AEW ALL OUT

Chicago

WOMEN'S BATTLE ROYAL (NYLA ROSE): This was an insane weekend for wrestling. On Saturday there were three big shows. NXT UK had a Takeover show from Wales. New Japan had a show from London. And then there was this, AEW's second PPV and their last show before they debut on TNT in October. Considering college football also started on Saturday, the best fighter in  the world (Lomanchenko won at the 02 Arena in London on Saturday) was fighting, and the U.S. Open was going on. It's too bloody much. I kind of want to see the sun. I still haven't watched a second of the NJPW show, although I did watch the NXT UK main event, which was a really good, 42 minute title match between Tyler Bate and Walter, who retained. As for this AEW show...it was great, but not as good as Double or Nothing. This Chicago crowd wasn't as hot as the Vegas crowd. I guess because in Vegas everybody's on vacation, it's an earlier start time so they're more awake, and it's Vegas so they're probably fucking blitzed and don't have to drive. This show started with an hour, free pre-show. This battle royal was never boring but was never awesome or anything. Awesome Kong was in it. Cody's wife was in it. Will Ospreay's lover, Bea Preistely, was in it. Nyla Rose, a big girl, won, and will face Riho on the TV debut for the title. **

PRIVATE PARTY vs. ANGELICO & JACK EVANS (11:35): This was an excellent match. The one dude in Private Party wrestles with sunglasses on, which I think is hilarious. Angelico and Jack Evans have apparently held the AAA tag titles in the past. What this turned into was just a bunch of wild, fast, intricate, creative moves on top of a bunch of high flying. It was sheer spectacle. ***1/2

SOCAL UNCENSORED vs. MARKO STUNT, LUCHASAURUS & JUNGLE BOY (11:45): This was another awesome match with more of the same; a bunch of creative, thrilling moves one after the other and a bunch of high flying. Luchasaurus does a bunch of crazy stuff for a tall guy like the standing moonsault and the Matrix bend-backwards-to-avoid-a-punch maneuver (I'm sure there's a name for that...somewhere). The crowd fucking roared in approval for everything Luchasaurus did. Jungle Boy, who's excellent, didn't get to do much here, though it was fast paced and wild. ***1/2

PAC vs. KENNY OMEGA (23:20): This was supposed to be the big Jon Moxley vs. Omega match but Moxley got a staph infection during the G1 so had to pull out. So we got what I figured would be a better match. It wasn't...but it was definitely Omega's best match so far in AEW. It was kind of weird that this went on so early considering these two superstars are used to being in the main event for a title when in Japan (PAC lost the Dragon Gate title in July...Omega lost the NJPW title in January). Omega did his patented over the top rope dive and hit is feet on the metal guardrail. PAC did a moonsault off of the top rope and hit his feet on the guardrail. Maybe they forget that this isn't Japan where if there is a guardrail it's like twenty feet away. For whatever reason the crowd was not super hot for this. And it never heated up into anything like a classic Omega/Okada bout or anything. This was about as good as PAC's matches in Dragon Gate over the last year. Good but not great. PAC won with a submission hold which the crowd loathed. ***

JIMMY HAVOC vs. JOEY JANELA vs. DARBY ALLIN (15:00): This match was insane. AEW, at least tonight, seemed to be veering into becoming ECW. Which isn't a bad thing...but I kind of hoped it would turn into something like New Japan, which good, long, dramatic matches that the WWE never does. Unfortunately the crowds so far just want tables and blood. Well they got it here. I'm not sure I can even attempt to describe the mayhem in this match. They put thumbtacks in Havoc's mouth then taped his mouth shut then taped him to a chair then Allin did a flip over the top rope and onto Havoc on the chair. Yep. They used a staple gun. Havoc gave Janela paper cuts between his fingers and on his mouth with a sheet of paper which, let's be honest, the crowd popped big for but it was stupid. Allin did a skateboard trick from the top rope onto Janela's back and the bottom of the skateboard had thumbtacks on it. I guess I could just describe everything but it might sound like I'm a crazy person. Allin did a back drop with a wooden barrel from the top rope onto the steel stairs and the barrel shattered into a million pieces. Janela did a gruesome over the top rope DDT type of slam on Allin through a ringside table. This was truly a clusterfuck of epic proportions. And perhaps the best match of the show. ***1/2

