AEW ALL OUT 2020
**The Buy-In**
Ok match, nothing special really. It all felt like they were trying to recover Janela from the squash match on Wednesday. At the end he talk some shit to The Inner Circle, so maybe Janela/Kiss are headed to a feud with them.
Good stuff, I used to HATE the Beaver Boys, but ever since joining the DO, i'm warming up to them.
**Main Show**
Tooth and Nail Match
This was a brawl in Baker's offices, this was done to have something pre-taped and not risk Baker coming back too soon for something live. This was wacky, but I really liked it, it was fun, it was the light comedy that I find myself enjoy more now a days. There was one spot where Brit took a syringe to the leg, so kuddos to her, hadn't seen that spot since the old CZW days. The one thing about this match is that it wasn't supposed to be on the main show, but the fans complained that there isn't enough women's wrestling so they moved it where less people got to see it, and for that matter, it wasn't the best placing of the match.
Reba is the greatest thing ever, she is sooo over the top. JR said he loves nitrous oxide aka laughing gas.
Really good proper opener, The Young Bucks are supposed to be more serious, but aside from not being full fledged heels, I'm just seeing the normal Bucks that I remember from PWG. And talking about lowkey heel feels, Marko Stunt was provoking the Bucks from the start and I felt nothing when he got killed by a superkick, he deserved it.
Anyway, back to the match, Bucks were dominant, they had to work to burn out Luchasaurus and slow down Jungle Jack, but they eventually got to it.
Casino Battle Royale
This was a rollercoaster, some good stuff that I liked, some stuff that I felt bad for them. The match initially benefited from being empty so some guys could do some cool spots, but as the ring got packed, some guys started to disappear in the corners, yet weirdly enough, when the ring cleared towards the end, the spots didn't exactly get better. Overall I enjoyed this, it was all over the place, but nothing stood out for being bad.
The big takeaways were Sonny Kiss eliminating Hager (reinforcing that TIC vs Janela/Kiss thought from earlier), Cage and Starks put Allin in a bodybag with tacks inside for a big elimination spot, so that story must continue. Will Hobbs looked fantastic, he went pretty far, I'm 100% ALL IN on Hobbs. Matt Sydal was #21 and unfortunately for him, his first move was an SSP that was botched when his foot slipped on a wet rope, he wasn't hurt, but it's just unfortunate to debut like that.
Final 4 were Archer vs Cage vs Sydal vs Kingston. They did a dumb stop with Jake Roberts and Kingston with a fake snake, it just looked dumb. Archer won and I was happy for it, but when the final two were Archer and Kingston, I started to salivate at the idea of a Kingston vs Mox feud for the title, just imagine the promos.
My one big take away is that AEW needs to make the FTW into a combination of the PROGRESS ATLAS Championship and the Impact X-Division title. I'm just picturing feuds between Cage and Archer and Hobbs and The Butcher and then smaller Penta comes out and slaps Archer in the face. Make it a legit 'Badasses' division.
One thing that annoyed me was that Archer winning pretty much spoiled the main event, we KNEW that they were not doing Archer vs MJF. Honestly, this match would had been a PERFECT main event for the next Dynamite.
Broken Rules Match, If Hardy loses, he must retire
Straight to the point, Hardy got knocked out in the first minute or so, got a bad concussion, ref called for the X, doctor 'stopped it', but someone made the bad decision to allow Matt to keep going and head for the finish. I don't give a single fuck about the stipulations, and if anyone does, fuck you, this should have been stopped and not even pretend that Sammy won or anything, it's 2020, we know wrestling is fake and any intelligent person knew something was wrong.
This isn't something to blame people for, it was an accident that needed better management once things got stressful.
AEW Women's Championship Match
May not be the best match of the night, but this was my favorite. I had to watch this twice since I wasn't able to follow it after the Hardy situation. On second viewing, I really appreciated all the submission work in the match. Early in the match, the action looked somewhat choreographed, but as it went on, they got comfortable and everything seemed more natural.
