AEW All Out 2021 - September 5, 2021

[sek69]

14 minutes ago, Tenese Sarwieh said:

ECW had created an atmosphere of wanting the viewer to be in the crowd and join the experience, AEW has captured that perfectly.  

 

Having been in the crowd twice now, it's an amazing experience live. As great as it is to watch on TV, being in the building when Britt makes her entrance in Pittsburgh and being able to *feel* the Road Warrior pop as well as being able to hear it was an unforgettable moment. Plus it's such a different vibe before and after the show. Even the fans seem happier to be there and leaving the show with a "fuck yeah that was awesome" feeling instead of "oh my god, that show lasted forever I just want to go home and go to sleep". 

[MoS]

I had the same feeling for the Mox and King entrance at Double or Nothing this year. One of the greatest experiences of my life

[MoS]

Also, you know who else thinks Wyatt is a midcard act? 

Something tells me Windham Rotunda won't be running roughshod over this roster anytime soon

[Timbo Slice]

Wouldn’t put much stock on a 7-year old tweet that, after it was put out? They rocketed up the card, so…

[strobogo]

Idk if I was just in a weird mood because I was tired or what, but something somehow felt flat about this show to me. Which is to say it was the best wrestling show I've seen in 2021, but it felt to me like the crowd was a bit tired from all the shows in Chicago in the past 2 weeks. 

 

Miro/Eddie was exactly what it should have been and was quite enjoyable.

Mox/Kojima was good enough. Most amped up and enthused Mox has seemed probably since the first show back with fans. Certainly more excited for MiSu and also lol at how much of a complete poser Moxley comes off as when MiSu shows up.

Baker/Statlander was better than expected, outside of a few real ugly patches. I was really expecting the whole match to be like that, but they held it together and recovered from rough patches well. Statlander is strong as fuck.

 

Cage match was good but I was left kind of disappointed because I've seen both teams do way crazier things in regular matches, let alone other types of gimmick matches. Idk what I was expecting, though. A Canadian destroyer off the cage? Fenix doing some wild ass triple dipple ripple flipple off the cage? The avalanche destroyer was gnarly as is, both  the head landing and Matt's knees smashing into the mat on the rebound. Between that and that dropkick to the hip, I'm sure he's in a bad way today. Big shout out to Nick finding a new way to look completely ridiculous every 2 ways with his facial hair.

 

Skipped through the battle royal but Ruby is a great pick up for AEW's women's division. 

MJF vs Jericho I thought was dogshit. Both dudes suck and the match went on forever with Jericho somehow appearing to get fatter throughout the match. MJF does absolutely nothing for me and I find his whole schtick to be extremely one note and there's been no added dimension to it since the first time I saw him in MLW. I get it, he's real young and real confident on the mic but his shit is so ARRRG I'M A HEEL YOU HATE ME DO YOU HATE ME I BET YOU DO type shit that's in a way similar to the Young Bucks' current gimmick but without the irony. And Jericho....man he's been trash for so long now. Was really hoping this would be the end of Jericho and he'll just go away. But also lol at how he looked like he was going to cry during his entrance getting so fucked up. 

 

Punk vs Darby was...okay, I guess. Punk looked old, slow, tired, and flabby. So really not unlike he did when he left wrestling. He also seemed real nervous and seems to have lost that edge to his persona and really just felt like a guy named Phil. Certainly was getting some Bret in WCW vibes from that match. I don't really know what I was expecting out of that match, but I don't think many people were expecting Punk to be working half the match with chinlocks and abdominal stretches. He definitely did not feel or look like a guy that was going to be back on top of the wrestling world again. Trying to imagine this guy working with Omega or something and I'm just not seeing it. Maybe he just had nerves and ring rust, but Christian was off for the same amount of time and is older and has looked fantastic since returning. I suppose he was better to begin with, though.

 

Show/QT lol hard pass. I get the show needed a cool down match but nah I'm not watching that shit.

 

Christian/Kenny 2 was real good. For sure match of the night to me. Adam Cole should be a good addition to The Elite, as you'll probably get matches with him instead of The Good Brothers. Bryan coming out to a hip hop remix of Flight Of the Valkyries killed me. 

