasn’t sure. People were saying it’d be the former Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, sure, but AEW hadn’t really implied that would be the case at all. Swerve Strictland said he had a couple of mates, and we all assumed his mates would also be black guys, but that was it. AEW hadn’t as good as confirmed the debut in a contract signed in Tony Khan’s own blood, as they’d basically done with CM Punk and Mercedes Moné, so were we all just doing Steiner maths and concluding there was a 141 and two thirds chance of The New Day debuting?? All through the match there were loud claps of “New… Day rocks, New… Day rocks” as near 50 thousand people anticipated the inevitable, and after the first one I was like… guys, chill out, we don’t know that! They’ve put this on the pre-show, you guys! If Swerve’s two mates turn out to be Scorpio Sky and Dante Martin (also black, so the story would check out), this is going to be an historic disappointment!
(*let’s just say that the pre-show was a BAM! non-factor, as I want to keep this under 50’000 words. Britt Baker reappearing was a huge, huge, huge surprise that I didn’t see anyone predict, but it feels too early to make any comments on right now. Has anyone spoken to Konnan?)
But no, the New Level of Kofi and ‘Awesome’ Austin Creed debuted in a moment that felt spectacular. A team that had managed to become one of WWE’s most popular and iconic acts during a peak Vince McMahon brainworms decade of mindless slop where tag-teams were held in as small regard as they’d ever been; a team that used the power of collective bargaining to ensure they stayed together and became legendary; a team with a real and actual sense of humour in an industry infected with R-Truth and Santino Marella lowest common denominator silly voices comedy; and a team whose botched heel turn was, to me, a far bigger crime of booking malpractice than the equally tepid John Cena turn of around the same time. There’s always the chance that the two are no longer at their physical peak – and Big E’s injury still keeps me up all night in tears – but they’re an incredible act, they’re two incredible people, and they must rank among AEW’s biggest ever signings.
The match itself was, yeah, pretty good. Despite the timing imperfections the sheer weight of talent in the ring meant that it never truly felt like the time wasting it so obviously had to be at points. Hangman Adam Page though? AEW’s much vaunted ‘Main Character’ (and, judging by the reaction, still by far one of their most popular wrestlers) going from headining All In 2025 in a match of emotional perfection to only technically making the pre-show of All In 2026? I think the idea of him being forever removed from the world title picture was so that his forever popularity could add prestige to some of AEW’s 473 midcard titles. Which, so far… to early to tell. Him passionately arguing with Swerve before the two momentarily remembered their shared enemies so Swerve could set up Hangman’s Buckshot was magnificent. Never let this feud end!!
Then… I went for a piss… Listen, that last match was thirty nine fricking minutes long! When you have ulcerative collitis like me, you have to think in advance about which matches you need to toilet during! And, erm, yeah, The Brawling Birds v Divine Dominion for the Women’s tag team title was obviously one of them. Then I queued up for the regular toilets for a long time before reaching them and thinking… Eesh, no, that’s not going to work. So I queued for the disabled toilets for another long period. Then I bought a Pepsi. I got back to my seat just after The Birds had won.
Listen, nothing against the four women, I’ve since watched the match and it’s a solid **1/4, but I was far from the only crowd member who chose that match as the piss break – the streams of people marching away from the ring when the match started and the insane queues for the bathrooms were testament to that. And the build to the match, while never hot as balls, was hardly in BAM! Non-Factor! territory – the Brawling Birds, a loving tag team of soccer hooligans who love a pint and a bit of banter and ‘aving a go with the nutters and ‘aving a row with the wankers, were formed months ago with the obvious intention of winning the titles in the UK, and have been kept apart from Divine Dominion quite well – but the crowd just… didn’t really give a shit? Britain simply isn’t one of those “Everything from here is GREAT!” countries, we know most British things are shit and like to complain about it at every opportunity. The Brawling Birds’ Britface tribute act to a very specific sort of ‘Britishness’ that – as a Northerner – I’m not sure actually exists outside of Guy Ritchie films and American fantasy. It’s not offensive, it’s just… cringe as fuck… And the UK crowd wasn’t biting, which lead to a muted match despite the women’s best efforts.
