2024 has marked a significant decline for AEW. The quality of matches, creative direction, attendance, and ratings have all deteriorated noticeably. While delusional, die-hard bubble fans and certain wrestling ‘journalists’, lying to suit their own narrative, may insist that everything is fine, the struggles have become clearer with every passing month. It’s hard to see the promotion ever getting out of this rut and back to where they were in 2021/22 without major changes in booking and production, as well as giving regular TV time to different wrestlers. AEW has always been a mixed bag, offering all kinds of different styles of wrestling, and ranging from excellent to bad to the worst stuff this side of Vince Russo. Wrestlers would be cycled in and out, and while the constant turnover had its pros and cons, it prevented things from getting too stale. Now, we see the same small group of wrestlers featured week after week, and the content has generally just ranged between bad and terrible. Actually seeing a good match on TV has become noteworthy.

AEW has veered away from being an alternative, to being WWE lite, which is one reason I believe interest has declined so rapidly. WWE is at the top of their game at what they do, and even when they weren’t, being WWE lite was never viable, just look at TNA. WWE’s wrestling might not be interesting, but they’re able to effectively build matches, and their soap opera stories make their fans want to see what happens from week to week. If you look at their recent SummerSlam 2024 card, there wasn’t a match that looked intriguing on paper (and having watched the show, none of the matches were particularly good), yet they built the card up so well that fans were invested in every match on it. In contrast, AEW has never been good at telling stories or building matches. It feels like it was pure luck when AEW built a match effectively, or it involved someone like CM Punk, who understands storytelling and can talk them into the building (unfortunately, he could never back it up in the ring though). AEW’s strength was in the quality of the matches, and seeing types of wrestling you couldn’t see by watching WWE’s safe, homogenized style, but currently, the overall quality of their wrestling isn’t much better than WWE’s. So, who are they appealing to with this product?

AEW’s ongoing focus on stale talent such as Chris Jericho, Orange Cassidy, Don Callis, and The Young Bucks are detrimental to the product. Recent additions, Kazuchika Okada and Mercedes (waste of) Mone have flopped, hard. I’d also be remiss not to mention Swerve Strickland having the lamest AEW title run since Adam Page due to the way he’s been booked. AEW's PPV events often include a few strong matches, but building them has never been something they’ve done well, and the build for All In 2024 has been one of the worst builds for a major show I’ve ever seen. Fans criticized All In 2023 for the lack of build and the card seemingly being thrown together at the last minute. However, the build to the 2024 edition has been so bad that last years (lack of) build might have been better, evident by around 45,000 tickets being sold before a match was announced, and very few being sold since. Some of the featured matches, such as Swerve Strickland vs. Bryan Danielson, MJF vs. Will Ospreay, Britt Baker vs. Mercedes Mone, and Toni Storm vs. Mariah May, were the right matches to book. However, interest has declined week after week due to the poor build. The individual matches will cover this in more detail, but only Danielson vs. Swerve has been built up decently and gained interest. MJF vs. Ospreay salvaged something from an interesting, albeit messy segment with too many inside references on the go home episode of Dynamite (better late than never).

The most disappointing thing about AEW is that they have the wrestlers to have an interesting product, but Tony isn’t using them effectively. The main event scene is what it is, it has to revolve around MJF, Swerve, Danielson and Ospreay. However, the midcard could regularly feature Kyle O’Reilly, Roderick Strong, Konosuke Takeshita, Mark Briscoe, Claudio, Pac, Mortos etc. These guys aren’t going to pop ratings or get attendances back up, but that’s not the midcards job. Their job is to have good matches and increase AEW’s in ring standards. Sadly, those spots have to go to clowns like Chris Jericho, Orange Cassidy, Hook, Jack Perry, Willow Nightingale, Christian Cage, The Acclaimed and the Young Bucks, who don’t draw either, but actively drag down the product and turn people off. But hey, they sold around 50,000 tickets, a big house by any standard, so everything’s great right?

