Pruett’s Pause: AEW All In Texas – “Hangman” Adam Page and AEW find their soul again, “Timeless” Toni Storm and Mercedes Moné produce a modern classic, and more

By Will Pruett, ProWrestling.net Co-Senior Staffer (@itswilltime)

On May 29, 2022 “Hangman” Adam Page lost the AEW World Championship and AEW lost its soul. The decision to move the world title to CM Punk appeared to be obvious then, but only disaster would follow. Three days later Punk would attempt to dive into a crowd in Inglewood and injure his foot. This would set in motion a tailspin for Punk and AEW that lead to an eventual very painful separation. Even last year at All In, almost a full year after Punk had left the company, his ghost still haunted those halls.

In the three years since Page lost the title to Punk, AEW tried desperately to make a relationship work that would not work. They tried to turn themselves into a promotion they were never meant to be. Like a friend in a bad relationship that causes them to change in negative ways, we watched AEW become a shell of itself – sometimes seeming more like the era of WWE it promised to never be.

“Hangman” Adam Page spent this time wandering in the wilderness as well. While the last year of his career has seen his well documented feud with Swerve Strickland reach absurd heights of both violence and villainy, he lost himself. Page, loved by fans from the beginning of AEW, even when he did not do the right things, found himself as the primary antagonist for Strickland.

The Anxious Millennial Cowboy fans believed in at the end of 2021 as AEW reached its creative apex was gone. In his place stood a man determined to take everything away from one wrestler, with his reputation and relationship with the crowd taking a major hit because of it. While some would say “Hangman Page did nothing wrong” most would say that Page’s actions were damaging – particularly to Page himself.

Over the past year, from the moment Bryan Danielson won the AEW World Championship at All In 2024 to the present moment when “Hangman” Adam Page opened the briefcase and lifted the championship into the air, AEW has been on a path to find its soul. Jon Moxley ended Danielson’s career and promised to remove weakness from the entire company.

Moxley would have an uneven title reign from October to this past Saturday. While his in-ring work was good and often surprisingly brutal, the story around him would sometimes lack cohesion. We saw disappointing pay-per-view main events at AEW World’s End and Revolution. Fans clamored for this title reign to end. Moxley could be more boring than exciting and seemed more focused on taking joy away from fans than having a great reign as champion.

As Revolution drew to a close, the focus of AEW honed in. When Swerve Strickland appeared and attacked Moxley, we finally had a convincing challenger and a cohesive story appearing in front of us. Swerve would go into AEW Dynasty as the challenger for the AEW World Championship and Adam Page would have a choice to make about keeping his promise to never let Swerve hold that title again.

Page’s choice would be inconclusive, as The Young Bucks would get involved and help Moxley, setting up Swerve’s path to facing them with a partner at All In.

At the same time, Page began his path through The Owen Hart Tournament and a path of redemption. With each victory, earned through doing the right thing not through illicit means, Page seemed more and more himself. His eyes opened wider. His heart seemed to be repairing itself in front of us.

When he told Will Ospreay that this is his story of redemption, fans could believe him. After he defeated Ospreay, he made the world a promise to go on to All In and win. Page did not break his promise.

As a promotion, AEW made a promise to all of us. If you stick with this story and allow Jon Moxley to reset the top of the card, it will be worth it. At times this promise was hard to keep. I was disappointed in parts of Moxley’s reign. I lacked confidence in AEW sticking the landing, particularly after buying into the idea of Swerve Strickland winning at Dynasty. However the promotion made a promise and the promotion kept it.

More and more clicked into place for AEW as it aligned itself behind Adam Page as a lead star. Just like in 2021 when Page was ascending against Kenny Omega, AEW reached a creative peak. Up and down the card we see wrestlers in the right spots. We have more focused TV shows. We have AEW finding itself again.

When the name “AEW” was revealed on Being The Elite in 2019, it was “Hangman” Adam Page who showed it to the others. Page was the first unproven homegrown bet AEW made when it first began and the first star AEW created. Page has been the avatar of the good and bad of AEW at various times. In Adam Page AEW found not just its name, but its heart and soul.

The journey back to the top, for both Page and AEW, has been hard. The demons they have needed to exorcise have been massive. The mistakes they have made have been damaging. Page and AEW are not the bright and shiny optimists they seemed to be in 2019 and 2021, but world weary and tired. At the same time, Page and AEW have seen the best in each other and brought out the best in their fans.

At the post-show press conference on Sunday, Adam Page said “I knew that this championship was my potential as a person and I needed to know, both professionally and personally, that I could live up to it – that I could do this again.” The same is true for AEW as a company living up to the potential of Hangman Page as a standard bearer.

After years of broken relationships, failing to live up their potential, and disappointment, AEW and Adam Page have both found themselves again. The heart and soul of AEW is back on top of the promotion after walking through fire, glass, nails, and barbed wire.

And now for some random thoughts:

– For my full breakdown of AEW All In Texas, check out my live blog from the show, including reactions from the press box on Saturday. I won’t touch on every match or point here, because I already wrote so much there.

