All Elite Wrestling has had a cloud over their heads since CM Punk and The Elite had a backstage brawl in 2022. Ratings for their flagship show “Dynamite” have been stagnant and their newest show, “Collision”, is having trouble cracking 600k viewers most weeks. Things aren’t as hot as they’ve been in the past and the tension between Punk and The Elite still continues. They desperately needed a big, successful show to help cleanse themselves of some of the last year’s stench.
AEW has been eyeing the UK market since before their debut episode of “Dynamite.” Owner Tony Khan spends a lot of time there due to his family’s ownership of Fulham Football Club. The pandemic ruined their plans of having a big show in Fulham’s home stadium. Now that things have returned to normal, they swung for the fences in their UK debut.
Wembley Stadium is the most iconic venue in Europe and could hold north of 90k fans. WWE went there in for Summerslam ’92, a show that is still talked about amongst British wrestling fans. It’s the perfect place to have a big statement show, and outdraw WWE in the process.
The pre-show was more exciting than your normal slate of pre-show matches. They had MJF & Adam Cole (who main evented the show against each other) versus Aussie Open for the Ring of Honor tag team titles. It was a nice appetizer as MJF & Cole set the table for the main event. Also, HOOK and Jack Perry had a bloody scrap for the FTW title. Both matches overdelivered, and in hindsight, may have been a catalyst for new CM Punk drama. Lastly, the other newsworthy moment from the pre-show was they pointed out Mercedes Moné (formerly Sasha Banks) in the crowd. It appears that there is some sort of deal with Moné in place.
CM Punk versus Samoa Joe kicked off the main card, which may have been a bad decision. It wasn’t the exciting match most wrestling shows put on to start a show. It was fine, but to me, it was largely skippable. I would argue that the second match Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi & Hangman Page versus Konosuke Takeshita & Bullet Club Gold should have been the card opener. It was a fun match with a lot of exciting moves. The ending was a bit out of nowhere, but it will lead to a new match next week at “All Out.”
FTR versus The Young Bucks took the ring next and it was the first possible five-star match of the night. These two teams have great chemistry and bring out the best of each other. The story is that the winner could claim themselves as the best. It was the rubber match and it will be interesting to see where this goes next.
The Stadium Stampede Match was expected to be a clusterfuck, and it was exactly that. It was more like Anarchy In The Arena, but it’s not like they could record a bunch of this stuff beforehand…and it’s a stadium, not an arena. Eddie Kingston, Penta El Zero Miedo & The Best Friends wasted no time to battle with the Blackpool Combat Club. They fought everywhere in Wembley. I assume as a fan in attendance, it may have been a bit confusing to watch. This match had bamboo skewers, forks, glass, barbed wire, tables and everywhere in-between. It was a spectacle, and will once again, lead to some new matches next week.
The women’s four-way for the AEW Women’s Title had a tough spot following that last match. Saraya came out with her family to a Queen song, which popped the crowd. Toni Storm and champion Hikaru Shida didn’t get much of a reaction from the crowd, but Dr. Britt Baker had a big superstar entrance and was viewed as the other star in the match. The story of the match was if The Outcasts could work together, and spoiler alert, that was a big nope.
Darby Allin & Sting faced Swerve Strickland & Christian in a coffin match. This felt like a random stipulation and I’m still not sure why this had to be a coffin match. It was a fun match and the crowd loved Sting. It should have been a little shorter, but they had some storylines to flesh out for next week’s show.
Will Ospreay had a large task of carrying Chris Jericho to a five-star classic, which didn’t happen. For his age, Jericho might be the best 52-year-old in the ring, but Ospreay is just on another level. You can just tell that Ospreay was working circles around the veteran. The crowd was still eating out of the palms of their hands.
The Acclaimed faced The House of Black for the AEW Trios Titles. It was put in an odd spot on the card, but they held their own. The crowd loved The Acclaimed and the HoB are cool heels. No one was going to the bathroom or getting popcorn during this match.
The main event between MJF and Adam Cole was by far the most-anticipated match on the card. Just two months ago, I doubt many would have expected how over these guys are right now. It just seemed like Cole was the next guy up and would probably have a damn good match, but they got themselves super over with their chemistry. The comedy vignettes were the biggest reason for how over they are. The match was a rollercoaster and so many things were teased for next show, and beyond.
The show was a big success for AEW. They had over 90,000 people in the building and over 81k paid attendance. They now have the record for most paid attendance for any one show in pro wrestling history. Other than the Punk altercation, this was a huge win for the company. AEW will get a lot of headlines this week. I expect WWE will announce a Wembley show at some point and try to regain their record.
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About the Author…
Bobby Roberts (otherwise known as Sweetbob) is the creator of ‘America’s White Boy’ and contributor at Project Shanks. His writing has been featured on ESPN’s ‘SportsNation’, Sports Illustrated’s Hot Clicks, Guyspeed, and various other sites. You can follow him on Twitter at @Sweetbob