All In 2024 kicked off with the usual two hour pre-show, making the total event time six hours, which is what AEW always does. This isn’t Dream Slam, and I certainly didn’t need to see all of the AEW jobbers getting a moment at Wembley. A total of 30 guys and girls wrestled on the pre-show over the three matches. The only match on it I wanted to see (and the only one I watched) was Tomohiro Ishii & Willow Nightingale vs. Kris Statlander & Stokely Hathaway, not because it was ever going to be any good (48-year-old Ishii isn’t any good, Willow never was and Stokely is a manager), but because of the absurdity and randomness of it. Willow and Statlander's lack of chemistry was on display, and their feud has to continue since the winner would pick the stipulation for their singles match on the next PPV. Stokeley, the heel getting comeuppance, got the biggest pop in the match for giving Ishii a spinebuster before he got killed. There was also an embarrassing segment where Saraya had the whole Knight family with her, and Tony Schiavone was comparing them to the Harts and the Von Erichs even though the Knights all suck and never did anything useful in the wrestling business. Jamie Hayter looked awful making her return by beating up the family.

AEW World Trios Title Londons Ladder Match: The Patriarchy (Christian Cage, Killswitch & Nick Wayne) (w/Shayna Wayne) (c) vs. House Of Black (Brody King, Buddy Matthews & Malakai Black) vs. Blackpool Combat Club (Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta) & PAC vs. Bang Bang Gang (Austin Gunn, Colten Gunn & Juice Robinson) 18:58
It wouldn’t be an AEW PPV without a big, dumb, multi-man ladder match. There were too many people in this match for it to be anything other than a bunch of guys disappearing and doing nothing, while whoever was being featured at that particularly moment did a short segment before they’d disappear and someone else would take over. These matches would probably be better if someone could figure out how to make them into a tag match (with guys legal etc) because everyone just standing around or laying around waiting for their turn is one of the major problems with these matches. They started out with brawling to get rid of everyone, then everyone took turns trying to climb the ladder. Then a bunch of guys did dives, with Pac getting a pop so loud you had to wonder why Tony couldn’t find a proper match for him. They just rolled out the spots from there, and there were enough flashy spots that people expect from these matches. It was more measured and safer than we’re used to seeing from AEW ladder matches, and it was no worse for it. Christian, running away at the start and coming back when everyone was taken out, and later, refusing to let Killswitch win the match because he wanted the glory were funny moments. This didn’t distinguish itself much from any other ladder match, it was just a bunch of spots, but it was entertaining enough in the second half, and the crowd was into it. Pac and Nick Wayne (and Christian with his comedy spots) stood out the most, and Pac got a nice win. **1/4

AEW Women's World Title Match: Toni Storm (w/Luther) (c) vs. Mariah May 15:14
This feud has been the wrestling version of TikTok, just a completely nonsensical cringefest that you’d only watch if you want to laugh at people making fools of themselves who are unaware that they’re doing so, and wonder how anyone could possibly think this was a good idea. Actually, these two doing horrible dancing while lip syncing to bad songs may actually have been better than what they’ve been doing on TV for the last couple of months. Neither have any real value as wrestlers anymore. One is there because people like to laugh at people doing stupid things. The other is there because people think she’s hot. The sad part is that, unlike Baker vs. Mone, these two probably could have a solid match under different circumstances. May showed some potential before the heel turn. She could do enough and could be carried to a good match if there was anyone capable of carrying her. Now, her wrestling is as slow, dull and boring as her terrible interview skills. She spends more time stalling and looking around than doing anything, like she’s been watching too many Giulia matches. Toni Storm was formerly a good wrestler. I always found her to be on the boring side, but she was able to have good matches. That was a long time ago though. Her in ring ability declined significantly after WWE hired her, and hasn’t gotten any better since she left. Now, the Timeless train wreck has sent her in ring work from adequate to abysmal. The match was roughly what I expected it to be, perhaps a little better as it went on, featuring Toni’s bad acting, some comically bad brawling, and a long heat segment where Mariah spent about 30 seconds wandering around between each move with Toni putting up no fight. Mariah can do some moves well enough, but she can’t stomp or brawl, and on top of that, she’s far too deliberate for anything to be believable. Mariah slapped her mother for no apparent reason, and then Toni ended up consoling her. I guess even Mariah’s mother needed to have her moment at Wembley. Storm was more energetic with her babyface comeback, and while nothing special, it stood out here, and was the highlight of the match. They seemed to be heading into a fun enough finish with the two exchanging low blows that got the crowd popping, but it fizzled out because it had to come back to the shoe that started the whole feud in the first place. Toni couldn’t bring herself to use it, which predictably cost her the match. If you like this Timeless stuff (and there are plenty of people who do), you’ll like this match, for everyone else though... *3/4

