Wrestling is able to showcase a wide range of emotions and present itself in many different ways. Love, loss, heartbreak, friendship, betrayal, romance, comedy, respect, redemption; they are all on display within the squared circle. 

Storylines, stakes and the fabulous pageantry of professional wrestling can all play a part in lifting a match to new heights. The canvas upon which the wrestling world is able to paint is vast and all-encompassing, from a minor physical detail in a match all the way to outlandish soap opera played out backstage.

A good wrestling match can make you laugh, cry, smile and scream your lungs out – sometimes in the same twenty minute period –  but there are a handful of matches that go beyond that. 

There are some wrestlers that can lay claim to having experienced rarefied air. Those wrestlers and the matches that they have been a part of have come together in perfect harmony to unlock the most elusive feeling in professional wrestling – a big fight feel.

What somebody is excited for or enjoys is subjective and personal to them. A big fight feel is objective.

It’s undeniable. The buzz, the anticipation, the electricity that sweeps through the crowd to unify them, no matter their allegiances, in one last deep breath before the plunge that is the opening bell.

You can reach out and touch IT. You can feel it in the pit of your stomach and in the air around you. It feels like you’re about to witness history. 

There is no exact formula to fostering a big fight feel in wrestling. You can put all of the pieces together; whether that’s a red-hot feud or a captivating storyline full of twists and turns, stakes or a grand platform, a verifiable dream match or a rabid crowd, yet it doesn’t guarantee that moment.

There have been all-time great matches that are universally acclaimed that didn’t have a big fight feel because they’re not exclusive bedfellows. 

During All In Weekend there were a number of matches that had been built up incredibly well and had an air of spectacle about them.

Will Ospreay vs. MJF was a match between two of the biggest names of this current era of wrestling as well as being a homecoming for Ospreay. Toni Storm vs. Mariah May had months of backstory behind them. Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Sunshine Machine had the stakes looming over the match as the GYV bet their titles against SSM’s future as a tag team.

They were all BIG MATCHES that ended up delivering in a BIG WAY but they didn’t have that BIG FIGHT FEEL surrounding them. 

Swerve Strickland vs. Bryan Danielson did. 

With the night sky having fallen across Wembley Stadium, it felt like the whole world had stopped to watch Bryan Danielson try to claim the AEW World Championship while also defending his 25-year career as a professional wrestler. 

Both men entered Wembley in their own way but neither surrendered a single shred of gravitas to the other.

Being part of The Final Countdown was a goosebump inducing moment in time that will live forever, as a living legend made his way to the ring for what may have been the final time, while Swerve oozed modern-day superstardom flanked by his team as the stadium was enveloped in thunderous exclamations of “Swerve’s House!”. 

As the two prizefighters stood across from one another, as the pre-match pomp and circumstance made way for anticipation, for that one last deep breath, a look flashed across Danielson’s face for the briefest moment.

He knew what he and Strickland had been able to conjure on that night and now it was time to deliver the steak to go along with the sizzle. Big Fight Feels demand a big fight performance after all. 

There was no doubt that arguably the greatest wrestler of all time would live up to that billing on the biggest night of his career but Swerve Strickland more than held his part of the bargain, showing in one night why Tony Khan has reportedly made him one of the highest-paid talents on the planet. 

Swerve, along with Prince Nana, bent the 50,000+ fans in attendance to his will – as the match wore on, the cries of “Swerve’s House” were a distant memory, with the champion morphing into a final boss worthy of any video game. 

An apron Death Valley Driver onto the ring bell had opened up Bryan’s forehead and despite mastering his craft for 25 years, nothing the American Dragon came up with seemed capable of stemming the tide of an overwhelming superstar who was reaching his peak right in front of our eyes. 

A trip down memory lane with the Cattle Mutilation was countered into a Vertebreaker. The strikes that have become synonymous with Danielson were being rejected and returned to sender with interest from Strickland. It felt as if Wembley Stadium was bearing witness to the final throes of a legendary career. 

Witnessing what came next was a privilege. Bryan Danielson and Swerve Strickland had the entire wrestling world eating out of the palms of their hands. 

Using his family as the much needed power up towards the end of the level, reaching out to his wife and children at ringside screaming “I’m sorry” and “I love you so much”, Danielson was finally turning the match around and hit a Busaiku Knee, the running knee strike that has ended so many of his matches.