THE DARK ORDER vs. BEST FRIENDS (13:40): The Dark Order just doesn't get much of a crowd response. I'm not sure why, because as The Super Smash Brothers, they've had some great matches in the past with The Young Bucks in Ring of Honor. They're definitely entertaining but the crowd doesn't like them for whatever reason. The Best Friends are popular but not the most entertaining to be honest. This wasn't bad or anything just kind of okay, especially going after that last match. Post-match, Orange Cassidy showed up after the lights went out and did a dive through the ropes while keeping his hands in his pockets. I guess his gimmick is he's too cool? **1/2

RIHO vs. HIKARU SHIDA (13:35): The crowd actually made more noise for this match than the last, which, let's face it, is astounding. Two Japanese girls wrestling? It wasn't great or anything but Riho, the young, skinny, small girl is great. She's actually teaming up with Omega in a tag match for DDT in November. And she'll probably end up being AEW's first women's champ since she won here and will face Nyla Rose for the title. **1/2

CODY vs. SHAWN SPEARS (16:20): Spears used to be in the WWE. Remember him? He was called the Perfect Ten or something stupid? For whatever reason, AWE crowds love Cody. I'm not exactly sure why. He's not a particularly good wrestler. But in this company he's a fucking star. And while this match wasn't much of anything, there was a ton of outside interference from legends that brought the crowd to an orgiastic frenzy. Tully Blanchard, who used to wrestle Dusty Rhodes a lot back in the day, was in Spears' corner. Eventually Arn Anderson came out to slam Spears which got the loudest pop of the night. All of this spectacle made this feel like a big time PPV match. And, Jesus Christ, when was the last time a WWE match felt like that? **1/2

THE LUCHA BROTHERS vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS "LADDER MATCH" (21:00): This match reminded me of the Naito/Ibushii match from Dominion in June. That match was incredible, one of the year's best, but afterwards I thought that I never want to see them do it again. After this match I thought the same thing. Never do a ladder match again with these two teams. They're going to fucking kill each other. There were two spots that were so brutal I thought someone was going to die. And I'm not even talking about the Canadian Destroyer that Pentagon did on one of the Jackson's through a table from the top of a ladder. Are you kidding me? That has to be the craziest spot in the history of wrestling. Seriously. One of the Jackson's was supposed to fall of a ladder and through two ringside tables but his foot caught the rope and it whiplashed him straight down hard and he landed through the table headfirst. That was brutal and oh-so hard to watch. He's lucky he's not paralyzed or dead. The other spot was when Pentagon pushed a ladder out from one of the Jackson's and he fell right onto the ladder in a sickening thud. There was also a Pentagon package piledriver on one of the Jackson's onto a ladder bridge. This was just a car crash and while it was entertaining and exciting and all of that by the end it was just difficult to see so much suffering. There match at Double or Nothing, which didn't have ladders or anything and was just a wrestling match, was still insane but not this insane and was a better match. This was the 6th time this year these teams wrestled each other and I think it's hopefully the last. The Lucha Brothers retained their AAA tag titles. After this match, TNA's LAX showed up to a crowd that sort of, kind of knew who they were. ***1/2