Nigel McGuinness though, is one of our own, Nigel McGuinness is one of our own. Oooooooooooooh, Nigel McGuinness, oooooooooooooh, Nigel McGuinness. There’s a story there, there’s a proper reason to support him aside from the particular place his mother chose to push him out in. And for a wrestler who was less well known than fucking Gredo during his proper full time wrestling career a decade or so ago, who before All In 2024 probably hadn’t performed to a crowd of more than a couple of thousand, him challenging for a title at Wembley felt like it actually meant something. The Continental Challenge Cup/C3 knockout tournament was a bit of a BAM! Non Factor! in the sense that there was never going to be any other final than Nigel versus Dean Ambrose, the tournament was still a success in how many of the matches were absolute barnburners despite the obvious conclusion.
And the biggest reason for those brilliant matches was (sigh) Dean Ambrose.
Listen, Dean Ambrose really gets on my tits. His intense “HARDEST MAN IN THE WORLD!!!” gimmick can get overwhelming and extremely tiring. His desire to be both the biggest heel and most beloved face on the roster can often lead to confusing feuds and heatless matches. His headline matches as champion in 2024/25 were more often than not excessive bore fests, and he still to this day demands 20 minute matches on every show to slowly and methodically remind everyone he still exists. He rejects simple and sensical wrestling ideas like the obvious Death Riders split after All In 2025 as being “WWE stuff”, which betrays the fact that he too often thinks as good wrestling as being simply ‘Don’t Do As Donny WWE Does‘. WWE didn’t invent wrestling booking, Dean, some things just work. There have been times over the past few years when I would have preferred to see Mrs Brown’s Boys appear on my telly to Dean fucking Ambrose again.
But, shit, the guy’s an incredible wrestler. When he’s on he is fucking ON – and despite the fact that an AEW Dean Ambrose loss is as common as Kurt Angle hitting a moonsault – during the C3 Ambrose managed to somehow make me believe on multiple occasions that he wasn’t going to the final. I thought he was about to lose to Jack Perry for fucks sake! And when Ambrose walked out at Wembley Stadium he absolutely felt like the biggest star in the world, which for someone who so stubbornly sticks to only ever how he believes wrestling should be performed, is something to (eugh) applaud, I guess. Ambrose hot streak continued with Dean Ambrose v Nigel McGuinness (****) for the C3 and Continental Championship, an incredible match that managed to enthrall a near 50 thousand crowd, many of whom were near 100 metres away, with the kind of intricate, submission based technical wrestling that lesser wrestlers wouldn’t dare perform to 800 committed fans at KBS Hall for fear of losing the crowd. There was one spot where Nigel broke up a Ambrose bulldog choke with his chin, which was incredibly inventive and not something I’ve seen before, but caused a lot of confusion in my section as from where we were sitting Ambrose just seemed to give up on the hold for no reason, but otherwise the match was a complete triumph.
Ambrose won though, because he always fucking does, Jesus Christ…
You’d imagine that the build up to the Kazuchika Okada v Kyle Fletcher v Konosuke Takeshita (***.5) match for the [checks notes] International Championship would be rich with lore and narrative. There’s so much back story here, with Takeshita being the first and former member of the Don Callis Family that Okada and Fletcher has sworn to protect, with Fletcher beating Takeshita for the title he now holds, with Okada and Takeshita having a long student/master, lovers/enemies storyline being slowly built over literal years. Nope, BAM! Non-Factor! A couple of weeks before the event, the three just announced they were having this match in a backstage segment.
