Daniel Bryan/Adam Cole BOTH Debuted For AEW On The Same Show CM Punk Made His Return Tonight
What a night. AEW just put on the far-and-away best wrestling show of the year with All Out, which featured CM Punk's return to the ring (after over 7 years spent away), one of the most thrilling tag team matches I've ever seen in The Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros, a god damn Minoru Suzuki appearance, and tons of great wrestling all around.
Then, to cap the night off, we saw the surprise debuts of Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson (fka Daniel Bryan) and the roof came unglued!
Bryan was heavily rumored to be debuting going into this show, but Adam Cole's contract status with WWE has been up in the air for weeks, making for a truly shocking moment there. Just tremendous stuff all around.
Pairing him back up with The Elite is a great move, as well, in my opinion. You can eventually do the Kenny/Cole power struggle in AEW.
Britt Baker, Cole's real-life girlfriend, teased the debut phenomenally tonight by hitting one of his signature moves, the 'Panama Sunrise', during her AEW Women's Championship defense....
As for Bryan Danielson's debut - well, you guys know how I feel about Bryan. He's my #1 wrestler of all time.
So yeah, I was incredibly fucking excited tonight….
Danielson objectively did just about everything there was to do in the WWE, and after headlining WrestleMania for the second time this year and not enjoying anything about it, he's made the jump to the 'punk rock' company - as Punk calls it.
Bryan now has endless possibilities in AEW - but seemingly, he'll start by challenging AEW World Champion Kenny Omega.
Did I set that match up? People are asking!
Punk's return was a smash hit with the crowd in Chicago, obviously.
Darby Allin bumped his ass off for Punk while he shook a little bit of the ring rust off and then they really got going in the closing moments of the match….
Darby took an amazing GTS in the finish, and it was executed in a way that made it look like he just made one tiny mistake that cost him the match….
I could go on and on about how great this show was in so many different ways - and I will in My Mom's Basement this week - but I'll just say this to close the blog: tonight was an absolute STATEMENT show from All Elite Wrestling. They had more eyes on the product than ever before, more hype leading into this show than ever before, and they still overdelivered BIG TIME.
We got a war on our hands, ladies and gentlemen! Wrestling is fun again!