By Will Pruett, ProWrestling.net Co-Senior Staffer (@itswilltime)
What makes a slam grand? Is a slam born grand? Does a slam become grand when it has grandness thrust upon it? You know what, here are some thoughts!
– Arena Mexico looked absolutely amazing for this show and seemed packed to the rafters. This crowd was insanely hot and really fun to watch. I wish AEW had done more with the look and feel of this one – even showing fans on the streets outside of Arena Mexico and some overhead shots of the arena. I don’t want the full overly polished WWE approach to each location, but when an arena is this special, AEW should do a bit more to make it feel that way to fans at home.
– MJF’s return on this show felt major league, and MJF rolling out the “real world champion” gimmick should be fun. Will MJF have more success with this than CM Punk did leading into All In 2023? My biggest question is about MJF entering the Casino Gauntlet at All In for the second year in a row. This feels like a step down for a star who has been having an amazing year both as a character and as a wrestler in the ring. I’d rather see Andrade El Idolo and MJF wrestle with the Dynamite Diamond Ring or Triple B on the line at Wembley Stadium than both men in the Casino Gauntlet Match.
– Will Ospreay vs. Mark Davis was a tremendous main event with some really intense violence that surprised me. Ospreay has every reason to go after Davis after his loss to him (that led to Ospreay’s eventual kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome), but that amount of violence after Davis already lost a return match to Ospreay was surprising. The Barbed Wire Hidden Blade that ended the match looked cool as hell though.
– Mark Davis has been an AEW MVP through the first half of this year. His performances in big matches have been exciting and really good. I’ve changed my opinion on him as a wrestler from “good hand” to “damn, this guy is a star” over the last few months.
– Adam Copeland and Christian Cage slowly building tension with The Young Bucks has begun! Did they need to team together this week? Absolutely not. Will they likely do so again? Of course! I liked the backstage sit-down promo from these two teams last week more than this match against the Death Riders. I wonder if Christian Cage influenced Adam Copeland to become a true hater.
– Between weirdly wrestling a stuffed animal and weirdly wrestling pants, Tommaso Ciampa has led me to doubt his instincts as a serious wrestling heel. Was Ciampa attempting to draw xenophobic heat with the plethora of American flags? What is Ciampa’s character and motivation now? He hates inanimate objects and will punish them? I’ve rarely seen a wrestler debut to such excitement then get cooled off this fast.
– Hangman Adam Page has returned to the ring! And he has returned to the AEW Trios Championship! This time Page is teaming with Bandido and Brody King. This was a nice moment for these three wrestlers and a fun way to ease Page back into the AEW picture. I don’t mind rapid-fire Trios Championship changes, because in my mind, that was always the idea with these belts. They are something closer to TV titles, not World titles. Making the matches for them exciting and less predictable is fun. I truly hope we get to see that Buckshot Lariat and 21 Plex combination again – not since the Buckshot V Trigger combo have I enjoyed a tag team move that much.
– Mercedes Moné dropped a rare pinfall in AEW to Willow Nightingale on this show. It was interesting to see this, as Devine Dominion do not usually lose in any fashion and the Brawling Birds needed a win over the Women’s Tag Team Champions to make their Wembley Stadium match make sense. Was this just a convenient way to get there? Will Mercedes and The Devine Dominion have a falling out over this? Is Willow just that good at backslides?
– I greatly appreciate that AEW rolled video packages on this show (which was packed with a lot of content) for their Men’s and Women’s World Championship matches at All In. This is part of how you make a match feel as important as possible, even multiple weeks out. If you’ve told people this main event match matters over and over, ideally they will believe you when the bell rings at Wembley Stadium.
– Kyle Fletcher vs. Speedball Mike Bailey for the AEW International Championship was an absolute delight of a match. These two have been really great together on multiple occasions in AEW, and this was no exception. The quick shift after this match to Okada (a legendary hater throughout this show) entering telegraphed what is next for Fletcher really well. This was some nicely executed professional wrestling.
A great night of wrestling from AEW delivering what felt like a three-hour pay-per-view on weekly television.
Will Pruett writes about wrestling and popular culture at prowrestling.net. To see his video content, subscribe to his YouTube channel. To contact him, check him out on Bluesky @itswilltime, leave a comment, or email him at itswilltime@gmail.com.
While I agree with your praise of both men; MJF and Andrade wrestling for the triple B or Diamond Ring? Seriously?? AEW has 87 titles already, we don’t need main event guys wrestling for made-up titles as well.
It is worth noting that the diamond ring is actually defended occasionally in AEW canon. I understand your overall point though. Mine is that I’d rather see Andrade vs. MJF in a singles match and not as part of the gauntlet.