Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
Sunday 5/13 will go down as a historic day for professional wrestling, in that the Cody Rhodes and Young Bucks-branded “All In” show moved somewhere around 10,000 tickets under an hour, a feat that has been unheard of in professional wrestling in the United States outside of the auspices of World Wrestling Entertainment for decades.
To put this in proper perspective, in less than an hour, the show sold more tickets to a singular event than any show ever promoted by Jeff Jarrett, Paul Heyman, Gabe Sapolsky or Jim Cornette. It sold more paid tickets than most of the final years of WCW. It sold more paid tickets than most of the final years of the AWA. It sold more paid tickets than many, but not all, of WWE live events domestically in recent years. You name the independent and All In crushed it.
It is an impressive accomplishment and Rhodes, The Bucks and Ring of Honor all deserve a huge standing ovation for a job well done when it came to the planning, marketing and execution of the event. Today’s ticket sales did not sprout from ROH booking or ROH TV, but instead from the popularity of the Bullet Club, it’s unique appeal as the cool anti-hero supergroup of the 21st century and most importantly, the personalities and shtick that came out of the “Being the Elite” YouTube series, which now, without argument, must be considered one of the most important TV shows in today’s professional wrestling landscape.
Today is a day where everyone involved should be jubilant and thrilled because with four months or so to spare, their event is sold out – with just one match (Cody vs. Nick Aldis for the NWA Championship) announced, and that match was only announced a few hours before the tickets went on sale.
For anyone who dismissed this crop of performers as not knowing how to work, disrespecting the conventions of the business, doing too many highspots, too much comedy, being spot monkeys, not being good promos, not being legit main eventers or anything else that was thrown at them as a criticism, all of that went into a dumpster fire, because no one making those criticisms has been able to accomplish what that group was able to accomplish today. No one says you must like it, but you must acknowledge that in the end, this grouping of performers did what they believed in, went against the grain in doing so, cultivated an audience that bought into it and drew money doing it.
That’s what professional wrestling is supposed to be – finding something that connects with the audience and getting them to spend their money to experience it, live, in the moment. Cody and the Bucks and ROH accomplished that. They etched themselves into history in a way that no one, to this date, has shown they can match. The bar was set. They are the elite, indeed.
But that doesn’t mean the journey is over, because in pro wrestling, the journey never is. There will be lots of lessons and ripple effects coming from today’s massive accomplishment – and here is a look at some of the things that have come out of this unique event and some that might, good and bad, in no order,
BULLET CLUB THE BRAND HAS OUTGROWN ROH AND NEW JAPAN
The “All In” show was not built nor was it promoted as a Ring of Honor event, although the story is that ROH is providing an infrastructure and assistance. With Rhodes and The Bucks signed to ROH (as well as other talents who are on “All In” being signed to appear), it doesn’t take a genius to guess that ROH has a vested interest in the show, or else they wouldn’t allow their talents to be doing a show on their own at this level. How much of that interest exists, however, will likely not ever get revealed…at least, not anytime soon.
Bullet Club, through the nature of its origins as an anti-hero, renegade group has marched to its own drum since its inception. That personality was what sold the group, but over time, the wrestling became secondary and the personalities involved sold the group – and made it so popular that Hot Topic came to them about carrying shirts nationally. You can debate how much Bullet Club means to the average pro wrestling fan, but if you are a discerning one who watches more than the WWE Network, they move the needle for you.
What is both amazing and scary all at once is that Bullet Club has morphed into the modern-day equivalent of what the NWO used to be for World Championship Wrestling – the company asset that has grown so large and so hot, it’s at the point of outshining the mothership. Remember when Scott Hall used to do the survey and ask who the fans were here to see, and most nights, the villainous NWO was more over? That’s Bullet Club today.
Bullet Club has grown so hot, but at the same time, have become so embedded in the ROH DNA, that by the week, they become all that more important to the long-term viability of ROH. While certainly the company could hire other talents, the loss of this crop would lead to the company losing so much ground and goodwill at once, it’s impossible to measure.