The match was about 60/40 in favor of Rosa, she a bit more momentum at points, but it was mostly back and forward since Shida would keep on coming back. Shida worked both the head towards the running knee, or the legs, towards the Metal Stretch Muffler, which was kinda annoying at points when as a fan I was focused on a part and she would switch it up. They made a lot of points about this being a clash of styles, but that at the end, Shida had been working with CIMA, and that Rosa had experience in Japan.
Kip Sabian & Penelope Ford Promo - They're getting married and Sabian has found himself a best man who he will introduce on Dynamite. My vote goes for Miro (the former Rusev) as twitch buddies.
Dark Order vs Friends of Cody Build Up Video - This package was better than both the actual angles and the match itself.
Nothing warms my heart more than a heel stable that has each other's back, that supports each other during their matches. I also have to mention that Colt Cabana not realizing he joined a cult is low key one of my favorite gimmicks of the year.
Good wrestling, good little stores told here and there, but this went waay too long, this didn't need to go that long. I take it they wanted to showcase some people and get a couple of hot tags and the usual crazy spots towards the end, but it was just too much, this wasn't even a marquee match.
Anyway, part of the story here was Cabana getting the usual spots set up for him by the DO, but this time around, he got in over his head and fucked up at the end, missed a moonsault to an already fallen Dustin, and instead, got rolled up and pinned, giving DO the loss. Uno and Grayson also had some dissension with Cabana, they were not all in on Cabana's over-excitedness. The other part of the story was that Dustin was hot-headed and wanted a piece of Mr. Brodie, and Brodie being the badass that he is, straight up tossed the dead body of QT on to the corner so Dustin could tag in and get his ass kicked.
This brings me to a point I want to make. This match had two guys that fans argued that WWE was wasting and under using. Cardona and Lee were two of the names that people complained soo much that WWE didn't give them a chance
Old pervert JR in this match happened to hope that Anna Jay had a wardrobe malfunction. Fuck off old man, check yourself.
Post-match - Mr. Brodie Lee was angered at Cabana. It's gonna be interesting to see where this goes, but I really really hope that Lee kicks him out but Cabana has developed Stockholm Syndrome. EVIL UNO did support Cabana.
Dustin Rhodes Promo - Tony Khan has awarded Dustin a title shot at Mr. Brodie after tonight's performance. This is Dustin's first single's title shot since maybe the old WWECW days. Awesome promo by Dustin.
AEW World Tag Team Championship Match
I personally found this to be a really boring fantastically wrestled match. I don't know if the previous match was so long that it took me out of it and once this started my head was somewhere else, but this just felt like it kept going on and on and no much was happening, and to make things worse, I felt the finish of the match was also super flat.
They played the story of the dissension between Omega and Page, where they had to work through some of that, but it kinda felt like that disappeared for a while and then came back. All this time I was told by NXT fans that The Revival was some type of southern technicians that have 5-star matches, and all I saw was non-jumping spot monkeys, and granted, maybe it's a bad pairing with Omega and Page, but I didn't see much of that limb work.
Granted I haven't watched AEW in a long time, but coming out of this match I felt that this Omega and Page team has run it's course, I feel like i've seen them have dissension for sooo long that if they don't pull the trigger now, I won't care for their actual feud. In the same vein, this whole FTR vs Bucks 'dream' match is a cold as Glacier, I really don't care much about their feud anymore. It's the same issue that a lot of promotions have that can't get over the idea of having a dream match/feud without putting a freaking title in the middle.
Post-match, - Omega left Page for dead in the ring, he teased a heel turn, but didn't. Omega rushed out, Bucks tried to stop him, but he wasn't having any, he told them to choose their side, but in the end, Omega ended up leaving the place by himself.
Mimosa Mayhem Match
This was a nice change of pace and atmosphere, I was coming off all the accidents and two long ass matches, and so getting this hardcore match that happens to involve orange juice was what finally brought me back to the show.
I may be wrong, but this match could had been cut somewhat short because the went straight for the spots around the pools, some teases and weapon spots, and then after some spots inside the ring for submissions and near falls, they went ot the other pool for the finish where OC successfully defeated Jericho clean by ways of being dumped. That was all, no interference, no shenanigans.
