I don’t attend much live wrestling. The UK scene has been horrible for many years now, I have no desire to ever go to a WWE show, and I’m not going to travel to Germany, let alone outside of Europe, to watch wrestling. This is to say that the big London AEW events of the last three years have been the only way I experience live wrestling, and I’ve hated going every single time. It’s not always the fault of the shows, though they often don’t help, but I think I’m just not one for the live wrestling experience.

We looked into getting press tickets after the violent people present at ROH Death Before Dishonour, but were denied. Every match will be deducted half a star because of this. Add to that the fact that a lot of the Tube is down right now for repairs, making travelling to and getting back home from the event much harder, and I thought about skipping this year’s show. But because I love this site, violent people, and my tickets were only £17, I decided to head off.

The travel there and back was actually a non-issue; this was the easiest journey I’ve ever had for one of these shows. As I arrived at Wembley, I silently judged everyone for their choice of wrestling merch because they’re lame wrestling fans who like MJF and Will Ospreay, while I’m a cool wrestling fan who likes SLADE and Danshoku Dino.

A lot of people are wearing wrestling shirts that are made to look like football shirts, and I’m sorry, they all look so awful and tacky. It’s especially ironic that a lot of them wear Ospreay shirts given his recent admission that he wasn’t into football at all.

On merch, it’s a tired point, but AEW do suck at merch. I attended this show thinking maybe I’ll pick up a Moxley or Willow shirt, but I couldn’t. I checked a bunch of different merch stands, and they all sold the same thing: one Will Ospreay shirt, one Kenny Omega shirt, and all the rest was merch for AEW itself or, even worse, merch for the event itself. Shirts that say ‘ALL IN 2026 I WAS THERE’. I don’t need a shirt to tell me where I was, that’s what memories are for.

Clearly, the shirts were selling because I saw a bunch of people wearing them, so what do I know?

I made my way to my section, way up in the clouds, and looked to grab myself a drink before the show started. It was here I learned a beer cost £8 and was a Budweiser. It was then I made the brave choice to watch the show sober.

There were a bunch of empty seas around met with no one sitting to the left, right, or in front of me. AEW’s death is clearly imminent.

I took my seat and got ready for the pre-show to begin…

Lio Rush, Dezmond Xavier, Myron Reed & Zachary Wentz vs. Action Andretti, Anthony Bowens, Hook & Katsuyori Shibata

Yes, I purposely didn’t zoom in for these photos because I thought it would be funny. I was correct.

There’s not a lot to say about some of these pre-show matches. They tried to do the most, and none of it worked. I wish Shibata got better stuff to do. Oh well, what are you gonna do?

Rating: ¾  

Harley Cameron & Kris Statlander vs. Julia Hart & Skye Blue

I know Kris Statlander is a really good wrestler. I know Skye Blue is often capable of being a good wrestler. Why, oh why, was so much of this match centred around Harley Cameron vs. Julia Hart, two very bad wrestlers?

This sucked. Skye and Statlander didn’t even look that good when they were involved, though it was clearly an improvement. I wish Skye Blue was bleeding.

Rating: ¾ 

Big Boom AJ, QT Marshall Bobby Lashley & Shelton Benjamin vs. Carlie Bravo, Lee Moriarty, Shane Taylor & Shawn Dean

Big Boom AJ was the most over person on this entire show, and Bobby Lashley was a close second. I loved this. Perfect wrestling. A pure crowd-pleaser.

It was really amplified by being there live. Yelling “BOOM!” every time he hit a punch is a high you just can’t deny. My only criticism is that the Rizzler wasn’t there in person.

Rating: 💥💥💥

Maya World vs. Persephone

Just a bad wrestling match. I know both these wrestlers have had good matches, but they certainly didn’t have one here. The match ending in a Britt Baker interference spot is very funny. Maya World vs. Britt Baker, the match that changed the world.

Gotta say, Britt was very over.

