AEW All-in was great. AEW PPVs are always great. Few things are sure in life. Death, Taxes, and the upcoming AEW PPV will be way better than you're currently expecting. Even the "bad ones" are stand head and shoulders over the average WWE PPV.
Going into this show, for my money, the two best stories going were. The first would be Danielson vs Swerve, which would be elevated by it's very intense yet plausible stakes, and the fact it dovetails into Hangman and Swerve's (increasingly one sided) rivalry.
The other, Toni Storm vs Mariah May, stands purely on its own merit. They built their feud from scratch with their bare hands, and delivered in the ring. They deserve all the praise they get.
But this is American TV Wrestling so of course some shit is gonna bug me...
A reoccurring fact people will state about this feud is it's based on the 1950 movie It's all about Eve, a story where a young woman manipulates herself to be the protege of an aging actress, only to usurp her and take her stardom. This fact is stated so much that news articles talking about All-in would bring this up. The fact the story is based on this is without a doubt, down to the line "It's all about Mariah".
The story starts like this, Mariah weaseling her way in, Toni's butler not trusting her, Mariah's motives being unclear to everyone, including the audience... and then, a weird, semi-one-sided, quasi friendship.
What, in the movie, would be a growing sense that things are going wrong, with the older star, Margo, starts becoming increasingly unsure and then resentful of her understudy, Eve... just becomes good times. They go off to instead have a sexual drama fueled trouple romp with Stardom unicorn, Mina Shirakawa, a story that requires Toni Storm to stop being wishy-washy about Mariah. This whole bit is nice. It shows a bunch of characters how they feel about each other, and how those relationships reflect off of the people around them.
The Mariah May wins the Owen Hart Cup to get a chance to wrestle Toni for the championship in the UK. Toni is proud of her. Everyone is proud of her. Then Mariah busts Toni open it a shoe. Because this is US Wrestling.
I hated this. Not that the performance wasn't awesome. Toni and Mariah sold this moment like two of the best wrestlers in the world. Toni's sobbing face with blood running down forehead while Mariah looms menacingly over her? This was executed excellently. But was it built to excellently? No. It really wasn't built to at all. I complained that the attack was random on twitter, only to be told that I clearly wasn't familiar with "All About Eve".
... But they didn't actually tell that story. They referenced it. They took inspiration from it. All of that is fine, they don't need to be married to their source material, but to replace the tension from the elements they changed, they put in... nothing. Nothing but the inevitability of US Wrestling. If you trust someone, you will be betrayed. Anyone who watches wrestling knew in that moment that something was going to happen. The attack wasn't random because I didn't see it coming. Like a novice fighting game player mashing DP like crazy, I know the Dragon Punch is coming. It is random in that it is irrational. You know what's going to happen because of meta knowledge and the problem with a lot of US wrestling is this meta knowledge is treated like good storytelling.
And in a sense they're right. They know their audience. They know US fan wants moments. Even diehard AEW fans who claim to hate WWE want what WWE was famous for providing. Moments. All things are justified if the moment pays it off. They made their moment, excellently, and paid it off at Wembly Stadium. Looking at it through the lens of US Wrestling, it was great. The best feud of the year... but since it had some moments hinting at more, it left me feeling frustrating. Things started to feel wet for a second, but then immediately had to dry out.
The Story of Toni and Mariah isn't a story of a manipulative younger wrestler, manipulating her way into a powerful woman's life so she could slowly replace her. No, it's the story of a young psychopath who wanted to destroy someone who had what she felt she deserved. Mariah took on the clothing and styling of Toni not as an act of desire, but as a strategic play. Manipulating Toni gained her nothing, it provided her no opportunities, no edges in matches. No, it was done only so that she could hurt Toni Storm even more.
That would be a fine story, if not for the fact that it is practically every other wrestling storyline. Oh well, at least they told one of the best versions of it.