AEW All In Texas was a truly epic wrestling show, pushing the boundaries of how much hot graps an audience can endure. The main show was an astonishing SIX hours, and yet somehow aside from a few lulls during the less important matches, the Arlington crowd was up for all of it, especially the main event. That the fans were so nuclear for Jon Moxley vs. Hangman Page so far into the show says a lot about how compelling this story has been. Compare that with WrestleMania 35 for example, where the WWE audience was super excited for Becky Lynch to headline the show, until she actually did, five and a half hours later in front of an exhausted crowd. The level of heat for a match so deep into a show is in itself a remarkable achievement. This was one of those shows where you want to say "That was amazing, Tony. Now let's never do that again."
The Texas Death Match was as expected a veritable bloodbath with a bunch of interference at the end. But the rest of the show was wisely booked without blood and without much outside the ring shenanigans, to set the main event apart. Mox and Page used lots of weapons (the most visceral moment came early when Page took out a fork and in real time poked holes in Mox's forehead), built to lots of false finishes, and incorporated run-ins by not only the Death Riders but Will Ospreay, the Young Bucks, and a returning Bryan Danielson and Darby Allin; the latter repelled from the stadium's ceiling. But it was the involvement of Swerve Strickland that proved the most memorable, as after Prince Nana handcuffed Marina Shafir to a table, Swerve knocked out the Bucks with the chain Hangman had given him on Collision and slid it into the ring. As Swerve looked on smiling, Hangman used the chain to once again choke Moxley out (after hitting a Buckshot Lariat that deposited Mox on a bed of nails), shades of their previous Texas Death Match. Moxley sold this brilliantly, flailing for his life for several seconds, before tapping out. And Globe Life Field EXPLODED in cheers. This was one of the all-time great match-ending pops, the culmination of literal years of the emotional roller coaster that has been Hangman's arc. Another incredible pop followed soon after, as Page finally freed the AEW Title from its briefcase prison and held it up, tears in his eyes. An absolute masterpiece of a Texas Death match, followed by chill-inducing catharsis. ******
Circling back to the start, the show opened with the Trios Championships, as The Opps defended against Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, and hired gun Gabe Kidd, in a solid outing. This wasn't on the level of the Spring Break-Thru match where The Opps won the titles, but it was a fine way to kick off the show. Samoa Joe defeated Yuta with the Muscle Buster, but in the post-match the Death Riders beat him down and Pillmanized his neck with a chair, thus keeping him from having Page's back later in the night. ***1/2
The men's Casino Gauntlet was next, and while a perfectly entertaining match, went WAY longer than it needed to. There were 14 total participants, but the match ran just under 35 minutes. Gettin' to be a lot, guys. Anyway, MJF and Mark Briscoe started things before being joined by Ricochet, Bandido (who got a lot of time to shine), Takeshita, Mistico (who tried to get the crowd singing along to his theme but it didn't really work), Josh Alexander, Anthony Bowens (sans Billy Gunn), Brody King, a returning Juice Robinson, Kota Ibushi, The Beast Mortos, and finally Max Caster, who got taken out immediately by Roderick Strong, not even making it into the ring. Mark Briscoe had Strong beaten after a Jay Driller but MJF tossed Mark out and stole the pin. Fun match but should've been ten minutes shorter. ***1/2
Next up was a very sad moment as TNT Champion Adam Cole came out to address the crowd and relinquish the title. A teary-eyed Cole said he wasn't cleared to compete and would have to go away for a while, but wasn't in a good place to decide whether he would need to retire. This sorrow cast a pall over the first part of the 4-way match for the vacant belt, but Dustin Rhodes, Sammy Guevara, Daniel Garcia and Kyle Fletcher did their best. This match was very solid and boasted a lot of action before Dustin countered a Dragon Tamer with a flash rollup, stunning the crowd with his first-ever AEW title win. This feelgood moment made up for the somberness that began the match. Kyle Fletcher will mostly likely win the belt from Dustin in fairly short order. ***1/4
The first great match of the night pitted the Young Bucks against Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland, and contrary to the usual tag team match flow, the heel Bucks dominated the early parts of the match, the story being that their years of tag team continuity proved advantageous. The crowd was pretty subdued for the first third of this match as a result, but things picked up once the babyfaces made their comeback and the crazy exchanges started flying. There were nearfalls and false finishes galore as each team hit all their big stuff. But after taking Nick Jackson out on the floor with a Swerve Stomp, Swerve and Ospreay hit their simultaneous finishers on Matt to win, stripping the Bucks of their EVP status. I was actually surprised they went with the babyfaces here but I'll never be sad to see Hangman defend the big belt against either of these two. Excellent match. ****3/4