Rating: *

Trios Roulette Royale

A really awkward match, with them wanting the match to start on the pre-show but have it lead into the proper show, with The New Day, now The New Level, making their debut.

This led to a long, long, lonnnnnngggg heel beatdown that was really boring. The worst part of a battle royal, and trust me, I know, is the nothing kicking in the corner to fill time, and that’s what so much of this match was.

The debut itself was fun.

Rating: * 1/2

Lena Kross & Megan Bayne vs. Alex Windsor & Jamie Hayter

I think American companies overestimate the power of a home-country pop. It’s certainly not enough to overcome wrestling’s fan misogyny. The crowd was dead for this match, and the action gave them very little reason to change that.

Hayter was neat, and her lariats are still sick. I’ve been reliably informed that Alex Windsor did not yell her name like a Pokémon, and that’s a disappointment.

Rating: **

Jon Moxley vs. Nigel McGuinness

I’m very grateful that Nigel, where we’re on a first-name basis, has returned to in-ring action, but I do think there’s a clunkiness to his matches that holds his bouts back a bit. That isn’t to say his matches are bad, I loved this match. It’s just a consistent criticism I have with his work.

This match is just right up my alley. Mox’s targeting of Nigel’s foot is just delightfully sick, and Nigel’s attempted comeback works extremely well. So much fun stuff in here: the wrapping of his foot tape around Mox’s mouth, and while I didn’t get it watching it live, Nigel driving his chin into Moxley’s forearm is the spot of the year.

The finale sequence, where Nigel is fingertips away from the rope but has to tap, is why we watch this shit. Maybe a bit too long, though.

Rating: *** ½ 

Kyle Fletcher vs. Kazuchika Okada vs. Konosuke Takeshita

This is not normally a style of match I enjoy, and in fact, I think if I were to watch this through my shitty laptop screen, I’m sure I wouldn’t have. But this is a match where the live experience really adds to it, and I had a lot of fun with this.

The three-way structure really allows the match to have that fast-paced action without leaning too much into no-selling, though the match is not completely free of that sin. It only really gets too bad with Fletcher getting straight back up from Takeshita’s Blue Thunder Bomb. That Blue Thunder bomb was very sick though.

The rest of this match is just cool move after cool move, with the highlight being Takeshita’s double pin. Goes against my principles of what good wrestling is, but principles are for suckers, and this rocked.

Rating: *** ¼ 

Casino Gauntlet 

A similar story to the previous match: AEW have developed a great house style for these fun, fast multi-man matches. More importantly, AEW have created such a great cast of characters that just seeing them interact will naturally lead to fun and funny moments.

This is seen with Andrade and MJF going dick for dick. This is the perfect use of MJF, just going full ham. Even Justin Roberts getting Komander’s and Mistico’s names mixed up adds to this.

To stop this review from becoming just me listing off fun bits, this was a really fun match.

Rating: *** ¼ 

Adam Copeland & Christian Cage vs. Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson

Now, I gave some low ratings to the matches on the pre-show. But those matches don’t matter; they’re an excuse to get people on the card. Them being bad is fine. Really, I shouldn’t give those matches ratings, but there’s something wrong with me, so I do.

This match does matter. This match is supposed to be something. This match is dogshit. Pure and utter dogshit. An all-time misreading of what the crowd wants. A 2026 babyface Bucks match built around limb work. What the fuck were they thinking? From the entrances alone, you can tell this crowd is not going to boo Copeland and Cage.

And the action is so boring. This was so long and so trash. I love The Bucks; they’re like my third-favourite tag team of all time, but please God, retire. Utter trash. Worst match of the year. Fuck.

Rating: DUD

This match was so bad I knew I couldn’t watch the rest of this show sober, so I bought a beer. It cost too much, didn’t taste good, but I liked the cup.

Kevin Knight vs. Darby Allin

Okay, back to good wrestling. A match built around two moments: Sting’s run-in and Darby’s death defying leap.

