AEW All Out 2023

All Out 2023

Chicago, IL - September 2023

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: The AEW World Champion was MJF, the TNT Champion was Killswitch (Luchasaurus), the AEW World Tag Team Champions were FTR, Orange Cassidy was the AEW International Champion, the TBS Champion was Kris Statlander, and the AEW Women's World Champion was Saraya. Finally, the AEW World Trios Titles were held by Billy Gunn and The Acclaimed.

Adam Cole and MJF vs. Alex Reynolds and John Silver was the opening contest of the show (which was bizarrely held just a week after All In: Wembley) and was for "Better Than You Bay Bay"'s Ring of Honor Tag Team Championships. This match has a weird dynamic because the Dark Order were working as serious heels but (a) had not been firmly established as such and (b) had been mostly used as enhancement talent anyway, making this title shot feel "out of nowhere" and like Tony Khan had booked it out of desperation. MJF suffers damage to the neck early, turning the match into essentially a 2-on-1 and making Reynolds and Silver look even worse for not being able to put Cole away despite both men being considerably bigger and stronger than him. The fact that Meltzer gave this over 3 stars could be used as evidence of him being an "AEW homer," though, to be fair, the action isn't bad and the crowd was very into the Cole/MJF pairing. MJF eventually comes back to help Cole retain the championship as anyone could've predicted. I liked the post-match angle with MJF and Samoa Joe more than anything that happened between the bells. (2/5)

Speaking of Samoa Joe, he was the reigning Ring of Honor TV Champion at this time and defended the title against Shane Taylor (Cleveland native) in the next bout. Unremarkable match but at least it was physical as Joe and Taylor laid into each other for a little bit under 10 minutes. Like the opener, it seems like the decision to put Better Than You Bay Bay and Samoa Joe on the show early was done to appease a Chicago crowd that may have been hostile (local hero and top star CM Punk had been fired from AEW in the short amount of time between All Out and this show), which was probably a good idea despite it feeling a little awkward to have two back-to-back Ring of Honor title matches on an AEW show. Not bad, but not PPV worthy. (2/5)

Darby Allin took on Killswitch (aka Luchasaurus) with Christian Cage in tow for his TNT Championship in the next match. A solid match marred a tiny bit by what looked to be a late kickout by Luchasaurus towards the end. As usual for his matches, there was a moment where Darby nearly paralyzed himself, landing on his neck from a Killswitch release german suplex. I liked the spot where Killswitch put Allin underneath the steel steps and then walked on top of them. Nasty stuff there. Nick Wayne was in Allin's corner and I thought this would be when Nick Wayne would've joined what became known as "The Patriarchy," but I was wrong. I liked that Luchasaurus, who had been booked as something of just a bodyguard for Christian, got to stand on his own for most of the match and that Cage was really just on the outside and not super involved until the end, when, by bashing Wayne with the chair and teasing a Con-Chair-To, he distracted Allin and allowed Killswitch to put him down with two not-so-great-looking tombstones, a nifty face-buster onto the top turnbuckle, and then a brutal lariat to the back of the skull. Maybe not "PPV worthy," but this was solid enough. (2.5/5)

