AEW All Out

Overall rating: ★★★●☆☆☆

Obviously the big news from this show were the three additions to the cast (remember when they said there were maybe ten people at most at WWE they'd want to hire if they became available? How many are we up to now?) but I find them rather a mixed bag. I like all three, but... one's a woman so there's not much chance she'll get a better shot here than she got at WWE; one's someone that I know a lot of people love but I guess I got back into wrestling a little bit late to really get on board when that hype train left the station; and one's absolutely fantastic, but I'm a little concerned about the way he'll be used and whether he'll really get the opportunity to shine that he had before. So I'm cautious at this stage. I'd like them to do well, but I often find myself wishing that AEW was better than it is.

There as one absolutely top tier match on this show though, and a couple more that were decent, so it was worth watching for those. And I do want to see where they go next and how long we have to wait to see what they've got planned - if they've got anything planned and aren't flying by the seat of their pants. But over all, this show could have been a lot better than it was. Should have been a lot better. 

1. TNT Championship (Eddie Kingston vs. Miro)
   ★★★●☆☆☆
   I always liked Miro in WWE (although I will always be disappointed that they never quite went with the Rusev/Lana/Aiden bisexual love triangle), but nothing he's done since he arrived in AEW has really grabbed me. His original role as Kip Sabian's best friend didn't really give him much to work with, but his new self-professed holy warrior for Jesus doesn't seem to be going anywhere either. He turned "generic foreign guy you're supposed to hate because he's not American" into gold, so maybe he can do the same with this, but he hasn't yet.
2. Singles (Jon Moxley vs. Kojima Satoshi)
   ★★★●☆☆☆
   They kept hyping this up like it was supposed to be some clash of the titans or something, but who even is Kojima? I don't know him. And isn't Moxley mostly known for no-DQ matches? I don't know why we were supposed to care about this.
3. Women's Championship (Dr Britt Baker vs. Kris Statlander)
   ★★★●★☆☆
   "The alien made the dentist boop herself" is an accurate statement about this match. Wrestling is fun sometimes.
4. Tag Championship Cage Match (Young Bucks vs. Lucha Brothers)
   ★★★●★★★
   On the one hand, there was no door they could just walk out of. On the other, they weren't allowed to win by escaping over the top either. Kind of undermines the point of a cage match. But these are two fantastic tag teams, and even in a tornado style match like this they're a delight to watch. Remember when they told us that AEW was going to have a major focus on tag team wrestling? God I wish they'd actually followed through on that. They don't even have a women's tag title; WWE has two! And I'm still not into the Bucks as heels.
   
5. Casino Battle Royale (21 competitors)
   ★★★●★☆☆
   Abaddon out second? Disappointed. And what was Lulu Pencil there fore if not to save Sakura? The whole match felt rushed. A lot of quick, no-fuss eliminations. Mostly this was just a reminder of how little time and focus the women get on AEW. It didn't really feel like anything mattered until it got down to the last four competitors.
6. Career Match (MJF vs. Chris Jericho)
   ★★★●★★☆
   I think this story has gone on too long, and the actual match wasn't that great, but I'm giving it 6/7 just for how good MJF is. He is so good.
7. Singles (CM Punk vs. Darby Allin)
   ★☆☆○☆☆☆
   Skipped.
8. Singles (Paul Wight vs. QT Marshall)
   ★★★○☆☆☆
   A very slow squash match.
9. Men's Championship (Kenny Omega vs. Christian Cage)
   ★★★●☆☆☆
   Right from the outset, I'm not invested in this match because I don't want Omega to still be champion, but I also don't want Cage to be AEW and iMPACT! champion at the same time. It's a no-win situation. Whatever happens, I'm going to be disappointed. It wasn't bad, but I just didn't care.