Samoa Joe Next Up for MJF and Biggest Takeaways From AEW All Out 2023 Results

Samoa Joe could not pick up a big win at All In, but he made a big statement about his future focus at All Out.Credit: All Elite Wrestling.

Many dismissed the All Out 2023 card going into the night for fair reasons. The card was missing key stars in top matches, and the Chicago crowd was still reeling from the announcement of CM Punk's firing per AEW's official Twitter account.

However, this crowd rallied around great wrestling from a motivated roster. Top names like Bryan Danielson, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Orange Cassidy and more came to work.

It was a night of many highs. MJF and Adam Cole successfully defended the Ring of Honor Tag Team Championships. Samoa Joe made a statement at the expense of the AEW world champion. MIro and Powerhouse Hobbs got the crowd chanting about meat.

Bryan Danielson and Ricky Starks brutalized each other in a classic Straps match. Konosuke Takeshita definitively took a victory over Kenny Omega. Jon Moxley left Orange Cassidy in a pool of his own blood and took his International Championship after a tough fight.

This was an incredible show, one of the best AEW has ever produced. It came off as a definitive statement on AEW's direction while leaving plenty of important takeaways for the future.

AEW has a void at the top of the card for a variety of reasons. One is because AEW has struggled to commit to Hangman Adam Page over the past year.

That should change. Even in Chicago, where he could have easily received a mixed reaction by association with The Elite, he was cheered far above the rest of the field in the Over the Budget Battle Royal.

He survived a competitive field, especially the dangerous alliance of The Mogul Embassy. He won $50,000 for the Chicago Public Education Fund, an appropriate donation from a former public school teacher.

His win may not change the face of wrestling, but it shows AEW is still committed to him. However, there is much further he can climb. He needs a rival to push like Jon Moxley did earlier in the year, or he needs to get back to title contention quickly.

The Elite can continue to develop without him. The company is at its best when Kenny Omega and The Cowboy are working solo and putting on their best performances on their own.

Samoa Joe is a monster performer unlike anyone else. He has been a workhorse for both AEW and ROH, particularly over the past year. No one comes off as a more legitimate threat in professional wrestling. He can beat anyone on any night.

While he is coming off a losing feud with CM Punk after All In 2023, he will quickly rewrite his status by going after the AEW World Championship.

Joe has already played a key role in the stories surrounding MJF and Adam Cole. In particular, it was The Samoan Submission Specialist that left Roderick Strong in a neck brace.

That injury has caused Cole and Strong's friendship to fall apart, and it will play a key role in the upcoming No. 1 contender tournament beginning this next week. That tournament should also include Joe.

While Strong could face MJF soon and a rematch with Cole is inevitable at the right moment, no one would be a better monster to solidify the face turn of the AEW world champion.

Can MJF with a bad neck survive The Samoan Submission Specialist? Only time will tell.

Chicago brought the energy throughout All Out. The audience was loud throughout the Zero Hour and only woke up more as the night progressed.

No match benefited more from that Chicago energy than the big man battle of Miro vs. Powerhouse Hobbs. While the two men were doing good work on their own, the crowd elevated this to another level with appreciation for the physical battle.

Despite putting a ton of energy into the match, the crowd did not go quiet for the rest of the card. The entire arena echoed with fans singing "Final Countdown".

Every time Eddie Kingston got his hands on Claudio Castagnoli, the crowd was entirely behind The Mad King.

The Young Bucks and FTR got the crowd fighting before rallying together to cheer. Orange Cassidy ended the night with a definitive "Thank you, Orange".

While Chicago may not need every single big AEW show, this remains a strong market for the company in the long term.

Kris Statlander vs. Ruby Soho was the only women's match on the 10-match main card of All Out. Add in Hikaru Shida, Willow Nightingale and Skye Blue vs. Athena, Mercedes Martinez and Diamante on the Zero Hero, and that is still two matches out of 13 total.

Both matches delivered as expected. The women trios match had very little build, but the crowd still was in for the action. The exchanges of Athena and Shida especially got the fans on their feet.

Meanwhile, Statlander and Soho built up their match over a well-deserved 12 minutes to an excellent final stretch that continued to play into the downfall of The Outcasts.

There are plenty of stories to tell following this night, and there is no reason the women should not have a stronger spotlight come WrestleDream.

Whether it be Saraya vs. Storm vs. Soho, Athena vs. Shida, Statlander vs. Willow/Blue or something else all together with this talent, there are so many exciting title match opportunities in this division to pay off soon.

Many have claimed the title of "greatest of all time". Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay made a strong argument for the moniker in their two matches together in 2023.

However, no one has been doing it at as high a level for as long as Bryan Danielson. On September 5, 2021, The American Dragon arrived in AEW, and over these two years, he has not missed.

His latest battle with Rick Starks was a classic that made Absolute a bigger star than he was coming in. It was one of the single greatest Strap matches in wrestling history and a certain match of the year contender.

Danielson was working this match with his arm still bandaged up. It is unbelievable that he could even be cleared in time for a match this physical.

However, in spite of it all, The American Dragon stole the show, and he will continue to do so until he can no longer compete at this level.

Kenny Omega could have easily won his match with Konosuke Takeshita and got his revenge against Don Callis. Instead, in a competitive back-and-forth battle, Callis did not have to do much to get Takeshita to the finish line.

The Japanese upstart defeated The Cleaner with a series of knees to the face, hitting Omega until he could not get back up.

This was a decisive victory and the final step in Takeshita's rise to stardom. He can now go after any top name or championship and believably win the match.

It is likely that Omega vs. Takeshita is not over. Even if The Cleaner eventually takes his win back, no one can take this fantastic match and win away from the Japanese upstart.

Orange Cassidy went 327 days as International champion. He defended the title 32 times in that span. This unreal pace led to some of the best matches AEW has seen over this last year.

Freshly Squeezed has always carried himself with a signature nonchalance. He came into the company as a strange comedy act. However, with each performance, he has proved himself as one of the best in the business.

He went from the ultimate slacker to the ultimate workhorse champion. All Out was his final test. He competed in the main event for the first time in his career. While he may have lost the match, he absolutely succeeded in this test of his star power.

MJF has been a phenomenal world champion already, but no one was elevated more in a single title run than Freshly Squeezed in the history of the company.

He showed what he could do and carried Dynamite time and again as champion. His theme song almost became as ubiquitous to the opening of the show as the main theme "Dynamite".

We may never see another run as special as this in AEW. Full credit to Cassidy, who now deserves some much-needed rest before forging a new path.

No one gave All Out 2023 much of a chance. MJF was stuck in a tag team opener with a last-second build. The AEW Women's Championship and Tag Team Championships were not on the line.

The match was loaded with a few tag team matches that could have boiled down to more focused battles of rivals.

While top names like Chris Jericho and Hangman Adam Page were barely on the card or completely missing, Luchasaurus and Shane Taylor were featured in singles action.

However, all these criticisms were quickly washed away once the action kicked off. Each match built on the last with one of the most exciting shows AEW has ever produced.

There is an argument to be made that it was the single greatest night AEW has produced thanks to absolute classic bouts like Bryan Danielson vs. Ricky Starks, Orange Cassidy vs. Jon Moxley and Konosuke Takeshita vs. Kenny Omega.

While All In was the most important night in the company's history, this show one-upped that one with better matches and bigger moments across the board. That is a testament to a motivated roster that only wanted to exceed every expectation.