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AEW All Out 2020 PPV Review Part 1: Does Tony Khan Need a Hug?

AEW's All Out PPV is in the record books, and with the dust mostly settled, the show seems to be the most negatively-received in the company's short history. As a sum of all its part, All Out wasn't a bad show. Most of the matches delivered in the ring and several storylines advanced in a satisfactory way. But the show was brought down by a couple of bad choices that negatively impacted fan enjoyment and, I think, more importantly, caused a little bit of damage to the company's reputation.

Over the weekend, I covered the PPV live and posted recaps of every match, so I won't get into all those details here. Instead, I want to share some thoughts on each of the matches and the PPV as a whole now that I've had some time to let it all sink in. At the end of the day, I enjoyed the PPV and don't regret spending money to watch it, but I think that there are a few lessons to be learned from what went wrong and that most of the mistakes that happened in the show stem from the same basic issues.

AEW All Out Pre-Show – The Buy-In

The pre-show featured two matches, Joey Janela vs. Serpentico and Private Party vs. Dark Order's John Silver and Alex Reynolds. Both matches were fine and about what you'd expect to see on a pre-show or on a random episode of Dark, maybe even Dynamite. Private Party vs. Dark Order was added at the last minute and didn't really advance a story. Janela's win over Serpentico seemed to serve to move Janela along to a potential upcoming feud with the Inner Circle, based on a post-match promo from Janella. The rest of the show consisted mainly of video packages and a little bit of commentary from Tony Schiavone and Dasha. Overall, while not bad, I don't think the pre-show did much to sell the PPV. It was just kind of there. Not bad, but not really worth watching either. AEW might look to get more guests on the pre-shows in the future to spice things up.

All Out Mistake #1 – Britt Baker vs. Big Swole – Tooth and Nail Match

This match was originally slated for the pre-show, and in retrospect, it's clear why. It was a very short, cinematic style matched, filmed in and around Britt Baker's dentist's office. It was also played mostly for commentary and felt like a segment leading up to a match rather than a match itself. And all of that is fine. Placed on the pre-show, or even placed between two longer matches on the All Out main card, it would have been fine.

The problem is that it wasn't placed elsewhere. It was the opening match of the show. And the reason it was the opening match was not that AEW wanted it there, but because they caved to pressure online to add the match to the main card because people complained that it was disrespectful to put it on the pre-show, given the importance given to the feud between Swole and Baker on Dynamite.

But those fans didn't know what the match would actually consist of. Tony Khan and AEW did know, and they shouldn't have backed down from their initial decision. And since the match was prerecorded and clearly took place under bright sunlight, and because Daily's Place, where All Out took place, is an open-air amphitheater, the only option once deciding to move it to the main card was to put it on first, before it got dark outside. Doing so messed up the flow of the entire card and created unrealistic expectations for a short comedy match that had no chance to deliver. This would set the tone for the night.

Young Bucks vs. Jurassic Express

This match was very good in terms of work-rate, as to be expected. It's exactly the sort of thing AEW likes to open shows with, setting the tone for the night with fact-paced action. And it was surely planned to be the opening match of the show, where it would have worked better. Instead, it served as a cleansing of the palette from the Tooth and Nail match. Otherwise, there were no real stakes. It was fine.

All Out Mistake #2 – Casino Battle Royale

I don't know if this match was meant to be longer, but had to be cut down due to the addition of the Tooth and Nail Match to the main card. Or maybe it was always meant to be the length it was. But it was too short, with way too much squeezed into it, making it chaotic, not in a good way, and difficult to follow. The format of the match, with five people entering at a time, made it hard to build any kind of dramatic tension for any of the entrants. The in-ring action itself was also very condensed. There were a lot of cool spots and a lot of storylines furthered, but if you blinked, you easily missed one or two of them. The final entrant, in the "Joker" position, was Matt Sydal, making a surprise AEW debut, but unfortunately, in one of those things you can't really control, Sydal slipped on the top rope for his first move, botching a shooting star press. He was fine afterward and as a result, it was kind of funny, but funny is surely not what AEW was going for.

And then, for the icing on the cake, the finish of the match was messy and confusing. Eddie Kingston appeared to get to the apron by going under the bottom rope, where he battled with Lance Archer as Jake the Snake brandished a sack ostensibly containing a snake at him, though no snake was ever shown. Then Archer eliminated him, even though, as far viewers could tell, Kingston never went over the top rope. This match was just poorly paced and badly executed, and at this point, it's only the third match of the All Out main card and two out of three have failed to deliver.  If you're watching live, you're starting to worry that this is gonna be a bad show, but what happened next was even worse.

This match should have been given more time to breathe, or it should have been on the pre-show. But its placement on the All Out card and pacing combined to detract from the rest of the show.

All Out Mistake #3 – Matt Hardy vs. Sammy Guevara Broken Rules Match

A lot has been said about what happened in this match. I wrote an entirely separate op-ed about it earlier today (which you can read here), so I'm not going to bother rehashing it in great detail here. The bottom line is that Matt Hardy botched a fall from a high lift through a table, cracked his head on the cement floor, and was apparently knocked unconscious. The match was stopped, and if that was all that happened, things would have been fine and people would have understood. Accidents happen.

But then AEW restarted the match. Hardy, who doesn't look like he's in great condition even on a good day, looked shaken up and it was scary that he was allowed to continue, even if by all accounts he did pass concussion protocols, both during the brief time the match was stopped and afterward at the hospital. Wrestling fans today, especially AEW fans, know what's what, and as a result seeing Hardy continue after that fall took viewers completely out of the zone and, though I personally enjoyed the rest of the show a lot, seeing a lot of commentary from fans online, this was the match that soured fans on the entirety of All Out.

Thunder Rosa vs. Hikaru Shida

This match needed to be great for two reasons: first, because AEW, accepting that they did have some extenuating circumstances that made it difficult, has not done a great job of promoting their women's division or their women's championship. The fiasco with the Tooth and Nail match earlier tonight, which was moved to the main card as a reaction to growing fan discontent over the treatment of the women's division, made it even more important. The second reason this match needed to deliver is that it followed the lowest point of a show that already had a downward trajectory. If All Out was going to turn things around, this was the time.

The good news is, it did deliver. It was great. Rosa and Shida saved the show if it was capable of saving. For me, it was. For some viewers, it wasn't. But at the end of the day, this was probably the best match in the history of AEW's Women's Division and it happened exactly when it was needed most. A lot of people are calling on AEW to make whatever deal is necessary to get Thunder Rosa to work more for AEW, and that wouldn't be a bad idea, but more importantly, AEW needs to bring in more women with a high level of experience and showcase them more often on Dynamite.

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