AEW ALL IN ON-SITE REPORT: Barber’s detailed look at his experience at Globe Life Field for his first live PPV experience including crowd responses to key moments

I have been a wrestling fan for close to 30 years now, something’s terrifying to say out loud much less put in print. While I have been to a WWE Raw as well as two AEW Dynamites, I had never been to a PPV until this past Saturday. I lucked into one hell of a show as my first one. AEW All In was truly an experience I will remember for a long time to come.

Getting to Globe Life Field was fairly painless. I live about two hours north of the DFW metroplex area, but the drive is easy. My dad, who is not a wrestling fan at all, came along with me. Once we got into Fort Worth, traffic started getting tight and I got concerned about getting to the show in time. Even with me missing the turn off to the ballpark and having to do a U-turn we still got there around 12:50. Parking was more expensive than I expected at $50 or $55. We parked in the $50 lot and walked the short couple blocks to the building.

Once inside we got lucky that the side of the building we entered on just happened to be the side where are seats were located. Globe Life Field is an impressive venue. Not being a baseball fan, I otherwise would never seen the inside so I’m glad I had this opportunity.

Going in I expected the lack of a sellout and presence of empty seats to really mess with my head but honestly it didn’t. The energy from the near 30k in attendance more than made up for the empty seats. From what I’ve gathered, it was also shot in such a fashion that it came across well on TV. One thing that I want to pushback strongly on is the notion that the crowd was dead for any stretch of the show. That’s simply false.

My belief is that AEW struggled to mic the ballpark properly. Stadiums/ballparks are notoriously tricky to mic and Globe Life Field is no different. It’s a large building, so even though the retractable roof was closed, the sound is still designed to travel up. The only time the crowd was noticeably down was during the TNT Title match and that was largely because of terrible Adam Cole news.

Any other suggestion that the crowd wasn’t reacting is purely a function of the sound not translating on TV. For instance, the idea that the crowd was “sitting on their hands” for Bryan Danielson’s return is absurd. That building erupted. The “Yes!” chants were deafening. On the flip side, in the building, the ring wasn’t mic’d well either so the snap of the moves didn’t come through very loud although Shibata’s chops were crystal clear.

We arrived just as the Von Erichs were leaving the ring so I completely missed that match. I wouldn’t have minded missing the next match too but that’s just me. Loathe as I am to admit it, Big Boom A.J., Big Justice, and the Rizzler are over in Texas. The Republican party is also over in Texas so taste is definitely relative. A.J. may be annoying and I’d much prefer him not be on the show at all, but least he’s a trained former pro wrestler not some celebrity off the street (see Jelly Roll). To his credit, Big Justice hit a better spear on Trent Beretta than Goldberg did later on SNME. The Outrunners and FTR was fine. Ultimately, these pre-show matches are intended to take place with the expectation that the crowd isn’t fully seated yet so the reactions don’t fully matter.

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Opening the main card with the tacked on AEW Trios Title match was certainly a choice. I won’t get into the minutiae of the booking here and now, but this match is the only one that could fully have been left off the show. The crowd was into the match, make no mistake, but I think starting the show off with Will Ospreay’s music would’ve been a better choice. Hobbs catching Wheeler Yuta in the Doomsday Device and turning it into a powerslam easily got the loudest reaction of the entire match. On a personal note, I did enjoy getting to explain to my dad Shibata’s brain injury and near death. Throughout out the show I had to explain to him who the people were, which was fun.

The men’s Casino Gauntlet apparently got a better response in-arena than came across on TV. The crowd loved counting down and popped for most of the entrants especially Mistico, Brody King, and the oddly clean-shaven returning Juice Robinson. The weirdest thing about this match, weird to the point my dad picked up on it, was how a lot of the entrants were laid out at ringside for long periods of time. It was peculiar way to lay it out and I’m glad the women’s gauntlet didn’t follow the same pattern.

Adam Cole’s speech was absolutely gut-wrenching. It had me and others in my section in tears. He’s such a genuinely good dude and it’s just awful how his body keeps failing him. The match that followed was always going to suffer as a result. Putting Dustin Rhodes over under the circumstances made perfect sense to bring the crowd back up a bit.

What brought the crowd all the way back up though was the next match. Will Ospreay brought Globe Life Field to its feet. There was a lady a few seats down from me who was absolutely losing her mind during the entire thing. Getting to chant “Ospreay!” was awesome though, so I was right there with her. From my vantage point I couldn’t tell who was singing “Ain’t Nobody” but I was happy to find out it was JoJo. She can sing! The crowd was definitely into singing that classic banger so it was a nice touch. The match itself was outstanding. The four men in front me were all Young Bucks fans while the rest of us were cheering for Ospreay and Swerve so that was a fun dynamic. Needless to say, those of us rooting for the faces were ecstatic about the Hidden House Call finish.

The women’s Casino Gauntlet was much in-line with the men in terms of the reactions. Most of the entrants got good reactions but Willow and home state gals Athena and Thunder Rosa got huge pops. Athena winning went over quite well as you would expect.

The next match was all about the post-match angle. The crowd wasn’t dead but it did feel like we were all waiting for the Adam Copeland return we assumed we were getting and the place exploded when “Metalingus” hit. Thankfully Texas knew the words.

Contrary to how it may have come across on TV, the crowd was locked in for the final three matches. During the AEW Women’s Title match, we were either singing Toni Storm’s name or engaging in chants of “C-E-O!” which us Toni fans did our best to drown out with “Let’s go Toni!” There was a little girl, maybe 10 years old, behind me positively screaming her head off for Toni throughout the entire thing. As the match got deep into its final stanza, we hung on each near fall until we popped huge for Toni’s win.

“Big Fight Feel” gets tossed around a lot these days, but never was it more the case than Okada-Omega. From the moment the graphic was shown on the big screen, the crowd understand what they were about to witness and you could feel it. Kenny’s entrance got a huge pop. Loud “This is awesome!” and “Holy shit!” chants rang out even before the bell did. On a personal level, it was surreal seeing this match live.

The crowd was fully invested in the main event from popping for the return of “Hangman” Page’s old music to jeering the hell out of Jon Moxley. Last Man Standing rules are always tricky when it comes to generating big reactions from the crowd for the babyface beating the ten counts, but everyone in that building hung on each count out. From the moment Bryan Danielson hitting the ring, virtually nobody in the building – certainly nobody in my section – was sitting down.

That final moment when Mox tapped out was positively euphoric. That building roared. It was moment I’ll remember for a long time. The building roared again when Hangman opened the briefcase. It felt like everyone had been waiting for that moment for so long. Hangman did cut a brief promo for us in the building, thanking everyone for their support and telling us that he was finally happy.

Leaving the building we were met with a downpour that left everyone soaked as we all made our way to our vehicles. Ironically as soon my dad and I got to my car, the rain stopped. Not even a brief rainstorm could dampen my enjoyment of the show though.

A couple of random notes from the show:

•Apparently Texas does not like Kevin Hart because the couple times that his Draft Kings ads aired on the screen in the building it was booed vociferously.

•If you’re going to live show, find out if you’re allowed to bring a bottle water into the building because concessions are obscenely overpriced.

Overall, I thought AEW put on a great show from a live crowd perspective. I know there’s been a lot of talk about the show being too long and I get it, but it didn’t feel that way to me. I never found myself checking my watch or my phone for the time. It definitely helped that this was a afternoon show. I wouldn’t make this the standard length obviously but for the biggest show of the year I think it was okay. If you haven’t been to an AEW show and one comes to your area, GO! You won’t regret it.