A little late on my reaction, but here are my takes from the show.
Sons of Texas and Von Erichs def Shane Taylor Promotions
It's funny, I only just signed up on Honor Club last week and it was the first time I'd ever seen the Von Erichs. They don't look like Von Erichs at all to me, but they can definitely work. And I'm a big fan of Dustin and Sammy being paired up as well. I think it adds some legitimacy to Sammy and allows him to "man up" a bit and be a little more than just a pretty boy heel. Hopefully by the time they split the team up, Sammy can be taken seriously as a tough babyface. He's really flirting with being a present-day Ricky Steamboat kind of persona. He has all the tools to be that kind of character and I'm not sure if that's the plan or if anyone else sees it, but that's the potential that I can see at the end of this run. I can't speak much about Shane Taylor Promotions, as he's the only one I remember seeing in Ring of Honor back in 2017ish when I was still keeping up with the product somewhat consistently. But this was a fun match and a good way to get the Texas crowd invested for a longgggggg night of wrestling.
The Conglomeration and Big Boom AJ def The Don Callis Family
This was a fun match for me. I don't know anything about Big Boom AJ, the Costco Kids, none of that stuff. But they were all over with the crowd, so what the hell. The one kid looked to be underage so Trent shoving him to the ground was a little shocking to me, but I was all for it. Kyle O'Reilly stole the show with his entrance, as usual. I must have missed when Hologram was added to The Conglomeration though, because I remember Mark Briscoe, KOR, and Ishii being the members. But this was a very WWE kind of match in my opinion. And they honestly did it well, I thought. Big Boom AJ definitely looked better than I expected.
FTR def The Outrunners
I've seen a little bit of the Outrunners, just enough to love them. The Newport tights were a wild choice for wrestling gear, and Nigel playing it up was hilarious. FTR again showed they're a top 3 tag team in the world. They really can't have a bad tag team match. I never really cared about tag team wrestling until their series of matched with American Alpha back in the day, unfortunately. I'm partial to FTR and always will be. The more of them, the better.
The Opps def The Death Riders for the Trios Titles
This is where I have a loud opinion. On wrestling social media, all I've seen for the last year was how horrible the whole Death Riders angle has been. I've disagreed the whole time. To me, it was obvious there would be a huge payoff for the whole angle, and my prediction was it would happen at All In. To me, it's the best story AEW has ever told (I'll go deeper on this later). Even Wheeler Yuta has been made believable to me during this whole storyline, and that's saying something because I'm just not a fan of his. The Opps were a great addition to this story for me. The team of Joe, Shibata, and HOOK was so weird and random but it worked for me. Two established badasses and one guy who everyone believes COULD be a badass. I really hate HOOK got injured, because I think this rivalry was about to cement him as that badass. Instead, Powerhouse Hobbs joined and he's going to be bigger than he's ever been when it's over with. Another guy with so much potential but just hasn't been able to channel it. I think he already has in the last month due to this association. And besides, can Claudio have a bad match? It just works.
MJF wins Men's Casino Gauntlet Match
A Royal Rumble match with pinfalls and submissions is some real No Mercy N64 booking, but I can dig it. Random Entrant matches are always fun, it's a formula that works, and it will always have fan participation. My only gripe is I know the only reason it's not "over the top rope" rules is because the wrestlers want to do their dives. It's obvious to me and I don't like that it's obvious to me. Just set aside one match, don't worry about the dives, and just keep the action in the ring. Too many times in this match, the ring was empty for the next entrant to have a one-on-one confrontation after entering. It's too obvious and that takes away from it for me. But griping aside, I think these matches are good ways to showcase everyone. Plus, anytime I see Roderick Strong wrestle, I'll take it. MJF winning was a solid choice, in my opinion. That guy can be an on-again off-again champion for the next twenty years and it'll always be good TV. I also think the finish sets up for more MJF/Briscoe stuff, and I'm all for that. I'm ready for Briscoe to finally get a long, invested program on TV.
