Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
AEW All Out 2024 is coming up tomorrow night, with tonight’s special editions of AEW Collision and Rampage set to round out the card (we can assume) and put the finishing touches on anything that needs to be announced.
But until that happens, we’re still left wondering if a good number of wrestlers will have any presence on the lineup whatsoever. Since the card is already pretty stacked, fewer and fewer spots remain every day, and it seems a good number of people will be sitting out the festivities.
My question for you today is “Who is the biggest omission not currently scheduled for All Out that you are either the most shocked about or feel is the most egregious void and should have been booked?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
I’ll preface my answer with another reminder that not only will we have 3 wrestlers added to the card in the qualifying matches to determine who gets into the four-way for the Continental Championship against Kazuchika Okada, but no pre-show matches have been announced, meaning there will undoubtedly be at least 5 more wrestlers added to the lineup by the end of the night.
Even still, I have a list of around 20+ names that I think are interesting to not be guaranteed yet, to varying degrees. My eventual top pick will be in bold.
First up, obviously, whoever loses those qualifying matches will be interesting omissions. It won’t shock me as much if The Beast Mortos, Lance Archer and Bryan Keith lose, as I’m expecting Orange Cassidy, Konosuke Takeshita, and Mark Briscoe to be the three fighting Okada. But if any of those three come up short, that will shock me.
With that in mind, if we have Cassidy and Briscoe, but no Kyle O’Reilly, he stands out like a sore thumb as the missing member of The Conglomeration. Likewise, without Bryan Keith in there, that means no involvement at all of the entire Learning Tree? An event without Chris Jericho is very rare. He is high up on my list, but not the absolute #1 pick.
A good number of teams are also noticeably absent. This includes The Acclaimed, FTR, The Undisputed Kingdom, The Bang Bang Gang, The House of Black, and The Patriarchy. Considering the world trios champions are otherwise busy with Pac facing Will Ospreay for the AEW International Championship and Blackpool Combat Club’s Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta fighting The Young Bucks for the tag titles, I don’t think we’re looking at any real participation from these teams and trios unless it is either a superfluous match for the sake of it on the Zero Hour, or a No. 1 contender’s match. The latter would be fine in my book.
I’d toss Kyle Fletcher’s name out there, as well as Mariah May, but Fletcher did just get a shot at the continental title and May did just defend her women’s world title on Dynamite. It’s not my favorite use of May right out of the gate, as it immediately casts her in my mind as lesser than Mercedes Mone, but I’ve had that projection for quite a while now anyway. They’re just not doing anything to make me think otherwise and continuing to position her as the secondary champion over the TBS Championship, which is strange. Then again, who would May fight, anyway? If the best they had in mind for her was Nyla Rose on TV, I don’t think I want to see them shoehorn in some new challenger, especially since I’m not even digging the Hikaru Shida situation with Mercedes, and that IS something they’re considering to have a wow factor.
After everything that’s happened, I can’t toss out Britt Baker’s name as a major pick for this. She’s seemingly made her bed. I am a little surprised Jamie Hayter versus Saraya isn’t on the card yet, though—not that I think that’ll be a barn burner.
But without further ado, here are my top 3 picks for what I’d consider to be the most surprising gaps in the card:
#3. Darby Allin
Unless Allin is actively injured—and even then, that usually doesn’t stop him—I just expect him to be on every card in some capacity. That is especially true considering he’s got such a big match coming up for the AEW World Championship at Grand Slam. I assumed he’d get a win here to make up for his loss at All In so he can regain some momentum.
When you factor in the promo that Jon Moxley had where he called him out, I was very surprised to see that nothing had been confirmed as a match between the two. My fantasy booking scenarios were firing off, thinking of options like Moxley forcing Allin to put his title shot on the line and beating him for it so Allin can fight Bryan Danielson later in the year at WrestleDream in Washington, instead.
Speaking of…
#2. Jon Moxley
If it isn’t a match with Allin, that’s one thing. Not having a match at all after what he’s done the past two episodes, though, is pretty shocking to me. I can only imagine the reasoning (unless he gets announced for something on Collision, of course) is that Tony Khan’s storyline is so much in its infancy that he doesn’t even want to fully reveal who Moxley will be feuding with next; only hint at it. By booking Moxley against virtually anyone, it either jumps straight to the next phase of this story, possibly a little too quickly, or it becomes a completely pointless match. Serving no purpose is a waste of the mystique, and with so many other people who can be on the card, Moxley isn’t needed, so much as wanted, due to being such a big name.
#1. Ricochet
Here’s the big one, though. Ricochet is the shiny new toy, and he’s not scheduled? That is as surprising as can be. I would have bet a lot of money once he made his debut that he would be at least set up with a mini-feud to kill some time on the pre-show against someone he can flip around with and beat.
Again, that could still happen. For all we know, Excalibur will randomly announce Ricochet is going to face someone like Rush or Brian Cage in a match that has no build, but follows the AEW mantra of “Who cares? Don’t you want to see them wrestle?”
I’m even surprised he wasn’t added to the International Championship match, but I guess they just want to tease that he’s next in line for a future match at something like Grand Slam or WrestleDream. Even still, I do think he’ll be added to the card in some fashion, and if he isn’t, that’s going to really stun me.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