I understand if some people are sick of Sting getting involved in all of Darby’s big matches, but you’re wrong. Sting is sick, and every time he runs in, it will be sick. It was certainly my pop of the night.

For the big bump, I’m sure this was safer than it looked, but it was still so rad. In between these moments are also some cool Darby bumps, including his balls-first bump onto the chairs and him diving through a table Knight was holding up. Both were highlights.

Maybe they went to the interference a bit too early, but it wasn’t too bad. El Hijo de Sting shows a lot of promise.

Not the greatest Darby-death match, but still very sick.

Rating: ****

Willow Nightingale vs. Mercedes Mone

Mercedes adds another notch to her undeniable case as the greatest American women’s wrestler of all time, and Willow ain’t too far off in second.

Like most good things, there’s a great cruelty to this match. Especially from Mone, in how she targets Willow’s broken hand and forces a smile during a submission hold. Willow isn’t all sunshine and rainbows either, with her unapologetic mocking of Mone’s busted nose.

Mone goes semi-Joey Mercury here and accidentally gives this show some much-needed blood. Just two pros who wrestle exactly the match you want. I hope Willow has a quick recovery, but wow, did her breaking her hand add a lot to this match.

The only negative is how Aubrey botched the finish. She needed about two more seconds because Willow was clearly not out yet.

Rating: ****

Would have been a fiver if we got a Willow blade job.

Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay 

I bought a second beer. It was the same.

Despite some cynicism in this piece, and the general idea that this isn’t my type of wrestling, I was willing to turn off that part of my mind and throw myself into this match. I don’t want to have a bad time. I wanted to go all in.

But then Will Ospreay comes out to a video package from his mum about how he’s such a special boy, and he waves around a Union Jack. That wasn’t great, but then Kenny Omega has a My Hero Academia-themed video package, and I’m sorry, maybe it’s childish, maybe it’s mean, I’m writing a review of a wrestling show, so clearly I’m not the coolest cat around, but it’s just so goddamn lame.

My Hero Academia is lame even by anime standards. To quote Simon of Handwerk Review in the Violent People Discord: “I don’t know what it even is but the sentence ‘the world champion is coming out in front of 40000 people to the My Hero Academia theme song’ activates something in me.”

Also, the Violent People fantasy football draft had just started, so yeah, I wasn’t in the best of moods going into this match. I did draft a cool team, though. Check it out!

Now, as for the match itself, it was not bad. I’ll even go as far as to say it was good. It’s just that this match has to be the greatest match of all time. That is the goal. Which means none of it feels authentic to me.

Of course he kicked out of the One-Winged Angel. This is the greatest match ever. Of course Kenny kicked out at one. This is the greatest match ever. This issue plagues the entire bout.

My favourite match is Terry Funk vs. Atsushi Onita. Before that match happened, I don’t think the two men went to one another and said, “Let’s have the best match ever.” They wanted to put on something that would make fans buy another ticket.

Maybe the tides in wrestling have just changed, but this just didn’t fully work for me.

However, this is a good match. Kenny puts in a real solid shift as a crazed heel, and Ospreay cuts back on a lot of his worst Ospreay-isms.

Rating: ***

Same as the Big Boom AJ match. Bite me.

Final thoughts 

Hey, I’m lower on some matches than others, but I had a great time at All In 2026. I mean this as the greatest compliment: AEW have mastered the fun, crowd-pleasing match. This is what made the Casino Royal, Knight vs. Darby, and the National Title three-way so good, and this isn’t an easy thing to accomplish. This is also helped by that I wasn’t sat next to annoying people which is rare for UK shows

What AEW struggles with is when it asks you to take things seriously. This is why the tag title match was terrible and why Omega vs. Ospreay didn’t fully click with me. It’s an issue that’s always existed with AEW. When MJF goes serious, it’s god-awful.

But good serious wrestling is Mox, Mone, and Bryan when he used to wrestle. Now, AEW could become a better wrestling company, or take my advice and become less serious.

Either way, I’ll be back next year, so TK can rest easy.