It’s Labor Day weekend, and that means it’s time for All Elite Wrestling’s All Out PPV. Although things are still not completely normal in light of the pandemic, there are going to be limited fans at this outdoor event, and the card is looking pretty legit.
Whether you haven’t been watching AEW Dynamite lately or you’re just looking for a refresher, let’s take a quick look at all of Saturday night’s matches and what’s going on in them.
Tooth & Nail Match: Britt Baker vs Big Swole
The Deal: Doctor Britt Baker is a dentist, but she’s also a bully. She’s been causing problems for Big Swole for months now. Swole’s got a good heart but a quick temper, and she’s not that hard to bait. But she won a handicap match a couple of weeks ago, earning the right to choose what kind of match she wants to have with Britt.
Big Swole chose a Tooth and Nail Match without explain what that means. She did say she was going to show up where Britt works, and the rumor is that this will be a cinematic match in a dentist office.
The Likely Outcome: This is a story with a clear hero and villain, so ultimately Big Swole needs to win. But I’m betting this match just leads to a rematch in an actual wrestling ring, probably when Doctor Baker is a little more healed from her recent injury.
The Young Bucks vs Jurassic Express
The Deal: The Young Bucks aren’t just going to, like, not be on a PPV from the company they started! So they had an eight-man tag match on Dynamite, with the stipulation that the winners would fight each other at All Out. The Bucks and Jurassic Express won, so here they are. The Bucks have been acting like jerks lately, so they’ll probably work heel against the heroic Jurassic Express.
The Likely Outcome: The Bucks went to the effort of putting themselves on the PPV, I have a feeling they’ll win the match. Unless this leads into some really specific plan for one or both teams, the Young Bucks definitely go over.
The Dark Order vs The Natural Nightmares, Matt Cardona, & Scorpio Sky
The Deal: Colt Cabana has been saying for weeks that he hasn’t joined the Dark Order, he’s just friends with them. But this graphic doesn’t say “Dark Order and Colt Cabana,” so I think we have to officially consider him one of them now.
The Dark Order beat the hell out of Cody and Brandi Rhodes after their leader Mister Brodie Lee defeated Cody for the TNT Championship. So the team going up against the Dark Order is basically the Cody Rhodes revenge squad: Cody’s best friends QT Marshall and Matt Cardona, his brother Dustin Rhodes, and Local Superhero Scorpio Sky.
The Likely Outcome: The Dark Order is clearly on the rise to become the big threat of AEW, especially with Brodie Lee as the TNT Champion. They’re absolutely going to win this match, and as long as Scorpio Sky looks good in it and doesn’t take the pin, I think that’s fine.
The Casino Battle Royal
The Deal: A Casino Battle Royale is like AEW’s take on the Royal Rumble, with more people joining as the match goes along. To the victor goes a World Title Shot, so it’s a match worth winning. Eddie Kingston and his whole faction will be in it this year, as well as Darby Allin, Brian Cage, Lance Archer, and basically everybody else with nothing else to do. Plus there will probably be a surprise entrant or two — I admit, I’m still holding out hope for a certain handsome Miroslav.
The Likely Outcome: This is hard to predict. Darby Allin is a possibility. Either of the Lucha Brothers. Eddie Kingston would make a lot of sense. Let’s consider Kingston my official pick, but with an asterisk (*) and underneath it says “* How am I supposed to know?”
Broken Rules Match: Sammy Guevara vs Matt Hardy
The Deal: Matt Hardy is a veteran wrestler with a lot to teach, but he’s clearly mentally unstable. Sammy Guevara is a promising young wrestler with boundless potential, but he’s also an idiot with a lot to learn. Chris Jericho has taken Guevara under his wing this past year, but Hardy thinks he’d be a better mentor. Sammy isn’t interested in the guidance, and they’ve been having increasingly violent fights about it. Now they’re having a hardcore match, and the loser is supposedly leaving AEW.
