With several months of anticipation behind it, All Elite Wrestling presented what looked to be their version of the Tokyo Dome or Wrestlemania with All In Texas at Arlington Stadium. Before we get into any details of the line-up, it must be noted that the visual of the venue with more than 20,000 fans in attendance was very impressive, as it made AEW look like a major league organization.
If perception is reality, All Elite Wrestling looked like a big deal until the card started and then all of its weaknesses were exposed to an exponential degree, as the main card went a staggering six hours. I don’t want to hear of the rare Wrestlemania or Tokyo Dome cards that went that long, as that was a mistake, too and there’s also a reason that runtime was discontinued for those events. Besides the fact that I don’t think it’s possible to book a truly spectacular six-hour card, it was also completely and totally unnecessary for Tony Khan to do so. Not only did it not add anything to the bouts or the event itself, it also hindered them in the marathon of a process. If you want to make the case that certain contests on this particular show justified an extended segment, there’s an argument for that, but for each match to be given a sometimes absurd amount of time just so Tony Khan can talk himself into believing that he produced an American version of the Tokyo Dome is ridiculous.
As I’ve always said, Tony Khan is more or less unanimously known as a great guy, but that doesn’t automatically make him a successful booker or promoter. It’s sincerely wonderful that the guy puts his concern to take care of the talent ahead of money, and he probably does many things to help the talent that nobody knows about, but the harsh reality is, his booking decisions impact the level of success or lack thereof the organization has from strictly a business perspective.
Since the runtime of the broadcast was literally six hours, it would simply be too lengthy to attempt to discuss each match individually so I’m going to try to divide the card into sections, as that loosely looked to be the method to the madness. However, the question that you will have to consider throughout this review is a simple inquiry, was this really needed on a six-hour show and if it wasn’t, why was it included? The reason this became so important is that by the four-hour mark, this broadcast became a chore to watch, not an entertainment option. Granted, I had the incentive to make it through the event to be able to work on this article, but it’s difficult for me to think that the average viewer was really excited to sit in front of their television for six hours on a Saturday afternoon in July.
The show kicked off with the six man tag between the Opps and The Death Riders. The match was fine for what it was, but it was chaos from almost the opening bell with fights on the floor and in the ring at the same time within minutes of the start of the broadcast. Tag rules were completely ignored, which became a theme throughout the night, and the problem with that is, there were several segments that became an endless sequence of moves without any rhyme or reason. There was no drama or build up, it was just more high spots for the sake of high spots, which renders the legitimate risks the performers take repetitive and often pointless. The Opps won the match, but Samoa Joe was attacked afterwards, prompting him to be taken away on a stretcher. Maybe this was a way to write Joe out of the show for another film role, but the last thing this show needed was an extended post-match segment, The gauntlet after that was much of the same, a lot of moves with minimal drama as a way to get as many wrestlers on the card as possible. Tony really had something with Mark Briscoe as the sentimental favorite, especially after the truly incredible and heart-wrenching video presentation from The Player’s Tribune that chronicled his journey into the sport with his late brother, Jay, but if I had to guess, it will be forgotten about in two weeks because there’s rarely follow-up among the AEW landscape, especially if it’s something that gets over organically that could interrupt Tony’s charts and graphs. MJF winning theoretically could put him back on track as a main event heel, but I honestly don’t know if anything can be done to reignite his status, specifically after how insignificant he was booked to be within the past several months. Given the big picture of AEW, there shouldn’t be a scenario that MJF has to be reestablished in the first place.
Right after that, Adam Cole made his way to the ring to announce that he had to vacate the TNT championship because of an injury, and it was later reported that he suffered another serious concussion during a match on Collision. Taking into account that he was on the shelf for almost a year with a prior concussion and spent another year on the sidelines because of the foot injury, as much as I hate to say it, I’d rather see Cole retire way too young and still healthy in the long run than him attempt to continue to wrestle when another injury, specifically head trauma could affect his quality of life. I’ve actually met Adam Cole twice and both times, he was one of the politest wrestlers that I had the chance to meet. It was only a brief conversation each time, but he seems like someone that is too kind for the wrestling business so it would be terrible to see him suffer a diminished quality of life if he continues to compete. Furthermore, he could work backstage, and as trivial as it might sound, he was booked in a way that minimized his star power so it’s not as though he would leave a top spot behind if he finished his career. That being said, the emotional announcement really drain the enthusiasm from the crowd and it didn’t pick back up until later in the card. It was a nice moment for Dustin Rhodes to win a championship in Texas, but in the grand scheme of things, the TNT belt means very little, especially because of how Daniel Garcia and Adam Cole didn’t became bigger stars during their recent reigns as champion.