AEW World Championship Match, Paradigm Shift is banned
I think it's safe to say this was the best match, it was the best planned out, had the best story and flow to it. Story of the match was that the PS was banned, so Mox couldn't get an early win, and this gave MJF the shot to work on his arm and completely decimate it, but as the match went on, Mox busted open MJF and the match turned around, MJF lost all confidence and momentum for a while, but Mox was soo hurt that he couldn't get a proper pin to keep MJF down. As the match went on, MJF started to rely on cheating, with eye pokes, low blows, but nothing was working, and so he went for the ring, but Moxley caught him, noticed that WARDLOW was distracting the ref, and so he hit the PS and got the win by outsmarting the smart heel.
My only gripe was that with all the work done on Mox's arm, the PS ban felt like overbooked, but given the finish, it all worked out nicely, and I also have to mention that Mox's selling of the shoulder was great.
This was a good decent show that was unfortunately dumped down by a big cloud of bad luck all around and bad real life decisions. Booking wise, the right people won, the matches were well wrestled, but there was just a series of accidents, heat and humidity that killed the crowd and endangered the wrestlers, Khan giving in to the pressure from twitter that ended up hurting the timing of the show. It's sad, this should had been a good show, but now it will only be remembered for the chaos.
Serpentico (w/Luther) vs "The Bad Boy" Joey Janela (w/Sonny Kiss) - 5.5/10
Ok match, nothing special really. It all felt like they were trying to recover Janela from the squash match on Wednesday. At the end he talk some shit to The Inner Circle, so maybe Janela/Kiss are headed to a feud with them.
Private Party vs The Dark Order (Alex Reynolds & John Silver) - 6/10
Good stuff, I used to HATE the Beaver Boys, but ever since joining the DO, i'm warming up to them.
**Main Show**
Tooth and Nail Match
Big Swole vs Dr. Britt Baker, M.D. (w/Reba) - 6/10
This was a brawl in Baker's offices, this was done to have something pre-taped and not risk Baker coming back too soon for something live. This was wacky, but I really liked it, it was fun, it was the light comedy that I find myself enjoy more now a days. There was one spot where Brit took a syringe to the leg, so kuddos to her, hadn't seen that spot since the old CZW days. The one thing about this match is that it wasn't supposed to be on the main show, but the fans complained that there isn't enough women's wrestling so they moved it where less people got to see it, and for that matter, it wasn't the best placing of the match.
Reba is the greatest thing ever, she is sooo over the top. JR said he loves nitrous oxide aka laughing gas.
Jurassic Express (w/Marko Stunt) vs The Young Bucks - 8/10
Really good proper opener, The Young Bucks are supposed to be more serious, but aside from not being full fledged heels, I'm just seeing the normal Bucks that I remember from PWG. And talking about lowkey heel feels, Marko Stunt was provoking the Bucks from the start and I felt nothing when he got killed by a superkick, he deserved it.
Anyway, back to the match, Bucks were dominant, they had to work to burn out Luchasaurus and slow down Jungle Jack, but they eventually got to it.
Casino Battle Royale
Trent vs Chuck Taylor vs Brian Cage vs Ricky Starks vs Lance Archer vs Frankie Kazarian vs Christopher Daniels vs Darby Allin vs Santana vs Ortiz vs Jake Hager vs Matt Sydal vs The Butcher vs The Blade vs Pentagon Jr. vs Rey Fenix vs Eddie Kingston vs Sonny Kiss vs Will Hobbs vs Shawn Spears vs Billy Gunn - 6/10
This was a rollercoaster, some good stuff that I liked, some stuff that I felt bad for them. The match initially benefited from being empty so some guys could do some cool spots, but as the ring got packed, some guys started to disappear in the corners, yet weirdly enough, when the ring cleared towards the end, the spots didn't exactly get better. Overall I enjoyed this, it was all over the place, but nothing stood out for being bad.
