AEW All Out review: Yes, there was a pay-per-view too

Yes, there was a pay-per-view before last night’s scrum.

AEW All Out 2022 continued the streak of excellent pay-per-views from the company, with many matches delivering and one completely blowing everything out of the water. People will likely focus on the events in the hours following All Out, but for this article I’ll focus on the show itself.

The big news, of course, is CM Punk…regaining the AEW World Championship from Jon Moxley after losing it to him in quick fashion a week ago. I don’t know if the story heading into this match was necessary, as I think the match itself was strong anyway based on CM Punk facing Jon Moxley, a fresh match. But a great promo by Ace Steel on Wednesday’s Dynamite led to Sunday’s great main event, which ended up being a mix of both Punk and Mox’s styles.

Of course, the show ended with the return of MJF, who revealed himself to be the masked mystery Joker participant in the ladder match that opened the show. The ladder match had some cool spots, but was overshadowed by the angle that ended the match, with Stokely Hathaway and his new clients (W. Morrissey, Colten & Austin Gunn, Lee Moriarty, and Ethan Page) arriving in ski masks to lay everyone out and hand the victory (and the future World title match) to MJF, who is now likely to headline the next title match against CM Punk.

I don’t know about all of this Pillman-esque stuff that has been going on in the months following Double or Nothing, but I do know this: MJF is the future world champion heel that the company needs to focus on next. It’s clear he’s someone special, regardless of where he may go in a couple of years. It’s the match to make, and it’s the time to crown MJF, whenever that time may be.

The match that stole the show was none other than the AEW World Tag Team title match between Swerve in Our Glory and The Acclaimed. I don’t know how this translated to TV, but the heat for this match live was unreal and better than anything at Clash at the Castle, which had a pretty hot crowd! Chicago so desperately wanted for The Acclaimed to win, and it made the match all that much hotter following each nearfall. The pop for that win would have been something that Steve Austin and The Rock in their heyday could only dream of.

That didn’t happen, as Keith Lee and Swerve Scott walked out as champions. But these two teams did something I thought absolutely wasn’t possible: they had a better match than Sheamus and Gunther from the previous day’s Clash at the Catle. And you have to give The Acclaimed massive credit, as a lot of people were skeptical about them getting the title shot. Now everyone wants them as champions, and you know what? Perhaps it is time after all.

The Elite (Young Bucks and a ripped Kenny Omega) are in fact the first-ever AEW World Trios Tag Team Champions, defeating Hangman Page and The Dark Order in an excellent match, just one hot nearfall after another. It’s fitting they are the first champions, as there’s really no one else that can carry the banner for trios wrestling like they will. I’ve enjoyed the storyline between The Elite and Hangman Page, and no doubt their long-running story will continue.

One trios team that seems unlikely to challenge The Elite is The House of Black, who lost to Miro, Sting, and Darby Allin in the co-main event, with Allin pinning Malakai Black clean with a coffin drop. After the match, The House of Black hugged as the crowd gave Black a standing ovation. What does this mean? Who knows. There’s rumors, and while this all looked like the swan song for Black, it may have been something else. Who knows, it’s wrestling.

Jurassic Express is over, with Luchasaurus attacking Jungle Boy in the aisle as he was heading to the ring for his match against Christian Cage, slamming him off the announce stage and powerbombing him through a table before sending him in the ring to Christian. Despite barely being able to get up, Jungle Boy preserered, but ultimately lost after an unprettier. This is another one in the “there will be more to this” department, as clearly the two aren’t going to move on after such a short match, and with Luchasurus’ turn, Jungle Boy has matches down the line with two of his former friends.

Jade Cargill retained the TBS Championship against Athena. Some spots looked off, but this ended quickly anyway with Cargill pinning Athena to continue her long winning streak. It was the right call, as Cargill has an awesome presence that no one really has in the company. Question is, who will be the person that eventually beats her? Are they in the company now or somewhere else?

Bryan Danielson was not successful in dodging the Judas Effect, losing to ‘Lionheart’ Chris Jericho in a match that was good, but felt a little flat with the ending. I was expecting Danielson to kick out, but he didn’t ,which surprised me. But it also tells me this is likely the start of a rivalry that’s just beginning, and it’s likely we’ll see more matches between the two down the road.

The final two matches to cap off the main card had Powerhouse Hobbs defeat Ricky Starks in five minutes, a surprising result given the feud. Again, probably more to this. Finally, FTR & Wardlow defeated Jay Lethal & The Motor City Machine Guns, which was also a fun match capped off with a cute segment in the end that had Harwood’s daughter pin Sonjay Dutt.

Oh, and there’s the four pre-show matches! Tomohiro Ishii and Eddie Kingston delivered exactly what you think they would do, chopping each other silly and fighting each other until one finally could no longer go, and that ended up being Ishii. This was excellent. Kip Sabian and PAC also had a great match, with PAC looking as he always does, and Sabian keeping up with him, also looking great here. Hook beat Angelo Parker in quick fashion, and finally, Sammy Guevara and Tay Melo defeated Ruby Soho and Ortiz in a really fun opener that had some cool spots, a great way to start the show.

So yes, fifteen matches overall. That is a lot! The good news for All Out is that the pacing was good, and five hours flew by pretty quickly. Five hours is a very long time for a wrestling show, but if the wrestling is good and everything winds up pacing well, then there isn’t much of a problem. The show capped off an extremely busy and newsworthy weekend that, while I am glad I experienced it live and with people from this website, doesn’t need to be repeated for a long while.