CHRIS JERICHO vs. ADAM PAGE (26:25): And now we come to the dud of the night which also happened to be the longest and the main event. Jericho won the title here in a long, mostly dull, slow match that never turned into much of anything. Page did his moonsault off of the edge of the ring and Jericho hit him with a Code Breaker. Jericho bled. Jericho wasn't as fat as he was in his previous matches so I guess he hit the gym since Dominion. But he's still 48 and still slow and while making the big star the champ makes sense...does anyone really want to see title, main event matches with Jericho? Nope. Page has never been a main event star in my mind and he didn't exactly prove it here. Granted, there's not much to do with Jericho besides brawl. Naito learned this, as his match earlier this year at Wrestle Kingdom against Jericho was actually, shockingly pretty good, probably because Naito is a crazy person who will take DDT's on ringside tables. So Jericho is the champ and now we have to wait a month until the TV debut on TNT. This show was crazy and great. Will we get sick of it when it's on every week, though? I guess we'll see. After all, every great or popular TV show either dies or turns into something as boring as RAW. *

WWE SUMMERSLAM

Toronto

DREW GULAK vs. ONEY LORCAN (8:45): I was on vacation during Summerslam weekend so I missed a ton of wrestling and it took me about a week to catch up. There was of course the last three nights of New Japan's G1 tournament. Usually the A and B block finales are best of the year type matches, but this year they weren't. Probably blame Jay White for that, as he's not really on par with the likes of Okada, Omega, Naito, Ibushi, Tanahashi, Ishii...I guess I could go on. The Ibushi/Okada match was good not great...so that doesn't entirely give me hope for their inevitable Dome main event next year. Ibushi and Okada are both awesome, but for whatever reason against each other there nowhere near Omega/Okada. The final had Jay White vs. Ibushi with Ibushi winning. That match was great late but not as good as last year's Ibushi/Tanahashi final. Ishii and Ospreay were the MVP's of the tournament and Shingo Takagi was probably the close second. Ring of Honor also put on a big show on Friday night of Summerslam weekend in the same city, Toronto, as Summerslam and Takeover. While it was an entertaining show main evented by a Ladder War match between The Uso's and The Briscoe's, the crowd size was small and disappointing. Ring of Honor has a major problem these days with getting crowds to their shows and I can't really envision them existing in the future. The funny thing about that is that this will probably be ROH's biggest money making year ever thanks to the Madison Square Garden sell-out in April. The other big show of the weekend was the Takeover show, a typical, entertaining NXT show, although it wasn't as good a show as they usually put on. Every match was good except for the Shayna Baszler match. The main event was another great match between Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole, although they did a stupid two out of three falls match where one fall was a wrestling match, one a street fight, and one a weapons filled cage. These two are the rare types that can put on a four star match without gimmicks so the weapons filled cage wasn't needed and detracted. That match went 46 minutes...so it was definitely epic. And here we finally come to Summerslam, the dud of the bunch. I suppose after watching awesome matches every night in the G1 and then watching Takeover...it's tough to give a shit about the WWE main roster. It's honestly as bad and as lifeless as I can ever remember. The main event was good, although not as half as good as those great Lesnar matches five or so years ago when CM Punk faced Lesnar at Summerslam and John Cena faced Lesnar in his re-debut. And how can you forget that awesome Royal Rumble match with Cena vs. Lesnar vs. Rollins? So the show started with the 205Live title match. 205Live has just gotten unwatchable. I suppose it's because the champ, Gulak, is a bore. This was typically average. *

BUDDY MURPHY vs. APOLLO CREWS (4:20): Murphy made 205Live great...then he left and disappeared only to reappear facing Crews in a four minute, nothing match. Huh? Murphy is a star and should be the champ and main eventing. Oh, well. Murphy did some cool stuff here but no one cared. *1/2

ALEXA BLISS & NIKKI CROSS vs. THE ICONICS (6:15): I think the one problem with the WWE is they have all these lame, short matches. Seriously, when was the last time a match of the year candidate was under ten minutes? Has it ever happened? You have to build drama and suspense and get people invested. Whatever. I suppose it's good that this match didn't go thirty. Bliss and Cross retained the Women's tag titles...titles I swore The Iconics never lost. Okay. This was as awful as one would expect. 1/2*

BECKY LYNCH vs. NATALYA (12:35): This wasn't terrible. Natalya is Canadian so the crowd was somewhat into this. They popped big when she put Lynch into the Sharpshooter. Then Lynch won. **

