Shot on iPhone: All In

As most if not all stadiums and arenas ban ‘professional cameras’ (and usually define ‘that’professional’ as ‘a camera where the lens comes off’) I was forced to go ‘all in’ myself on shooting with my iPhone. In hindsight I could have perhaps brought along my Sony point-and-shoot, but I genuinely didn’t think of it at the time – plus, I think at this point my iPhone has a better equivalent zoom.

I’ve been to live wrestling before, but not for over 20 years, for the first two times the WWE brought Monday Night Raw to the UK, in Manchester and Birmingham respectively. AEW has brought shows to the UK for the last few years, and every year I have the passing idea that I should go, but usually don’t, and then have mild FOMO watching it at home. This year, with a main event that included a fellow Brit (and my favourite wrestler) hoping to be crowned world champion for the first time, the nagging need to go was much stronger this year. Even so, I still sat on the idea for ages and ages – in fact, right up to the morning of the show, when I realised that I really didn’t want to miss out. I hopped on Ticketmaster, bought a resale ticket, and only a few hours later was making my way up to London for one of the biggest shows of the year.

After a bit of queueing, I entered the arena with the Buy In underway, and an 8-man tag match was in progress as the Hurt Syndicate, QT Marshall and ‘The Boom’ faced off against Shane Taylor Promotions. I took a few shots of this but they mostly served for me to get my eye in. It was much the same with the following match, where Persephone challenged Maya World for the TBS Championship. The match ended with a run-in from a mystery assailant costing Maya the title, and for that I realised I wanted to video the unmasking (a returning Britt Baker).

The next match was the Trios Roulette Royale. This was a fun match, with teams entering in a random order and every member of a team needing to be thrown over the top rope and both feet hitting the floor to be eliminated. We were also promised a mystery ‘wild card’ team, but to be honest, there was a strong feeling amongst the 41,000+ strong crowd as to who it might be. It was a busy match though, so there weren’t that many opportunities to get serviceable shots. The first opportunity came when Gabe Kidd stood on the turnbuckle and flipped off the crowd, and the guy in front of me was having none of it.

For most of the photos I took, I shot using Adobe’s Project Indigo iPhone app. It’s an app that takes a bit of time to process its photos, but the result is a lot more SLR-like. It’s not without risk, as you need to keep the app open to process the images, the buffer won’t take a huge amount of shots, and there is definitely some lag between hitting the shutter and the image being captured. But the results are really nice.

Also, since these were all shot on my phone, I’m eschewing my usual image data dump at the bottom, since the EXIF readouts from these images are often a bit weird – and I had very little to do with selecting them anyway.

Soon the ring filled up a bit, and I captured Bandido executing a corkscrew onto a group of his opponents.

As I suspected it might, the match ran long, so the main show was on air by the time the mystery team was announced, Swerve Strickland and the team formerly known as the New Day. After a sequence of chaos, the ring cleared a bit, and Strickland found himself staring down Hangman Adam Page, and let me tell you, there is no love lost between these two gentlemen (the latter burned the former’s childhood home to the ground two years ago on the day this post goes live).

After what was in hindsight an obvious ‘Kofi Rumble spot’ (which takes the ‘both feet must hit the floor’ rule to its technical extreme), the newly named New Level won the match and the World Trios titles, and we got ourselves some lovely fireworks in victory.

In victory, Austin Creed climbed a turnbuckle with his new title, which was a great photo op.

This became a bit of a reoccurring theme, any time someone won a championship match they would climb one of the turnbuckles on our side of the ring, and I would get myself a shot. In the next match home country heroes The Brawling Birds won the Women’s World Tag Team Championship, and I made sure to get that shot again – I even had a couple of swings at it.

Whilst the video package was running for the next match, I squeezed a shot of the main stage with its lights.

Next up as the Continental Cup final, as defending champion Jon Moxley faced off against hometown hero Nigel McGuinness in a fantastic technical encounter.

The match ended in heartbreak for McGuinness as he couldn’t overcome his ankle injury that Max ruthlessly exploited.

Next up we had a three-way match between Kyle Fletcher, Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada for Fletcher’s International Championship. For this match, I mixed things up a little. I videoed the entrances, but used the iPhone’s ability to capture stills off the sensor as I filmed, so I managed to get the best of both worlds. These shots aren’t as processed as the shots from Project Indigo, obviously, and are in a different aspect ratio as they match the video format, not the normal camera sensor. Even so, the results are good enough I almost forgot they came from the camera whilst it was shooting video.

This was another banger of a match that saw Okada pin supposed ally Fletcher for the title. I didn’t get many great shots of the match itself, but as before I managed to get some shots of the aftermath.

Kyle did not like the fact he was pinned but reluctantly handed over the belt.

