AEW All In: London (2026) Discussion

[Merzbow]

26 minutes ago, abucalves said:

I think that the guy who makes those said they had sold out by Saturday, which is also annoying in itself

Ah makes sense why I didn't see any then, I think I actually missed the full merch store though.. we rushed to our seats and looking back Wembley often has a huge separate shop area doesn't it?

I only passed by the multiple smaller vendors.

Was surprised to not see a single snide shirt seller though, would have been tempted by a £10 jobby with spelling mistakes.

[Chris B]

24 minutes ago, Supremo said:

 

When they both did this, I did think "I've spent the last few years building up an immunity to Tiger Driver 91s".

[abucalves]

16 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

Ah makes sense why I didn't see any then, I think I actually missed the full merch store though.. we rushed to our seats and looking back Wembley often has a huge separate shop area doesn't it?

I only passed by the multiple smaller vendors.

Was surprised to not see a single snide shirt seller though, would have been tempted by a £10 jobby with spelling mistakes.

I only saw various stalls, a few along Wembley Way, then some inside. 

And I did see some bootleg stalls towards the end of Wembley Way, closer to the station, which feels right as I have many memories of going Wembley market in that same spot and buying bootleg CDs. They did have speakers playing some AEW themes which I thought was a nice touch

[BomberPat]

going in, this was probably the least hyped I was for an All In. First time around, it was such a huge "once in a lifetime" event, a bunch of us got tickets early, made a day of it, and I was bumping into people I knew constantly. Second one, I was happy to skip it initially, but the draw of seeing Bryan Danielson in the main event was enough to pull me in at the end. This time, I knew it would be good, but I wasn't sure how up for the rigmarole of getting to and from Wembley and all the rest of it. I'm glad I did. Although Wembley security were way more heavy-handed than usual; my friend queued up for ages only to be told they couldn't bring their Tote bag in them (which they had brought with them to MCR at Wembley without incident not that long ago), had to leave the queue to go and put it in a bag drop that charged £10, and the person working the bag drop laughed about how small the bag was and how she didn't need to leave it there. She ended up leaving before the main event, so she didn't get stuck in a long queue for the one person working that counter to get her bag back.

Vibes-wise, the atmosphere across the time at Wembley probably wasn't a patch on the previous two, but the main event was electric. Never been in an audience like it. There are going to be kids in that audience for whom this was their Bulldog and Bret at Summerslam '92. 

A couple of gripes:
1. I didn't like that we got no close-ups on the screens for wrestler's entrances, just their name graphic. You miss a big part of the presentation that way.
2. The two things I really disliked about this show were everybody in the Trios match freezing as it ticked over to the main show - AEW are normally good at avoiding the WWE-ism of "if it's not on camera, it doesn't exist", and a Battle Royal is the easiest possible match to look like you're working without actually doing anything, just get to the ropes and the corners and work someone over the ropes!
3. I hadn't thought about it before this show, but I hate "AND NEW" as a thing. There were graphics when a title changed hands where it said "AND NEW", but not what title they had won, like "AND NEW" is the important part. Hate it.


Ospreay and Omega was obviously match of the night, and likely a strong candidate for match of the year. I wasn't sure about the presentation at first, dreaded the idea of Callum Newman being in Ospreay's corner because I thought introducing someone who has barely been a presence on AEW  TV at all as part of a main event on the biggest show of the year was a bad move, but actually just treating the seconds as seconds rather than as a means to get to an angle all added to a genuine big fight feel, way beyond what wrestling is usually capable of pulling off. 

Any other night, Mercedes Mone vs. Willow Nightingale would have been match of the night. Any other night without either of the top two matches on the card, Jon Moxley vs. Nigel McGuinness could have been match of the night. So could Takeshita/Okada/Fletcher. The Tag Title match was maybe Cope's best match since his return from injury. 

The other matches on the main show were largely fine to good. The Women's Tag Title match didn't do much for me, but was perfectly acceptable wrestling, and I'm glad Jamie Hayter finally got her Wembley match. The Trios Title match was a bit of a mess, not helped by the fact that live they didn't really explain the rules, or the "everybody stops wrestling" section, but it was a means to an end to debut The New Level - and I loved that the audience immediately pivoted to doing the "New Day Rocks" cadence to "New Lev-el". I thought Darby Allin vs. Kevin Knight was all a bit of an unstructured mess, but we got the Sting Wembley run-in, and a great moment from Steve Borden Jr, as well as the expected massive daft Darby bump, so it did what it needed to do.

 

I was off on a bunch of predictions, and I always try and recognise where I'm disappointed because what I wanted/expected didn't happen, rather than because the company didn't deliver on something. I thought the Casino Gauntlet was a little underwhelming, and was surprised by the lack of surprises, but they never really built that match up as an "anyone might show up!" situation, and had largely announced who was in it and made it clear it was the MJF/Andrade show - and I was pleasantly surprised that MJF didn't win it. In hindsight, another ex-WWE debut here would have risked overshadowing The New Level, and if they are planning on bringing in somebody like Sheamus or Ilja Dragunov, that can happen later, when there's a spotlight on them specifically.