The big takeaways were Sonny Kiss eliminating Hager (reinforcing that TIC vs Janela/Kiss thought from earlier), Cage and Starks put Allin in a bodybag with tacks inside for a big elimination spot, so that story must continue. Will Hobbs looked fantastic, he went pretty far, I'm 100% ALL IN on Hobbs. Matt Sydal was #21 and unfortunately for him, his first move was an SSP that was botched when his foot slipped on a wet rope, he wasn't hurt, but it's just unfortunate to debut like that.
Final 4 were Archer vs Cage vs Sydal vs Kingston. They did a dumb stop with Jake Roberts and Kingston with a fake snake, it just looked dumb. Archer won and I was happy for it, but when the final two were Archer and Kingston, I started to salivate at the idea of a Kingston vs Mox feud for the title, just imagine the promos.
My one big take away is that AEW needs to make the FTW into a combination of the PROGRESS ATLAS Championship and the Impact X-Division title. I'm just picturing feuds between Cage and Archer and Hobbs and The Butcher and then smaller Penta comes out and slaps Archer in the face. Make it a legit 'Badasses' division.
One thing that annoyed me was that Archer winning pretty much spoiled the main event, we KNEW that they were not doing Archer vs MJF. Honestly, this match would had been a PERFECT main event for the next Dynamite.
Broken Rules Match, If Hardy loses, he must retire
Matt Hardy vs Sammy Guevara - Dud.
Straight to the point, Hardy got knocked out in the first minute or so, got a bad concussion, ref called for the X, doctor 'stopped it', but someone made the bad decision to allow Matt to keep going and head for the finish. I don't give a single fuck about the stipulations, and if anyone does, fuck you, this should have been stopped and not even pretend that Sammy won or anything, it's 2020, we know wrestling is fake and any intelligent person knew something was wrong.
This isn't something to blame people for, it was an accident that needed better management once things got stressful.
AEW Women's Championship Match
Hikaru Shida (C) vs Thunder Rosa - 8.5/10
May not be the best match of the night, but this was my favorite. I had to watch this twice since I wasn't able to follow it after the Hardy situation. On second viewing, I really appreciated all the submission work in the match. Early in the match, the action looked somewhat choreographed, but as it went on, they got comfortable and everything seemed more natural.
The match was about 60/40 in favor of Rosa, she a bit more momentum at points, but it was mostly back and forward since Shida would keep on coming back. Shida worked both the head towards the running knee, or the legs, towards the Metal Stretch Muffler, which was kinda annoying at points when as a fan I was focused on a part and she would switch it up. They made a lot of points about this being a clash of styles, but that at the end, Shida had been working with CIMA, and that Rosa had experience in Japan.
Kip Sabian & Penelope Ford Promo - They're getting married and Sabian has found himself a best man who he will introduce on Dynamite. My vote goes for Miro (the former Rusev) as twitch buddies.
Dark Order vs Friends of Cody Build Up Video - This package was better than both the actual angles and the match itself.
The Dark Order (Mr. Brodie Lee, Colt Cabana, EVIL UNO, & Stu Grayson) w/99 vs The Natural Nightmares, Matt Cardona, & Scorpio Sky w/The Nightmare Sisters - 7/10
Nothing warms my heart more than a heel stable that has each other's back, that supports each other during their matches. I also have to mention that Colt Cabana not realizing he joined a cult is low key one of my favorite gimmicks of the year.
Good wrestling, good little stores told here and there, but this went waay too long, this didn't need to go that long. I take it they wanted to showcase some people and get a couple of hot tags and the usual crazy spots towards the end, but it was just too much, this wasn't even a marquee match.
Anyway, part of the story here was Cabana getting the usual spots set up for him by the DO, but this time around, he got in over his head and fucked up at the end, missed a moonsault to an already fallen Dustin, and instead, got rolled up and pinned, giving DO the loss. Uno and Grayson also had some dissension with Cabana, they were not all in on Cabana's over-excitedness. The other part of the story was that Dustin was hot-headed and wanted a piece of Mr. Brodie, and Brodie being the badass that he is, straight up tossed the dead body of QT on to the corner so Dustin could tag in and get his ass kicked.