GOLDBERG vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER (1:50): Okay. Why is Goldberg facing Ziggler? Does it matter? I mean...Goldberg is a legend and only comes out to wrestle once in a blue moon...so, you know, why not make it special? Not just some random, early-on-the-card, superfluous match? It was short. And, hell, a lot better than Goldberg's last match, his Undertaker match in Saudi Arabia that was perhaps the worst match in the history of wrestling. The crowd liked this. Goldberg did a sick spear. It pointless fun. **1/2

AJ STYLES vs. RICOCHET (13:00): There are a lot of reasons that the WWE depresses me, but nothing worse than seeing them utterly humiliate, embarrass, and destroy Ricochet, who only a few years ago was one of the best and most exciting wrestlers in the world. Tonight they made him wear this stupid, Tron-like body suit that was so stupid looking it made me cringe in embarrassment. There's no way in hell he wanted to wear that. Did he? He looked like a fucking moron. Not to mention that AJ Styles vs. Ricochet didn't have a good match. In what world do these two not have a good match? In the WWE universe. I guess it wasn't awful. But it was fucking depressing as hell. When's Ricochet's contract up? *1/2

BAYLEY vs. EMBER MOON (10:00): Bayley is the Women's champ. But there's two women's champs. So she's, like, the lesser champ. I'm grasping at straws. This was another awful match. This show sucked. Did you figure that out yet? Maybe I should have reviewed the G1 tournament this year like I did last year. Although fast-forwarding through Bad Luck Fale's matches has its perks. -No Stars-

KEVIN OWENS vs. SHANE MCMAHON (9:20): If Owens lost he had to quit the WWE. That's like a reward these days. He should've just laid down and taken the pin! If Shane lost...nothing happened. Nice stipulation! Makes zero sense. They really need to forget about this "evil boss" storyline with the McMahons that's, like, twenty years too old. I will say that Elias singing his Toronto sucks song before this was funny. Elias was the special guest enforcer or something during this match. Seriously, what the hell is going on with this company? And they expect to go on FOX and deliver big ratings? Oh, boy, are they fucked. *1/2

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. TRISH STRATUS (16:40): Trish is 43. I'm not entirely sure why she's back and wrestling this one-off. It actually got good late (this was the longest match on the show). The crowd was semi into it. The place was sold out, so any sort of crowd reaction helped the matches that were actually not half bad. **

KOFI KINGSTON vs. RANDY ORTON (16:45): This ended as a double count out. Ugh. Was making Kofi the champ a mistake? I don't know...because his match to win the title was awesome...but every match since has been terrible. Orton is too old to be in good matches anymore, so maybe it's not Kofi's fault. But, seriously, a double count out? If they're trying to save something for a rematch...then do they forget that this is supposed to be the 2nd biggest show of the year? What the fuck are you saving a rematch for? Some dumb B-ppv no one is going to watch or care about? 1/2*

THE FIEND vs. FINN BALOR (3:25): Bray Wyatt is now The Fiend. His gimmick is kind of scary and kind of basically Sami Callihan. It surprised me that Wyatt actually wrestled with his evil clown mask on. I'm not sure how far they expect to go with this "character" when he's going to eventually have to wrestle longer matches and not just be a stupid, scary gimmick thing. I feel bad for Finn Balor. Remember a few years ago at Summerslam he WON THE FUCKING TITLE? Yeah, even the WWE forgets that apparently. *1/2

SETH ROLLINS vs. BROCK LESNAR (13:25): This was entertaining. And this was the longest Brock Lesnar match in years. Rollins did a frog splash from the top rope to Lesnar down on the announce table. That was cool and, also, been-there-done-that. They kind of sort of did a back and forth which is the only thing that makes Lesnar matches work (the WWE probably doesn't realize this). If it's just Lesnar beating you down and then finally a miraculous comeback it's boring. So this had Rollins do a little more offense and eventually win the title. I'm not sure why he even lost the title last month if he was just going to win it back. This show was atrociously dull but at least this main event was pretty good. **1/2