Biggest surprise result for me, though, was Cope and Cage retaining. I felt for sure that it would be the Bucks winning, getting to a three-way with FTR later down the line, and getting the first ball rolling on the C&C retirement run - it's actually not unfeasible at this point that the Bucks might retire before Cope and Cage do! I enjoyed the aftermath of this, even though "wrestlers walk out to the ring and then just stare at each other" was a bit too WWE for my tastes, a bit too "they'll pop for the music, we don't need to deliver anything beyond that", especially when you're watching live and you just have to watch the teams all skulk back to the locker room without having done anything. I'm glad they're putting the Motor City Machine Guns on the level of the other teams in there, though. My first thought that this is all leading to a TLC match for the belts, though I could see it being a big tag team tournament too, there have been whispers of that for a while.

I really thought we were getting a big Death Riders angle on this show. I assumed Moxley was going to finish off Nigel in the ring to end his career, and then on Dynamite that would be pivoted towards a Moxley/Ospreay feud. Especially when they put Bryan Danielson on commentary, that felt certain something was going on there. I still suspect it's Nigel's last match, and after it was clear they weren't doing a Death Riders gimmick, I thought he was going to leave his boots in the ring. And then for the end of Ospreay walking through all the figures from his past on his way to the ring, which I thought was a really nice touch, for Moxley to be the last one there...I still find it mad that the end of the whole Ospreay/Death Riders story was that Ospreay never got revenge for having his neck broken, and the Death Riders never particularly cared that Ospreay quit the group, and even now Mox is there endorsing him and looking out for him. It worked in this instance, but what a bizarre waste of a few months that storyline was.

[Chili]

I'm getting a feeling from Cope's performance in the match that the story will be Cage & Cope knowing they've not got nine lives anymore and will go more heel to keep the titles or lean way into it. I absolutely love their current run as the grumpy old men.

[Statto]

10 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Biggest surprise result for me, though, was Cope and Cage retaining.

I wonder if that was partly down to every other belt defended on the show changing hands?

On reflection I think Darby leaving with the TNT belt was a misstep - you could have done exactly the same "match" with exactly the same stunts at the end, but sold it as an "oh god they're both dead" thing and have Knight just about drape a hand over Darby for the fall in the midst of the chaos (with the back-up plan being sending Callis to sneak out and pull him on top if they ended up too far apart to make it natural)

[HarmonicGenerator]

20 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

1. I didn't like that we got no close-ups on the screens for wrestler's entrances, just their name graphic. You miss a big part of the presentation that way.

Agree with this gripe, which was Mrs HG’s biggest disappointment from the show. She wanted to see everyone’s big-show-entrance getups and, despite there being enough screens around to do that, we didn’t get to see any of it until I watched a few bits back on MyAEW last night. Should be an easy thing to sort in future - they’re already filming the entrances, after all. Especially in the Gauntlet where you could only just see things like Garcia attacking Mistico, explaining why his music cut off at the best bit.

Of those outfits, Ospreay’s was great and we assumed those were osprey feathers on it (they’re endangered Will! Don’t do it!), Mercedes’ really cool especially the ermine on her elbow pads, Willow’s chest cannons bizarre, and my wife’s favourites actually ended up being Harley and Stat on the preshow with their complementary Captain Marvel attires.

[Olly1984]

 Amazing PPV, even though had lot of things going against me to fuck it up. Booked hotel 5 months ago, cancelled booking Saturday morning!! Found somewhere to stay but shit hole is being too kind😂. Had seats pitch side, must have culled all the twats away from you guys and put them all in Section K. 

But was a great show regardless and if someone could tell me how to attach pics etc I've got some cracking ones I would love to share with you all. Roll on February 

[DavidB6937]

4 minutes ago, Olly1984 said:

 Amazing PPV, even though had lot of things going against me to fuck it up. Booked hotel 5 months ago, cancelled booking Saturday morning!! Found somewhere to stay but shit hole is being too kind😂. Had seats pitch side, must have culled all the twats away from you guys and put them all in Section K. 

But was a great show regardless and if someone could tell me how to attach pics etc I've got some cracking ones I would love to share with you all. Roll on February 

https://imgbb.com/ is fairly decent - just upload a photo, copy the direct link and use 'insert image from URL' in the bottom right hand corner here. Probably good to shove them under a spoiler tag (the eye in the top left corner),

[Olly1984]

49 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

https://imgbb.com/ is fairly decent - just upload a photo, copy the direct link and use 'insert image from URL' in the bottom right hand corner here. Probably good to shove them under a spoiler tag (the eye in the top left corner),

Cheers David, will have a mess around after work. 

[gmoney]

I thought of you @BomberPat during the Trios match and the Casino gauntlet match when the guys were sprawled out doing absolutely fuck all for minutes on end when something else was going on on camera. Not one of you wankers can put on a headlock or something?

[Onyx2]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

1. I didn't like that we got no close-ups on the screens for wrestler's entrances, just their name graphic. You miss a big part of the presentation that way.

Is it to force everyone to try and look in that direction, and it looks better on camera? (I don't agree with the idea, just thinking).

[DavidB6937]

I kept getting confused as to why the wrestlers just kept appearing on the ramp - where were they coming from?

[gaz2050]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

I kept getting confused as to why the wrestlers just kept appearing on the ramp - where were they coming from?

There was a side ramp on the right of the stage (as you're facing towards the entrance) that wrestlers kept coming from, from under the stage. Not quite sure what purpose it served to be honest as opposed to just coming down the main entrance 

[DavidB6937]

3 minutes ago, gaz2050 said:

There was a side ramp on the right of the stage (as you're facing towards the entrance) that wrestlers kept coming from, from under the stage. Not quite sure what purpose it served to be honest as opposed to just coming down the main entrance 

Ah that makes sense, maybe they just didn't want the long entrance for everyone for timing. It just looked weird watching it on TV.