Dustin Rhodes def Sammy Guevarra, Daniel Garcia, and Kyle Fletcher for the TNT Title
As gutting as it was to know Adam Cole had to drop the title due to injury, I was glad the match went this route. I'm sure Fletcher was originally going to beat Cole for the title and be off to the races for his singles push, so I'm glad we got a different outcome in the 4 way. Dustin was my pick to win this one, but I didn't think it would happen. When was the last time someone held 3 titles in the same promotion anyway? Having an actual triple champion is a really cool concept. I'm making the prediction now that he'll have a short reign and drop the title to Fletcher, possibly even this week.
Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay def The Young Bucks
If you're into choreographed wrestling, this might be your dream come true. I respect the hell out of what all 4 of these guys can do in the ring, but sometimes this style is a bit much for me. That being said, the Canadian Destroyer into Hidden Blade and House Call spot was amazing. That whole sequence looked like something out of a Jackie Chan movie. You knew it was choreographed, but damn it was still cool. Ospreay will absolutely be a world champion in AEW and I'll be shocked if it isn't this year. What a match.\
Athena wins Women's Casino Gauntlet Match
I honestly don't have too many comments on this match, but I'm glad Athena won. She's been slept on for way too long. Pretty much since the moment she was called up from NXT, she hasn't been portrayed the same and it's been a shame. She's done some amazing work as the ROH forever champion, but I just haven't seen much of it and I'd venture to guess the same can be said from a lot of fans. ROH has great shows and matches, but it's just harder to watch that product and it's a shame. Hopefully this means she'll be featured more prominently on AEW TV going forward.
The Hurt Syndicate def Jet Speed and The Patriarchy for the Tag Team Titles
Shelton Benjamin and Bobby Lashley are badasses and I'm so glad they're being portrayed that way on TV, especially Shelton. Shelton has been taken for granted by booking for far too long. They were the perfect heel, monster foils for both teams in this match. Even seeing the heel Patriarchy team interact with The Hurt Syndicate was great. Jet Speed are phenomenal, Nick Wayne has a hell of a future, and I am SO READY for babyface Christian Cage to team with Cope again. The long-term storytelling of the "go find yourself" line is what AEW is really good at, when they want to do it.
Toni Storm def Mercedes Mone for the Women's World Title
Haven't seen it yet, unfortunately.
Okada def Omega for the Unified Title
Really kicking myself for not watching this one yet either.
Hangman Page def Jon Moxley for the World Title
Here we go. I have lots of opinions on this one, some good and some bad. So I'll start from the top with Hangman Page. The character arc of Page has been incorporated into the overall Death Riders storyline. The payoff of Hangman/Swerve's rivalry simultaneously took place with the payoff of the Death Riders/hostile takeover storyline, and I can't think of another time in wrestling where anything like that has ever been done. Hangman losing his sanity because of Swerve, going down the dark patch, changing his look, changing his music, turning heel, and for all of it to come full circle on the same night he retained the World Tile with his classic music, someone having a normal beard after having a full mustache a week ago, even down the smallest detail of the camera man going to the heel side of the entrance only for Page to emerge from the babyface side of the entrance was amazing. The locker room confrontation last week with Hangman and Swerve, where Hangman basically asked Swerve to forgive him, was a phenomenal piece of this whole puzzle. Hangman frustratingly throwing his chain on the ground, Swerve taking it, and handing it to Page at the finish of the match to then literally use it to beat Moxley was great. THIS is long-term storytelling. The belt still having Danielson's side plates is long-term storytelling. They did the Wrestlemania 40 finish better than Wrestlemania 40, in my opinion. AEW is on fire right now and they have the potential to keep that momentum going if they continue with more of this kind of storytelling.
My only request to the fans is to just enjoy the show and stop armchair quarterbacking. I saw it this whole time with the Death Riders. if Swerve beat Moxley for the title months ago like the fans wanted, we wouldn't have gotten this moment. I'm not even a Hangman Page fan, but this was really good stuff. It made me a fan. This is the wrestling I want to see.
Top to bottom, I'd rank this whole show a 9/10. It was about as good of a wrestling show as I believe it can get in 2025. And I think it was the best one since maybe the original NXT TakeOver Brooklyn.
Just my opinion, but there ya go.
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