The professional wrestling landscape changed forever four years ago today. What began as a challenge of sorts, as long-time wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer claimed that Ring of Honor would be unable to sell out a 10,000 seat arena “anytime soon,” slowly transformed into a revolution. Working alongside ROH, Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks put together what was dubbed as the “biggest independent wrestling show ever.” Assembled over the course of a year,ย ALL INย brought some of the biggest names in professional wrestling together, with talent from New Japan, ROH, Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide, NWA and more having matches on the card.
While a bulk of those matches were exhibitions, taking place with minimal build, one bout in particular was the culmination of a lengthy storyline. NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis and Cody Rhodes put on a 22-minute clinic for the ten pounds of gold, which concluded with Rhodes pinning Aldis to capture the title.
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Looking back four years later, Aldis told ComicBook.com’s Liam Crowley that he views that match as one of the best days of his combined reigns with the title.
“That minute in Chicago with Cody when the bell rang,” Aldis said. “That one minute where it was just sort of like, ‘All right, this is it.’ There’s very few opportunities that I’ve had, having never had an opportunity with WWE, that I could really genuinely feel like all the eyes of the wrestling world are on me and this match right now. But I did feel that way in Chicago.”
Aldis revealed that he and Rhodes recently reminisced on the match together.
“In fact, Cody and I had a conversation about it fairly recently where I had congratulated him on his success and we reminisced about it and even he mentioned, ‘Man, that’s still right up there for me as a really special night,’” Aldis said. “I think both of us saw it as this sort of validation because we had very much nurtured and presented and produced that entire thing from scratch. There was no creative team. There was no massive budget. There was no sort of huge promotional machine behind it. It was the two of us with other people involved obviously in helping facilitate and throwing in ideas. But for the most part, it was he and I with our vision of what we wanted to get to and we could create something. And I think for both of us, it was this real kind of confidence booster because it was that validation of when we get given the opportunity to do it our way, look what happens.”
Rhodes’ reign would be short-lived, as he was defeated by Aldis in their rematch the following month at the NWA 70th Anniversary Show. Much ofย ALL IN‘s praise comes from the fact that it helped birth All Elite Wrestling, but as Aldis points out it had immediate positive ripple effects across the professional wrestling world.
“This is the part that people don’t talk about as often, is that people forget that six weeks later we turned around and had another sellout,” Aldis continued. “It was only six weeks between those shows and we had another sellout and that match was actually way better than the one in Chicago. But I don’t ever take credit for the sellout in Chicago. I do take credit for the sellout in Nashville because Chicago was going to sell out regardless. The concept was the selling point and I was able to make the best use of it. But then we showed okay, Aldis and Cody is a draw.”
Today, Rhodes remains out of action with a torn pectoral muscle while Aldis recently returned to the NWA in a victorious effort over Flip Gordon at NWA 74.
