The wrestling feud inspired by Golden Age Hollywood

The wrestling world is known for its inventive costumes and storylines, and now two female rivals are modeling themselves after the Bette Davis/Anne Baxter classic.

A veteran performer is inspired by a young fan and takes her under his wing, hoping to train her as his protégé. But the path to the spotlight leads to brutality as the protégé usurps her mentor’s place and replaces her entirely. For those familiar with film history, this will seem similar to the plot of All About Eve, but in this case it’s actually the story of a feud between two of the greatest female wrestlers of all time.

Flash forward to this time last year. London hosted All Elite Wrestling’s All In, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, wrestling events in the country’s history. Wembley Stadium was sold out, a pretty amazing achievement for a wrestling company that was only five years old. For those who don’t know, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), owned by Tony Khan, is a relatively new addition to the American wrestling world. Matches are predetermined, and matches between wrestlers are scripted based on long-running fictional “stories” that span months, and sometimes years. However, the matches are also very physical, and ultimately become an artistic dance of planned storylines and live improvisation.

Since its launch in 2019, AEW has rapidly risen to prominence (and since made a comeback) by providing strong alternative programming for the then-creatively stagnant behemoth World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). And now, on the heels of Taylor Swift’s performance at Wembley Stadium, wrestling extravaganza “All In” is set to return to the stadium on August 25th, with the aim of providing a massive payoff to a slew of overlapping and interlocking storylines that are reaching their climax.

The standout story this year was the wrestler-to-wrestler match between “Timeless” Toni Storm and “The Glamour” Mariah May, which aired on weekly TV for months and culminated in an all-in Women’s World Championship title match. In this rivalry, they took inspiration from classic Hollywood movies, which gave the story a unique accent. Khan, who is not only the owner of AEW but also responsible for the creative direction of many of the storylines, said, Direct quote Inspired by Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve, “Two [his] Lyric Swinton, a freelance wrestling writer/creator and host of the Maps & Graps Podcast, believes this storyline may be “All Elite Wrestling’s greatest to date.” “The investment that went into this storyline from both an operational and fan perspective was unprecedented for a women’s feud in AEW, and every risk has paid off,” she continues.

While many wrestlers use a wide range of pop culture as a jumping off point for their characters, such direct homages are usually limited to ring gear and entrance looks for big matches (one of my favorite examples is Kenny Omega making his entrance dressed as Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, accompanied by that character’s theme song), and as a result, even through such small nods, the show becomes a fun nexus of other interests for both the wrestlers and the fans.

But it’s not the norm for wrestlers to make jokes about Turner Classic Movies or use the notoriously salacious (and largely fictional) Kenneth Anger book, “Hollywood Babylon,” as a sight gag.

“Pro wrestling takes as much from itself as it does from our current cultural moment,” says Katie Stebbins, a Film Magazine author and co-host of the Clean Finish podcast, “but harking back to the golden age of a completely different medium feels like a homage to itself, acknowledging that pro wrestling is uniquely built and elevated and a wholly unique way of telling stories.”

The storyline, which has unfolded over the past year across AEW’s three-weekly shows, began in earnest as the buildup to All In 2023 saw Storm lose the title. It put her in a vicious circle.In backstage interviews, her character slowly changes: Whereas previously her style was more rock-oriented, now she speaks like a Golden Age Hollywood actress in the twilight years of her career, like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (made even funnier by the fact that she’s only 28 years old), and most live interviews end with her rambling loudly and hurling her shoes at unsuspecting colleagues.

This evolved further, so that whenever Toni steps in front of the camera, she is shown in black and white with fake film grain. Now her entrance music sounds like a classic movie overture, she is advertised as “From Stage 7 at Warner Brothers Studios,” her costume has changed to a silk gown, and her in-ring attire is something Ingrid Bergman would wear on the beach. She has a butler. For a while, she even quoted Sunset Boulevard verbatim, saying, “Mr. Khan, I’m ready for my close-up!”, pausing for the camera to zoom quickly before taking down her opponent. And despite being a millennial from New Zealand, Toni speaks about Jayne Mansfield and other Hollywood icons with the kind of transatlantic accent that actresses of the time would have, as if they’d spent time on the front lines with them.

While Stebbins emphasizes that the film’s “playful remix of generic ‘Old Hollywood glamour’ and the specifics of two enduring classics, Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve,” he also points out that these references aren’t required reading for fans: “If they look familiar, great, but if they don’t, it really doesn’t affect your enjoyment.” The film may inspire people to seek out these films for the first time.

Finally, in November 2023, Mariah, a huge Hitomi fan, made an appearance. She claimed backstage that she came to AEW because of Toni and would follow in her footsteps. From here, the story acquired an “All About Eve” angle, with Toni starting to look like Margo, an old-school star of Bette Davis, being chased by Eve, a die-hard Anne Baxter fan. For the next few weeks, Toni ignored Mariah and struggled to get her attention. She finally dressed up as Toni, walked to the ring to Idol’s old theme song, wore her old ring gear, later made her own variation, and beat her to complete the betrayal.

Their sparring also has romantic overtones, especially as Tony’s rivalry with Mariah’s former tag teammate in the Japanese promotion Stardom, Mina Shirakawa, is playing out as a battle for Mariah’s heart. (Swinton says the three were Invited Comparison A moment captured in a video The Challengers).

The storyline was a truly original meeting of cultural phenomena, capturing the hearts of many wrestling fans, giving Mariah May time to rise to stardom (Stebbins describes her as “a worthy ‘Eve’ to Toni’s ‘Margo/Norma'”) and providing a surprising revitalization of the Storm character. As Stebbins puts it, “We saw Toni go from a temporary women’s champion, coldly received by the audience, to losing the belt, to slowly re-emerging as the ‘timeless’ Toni Storm. We saw Toni the performer take on a startling presence within Toni the character, in real time. What makes professional wrestling so endlessly fascinating is that the roles of character and performer are always simultaneously and simultaneously blended.” The same is true for Mariah, whose new addition to AEW only adds to this immersive blend of fiction and persona.

As for Toni Storm, the initial (and hilarious) absurdity of a wrestler acting as if he was from the 1950s has been layered with Toni slowly but surely developing a genuine vulnerability as his rivalry with Mariah progresses. Stebbins argues that being able to watch these gradual changes in character adds to the fun: “Timing is so important in wrestling and the effect the passage of time has on both the performer and the audience, and Toni/Mariah has capitalized on both in a way that is rare. We’re with these performers every week, watching them evolve (or not), develop (or not), overcome challenges (or not).”

The drama of the story is also aided by Toni and Mariah’s fundamental skills as physical performers. As Swinton points out, “the slick video packaging and the heated [live] “In this segment, these are still two of the best in-ring competitors in any women’s division anywhere in the world.” Indeed, Mariah’s arrival is a perfect example of how wrestling storytelling is built primarily on physicality: outside the ring she’s a sycophantic, excitable sycophant, but once through the ropes she demonstrates the ability to become a brutal bully to opponents who don’t quite know what they’re getting into.

The Toni and Mariah storyline is fairly unique and unlikely to spark a “classic movie” trend in pro wrestling — Stebbins sees it as “lightning in a bottle” — but it still highlights the appeal of pro wrestling broadly. It’s a showcase for the genre’s diverse possibilities, blending martial arts and extraordinary athleticism with a trove of storytelling elements common to theater, comic books, soap operas and, in this case, classic film. And it’s fun to see how the wrestling world has used a particular pop culture trope to connect with its audience and create its own art form in the process.

All In London takes place at Wembley Stadium on August 25th