 

AEW definitely feels like they're entering a new phase of signings and guys getting pushes right now. Feeling Hogan/early Nitro era of WCW where a lot of established talent came in in a wave and the homegrown guys or company vets took a backseat for a while. Which is not really fair as most of those guys were also established before they had WWE runs. To be honest, Punk is actually the one that feels out of place. He somehow feels older and more out of touch than not only his contemporaries like Bryan, not only the indie guys that came after him like The Elite/Black/PAC/Mox, but somehow Sting and Christian, too. It really seems like wrestling has passed him by completely and he left it behind completely. 

 

 

I think overall I actually bought into hype for a wrestling show and it couldn't have possibly lived up to it although it was the best show I can think of that I've seen this year.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

God what an incredible show to be in the crowd for.  Easily the best wrestling experience I have ever had in person, if not period.  I loved basically everything from the pre-show on.  It was my third AEW live show (after All Out 2019 and Revolution 2020) and it blew them both out of the water.  We also went to AAW, Black Label Pro, and the GCW War Game shows this weekend and my love for pro wrestling has been completely reinvigorated.

[Jimmy Redman]

I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said by everyone, but for what it's worth, what a fantastic, home run show.

Everything clicked, everything was good, every potential moment or surprise completely delivered and then over-delivered. The entire vibe of the company is on another level, where everything feels super exciting and groundbreaking, and we're all along for the ride together.

All I know about AEW is stuff I read on here or Wrestling Twitter. Punk's return Rampage was the first show of theirs I ever watched. This is the first PPV. I know enough to know that there are a lot of moving pieces and long-term storylines and details to AEW booking. And yet, everything I watched made complete sense to me. Nothing was stupid or confusing without a backstory. Nothing was beaten over my head either. But everything mattered. It mattered and it was cool and I got it. AND, because I am a wrestling nerd in general, there were so many moments that DID hit me because I have a more extensive knowledge of certain people or styles or history. And I'm sure there were a million details that meant more to regular AEW fans than me, because they have that knowledge. And for people who are way closer to the mythical "casual" wrestling viewer tuning in without much background knowledge at all, you got CM Punk and Daniel Bryan and Jericho in a high-stakes match, plus all this cool new shit to blow you away, and all the signings make it look like the hot place to be.

Like, you can see in an instant why AEW is winning the "demos" and all that shit, they are probably able to lure back a lot of lapsed wrestling viewers by simply just... putting on a good wrestling show. It's both the simplest and not simplest thing in the world, but that's really all I kept thinking during the show: This is how wrestling *used* to feel like (and I say that as a baby with absolutely zero experience with WCW or ECW or much of anything pre-WWE Corporate Monopoly). And to a lot of people in that *grew up on the Attitude Era* demo, people in their 30s now, this is exactly the kind of show for them. And for people like me and younger, who have never had experience with a truly competitive alternative, it's seriously a whole new fucking world.

I know NXT is a punching bag right now,  but it legit feels to me like the classic era of NXT, the first few years of Takeovers, with the same vibe of simply "This is just a good pro wrestling show." Weekly TV was short and sound and enjoyable, and Takeovers were rare big events that blew everyone away. I used to watch Takeovers in shock, because from one match to the next everything was good, everything worked perfectly, and the vibe was overwhelmingly fun and wholesome and exciting. It's that exact same feeling, except this is x 100 because NXT was a little hidey hole within WWE, and AEW is completely separate from that company and all it's foibles and mannerisms and verbiage and aesthetic and main roster and every piece of toxicity that threatened to leak in, and finally did. And AEW is on a completely different, major league scale.

NXT was "What if WWE got to book their own smark show?"
AEW is "What if the smarks got to book their own WWE?"

I'm rambling now, but yeah I totally get it. I don't have the means or the time probably to get back to watching wrestling like I did, but I can see myself watching the PPVs and big TV shows and following along, in a way I never expected even as soon as a month ago.

