AEW All Out 2024 Review

The past week or two has been nuts, including a vacation in Atlanta last weekend. I did not watch AEW’s All Out in real-time, but I finally got around to checking out the highlights or should I say low points of the show. So, this is a quick recap of what I saw from the event last Sunday, and man, it was a doozy, to say the least.

PAC vs. Will Ospreay was a good match. I would not mind seeing more of it, especially if they can protect themselves creatively from going too far. It was easily the best actual match on the show.

Kris Statlander vs. Willow Nightingale was fine. I wish it were not a street fight, but a nonstop chaotic mess was the theme of All Out. It was a good outing for both women, who are more valuable to that division than they realize.

MJF vs. Daniel Garcia was another fine match. We do not know if Garcia is leaving, but if he is, this was a solid way to go out.

If the Continental title match sets up a match between Okada and Takeshita then I am all for that, especially if Takeshita wins the match up because he could be a future star.

The tag titles and TBS title match could have easily been main events on Dynamite or Collision #Worksinprogress

Danielson vs. Perry was what it was. Jack Perry brings down everything he is in. His size, look, and believability are almost embarrassing, especially against someone like Danielson. OK, I was off a couple of weeks with my prediction, but Moxley turns on Danielson, and this latest version of BCC is coming to form. Hopefully, they will finally scrap this name, which would be good for them going forward.

Danielson vs. Moxley at Wrestle Dream seems to be where this is heading, the plastic bag suffocation after the match was what it was, certainly not like when Terry Funk did it to Ric Flair but the crowd wanting to do a chant instead being enraged by it is just on brand for AEW’s targeted audience.

Swerve vs. Hangman in the Cage was exactly what I thought it would be, the cherry on top of the event’s theme of a sideshow, low-budget chaos matches that a minority, niche, subsection of wrestling fans wants, which will never bring in or bring back even a larger audience. I could not review the match because it was dangerous bumps and stunts with two potentially good wrestlers that could not help themselves. This is AEW’s blood feud (figuratively and literally ), but it just did too much to make it almost laughable instead of memorable in a good way.

The cinderblock spot was a bit nasty, but Page sticking a syringe in Swerve’s mouth and leaving it in was just stupid and made AEW continue to be just a low-budget independent wrestling promotion that has a good amount of money backing it to be able to show that on big stages. However, in AEW this makes sense which is fine if this is what you want or believe pro wrestling is, but it is just garbage that takes away from wrestling as a whole and is embarrassing.

I do not know why I fell for this again, but it is the now classic “1 step forward, five steps backward” with All Out. The show was just a high-budget, low-tier independent promotion trash wrestling showcase with some matches going too long, which was terrible. I have said this so many times that I have lost count, but Tony Khan is the worst thing that has happened to pro wrestling. Tony Khan cannot run a real promotion, he is absolutely not creative to be successful in pro wrestling, and he is just the absolute scourge of the super niche subsection of “fans” who live and die on various message boards (that I am sure he is still on with burner accounts).

AEW has become everything fans did not like about the WWE and the absolute worst of Independent Wrestling mixed together without a shadow of a doubt and it because a mark, message board troll who lives and die with Dave Meltzer’s observer (Boy do I look more right every time he does anything now huh?) is simply not good at doing this successfully! I feel bad for all the talent there, even the ones I am not fond of, but they have some potential if they were not in AEW because it will just hurt their potential. Still, as a lifelong wrestling fan I can’t help but hold out a sliver of hope that logic and common sense will finally prevail and someday somehow can fix AEW for the better.