AEW All In London Review: A Mixed Bag For This Wrestling Neutral

So AEW has arrived in the UK bringing their biggest attended debut show to Wembley Stadium playing host to a crowd of over 81,000 people in London. As a wrestling neutral I couldn’t pass up on a Club Wembley experience like this so here’s my AEW All In London review.

Match Line-ups before we dive into this AEW All In London review

FTW Championship (pre-show): “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry (c) vs. Hook

ROH World Tag Team Championship (pre-show): Aussie Open (c) vs. MJF & Adam Cole

Will Ospreay vs. Chris Jericho

Coffin Match: Sting & Darby Allin vs. Swerve Strickland & Christian Cage

AEW World Trios Championship: House of Black (c) vs. The Acclaimed & Billy Gunn

AEW “Real” World Championship: CM Punk (c) vs. Samoa Joe

The Golden Elite (Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi & “Hangman” Adam Page) vs. Konosuke Takeshita & Bullet Club Gold (Jay White & Juice Robinson)

AEW Women’s World Championship: Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Saraya vs. Toni Storm vs. Britt Baker

AEW World Tag Team Championship: FTR (c) vs. The Young Bucks

Stadium Stampede: Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta), Santana & Ortiz vs. Eddie Kingston, Orange Cassidy, Penta El Zero Miedo & Best Friends

AEW World Championship: MJF (c) vs. Adam Cole

Other than two Smackdown events and doing pay per view home entertainment release review work for WWE my knowledge of wrestling is at an all time low. My knowledge of wrestling lies solely within the WWF/WWE Universe of days gone by watching it when I was much younger.

I never saw ECW or TNT and AEW was yet another name I’d never been acquainted with. It has been many years since I’ve been to a wrestling show but with the atmosphere of a near sold out Wembley crowd and the stadium hosting AEW’s first Wembley arena event this opportunity was not one to miss.

A friend of mine wanted someone to tag along so he wasn’t going on his own and I was drooling at the thought of unlimited food and drink in Club Wembley.

Club Wembley offers a nice pre-show lounge full of buffet food and unlimited drinks along with a live DJ in a chill environment where there is no such thing as queuing. The bane of my existence.

It was great to just go to the bar anytime you like pick up your free drinks and take them to your padded comfy seat next to the royal box and enjoy the show in style, comfort and a world where queues don’t exist. It was a little pricey at around £400 so we made sure to eat and drink absolutely everything but just avoiding queues and feeling relaxed in a manic environment packed full of people, to me, was priceless.

The royal box right next to us also had Sasha Banks sitting a couple of seats away from us eyeing up her move to AEW after leaving WWE. We had some great seats, comfy padded seats with cup holders in front of us to hold our many, many beverages.

With me knowing absolutely nothing about the AEW stars only recognising the old WWE members I can only review the show as a whole without diving too much into storylines and characters of which I know nothing about.

I must say that throughout this entire show the crowd really seemed to pop when old WWE stars showed up. This tells me that AEW must be fairly new and has just blown up to epic proportions or WWE are still the big dogs and AEW is rapidly catching up in a very short space of time.

Die hards may hate me for saying that but listen, I’m new to this! Go easy on me!

The WWE star reaction was something I picked up on almost immediately as whenever Chris Jericho, Paige (now known as Saraya), Billy Gunn, CM Punk, Adam Cole and others came out their audience reaction was always the loudest no matter what with the exception of MJF and Will Ospreay.

Chris Jericho’s entrance had a live performance from his band Fozzy and his song Judas had the crowd singing along with him as he walked to the ring. Out of all the entrances during the night I’d say this one had the best atmosphere by a country mile, it was electric!

For the first few matches I have to say I wasn’t all that impressed. The daylight didn’t help matters as the showbiz entrances seemed a little dulled down with the lighting not being able to really capture that epic entrance feel and some of the matches were of equal quality as something I’d see in Fantasy Island, Skegness on an independent circuit.

No matter how comfy my seat was I just wasn’t really getting into it but this was the mere starter of what was to come.

The starting match featured both MJF and Adam Cole but with a big finale match lined up later in the evening they seemed to be taking it easy during this pre-show matchup. Here are the following results from the pre-show.

MJF and Adam Cole defeated Aussie Open to win the ROH World Tag Team Championships.

Hook defeated Jack Perry to win the FTW Championship.

The stage looked phenomenal and whilst our view of the ramp was restricted, it didn’t matter. Free drinks were flowing and I was getting giddy with excitement every time I saw a name I recognised, I even had a tear in my eye just seeing Jim Ross commentating. The man is a legend!

Whilst I’ve only ever been to two Smackdown shows in my life I used to religiously watch the WWF shows on Sky as a kid so seeing those names was very nostalgic for me.

Speaking of kids, I did feel as though I was surrounded by many as 40 year olds were chanting these guys names with such passion that it felt a little strange to me. I can imagine kids doing this and families getting into it but grown ass men, I dunno, that seemed ever so strange to me but I admired the passion.

I also noticed a lot throughout the earlier matches a lot of chants of ‘This Is Awesome‘ which is usually sung when things are incredible and bodies are being put on the line for great entertainment value. Nope. Not in the opening few matches.

Either the crowd was easily pleased or they were just happy to be here. As the night went on those chants became more frequent but with good reason, the matches just evolved and got better and better!

