Wrestling Review: AEW All In London (2023)

In front of over 80-thousand people, the largest one-day paid gathering for a pro wrestling event in history, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) presents All In London from Wembley Stadium. In the main event, best friends and potential tag team champions collide when MJF defends the AEW World Championship against Adam Cole. The AEW Women’s Championship will be on the line in a Fatal 4-Way match, as defending champion Hikaru Shida faces most recent former champion Toni Storm, the woman who originally beat Shida for the title Dr Britt Baker, and the prodigal daughter of England, Saraya. Meanwhile, the AEW Tag Team Title will be defended when Cash Wheeler and Dax Hardwood, collectively known as FTR, defend against their greatest foes, The Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson, and the AEW Trios Championships are up for grabs as House of Black’s Malakai Black, Brody King and Buddy Matthews defend against The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn. On the pre-show Buy-In, Jack Perry will defend the FTR Championship against its former holder HOOK in an FTR Rules match, and the two men who competed in the main event, Adam Cole and MJF, look to win the ROH Tag Team Championship from Aussie Open in the first contest of the night.

Though without titles on the line, Chris Jericho will collide with Will Ospreay in a first time ever meeting; Sting and Darby Allin will team one more time to face the combined threat of Swerve Strickland and Christian Cage in a tag team Coffin Match; The Golden Elite trio of Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi and Hangman Page will battle Bullet Club Gold’s Jay White and Juice Robinson, and the mercenary Konosuke Takeshita in a trios match; CM Punk alleges to defend his “Real World Championship” against long time rival Samoa Joe; and The Best Friends team with Eddie Kingston and Penta El Cero Miedo to battles the Blackpool Combat Club, Mike Santana and Ortiz in a Stadium Stampede match.

+ MJF (c) vs Adam Cole (AEW World Championship): similarly to an earlier match, there was a moment here that I sucked the life out of the live crowd, despite the fans coming back around soon after. I don’t know what it is about Adam Cole, but he is either an all-time great or really boring, with seemingly no middle ground. MJF at least has a presence about him, especially as champion, but I have never been one of those people to be so high on him that ever match is a must see. I dunno, this was the last match on a really long show with far too much happening in each match
+ The House of Black (Malakai Black, Brody King & Buddy Matthews) (c) (w/ Julia Hart) vs The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) & “The Badass” Billy Gunn (AEW Trios Championships): this was good, though it was very hard to get into after three previous tag team matches, a previous trios match and the Stadium Stampede match before it. Julia Hart at ringside provided a small boon with her involvement, and the crowd was definitely excited for the match, and played along with all the catchphrases from the Acclaimed and Brody’s dog barking. This was probably the second biggest crowd reaction of the night after some of the stuff Sting did previously
+ Sting & Darby Allin vs Swerve Strickland & Christian Cage (w/ Luchasaurus) (Tag Team Coffin Match): the crowd was wild for this entire match, and that really helped it be the one tag match on the show that stood out. Swerve’s entrance was cool, and Christian had the entire 80-thousand plus in the palm of his hand at a few time. But it was of course Sting that got the largest reactions and Darby that did the wildest stuff. This was great, and based on crowd reaction along, the match of the show
+ FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) (c) vs The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) (AEW Tag Team Championships): it should be no surprise to anyone that this was a good wrestling match. As much as my opinion waxes and wanes on both teams, there is no doubt that given the chance they will tear the house down. Whatever AEW does with it’s microphones and filming, I am usually able to hear a lot of what the competitors say to each other, and to that end there was one fantastic moment of communication between Nick Jackson and Cash Wheeler that blew me away more than anything done in the match. That said, this was a great match and most definitely one of the best on the show
+ The Golden Elite (Kenny Omega, “Hangman” Adam Page & Kota Ibushi vs Bullet Club Gold (Jay White & Juice Robinson) & Konosuke Takeshita (w/ Austin Gunn & Colton Gunn): this was an incredibly, must-see match that ended right as it was kicking into second gear. The ending, and in particular the immediate finish was supposed to be shocking, but I think that really killed what was otherwise shaping up to be a big match. Ibushi was definitely in better shape than at Blood & Guts, and I will always be a fan of Jay White and Juice Robinson. Takeshita was of course good, but he struggled to stand out in the match with five other big-time stars. Still, for what it was this was great, and it left me wanting much, much more

– Will Ospreay vs Chris Jericho: the crowd was really hot for this one too, almost entirely behind Ospreay, but the match really just didn’t feel like anything special to me. After the few months that Ospreay has had, against Omega, Okada, Shingo Takagi and so many others in the G1 Climax, this was just not even remotely on that level. There is no doubting Jericho is an all-time great, but he was a a full step or more behind Ospreay at almost every point, and there was only one move in the whole match that drew any sort of real reaction from me — and not in a ‘invested in the match’ sense, but a ‘holy hell he nearly died’ sense. I am ready to be torn apart by people for this, but I really just didn’t care for this match
– Hikaru Shida (c) vs Saraya vs Toni Storm vs Dr Britt Baker, D.M.D. (AEW Women’s World Championship): it is unfortunate, and not at all an indictment on women’s wrestling, but this was the only match on the show that was outright bad. Very often these four were on very different pages, and almost nothing looked good. Even the ending was awkward
– Best Friends (Orange Cassidy, Chuck Taylor & Trent Barretta), Eddie Kingston & Pental El Cero Miedo vs The Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta), Mike Santana & Ortiz (Stadium Stampede): this was fine but derivative not just of other Stadium Stampedes, but of matches from earlier on this same show (see my final negative point for more). I got a brief bit of excitement from something involving Penta, and the finish was lots of fun, but I just couldn’t get into it overall
– CM Punk (c) vs Samoa Joe (“The Real World Championship”): this was fine, but the most interesting part of the whole thing was the references to (or parodies of?) John Cena and Hulk Hogan. This felt simultaneously far too short for allegedly being a World Title match, but at the same time it dragged in a few places. Even the addition of blood and the use of one of my favourite finishers from years gone past was not enough to bring this above ‘good’
– Jack Perry (c) vs HOOK (FTW Rules Match for the FTW Championship): this had a few good hardcore spots — involving real glass, would you believe — but otherwise somewhat disappointing. I don’t know how I feel about this attempt at making Jungle Boy a bad guy, especially with a still very inexperienced HOOK
– Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis) (c) vs Better Than You Bay Bay (MJF & Adam Cole) (ROH World Tag Team Championships): this was okay but far too short, but everything about it made Aussie Open feel far too unimportant considering they were the defending champions. I understand fully the story between MFJ and Cole, and how it would further play into the main event if they won, but I think it diminished not only the ROH Tag team Championships, but more importantly the team of Aussie Open
– as a general negative overall which impacted pretty much every match listed as a negative here, AEW matches are all too similar. There were three tag team matches, two trios matches and the Stadium Stampede all on this same show, and too often they all attempted very similar moments, double team moves and pacing. it was just exhausting watching these similar matches one after the other

> the commentary team shifted three times throughout the show, as Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone and Tazz all rotated through. I think this was a great touch to make the show easier to digest, as each person added something new to their time at the desk

Should you watch this event: This was an impressive event visually, with the huge crowd providing the majority of the best moments. Only one match was ‘bad’, but too many of them felt too similar to each other, which only caused them all to feel too diluted. I wanted to like this more than I did, but I just didn’t.