Next up was the Casino Gauntlet Match. I love this match type, because AEW found a way to have a Royal Rumble-style match that turns a lot of its conventions on its head whilst still keeping some of the best elements of the Rumble. Unlike a Royal Rumble, where two people start and competitors enter every 1-2 minutes (depending on the year), are eliminated by going over the top rope and both feet hitting the floor, and the match only ends after all 30 entrants have entered and one person is left, in a Casino Gauntlet, two competitors start, others enter at random intervals, and the first pinfall or submission wins – meaning the match could end at any time, even with only two competitors having entered. It means, unlike a Royal Rumble, people actually want to be entrant number one or two to have better odds of winning.

This time out, entrant number one was Andrade El Ídolo, and the second was Maxwell Jacob Friedman. I got some shots of MJF’s entrance pyro.

The two fought hard but the ring did start to fill up. I grabbed this shot of Andrade and another one of my favourites, Speedball Mike Bailey, as they prepared to perform some high-flying from the top rope.

Soon, another entrant was to come to the ring. Tommaso Ciampa’s music hit, and the crowd erupted to sing his entrance – impressive, since the bits we were singing didn’t have any lyrics. This unexpected serenade made Ciampa later describe the moment as one of his top three entrances of all time. I managed to grab a shot of his pyro going off. It was impressive that we could feel the heat all the way over where we were.

After a decent match, it was Andrade that got the first pinfall, winning the match, and with it securing a title shot at the AEW Men’s World Championship in the future. I took a shot of his celebration, with a title belt included as he is already the National Champion.

Our next match was for the Men’s World Tag Team Championship, as the Young Bucks challenged Adam Copeland and Christian Cage for their titles. Copeland’s entrance is always iconic, with the crowd singing his theme. For this one, like earlier, I shot video, and used the stills feature to capture some shots.

Sitting in the middle of Wembley Stadium as 40,000+ people sang Metalingus by Alter Bridge was really quite something, so here is the full video of the entrance too.

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The shot I got in this match most worth sharing was a great spot where Nick went to springboard for a Meltzer Driver, and slipped. It was done so well I am still not entirely sure how deliberate it was.

At some point between this match and the next (although it should be noted there wasn’t many gaps – no sooner had one match finished then the video package for the next would start), I turned and took a shot of the illuminated stadium behind me.

The next match was a falls count anywhere match between Darby Allin and Kevin Knight for the TNT Championship. Here I got a shot of Knight mid-flight, although he nearly jumped out of my frame.

As is not entirely uncommon for a Darby Allin match in which he’s up against a large faction in a match with few rules, legend Sting once again showed up to save the day.

The match eventually ended up at the main entrance, as Darby climbed the stage and jumped off it. What might not have been very obvious on TV is that just before he started climbing, it started raining, so I was a little worried he was going to call off.

The next match was for the Women’s World Championship. I wasn’t happy with most of the shots of got of this match, but I did get a capture of the pyro going off as part of the champion Willow Nightingale’s entrance.

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Finally, it was time for the Big One. The main event, where Will Ospreay would challenge Kenny Omega for the AEW Men’s World Championship. This, ultimately, was the match that got me to Wembley. Two of the best in the world on one of the biggest stages in the sport, with the challenger being a fellow countryman who’s been on the chase for years… the atmosphere would be phenomenal. Soon a video package started with some now immortal words:

My favourite wrestler calls me ‘Mum’

The entrance is, quite rightly, being lauded as one of the all-time greatest. Even now, almost a week later, it still touches my heart strings. Safe to say I’ll never quite listen to Baba O’Riley the same way again.

It started to rain at this point, as Kenny Omega made his anime-inspired entrance which was itself incredible.

I took a few photos during the match, like this bit where Ospreay hopped up onto the barricade in front of the crowd.

The best action shot I got was this one, as Ospreay hit the Hidden Blade for the first time on Omega.

The last shot I got of the actual match was of this one, as a bloodied Will Ospreay stood over a downed Kenny Omega.

Around this point I got lost in the match, because the next clip I took was of the end, as Ospreay kit another Hidden Blade on Omega for the three count. That was just a video clip, and to be honest it’s not not exactly the sharpest video since I was quite distracted.

With the three count came Will Ospreay’s crowning as the new world champion. I filmed the footage, but again occasionally hit the photograph button for some stills, which led to this well-timed capture.

To be honest, I don’t really remember taking this photo. I was so delirious with happiness that it’s all a blur. But the timing is great, even if the motion and the fact it’s captured whilst taking video makes it a bit blurry.

After some celebrations and things in the ring, the event was over, and it was time to go home. On my way out of the stadium I stopped and turned around to see one last view of where the event had been, with the building already mostly empty.

Then it was time to head home. And even the fact that some train troubles meant it took me four hours to get home (I got there about 2.30am) could not dampen my spirit.

Almost a week has passed since this event. Since then this event has gone down as one of the all-time great wrestling pay-per-views, and the main event as one of the all-time greatest matches. And I’ve ranked it as one of the all-time best days of my life. AEW returns to London in February. I’m going to try to make sure I’m there.

You can tell me wresting is stupid in the comments all you like. I’m not sure I’d disagree with you. But it’s still one of the greatest things in the world.

As always, there are a few extra shots in the gallery below.