The Story of 'All In' & Formation of All Elite Wrestling

One year ago, it was hard to remember that WWE will consider some promotion as legitimate competition. But the pace at which AEW has progressed, build up their roster and maintained their audience, WWE soon realized that they have a problem at their hands. So much so, that they had to put up NXT in direct competition with AEW Dynamite. As the promotion completes its first year, let's look back at their journey so far.

The story starts with a Q&A session from Dave Meltzer, one of the biggest wrestling journalists, on Twitter in 2017. Meltzer was asked if any promotion other than WWE can sell out an arena of 10k+ seats in the United States. Dave Meltzer said that he does not see it happening in the near future.

Cody Rhodes, working with ROH at the time, took up the challenge saying if he and the Young Bucks will be on the card and will be given 3 months of promotion time, they could sell out a 10k seat arena. He tried to get ROH on the idea but the promotion did not agree to produce the event.

Since leaving WWE in 2014, Cody has learned more about producing wrestling events and backstage works. Determined to create a PPV, he and the Young Bucks self-financed the event(with ROH's backing). The aim still remained to sell out a 10k+ capacity arena.

By that time, the Young Bucks have started their Youtube Channel Being the Elite that has already become a hit among the fans. Being the Elite and Cody's Nightmare Family YouTube Channel worked as one of the main promotional platforms for the event. The bet between Cody and Dave Meltzer worked wonders to create the buzz for the show.

The show was finally announced to take place on 1 September 2018(Labor Day Weekend). Kenny Omega and Stephen Amell(Actor from Arrow and TNMNT fame) were announced initially. Later, many wrestlers from the independent circuit, ROH, NWA, and NJPW were also announced. Later, the venue was announced as the Sears Center near Chicago and tickets went on sale on 13 May 2018.

To everyone's surprise, tickets were sold out merely in record-breaking time of 29 minutes.

The show was build-up with various Youtube channels like Being the Elite, Cody's Nightmare Family, apart from ROH and NWA shows. On the D-day, apart from some technical issues and issues with the length of some matches, it was all and all a great show. As the show was done and dusted, both the reactions from the fans and the critical acclaim was favorable. In his review, Dave Meltzer himself said that he is happy to lose that bet with Cody.

The success of All In essentially made way for the formation of AEW. All of Cody Rhodes, Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Hangman Page had their contracts up with ROH and NJPW by the end of 2018. ROH was simply not able to fulfill their newfound expectations creatively and on monetization level. They were looking for new opportunities. Talks went well between Tony Khan and the Elites and it paved the way for AEW.

Now, how did AEW became so famous so quickly? The decline of WWE's product. Over time, fans have(are) become frustrated with WWE's TV shows, their booking decisions, their favorite wrestlers not given proper opportunities and so on. With the success of All In, the Elites have shown that they can create good shows. The anti-WWE sentiment was so much in favor of AEW apart from the promise shown by ALL IN.

Add the star power of Chris Jericho and the Elites and various other independent wrestlers. They have garnered the sizeable fanbase who was ready to lap up their product. And when you have such a passionate fan base as AEW has, you are bound to be successful.

Since it's inception there have been 3 AEW PPVs and 2 other events and their weekly TV show, AEW Dynamite, started from October. Each PPV was sold in record time and got around 100,000 PPV buys at $50 each. 

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