AEW All Out is getting reeeeaaal close… but the previews are far from done. (Latest one is right here!) We’re officially getting into the main matches here, y’all. The top half of the main card begins with a very heavily pushed grudge match.
Cody Rhodes vs. Shawn Spears w/Tully Blanchard
A story of disrespect and betrayal. Bloody brutality and hatred. No match has been pushed harder on the Road To All Out series than this one. After years and years of being treated like a lower carder for life in WWE, it’s clear AEW want very badly to present Shawn Spears as a big deal. It’s been quite the success so far, but this is really the make or break moment for him. This will certainly be a good match, but for his sake he needs it to be a lot more than that. He needs it to be great.
This is his opportunity to cement himself as a top guy in AEW. By far the biggest he’s ever had. That’s certainly the meta-story here, regardless of what the on-screen story is. It’s been pretty big on-screen too though. It all began with a vicious chair shot at Fyter Fest that, appropriately, left Cody with 10 stitches in the back of his head. (It was initially reported to be 12 I believe, but for obvious reasons they want to say 10… I’m fine with just going with that~)
It came down to Cody claiming Spears was ‘a good hand’, which is basically code for ‘a guy that’s not meant to be a star’. It’s the kind of rhetoric Spears has dealt with for his entire career. So his bitterness is understandable, though he sure seemed to cross the line in expressing it.
Since then, he’s introduced a wildcard in the form of Tully Blanchard.
A bonafide wrestling legend and a charter member of the iconic Four Horsemen, this is quite the surprise return for Tully. It’s his first major wrestling appearance since Ric Flair’s Raw retirement ceremony back in 2008, and arguably his first reoccurring role in major wrestling since the Brain Busters left the WWF in the late 80s! He’s been recruited for his know-how of the Rhodes and the way they think. Expect a rebirth of the classic manager mold here.
Like many on this card, I don’t consider this a particularly easy match to call. On paper, Spears is already elevated a ton just by being here. He’s certainly already being presented at a much higher level then he ever saw in WWE. But it’d be easy for it to feel like a flash in the pan if he lost. At 38 years of age and 18 years in the business, the time for looking impressive in defeat is over. If he’s gonna be the major heel force in AEW that they want him to be, then by hook or by crook, he probably does need to win this.
And after some contemplation… I think I see it happening. Shawn Spears to score the upset. Whether he does it cleanly or not is another matter… but I think it will happen.
Incidentally, a big factor in the build is that Cody is also allowed someone in his corner.
But he can only name one person for the job. They’ve brought up MJF, Dustin, Brandi, and members of his entourage from All In, all his most likely choices. In my estimation, that means a swerve is oncoming and it won’t be any of them. I figure Cody will fight fire with fire and bring in Arn Anderson. We might even get a vintage spinebuster out of this… but sadly I don’t think it’d quite turn the tide enough for him to win.
AEW All Out takes place on Saturday, August 31st. It hails from the Sears Centre Arena in Chicago, Illinois. It will be airing live on Pay-Per-View and streamed on Fite.tv and B/R Live.
