It was a hot and emotionally unstable weekend in Arlington, Texas; the kind of weekend where the sun cooks your retinas while thunderclouds loiter ominously, deciding whether to ruin your hair or your life. But this time, the storm wasn’t in the sky. It was inside the walls of Globe Life Field, home of the World Series-winning Texas Rangers and, for one glorious, blood-soaked weekend, the sacred ground for the greatest wrestling event I have ever attended: AEW All In Texas.
When I say greatest, I don’t mean it with the hyperbole of a wrestling promo. I mean it with the conviction of a man who has willingly attended a wrestling show in a converted youth soccer facility that smelled like wet Crocs, where a 500-pound man named Stackhouse did a backflip off the top rope and Jack Cartwheel (yes, he cartwheels) cartwheeled across his opponents like it was a normal Saturday. I’ve seen WrestleMania with 100,000 people. I’ve seen indie shows with 43 people and a dog. I’ve seen Mick Foley jump off a steel cage and Eddie Guerrero break our hearts. But All In Texas wasn’t a show; it was a resurrection. It was a collective hallucination of wrestling perfection, blessed by the ghost of Terry Funk and carried out by thirty thousand sweaty apostles.
The weekend started early; Dynamite on Wednesday, Collision on Friday, ROH’s Supercard of Honor somewhere in between; and by Saturday afternoon, we were primed, delirious, sunburned, and ready for absolution.
It all began with The Opps; a devastating meat tornado composed of Katsuyori Shibata, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Samoa Joe; versus The Death Riders, who sound like a biker gang but look like the cast of a Swiss arthouse film about grief. Claudio Castagnoli (still somehow the most chiseled man alive), emo prodigy Wheeler Yuta, and the perpetually dangerous Gabe Kidd put up a valiant fight, but when Samoa Joe entered Beast Mode™ and shredded his opponents like jerky, the match was done. The Opps took the AEW World Trios titles and re-established what we all knew: Samoa Joe was never meant for commentary. He was meant for war.
Next came the Men’s Casino Gauntlet, a chaotic battle royal of testosterone and trauma. MJF, the reigning king of smug sociopathy, started the match with Mark Briscoe; who, with his unkempt beard and chicken-farmer-on-speed energy, felt like a hero from a Coen Brothers film. The match filled up faster than a Waffle House during a hurricane, and every 90 seconds brought new bodies, new betrayals, new flips. MJF did what only he can do: manipulated, lied, elbowed, cried, and somehow emerged the winner, securing another title shot and reinforcing the fact that being awful is still a valid strategy in both politics and pro wrestling.
Then came the gut punch.
Adam Cole; beloved, cocky, fragile; came out not in gear, but in street clothes. He announced that his injury from two nights prior might not just be serious, but career-ending. He gave up the TNT title, and I swear, thirty thousand voices collectively whispered “no” like they were watching Arnold Schwarzenegger die in Terminator 2. Cole, barely holding back tears, left to an ovation that could’ve shaken the rafters off a sturdier building. Wrestling has a way of making myth out of pain.
But AEW doesn’t mourn for long. The TNT title was up for grabs in a fatal four-way featuring Daniel Garcia (poetic violence), Sammy Guevara (human missile), Kyle Fletcher (dressed like a Pepto-Bismol bottle with abs), and the living legend himself, Dustin Rhodes. Dustin is 56, but moves like he’s mainlining HGH and nostalgia. And somehow; perhaps out of pure heart, or perhaps because the wrestling gods knew we needed a win; Dustin won. He collapsed in tears. Guevara hugged him like a brother. The crowd lost it. I thought I did too.
Enter: The Young Bucks. Wrestling’s human hair gels. They came dressed as the Founding Fathers in a wheeled boat; George Washington cosplay meets midlife crisis. Their opponents? Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland, two of the best wrestlers on Earth. Ospreay emerged like a weaponized gymnast from a Guy Ritchie dream. And Swerve… oh, Swerve. His entrance featured JoJo (the late Bray Wyatt’s wife) singing Ain’t Nobody by Chaka Khan; his original theme; surrounded by fireflies in a tribute so emotional we danced through our tears. The match was flippy, frantic, violent, hilarious, operatic; like if Cirque du Soleil was directed by Zack Snyder on Red Bull. In the end, Swerve and Ospreay triumphed, and the Bucks lost not just the match but their Executive Vice President titles. Somewhere backstage, a pair of aviator sunglasses wept.
Athena won the Women’s Gauntlet Match in front of her hometown fans in Dallas. There were screams. There were hugs. There may have been barbecue tears.
Then came the Tag Team Championship match: The Hurt Syndicate (Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin, pure beef), Jetspeed (Kevin Knight and Speedball Mike Bailey, pure speed), and The Patriarchy (Christian Cage and his oddly committed man-child, Nick Wayne). It was an absurd, deeply entertaining mess of family trauma, powerbombs, and betrayal. Wayne turned on Cage, hammering him like a teenager finally fed up with being grounded. And just when we thought the drama was over, Adam Copeland (you know him as Edge) returned to rescue Cage and softly whispered, “Come home. Find yourself.” Reader, I levitated.
Toni Storm vs. Mercedes Moné was as good as advertised. Moné hit like a CEO downsizing a department. Toni hit like someone who thinks classic cinema should be fought over. Toni retained. Mercedes looked stunned. We all clapped like theater kids after an opening night.
Then came The Match. Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega. The saga that birthed wrestling nerdom’s modern golden age. Their latest encounter unified two belts and may have also unified our souls. It went thirty-plus minutes. No rest holds. Just punishment, pacing, poetry. Okada won. Omega bowed. I found religion again.
At last, The Texas Death Match between Hangman Adam Page and Jon Moxley; wrestling’s patron saint of masochism. Think: broken glass, barbed wire, thumbtacks, forks, nails, chains. Think: Home Depot’s most violent Black Friday. These two men didn’t just wrestle; they exorcised. Hangman, bleeding buckets, fought his way out of a two-year existential crisis. He found himself in the shards. He won. Moxley collapsed. The crowd, hoarse and holy, stood up once again.
After six hours, my beer was warm, my voice was shredded, and my spirit; somehow; was healed. All In Texas wasn’t a pay-per-view. It was a mass. A revival. A storybook written in bruises and cheers and knife-edge chops. AEW didn’t just host a wrestling event. They reminded us why we ever fell in love with this strange, wonderful sport in the first place. And if this is wrestling’s future, then count me in. All in. Forever. AEW just didn’t tear the roof off of Globe Life Field, they saved everyone’s pro-wrestling soul that night.