This brings me to a point I want to make. This match had two guys that fans argued that WWE was wasting and under using. Cardona and Lee were two of the names that people complained soo much that WWE didn't give them a chance
Old pervert JR in this match happened to hope that Anna Jay had a wardrobe malfunction. Fuck off old man, check yourself.
Post-match - Mr. Brodie Lee was angered at Cabana. It's gonna be interesting to see where this goes, but I really really hope that Lee kicks him out but Cabana has developed Stockholm Syndrome. EVIL UNO did support Cabana.
Dustin Rhodes Promo - Tony Khan has awarded Dustin a title shot at Mr. Brodie after tonight's performance. This is Dustin's first single's title shot since maybe the old WWECW days. Awesome promo by Dustin.
AEW World Tag Team Championship Match
F.T.R. (w/Tully Blanchard) vs Kenny Omega & "Hangman" Adam Page (C) - 6/10
I personally found this to be a really boring fantastically wrestled match. I don't know if the previous match was so long that it took me out of it and once this started my head was somewhere else, but this just felt like it kept going on and on and no much was happening, and to make things worse, I felt the finish of the match was also super flat.
They played the story of the dissension between Omega and Page, where they had to work through some of that, but it kinda felt like that disappeared for a while and then came back. All this time I was told by NXT fans that The Revival was some type of southern technicians that have 5-star matches, and all I saw was non-jumping spot monkeys, and granted, maybe it's a bad pairing with Omega and Page, but I didn't see much of that limb work.
Granted I haven't watched AEW in a long time, but coming out of this match I felt that this Omega and Page team has run it's course, I feel like i've seen them have dissension for sooo long that if they don't pull the trigger now, I won't care for their actual feud. In the same vein, this whole FTR vs Bucks 'dream' match is a cold as Glacier, I really don't care much about their feud anymore. It's the same issue that a lot of promotions have that can't get over the idea of having a dream match/feud without putting a freaking title in the middle.
Post-match, - Omega left Page for dead in the ring, he teased a heel turn, but didn't. Omega rushed out, Bucks tried to stop him, but he wasn't having any, he told them to choose their side, but in the end, Omega ended up leaving the place by himself.
Mimosa Mayhem Match
Orange Cassidy vs Chris Jericho - 7/10
This was a nice change of pace and atmosphere, I was coming off all the accidents and two long ass matches, and so getting this hardcore match that happens to involve orange juice was what finally brought me back to the show.
I may be wrong, but this match could had been cut somewhat short because the went straight for the spots around the pools, some teases and weapon spots, and then after some spots inside the ring for submissions and near falls, they went ot the other pool for the finish where OC successfully defeated Jericho clean by ways of being dumped. That was all, no interference, no shenanigans.
AEW World Championship Match, Paradigm Shift is banned
Jon Moxley (C) vs Maxwell Jacob Friedman (w/WARDLOW) - 9/10
I think it's safe to say this was the best match, it was the best planned out, had the best story and flow to it. Story of the match was that the PS was banned, so Mox couldn't get an early win, and this gave MJF the shot to work on his arm and completely decimate it, but as the match went on, Mox busted open MJF and the match turned around, MJF lost all confidence and momentum for a while, but Mox was soo hurt that he couldn't get a proper pin to keep MJF down. As the match went on, MJF started to rely on cheating, with eye pokes, low blows, but nothing was working, and so he went for the ring, but Moxley caught him, noticed that WARDLOW was distracting the ref, and so he hit the PS and got the win by outsmarting the smart heel.
My only gripe was that with all the work done on Mox's arm, the PS ban felt like overbooked, but given the finish, it all worked out nicely, and I also have to mention that Mox's selling of the shoulder was great.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
This was a good decent show that was unfortunately dumped down by a big cloud of bad luck all around and bad real life decisions. Booking wise, the right people won, the matches were well wrestled, but there was just a series of accidents, heat and humidity that killed the crowd and endangered the wrestlers, Khan giving in to the pressure from twitter that ended up hurting the timing of the show. It's sad, this should had been a good show, but now it will only be remembered for the chaos.