Swerve Strickland simply took a step back to absorb the blow, brushed it off and stood over Danielson revealing his final form as the slayer of the American Dragon. House Call, JML Driver. Done.

The big fight feel outside of wrestling is often accompanied by a fight punctuated by an otherworldly moment of human triumph that makes an historical imprint and is replayed thousands of times in the years to come. Think Tyson Fury rising from the dead in his first bout against Deontay Wilder. Muhammad Ali stood over Sonny Liston. Max Holloway flatlining Justin Gaethje at the buzzer. 

The sequence from Bryan Danielson crying out for his family, Swerve making an entry for coldest wrestling moment of all time and the improbable kickout that kept the Dragon’s career alive is that for this match. That was professional wrestling perfection. 

Danielson rallied from that moment on, following a Hangman Page ringside invasion and would take the win after another Busaiku Knee before locking Swerve in the Lebell Lock. As a final demonstration that Strickland has ascended to the top of the wrestling mountain, it took an improvised version of the Lebell Lock more akin to the Rings of Saturn to defeat Swerve. 

As the confetti rained down on Danielson, his family and his friends amid one more rendition of The Final Countdown, the big fight feel dissipated to make way for pure elation. Wembley had seen another memorable night in combat sports. 

24 hours prior, two British stars had proven that you don’t need the greatest wrestler of all time risking his in-ring career or the glitz and glamour of Wembley Stadium as Michael Oku and Luke Jacobs brought the big fight feel to the Copper Box Arena for RevPro’s 12th Anniversary. 

That’s not to undermine the stakes involved as Oku and Jacobs battled for the Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship, headlining a card that had pulled nearly 4000 fans to an independent wrestling show in 2024.

The future of Revolution Pro Wrestling was on the line – this match would decide who would lead the company into its thirteenth year during a time where they stand unrivalled as the top independent promotion in the world. 

A roar met the opening bell that would only be outdone by the feature matches the following night at Wembley from a crowd over 12 times the size of that at the Copper Box. Two men who have dragged British Wrestling off the mat in recent years stared daggers into each other before letting the cannons fly. 

Jacobs dominated the opening proceedings as the crowd battled back and forth between themselves, the Oku songs clashing with the pro-Jacobs chants with nearly the same ferocity as the two men unleashed on each other. 

The roles that Amira and Ethan Allen, in the respective corners, played in fuelling the big fight feel cannot be downplayed. Allen, constantly shouting encouragement to Jacobs while berating any Oku offence, was like an MMA cornerman on the regional scene. It wouldn’t have been a shock if he’d jumped into the ring as he urged Jacobs to hold on when in Oku’s trademark half crab. 

Amira did the same in favour of Oku, constantly slapping the apron, generating support for her partner and sending shivers down the spine of any Jacobs supporter that she locked eyes with.

At one point, I tried to start a Jacobs chant to which Amira whipped round and looked up into the stands. Whether or not she genuinely picked me out of the crowd, I felt like she was giving my soul the deathstare at the mere idea that someone would go against Oku,

Oku would meet Jacobs’ early violence with violence of his own with a progressively nastier offence of DDTs, a poisonrana and a slam on the ring apron as he targeted the back before breaking out ground and pound strikes with bare knuckles. 

The pair were able to prove to the crowd and those who’ve since watched the show on RevPro On Demand that British wrestling is in good hands, that the fans were right to feel so staunchly about this match and these two performers. 

Together they waged war, harnessing the energy from the stands, levelling each other with strikes and signature attacks that kept the crowd firmly on an emotional roller coaster. They both came crashing down from the top rope, Frog Splashes were kicked out of by Jacobs, Oku was sent into another stratosphere by a lariat.

It would take a violent finish to put a full stop on a match littered with violence, with Jacobs being crowned as the Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion after a ScrewDriver, to usher in the era of North West Strong. 

It’s fitting that we end this look at how All In Weekend was able to offer up a big fight feel two nights in a row with a look ahead. Jacobs’ post-match celebrations were interrupted by Tomohiro Ishii laying down the challenge for the trilogy between the two, which has been confirmed by RevPro for the Global Wars event at Doncaster. 

That will certainly have a Big Fight Feel. 

– James Woodgate

Photo Credits: All Elite Wrestling, Revolution Pro Wrestling.

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