Miro vs. "Powerhouse" Will Hobbs was next, a match/rivalry I don't remember at all. This was very much built around the concept of "Big Meaty Men Slapping Meat" but Miro got to show some agility with a spinning heel kick off the ropes and a dropkick. Hobbs came back with an overhead belly-to-belly and then a nice-looking T-Bone suplex too. A missed splash in the corner led to Hobbs hitting the floor and Miro hit him with a front-flip cannonball splash, another unexpected showing of agility. Miro drove Hobbs' lower back into the apron and the barricade before rolling him into the ring as the crowd erupted into a "Slap That Meat" chant. Hobbs slowed things down with a headlock but Miro powered out and a punch-out ensued with both guys then trading body blocks on the ropes and stiff clotheslines (much to the delight of the crowd). After some business on the apron, Hobbs ended up on the top rope and Miro brought him down with a superplex and then nailed him with a thrust kick but missed the second, allowing Hobbs to hit a powerslam for 2. Hobbs hit a series of clotheslines, but got caught with a lariat off the ropes and Miro hit another thrust kick for 2.5. Miro signaled for his camel clutch finisher but Hobbs managed to get up to his feet and back him into the corner as the crowd began to chant "Holy Meat." Hobbs hit a spinebuster when Miro came out of the corner and got 2.8 in another great false finish. Hobbs, noticeably bleeding from his lip, went for a camel clutch but Miro escaped and hit him with a spinebuster before re-applying his Game Over submission, this time wrenching it in even deeper and forcing Hobbs to tap. This was a very good heavyweight fight and easily the best match on the show up to this point. The post match saw Hobbs attack Miro, only for Miro's then-wife, CJ Perry, to come down and make the save in her debut appearance for the company. (3.5/5)

Kris Statlander defended the TBS Championship against Ruby Soho in the next bout. Having now seen a fair amount of Statlander matches, I give her a ton of credit for the effort and big spots she puts into her matches, even if not everything looks 100% "clean" and that things can veer into overkill territory with the kickouts and power move "spamming." They loaded up their 12 minutes to the point that this felt longer just because of how many momentum shifts they did. Some really stiff strikes and nifty counters out of Soho with Statlander delivering the drivers and slams. I'm surprised this has a low score on Cagematch because the action was good and, more than anything, this match was hurt by a "cold" crowd and neither Soho or Statlander having particularly great characters that the fans were invested in. (3/5)

"The American Dragon" Bryan Danielson took on "Absolute" Ricky Starks in a Strap match next with Ricky Steamboat joining in on commentary (he had been challenged by Starks to a strap match on the previous night's Collision episode). This was one of the best strap matches I've ever seen with Danielson bleeding a gusher early - a clear bladejob after Starks "punctured" him with the prong of his weight belt - and then Starks also getting color later on. Both guys took some hellacious lashes from the strap, including multiple ones to the face and the side of the neck by Danielson. Lots of very good brawling before we got some of both guys' signature offense and a cameo from Big Bill, who tried to interfere but got pulled down from the apron by Steamboat before Danielson sent Starks out on top of him and took him out of the match for good with a huge splash from the top. Excellent finish with Danielson firing up and brutalizing Starks with kicks to the chest and whips from the strap, then hitting a Baisaku Knee minutes later before locking Starks in a strap-assisted LeBell Lock and putting him to sleep. This was all-killer, no-filler and another brilliant performance out of Danielson. (4/5)

Eddie Kingston and Katsuyori Shibata vs. Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castignoli was the next match. This is a good example where Meltzer's scale - or maybe his taste - and my own don't always match. Move-for-move, sequence-for-sequence this is probably more "action packed" than Danielson/Starks in some regards because that match was a brawl built around a strap and this is a tag match offering four very different workers with different arsenals and skills. But this match, despite the best efforts of Kingston and Castignoli (whose rivalry was and remains one of the best long-running feuds in AEW history), did not have the emotional pull that Danielson/Starks did. Kingston's obsession with pulling so much of his offense from the legends of AJPW is something that I found to be kinda neat at first and, in the right contexts, it can work...but as a poster on Cagematch noted, it doesn't look so great when he's busting it out while Shibata - whose strikes pack much more wallop - and Claudio are executing similar moves so much better. Wheeler was not yet the heat machine he would be later on during the Death Riders run that would come a couple years later and his chemistry with Claudio wasn't as good as it would become either. This was fine, but felt more like a TV match than a PPV worthy one. (2.5/5)

