Swerve Strickland vs. Bryan Danielson, title vs. career.
Credit: AEW
Bryan Danielson defeated Swerve Strickland in the main event of AEW All In at Wembley Stadium to win the AEW World Championship.
In an emotional match, Swerve beat and brutalized a bloodied Bryan Danielson in front of his family, but Danielson refused to give up. The match was interrupted by Hangman Adam Page, but Danielson was caught by security before he could regain the advantage. Hangman’s interference did not affect the outcome of the match, and Bryan captured Swerve in the Label Lock to win his first AEW World Championship.
Danielson vs. Swerve was a hit-or-miss match, but it felt like the biggest match on the card with fans going wild from the moment the bell rang. WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross joined the commentary team to provide play-by-play commentary for the career vs. title match.
As was the case for most of Swerve Strickland’s little-publicized AEW World Championship run, Swerve wasn’t the star of his own world title defense. Instead, Swerve Strickland’s main event match against Bryan Danielson was all about Bryan Danielson and whether or not it would be his last match.
In an actual interview, Danielson admitted he never wanted to win the AEW World Championship. AEW made this a storyline, further downplaying what it meant to be AEW World Champion while Swerve held the belt. After winning the men’s Owen Hart tournament and feeling apathetic, Danielson had to be inspired by wrestlers like Jeff Jarrett and Eddie Kingston to find the passion to want to win AEW’s biggest prize.
Bryan Danielson’s run to the AEW Championship didn’t translate into increased viewership, most evident in the well-crafted match between Danielson, 43, and Jeff Jarrett, 57. In contrast to the Olympics, the show flopped with the 18-34 demographic, a demographic that had abandoned AEW long before the Summer Olympics.
Bryan and Swerve finished strong in a shaky build-up to the All In main event, but the feud was still overshadowed by Ospreay’s prolonged 22-minute segment of MJF vs. Will Ospreay at Wednesday’s Go Home Dynamite in Cardiff, Wales. In his final bow to Swerve, Danielson called himself “the best wrestler in the world” and once again elicited “Yes” chants.
While Swerve’s World Championship run wasn’t a complete failure, it was hardly a success through no fault of his own: Swerve didn’t even appear on the first AEW Dynamite after winning the World Title, instead relegating his big speech to AEW’s secondary show, Collision.
Swerve’s first World Title defense against Christian Cage was overshadowed by the Double or Nothing main event at Stadium Stampede, and after Strickland defeated Ospreay at AEW Forbidden Door in his biggest win on his way to the title, the win was bombarded with unnecessary, sanctimonious and pretentious reporting that it was Will Ospreay’s idea to lose to Swerve – as if any reason was needed for a real-life World Champion to retain his title.
It’s very condescending.
To the surprise of no one, Swerve’s (+300) transitional reign ended with the once-popular babyface turning heel and surrendering his world championship to the hero Bryan Danielson (-500). With reports already trickling in that Dalby Allin will be the next AEW World Champion, Swerve feels like the exact same afterthought he was during his own unforgettable world title reign.