Like I said before though, AEW is a wrestling company. It hosts wrestling matches and doesn’t really believe that many of those wrestling matches require much build up. One way of looking at it is to claim that AEW just believes that, considering the quality of the wrestler on their roster, the matches will be amazing anyway, so why bother? And they’re often right. AEW just believes that, considering the quality of the wrestler on their roster, they will be able to tell their own stories in the ring. Because, you know, that’s kind of what professional wrestling is. There are at least a dozen different feuds going into this match, and none of them were concluded at All In 2026, but what we got was a perfect wrestling match that told the story of Fletcher’s continued dissatisfaction of his status within the Don Callis Family, Takeshita’s desperate attempt to finally be rid of the Family’s attentions, and Okada’s pristine cuntiness as he pretends to want the best for the group while only ever really entertaining himself by being as big an arse as possible. And the match was thirteen minutes long. Because it only needed to be thirteen minutes long. My biggest hope for a lesson learned from All In 2026 is that more venues put stricter curfews on AEW PPVs, as the company’s realisation that they were on the clock meant that not every match was a 20 minute+ ‘epic’, which means AEW PPVs so often turn into five hour plus endurance tests. On the last AEW PPV, Kyle Fletcher faced Bandido in a twenty six minutes match, and for an undercard match that’s just perverse. Bitches.
It was then the Casino Gauntlet (***), which was, yeah, real good stuff. The highlights were obviously the subplot of wrestlers shoving their dick into MJF’s face, and Justin Roberts somehow managing to announce Komander as “Mistico” despite 50 feet high LCD screens on the stage begging to differ. I hear that they flew Mistico over from Mexico only when that happened, in order to save face. Watching the TV broadcast later, it is actually impressive how many people in the crowd seem to know all the Spanish lyrics to Mistico’s theme. Especially because we had no fucking idea, but obviously sounded convincing enough with our “Rabba-day rabba-daaaaaaaaaaaah-yea!” scatting. I enjoyed how the Gauntlet is being constantly tinkered with, and now feels even more random than ever with wrestlers now appearing without any countdown and even occasionally without entrance music. Andrade is a perfectly fine winner of the future title match, even if some of us (ie: me) might have worked ourselves into a shoot expecting surprise entrants on the par of Ricochet and Nigel McGuiness in 2024. MJF will beat Ospreay for the title before Andrade calls his shot. He can’t fight Ospreay! They’re both faces!
Oh, God, Cope ‘Adam’ Edgeland, man. Aw, dude. For the longest time he was comfortably the worse thing in AEW (depending on how much I was sick of Dean Ambrose at that particular time). Deciding to forgo any humour or sneakiness in his previous gimmick in favour of turning up the grit and pretending to be Jack Reacher, making himself out to be the ultimate sicko death match wrestler, which was… aye. what? He had a wooden board with nails in it that he kept in some sort of oboe case. He called it ‘Spike’. Mate, it was fucking lame as dog’s dick. And Edgeland’s main event match against Dean Ambrose at Revolution 2025 was an actual war crime.
Christian, though, quite fittingly, is the fucking Daddy. After a debut in 2021 that many fans felt overhyped and underwhelming – shamefully, we were not familiar with his game – Christian has managed to have the best run of a career that started 1n 1994 (and included that previously mentioned TLC II at Wrestlemania 17), when finally given full trust by a major wrestling promotion to take his character where he believes it should go. All this time, it seems he should have been mocking dead fathers and fucking live mothers. Vince fumbled (clap clap clapclapclap). However, I worried that with Edgeland being so lame, Christian wasn’t awesome enough to ensure that reforming the Edge and Christian tag team (who, incredibly, last won a title as a tag team at any promotion at that Wrestlemania 17 match in 2001) was far more likely to ruin Christian than it was to improve Edgeland. But… it’s kinda been amazing. The team are faces, and… so is Christian… kinda… But only in that fantastic, so rarely utilised way that he’s still no less of a complete dick than he was before, only now we have permission to cheer! Edgeland has mostly settled into his role as the voice of reason and straight man comic foil, and the duo have recused Edgeland’s AEW run, solidified Christian’s all-timer status, and has been far more than just a cheap nostalgia pop. But I’m not sure they’ve had many actual great matches as a reformed pair, and I was never expecting their All In match to be anywhere near a highlight of the 2026 card. I guess I never took into account who they were facing.