What stuck out to me most was Ruby. All through the battle royal I kept thinking, "When is Ruby's non-compete up again? What if it's not her and it's Mercedes or someone instead, I'd be fine but maybe the crowd would be disappointed..." And then when the Joker countdown began and the crowd chanted "RU-BY-SO-HO" I honestly thought to myself, "Okay, she's definitely coming because they wouldn't accept anyone else and AEW wouldn't let the crowd down here..." and sure enough. We've all been so destroyed that the idea of "Just give the fans whatever the fuck they want" is so insane to us, and yet it's making AEW the biggest deal ever by just doing it, because we as fans are all so legit fall-over happy at the idea of just getting what we want for a change with no catch. It's like that one night at Wrestlemania where Bryan goes over, but now we're allowed to be happy all the time? Not just once a year? Does not compute.

Also Ruby's face when she came out and heard the pop she got destroyed me. She was this close to bursting into tears and losing it and you saw her literally square herself up just in time. Also at the end when she won and could let go, and the first thing she did was look up and say, "Hi Bryce!" and hug him... man. I cannot even.

I keep getting distracted by the bigger picture, but Ruby is a perfect encapsulation of what's going on here for a generation of talent. Coming into the business with the giant WWE Monopoly and no competitor, making WWE and the prospect of winning titles and making the main roster and having Wrestlemania Moments (tm) and being One of Them the only real high achievement to aspire to in the business. And leaving anyone not on the WWE radar to a life on the indies getting by, or at best, featured at the TNA level.

And then the unthinkable happens! Punk and Bryan get over and HHH gets his hands on developmental and suddenly the previously unwanted toys have a chance! We want small guys! And women! And indy geeks! And non-whites! Come on, the "boyhood dream" you had of working at WWE and getting a Wrestlemania Moment (tm) are suddenly possible! So you come and work in WWE and get these Moments and are so utterly grateful for WWE for being magnanimous enough to hire people they never saw as stars and giving them a chance for a big crowd to cheer for them.

And now we come crashing back down to earth, because working for WWE is still working for WWE, 99% of the time. That 1% of "I got to main event a show!" or "I have my own action figure!" or "I had my Wrestlemania Moment (tm) in front of 100,000 people" is the carrot they dangle to get you to forget about the other 99%. The never ending road days (pre-), the travel expenses, the drudgery, the politicking and living on a knife's edge, the repetitiveness, the lack of creative input, the garbage TV. And while Bryan is also the 1% of guys who they never ever believed in but finally gave in, the other 99% of guys they don't see as stars will... never be stars. We all know the running joke of NXT call ups. The clock reaches midnight.

The thing is, despite everything that sucks about working for WWE, there's never been a viable alternative that offered anything close to what WWE could. Not in terms of money, exposure, talent, or legacy. Until now. AEW has the creative freedom, in-ring possibilities, and potential for a bigger push. It has the reach and TV exposure. Work-life balance and a nice work environment. It also has the money to offer. And now it is very quickly creating its own legacy in wrestling, with the ability to provide Big Moments (tm) to wrestlers. That was the one thing WWE still has a monopoly on. Wrestlemania. That's it. But if Ruby can jump ship and have a bigger career moment in AEW than even having a match at Wrestlemania, so can any of them. And WWE slowly loses its last bargaining chip.

I also think the Ruby move is important because if there is one thing AEW has always trailed behind in, it's the women's division. Once you establish AEW as the better option for women as much as the men, man.

I don't really know what the weekly stuff is like, I just hear a lot of talk about it, but I like the women's roster a lot on paper, having seen I assume almost all of it here. Get Serena Deeb in full time and we're cooking, at least in terms of the top, and you have time to develop the Jade Cargills who look amazing and just need time to get good.

KAZE NI NARE!

I got stupidly invested in the tag title match and I was lucky that that's the one my girl sat down and watched with me. She was sold on Rey Fenix after the first highspot. They eventually lost her with the spiked shoe but because she can't handle gore in wrestling. What can you do. The cutesy stuff lost me a little by the end. I think if the match had gone from the spikes to the Penta Super Dooper Canadian Destroyer and then straight to the Fenix cage dive and finish, it would have been a perfect cage match. Still, amazing match, amazing moment, and amazing visual with Penta looking all the way fucked up.