At this point, we’re three matches into this show and at the 1 hour and 45 minute mark. There has yet to be a one-on-one contest. The multi-person matches so far, were mostly just a series of moves without logic, psychology, or a build to the finish. You can do that for one bout on the card and it stands out, similar to the WCW lucha match on pay-per-view, but if everything is chaos then it all gets lost in the shuffle. Everything I just described accurately explains The Young Bucks vs. Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay match. Minimal selling, no tags, and more high spots just for that sake of high spots. That would be fine if we didn’t just watch the same thing for almost the previous two hours. Of course, The Young Bucks had an extended entrance because we had to make sure that we stretched everything to be able to get to the six-hour benchmark before the show went off the air. Swerve and Ospreay won, but does it really matter? Do the fans really care if The Young Bucks are sometimes heel authority figures? Most importantly, isn’t there a better use for both Swerve and Ospreay than a mid-card tag match at the biggest show of the year?
Athena won the women’s gauntlet match to earn a title shot, and another 25-minute battle role is exactly what this card needed to maintain its clunky and tedious pace. There was no reason for the men’s gauntlet to be 35 minutes and no reason for this to be 25 minutes. It’s just too long for the audience to care about hypothetical title matches at some point in the future. The Hurt Syndicate retained their tag titles in a three way match, offering exactly the same type of match that you’ve already seen a few times on this card. The action was fine, but it wasn’t anything that was “must see” in the context of this event. The Adam Copeland return post-match was illogical because why would he help Christian, a heel that attacked him several times, prior to this?
For those that are keeping score, this was almost 3 hours and 40 minutes into this show, and we still haven’t seen a standard match yet.
If I had to guess, I’d say that Tony put the singles matches on last as a way to differentiate them as main event bouts. It’s one of those booking aspects that was a decent concept in theory that didn’t flourish in application. After nearly four hours of chaos by the time the bell rang for the Women’s world title match, there wasn’t anything that any of the final three matches could do, with the exception of the gimmicks in the Jon Moxley/Adam Page match that the audience didn’t already see earlier on the card. The bumps, the car crashes, and the high spots were all done to a repetitive level by the time the singles matches had a chance to get in the ring. In a vacuum, Toni Storm vs. Mercedes Mone was a very solid match, and one of the better matches that Mone had during her All Elite tenure. Toni retained the belt and was one of the most over competitors with the crowd, but within the context of this show, it got lost in the shuffle. Much of the same can be said for the Kazuchika Okada/Kenny Omega bout, in a vacuum, it was a really entertaining match, but I’m not sure how it stands after such an extended event. Granted, they weren’t going to be the same performers that they were years ago in New Japan, but this was a quality match that deserves the proper spotlight to maximize its drawing power as a marquee match. I’m not sure being the unified champion means much in the grand scheme of things because of the comical amount of belts that the company still has, but the Okada victory should set up for a rematch.
The main event, as gory and somewhat goofy as it was, at least had the premise of a storyline that justified all the pyro and ballyhoo that went along with it. This was the crescendo of the feud, as flimsy as it was, for someone to finally defeat Jon Moxley for the AEW world championship so it made sense to have all run-ins with the return of Bryan Danielson and Darby Allin to dispatch of the death riders before Page claimed the title. Sure, the fork spot and the glass were ridiculous portions of this match, but at this point, positively or negatively, this is the AEW brand. I don’t think Adam Page is in a prime position to be the top guy in the company with how dilluted his character was over the past few years, but that’s a different discussion for a different time. The point being, as far as a main event on a big show, this was mission accomplished.
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Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