Because C&C v The Young Bucks (****.25) was an incredible pleasant surprise. Because The Young Bucks are fucking wizards. Because – as many reasons as they are to be irritated by The Young Bucks* – to not accept them as clearly one of the best and most important tag teams of all time would require insane amounts of delusion and a shrine to Jim Cornette next to your bed. They’re obviously no longer quite at their industry reshaping, mainstream subverting, hoes maddening physical peak, but they’re still capable of incredible matches when the occasion calls. The All In match was… initially ruined slightly by British wrestling fans being really fucking annoying. Yes, UK crowd, your DJ Ötzi take of “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey, hey Christian, I wanna knoooooooooow if you’ll be my Dad” is very funny and very clever, but I’m sure we would have all appreciated all of your immense collective wit had you only sung it once or twice. Not continuously for the first five minutes of the fucking match. This is why we can’t have nice things. The three and a half incredible wrestlers in the ring were able to win them back with a wonderful performance of fast action and false finishes though.
(*I remember reading someone a few years back describe them as “cocky, obnoxious turds, who you can just tell are into really dumb preteen art that they take very seriously… They both still live in their Mum’s garage because “It just makes sense”, and neither of them have ever used a washing machine. They both use the word ‘ephebophilia‘ far too much“, so you have an idea of what kinds of baseless accusations they’ve long been subjected to)
In The Young Bucks’ (brilliant) entrance video – which gave a Cliff Notes run through their achievements in the ring and in establishing AEW itself – they stated that “Our goal, our main objective, is to give you the best tag team division in the world”. After the bell, Christian, Edgeland and the Young Bucks were joined in the ring by modern greats FTR*. Then by new signings The Motor City Machine Guns. Then, finally, by the shiny new toys New Level. As the crowd engaged in incredibly naff, NXT Black and Gold coded, “TAG TEAM WRESTLING!” chants, I felt I had to allow it, as the Young Bucks may have actually achieved their goals. There is the slight issue that none of these tag teams truly first made their name in AEW, and that the youngest and ‘newest’ of the teams are fucking FTR, who feel like they’re old enough to have once competed in a Texas Bullrope match with Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell in 1970s AWA, even though they’re actually younger than me. But that sounds like an All In 2028 problem, for now let’s just enjoy these fabulous toys that one promotion has managed to cobble together
(*who, equally cruelly, described by some people as “two sixty year old men who only ever want to talk about how purer the ‘sport’ (and they will call it a ‘sport’) was back in the days of the territories, and tell you how much a wrestler would have to work to get themselves over in 50th State Big Time Wrestling one night before flying over to Continental Championship Wrestling in Tennessee the next and working your gimmick all over again. If you get stuck with them in the pub all they’ll talk about is anecdotes about how Bob Geigel once tried to stiff Chief Don Eagle out of his cut of the gate by faking a smallpox seizure“. That’s what everyone was saying, and it was completely uncalled for)
If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a break in proceedings now for a quick food review. The food I’ll be reviewing today is well known, but could never claim to be popular. And it’s horrible. Like, actually painful to eat. You never choose to eat it either, it’s just forced down your throat at certain times and there’s nothing you can do about it. It isn’t just gross, but it’s guaranteed to make you feel angry, regretful, and ashamed. In conclusion, I give Humble Pie a generous zero stars out of five, and it should be happy that I’ve not gone full “Jenna Morasca vs. Sharmell” on its arse and dove into the negatives.