I have a feeling if I watched regularly the "house style" would lose me more. There is so much no selling and trading no selling and wobbling no selling and it's all just too much. As a one off too much is fine. Every week, yeah nah. Also the prevalence of trading spots. Not just throwing forearms or chops back and forth, but literally like "I give you a suplex, then you no sell and give me a suplex, then I run the ropes and give you a backbreaker, then you run the ropes and give me a backbreaker", like why do all moves have to be no-sold and mirrored? Don't people have moves that just work?

Watching Punk's match was like watching a match transplanted from the 80s into the 21st century, when in fact it was only a match transplanted from 00s workrate into current day AEW workrate. Punk is 100% going to need to spend his time in meaningful, story-based feuds, and not spend too long in the "this is a dream match in and of itself" stage, because he's not going to deliver the kind of matches the crowd expects as a dream match anymore. That's not even a knock on the match, it's just that the wrestling style has changed so much since Punk left.

Also the fucking genius of the Cole and Bryan thing. We all know enough to think Bryan is coming out here. We think, we hope, we work ourselves up to expect it, but we're not sure. But after all this thinking and hoping and expecting, it would be disappointing if it didn't happen, even though nobody told us it would. It's hard to live up to those kind of illogical expectations.

So the main event is Omega over Punk, surely something is happening afterwards. Sure enough, we get the beatdown and the promo. And out comes... Adam Cole. Quite possibly the one person on earth who could be put in Bryan's spot here and not completely disappoint the crowd, because they love Adam Cole. So you get surprise #1. THEN instead of making a big debut as a face and confronting Omega, we get the SWERVE~ and he turns heel and joins the Elite. Surprise #2. THEN you DO get Bryan after all! He's here! Surprise #3, the biggest of all!

So on paper, you get exactly what you thought, hoped and expected to happen: Bryan debuting by confronting Omega to close the show. BUT they did it in such a way that it was still a HUGE surprise when he came out and you got a whole bonus person as well. Somehow meeting everyone's illogical expectations and completely surpassing them at the same time.

Remember in the beginning when I said I didn't have much to add? I haven't had thoughts about wrestling in a while and now they won't stop.

[strobogo]

WWE hasn't felt like such an uncool place to be probably since the early days of Nitro where there were amped crowds, established guys like Sting/Flair/Hogan/Savage, but also younger guys like Pillman, fresh international stars like Benoit/Eddie/Malenko/Regal/Finlay, NJ guys like Liger and Norton, all the lucha guys that started popping up in early 1996, WWF guys jumping ship, older stars like LOD or Steiners returning, then of course Razor, Diesel, 123 Kid jumping in the span of a few months.

 

Which of course is not to say there's not a lot of real trash going on during that period of Nitro as well,  but WCW certainly felt like a way cooler place to be for a while there, and AEW absolutely seems like it has 70% of the WWE roster looking sad out the window wishing they could play with their friends.

[Childs]

1 hour ago, strobogo said:

To be honest, Punk is actually the one that feels out of place. He somehow feels older and more out of touch than not only his contemporaries like Bryan, not only the indie guys that came after him like The Elite/Black/PAC/Mox, but somehow Sting and Christian, too. It really seems like wrestling has passed him by completely and he left it behind completely. 

This feels overly negative based on what we saw last night. That match was designed to be a reintroduction, not a classic. Punk grounding Darby made psychological sense, and when it was time for them to pick it up in the stretch, he looked fine. He needs to knock off a little ring rust, but it would be a surprise if that wasn't the case, no? The guy was never a freak athlete. AEW needs some change of pace, and we know Punk can build a feud and think his way through a big match. He seems genuinely enthusiastic about doing just that with all these guys he's never wrestled. I don't know; I just didn't see anything that would cause me to write him off. 

