AEW All In 2023 will take place at Wembley Stadium on August 27th, 2023.
This will be All Elite Wrestling’s first foray into pro-wrestling in the UK, after cancelling a 2020 tour due to the pandemic.
They ambitiously booked the 90,000-seater Wembley Stadium, and at the time of writing have sold nearly 70,000 tickets to the event.
This will make “All In” one of the most attended wrestling events of all time, even before a single match has been announced.
This show will be the second time a professional wrestling event has been held in the Wembley Stadium, with the first being a legendary WWE pay per view.
Summerslam 1992 Was The First Wrestling Show At Wembley Stadium
The first professional wrestling event to take place in the old Wembley Stadium came nearly 70 years after the Stadium had been built.
This event was when American promotion the WWF (now WWE) came to the UK for a tour in 1992.
This tour culminated in their biggest show of the summer at Wembley Stadium – Summerslam 1992.
The event was a huge success, and remains to this day one of the biggest wrestling events ever.
Over 80,000 fans were alleged to have crammed into Wembley Stadium to see the hometown hero British Bulldog in the main event.
The full card for the Summerslam 1992 show at Wembley Stadium is:
- The Legion Of Doom (Animal & Hawk) (w/Paul Ellering) vs. Money Inc. (Irwin R. Schyster & Ted DiBiase) (w/Jimmy Hart)
- Virgil vs. Nailz
- Shawn Michaels (w/Sensational Sherri) vs. Rick Martel
- The Natural Disasters (Earthquake & Typhoon) (c) vs. The Beverly Brothers (Beau Beverly & Blake Beverly) (w/The Genius)
- Crush vs. Repo Man
- Randy Savage (c) vs. The Ultimate Warrior
- Kamala (w/Harvey Wippleman & Kim Chee) vs. The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer)
- Bret Hart (c) vs. The British Bulldog
Despite claiming to wrestle at the event (and writing an entire song about a dying child he met at Summerslam 1992), Hulk Hogan was not even in the country for the event. He never even wrestled at Wembley Stadium.
British Bulldog vs Bret Hart was the main event of the first Wembley Stadium wrestling show. They battled for Hart’s Intercontinental Championship, a title Bulldog had never won.
The match has been heralded as one of the greatest matches of all time – even by Vince McMahon himself.
This was because the British Bulldog was completely off his head on drugs during the match, forcing Hart to carry one of the most important WWE matches of all time.
Somehow, Bret Hart managed to convinced Wembley Stadium that British Bulldog was fully cognisant and doing his best for his hometown crowd.
In a fantastic match, the British Bulldog pinned Bret Hart to win the WWE Intercontinental Championship, as 80,000 British fans leapt to their feet in shock and delight.
Nobody else ever attempted to run Wembley Stadium, before it was demolished in 2002. It was replaced by a brand-new stadium of the same name in 2007, which is the one AEW will be running for their All In show.
AEW All In 2023 Is At Wembley Stadium
21 years after WWE brought professional wrestling to the old Wembley Stadium, AEW have decided to run “All In” at the new Wembley Stadium.
The event is a continuation of the All In brand of events. The first one took place in 2018, and was an independent event promoted by Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks.
This event is seen as the precursor to All Elite Wrestling, with President Tony Khan getting the idea to form the promotion after appearing at this show.
AEW have gone on leaps and bounds in the four years since their promotions. They have sold out 20,000 seater arenas, had incredible cross-promotion pay per views and coaxed legends like CM Punk and Christian Cage out of retirement.
They were meant to host Fyter Fest 2020 in the United Kingdom, but the pandemic put a stop to that plan.
It took them three more years to finally come across the pond and host their first ever event in England.
Despite no matches being announced for the show (although we have predicated what matches could appear on the show), the hype for the show has reached fever pitch.
Over 65,000 tickets have been sold on the AEW name alone. Once stars like CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Kenny Omega are announced as part of the show, except thousands more to be sold.
As the attendance creeps toward the Wembley Stadium capacity of 90,000, the hype for the show increases and the fans simply cannot wait to see what AEW have in store for their first ever All In show in the United Kingdom.
Whatever happens, it’s just good to see professional wrestling back at Wembley Stadium.