Yet, recently I’ve been forced to eat a lot of the fucker. Going back as far as I can remember it being in any way relevant, I have bloviated at length to anyone who listens that Darby Allin would be a terrible choice for a world champion. It was always discussed, the scrawny meth addict looking motherfucker, who looks like he learned to wrestle to escape sexual advances at Borstal, at some point began to be spoken of as mister AEW. The guy who would never have made it in any other wrestling company, past or or present. The guy who puts his body through hell just to entertain fans of this specific brand of carny nonsense. A man accused of gross assault by his ex partner Hawlee Cromwell (Oops! We don’t mention that!). A man who, it seemed, was at one point positioned as the man to finally bring down the Death Riders after he finished his jolly up Mount Everest (dodged a fucking bullet there…). And every time I’d respond with, yeah, you’re right, he really wouldn’t win the title in any other promotion. Because that’s a fucking insane idea what the fuck are you talking about? Giving Darby the title would be basing the upcoming Simpsons movie around Hans Moleman, we need to put things into perspective. “Oh! Oh! Oh! But he does loads of dangerous bumps!!” Alex Zayne once smashed his penis so hard while wrestling that “Full meat came out, brother“, does that mean he should be in the Wrestlemania main event? Darby can do his little stunt show in the midcard, keep skateboarding to the ring like he’s part of the Dynamic Dudes, and we’ll keep enjoying the real main event level stars carry the company. Look: this PPV is headlined by Edgeland and Dean Ambrose. Great.
So, yeah, despite my best, most vociferous, and continued advice, AEW gave Nasal Boy the World Title in April of this year. And he proceeded to have one of the greatest and most memorable title runs of recent memory. He only had the title for 39 days, but defended it eight times at every chance he was able to, becoming the new standard for a ‘Fighting Champion’. And, no exaggeration, every single one of those defences was among the best wrestling matches of 2026. Tomasso Ciampa, Brody King, Kevin Knight, Pac, Takeshite, Guevara and Mike Bailey all had their greatest match of the year* before some sense of normalcy was retained and Darby lost the title back to MJF. The multiplied stakes of a Darby match suddenly made them essential viewing, and the fact that Darby always felt a little weird with the belt meant there was always the chance AEW would make another insane decision and hand it to his opponent. Apart from when he faced Sammy Guevara, of course, you can only suspend disbelief so much. Of course, I can try and argue that his reign was only so spectacular because it was so short, and the way it played off the unlikeliness of the situation is actually, kinda, proof that I was actually in the right…?
(*with perhaps the exception of Bailey, as that nonbinary autism-coded French Canadian freak is the fucking Mac Daddy whose every match was the best match of every year, ever)
No. Humble Pie. Gross.
So, anyway, Darby Allin v Kevin Knight (*) was a lot of fun, but they cut off Sting’s entrance music before they got to the chorus of Seek and Destroy so I can’t award it any more than one star.
The Mercedes Moné v Willow Nightingale (****1/2) upset me. I wanted the story of Moné’s repeated failures to capture the one women’s title in the world she can never seem to win to continue. And, when she did win it – in 2045 or whatever – I wanted it to be the main event match of a PPV that was built around it. And nobody – nobody! – ever wants to see Willow Nightingale lose anything ever! She’s only held the title for 35 days! That’s not even one full Darby!
But this all contributed to me simply watching a match where I was desperate to see the face beat the heel, and was sad when she lost. Even though – as I keep reminding you – this is all fake carny bullshit.
An incredible match, that deserves to be laden with as many superlatives as you can think of. And rather than being a BAM! Non-Factor!, this was one match where the build seemed to show AEW properly appreciating the importance of the biggest women’s match they could put on right now, with heated promos and backstage segments; references to historical importance; and focus put on their fourth match in a series where every match has been for a title. Very much Bam! Factor!