The Likely Outcome: Neither of these guys is really leaving, but one of them might take some time off and possibly get repackaged. Of course, repackaging is obsolete when it comes to Matt Hardy, since he can just morph from character to character and everyone accepts it. For Sammy Guevara, though, it would make a lot of sense. It seems like the Inner Circle may be breaking up before long, and if that is happening, Sammy could take a little time away and come back doing something totally different. So I’m picking Matt Hardy to win here.
Mimosa Mayhem Match: Chris Jericho vs Orange Cassidy
The Deal: Chris Jericho is veteran who thinks he understands everything about wrestling. Orange Cassidy is a slacker who displays surprising skills in the ring on those rare occasions when he can be bothered to care about a match. Jericho hates Cassidy, just like every other wrestler over the age of 45 does. This is the rubber match after Jericho won the first time they fought, and Cassidy won the second time.
In addition to pinfall and submission, it’s going to be possible to win this match by dumping your opponent in a giant vat of champagne and orange juice. With the possibility of a finish that good, it makes you wonder why they need to leave in pinfall and submission.
The Likely Outcome: Jericho seems determined to make Orange Cassidy a star with this feud, and if that’s the goal it makes sense to put Orange over in this match. The mimosa aspect leaves lots of space for semi-shmozzy finish if they feel like they need to protect Jericho, but honestly I don’t see why a star of his age and caliber needs to be protected. Jericho can take the loss, and the win will be a huge deal for Orange.
AEW Tag Team Championship Match: Hangman Page & Kenny Omega (c) vs FTR
The Deal: There’s a lot of tension between champs Hangman Adam Page and Kenny Omega, who have nothing in common except being moody and very good at wrestling. For one thing, Kenny’s still close friends with the Young Bucks, who Hangman doesn’t get along with anymore.
Meanwhile, FTR arrived in their old-timey pickup truck looking to do some fisting. They’re young men but old-timey wrestlers, proud southern people who be ready to fight (say yeah). They’re also the most anticipated “I can’t wait till they go to AEW” team to arrive since the company was founded. They won this title shot in a gauntlet match.
The Likely Outcome: The conflict between Page and Omega seems ready to come to a head, and losing their titles (no matter whose fault it is) is the perfect set-up for that. Meanwhile, FTR will be amazing champs, and if not now, when?
AEW Women’s Championship Match: Hikaru Shida (c) vs Thunder Rosa
The Deal: AEW’s Women’s division has never been packed with contenders, and they’ve really thinned out since the pandemic hit. With almost nobody left to fight, Shida made it clear that she would accept a challenge from any woman in the world. Not long afterward, along came National Wrestling Alliance Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa. Having already won that belt from Allysin Kay, she’s looking to take Shida’s belt and become one of those double champs everybody talks about these days.
The Likely Outcome: Exactly what the future holds for NWA (who haven’t held a show since quarantine started) seems very up in the air right now. Most likely, since she’s carrying their belt, Rosa’s just visiting AEW. So it wouldn’t make much sense for her to win this match. Plus, as little competition as she’s had, Hikaru Shida kind of needs a really impressive match in which she retains, which is how I expect this to go.
AEW World Championship Match: Jon Moxley (c) vs Maxwell Jacob Friedman
The Deal: MJF is a spoiled trust fund kid, but he’s also a pretty good wrestler. He’s been campaigning for AEW World Champion like it’s a political office, but he points out that he’s never been pinned or submitted in singles competition, so that does make some sense.
Jon Moxley has been AEW champion since the Revolution PPV in February. He’s just a regular down-to-earth guy from Ohio who really, really loves hardcore violence and is very good at both inflicting and receiving it. MJF will do anything to win this match, but Mox will do anything to win any match.
The Likely Outcome: I was starting to buy into the idea that MJF might win the belt here. After all, it does make sense at this point to make a homegrown AEW star the champion. But then MJF beat the snot out of Moxley at the end of the AEW Dynamite go-home show. I don’t think they would have let Mox get beaten that badly if he was also going to lose this match. Therefore, I predict he wins it.
