Right now, AEW is calling All Out 2021 their biggest card to date. It will for the 3rd night be held at the Now Arena in Chicago Illinois and feature the return of CM Punk while hinting at various surprises. This post will go through each of the matches with some predictions.
Orange Cassidy, Wheeler Yuta, Chuck Taylor and Jurassic Express vs. Matt Hardy, Private Party and TH2
Pretty much a match thrown together almost at the last second. I heard that the women’s battle royal was supposed to be on the pre-match but with Pac being out due to “travel issues”, they pushed the women’s match up. I’m guessing that Pac vs Andrade was expected to go long so now this match along with the women’s match would fill some time.
Don’t really care for many people here except Hardy and Jungle Boy. It could go either way but the real question is whether this will lead to anything else. Since Cassidy already beat Matt Hardy, the bigger match already occurred. I don’t really have opinions outside of Jungle Boy scoring the pin since he’s the long term breakout star.
21-Woman Casino Battle Royale
They’ve announced most of the competitors for this match. They only did one substitute with a new person named Skye Blue, who was pretty over in Chicago when she faced Red Velvet on Dark tonight. They did a kayfabe injury angle to Julia Hart where Jade Cargill and Nyla Rose broke Julia’s angle Brian Pillman style with a chair.
The big thing here is the Joker card I guess they call it where there’s a 21st participant who is a mystery. Many are speculating that the 21st person will be Ruby Riott (or rather Ruby Soho) as she has been doing various, VERY high quality videos calling herself the “Runaway.” I can see her being the super surprise 21st person then cleaning house but having someone else like Thunder Rosa or another designated person tossing her to win it. But at least she would be positioned near the top depending on what kind of contract she signed. And that would make sense since her 90 days would be over.
My other prediction is that Lana/CJ Perry makes her appearance here since Miro had been talking about his “flexible” wife for so long. I wouldn’t call that an upset because she could make an appearance, get a quick surprise pop but get eliminated and thus putting her into a feud with someone else immediately. With Ruby, I’d personally want her to win the thing but I think neither might if they’re booked.
My prediction for the winner is Thunder Rosa. Jade Cargill might be the other person but she’s just so green and bad in the ring at this point. Even if she looks great physically, the rest of the important attributes just aren’t there for me to give her a main event push. That may come in 1-2 years. However, the match I think everyone wants to see is Thunder Rosa vs Britt Baker v2.
Paul Wight vs. QT Marshall
I like Paul Wight but I think this is going to be a real stinker. It’s going to end up being bad comedy and most likely the Gunn Club will factor in screwing Wight so that QT gets a gratuitous win. The real problem is that I don’t know where this will lead and I am afraid to ask.
AEW TNT Championship: Miro (c) vs. Eddie Kingston
This has some potential to be a decent match depending on how they set it up. I think it would work best if they make this an energetic brawl. If it’s a “wrestling” match, it shouldn’t last longer than 5 minutes. But if it’s an energetic, wild brawl then this hopefully brings the best out of them both.
If Lana/CJ Perry doesn’t show up in that women’s battle royale, then I predict her slipping through the crowd in a disguise and doing some gimmick against Eddie so that Miro retains. Eddie has grown on me, but I can’t see him being the TNT champion.
AEW Women’s World Championship: Britt Baker (c) vs. Kris Statlander
This won’t be a good match. Kris is still finding herself but she goofs around in the ring too much to be taken seriously. If she were to get away from the super best friends and focus on her power game, I would have more faith in her. But right now, she’s green, a bit clumsy and does not have a solid identity in the ring. The philosophy from the matches I’ve seen from her is that she’ll try it if she thinks she can do it rather than knowing what she should be doing.
Britt isn’t good at carrying and if this last more than 8 minutes, it will be really bad. Neither have the in ring cardio to go more than 8 minutes and more importantly they don’t have the experience to know what to do to fill the spots or make the crowd react while they’re in the ring. Either way, Britt takes this match because the big match that will happen is Thunder Rosa v2.
Jon Moxley vs. Satoshi Kojima
Kojima at one time was pretty decent. He’s no longer the young man anymore and his peak has long passed. So this is really just going to be another version of Moxley vs Yuji Nagata, which was a mediocre match. I can’t see this match going long and Moxley will get a nice win here, even though it won’t mean much to anyone outside of Moxley because Kojima is old news.
AEW World Tag Team Championship Steel Cage Match: Young Bucks (c) vs. Lucha Bros.
Probably, the worst match of the night except that people will think it’s great because of the chaos that goes on. It’ll be goofy comedy from two teams who want to do random, pointless spots. These guys will do their best to steal the show but their match will have no flow, no story and just be stupid shit after stupid shit. The only thing we can hope for at this stage is that the Lucha Bros will win the titles so we won’t have to see the Bucks on TV for a while. If things work out even better, they’ll get injured (kayfabe) to allow the Christian – Omega match to be less polluted.
Chris Jericho vs. MJF (Jericho must retire if he loses)
I’ve heard various sides but I really believe that Jericho will lose here. I think he’s going to take time off so his body can heal and he will spend time losing weight because of all the criticism he received over the past year for being Cartman and just do color commentary on Rampage and still get to hear his dumb song played before the show each week.
If they wanted to bring Jericho out of “retirement,” it’s easy through unsanctioned matches or other goofy stipulations. The only way Jericho “retires” at this point in AEW is by not renewing his contract.
CM Punk vs. Darby Allin
This is the match that should close out the show but I only placed this here because the world title is on the line. This match could turn into a catastrophic disaster if they intend to work a very high paced match. I read some people commenting on how Punk looked blown up when he had his confrontation with 2.0/Garcia on Dynamite.