[strobogo]

11 minutes ago, Childs said:

This feels overly negative based on what we saw last night. That match was designed to be a reintroduction, not a classic. Punk grounding Darby made psychological sense, and when it was time for them to pick it up in the stretch, he looked fine. He needs to knock off a little ring rust, but it would be a surprise if that wasn't the case, no? The guy was never a freak athlete. AEW needs some change of pace, and we know Punk can build a feud and think his way through a big match. He seems genuinely enthusiastic about doing just that with all these guys he's never wrestled. I don't know; I just didn't see anything that would cause me to write him off. 

He just didn't have the edge and grit to him, or the chip on his shoulder, which were the intangibles that made him a success in the first place. His thing was always fighting against the system that said he couldn't make it, but now he's rich and old and content and now in a system that treats him like a god, so he just seemed like old wrassler guy doing old wrassler guy things. Almost a Backlund in his WWF return before the turn, but Punk has done about every possible iteration of his character as can be done. 

[Jmare007]

Watched the ending again and JR marking the fuck out at Nick Jackson getting knee'd in the face was funny as fuck. Was the most hyped I've heard Ross in a while

14 minutes ago, strobogo said:

He just didn't have the edge and grit to him, or the chip on his shoulder, which were the intangibles that made him a success in the first place. His thing was always fighting against the system that said he couldn't make it, but now he's rich and old and content and now in a system that treats him like a god, so he just seemed like old wrassler guy doing old wrassler guy things. Almost a Backlund in his WWF return before the turn, but Punk has done about every possible iteration of his character as can be done. 

That's not entirely true. I wouldn't say that was his thing before he got to WWE and I'm pretty sure he can find new ways to do compelling stuff in AEW's environment.

[Mad Dog]

1 hour ago, Childs said:

This feels overly negative based on what we saw last night. That match was designed to be a reintroduction, not a classic. Punk grounding Darby made psychological sense, and when it was time for them to pick it up in the stretch, he looked fine. He needs to knock off a little ring rust, but it would be a surprise if that wasn't the case, no? The guy was never a freak athlete. AEW needs some change of pace, and we know Punk can build a feud and think his way through a big match. He seems genuinely enthusiastic about doing just that with all these guys he's never wrestled. I don't know; I just didn't see anything that would cause me to write him off. 

I felt he was even getting his legs by the end of the match. The first couple of minutes it felt like he was totally lost and then the ending stretch I thought he was starting to pull his weight instead of Darby holding his hand. 

[Migs]

I was there last night, almost exactly three years since I was at All In, and last night felt almost as exciting, in the sense of feeling like so much was on the way. All In was the sign that this little cult thing we loved might have a bigger stage, and last night felt like the moment it became real that we might be going to see these shows in a stadium at some point.

As many have pointed out, the crowd energy was wild. I was honestly feeling a little tired at the beginning (I'd consumed about 12+ hours of wrestling already between the three GCW shows and Rampage) but holy shit was everyone else up (and I was there with them once I got a cheeseburger in my belly). Singing Ruby Soho's theme made her debut feel like 20% bigger than it otherwise would have. I was next to a couple of people that weren't really familiar with Suzuki much and left ready to go home and watch the match they had in Japan together. Just relentless energy, popping for everything all the way through (and, as noted, shutting down the "We want Tessa!" chant real quick. Just an all-timer of an evening.

By now you've all gotten to see Danielson's promo. In that moment, it felt like WWE had a years-long hole to crawl out of in terms of perception. A WWE legend said "this place looks like way more fun." It just felt like it said everything about why I love AEW.

A bunch of us were lingering at the exit at the end... just so enthused to talk wrestling and ready for what was next (including Mox vs Gage, what a deal that's going to be). It's a really wonderful thing to have wrestling that's this fun to discuss. Really excited for what's next.

[MoS]

This event is awesome just because it got Jimmy Redman to whip out one of her legendary long recaps. They are always awesome. 