With all due respect to Willow Nightingale – who was so ready for this match that she was firing confetti out of her jubblies – I think this is the book being closed on the finest women’s wrestler of the 21st century. Moné deserves a place among the list of finest wrestlers of the century of any gender, where she would not look out of place swinging her dick next to the likes of Kurt Angle, Daniel Bryanson, Okada, AJ Styles and Tanahashi*. As much as HHH would love people to think he was the closest thing wrestling had since got to Ric Flair in the 80s, staying in one promotion that you partially run and beating wrestlers that you yourself have scripted to lose to you isn’t quite the same thing. However, Moné going all over the world, shining lights on underappreciated promotions while giving every wrestler she faces the greatest match of their careers, seemingly being the only wrestler going who truly understands how to put an opponent over while beating them, means that she’s by far the only modern comparison that makes sense. Moné’s promos may not be on the same level of hysteria, but that’s simply due to far less access to cocaine, and she can’t be blamed for that. Moné is one of the legitimate greats, one of the most notable figures in all of wrestling history, and a great yardstick for measuring people’s political alignment (“Oh, you hate Mercedes Moné? And why is that, exactly??”).
(*and CM Punk, but mentioning his name on a post about AEW is actually classed as hate speech)
But still, fuck you for beating Willow here 😡.
Jesus, the build up to the main event though? BAM! Non-Factor! out the arse.
So Will Ospreay returned from an extremely serious neck injury in March, and everyone was immediately reminded that he’s without doubt the company’s Ace and has a better argument than pretty much anyone to being the world’s greatest wrestler. He’d still never held the AEW title – and only ever challenged for it once – despite making appearances in the company sporadically since 2022 and signing full time in 2023, and that year’s All In was at Wembley again. Right, so Ospreay’s winning his first title in front of his hometown fans, that’s a non negotiable, so how is AEW going to get there?
As is wrestling law, Ospreay first went after Ambrose, as it was him who (kayfabe) injured his neck. Ospreay lost, obviously, because even alcoholism can’t get a win over Dean Ambrose. Then Ospreay… joined the Death Riders…? It was obviously leading to a big angle where Ospreay finally beats Dean Ambrose but NO! BAM! NON-FACTOR! At least they influenced his moveset, and Ospreay began using a new submission finisher called Death Ground (😲😲😲😲😲) which was sure to play a large part in NO! BAM! NON-FACTOR! His moveset hasn’t changed at all and the Death Ground hasn’t been seen since they dumped the Death Riders angle. But at least his opponent at All In was well built?
Absolutely. After beating Samoa Joe for the title the day before my birthday last year, and having a quick game of hot potato with that waster Darby Allin (nomnomnomnomnom, this Humble Pie is so moreish…), Maxwell Jacob Friedman had completely and unarguably established himself as the biggest heel in the company and the obvious person for the biggest face to beat at All In.
But hang on… what’s this…? Kenny Omega is back again and hanging around a bit… Cutting really bad, aloof and confusing face promos that nobody gets… MJF beats Omega to retain the title in April, but that’s not the end of it. Kenny’s in the medical area backstage, having cryptic conversations with Will Ospreay. People start to notice that there’s a PPV called fucking Redemption coming up in July, in Omega’s home country of Canada. Holy shit, that’s what they’re going with now?? MJF? BAM! Non-factor!
So actually Kenny Omega wins the title on a random episode of Dynamite a couple of weeks before the PPV. Redemption in Canada? BAM! Non-Factor! The build up felt unsure of itself, a little confused, and never presented itself like the months long booking masterclass we all wanted Ospreay’s coronation to be the culmination of. Shit, some of us thought, maybe it really should have been MJF. His work steadying the company after a shaky Hangman Page and Samoa Joe period as champions, reminding everyone what an utterly indispensable company icon he is, and should have been rewarded with his second Wembley main event. Some people even thought Ambrose should have the spot. I assume. Not a lot of people, admittedly, but you can never ignore the freaks.
On the other hand: we’re getting Will Ospreay against fucking Kenny fucking Omega at Wembley fucking Stadium. In all seriousness, who gives a flying shit about those previous three paragraphs.