After all, Cody and the Bucks just became the top independent draws in all professional wrestling – with the gate receipts to prove it. Certainly, there are others involved here who helped move tickets, including Kenny Omega, but the stamp of the show was Bullet Club as seen through the prism of that trio. Cody left WWE because he didn’t want to be a supporting player in their stories. The Bucks have pushed their independence and developed themselves as new school heels who put their thumb in the eye of every wrestling convention and tradition. Their latest accomplishment not only lifted them all to the next level, but it pushed them beyond the box that is ROH.
ROH drew a few thousand in Chicago tonight. All In sold 10,000 tickets without the traditional ROH branding. The show also sold double the amount of tickets New Japan has moved thus far during their recent American excursions. Those companies are seen as corporations, as companies. Bullet Club are seen as the cool garage band you love to support, only now they are making money without selling out to the man.
"All In", its presentation and it's success rests on the marketing and creative building the show, which lands on the shoulders of several talents who collectively, on this date, mean more than the promotions they are contracted to. If I am ROH and New Japan, I am getting out the checkbooks to make sure they remain contracted for a long, long, long time, because….
WWE IS GOING TO WANT CRUSH THIS…AND ROH
If you don’t think World Wrestling Entertainment didn’t sit up and take notice of what happened today, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn along with every cliché you can muster.
Since the advent of the Monday Night War, WWE has controlled professional wrestling on a mainstream scale, having a huge leap on everyone as in 2018, they’ve had 17 years to educate even the most passing viewer that what they produce is the alpha and omega of professional wrestling.
Any potential challenger to the throne, whether it was Jimmy Hart’s XWF or Impact Wrestling on Mondays, WWE has gone to war with on a competitive level, even if they didn’t do it publicly. In the case of the XWF, they immediately brought back Hulk Hogan and the promotion’s champion, Curt Hennig, effectively killing the series off before it could even try to sell a pilot. Impact was going to go to Monday nights? Bret Hart was brought back for the first time in 1997, live on Raw to squash his heat with Shawn Michaels and kick off a Wrestlemania story with Vince McMahon.
Even recently, well before “All In” became a rallying cry for wrestling fans online, WWE was making moves to thwart the growth of independent promotions that weren’t going to become associates like EVOLVE or PROGRESS. There’s been lots of instances in recent years of Ring of Honor or House of Hardcore announcing debuts in new markets, just to see WWE a few weeks later announce dates in those same States (and sometimes the same markets) that just happen to plop down before the other events, effectively stealing the momentum, advance ticket sales and interest in those independent events.
It’s all fair in competitive business and WWE loves to compete.
So, what do you think they are going to do, seeing this show just scored a massive crowd and tons of buzz?
You can pretty much guarantee that anyone who WWE believes had any importance in drawing those ticket sales are now a higher priority for WWE to try and sign. If they had, for example, a passing interest in making Cody Rhodes an offer to return, guaranteed that interest tripled and so will that offer. If you don’t think they’d chase after Marty Scurll for 205 Live more than ever before or try to lure the Young Bucks in, well, you haven’t been watching the chess game that WWE has been playing forever.
Remember WWE signing Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura in one fell swoop? What's to stop them from trying to do it to ROH, if they believe they can make it happen? If you are WWE, it's in your best interest to chip away at the hill before it becomes a mountain.
I’m not predicting all or even any of the talents are going to be 100% signed away, but I am going to pretty much guarantee that they all just became far more valued talents within the radius of Stamford, CT. WWE wants the best and if they believe that signing the Young Bucks will bring them WWE Network subscriptions and NXT ticket sales or Wrestlemania classics, you know they are going to make a run at them as soon as they legally can.
That’s smart business. You want what will make you money while keeping the opposition from doing so.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the Bullet Club crew will want to go. After all, while signing with WWE means a lot of money for talents that go there. it also means a loss of creative freedom and time as it’s like signing up for the military – they want you to take your marching orders and march.