FTW Title Match: Chris Jericho (w/Big Bill & Bryan Keith) (c) vs. Hook 10:14
Jeriatric could be useful to AEW as a wrestling legend in small doses, appearing a few times a year, but not as a full timer, and he hasn’t done anything good since 2019. If I saw any real upside to Hook, I’d feel sorry for him being stuck in another one of these awful, never ending feuds. But if we went by Bret Hart’s criteria of in ring, promo and look, he’s not making it past a 3/10 on any of the three categories. Hook does a few suplexes, and that's about all he does. He doesn't sell very well, and he's too small and skinny for anything he does to look believable. He was a meme for AEW die hard fans at one point, but I don’t think even they really care about him anymore. That’s what happens when you feud with Jericho. Although, if he wasn’t feuding with Jericho, he wouldn’t have been featured on the show, so pick your poison. Jericho had Fozzy play him to the ring and sang his own entrance song. None of this match made any sense. Jericho has been done for years, and Hook couldn’t hold up his end. It was just a bunch of set-pieces in a seemingly random order, aside from getting the comedy out of the way, there was no escalation. Hook wrestled the match ‘blind’ in one eye due a previous angle, and had his eye patched up. They did a spot where he was blinded and then later, he pulled his eyepatch and revealed he could see after all. Jericho’s seconds interfered frequently, and Big Bill was the most over guy in the match, to the point where Hook got booed for countering his chokeslam attempt. The only memorable spot was the finish because Taz got involved, putting the Tazmission on Bryan Keith (after Bill had taken a bump through a table) to allow Hook to defeat Jericho. *

AEW World Tag Team Title Three Way Match: The Young Bucks (Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson) (c) vs. FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood) vs. The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) (w/Billy Gunn) 13:32
It’s a good thing the Wembley crowd were incredibly hot for this show, and made this match seem like a huge deal when it couldn’t have been colder if it had taken place on Antarctica. If these are the only three teams worthy of fighting over the tag belts, then they should have been retired with Sting. I like FTR, and they are certainly capable of delivering a good, old school tag team match, but they attached themselves to the Punk wagon very publicly, and haven’t been relevant since he quit/got fired and went back to WWE. The Acclaimed is what you’d get if the New Age Outlaws hung around for four years - stale after one year, and rarely worth watching when the bell rang (Bowens is a much better worker than Billy Gunn ever was, I’m not sure Max Caster is even much better than Road Dogg though). The Young Bucks have always been a gimmick act, and it worked great on the indy circuit where they could show up, do their highly choreographed, high spot oriented match, sell some merch, and come back a month or two later to do it all again. They always had their small group of fans, but being regularly featured on weekly, national TV has never worked. At least they have been, in the past, capable of having a good match now and then. This is not the case in 2024 with their ridiculous EVP gimmicks, and even a lot of Young Bucks supporters want them to go away at this point. Once again, The Bucks just sleepwalked their way through, and the match was a mess like most three ways are. FTR tried to work a match, but it wasn’t possible with the constant switches, and there was never any flow to the match. It was just a nothing match with no story. Just a bunch of spots, and none that were particularly impressive or memorable. The finish just made it all the more pointless. You’d have thought this was booked to get the belts off the Bucks (seemingly without them having to get pinned), but no, they did the usual ‘Bucks use the belt behind the idiot referees back and win’. The Grizzled Young Veterans showed up after the match to a big pop in their home country to confront the Bucks… and then turned on FTR. This whole thing was a waste of time. **

