At AEW All In London 2024, NJPW Strong Women’s Champion Mercedes Mone defeated Britt Baker to retain the TBS Women’s Championship.
This match lasted 17 minutes & 25 seconds and AEW commentator Jim Ross thought it was too long. Here’s what Good Ol’ JR said on his podcast:
“I also think that 17 minutes was more time than they needed to tell the story that they needed to tell. Both of them have influence with Tony.
Tony probably had it in his head. ‘Oh, let’s go about 10 bell to bell’, and that should have been plenty. I’d have signed off on that in a heartbeat, but talent negotiate for more time. They think that if they have more time, their match will automatically be better, which is ridiculous, so I don’t know.
I thought the match was too long and people just had not yet quite bought into that story and maybe another month of good TV, they would.”
In her Mone Mag newsletter, Mercedes addressed the mixed reaction to her match:
Audience Fatigue?
“I’ve heard a lot of mixed reactions to my All In match with Britt. I had a really good time out there with her. I did sense some audience fatigue. It’s only natural being third to last, as the crowd had already seen over 10 matches before ours.
They arrived at 5:30, and by the time we came out, it was around 9:00. That’s a long time but, at the same time, amazing because AEW really gave them their money’s worth.
I could hear some DMD and CEO chants but again it’s harder in a stadium. Britt told me later, that on video you can hear crowd reactions much better and that there were more crowd reactions than we felt.”
Britt vs Mercedes
“Is there anything I would have done differently? There is. Honestly, a lot. But I don’t ever want to go too deep into what ifs about my matches, or life for that matter.
I’ll just say that I learned a lot from the match and can only grow by continuing to try new things. I maybe would have listened to my instincts more. I feel I did things that maybe were not necessarily required for that match: things I could have saved for another time.
But again, little sense in looking too far back other than what we can learn and use moving forward. One thing is for sure, I can’t wait to do it all over again next year in Texas.”
WATCH: Mercedes Mone / Sasha Banks’ Buns Accidentally Exposed In AEW:
