AEW ALL OUT

Hoffman Estates, Illinois

ORANGE CASSIDY, WHEELER YUTA, CHUCK TAYLOR & JURASSIC EXPRESS vs. MATT HARDY, PRIVATE PARTY & THE HYBRID 2 (9:25): This was the pre-show/Buy In match. Good action. It seems like Private Party was a much bigger deal when AEW first started. What happened? The Hybrid 2 or whatever the hell they used to be called have been around since the beginning as well but have never really been pushed or focused on. This was fun, all action, and the good Chicago crowd surprisingly didn't seem to get tired or quiet all night which was shocking. **1/2 (out of ****)

MIRO vs. EDDIE KINGSTON (13:25): Eddie Kingston plays this street smart, tough punk type yet he wrestles in this baggy outfit that makes him look like a clown. The crowd was pretty hot for every match tonight. Can you imagine a match like this in the WWE in the middle of a PPV? The crowd would probably be doing the wave. Is it because the AEW has done a good job of pushing guys like Miro and Kingston and building up their match? Or is an AEW crowd just a bunch of rowdy, drunk, hardcores that love to cheer? Probably a little of both. This was a pretty good match. It kind of reminded me of a typical G1 match, as did the next match. Miro retained the TNT title. **1/2

JON MOXLEY vs. SATOSHI KOJIMA (12:10): Supposedly Hiroshi Tanahashi was going to be in Kojima's spot. Otherwise, I'm not sure why this was on a PPV. The crowd did chant "Kojima" at certain points. I watch NJPW all the time and barely know who he is. He was both the IWGP and Triple Crown champ in Japan years ago and he won the G1 and Champions Carnival. This was of course when nobody here watched those promotions, unless you bought and traded VHS tapes (which I did...though the only VHS Japan tapes I had were "The Best of Onita" and the famous Cactus Jack Death Match Tournament one). This was a good, basic wrestling match. They did a lot of the NJPW stuff like trading elbows to the side of the head. After Moxley won, Minoru Suzuki came out to a huge pop (they even chanted, "Kaze Ne Nare," from his song like they do in Japan). Suzuki and Moxley traded slaps and elbows and kicks and then Suzuki gave Moxley a Gotch pile driver. That was great stuff...although those two wrestled before and it seems like it wasn't that long ago. **1/2

BRITT BAKER vs. KRIS STATLANDER (11:25): Baker retained the title. This was a good match, albeit nothing exceptional. Baker did Adam Cole's Sunset flip bomb maneuver which got the crowd into a frenzy. Lo and behold, this was to plant seeds for Adam Cole's debut in AEW later in the night. Statlander did a flip off the apron and Baker moved and Statlander crashed to the floor. There was another move that Statlander did from the top rope that looked like it injured her because she was woozy after it. The only great AEW's women's match so far in the promotion was that Baker/Thunder Rosa "Lights Out" match. The women's division is the one thing yet to take off for whatever reason. But this was entertaining at least. **1/2

LUCHA BROTHERS vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS "STEEL CAGE MATCH" (22:05): The best match of the year was that Ospreay/Shingo match from the Spring. It was so great I just never even fathomed another match being anywhere near as good as that to perhaps take over as match of the year. This probably wasn't as good as that. Probably. Maybe. It's damn close. This was just about as good as it gets in pro-wrestling. There's a level of wrestling and then there are those competitors that go beyond it, that reach new heights and achieve a rare level of excellence. This was just phenomenal stuff. I had thought that maybe being stuck in a cage might hinder them. They couldn't dive out of the ring or have a bunch of run-ins which have made the Bucks matches all summer excellent. I should say that this recent run of Bucks matches have been off the charts. That match where the Bucks beat Jurassic Express on Dynamite a few weeks ago was a match of the year contender (it also had the crowd of the year to witness and help it achieve greatness). & that match with the Bucks against Pentagon and Eddie Kingston with the thumbtacks in the mouth superkick and the Canadian Destroyer through the table on Dynamite in July was awesome. But this match was just something else. They were just doing non-stop kicks, flips, knees, slams in a perfect confluence of action that swarmed up into something frenetic and exceptional. Brandon Cutler threw a bag into the cage that happened to contain a sneaker with thumbtacks on the bottom. So we got a bunch of superkicks with thumbtacks which made Pentagon a bloody mess. We got a top rope Canadian Destroyer that Pentagon did that was sick and spectacular. Finally we got a top of the cage dive by Phoenix. The Lucha Brothers then did their double pile driver finish to win the titles. This was brutal, hard hitting, action packed, dramatic. These guys just gave it their all and more. They just went beyond what seemingly pro-wrestlers are capable of. This was a masterpiece and perhaps the best AEW match yet. ****

