AEW All In: London (2026) Discussion

[TheBurningRed]

Eric Bischoff booked old and past it Nasty Boys in a feud with The Dudley’s in TNA in 2010. 

[Statto]

It's been his gimmick for 30 years now, hasn't it? "Controversy creates cash". He knows saying mad shit creates impressions.

Having finally found time to do a TV rewatch yesterday afternoon, just a couple of final notes of stuff I'm not sure I've seen mentioned here:

- save for 3 chops and a bite of the toes (all to Mike Bailey), Ciampa got absolutely zero offence in the Gauntlet. Every single other involvement was him charging wildly at an opponent and getting countered. And even the Bailey sequence began that way.

- Just before starting my rewatch, I saw a Tom "Deep Caaaht" Green short in which he presented McGuinness' C3 run as an artistic representation of his career (started all guns blazing, took an injury that he had to work around, ultimately he's unable to overcome the injury whilst millimeters from his goal) and it made me appreciate the finish all the more.

- Was really pleased to see how good the stadium production looked on TV. It felt like it was by far the best of the 3 shows from that aspect whilst in there, and I'm glad it felt the same on TV.

[Devon Malcolm]

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Edited September 7 by Devon Malcolm

[RedTwoster]

On 9/7/2026 at 7:53 AM, Statto said:

It's been his gimmick for 30 years now, hasn't it? "Controversy creates cash". He knows saying mad shit creates impressions.

 

I honestly think - as with much of the extreme takes on general news - a good proportion of wrestling opinions expressed online by notable figures are grifts. You absolutely get people who are indoctrinated by their time in WWE as to what 'good' looks like, but the likes of Bischoff and Cornette almost certainly understand the algorithm and know what generates clicks. If Bischoff was to come out and say 'yeah, good show', it's what pretty much everyone else is saying, who cares? But if he does something bizarre like compare the main event to a Nasty Boys match, enough people will take it at face value to make it a topic of conversation, directing people to his content making it a revenue generator; whether it's through better downloads for ad sales, sign-ups to whatever their VIP tier is or YouTube/X revenue. 

[BomberPat]

there's definitely a grift to it, but I don't think it's even that with Eric Bischoff - I don't think he likes wrestling, and I wouldn't be surprised if you told me he didn't even watch the match. He was blagging an opinion based maybe on a couple of photos or other people's takes that he heard, and guesswork about what the match might have been. He described it as "hardcore, anything goes, no rules, bring a weapon. I didn’t see a kitchen sink in there, but for the most part, it was anything goes." - does that come close to describing the match any of us watched? In terms of "weapons", there was an announce table spot, which is something that's been in every WWE main event of the last twenty-five years, and Kenny hitting Will with a monitor, which is as much to set up the table spot as anything else. There were no weapons brought into the ring, no outside interference, nothing going on to rob the ref of any credibility, it was a straight wrestling match for the duration. It just wasn't the match Eric Bischoff described, even before you get to the Nasty Boys comparison.

And I don't think that's about controversy, because Bischoff doesn't want people thinking he's wrong. Russo, Bully Ray, Disco Inferno, that tier of grifter don't mind making themselves look stupid for the sake of some attention, and Cornette and Dutch Mantell and that kind of old-timer always have an element of "it was better in the old days" they can fall back on. But Eric Bishoff's grift is that you're supposed to believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that he's a genius businessman who understands how to be successful in wrestling at a level nobody else does, and saying really stupid shit doesn't help in that goal.

Ultimately, I think if Eric Bischoff hadn't grown up in Minnesota, if the AWA hadn't been the clearest route into a television career, he'd have never entered professional wrestling at all. And after WCW closed, if WWE never gave him a job, and if he hadn't managed to hitch his wagon to Hulk Hogan, he'd have never worked in wrestling again. I imagine it eats him alive that he still has to talk about this shit to earn a living.

[Chico Torres]

I haven’t seen the AEW match but comparing something to a Nasty Boys match shouldn’t be a negative statement (although I assume that’s how Easy E intended it). Their matches with The Steiners, Hart Foundation, LOD, Cactus/Maxx Payne, Cactus/Sullivan etc were awesome, the look and gimmick were great and they always had great theme music.