Bryan Danielson Wins 1st AEW World Title

Bryan Danielson beat Swerve Strickland in an excellent main event of AEW All In at Wembley Stadium to win the AEW World Championship.

The emotional match saw Swerve bludgeon and brutalize a bloody Bryan Danielson in front of his family, but Danielson just wouldn’t quit. The match was interrupted by Hangman Adam Page, who was apprehended by security before Danielson was able to regain the advantage. Hangman’s interference did not play into the finish, as Bryan was able to trap Swerve in the LaBell Lock to win his first AEW World Championship.

Despite its hit-or-miss buildup, Danielson vs. Swerve felt like the biggest match on the card as fans went crazy the second the bell rang. WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross joined the commentary team to call the Career vs. Title match.

As has been the case for most of Swerve Strickland’s under-promoted AEW World Championship run, Swerve was not the main character in his own world title defense. Instead, Swerve Strickland’s main event match against Bryan Danielson was about Bryan Danielson, and whether or not this would be his final match.

In real-life interviews, Danielson admitted he did not want to win the AEW World Championship. AEW made this into a storyline, further devaluing what it means to be AEW world champion while Swerve had the strap. After winning the men’s Owen Hart Tournament, An apathetic Danielson had to be motivated by the likes of Jeff Jarrett and Eddie Kingston in order to find the fire to want to win AEW’s biggest prize.

Bryan Danielson’s journey to an AEW Championship did not translate to strong viewership. This was never made clearer than during a well-built match between Danielson (43 years old) and Jeff Jarrett (57 years old). Against the Olympics, the show bombed in 18-34 demographic, an audience that abandoned AEW long before the Summer Games.

While Bryan and Swerve finished strong in their sketchy build to the All in main event, the feud was still outshined by MJF vs. Will Ospreay, who went long during an otherwise compelling 22-minute segment on Wednesday’s go-home Dynamite from Cardiff, Wales. In his final address to Swerve, Danielson referred to himself as the “best f—ing wrestler in the world,” before reprising his “yes” chants.

Swerve’s world championship run wasn’t a complete failure, but through no fault of his own, it can hardly be considered a success. Swerve was not even featured on the first AEW Dynamite after his big world title win. Instead, his big speech was relegated to AEW’s secondary show Collision.

Swerve’s first world championship title defense against Christian Cage was upstaged by the Stadium Stampede, which main evented Double or Nothing. After Strickland defeated Ospreay at AEW Forbidden Door, in the biggest win of his title run, the win was big-footed by unnecessary, sanctimonious and pretentious reports of how it was Will Ospreay’s idea to lose to Swerve. As if there was a need for a reason as to why the real-life world champion retained his title.

So patronizing.

In a surprise to nobody, Swerve’s (+300) transitional reign ended with the once-hot babyface turning heel and dropping his world championship to the heroic Bryan Danielson (-500). With reports already trickling in that Darby Allin is next in line to become AEW world champion, Swerve feels like every bit the afterthought he was during his own forgettable world title reign.