And Will Ospreay v Kenny Omega (*****) for the AEW Title felt like the biggest match ever. After two of the greatest inro videos we’ve ever seen, Will shown walking to the ring from backstage and greeting figures from his insanely illustrious career, and Omega doing his usual weeb shit, fireworks displays big enough to wake the dead, when the bell ring it really did feel like there was nothing else in the entire universe that could feel bigger than this. And they rose to the occasion because of course they fucking did: These are the two most consistently incredible fake fighters of the past decade, and both likely in the top 5 of the 21st century. You tell them they’re headlining Wembley Stadium and their only concern would be that the venue isn’t big enough for what they planned to create. And this wasn’t ‘flippy shit’ or ‘pantomine wrestling’ or a ‘spotfest’ or whatever else people who refuse to watch more than one wrestling company would automatically call it. It was brutal, it was bloody, it was emotional, and – fuck everyone – it had story out the arse.
Wrestling stories are told in the ring. But they’re also told by their context. Omega and Ospreay first fought in 2015 at a PWG event, when Ospreay was a 22 year old twink but Omega was already viewed as one of best wrestlers in the world, had recently joined Bullet Club in NJPW, and was around a year and a half away from a feud with champion Kazuchika Okada that would legitimately revolutionise wrestling. Then, in 2018, Omega would fight Chris Jericho in a match that sent the world of wrestling loopy and will be looked back on as one of the most important ever. While Omega became the biggest star in Japan and was considered definitively amongst the world’s greatest (ever…?) for the first time, Ospreay was joining NJPW’s junior division and having spectacular matches that made lots of old wrestlers very angry. But for Omega, the longterm effects of that Jericho match were overwhelming, and lead to him leaving NJPW to set up AEW with other equally sweaty marks. By that point, Ospreay was ready to step into his shoes, but was forced to do so in a NJPW that was stripped for parts by AEW and was then hit by being dumb enough to take proper measures against COVID – cancelling shows and only opening up again under strict conditions – unlike those dumb Americans who, like always, acted like they get free healthcare. And while AEW became entrenched as America and the world’s number 2 promotion, Omega Tweeted about how underwhelmed he was was with Ospreay’s attempts to replace him at NJPW: “Your promotion has been so ice cold since I left that not even Meltzer can convince his followers that you were part of any BITW conversation. It hurts me, bruv. One of you dorks should have been the guy. Turned out a bigger dog was my only competition”. Then, far more devastatingly, Omega utilised his best aloof, patronising tone – a tone which he has long excelled in – to give his serious thoughts on Ospreay in a 2022 interview:
He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s agile, he’s a great representative for New Japan for all of the dudes that are hitting the pavement and making the Indie dates, he is their spokesperson to give everyone that current day five-star match that we all know and love, some of us. Different strokes for different folks.
Ospreay, he’s doing great in his role, not my thing so much…. A guy like Will, who is great at moves and has a list of 20 very forgettable five-star matches. [laughs] I’m going a little too hard on Will. Will is great, I don’t want to say anything bad about Will.
Here’s the thing, if we’re being completely honest with each other, I do believe that with the current rating system, and how things are viewed, I believe that Will has earned every last one of those five-star performances that he has had. Do I think that if you go back into the works of some of the legends, I’m even going to throw my name in the hat, even if you go back to when I was having five-star matches and I was that sort of guy, I just think that the matches from back then were more memorable and as hard as Will is working, he just isn’t quite…
Will is there…
I’m digging myself into a hole here, Will is there and Will is great.
Of course, Omega was working a work, brother! Because Kenny knew something the reporters didn’t: he would be returning to NJPW the next year for the first time since a messy divorce four years earlier, to face Ospreay at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17. The match was, of course, incredible – six and one quarter stars out of five incredible, which is maths that only makes sense to one specific person in the entire world – but Ospreay’s aspirations to be Kenny’s successor as the world’s new Best Bout Machine were shown to be immature, as Kenny stood tall at the end, waving his massive cock in his hands (figuratively). Their next match would be an also fucking incredible bout – but only ranked six out of five by wrestling’s favourite dyscalculia sufferer, so it was obviously a massive letdown – this time in Omega’s Canada for AEW’s 2023 Forbidden Door PPV. Ospreay may have finally snuck a win that time, but only after diabolically stabbing a screwdriver into Omega’s forehead, then hitting him with, in quick succession, a Storm Breaker, a brainbuster, Omega’s own One Winged Angel, a Hidden Blade, a Tiger Driver 98, and finally another Storm Breaker to win. But all Ospreay proved was that he could only beat Omega by twisting the rules, and in the end the main thing people remember from the match was that Omega kick out at one because that’s why he’s the GOAT!!!! THE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAT!!!!