The women's Casino Gauntlet was slightly better and more fun than the men's I thought, and was certainly paced better, going 25 minutes instead of 35. Only 12 participants - Kris Statlander and Megan Bayne had some fun exchanges before being joined by Willow, Tay, Thekla, Julia Hart, Queen Aminata, Mina Shirakawa, Athena, Thunder Rosa, and the debuting Syuri and Alex Windsor. Everyone got their spots in but it was Athena who unexpected won in front of her home crowd, breaking up a Mina Shirakawa figure four attempt with the O-Face stunner. This was no doubt done to make everyone think Mercedes Moné would be winning the AEW Women's Title later on. Good gauntlet. ***3/4
The surprise hit of the night for me was the three-way Tag Title match, with The Hurt Syndicate defending against JetSpeed and Christian Cage & Nick Wayne. This got perhaps more time than it needed on such an already crazy-long show, but it was also a helluva lot of fun. FTR were at ringside doing commentary. The challenger teams got a lot of offense in despite no one thinking THS was going to lose. Bobby Lashley rammed Christian into FTR at ringside, drawing their ire, and they tried to get involved but Lashley threw Cage into them again before hitting a match-winning spear. FTR and Cage had words, and Nick Wayne and Kip Sabian came to his rescue, but he dismissed them. Suddenly Nick hit Cage with a Killswitch. FTR handed Nick chairs to set up a con-chair-to but Adam Copeland ran down with his spiked 2x4 and chased them all away. He then grabbed the mic and said to Christian "Go find yourself." Thus the road to All Out in Toronto begins. They have two months for Christian to regain his humanity and become a sympathetic character again, which should be interesting. Very good match. ****
I was pleasantly surprised that the triple main event was all saved for the end of the show. I've said this for a while now but I prefer NJPW's approach of building the show to a peak vs. the North American strategy of hot matches followed by buffer matches; NJPW's way moves the show along faster. I also just love the idea of a trilogy of top matches to close out a show.
Toni Storm vs. Mercedes Moné was wisely placed first of the three so they would have good crowd heat. These two put on an excellent match that didn't quite reach the heights of Toni vs. Mariah or Rhea-Bianca-IYO. They got a lot of time though and made the most of it. They built to a ton of nearfalls, with each woman kicking out of the other's finish, including Toni hitting three consecutives Storm Zeroes for a stunning false finish. They battled on the turnbuckles and Toni hit a Storm Zero off the second rope to retain the title, which as I said was absolutely the right move. Toni is the homegrown star (and a major one with crossover appeal at that), while Moné is the imported star with a long WWE track record. So this establishes firmly that Toni Storm is the woman to beat in AEW. Not the best women's match of all time, but a great match nonetheless. ****1/2
The semi-main slot went to Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega for the Unified Title. As expected, this was the worst Okada-Omega match to date, but it was also excellent. These two can't put on anything less than great. But it's not 2017-18, and both men are past their peak years. This was marketed as a "one last time" type match, but given the way the finish was booked I don't think we've seen the end of this feud. Don Callis and RPG Vice all got involved. Kota Ibushi chased away Trent and Rocky, but Callis actually broke up a One-Winged Angel pinfall by yanking referee Bryce Remsburg out. Aubrey Edwards ran down to finish the match, and Okada and Omega each kicked out of nearfalls, but after a Tilt-a-Whirl slam, Okada hit another Rainmaker to end it and become the first AEW Unified Champion. Great match, if not at the level of their previous work. Hopefully we'll see them get another chance to equal their NJPW epics. ****3/4
So yeah, this show was a goddamn banger, the best All In show to date, and despite being one of the longest wrestling shows ever, the crowd never lost interest in the big matches. Page's title win is one of the greatest feelgood moments I've ever seen on a wrestling show and I'm excited to see what his second reign looks like. They just need to give him emotional feuds going forward; the biggest issue last time was he had great title defenses but nothing personal at stake. Hopefully that will be corrected this time.
Best Match: Jon Moxley vs. Hangman Page
Worst Match: The TNT Title 4-way, which was still good
What I'd Change: Shorten the two Gauntlets, the TNT match and the Tag Title match (as fun as that was). For a six-hour show this never dragged the way those super-long WrestleManias did, but it still could've been trimmed to five and a half.
Most Disappointing Match: Nothing in particular
Most Pleasant Surprise: The Tag Title match
Overall Rating: For the epic scope, the sheer wrestling quality, and one of the greatest PPV endings ever, I gotta go the fully monty. 10/10
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