All In Wrestling 2018: Now It’s All About The Next Steps
All In was a moment that fed on the excitement of fans and wrestlers alike. Now that it has passed, the conversation turns to what’s next for the future.
This weekend was a special moment in professional wrestling. All In was held on Saturday to a sold out crowd of 10,000 people and many more watching on demand throughout the country. It will be a few weeks until final revenue numbers from the gate and PPV buys are tallied, but All In is widely considered a success.
While not perfect, there is a lot of positive that should be taken away from this show. The sheer excitement of what happens next is a major talking point across the wrestling community today. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what should happen next now that this showcase is a thing of the past.
The first part of the conversation is what’s next from an organizational standpoint. Should All In become an annual event? Should it become an independent promotion on its own? Both of these are intricate ideas that need to be fleshed out in their own right.
Many have already voiced their thoughts that a second event should occur; leveraging All In as the “WrestleMania” of independent promotions. Talents from All In compete across a multitude of organizations including Ring of Honor, NWA, Lucha Underground, New Japan, PWG and more. The fact that they were able to bring talent from so many organizations together for a one-night event is an exceptional feat, and exactly why All In should remain as a one-night only event instead of becoming a promotion on its own.
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Showcasing all of these wrestlers on one show helps them build a fan base that will potentially follow them back to these organizations. Want to see Bandido’s next match? Maybe you will have to tune into AAA, PWG or Progress.
Liked what you saw from Jordynne Grace? Go back and look over her two years’ worth of wrestling content and keep track of her future career moves.
These are the major benefits that come from underground movements such as All In; they shine a light on talented competitors that aren’t performing in the major promotions that wrestling fans easily know.
The second part of the conversation about “what’s next,” should focus on a second All In event. The minds behind the first showcase haven’t confirmed whether or not they will look to hold another event in 2019 or not, but anticipation for them to do so is already palpable.
With that in mind, the first All In should be seen as an exceptional learning opportunity for what can be done in the future.
First, there has to be a conversation about production value. Visually, All In was solid; the ring, stage and banner presentations look good and the lighting during the matches was well down. However, the camera placement during many of the matches seemed off; making it difficult for online viewers to clearly see a lot of the action. Higher production value comes with larger budgets but this is one area in which the show could improve.
There were also timing issues that led to the last match being very rushed; coming in at a little more than 11 minutes, the second shortest math of the night. Kazuchika Okada versus Marty Scrull went nearly thirty minutes in a match that was very slow paced. The entire show ran right up to the final seconds, leading to the feed being cut before the commentators could even finish signing off.
Larger organizations usually plan for this by booking an additional 30 minutes to an hour of PPV broadcast time, but again, that comes with a higher budget. Either way, match makers for the next event will need to ensure that matches are timed out in a way to not be forced to cut out the bigger names that fans paid to see.
Then there’s the question about who should be involved in the next event. Much of this card centered around various members of the Bullet Club and stories that can be found on their YouTube series “Being the Elite.” While this gave the feeling of many inside jokes that mainstream fans may not recognize; one must wonder whether or not that’s the way to continue in the future.
Even as the WWE continues to snatch up talent from competitors on a monthly basis, there’s a long list of athletes that can be featured in future events in a “dream match” style of card. Take the match between Omega and Pentagon; this is perhaps the only way fans would get to see these two special athletes in the same ring on a one on one match. All In can become the land where dream matches are made to excite fans year over year.
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At the end of the day, there are many who have both positive and negative views about All In and the results of the event. Whatever side people fall on, it’s an exciting moment in professional wrestling and the fact that this show even saw the light of day gives space for intrigue into what’s to come in the future.