It’s 48 hours until the ring ropes are cinched taut and the pay-per-view lights flicker to life at Globe Life Field for All In, but already, things are beginning to sizzle in the Lone Star sun. In most Texas towns, July brings to mind the scent of smoked brisket, melting sandals, and the light clink of ice cubes in margaritas served in glasses wider than most suburban pools. But here in Garland, the heat was coming from inside the building. All Elite Wrestling; AEW for the faithful, All Extremely Wacky for the uninitiated; staged its last supper before the bloodletting, a “go-home” live taping of Collision, and reader, it did not go home quietly.
The night began with Paragon, the newly-minted, black-tinted faction led by Adam Cole (Bay Bay), collided with Kyle Fletcher, and the always eclectic Roppongi Vice of the Don Callis Family. Callis, a man who radiates the smug assurance of someone who has ruined multiple Thanksgivings, was greeted by a red-hot crowd who promptly compared Fletcher’s hot pink ring gear to Pepto Bismol. And really, that’s the magic of wrestling: where else can you be heckled for your fabric palette by 2,000 sweaty Texans? Fists flew. Taunts were hurled. One could almost taste the sweat and spite in the air; somewhere between a dive bar brawl and a Broadway matinee choreographed by a sugar-addled eight-year-old.
Enter Mistico versus The Beast Mortos; a match billed as lucha libre versus…well, something out of The Witcher if the creature had a gym membership and a background in Greco-Roman wrestling. Mortos, half man, half something ungodly, brought the muscle. Mistico brought the flight. Together, they conjured an aerial thriller that felt like Cirque du Soleil got dropped in the middle of a monster movie. It was majestic, it was bonkers, it slapped (both metaphorically and very literally).
But it was the quiet that came next which made the loudest noise.
Picture it: two men. One locker room. Hangman Adam Page, the brooding cowboy philosopher of AEW, and Swerve Strickland, a man who walks like Miles Davis sounds; cool, confident, unpredictable. They sat. They stared. And after the metaphorical tumbleweeds blew out of the room, they reminisced about legitimate and metaphorical arson and actual vendettas. No fists. Just furrowed brows and cowboy gravitas. The tension could’ve snapped a belt buckle. Somewhere, Sam Peckinpah smiled.
Naturally, this moment of quiet masculine vulnerability enraged Jon Moxley, the patron saint of forehead scars and cinderblock rage. He stormed the ring and unleashed a litany of profanities so vivid that half the audience aged a decade out of pure moral panic. In short: he wanted blood, not brooding. This is Texas, after all.
And then came the match that might have been pulled from the dreams of a particularly deranged eighties VHS collector. FTR and The Patriarchy (which includes a brooding fatherless boy and Christian Cage, who may actually be Satan’s social media manager) took on The Outrunners and Jetspeed. On one side: dad issues and violence. On the other: Speedball Mike Bailey, a man who looks like he fights in abandoned arcades next to the actual Kumite, and two guys who escaped from a neon-soaked Miami Vice montage. The result? High-flying madness, dad jokes with body slams, and enough kinetic energy to power a Whole Foods. It was funny. It was fierce. It was peak AEW.
Then came the symphony of bruises: Shibata vs Gabe Kidd, a match so brutal it could’ve been sponsored by ibuprofen. Every chop reverberated. Every kick felt like it might shatter time. Shibata, of course, remains the spiritual embodiment of silent pain and painful silence. Kidd, no slouch, gave as good as he got. Somewhere between chest slap number 47 and possible concussion number 8, the audience had ascended into a state of meditative ultraviolence. Operatic, gruesome, beautiful. Shibata forever.
Finally, the main event: the women. Eight of them, each with a mission to either claim gold or promise revenge. Thunder Rosa. Mina Shirakawa. Athena (Dallas’s own). Julia Hart. Queen Aminata. Willow Nightingale. Megan Bayne. Thekla. It was a beautifully chaotic symphony of suplexes and shrieks, not unlike a riot in a Sephora; elegant, dangerous, and highly choreographed. It was a barnburner. A showstopper. A proper exclamation point.
As the lights dimmed and the crowd filed out, probably toward a Whataburger or spiritual reawakening, one question lingered: if this was just the pre-show, what on Earth will All In bring? All I know is this: I may never be able to look at Pepto Bismol; or cowboy standoffs; the same way again. Here’s to AEW and All In.
