Well here’s some awful news. Arguably the single biggest match for AEW All Out isn’t going to happen now. Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley were set to square off in a massive battle, likely to be on the caliber of an IWGP Heavyweight title match. That’s what I called it in my upcoming preview of the match in fact, which now will have to be rewritten obviously.
This is quite the blow. Not only was the biggest match in terms of name value, but it had real potential to be the best match on the show. Jon Moxley is on a hot streak right now, and has been since leaving WWE. He’s had great promos and awesome matches, particularly in New Japan’s G1. Sadly, his going so hard came back to bite him. In Japan he came down with a staph infection that, for a time, he continued wrestling on. I can only assume that worsened the condition.
In his tweets about this he’s assured us that he’s getting surgery to remove the balsa sac this week. From how he makes it sound, it seems he’ll be perfectly fine afterwards and ready to compete by the time AEW debuts on TNT. So I think we can safely assume that we will be seeing this match before too long. But it won’t take place at All Out, which one has to think will be much to the detriment of the PPV buys.
They didn’t mess around… as I was writing this article, they announced the replacement.
And obviously I won’t be able to prove this, but it actually is actually what I was going to suggest they do. Originally, according to reports, they planned to put on PAC/Omega at this very show. The internal idea is that Kenny Omega was going to beat Chris Jericho, PAC was going to beat Hangman Page. Then, the two would square off to decide the first champion. This didn’t happen primarily because of PAC’s commitments with Dragon Gate. It’s rumored he refused to lose whilst holding Dragon Gate’s world title and he wasn’t planned to lose it anytime soon at the time.
That obviously creates problems, so they opted to not work together for the time being. PAC has since lost the title though, so that seemed to open him up to return. So to me, since it was the original plan before Moxley showed up, it seemed logical to go for Omega/PAC now.
And well… yeah, that’s what they’re doing.
I kinda figured they would wait until the last episode of Road To All Out to reveal the replacement. But nope, they wanted to get this done right here and now. So they went onto their twitter account to make it official, about twenty minutes after Jon Moxley revealed the bad news.
Obviously it’s never good news when you have to pull a match, especially one as big as this one. Realistically, a lot of people were planning on buying the show purely for that bout. And many likely bought tickets based atleast partially on it as well. So that sucks, no way around it. But as a fan of great wrestling, hot damn is Kenny Omega and PAC a wonderful replacement. That’s absolutely gonna rock the house.
And like I said… it probably was the original plan. Funny how things work out.
I'm absolutely gutted to have to deliver this news but I'd rather it come directly from me. In a nightmare scenario, a serious case of MRSA has returned in my elbow. The timing couldn't be worse. In this circumstance I am forced to pull out of the fight 8/31 vs Omega at All Out .
— Jon Moxley (@JonMoxley) August 23, 2019
I apologize to all involved, most importantly the fans. I am incredibly frustrated and pissed off. I'll have surgery this week to remove the bursa sac in my elbow and be done with it for good. Should be a quick recovery so I will be 100% for AEW Wednesday nights on TNT.
— Jon Moxley (@JonMoxley) August 23, 2019
Still, I expect All out to be an amazing ppv and hope all the fans out there looking for an alternative tune in. You will be blown away by AEW and be excited to be a wrestling fan. I'm looking forward to watching as a fan myself
— Jon Moxley (@JonMoxley) August 23, 2019
This fucking sucks.
— Jon Moxley (@JonMoxley) August 23, 2019
#AEWAllOut
Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – @Sears_Centre – Chicago, IL
PAC vs KENNY OMEGA
LIVE on Pay Per View pic.twitter.com/4NxCmK2KQJ— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) August 23, 2019
