AEW All In: Why wrestling fans should root for five-year-old company to succeed

All Elite Wrestling has spent the last five years proving the doubters wrong time after time. Now, with the company returning to London’s Wembley Stadium on Sunday for its All In show, let’s take a look back at its history and why the industry would be worse off without it

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) is set to return to London’s Wembley Stadium on Sunday with its All In pay per view.

The company has sold over 50,000 tickets for their 2024 London stadium show.

This, after selling 81,035 tickets for their 2023 show – which happened to be the world record for paid attendance for any wrestling event in history. Ever.

That a five year old wrestling company – which was officially founded in January 2019 – could draw such massive crowds to their stadium shows in back-to-back years should be celebrated.

Even better, the company is poised to sign a TV deal with Warner Brothers – which would see it gain profitability and secure its existence for the near and not too distant future.

While there are many legitimate criticisms that could be levelled at the company, its product and its leadership, a seeming cottage industry has sprung up within the professional wrestling business to try to tear the company down at all costs – the facts be damned.

Let’s take a look back at AEW’s history and why the industry would be worse off without it.

The dark days before AEW

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) is set to return to London’s Wembley Stadium on Sunday with its All In pay per view.

Does anybody remember the days before AEW breathed new life into the industry?

Though New Japan Pro Wrestling was putting on some of the greatest matches in wrestling history with Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada at the helm, that company wasn’t even on the radar of anyone but the most hardcore of wrestling fans.

The WWE, the unquestioned worldwide leader in sports and entertainment, meanwhile, was in the doldrums with an increasingly out of touch Vince McMahon at the helm.

The Summer of Punk in 2011 had faded into a distant memory with the man himself quitting WWE in a huff years in 2014 – though he would eventually return.

The WWE had spent the intervening years fighting their own fans – who demanded that Daniel Bryan (nee Bryan Danielson) be pushed to the top of the card.

McMahon finally gave in at Wrestlemania 30 in 2014, but only after the fans hijacked the live shows and he was faced with humiliating prospect of his dream match – Randy Orton vs Dave Batista (seriously, no seriously) being booed out of the building.

McMahon’s pet project, Roman Reigns, meanwhile, was being pushed in an ill-advised role of a babyface year after year after year.

His ‘shove it down their throats’ insistence that the fans cheer his handpicked hero – who would go on to consecutively headline Wrestlemania in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 against the biggest stars in the industry – only turned off many long-time watchers.

Ratings continued to hit all-time lows and fans kept mercilessly booing Reigns – who wasn’t helped by the stilted and outdated verbiage McMahon kept giving him.

The common sense solution obvious to even the most novice of fans – that Reigns, a superstar in the making and the victim of McMahon’s terrible booking – become a villain remained unheeded by the most powerful man in the business.

Reigns would begin his real journey to become the unquestioned top man in the industry only in 2020 after he finally turned heel and aligned with Paul Heyman – that too after returning from a bout with leukaemia.

In the meantime, the WWE would go on to produce some of the worst wrestling product in its recent history – with some watchers even comparing it to the darkest days of World Championship Wrestling in the year 2000 and fans watching the proceedings with embarrassment.

Lowlights of these years to name just a few included Constable Corbin running Raw, the ‘Fiend’ versus Seth Rollins Hell in a Cell match ending in a DQ (Rollins would later admit to wanting to fight McMahon), the championship reign of Jinder Mahal (don’t hinder Jinder!), the Rusev-Lana split and her wedding with Bobby Lashley, Zack Ryder being buried by WWE creative, and the Undertaker losing his undefeated streak at Wrestlemania.

Things got so bad that the McMahon family in December 2018 appeared on Raw and promised to ‘shake things up.’

But they didn’t. Instead, the WWE continued to churn out its same tired product, aging stars and juvenile anctics.

AEW blasts off

As the chaos on and off screen unfolded in WWE – with McMahon literally ripping up the script hours before the shows – in April 2018 billionaire Tony Khan bumped into his friend Kevin Reilly at a party in Beverly Hills.

Khan, in his own words, pitched Reilly – a media bigwig and president of cable channels TNT and TBS – on creating a wrestling league and working together.

The company, which was established in January 2019 with Khan at the helm as president as well as Matt and Nick Jackson (The Young Bucks), Cody Rhodes and Kenny Omega as executive vice-presidents.

The company had also pulled off a massive coup by signing wrestling legend Chris Jericho to an exclusive contract.

Jericho, who had been making appearances for New Japan Pro Wrestling at the time, was not happy with his position at WWE.

When he approached McMahon with news of an offer from AEW, he was told to go ahead and take it – an answer the then WWE head honcho would soon regret.

Jericho would go on to become the first AEW world champion at the company’s All Out PPV in 2019, and lend the fledging promotion much of his star power and credibility.

Jericho wasn’t the only ex-WWE star to make the jump.

Jon Moxley, formerly Dean Ambrose, who was also miserable over the creative he was getting from McMahon, would join AEW as well.

The WWE wasn’t sitting back though.

The company in August 2019 – two months before AEW’s Dynamite show was set to debut on TNT in October – announced it was moving its ‘third brand’ NXT show into the same time slot on the same day.

The move, which happened in September 2019, was clearly aimed at trying to limit AEW’s growth right out of the gate – though many within the business hilariously continued to insist that the WWE didn’t care or view the new kid on the block as competition.

AEW demolished NXT in the ratings – and would continue to do so nearly every week in what fans had dubbed the ‘Wednesday Night Wars’ ended in 2021 with the WWE eventually giving up moving its NXT to Tuesday night.

AEW during these next few years would, week in and week out, produce some of the best wrestling on their Wednesday Dynamite show.

A number of other ex-WWE talent including  FTR, Rusev, Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson, Saraya, Adam Copeland, Swerve Strickland, Samoa Joa, Toni Storm, Christian Cage, and CM Punk would appear in AEW – thrilling AEW’s fans.

Though Raw and Smackdown continued to draw the bigger ratings and the WWE remained the biggest wrestling company on the planet by far, the critics and most fans (except the ride-or-die WWE types) agreed that AEW had by far the more compelling product and the hotter crowds.

AEW showcased stars like Moxley, Jericho and Omega – arguably the best in-ring wrestler on the planet and one of the greatest performers in history – and slowly elevated its ‘originals’ such as Darby Allin, Britt Baker, Ricky Starks and Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

It put tag team wrestling – which McMahon had spent decades deemphasising in his federation – back on the map with classic feuds between FTR and The Young Bucks and giving talent like Santana and Ortiz and the Lucha Brothers a chance to shine.

AEW also had arguably some of the best storylines in the wrestling business – the break-up of the Elite, the slow burn elevation of Hangman Adam Page as its champion, Kenny Omega as the ‘belt collector,’ Eddie Kingston and Jon Moxley in a blood feud, CM Punk’s long awaited return to wrestling and Sting’s retirement run.

WWE makes a comeback

Even as AEW was cooking on all cylinders, the WWE began making its own comeback.

The return of Reigns and his long-awaited heel turn in 2020 finally stoked some real interest from the fans.

Reigns would slowly unveil his ‘tribal chief’ character and put together the villainous faction The Bloodline many of whom are members of the Anoaʻi family – which caught fire with fans with the induction of Sami Zayn as an ‘honourary member’ in 2022.

The Bloodline would go on to carry the WWE on its back for the next few years – a story which continues to this day.

Meanwhile, Cody Rhodes, one of the founders of All Elite Wrestling, was personally convinced by Vince McMahon to return to the WWE in February 2022.

Rhodes, yet another WWE alumni who had left the company citing frustrations with his creative, was a feelgood comeback story that the fans took to heart.

Not even the electrifying return of The Rock as the ‘final boss’ in 2024 – initially to challenge Reigns at Wrestlemania – could persuade fans to put their support for Rhodes aside.

Rhodes would eventually defeat Reigns at Wrestlemania 40, ending his 1,316-day days as Undisputed WWE champion, in an emotional and spectacular finish.

The recent years have also seen WWE creative pick up steam – the highlights including Rhea Ripley having a star-making turn as part of the Judgment Day group, Dominic Mysterio become a heel people love to hate, RK-BRO and CM Punk’s return and his feud with Drew McIntyre.

In short, it’s clear that the rise of AEW has forced the WWE to put on a far better product – helped massively by the departure of McMahon due to a sex scandal and the enthroning of Paul ‘HHH’ Levesque as the main force behind WWE creative.

The company is now doing great business at the box office and fans are happier than they have been in years.

AEW’s impending TV deal

Though AEW isn’t nearly as hot as it was in its first few years – attendance and ratings are both down lately – the company is now poised to announce its second TV deal.

The company initially signed a four year deal-with Warner Brothers for $175 million – working out to around $45 million per year.

And that was before the company added its Friday night Rampage show and its Saturday Collision show.

Some have speculated that the company is currently getting around $75 million per year from Warner Brothers for its entire package.

There are reports that AEW currently has an offer from Warner Brothers for around double that – $150 million per year – which could be announced at any time.

While that number can’t compare with WWE’s new 10-year Netflix deal for Raw at $500 million per year, or its Smackdown deal with NBC for around $290 million per year, it is nonetheless extremely impressive for a company that has been around for just over half a decade – that too with the industry leader doing everything to put the dagger in them.

More importantly, Khan has claimed that the new deal would make the company instantly profitable.

But why should wrestling fans care?

Because a financially healthy AEW means more of your favourite wrestlers – not to mention the hundreds if not thousands of people working backstage – have a place to go if they want or need to.

Not to mention the fact that the WWE has had to make big-money offers to keep its own talent – who remain historically underpaid relative to the company’s profits compared to other sports – and are well aware how much AEW is shelling out for their top stars.

We’ve seen what a virtual monopoly in the wrestling business looks like both for fans and wrestlers.

Let’s pray we don’t go back anytime soon.

Deven Kanal kicked off his media career at Reader's Digest after graduating from The Times School of Journalism. With more than 13 years of work experience in the media, he has written on a variety of subjects — from human interest stories to sports, politics and pop culture see more