If I had booked this match, I would have made it an exhibition match with a 15 minute time limit maximum then have them both get into it with no near falls at the end but showing that they could do more. Then you go to the time limit where both guys are still hungry for more. Thus, you have Punk showing he still has the ability to keep up while Darby doesn’t back down. It ends with begrudging respect, possibly even a slap where one guy tells the other that they’ll see them again down the road. That way you don’t force them into an unending, stupid, meaningless feud and suggest that another match can happen where both guys are in a totally new headspace.
Most likely though, given the circumstances on Rampage, we’ll be seeing 2.0/Garcia interfering or trying to interfere because AEW can’t let people just wrestle and be themselves. Sting won’t come out or perhaps is ambushed and this leads to CM Punk/Sting/Darby vs 2.0/Garcia. I really hope this scenario doesn’t happen because CM Punk deserves a clean moment and they can use the time to at least resolve something and letting it breathe then use Dynamite or Rampage to follow up. But I have low hopes right now since they already fucked things up this past week on both shows for avoiding the unending interference that I abhore.
AEW World Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs. Christian Cage
In reality, this shouldn’t be the main event but most likely will be. It might not be just because they’re advertising Punk’s return to the ring as the biggest thing in AEW’s history especially in Chicago. Yet if they do that, then the AEW World title gets devalued. That just goes to show how bad the booking is right now.
I really hope that this match doesn’t last too long. I suspect that it might go long in the attempt to put Christian Cage over in “giving him the 5 star match he’s always wanted” as Kenny put it. But the ending will be a clusterfuck. I can’t see them leaving the situation alone and just having a good, clean match. Instead, I see Kenny pulling out something stupid after going 20 minutes and getting frustrated, leading to all the members of the Elite coming out to fuck things up.
Then since they still have that cage, it’ll come down so no one could help Christian and he’ll get a big beat down until either CM Punk and/or Bryan Daniels make their way out. But there isn’t any way Christian is winning, even though I believe he should in a clean manner. More than likely, we might get a future Christian Cage match in a cage (pun intended) against Kenny since why not? And hey while you’re at it, toss in the Impact title too. But who knows since supposedly Kenny is done with Impact.
Final Thoughts
The only title that might have any chance of changing hands is the tag titles. The rest I doubt will change at this stage. It feels like nothing really will get resolved on this PPV. Instead, they’ll use this PPV to start new things because of potential debuts that lead nowhere.
The three that I suspect will happen are:
- Daniel Bryan – From all reports, he’s showing up. Heck, Punk alluded to Bryan appearing in AEW at least a few times, even on Oral Sessions. Most likely, I see him being one of the saviors for Christian Cage in the main event when the Elite will more than likely attempt to do a post-match beat down. And people have said that because of the fluctuating issues in NYC right now with Covid, Tony Khan is preferring to make Daniel Bryan’s AEW debut on the PPV. So this probably will be how, leading to a match between Kenny and Bryan at the NYC Arthur Ashe Stadium Event.
- Lana/CJ Perry – I honestly believe she’ll be the 21st participant for the battle royale rather than Ruby Soho. And if not, then she’ll show up for her husband during his match. She posted about her 90 days being up as well as training with her husband. So either way, this will be the best time to see her again and I expect her to make a big impact immediately.
- Ruby Soho – I can see her being the 21st participant in the battle royale. I honestly wish if she does show up in that capacity, she wins. But I have no idea what her character will be, although I really enjoy the videos she’s producing right now.
- Adam Cole – Another name that has been thrown out there. Supposedly, his contract is done and it’s not certain whether or not his 90 days are up or if he can just go work anywhere. But people have speculated that if he appears in AEW, he might team with the Elite.
- Ric Flair – He definitely is in Chicago and has admitted that he will be drinking with Tony Khan. The thing is that the match with Andrade vs Pac got cancelled so if appears in another capacity, then I would be very curious. He has hinted at a possible 4 Horsemen reunion with Barry Windham included. That could be cool just as a 1-off get together. But at this point, the only person I can see him directly being associated with is Andrade.
- Braun Strowman – The rumor goes that Impact is more interested in him. No one has said whether or not he would be heading to AEW. The bigger likelihood some said was that he might end up taking a smaller deal back to the WWE. But I can’t see him in AEW at this stage.
- Peyton Royce/Billie Kay – They’ve been pretty quiet. Some have noted that more women tag teams are starting to form. The main issue between these two is a working visa. But there hasn’t been any clear updates on that or whether AEW wants a women’s tag team division with titles just yet. So I don’t think they’ll appear.
- Buddy Murphy – Might fit in but he would just get lost in the shuffle. Again, the rumors have it that Impact got him which sounds like a better fit at this stage.
- Bray Wyatt – Way too early since his 90 days won’t be up until the end of October (or start of November).
So realistically, I only envision 3-4 people showing up from this list in Daniel Bryan (practically a guarantee), Ruby Soho (high probability), CJ Perry/Lana (very good probability) and Ric Flair (also high probability and is actually present but the question is in what capacity). There always could be non-WWE ex-employees that show up but I can’t name anyone who would be really worthy here.
I think the ending will probably be Christian vs Omega with Omega laying Christian out with his Elite buddies then Daniel Bryan with CM Punk making the save. That way there’s a huge pop at the end with Daniel Bryan arriving and setting up a future Punk/Bryan vs Bucks match that Punk hinted at on Oral Sessions and Christian getting a 2nd shot at Omega in a cage. Heck, add Darby Allin and Sting so they get a mega group going.
Overall, I think this PPV will be bleh. But once Daniel Bryan shows up, people will forget about the match quality and elevate the show based on the surprises that appear. Which sounds like nonsense but this is how AEW operates.