AEW World Title #1 Contendership Casino Gauntlet Match: Roderick Strong vs. Mark Briscoe vs. Nigel McGuinness vs. Jeff Jarrett (w/Karen Jarrett) vs. Christian Cage vs. Orange Cassidy vs. Ricochet vs. Kyle O'Reilly vs. Kazuchika Okada vs. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Adam Page vs. Luchasaurus 25:57
This would be the ‘let’s get everyone on the card’ match, if they didn't already have a 16 Man Tag on Zero Hour. Britain's #2 star, Zack Sabre Jr., who had an excellent match with Hechicero on 8/24 on the Rev Pro show, was a surprise entrant in this. Okada, Nigel McGuinness (a British legend wrestling his first match in 13 years) and Ricochet (a reasonably big WWE star making his AEW debut) were also surprise entrants. Surprises are great and all, but you’d have thought actually announcing these people might have sold a few tickets, not a redundant thing given that there were around 30,000 empty seats. I just assumed Orange Cassidy was winning so he could get his yearly title shot before he went back to beating everyone useful in the midcard, which would have been bad, but Christian winning is the only guy in the match who was a worse choice given that he pretty much killed Swerve’s reign as soon as it began (I didn’t forget about Jarrett, but at least if Jarrett won it would be a throwaway Dynamite main event that wouldn’t hurt anyone). Looking at the talent in this match, there was no way for it to be bad. Its mind boggling half the guys here couldn’t get a singles match yet Chris Jericho and Hook can. I feel AEW want to do a Royal Rumble, but don’t want to use the WWE concept (obviously they can’t use the name since it’s trademarked). They should just do one instead of these one fall casino matches, and have pins and submissions as well as over the top rope (like they do in Japan). It would be make for a more suspenseful match while guys are entering. What they did here was highly entertaining and fun to watch with plenty of good action as long as you’re not looking for any kind of substance. It was just an exhibition for guys to have a moment to shine with nothing more to it, and eventually it ended after everyone entered. Repeating myself from the ladder match, this had the same problem where guys would just disappear and stand or lie around while whoever was being featured in the ring did their thing. The finish was awful, not only because 50-year-old Christian won, but because they keep dragging out and teasing Luchasaurus standing up to Christian when it has overstayed its welcome to anyone who even cared about it in the first place. ***1/4

AEW American Title Match: MJF (c) vs. Will Ospreay 25:47
What better way to set up a PPV match you expect people to pay for than to do a 60 minute match on free TV where they did everything they know to each other. This was a match people cared about by default, but it lost much of its luster between the one hour match, MJF’s silly ‘bigoted Murican who hates Muricans’ gimmick, too many inside references, and Ospreay not adding much since he was just reacting to all the nonsense. This match has been as poorly built as anything else on the show, but that didn’t matter a damn bit to the crowd. Ospreay did an Assassin’s Creed tie-in entrance and had a breakdancing ninja. The match was just there. The layout was fine, but rather empty, with nothing of note going on. It was slow, with too much playing to the crowd, and MJF’s typical goofiness. There wasn't much actual wrestling going on, just Ospreay doing his flips and posing, and MJF heeling the rest of the time. These two don’t really work well together because MJF's goal is never going to be to make the opponent look better. Beyond that, it's a video game wrestler vs a cartoon villain, so both are a bit more plausible when given an opponent that's more grounded in reality who can bring some substance to the proceedings. There were good bursts of action, but they were fleeting, and there wasn’t much to connect anything together. It was very much like a WWE match in the sense that it was just a bunch of moments without much happening in between, and plenty of melodrama and milking everything for all it was worth. For all the things I don’t like about these kinds of matches, I do have to admit that they work in a stadium because they play to the cheap seats as long as the moments land. The crowd were into the match, and really popped for every big moment. They did more to salvage this match than either of the wrestlers. Daniel Garcia made a lame return to cost MJF the match. Ospreay did the Tiger Driver '91, thankfully without any of his bad ‘conflicted’ acting, and won cleanly enough. **1/2

AEW TBS Title Match: Mercedes Mone (w/Kamille) (c) vs. Dr. Britt Baker DMD 17:19
This match had some degree of interest when Baker finally returned after almost a year, gained some sympathy because she suffered a mini stroke, and dressed down Mone on the mic, but that interest disappeared just as quickly when she didn’t have anything of interest to say beyond the first promo, and got suspended for two weeks for backstage high school drama. Mone contributed nothing, as usual, in the build, and is so horrible on the mic that a mute would be a better talker, and not even a deaf person could stand to listen to her. If the rumors of what she’s getting paid are true, she may be the second biggest waste of money in the history of wrestling behind Kazuchika Okada (Tony is 2/3 on failed big name signings in 2024). She even has her own personal writer from WWE. As if the solution to all of AEWs problems is to inject some WWE 2018 into the mix - you know, the same time period in WWE that was so bad that it was part of the reason AEW started in the first place. She was even turned heel and given a heater, Kamille, who’s gimmick is that she’s a giant, but Mone is either too dense to realize she is killing that gimmick by wearing 6 inch heels every week standing next to her, or she’s intentionally burying her so she doesn’t ‘steal’ any of her non-existent heat. This match was awful. I’d expected it to be the better of the two women’s matches, but it made the earlier Toni Storm vs. Mariah May look good by comparison. Mone did an extended heat segment, and her work on Baker's back was solid, but that was filler work, and shouldn’t be the best work of a match. When they tried to do any moves or quicken the pace, they were still very slow, and worse, sloppy to an unacceptable degree to where just about everything they did just looked ugly. This has been par for the course all year for Mone. I'm not sure if people still think it's a coincidence or her opponent's fault that Mone blows 90% of her spots in every match, but we are 7 matches into her AEW career, and it's the same thing every time. Unfortunately, it's not 2015 anymore, and she just can't do it these days. Baker also didn’t show anything here, and didn’t make good babyface comebacks. Britt looked quite a bit worse than she did a few years ago. She didn't really seem up for it. She'd just sell and seemed to have trouble getting up for suplexes. The only spot I got a kick out of was Baker doing the Eddy Guererro spot where Baker threw the belt to Kamille and played dead while the referee’s back was turned to get her evicted. They had a couple of decent near finishes after that before Mone did her awful finisher to win. If an old WWE comedy spot is the highlight of a match it should tell you enough about the quality of it. *

AEW TNT Title Coffin Match: Jack Perry (c) vs. Darby Allin 10:37
This match was built around Darby setting Perry on fire, and then threatening to set him on fire again (and somehow, Darby the pyromaniac is the babyface in all of this). Apparently, TBS was about as interested in this match as I was, given that they went to commercial in the middle of a lousy Jack Perry pre-taped segment on Dynamite. Tony loves to make the first match of a feud a gimmick match, and indeed, he did here, making this a Coffin Match. I’d argue that if you’re going to do a build so stupid that it involves setting people on fire, it should have paid off with a fitting level of stupidity in the form of an Inferno match. Perhaps Perry could have done one useful thing in his career and burned that hideous tattoo off Darby’s face. But hey, they could always go back to 1998, and steal the burning the coffin angle WWE did with Kane and Undertaker. I’ll note that I wrote this intro well before the show and was taking the piss. I didn’t actually expect them to do it, or tease it as it were! Luckily, Sting just happened to be there in case this happened, making a surprise appearance to save Darby since AEW have a tendency to screw up these angles badly enough that I might have actually feared Darby wouldn’t make it out of the coffin if they actually went through with it. The match didn’t work at all. AEW insist on trying to make Jack Perry an evil villain, and he can’t pull it off. He was only ever passable as a curtain jerker tag team wrestler who could do a few spots, and this push, like everything with the Elite faction, is horrible. Darby came out with a bunch of thumb tacks glued to his face. Perry just destroyed Darby in a lopsided match, doing whatever sick spots they came up with amongst posing. There wasn’t any more to it than that, and the most over guy in the match was CM Punk. *1/2

AEW World Title vs. Career Match: Swerve Strickland (c) vs. Bryan Danielson 25:59
The only match on the show that was reasonably well built. Swerve is better suited as a heel, though the stipulation of Danielson putting his career on the line didn’t make a great deal of sense – Danielson already won his World title shot, so why is he putting his career on the line? In any case, it was something of a conundrum. Based on Tony’s sentimental booking, Danielson getting a thank you run with the AEW title was likely (this is the same Tony who destroyed whatever shred of credibility his tag titles had left by giving them to undefeated Sting in his retirement match), but most people just figured he’d put over Swerve and that would be the end of it, and not without reason, since all Danielson seems to do is lose big matches, and openly wants to put everyone over. Going back to his WWE run, he’s lost 19 title matches in a row, which I’m sure is some kind of record (outside of the days WWE would tour everywhere with the same title matches). So, the interest wasn’t particularly high with the AEW fanbase until the career stipulation was made. The entrances set the tone really well here. I hate that Final Countdown song, but 40,000 people doing the “YES” thing was a sight to see. Swerve, for the first time, looked like a proper champion and a big deal during his entrance, getting rapped down to the ring and looking as intense as he ever has. This was a gripping Danielson match that keeps your attention throughout. It was a slower paced story match that built up to small moments and bigger ones later. I questioned whether they made the right call turning Swerve heel for this match, but he’s way better as a heel, and no one was going to boo Danielson, so it was the proper decision. They did an early spot on the ring bell where Danielson juiced. Swerve got major heat ‘kicking Danielson’s head in’ in front of his family, and talking his way through it. They milked that by showing Danielson’s daughter in tears at the beating her dad was taking. Danielson’s comebacks were perfectly timed, and he had showed his great fire, while always making it feel like he was just hanging in there. They had a great babyface/heel dynamic, and the crowd being so hot for the match probably made the match quite a bit better than it actually was. They got the most out of the spots they did, but unlike MJF vs. Ospreay, the wrestling between them was good. While there were great moments in the match and near falls that were perfectly built and had everyone on the edge of their seat, there were some that were a bit too over the top to go with them. I didn’t like the doctor coming in to check on Danielson. The match didn’t need that drama, and it really just broke the momentum. Swerve destroyed Danielson after with a bunch of big moves, until Danielson looked at his family and Hulked up. Danielson made his big comeback, but they did another twist where Swerve no sold the busaiku knee. I’m not always a fan of that sort of no-selling, but it worked really well here, and made it seem like Swerve could not be beaten. Swerve put Danielson down with the JML driver, which everyone was convinced was the finish, but Danielson kicked out of it in what seemed to be his last gasp. Swerve had had enough and went to finish him off for good, but Adam Page came out, beat up Nana and got hauled off by security. He didn’t directly get involved, but it seemed to be a cop out to get Danielson back into the match again, and it didn’t need to be there. The distraction allowed Danielson to make one more comeback, and they worked a strong sequence, leading to Danielson catching another busaiko knee and winning with the LeBell Lock. Danielson winning was a great moment, and he celebrated with his family in the ring. ****

I enjoyed this show overall, and it was probably the best AEW PPV of the year (Dynasty may have been better bell to bell since it actually had a useful midcard match in Strong vs. O'Reilly, but I enjoyed watching this show from start to finish more). I may not have liked all of the matches, but the only one I'd scrap would have been that Darby vs. Perry match, because Perry is a waste of time, and it was just an indy death match-lite deal to try to make him look like the supervillain that he's incapable of portraying, and an excuse to have Sting make an appearance. They could have drawn more fans advertising Pac vs. ZSJ, and had another notable match in the process. It was a four hour show that pretty much flew by. The first three matches didn't start off in a great way, and it's typical AEW to have ladders, tables, barbed wire, blood and in this case, cricket bats and balls because they were in England. Each of these matches were too long for what they were there to accomplish. But after that, the show tightened up, and the pacing was good for the rest of the show, capped off by a main event that was arguably AEW's best match of 2024, and a feel-good ending. The hot crowd gave the show a really good atmosphere, which also helped.

Best Matches of 2024 YouTube Playlist