But, as of today, just as whatever value the players in the Bullet Club bring to ROH and New Japan went up, that value also went up elsewhere. History has seen what the Radicalz jump from WCW to WWE in 2000 did to the morale and spirit of World Championship Wrestling. If WWE could pull that off today, you know they would. They don’t want someone else selling 10,000 tickets that, in their mind, could be 10,000 WWE tickets in the hands of those fans. WWE always plays the long game and a new chapter of that started today.
THE NWA IS GOING TO GET A HELL OF A RUB
Billy Corgan, decked out in his Al Capone Gangster best, made a surprise appearance at the “All In” Press conference in Chicago today to announce that Nick Aldis will defend his championship against Cody on 9/1.
As a storyline for the show, it’s an amazing hook on several levels. It will be the modern interpretation of the NWA World title being defended against the equivalent of a hometown star. There’s also the heart-string pulling idea of Cody challenging for (and if they are smart, winning) the very title that his father chased after and won three times over the course of his career.
The story tells itself, because it’s a good one.
It’s also a terrific opportunity for the NWA brand, which Corgan and Dave Lagana have slowly but surely been building since Corgan effectively bought it in May of last year. By the time “All In” comes around, the NWA will not only have been resurrected and reformed but will have had months to tell this story along different forums and platforms, including Being the Elite and the NWA’s own YouTube series, allowing the same tale to be told from two different perspectives – the Champ and the challenger.
The NWA has gone from DOA to having nearly forty thousand YouTube subscribers and the belt being defended all over the world. It’d a far cry from the glory days of WTBS but every step has been a measured, smart one. Today’s announcement pretty much slingshots the brand forward, giving it a forum where their belt will be a main event in front of 10,000 rabid fans cheering on the challenger. That’s certainly on the right path back towards the old glory days.
No matter who holds the belt after this show, if the match doesn’t suck, and the finish isn’t horrible, the NWA will be a major winner come 9/1.
BEING THE ELITE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT WRESTLING TV SHOW SINCE RAW
I know that sounds like an insane statement to make and trust me, I am scratching my head while trying to wrap my head around it, but the reality is that the adventures of Hangman Page, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Cody and Brandi Rhodes and yes, even Flip Gordon (who, let’s face it, is booked) has become the go-to storyline telling platform to get characters, matches and events over.
ROH TV, New Japan TV and Being the Elite helped ROH draw 5,000 fans for Omega vs. Rhodes in the shadow of Wrestlemania. It took talents like Page and Gordon and gave them a purpose and a personality and has allowed the personalities created on the show to thrive based on those personalities as opposed to just their in-ring work. That’s quite the success story itself.
Now, Being the Elite, built over 100 episodes, has succeeded in its overall theme of making all involved viable performers who can translate the popularity of the show into something greater. Like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, they put on a show, and they found their audience and it’s making all involved money, legitimate, proven money that cannot be denied after today.
What other wrestling show can prove that? Beats me.
It's time for pro wrestling to study and learn from Being the Elite, just as Raw studied and learned from Nitro twenty years ago.
‘ALL IN’ HAS TO BECOME A PPV
Ten thousand tickets were moved to a show that started as a whim when Cody Rhodes took a comment from Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer to task, with Meltzer stating that he didn’t believe ROH could draw 10,000 to a show anytime soon.
If there is any sense in the head of Rhodes, Ring of Honor or anyone else involved in the brain-trust of this show, they make immediate arrangements for this event to air on PPV live. To me, whether it’s iPPV or legitimate PPV should not be the issue but given the number of fans upset they can’t get in the doors or angry at the amount of tickets that landed in the hands of scalpers, people want to see this show.
Pro wrestling, at its best, is meant to be seen and felt in the moment. While VOD and DVD are nice, the reality is that once a show takes place, there is a portion of the audience who will scroll over the results and never give watching the show a second thought. Putting the show in the hands of that audience, live as it happens, especially a show built on the fraternity that is Bullet Club and with the electricity generated by the audience, well, it’s a no brainer that if you build it, the people will come.
This show is going to be a time capsule, a spectacle and it needs to air live, for a price. It cannot be included in the Honorclub package. It’s too important a moment and it’s too big an investment to just be treated like a secondary show. This is a license to print money. Not doing so would not only be ridiculously silly, but financially criminal to all involved.