CM Punk had quite a frosty reception (I hear he’s been causing trouble again) and even had a bust up backstage before his match but the guy has an attitude problem, but hey, if some cocky little kid is running his mouth off on TV and you have a problem with it, I’m with CM on this one for a change.

CM put on a show on and off stage but it took some time to get going, poor Samoa Joe looked knackered after a few laps of showboating up and down the ring but we got a somewhat acceptable match out of it in the end.

A few more matches passed by including Kenny Omega, “Hangman Adam Page & Kota Ibushi vs. Konosuke Takeshita, Jay White & Juice Robinson (Austin & Colten Gunn) of which Konosuke Takeshita, Jay White & Juice Robinson came out on top but it just didn’t seemed to grab me or capture my attention.

The event didn’t really liven up until the Stadium Stampede match as it consisted of the Blackpool Combat Club – Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta, Mike Santana & Ortiz vs. Best Friends – Orange Cassidy, Chuck Taylor, Trent Beretta, Penta El Zero Miedo & Eddie Kingston.

Ten men all fighting around the entire stadium was absolutely mad. There was blood everywhere, weapons, chairs, tables, bamboo, someone had a fork grinder across their face it was all madness. They even come up to fight in the royal box next to us so we had a great view of the action.

It was after this particular matchup that things shot levels above the quality of the initial few matches.

Saraya lifted the AEW Women’s Championship in an entertaining and quite technical women’s match line-up. Lifting the belt in her home country was always on the cards, it was almost too predictable but having her family around ringside was quite lovely.

She deserves it, lord knows that girl has been through a lot and it’s nice this company seems to be respecting her and driving her career forward for the better.

Sting then lit up the arena and not only that won a coffin match which saw a 64 year old Sting put his body through the wringer for our entertainment. It was all a bit mad but you just had to respect it!

Will Ospereay is a wrestler I’d never heard of until last night and he blew me away! Will’s technical ability and his daredevil antics off the ropes was actually superb.

I’ve never watched a wrestling match that physically gave me adrenaline until now. I was so pumped to see him kicking ass and doing it so remarkably and after that Fozzy ring walk I was on a high anyways.

One of my favourite matches of the evening but then followed up by a trios tag team match that kinda bored me. The event had an ebb and flow to it but just to be there and be a part of something clearly special that meant a lot to so many people was a nice thing to be a part of.

The show ended on a high as the AEW World Championship match finale really personified what a title match should be all about. It was phenomenal!

Two friends facing off for the world championship, a match of heart, dilemma, changes of heart, friendship and comedy. Yes, they even had time to throw in funny moments throughout that genuinely made this the best matchup of the entire evening.

The match lasted 30 minutes and even the ref was knocked out a few times in the process. It was a match that balanced the story with what you were seeing infront of you and they did it wonderfully and ended it with an announcement of AEW returning next year to Wembley for the second time on August 25th, 2024.

I have to be honest, if I went again I’d go ringside and soak up that up close and personal atmosphere but quite a lot of the matches were more miss than hit for me as a neutral.

Some injected me with that rush and excitement and others I was questioning why the crowd was saying ‘This Is Awesome’ when I just couldn’t see what on earth they were on about.

Hugging for the entire match or near kick-outs don’t deliver that anticipation if there’s been zero build up beforehand. It made no sense to me.

Giving the women’s match a lesser time than the other matches was disappointed but Ospreay Vs Jericho and MJF Vs Adam Cole definitely take the two best matches for me outside of the Stadium Stampede madness that was just a joy to watch. The rest were quite simply forgettable for me.

Watching a wrestling show without commentary is also quite a dull and strange experience, you’re seeing the moves but if the crowd aren’t creating the atmosphere it all feels a little flat as you just hear the microphones under the ring picking up the slams.

I think adding commentary to a stadium event would add to that overall inclusive and show atmosphere and at times, especially in the day, there was about as much atmosphere as a Port Vale home match, zero.

The stadium completely changed when nightfall came and the lighting, fireworks and more spruced up the atmosphere and ignited the crowd. The day matches just didn’t really work for me but the show came alive at night and certainly lived up to expectations from me as a neutral.

I can imagine diehard AEW fans saying it’s the best show they’ve ever seen or whatever and that’s fine, that’s your passion. For me, I just didn’t feel as though there were enough matches in there that really stood out to make it an incredible show despite it being an incredible experience if that makes sense. AEW All In London was definitely a mixed bag for a neutral like me.

Enjoyable and entertaining but any seat further back from where we were would have been pointless attending for me, watching two ants scrapping from a distance with zero commentary, that day show would have been a nightmare from those seats.

The Number Nine lounge as part of Club Wembley’s Elite Hospitality was phenomenal I’d highly recommend it for ANY event, the ease of everything was a stress free Wembley experience and it’s rare you’ll get them at this stadium for big events.

With that said if I decide to go next year I want to be up close and personal around the ring as I’d enjoy it tenfold. It would be worth sacrificing the free food and drink for the more intimate view, that’s for sure!

Check out my VLOG of the experience in the link above!

A solid debut Wembley event for AEW but now this one is out of the way, it’s time to step it up and make 2024 even better.

Between WWE and AEW shows I certainly enjoyed AEW more. I think WWE appeals more to children with its more melodramatic storylines and play acting whereas AEW certainly is aimed at an older crowd.

AEW All In London put on a show but with their 2024 return planned I feel as though they need to step it up even more so to outdo a quite impressive (mostly) debut UK Wembley event.

AEW All In London Review by Sean Evans