CASINO BATTLE ROYALE (RUBY SOHO) (22:00): Good luck following that! Well the crowd at least got to count down to each set of competitors in this women's battle royale. There were so many women in this match it just made you realize what everyone is thinking: there's too many wrestlers in AEW. I didn't even know who a lot of these women were, and most of them are rarely on TV. Ruby Soho was the big surprise here and she ended up winning by eliminating Thunder Rosa. Ruby Soho was Ruby Riott in the WWE. The crowd gave her a big pop even though she wasn't much of anything in the WWE (she was somewhat a bigger star on NXT). Battle Royales are superfluous fun and this was at least semi-interesting. The end was fairly entertaining. **1/2

CHRIS JERICHO vs. MJF (21:15): If Chris Jericho lost he could never wrestle in AEW again. Well, he could wrestle in other promotions. But he won anyway. This was a typical Jericho match. Slow but the crowd at least loves him so much they're into it. They actually wrote a great ending to this which I would've said on paper is a dumb idea but it woke the crowd up and got them to cheer super loud so I was wrong. MJF pinned Jericho and he won but Jericho's foot was on the ropes so they re-started the match. That sounds stupid but the crowd loved the re-start. MJF tapped to the Walls of Jericho. I'd actually be happy never seeing Jericho wrestle again. Maybe put him in a tag team or something. He's a crowd favorite and a great talker and everything but he's getting too old to be in great matches. **

CM PUNK vs. DARBY ALLIN (16:40): This was good, not great, and more a basic wrestling match than any kind of crazy Darby Allin match. Darby did his through the ropes dive and a flip off the top rope. That was about it for his suicidal stuff. Punk did a lot of holds and submissions early. There was a great spot where he gave Allin the GTS but Allin fell through the ropes and to the floor so Punk couldn't cover him. Punk actually looked really good considering he hasn't wrestled in 7 years. That's a good sign for his future in the company as you figure he'll get better once he starts wrestling more. **1/2

PAUL WIGHT vs. QT MARSHALL (3:10): I guess this was on the PPV because The Big Show hasn't wrestled in AEW yet. This was mostly a squash and there wasn't much to it. *1/2

KENNY OMEGA vs. CHRISTIAN CAGE (21:20): This was a good, classic wrestling match. I think their match on Dynamite when Christian won the Impact title might have been a little better...but that might have been because that was shorter plus you got the happy ending of Christian winning. Christian speared Kenny off the apron and through a table. Omega delivered a second rope One Winged Angel for the win. They had a good, dramatic, back and forth match even though it was kind of obvious Omega wasn't losing the title. I also would've been shocked if a year ago you would have told me that Christian would be in the main event of an AEW PPV. But he looked good and it was a good match. The post-match is of course what everyone will be talking about until the end of time. The feeling I had when this PPV went off the air is that a sea change has occurred...that AEW is officially the victor and has pulled ahead and left the WWE in the rearview mirror. It was a feeling I rarely have watching pro-wrestling. This was big, epic stuff. The kind of stuff that's remembered forever, that marks a point in time where you can say, "So that's when it happened. That's when it changed." After the match, Kenny and The Elite were out there beating up Christian and Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus ran out and they got beat up. So then Adam Cole's music hits which shocks everyone and the crowd goes into a frenzy. This was a surprise, as most people thought this was Daniel Bryan's spot to return. Adam Cole came out and super kicked Jungle Boy and hugged everyone in The Elite. Fuck...now The Elite is all powerful and unstoppable! So then Bryan Danielson's music hits and the crowd goes nuts. Danielson gets in the ring and he kicks one of the Bucks and Jungle Boy and Christian help. Danielson gives one of the Bucks a running knee. The crowd is chanting, "Yes!" Jeez...two huge debuts right after the other. That's insane. You'd think they might have saved one of those debuts for another show. It was a hell of an awesome moment, though. It kind of made you forget CM Punk was even on this show. That was one of the best endings to a PPV I've ever seen. Shocking. A spectacle. It just felt like things changed right there and then. That this is the pro-wrestling company of the moment and the future is theirs. As for the whole show? The only great match was the cage match. But nothing was bad and most of the matches were pretty good. The hot crowd helped. The end was fantastic. You definitely got your money's worth, that's for sure. ***