Welcome to the AEW All In 2024 PPVPreview presented by GrapPro.com
We will be previewing all matches from the pay per view this week. On the day of the show I will do an all encompassing predictions as I have done in the past.
AEW Men’s World Championship
Bryan Danielson vs Swerve Strickland (c)
This is a complicated program for me.
In any other year, in any other situation? Bryan Danielson shouldn’t be winning this match. He shouldn’t even have the title shot.
This should be Hangman Adam Page versus Swerve Strickland for the AEW Men’s World Championship. It’s the biggest program for the men and the one fans want to see most. It will likely happen at All Out instead, and might not have the title attached. Maybe a title shot? Maybe.
The moment Danielson talked about how this would be the end of his full-time career, it just felt like there wasn’t much plan or purpose on it. He was just having a bunch of dream matches, getting to work CMLL, getting to work Will Ospreay, just floating in and out on consciousness for AEW fans.
If one is going to plan for Bryan Danielson to win the AEW Men’s World Championship on the biggest stage AEW will have in 2024, it should have been planned back in 2023. It should have been laid out to ensure the champion in the summer would be the best possible heel to try to stop Danielson on his goal.
When Danielson entered the 2024 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, his win should have felt inevitable because his goal should have felt purposeful. But the man who entered the tournament with a purpose was less Danielson and more Hangman Adam Page. Doesn’t help that Danielson when doing interviews constantly talks about how belts don’t matter to him.
There’s a lot of AEW fans who have been upset with the way Danielson seems to constantly undercut his programs in interviews outside of the show. The Trish and Sarah podcast has talked about it extensively and I don’t disagree. Danielson has the goal of “tricking” the audience in his interviews. He wants to say one thing so you believe it and then when he does otherwise on the show you feel surprised. Surprises can be good, but logical outcomes is what we really look forward to in pro wrestling.
It also doesn’t help that Danielson in AEW often has programs in AEW where he just has some random matches before taking the program serious in the final two weeks. It happened at Revolution 2023 against Maxwell Jacob Friedman and this program against Swerve Strickland feels more of the same. The final two weeks have been truly great. Prior to that? All we could think about was how much more we would have wanted to see this be Hangman’s shot.
Tony Khan has talked about Sting’s retirement being the greatest thing ever done in AEW and it’s clear he wants to replicate that moment in the same calendar year with Danielson.
It also gives me pause on how much this feels like Swerve Strickland facing a similar situation that his blood bound rival in Hangman Adam Page had to face at Double or Nothing 2022. At Double or Nothing 2022, Hangman Page faced CM Punk. In no way should Punk have been defeating Hangman at that point in his title reign. Hangman needed to hold the title to All Out to eventually face Maxwell Jacob Friedman, the match that had been promised since the company first began.
Instead, CM Punk defeated Hangman Adam Page and pretty much the title hasn’t been the same. It was like the equilibrium of pro wrestling was broken in that moment. Now you have Swerve Strickland, on a great title run, absolutely on fire, representing the company spectacularly, having to play the antagonist to Bryan Danielson to make this feud work against an ROH legend that Tony Khan admires more than his own developed stars.
I’ve already spent a lot of time talking on Bryan Danielson so let me get into more about Swerve Strickland. He has been the unquestionable MVP this year for All Elite Wrestling for the men, and there’s a reason why him and Toni Storm I felt represent The New Standard in AEW.
(Mariah May and Toni Storm would have the main event of All In if it was up to me. Just adding that.)
Strickland knew this program didn’t have the heat that would have existed if he faced Page instead, so he decided to lean into being ruthless against Danielson and bringing the heat himself. He teased this in the Will Ospreay program, having to essentially be an asshole to prove to Ospreay he wasn’t ready to be AEW Men’s World Champion. But against Danielson, it isn’t a storyline reason. It’s a promotional reason. Swerve is saving the program.
Strickland getting personal with Danielson and forcing the anger out of him has carried the feud week in and out, with the match against Wheeler Yuta finally bringing the “Dragon” out of Bryan Danielson. Maybe this was the plan from the start but it’s a poor plan. Danielson shouldn’t need to be pushed to give a shit about this program by Jeff Jarrett, by Eddie Kingston, or by the champion himself.
Now that the yoga meditations are over and the feud has the proper heat going into All In, it feels inevitable where it will eventually go. Tony Khan wants Bryan Danielson to be the AEW Men’s World Champion before he ends his time as a full-time competitor. It’s essentially a gold watch run, no different from Jerry Lynn in ROH.
I don’t think this will hurt Swerve as Swerve is not a man who gets phased or set back whenever he loses. He just finds ways to get better. That’s why he’s AEW Men’s World Championship today. Swerve will have his match with Hangman Adam Page at All Out and it’ll probably be incredible and make you wonder how it would have been in front of 50,000 at Wembley.
Though I do wonder if AEW is aware of how this has all looked, how it feels like once again some ROH legend from the 2000s is getting everything in the world over the men entering their prime in their 30s and should have the company built around them. Will Page be winning the Casino Gauntlet and cashing in his shot to end the event as Men’s World Champion?
I doubt it, but I don’t think the company has any men’s program more important than Page versus Strickland, and this Danielson moment will be over by the fall. The company will need something to actually carry them into the winter, and if Winter is Coming? AEW needs to make it not about a retiring legend but about the biggest star the company made in 2024: Swerve Strickland.
I’m sure some will read this and think I’m hating on Danielson, but I’m actually disappointed that Bryan Danielson fans don’t have higher standards for the man they clearly adore. Danielson deserved a better story en route to the end of his full-time career. Danielson deserved an opponent people truly wanted to see him topple instead of a fan elevated superstar in the prime of his career. 2024 should have actually been the Year of the Dragon, and this championship match at Wembley should have been the unquestionable top program throughout 2024.
This didn’t need Bryan Danielson throwing in his career just to have stakes. It needed a plan, and it barely got one. Thankfully, Swerve Strickland and Bryan Danielson are two of the best wrestlers in the world, and I have no doubt in my mind their match will make any criticism disappear temporarily by just being a bonafide classic.
I just hope that come Wednesday as the company switches gears to All Out? We’re no longer talking about what should have happened and talking more about what could happen at the next two pay per views.
