When the Jacksonville Jaguars played host to the Denver Broncos at London’s Wembley Stadium in October last year, fans caught a clip that featured star quarterback Trevor Lawrence and Blackpool Combat Club member Claudio Castagnoli as part of a promotional shoot for AEW’s English TV partner, ITV.
That brief crossover was Tony Khan’s early work in planting the seeds for the wrestling promotion’s eventual European debut. Khan, AEW’s founder and the Jags’ chief football strategy officer, has known for a long time that he wanted to run his first London show at Wembley, but admits the outpouring of interest has exceeded even their very optimistic early projections.
“We stand on the verge of breaking so many historical milestones,” Khan tells Uproxx Sports. “Certainly this will be the biggest wrestling event ever in Europe and one of the biggest events in history.”
As of this writing, AEW has sold more than 80,000 tickets and stands less than 800 tickets away from breaking the all-time paid ticket sales record — per WrestleTix, WWE set that record by selling 80,709 tickets for WrestleMania 32.
AEW has known of the significant interest in a large-scale show abroad, but Khan admits that Wembley wasn’t the only venue the promotion considered for its first All In show. Khan also considered Craven Cottage, the oldest football stadium in London and home to the Premier League’s Fulham FC, which boasts a record attendance of 49,335 from a soccer match in 1938. (Khan serves as the vice chairman and director of football operations for the club.)
“There’s two places I thought about,” Khan says. “One is also very dear to my heart, and that’s Craven Cottage. Wembley is, for a pro wrestling event, the more economical choice for many reasons. In that, you can have much more capacity for attendance since Wembley is a larger stadium by far, and also, the same wonderful charms of Craven Cottage and all the history of that magnificent venue. (Craven Cottage) poses so many challenges to loading in a pro wrestling event and it would cost millions more to produce the event at Craven Cottage than at Wembley.”
For Khan, the magnitude of this show hasn’t set in yet, although he calls it the “single biggest opportunity” the promotion has ever had. It follows the trend of taking a leap of faith like the Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes did at the original All In back in 2018, which made history as a self-promoted independent show that sold 10,000 tickets.
The group that puts the Elite in All Elite Wrestling recently committed their collective futures to the promotion and are expected to be heavily involved in the show. The Young Bucks will feature prominently in another dream showdown with FTR over the AEW World Tag Team Championships, while Kenny Omega, Hangman Page, and Kota Ibushi will face off against Juice Robinson, Jay White, and Takeshita.
“Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks have been a huge part of what we do since the very beginning, both in the ring and backstage,” Khan says. “AEW started when I first spoke to The Young Bucks about this idea that I wanted to launch a pro wrestling promotion and I was trying to get people to support it. Hangman Page is one of our first champions, a great world champion and also a great world tag team champion and one of our top stars. And I think all four of them are a huge part of the the identity of the company.”
MJF versus Adam Cole for the AEW World Championship is the main event, featuring one of the best enemies-turned-friends storylines in some time. The Fatal 4-way match between Hikaru Shida, Toni Storm, Saraya, and Britt Baker is sure to be a barnburner for the AEW Women’s Championship. Chris Jericho against Will Ospreay is a match that’s been years in the making. The just-announced Stadium Stampede will be a brawl between the Blackpool Combat Club, Eddie Kingston, Best Friends, and Lucha Bros.
And then, there’s Sting.
Khan says the opportunity to spotlight the icon’s return to the ring is the one thing he never truly expected to happen in AEW.
“Sting stepped away from pro wrestling for several years and by all indications, he was going to retire. He felt he had a great run in him alongside his tag team partner, Darby Allin. He’s had some of the most exciting and memorable matches in AEW in the last several years and Sting has accumulated an undefeated record where Sting is, in many ways, the most successful wrestler in AEW,” Khan says.
“Every time he steps in the ring we try to pay tribute to his great career and how honored we are to have Sting with us. I think this will be one of the great memories we’ve been able to make for Sting in AEW. Sting and Darby Allin. Darby’s old friends, Swerve Strickland and A.R. Fox in a coffin match, in front of the biggest paid crowd ever to watch Sting wrestle in his entire amazing career.”
With a loaded roster and interest at its highest since launching the promotion, Khan has big aspirations and wants to continue hosting large-scale events in North America, Europe, and other continents as well. With matches still to be announced, All In’s card is living up to the billing as one of the biggest events in wrestling history.
But despite that, the future of the All In event is unclear. When asked if we can expect it as an annual event, Khan admitted there’s “a lot to consider.”
“In addition to the live event, also on the media rights landscape, there are a lot of interesting things happening,” Khan continues. “We’re very focused on these events. Doing this for the first time to have AEW All In on August 27th, followed by AEW All Out the next weekend.”
Fans can tune in live to watch All In on August 27 on traditional pay-per-view, through Bleacher Report, and internationally through FITE.
