While the actual number of fans who are in attendance at Sunday’s AEW All In at London’s Wembley Stadium remains to be seen, it’s safe to say that when Adam Cole steps into the ring for the main event against MJF in front of 80,000 or more people, it will be the largest crowd to ever watch him wrestle.
As for the smallest, that’s a much smaller number — as in single digits, all of whom were part of one family.
Cole told the story when he appeared as a guest on this week’s episode of the Under the Ring podcast with host Phil Strum.
“So I did an independent show my first year in the wrestling industry,” Cole said. “It was in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, and it was in front of a family of six people. The wife and four children did not make a peep the entire show, and the husband was wearing overalls with no shirt underneath and he was rocking back and forth. And just any time the good guy was beating up the bad guy, he would go, Get ’em! Get ’em!’
“And that was it. Six people.”
While many wrestlers have tales about performing in front of sparse crowds, there likely aren’t many with one quite as memorable as Cole’s. And hopefully that family of six, or at least the dad, looks back now and realizes they had what was essentially a private show from one of the top wrestlers in the industry in his formative years.
Suffice it to say, it will be a much larger, more boisterous crowd at Wembley this weekend. Check out the full episode of Under the Ring below to hear Cole talk about what main eventing All In means to him, how the popularity of his team with MJF caught him by surprise, how important his time in ROH was to his career, and much more.