I think Punk was winded but managed to recover and get going by the end. Christian has always been much better than Punk (at least mechanically and in terms of consistently good matches) so the appropriate current analogy is probably Edge. I thought Edge looked better at his Rumble return, but returning in a Rumble is different from a singles main event in the show of the year. Then the pandemic hit and Edge didn't have a true big singles match until just now this year, and he had got some reps in by then. I think it will be crucial to book him in a story-based feud with a lot of character work and promos, as everyone else has also said. MJF v. Punk wouldn't be a bad feud. He can help fine tune MJF's character too; make it more focused and give it some proper motivation. 

[Gramsci]

After a rewatch I think Darby vs Punk was the match of the night (Eddie/Miro was great too). Punk was smart working on Allin's back and ribs after the sick bump on the post. Darby was flying and bumping all around to make sure Punk looked good, and actually, the 2 GTS looked awesome. 

I'm all in for this Funk's versión of CM Punk.

[El-P]

On 9/3/2021 at 10:32 AM, El-P said:

This will be the greatest night in the history of our sport.

Like I said.

Coach Tony K. is nuthing ta fuck wit.

[NintendoLogic]

It's always great to see modern wrestlers take inspiration from the GOAT.

[MoS]

I remember one early spot copied completely from the Bret-Kid match, including Punk's facial expression 

[FMKK]

Some of the anti-Punk takes in this thread are completely baffling to me. Guy needed some time to find his legs in his first match in 7 years and all of a sudden he's a useless scrub. Guy milks his pops and lets the fans love him for a bit after a comeback we thought was never going to happen and all of a sudden he's lost all of his edge and is out of place in the promotion. Jesus Christ, he's been in for three weeks. Give him a chance to have an actual feud.

[Jmare007]

5 hours ago, Gramsci said:

 

I'm all in for this Funk's versión of CM Punk.

I'm confident Punk will be an important piece for AEW and he will do good-great stuff once he gets into proper feuds. But Punk comparing himself to Funk irks me a little bit, he ain't no Terry Funk.

[Gramsci]

Yes, I agree. But I think he's referring to the approach that he's taking  by stepping into the ring, being this old veteran who doesn't need to do a lot of athletic stuff, but just tell a good story.

And also those tights...

[Ricky Jackson]

Shit, you're right. The long tights must be a tribute to old man Terry 

[strobogo]

57 minutes ago, FMKK said:

Some of the anti-Punk takes in this thread are completely baffling to me. Guy needed some time to find his legs in his first match in 7 years and all of a sudden he's a useless scrub. Guy milks his pops and lets the fans love him for a bit after a comeback we thought was never going to happen and all of a sudden he's lost all of his edge and is out of place in the promotion. Jesus Christ, he's been in for three weeks. Give him a chance to have an actual feud.

 

No. He looked and moved like an old guy and feels like he's from a completely different era all together, even though there are even older guys also there who feel more relevant to the current game. It was weird. Certainly some Bret in WCW vibes where yeah it was Bret and there were a lot of entertaining promos and some good matches, but it wasn't BRET HART.

[KawadaSmile]

Statlander vs Britt Baker was okay, but it was the first time the crowd felt less than smouldering hot. The action was slow at points and maybe the crowd needed a breather, but at the same time they weren't going to just sit on their hands. They know it's a big event. They are the MVP of the night, quite frankly.

The finish is nice tho, with Britt busting out that stupid Panama Sunrise and all of her finishers in a row just to keet Statlander down. Made her look really resilient, even though I wish she could've done more.

[KawadaSmile]

Lucha Bros vs Young Bucks was very good! They almost lost me near the end with those cute superkick and kip up sequences, but it was thankfully just a fraction of the match. YB have some overly choreographed sequences, but it felt toned down in this match.

The violence was earned and some nearfalls, despite verging on overkill, indeed were effective. Fuck those corny vocalizations, tho. "See you in hell" dude sounds like an anime character what is this.

But hey, those thumbjack Jordans were a perfect balance of goofy and viciousness. Rey Fenix is great, Pentagon is great, the YB are good as ultra obnoxious fucks (although I'm not sure if their complete lack of swag is intentional), cute shit was toned down, and we had a great match.

Crowd, of course, was losing their shit over this from bell to bell.