At AEW Dynamite, legend Sting reveals he will compete at All In at London’s Wembley Stadium – in front of the biggest audience he’s ever had in nearly 40 years.
It was a foregone conclusion that he wouldn’t miss this gig – now it’s official!
Wrestling icon Sting is set for a late, historic career highlight at WWE rival AEW: The now 64-year-old and resilient ex-rival of Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair will compete in front of the biggest crowd he’s ever had in his nearly 40-year-long and glorious career in just a few weeks.
On the latest edition of the TV show Dynamite, “The Icon” revealed that he will be competing in the European debut All In at London’s Wembley Stadium on 27 August. It is expected that over 80,000 fans will witness Sting team up with his young pupil Darby Allin to face the latter’s rival Swerve Strickland (“Swerve” Scott in WWE) and AR Fox of the Mogul Embassy.
The match was set up at Dynamite with Sting surprising the Mogul Embassy, targeting Strickland with his baseball bat and eventually pointing it at the promotional banner for All In.
Sting and Darby Allin team up at Wembley
The match was built up for weeks by a personal hate feud between long-time companions Allin and Strickland, in which the latter delivered many deeply personal blows to the mystery Allin.
Strickland savagely bloodied Allin’s young protégé Nick Wayne at the wrestling school of the latter’s late father Buddy Wayne, who was also Allin’s mentor. Strickland also got AR Fox to turn on his long-time friend Allin. Together with legend Sting, Allin now wants revenge.
For the Stinger, long-time figurehead of former WWE rival WCW, All In is the biggest event of his career – which perhaps more than anything illustrates what AEW has achieved with the success of the Wembley show: Over 71,500 tickets have been sold and, including free tickets for sponsors, a crowd of almost 80,000 is assured. It will be one of the biggest events in wrestling history.
Even Sting has never had an audience this big
The biggest event to date involving Sting was his late WWE debut against Triple H at WrestleMania 31 2015 in front of officially over 76,000 fans in Santa Clara, California.
Sting had previously only experienced an audience nearly as large during his trips to Japan for NJPW, where he competed with and against legends such as Great Muta, Antonio Inoki, who passed away last year, and Hiroshi Hase at the Tokyo Dome.
The biggest WCW-only show Sting has been a part of was the July 1998 TV show Monday Nitro at the Georgia Dome, where Bill Goldberg – currently also in talks at AEW – dethroned Hulk Hogan as champion. Sting competed on the undercard in a brief match with Lex Luger against Billy Kidman and Sick Boy from the group Raven’s Flock.
Card for record-breaking show AEW All In takes shape
The card for All In took further shape at Dynamite as well: The tag team title match between longtime rivals FTR and The Young Bucks – victorious at Dynamite against their great idols Matt and Jeff Hardy – has been made official, with the CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe clash likely to follow at Collision on Saturday.
Newly announced was a women’s title four-way match, with newly crowned champion Hikaru Shida and ex-title holder Toni Storm facing two more challengers who have yet to qualify – in all likelihood it will be Brit star Saraya, formerly Paige (vs Skye Blue) and Britt Baker (vs The Bunny).
In other news, MJF and Adam Cole, currently a buddy duo, will have one more match before their match for MJF’s World Title: They will challenge Aussie Open for the tag team titles from sister league ROH at the free pre-show Zero Hour.
Top star Kenny Omega, meanwhile, announced he would reveal his plans for All In next week in an interview with commentary legend Jim Ross – it looks set to be against rising Japanese standout Konosuke Takeshita, the new protégé of Omega’s ex-manager Don Callis.
Implications for All In are also likely to come from the opening segment with legend Chris Jericho, also courted by Callis, in which Jericho’s Appreciation Society cut him off for flirting with Callis. Jericho is rumoured to be an opponent of Callis-linked local British hero Will Ospreay. Ospreay has developed into one of the best wrestlers in the world in recent years with NJPW in Japan.
In the biggest match of the current edition, ECW legend Rob Van Dam challenged young Jack Perry for the FTW (Fuck the World) Heavyweight Title once held in ECW in his first match for AEW. Now over 50 years old, Van Dam unleashed several of the spectacular moves that made him famous, but after a low blow and a collision with a chair, he had to submit to the young son of the late actor Luke Perry.