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AEW wrestlers who previously have toured internationally with WWE noticed some big differences in how AEW handled the travel.
One big difference is wrestlers were not picked up at the airport. That’s standard not only on WWE international tours, but New Japan also picks up non-Japan-based wrestlers at the airport when they arrive in Japan. Wrestlers had to fend for themselves, getting rides with Uber.
WWE wrestlers on international tours generally travel together in groups, are given an official itinerary, have arranged rides to get them from the airport to the hotel or arena, and have security assigned to the group.
Wrestlers noticed a lot of other differences that added up to a less enjoyable travel experience and added stress and delays in getting rested and ready for the show.
C.M. Punk, for one, ended up disoriented after he arrived at the airport and had to ask fans for help getting to Wembley. Haus of Wrestling reported this detail:
[W]hen Punk landed at Heathrow Airport for AEW All In London on Saturday morning, no one from AEW was there to greet him. There was also no car service to take him to his hotel, and when he texted a number he was given by AEW for the driver, it bounced back as being an invalid number. After waiting for a while, Punk chose to buy a train ticket and find his own way to his hotel. We are told that The Tube was fairly busy at the time, Punk got lost, and a few fans who noticed The Second City Saint helped him figure out where he was going. It appears that Punk got into London so close to the actual event because he had taping commitments in Atlanta on Wednesday and wanted to spend Thursday with his wife and dog, Larry, before heading out on Friday and landing on Saturday morning.
Because London is a major modern metropolitan city, wrestlers ended up getting to where they needed eventually, and wrestlers who hadn’t experienced WWE’s smooth travel process weren’t thrown off as much as they didn’t have any expectations.
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