IF IT’S ALL IN - IT’S ALL IN - OR WHAT IS IT?
In the weeks and months that led up to today’s ticket sales, most of the emails we’ve received from readers were built around excitement and happiness about a weekend for them that was going to celebrate their love of pro wrestling and the wrestlers they love. Obviously, as someone who for the last 14 years-plus, has made my living off the professional wrestling industry, I am all for that.
In recent days, however, the deluge of angry emails upset about plans being made for the Starrcast convention that is associated with the show but is being run independently by Conrad Thompson, the co-host of Something to Wrestling With, to include Vince Russo in the convention aspect of the show obviously changed that outlook for some fans.
Now, anyone who knows me personally knows the history of Russo denying our reports that he was back working for Impact, only to then include me on an email meant for Mike Tenay and Taz. When I then reported what had happened, Russo lied and knocked the site and myself, claiming he had worked me into reporting the story. When I responded that I would give him a chance to come clean or I’d print the email, Russo was then ordered by his superiors at Impact Wrestling to apologize to me publicly and privately for what he had done, and since then, has knocked me regularly and blamed me for his eventual firing – even though his firing came well after and was due to a situation that had nothing to do with me or my reporting.
So, as you might imagine, I don’t like the guy personally (I can’t imagine anyone would like someone who publicly lied about them), but if I am going to do my job here and be fair to a story when writing about it, I must admit I find the uproar about his inclusion in the convention and the ripple effects of that uproar to be more than over the top.
I don’t personally think Russo should be booked and if it was my event, he’d be thrown out the second he got through the door…. BUT, if this weekend is about “All In” and meant to be inclusive, where do you draw the line at who and what should be included? If it’s a podcast convention, as its been promoted to be, and Russo has an (insufferable, in my opinion) podcast, doesn’t he have the right to come and do his thing? Whether anyone wants to pay to see him or sit and watch him record or wants to confront him or call him an a-hole is inconsequential to the fact that he has a right to be there.
This is not defending Russo on a personal level and trust me, the last thing I want to do is give him any sort of attention, because he had his time and his run and it’s well, well, well past the time for pro wrestling to move on without him, but if Russo wants to put himself in the same room with the fans and personalities that he’s ripped apart with his comments in recent years, well, more power to him, especially if he can make it out of the weekend without an incident.
Buy, by refusing Russo the chance to walk through the fires he’s started, everyone has now run the risk of lowering themselves to his level, giving him a new reason to gripe about pro wrestling and everyone involved in it and creating a controversy where there didn’t need to be one. Let the guy go sit in the corner at Starrcast and see what happens – he’s either going to get ignored, he’s going to greet whatever fans care about him or he’s going to get accosted. Whether any of that happens, that’s not on the event. It’s on Russo.
If you were paying to go to the convention and want nothing to do with Russo, you ignore him and do your thing, the same way you probably would by ignoring his podcast anyway.
But, by refusing Vince Russo because whatever segment of fans (none of whom have paid for the convention as of this writing) complained online about it – well that just feels wrong, especially when it’s about being “All In.”
Cody Rhodes knocked Russo, with good reason, and trust me, I get it. He told Russo that he wasn’t welcome at the show, and man, do I get it, as you don’t want him taking any attention from the wrestlers who are performing – or give him a chance to make himself relevant.
Believe me when I promise you that I detest that I just wrote all this, but unlike Vince Russo speaking about me in the past, I’ll never lie about the guy. If it’s “All In”, everyone should have a chance to be “All In” and the fans in attendance should judge whether those personalities are worth their time or not. I hate that I wrote that (more than anyone knows, oh do I hate myself for writing this), but it’s true.
Now, the oddball ripple effect of Russo being booked (and apparently unbooked) was that a number of fans on social media quickly turned on Conrad Thompson for allowing Russo in and then, for not making it publicly clear he was promoting Starrcast. I understand the former, since it’s well, Russo, but the latter is extremely strange to me.
When I went to my first wrestling convention in 1992, I knew who the promoter John Arezzi was, but it didn’t matter to me. As a fan, I went there to meet Terry Funk and Jushin Liger. Whether John Arezzi or Vince McMahon was promoting the event, I wanted to go because it was an event I wanted to attend. I don’t understand the uproar in Thompson not spelling out that he was the promoter of the event for a few reasons.
First it's not like Thompson's under an active criminal investigation; he booked Vince Russo. That might be stupid depending on your opinion, but it doesn't deserve the entire brunt of a nuclear war to be lobbed at the guy. If the idea that Russo would be there ruins your idea of a fun time, you don't go, but to me, that's like skipping a rock festival because you don't care about the no name band at the bottom of the bill.
Looking at it purely from the perspective of the fan I was when I was walking into a wrestling convention for the first time in 1992, if I was promised (as Starrcast fans have been), Jerry Lawler, Terry Funk, DDP, Konnan, Shane Helms, Bruce Prichard, Tony Schiavone, Eric Bischoff, Jeff Jarrett, an NWO reunion, a Death of WCW panel, and more to be announced, I’d be buying tickets based on my level of excitement for that event, nothing more.
Secondly, if it had been promoted as CONRAD THOMPSON PRESENTS STARRCAST or something equally silly, the immediate response from fans would have been that Thompson was being some sort of weird egotistical goof trying to get himself over at the expense of everyone else involved. He wasn’t and still hasn’t tried to do that. So, is the dude now being criticized because he didn't put his name on the marquee?
If so, that doesn't seem like a good Cloak and Dagger conspiracy theory to me. A good promoter and producer wants to be in the shadows and let the event do the speaking for them. I attended 99% of Greg Price’s Mid-Atlantic Fanfests and I probably saw him for all of 30 seconds every time. Why? He let the event speak for itself and was seen when he was needed to handle problems.
If Thompson didn’t want to have a neon sign over his head – or even if he now has one blinking above him - how doesany of that change the quality of the actual event itself? It wasn’t a bait and switch. Thompson wasn’t hiding the fact he was the promoter, he just wasn’t making it blatantly obvious that he was, in fact the promoter, which makes sense, because at the end of the day, it was immaterial.
Thompson is spending his own money to run the event and he can promote it however he chooses, just as you could if you wanted to run one.
Starrcast that weekend will live or die by one thing – whether it gives its paying audience the type of quality event that they expect. I can’t predict whether that will happen, but I can say that firing complaints over something that seems quite trivial (to me) spits in the face of what the weekend is being designed to be to begin with – something where fans go to express and enjoy their love of professional wrestling again.
If Thompson promoting the event or even Russo being there is so troublesome, there is an immediate answer as to how to deal with it. You just don’t buy a ticket and you go do something else with your time. Chances are that someone else who holds one of those 10,000 tickets sold will be happy to go buy a Starrcast ticket to go meet Terry Funk or do DDP Yoga or whatever.
I understand feeling ownership over something you care about because I certainly do that with things I am passionate about, but that ownership cannot start to invalidate others. If it does and it’s going to be “This is my event because A--B-C", therefore they can’t be here because “A-B-C”.well, then the idea of this weekend being “All In” and something for ‘us’ has already been ruined months before it even takes place, because it’s not an "us." Instead, it’s a clique in the worst Degrassi Junior High melodramatic sense of the word.
ALL IN 2 IS COMING
There will be a sequel. Just like when the doors opened for the first Star Wars film in 1977, the amount of immediate business meant there would be an Empire Strikes Back one day. With potential matches like Kenny Omega (or Kazuchika Okada) vs. Rey Mysterio or The Young Bucks vs. Pentagon & Rey Fenix or anything else we can fantasy book on the docket and a completely sold out show, it’s just a matter of where and when they attempt this again, because “All In” isn’t a wrestling card or even an event.
Today, it became a franchise.
Tomorrow, the fallout of that success begins to take shape, even if we won't consciously register it for months or even years to come.
Everything gets traced back to today. Remember that.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com. He wants to see "All In" end with Jim Cornette and the Revival attacking and laying out everyone with tennis racquets, shooting a big angle to return at the United Center. Well, a guy can dream, right?
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
