AEW All Out Review - September 3, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Zero Hour: "Hangman" Adam Page Won the Over Budget Charity Battle Royale

There was an Over Budget Battle Royale on the first All In five years ago. This would have been more special if AEW didn't constantly do Battle Royales, including on Rampage in the same city two days ago. You can't make this stuff up. This was the most basic Battle Royale AEW has done in some time as it featured nothing but jobbers with the exception of Page, who won in predictable fashion. The crowd didn't seem to mind, though. If nothing else, Page gets to donate the $50,000 he won to a charity of his choosing.

Zero Hour: Skye Blue, Willow Nightingale and Hikaru Shida def. ROH Women's World Champion Athena, Mercedes Martinez and Diamante

Shida just lost a six-woman tag team match on Saturday's Collision and none of the same people were involved in this. Considering she wasn't pinned for the AEW Women's World Championship at All In, hopefully she goes back after the belt soon. Although this didn't serve a storyline purpose, it was decent and I'm glad the women got another match on the card. Unfortunately, Blue's finisher didn't look good on this occasion.

Zero Hour: AEW World Trios Champions The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn def. Jay Lethal, Jeff Jarrett and Satnam Singh

This match came together on Collision less than 24 hours ago. Acclaimed and Gunn have been all over AEW programming in Chicago this week and I understand AEW wanting to get them on the All Out card because of how over they are the audience, but this didn't do much for me. It was an average outing, didn't overstay its welcome, and was thankfully positioned on the pre-show. I legitimately don't know what other trios AEW has.

ROH World Tag Team Champions Better Than You BayBay def. The Dark Order (John Silver and Alex Reynolds)

It's a shame that the AEW World Championship wasn't defended on this show and the champ was instead relegated to working with the damn Dark Order. Yes, MJF and Adam Cole are the best thing going in AEW right now and I'm all for them holding the tag titles a little longer, but Dark Order were underwhelming opponents and I don't think many people actually thought they'd win. This was well wrestled but could have easily happened on an episode of Dynamite. The best part came afterward when Samoa Joe shoulder-checked MJF while walking down the ramp, leading to a brawl between the two in the ring. Sign me up!

ROH World Television Champion Samoa Joe def. Shane Taylor

You'd think you were watching a Ring of Honor pay-per-view if you only watched the first two matches on this show. I was looking forward to this match because of the potential it had, but it ended up being brief and failed to live up to my expectations. It also ended out of nowhere. I'm not surprised the crowd wasn't invested in the action because Taylor wasn't built up on AEW TV at all prior to this pay-per-view beyond the video packages that aired for him on Dynamite and Collision.

AEW TNT Champion Luchasaurus def. Darby Allin

Allin mentioned in an interview this past week that he messed up his spine during the Coffin match and, much like with Seth Rollins and Shinsuke Nakamura at WWE Payback, I liked how they incorporated that into their match. Unlike Rollins, however, Allin wasn't able to overcome his injury and Luchasaurus won in clean fashion. They had a quality contest. Luchasaurus doesn't wrestle often, so this was a necessary victory for him. Maybe Allin will be written out for the foreseeable future?

Miro def. Powerhouse Hobbs

I was hoping for a hoss fight between these two and it definitely delivered. It was one of those, as Big E would say, "big, meaty men slapping meat" situations and the crowd knew it, too. For a bout with minimal buildup, this was a blast. They worked a hard-hitting styles and the crowd ate it up. I thought QTV would accidentally cost Hobbs the win, but I'm relieved they never showed up. Miro's wife CJ Perry made the save for him afterward, but Miro didn't approve for some reason. Maybe they're going off the fact they divorced on WWE TV years ago, which would be weird because everyone knows they're married in real life.

AEW TBS Champion Kris Statlander def. Ruby Soho

​​The AEW TBS Championship hasn't been shown a whole lot of love lately, but this was a wonderful match. Soho has booked as The Outcasts' third wheel, but she once again proved what she's capable of and had terrific chemistry with Statlander to boot. I just wish the crowd was hotter for this than they were and that the finish with Toni Storm costing Soho the win wasn't something you'd see on television. The result was the right one, but the fashion in which it happened was lame.

Bryan Danielson def. Ricky Starks in a Strap Match

Good lord. I automatically assumed this would be excellent simply because it was Danielson and Starks, but I no idea they'd beat the hell out of each other the way they did. This was a classic Danielson match in that everything he did felt real. It was almost uncomfortable in that way. Mind you, they had no bad blood in storyline because this came together on such short notice, but you would never know watching this brutal battle. The bloodshed may not have been necessary, but props to Starks for enduring the punishment he did. Even in defeat, he gained a ton from the performance he had here.

Blackpool Combat Club (ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta) def. NJPW Strong Openweight Champion Eddie Kingston and ROH Pure Champion Katsuyori Shibata

Coming off the absolute war that was the Strap match, the crowd was obviously exhausted and didn't come alive for this match until Kingston tagged in. Shibata's supremely talented, but he was a random partner for Kingston (yes, I know he beat Yuta for the ROH Pure Championship months ago, but how many people remember that?) and the crowd was quiet when he was on offense. The wrestling was crisp here, but the match could have and arguably should have been saved for an episode of Dynamite instead. Castagnoli pinning Kingston is fine provided Kingston challenges Castagnoli for the ROH World Championship at Grand Slam in a few weeks.

Konosuke Takeshita def. Kenny Omega

This feud has lost some steam since Takeshita turned on Omega back at Double or Nothing in May due to Don Callis being the focal point and not Takeshita, but this was the match Takeshita and Omega needed to have to get fans caring about the issue between the two of them. Takeshita really arrived in this outing and the clean victory was just the cherry on top. This was fantastic. Takeshita showed the world he's on Omega's level and Omega was once again the Omega of old. Omega will eventually avenge the loss, but I appreciate that he didn't get one over on Takeshita so soon. There's plenty more mileage in this rivalry.

Bullet Club Gold (Jay White, Juice Robinson and The Gunns) def. AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR and The Young Bucks

For as well as FTR and the Bucks work together as opponents, we found out here they also work exceptionally well together as partners. Yes, I recall them teaming at least once when FTR arrived in AEW three years ago, but that was back when there were no fans in the building. This was complete chaos and won't be for everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bullet Club Gold winning clean should earn two of them another shot at the AEW World Tag Team Championship, possibly in a three-way also involving the Bucks.

Jon Moxley def. Orange Cassidy to Win the AEW International Championship

The idea of this match headlining a pay-per-view would've been comical a year ago, but to AEW's credit, they've done an outstanding job of building up Cassidy throughout his reign and giving the International title real prestige. If there was any place and time for him to lose it, though, it was here against Moxley. It played out like I hoped it would with Moxley not taking any of Cassidy's crap and just putting him through hell while Cassidy battled back in classic babyface fashion. This was a top-notch main event with the correct outcome. I'd argue Cassidy gains more from the loss than he would have had he won.

Overall Show

Between the rushed build and CM Punk being fired on Saturday, it's safe to say fans didn't have the highest hopes for this show, but it turned out to be a very entertaining event. The wrestling itself was going to be great regardless, but it was actually better on the whole than it was at All In. Yes, some of this stuff could easily happened on AEW TV, but the overall amount of memorable matches and moments made this a superb show. Punk will be missed by some (myself included), but this pay-per-view proved the promotion will be just fine without him.

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