I don’t think I’m in the minority when it comes to AEW fans still questioning whether or not Redemption needed to be added to this year’s pay-per-view slate ahead of All In: London at the end of next month. There were absolutely some great moments tonight, but they were few and far between, and also, they could have happened at other events, including All In itself. This show also started an hour earlier than usual, but still lasted nearly five hours, six including the Buy-In, which, for this B-level show, felt excessive.
While I loved that Willow Nightingale finally captured her first AEW Women’s World Championship tonight, I understand the complaints I’m seeing online that it felt slightly underwhelming, with not a lot of build behind it. We saw her All In opponent, Mercedes Mone, watching on from the crowd, but she didn’t confront the new champion to fully reignite their feud just yet. I’m also really happy for Maya World, but that title change could have also had some more fire behind it, and could have happened at All In, even if it happened on Zero Hour or something ahead of the show. The same goes for Andrade El Idolo. The AEW National Championship isn’t exactly the company’s biggest title, and it would have been cool to see him win it at Grand Slam: Mexico.
There wasn’t much heat behind Adam Copeland and Christian Cage’s title defense against the Death Riders, and the double chain tag team match pitting The Dogs against The Bang Bang Gang fell incredibly flat (more on this soon). The Montreal crowd had a lot to do with that, as they were pretty quiet, on television, at least, throughout the night, which really took away from the show. Kyle Fletcher and Bandido was a banger of a match, but there was no doubt that Fletcher was keeping the International Championship.
There was also no chance for Kevin Knight to dethrone Kenny Omega in Canada, during his first defense of the gold, ahead of a big money match at All In against Will Ospreay. I love that AEW has faith in Knight, and the match was an excellent showcase of his skills, but the finish was never in doubt, which is always pretty lame to me. The post-match angle was also set up earlier in the night when Will Ospreay and Jon Moxley defeated the Young Bucks, and while I’m not upset about the storyline progression, it just felt a little too obvious. There were no big surprises tonight, and while there was plenty of good in-ring action and some setup to All In, I don’t know how necessary this lengthy pay-per-view really was.
Written by Daisy Ruth
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