Next up - Konosuke Takeshita vs. Kenny Omega. This was very good, but maybe just a hair short of "must watch" for me. It's not that Omega and Takeshita didn't break out some insane suplexes or tell a good story, but with these two, my expectations were high for something transcendent and I don't think we got it (fair or not). Omega worked hard to make Takeshita look like a star, but I'm not sure he was quite at the confidence level he is now, not really imbuing much of the bastard, arrogant character work that does today. Highlights included Takeshita hitting a rolling senton from in the ring to the floor as Omega desperately trying to uncover himself from a bunch of chairs that Don Callis had placed on top of him, an awesome Blue Thunder Bomb from the top rope, Omega hitting the Terminator Dive, a whole bunch of nasty suplexes by both guys, and a believable, credible finish after some very close nearfalls. Like their Revolution 2025 match, which I found leaned a bit too heavy into the "bomb throwing" department, this one didn't quite land with me as the all-time classic that some fans regard it as, but it came close. (3.5/5)

FTR teamed up with The Young Bucks to take on the Bang Bang Gang - Jay White, Juice Robinson, and The Gunn Club. Context is important for a match like this as the Bucks, who were technically babyfaces at the time, came into Chicago with some serious baggage due to the firing of CM Punk and their own history with the man. FTR, meanwhile, were cheered by the Chicago crowd because of their documented friendship with him. The Bang Bang Gang were heels but would soon become pseudo-babyfaces as their catchphrases and antics got more and more over (and their chemistry began to emerge in backstage and in-ring segments). And so the participants had to weather some initial "fan hijacking" as chants for CM Punk and the singing of "Oh Cry Me A River" distracted from the story they were trying to tell in the ring, which was all about whether or not FTR and the Bucks could co-exist. I can understand the complaints that the amount of clearly pre-planned/choreographed spots worked against that story, especially towards the end as FTR and the Bucks began to perform signature moves in odd pairings - a BTE Trigger there, a Shatter Machine here, but FTR and the Bucks being super-knowledgeable of eachother's timing and techniques has also been a key feature of all of their matches together. There were also at least two "cutesy" spots - all four of the babyfaces applying Sharpshooters at the same time, a spot where they hit double Power and Glory finishes and then capped it off with a Matt Jackson 450 Splash (that one of the Gunns had to blatantly roll himself into position for) - that are not going to be everyone's cup of tea. My biggest criticism would be the match's duration, going over 20 minutes after the previous match had already gone 20+. We know these 8 guys can put on lengthy epics, but not every match calls for one and I'm not sure this one did. (3/5)

Main event time - Orange Cassidy defending the AEW International Championship against Jon Moxley. A spirited and bloody match-up all about Cassidy trying to prove he could hang with AEW's most decorated and arguably biggest star. Unlike the previous two matches, with their more intricate sequences, this was all about Cassidy having to constantly fight back as Moxley put him through the wringer, clawing at his wound, attempting to put him to sleep with a Bulldog Choke, turning him inside out with lariats. Cassidy got in some good shots, but as Tazz and Excalibur noted on commentary, months of defending the championship had led to countless minor injuries - including one to his right hand - that prevented his Orange Punch and some of his other offense from being as powerful as it could've/should've been when he did land it (though he did manage to pull off a sweet Beach Break on the concrete at one point). Moxley eventually put him down with two high angle Death Rider DDTs to capture the International Championship after close to 20 minutes (which, unlike the last match, didn't feel at all like they were stretching things). A very good and worthy main event and one of Moxley's rare major matches where he didn't blade (as Cassidy did enough bleeding for the both of them). (3.5/5)

With a Kwang Score of 2.95-out-of-5, All Out 2023 was - statistically - a slight step down from the All In: London event, but still a mostly great show with some fine matches in the main event, the strap match, Hobbs/Miro, and the somewhat-surprisingly strong TBS Championship bout. Unfortunately, some of the matches on the card, including the opening tag match, Darby/Killswitch, and the BCC/Shibata & Kingston matches felt like "TV" bouts rather than matches one would theoretically be paying $50 to see. 

FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand