Recently, AEW had their biggest PPV event of the year in All Out. While it wasn’t great, but it was a very good PPV filled with memorable moments as well as some hits and misses at the event. And unlike the WWE main roster shows and PPVs, AEW has put on a very good wrestling quality that will definitely make you feel like you’re watching a PPV and not watching a glorified 5 hour episode of Raw like SummerSlam 2019 was.
All Out was the most trending thing on Twitter, but it was also the most talked about wrestling event of the entire weekend whereas SummerSlam was only talked about for 1 day and it was forgotten by the time Raw came on TV that following Monday Night.
Here are some hits and misses of All Out.
Hit - PAC vs Omega - When Jon Moxley announced on his Twitter that he wouldn’t be able to perform at All Out due to a staph infection in his elbow, it was a shock to many people. But when AEW announced that PAC aka Neville would replace Moxley against Omega at All Out, I remember thinking “This match is a dream match that will definitely be the best match on the card” and boy I tell you this match was absolutely fire because you not only had some high spots in this match, it was also mixed well with the in-ring psychology, chemistry, and good storytelling which definitely makes this match not only one of the best wrestling matches of 2019, but Kenny Omega’s best match since his 2/3 falls match against Okada in Japan last year. It was also nice to see Omega put PAC over to build PAC up as a threat and a possible serious contender for The AEW World Championship down the road. Whether or not you like either of these two men or you don’t, you have to admit that they can put on a damn good match.
Miss - Technical Production Issues Few & Far Between - Even though the production at All Out was better than the previous events, there were still a few noticeable technical production issues at All Out. Case In Point: There were some technical glitches that paused the PAC/Omega match and there were several “Stay Tuned” messages that showed up during The Young Bucks/Lucha Bros. ladder match. Even though they’re getting better in the technical production department, they still need to fix those few technical production issues before the debut of their weekly show next month.
Hit - The Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros Ladder Match - I would rank this as the second best match on the card because this match truly showed fans like myself who love tag team wrestling that tag team wrestling isn’t dead because it’s still alive and going on strong in AEW as seen in their absolutely glorified high spot filled match where these two teams just absolutely wowed the audience with their fast paced athletic style moves throughout the match, but The Best High Spot Of 2019 happened in this match when Pentagon hit one of The Young Bucks with a Canadian Destroyer from the ladder and onto the table and that was definitely a “Holy Shit” moment that wrestling fans will be talking about for a very very long time. Nice to see The Young Bucks put The Lucha Bros over in this match. After The Lucha Bros retained The AAA Tag Team Titles, LAX showed up and attacked them getting a huge reaction in the process. The Tag Team Division in AEW is absolutely insane with established tag teams like LAX and Lucha Bros.
Miss - Little Representation Of Black Wrestlers On The Main Card- One of the biggest misses of All Out was the fact that there wasn’t much representation of black wrestlers on the main card. While it was nice seeing Scorpio Sky, Jazz, and even Big Swole, it would’ve been better if Private Party was added to the main card instead of a match that a lot of people didn’t care too much for in Dark Order/Best Friends which should’ve instead been put on the preshow. More representation of black wrestlers is definitely one of the ways to make the company better because there are a ton of black wrestlers out here killing it in the indies. Although AEW has admitted that they’ve only shown about 40% of their roster, I personally expect them to bring in more black wrestlers into the promotion.
Hit - Orange Cassidy - When AEW announced that they signed Orange Cassidy a few weeks ago, it was very controversial and polarizing to a lot of people especially popular wrestling YouTubers. But after The Dark Order/Best Friends match at All Out, the lights went out and came back on, Orange Cassidy who was the saving grace of that match appeared and he got one of the absolute biggest pops of the night standing in the middle of the ring with the sunglasses on and his hands in his pocket. A lot of people like to verbally shit on him, but the guy can wrestle and do some moves as seen when he did a running suicide dive and then bounced back up with his hands in his pockets the whole time. Orange Cassidy is so over in fact that he’s more over than most of the cookie cutter robotic babyfaces including Seth Rollins on the current WWE main roster.
Miss - Women Not Being Showcased Properly - One of the legitimate criticisms that people have about AEW is the fact that the women in their women’s division have not been showcased as properly as they should have because so far without any build to their matches, they’ve been in 4 to 6 woman tag matches, triple threat matches, and even 1-on-1 singles matches. I’m gonna play devil’s advocate on this one and say that one has to understand that when you start a new wrestling promotion, it’s not gonna be easy trying to establish all the divisions in that new promotion because everything takes time to build so that it can be established and showcased properly. Now with that said, once their weekly TV show starts, I do expect the women to be showcased as much as the guys do unlike the current WWE main roster.
Hit - Private Party - Ever since they made their debut at Fyter Fest, I’ve been really impressed with these two brothers from the tag team Private Party, even though they’re still a bit young, I will say that they will continue to improve and get better over time because these two brothers are definitely a rising tag team in the already amazing tag team division in AEW. I definitely enjoyed seeing their matches especially recently at All Out where they had a pretty fun and enjoyable match that should’ve been on the main show instead of Dark Order/Best Friends.
Honorable Mention - The Star Trek themed entrance of Cody Rhodes was definitely one of the biggest hits of All Out because while his wife Brandi dressed up as a female Borg, he, his old friend DDP and young friend MJF dressed up with the classic Federation Starfleet Uniforms from the 1990s during The TNG to Voyager Eras. I will admit that I’ve been a huge Trekkie aka Star Trek fan since my childhood days because I credit that show for helping me fall in love with science fiction, space and the galaxy. Worf and Spock are my two personal favorite Star Trek characters because they were very powerful than the average human Starfleet Officer and they showed no fear and didn’t back down from anyone, not even their own people.
The Conclusion - Although it wasn’t perfect as there’s no such thing as a perfect wrestling event, All Out was a very good show from the top to the bottom of the main card and even if you weren’t interested in certain matches, you had to admit that you greatly appreciated the good wrestling quality that was on display at All Out because All Out felt like a special event while SummerSlam felt like a 5 hour episode of Raw where most of the matches on the main show are glorified rehashes from WrestleMania to Extreme Rules.
By Kwame Shakir
All Out was the most trending thing on Twitter, but it was also the most talked about wrestling event of the entire weekend whereas SummerSlam was only talked about for 1 day and it was forgotten by the time Raw came on TV that following Monday Night.
Here are some hits and misses of All Out.
Hit - PAC vs Omega - When Jon Moxley announced on his Twitter that he wouldn’t be able to perform at All Out due to a staph infection in his elbow, it was a shock to many people. But when AEW announced that PAC aka Neville would replace Moxley against Omega at All Out, I remember thinking “This match is a dream match that will definitely be the best match on the card” and boy I tell you this match was absolutely fire because you not only had some high spots in this match, it was also mixed well with the in-ring psychology, chemistry, and good storytelling which definitely makes this match not only one of the best wrestling matches of 2019, but Kenny Omega’s best match since his 2/3 falls match against Okada in Japan last year. It was also nice to see Omega put PAC over to build PAC up as a threat and a possible serious contender for The AEW World Championship down the road. Whether or not you like either of these two men or you don’t, you have to admit that they can put on a damn good match.
Miss - Technical Production Issues Few & Far Between - Even though the production at All Out was better than the previous events, there were still a few noticeable technical production issues at All Out. Case In Point: There were some technical glitches that paused the PAC/Omega match and there were several “Stay Tuned” messages that showed up during The Young Bucks/Lucha Bros. ladder match. Even though they’re getting better in the technical production department, they still need to fix those few technical production issues before the debut of their weekly show next month.
Hit - The Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros Ladder Match - I would rank this as the second best match on the card because this match truly showed fans like myself who love tag team wrestling that tag team wrestling isn’t dead because it’s still alive and going on strong in AEW as seen in their absolutely glorified high spot filled match where these two teams just absolutely wowed the audience with their fast paced athletic style moves throughout the match, but The Best High Spot Of 2019 happened in this match when Pentagon hit one of The Young Bucks with a Canadian Destroyer from the ladder and onto the table and that was definitely a “Holy Shit” moment that wrestling fans will be talking about for a very very long time. Nice to see The Young Bucks put The Lucha Bros over in this match. After The Lucha Bros retained The AAA Tag Team Titles, LAX showed up and attacked them getting a huge reaction in the process. The Tag Team Division in AEW is absolutely insane with established tag teams like LAX and Lucha Bros.
Miss - Little Representation Of Black Wrestlers On The Main Card- One of the biggest misses of All Out was the fact that there wasn’t much representation of black wrestlers on the main card. While it was nice seeing Scorpio Sky, Jazz, and even Big Swole, it would’ve been better if Private Party was added to the main card instead of a match that a lot of people didn’t care too much for in Dark Order/Best Friends which should’ve instead been put on the preshow. More representation of black wrestlers is definitely one of the ways to make the company better because there are a ton of black wrestlers out here killing it in the indies. Although AEW has admitted that they’ve only shown about 40% of their roster, I personally expect them to bring in more black wrestlers into the promotion.
Hit - Orange Cassidy - When AEW announced that they signed Orange Cassidy a few weeks ago, it was very controversial and polarizing to a lot of people especially popular wrestling YouTubers. But after The Dark Order/Best Friends match at All Out, the lights went out and came back on, Orange Cassidy who was the saving grace of that match appeared and he got one of the absolute biggest pops of the night standing in the middle of the ring with the sunglasses on and his hands in his pocket. A lot of people like to verbally shit on him, but the guy can wrestle and do some moves as seen when he did a running suicide dive and then bounced back up with his hands in his pockets the whole time. Orange Cassidy is so over in fact that he’s more over than most of the cookie cutter robotic babyfaces including Seth Rollins on the current WWE main roster.
Miss - Women Not Being Showcased Properly - One of the legitimate criticisms that people have about AEW is the fact that the women in their women’s division have not been showcased as properly as they should have because so far without any build to their matches, they’ve been in 4 to 6 woman tag matches, triple threat matches, and even 1-on-1 singles matches. I’m gonna play devil’s advocate on this one and say that one has to understand that when you start a new wrestling promotion, it’s not gonna be easy trying to establish all the divisions in that new promotion because everything takes time to build so that it can be established and showcased properly. Now with that said, once their weekly TV show starts, I do expect the women to be showcased as much as the guys do unlike the current WWE main roster.
Hit - Private Party - Ever since they made their debut at Fyter Fest, I’ve been really impressed with these two brothers from the tag team Private Party, even though they’re still a bit young, I will say that they will continue to improve and get better over time because these two brothers are definitely a rising tag team in the already amazing tag team division in AEW. I definitely enjoyed seeing their matches especially recently at All Out where they had a pretty fun and enjoyable match that should’ve been on the main show instead of Dark Order/Best Friends.
Honorable Mention - The Star Trek themed entrance of Cody Rhodes was definitely one of the biggest hits of All Out because while his wife Brandi dressed up as a female Borg, he, his old friend DDP and young friend MJF dressed up with the classic Federation Starfleet Uniforms from the 1990s during The TNG to Voyager Eras. I will admit that I’ve been a huge Trekkie aka Star Trek fan since my childhood days because I credit that show for helping me fall in love with science fiction, space and the galaxy. Worf and Spock are my two personal favorite Star Trek characters because they were very powerful than the average human Starfleet Officer and they showed no fear and didn’t back down from anyone, not even their own people.
The Conclusion - Although it wasn’t perfect as there’s no such thing as a perfect wrestling event, All Out was a very good show from the top to the bottom of the main card and even if you weren’t interested in certain matches, you had to admit that you greatly appreciated the good wrestling quality that was on display at All Out because All Out felt like a special event while SummerSlam felt like a 5 hour episode of Raw where most of the matches on the main show are glorified rehashes from WrestleMania to Extreme Rules.
By Kwame Shakir