So that’s your fucking story, you pathetic wrestling fan LARPers who insist that wrestling narrative only exists if it’s force fed to you in a ten minute backstage promo that’s written like Ladybird’s “My First Exposition”. Remember how awesome Rock v Hogan was in 2002? Yeah? Remember that was all because of the angle where Hulk Hogan drove a semi-automatic truck into the side of Rock’s ambulance?? No. In fact, the story of the match itself was so good that you were able to forget whatever bullshit WWF did in the build up. The context, the history, the match itself. That’s all the story you need. The very best wrestling is the very best wrestling because of the story that comes from the match itself. That’s why people around me in the crowd were having outer body experiences when Omega kicked out of Ospreay’s One Winged Angel at one, only to immediately be hit by a Storm Breaker only to fucking kick out at one again! Omega was a beaten man though, and these kick outs were almost muscle memories as he instinctively grasped for the time when he was indisputably the world’s greatest, but staggered around the ring bloody, trying to inspire a comeback that was never going to happen. One last, filthy looking Hidden Blade from Ospreay, and he’s the first British AEW champion and the first Englishman to win a world title in the UK. Yes, this is all fake bullshit, but knowing the reality can occasionally make it transcendent.
Also, did Kenny Omega blade his own eyelid…?
Was it the best Omega v Ospreay match? Probably not. I’d even argue that it wasn’t the best Omega v Ospreay match in AEW. And, despite their identical star ratings, I’d still personally put Danielson v Swerve from 2024 as the best ever All In main event. Despite AEW’s best efforts, I only ever had at maximum a 10% of doubt/fear that they were going to do something absolutely bonkers and pass up on the opportunity to have Ospreay win his first AEW title on home soil. And it was for this reason that I’d already decided before the event that if Omega manages to hit a One Winged Angel, then Ospreay’s kicking out, because there’s just no way that Omega’s winning. So, at Wembley, when Omega hit a finisher that has beaten every single person it’s been hit on except one – and that was 14 chuffing years ago – I was still just waiting for the inevitable kick out so I could pop my tits off with the rest of the crowd. It happened, and off our tits popped, and it was spectacular, but it still felt inevitable. The entirety of (half of…) Wembley erupted in celebration, but surely not in shock. I think All In 2024’s main event was so perfectly matched that either winner seemed a very believably possibility, which increased the quality massively. Kenny Omega winning would have been ridiculous.
Ridiculous because AEW might not be coming back to Wembley for quite a while. All In 2026’s attendance was slightly down on All In 2024, which itself was massively down on All In 2023, so it might be a long time before AEW again risks running the stadium for fear of oversaturation. It would be an open goal to program next year’s All In in the USA at around the same time as WWE takes Wrestlemania out of the country for the first time, and even 2027 might be too soon. But All In 2026 was arguably the finest achievement in the still very young company’s lifetime. On the morning of the show, we watched a Torrent of Ryohei Oiwa defeating Yuya Uemura in the 2026 NJPW G1 Climax final, an incredibly engrossing match essentially just based around two wrestlers trying to avoid a headlock. It was revolutionary in 2026, and might signal the start of an all new period of wrestling that means All In 2026 gets looked upon as the climax of its period in the same way Mania 17 was the ending of the Attitude Era. And even if we’re back to endless and heatless ten mag tags by the end of the year, AEW has at least proved that they can do it if they want to.
Necessary Evil 