– Toni Storm and Mercedes Moné had a truly amazing match at All In Texas – fitting its main event billing and the build up to it. Since Moné’s AEW debut, these two have been the centerpiece stars of the women’s division and have seen the division itself rise to a higher level with them on top. Mercedes, a wrestler I have spent a decade calling the best big match performer of this generation, proved again to be the absolute best. Storm, with her unique mix of character and quality wrestling, brought even more out of herself and Mercedes than we have seen before.

This match would have fit in going on last on any major show. From the entrances to Storm’s eventual victory, Moné and Storm impressed. I cannot wait to see what these two could do in a rematch and where these two wrestlers go with such a great division behind them.

– Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada for the AEW Unified Championship felt like a let down during the evening. I would not say it was a bad match, but I do believe using their legacy of (perhaps) the best wrestling matches of all time in 2017 and 2018 set my expectations too high. Okada and Omega had a basic match that never shifted into the high gear their 2010s efforts were famous for.

The true letdown came as the finishing sequence seemed to end abruptly and early – not carry on for multiple near falls. While this match was necessary once both men were in AEW and well promoted for this show, it may have been unfair to set expectations as high as I, and many watching, did.

The interference from Don Callis does have me wondering whether these two were saving something for another encounter down the line. The series between them is now tied at 2-2-1 and it would be logical, after the rule clarification Tony Khan offered saying that Continental Championship rules will apply to future matches, for them to return to this.

If a return to Omega vs. Okada happens, I would expect them to top this match easily. Perhaps this would happen on a night when these two could be in the actual last match on the show, truly main eventing.

– The production effort from AEW, both in the building and on TV was admirable. This is a promotion that has had to dress small arena crowds up as huge, adapt to shooting wrestling in 2,000 seat theaters, and has risen to the challenge of large stadium shows. I thought All In Texas was their best looking show to date and each person on AEW’s production staff should be really happy with the work they did.

– The Young Bucks vs. Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay continued a truly great run from The Young Bucks since their return in April. This is my favorite iteration of them yet in AEW and it feels the truest to who they were in the early 2010s in Reseda, California. This was an insane tag match that could have fit into that humid building, but instead it lit a stadium sized crowd on fire.

Ospreay and Swerve staying in the AEW Championship picture makes total sense. I would also love to see one or both of them chase after the Unified Championship, if there is a goal to make that title feel more important. AEW has a great top three babyface roster right now with Swerve, Ospreay, and Hangman. The challenge moving forward will be how to use them and how to keep them in compelling stories.

– AEW’s women’s division showed up in a major way at All In. Following the crowd investment and insanity of the Bucks vs. Ospreay and Swerve was not easy, but they were up for the task. Surprise entrances and debuts really showed off the newfound depth in this division. Athena winning the Women’s Casino Gauntlet Match was a nice capstone to her great weekend of work.

My hope is that Athena moves full time to AEW, even if she remains ROH Women’s Champion. It is time for one of the best performers in wrestling to be featured on a weekly basis on a TV show that actually exists. Athena deserves some deep focus in AEW and hopefully and upcoming story with Toni Storm will give her just that.

– I am sure everyone in wrestling is sending out their best thoughts, vibes, prayers, and encouragement to Adam Cole. It was heartbreaking to see him give up the TNT Championship and announce that he is stepping away to get better. The news that he is once again suffering from concussion symptoms is heartbreaking. Best wishes to Cole. Whether or not he wrestles again, his career will go down as a truly expansive one – starting out under WWE’s monopoly era, seeing indie wrestling grow and flourish, and finally making his mark in major promotions on an international scale.

– While I went into this show expecting Kyle Fletcher to become TNT Champion and looking forward to that possibility, I commend to choice to go with Dustin Rhodes here. This show needed some form of catharsis after Adam Cole’s announcement and Texas-native Dustin Rhodes finally winning the big one gave fans just that moment.

Dustin tearing up as Aubrey Edwards handed him the TNT Championship will be one of the lasting images from All In Texas and should be on a highlight reel for AEW for years to come. We come to wrestling for moments of emotional release like this and AEW delivered.

– Finally, some notes on this becoming the longest pay-per-view of all time. While I try my best not to lead with “wow that was long” criticism when talking about AEW, their habit of going long must be noticed. This show started at 2:00pm and ended at almost 8:00pm. I am a fan of giving fans their money’s worth and making sure no one walks away disappointed, but you also risk hurting your ability to draw some of those fans again when shows go this long.

Most people have a set amount of time they can pay attention to one thing and wrestling shows already stretch that to a breaking point sometimes. AEW, with a show this long, is risking people tuning out or getting distracted before their climactic main event. The fans were invested in hour six here, but that will not always be the case. AEW would be in a stronger position if they left a little bit off of this card.

Looking at the matches (and not including the preshow), I would suggest cutting the tag and trios title matches from this show and trimming ten minutes out of the Men’s Casino Gauntlet Match. I know these choices are hard to make, but they would benefit AEW in the long run.

The best reviewed set of special events in modern wrestling history were the old NXT Takeover shows and a large part of why was their five-match format. I get why AEW, who are still asking fans to spend $50 to watch their shows, don’t cut all the way down to five matches. I would suggest seven or eight on the main cards in the future.

Will Pruett writes about wrestling and popular culture at prowrestling.net. To see his video content subscribe to his YouTube channel. To contact, check him out on Bluesky @itswilltime, leave a comment, or email him at itswilltime@gmail.com.