AEW All Out 2026: Draws & Duds

This weekend, AEW All Out 2026 comes to the Now Arena in Chicago, Illinois. As of this writing, the main card features eight matches, all of which will be contested for titles or title opportunities. Among other things, Will Osprey will defend his newly won AEW World Championship against John Moxley, and Stephen Borden, son of Sting, will make his AEW PPV debut alongside TNT Champion Darby Allyn.

But which of the eight All Out matches have the WINC crew fired up and ready to book the show, and which have us hesitant to give Tony Khan our money? That’s what we’re here to find out today. Here are WINC’s biggest draws and biggest draws for AEW All Out 2026.

AEW All Out 2026 is a very loaded show and some fights just get the short end of the stick. Willow Nightingale vs. Thekla is one of those meetings.

These two women battled for the AEW Women’s World Championship at AEW Redemption in July, with Nightingale finally reaching the top of the mountain by defeating The Venom Spider to become the champion. Their match was good, if a little predictable given the obvious direction of Nightingale vs. Mercedes Monae at Wembley Stadium, but their upcoming match at All Out seems a bit of a mixed bag given what happened to the reigning champion.

Monae suffered a broken nose during her win at AEW All In and has not been cleared to compete this weekend. This led to Thekla and Nightingale having a Redemption rematch for the right to face Mone at the next AEW WrestleDream pay-per-view in October, and while that sounds good on paper, weekly TV is showing a direction that makes this match more predictable than their initial title bout.

Nightingale still has a broken arm, Thekla has been cutting promos on Mone since All In ended, meaning the original plan for All Out was most likely Mone vs. Thekla. Nothing wrong with that direction, but it kind of makes this match feel a little pointless. Sure, we could see Nightingale win and she could have an All In Remetch at WrestleDream, but that feels a little too repetitive despite how good all the Mone/Nightingale matches have been. Thekla is a fresh direction for Monet, which makes the outcome of this encounter even more concrete.

If Tony Khan really wanted Tekla on the All Out card, he still has the STARDOM Championship with Julia Hart and Sky Blue. let the triangle of insanity defend those titles and bring in some STARDOM talent instead. You let Nightingale heal, Thekla stays on the card with one more win to keep her momentum going, and just Sky Blue gets a hometown moment because she’s from Chicago. It would have made more sense than replaying a game from two months ago, but here we are. It would be good, but you just feel that there is a missed opportunity to do something more interesting.

Written by Sam Palmer

I’m old enough to remember when I was young. I am not old or weak. I’m still hopefully in midlife, but I’m old, much older than I used to be. Once, for reasons only young, dumb open mic performers can understand, I was running around a bar with an American flag, which I frequented when I slipped on a patch of black ice, bumping my side to keep the flag off the ground when I landed. Immediately stood up and finished the spin and speech. Today, that same incident would have left me in a puddle of broken bones and blood on the pavement. People are physically and mentally immortal in their twenties.

On Saturday, six men, all older than me, will compete in a ladder match that promises to set an impossible standard, and I can’t wait to watch them attempt it. The Young Bucks and Cope & Christian both made a name for themselves in similar matches in their young 20s. For Cope and Christian, the legendary Tables, Ladders & Chairs matches set the standard for mayhem and destruction. For the Young Bucks, the Ladder War matches in ROH were the spiritual successor to the TLC match.

All promotions leading up to this match promised to live up to the high standards of TLC and Ladder Wars while being as legal as possible. But none of these men are in their twenties anymore. This won’t be the usual “Man fights Man” or “Team fights Team” story in professional wrestling. This will be Man vs. Nature. Any plans they may have for the game are likely to be dashed by the physical limitations that come with their age and conditioning.

I’m not saying that someone can die. I’m just saying that no one over the age of 35 can “plan” a ladder match. They’ll just have to accept what’s coming and it will provide a more entertaining game than anything they could ever muster when they were young and undefeated. Wrestling by its very nature is predictable, but not a match like this. I can’t wait.

Written by Ross Berman

Stephen Borden is currently “white” in AEW, both in the sense that he’s a fan favorite on social media and in the sense that he’s on an undefeated streak that follows a successful debut on AEW’s flagship show on September 9 after dark games. At All Out, he teams up with TNT Champion Darby Allyn to take on Kyle Fletcher and Kevin Knight of the Don Callis Family. for a future shot at the AEW World Tag Team Championship. Although Borden is an exciting newcomer in addition to the other three stars involved in the matchup, the outcome of this All Out fight is predictable, making it a no-brainer.

As mentioned, Borden is undefeated, and as the son of the legendary Sting, his first loss is unlikely to come until he and Allyn challenge for the tag team championships, though it’s unclear who will hold those titles by the end of the night. While Fletcher and Knight are great talents, there’s no doubt that Tony Khan will want to quickly capitalize on Borden’s popularity as Sting’s son and push him and Allin into the tag title scene as quickly as possible, even if it means Borden’s first pay-per-view win.

Fletcher hasn’t been too thrilled to be paired with Knight in recent weeks, and he’s been vocal about it both on social media and on an AEW program. The egos of these two young heels are two too big to compete alongside each other for long, and a feud is more than likely in this match. That rift could be exacerbated by Fletcher’s estrangement from Don Callis’ family, which would also make for a much more interesting storyline, but doesn’t do much to make the outcome of this matchup unpredictable. Also, while a number one contender’s match at pay-per-view isn’t a bad thing, a triple threat ladder match with the titles on the line would be the main tag team on the show, which could make this match feel a little less than that when it comes to the wow factor.

Posted by Daisy Ruth

For a show with only a few weeks left to build most of the matches since AEW All In London 2026 was the last, the AEW All Out 2026 main event is not only one of the longest running storylines in the company, but is probably the reason the show sold out for several weeks.

After his victory at Wembley Stadium, Will Ospreay will make his first defense of the AEW World Championship against the man partially responsible for being his first champion, John Moxley. After being put on the shelf in August 2025, Ospreay returned for revenge, but quickly realized he wasn’t 100%, or at least not healthy enough to take on Moxley and the Death Riders. Seeing an opportunity to create the ultimate weapon, Moxley brought Osprey into the Death Riders, trained him, healed him, and when Osprey didn’t want to fully convert to the Death Riders lifestyle, Moxley let him go.

Moxley’s overall goal for the Death Riders was to force the AEW roster to become as good as himself in order to improve the company as a whole. He got it, but it seems like it was part of his whole scheme, in part two, Moxley builds literally the perfect wrestler he can imagine to win him the title, only for Moxley to immediately take it back to show that after everything we’ve seen over the last two years, he’s still the one true ace in AEW.

That’s what makes this match a draw, as it’s a little more unpredictable than you might think. Most of the first defenses are pretty easy to predict, because it’s not like Tony Khan went all out to give Osprey a title shot at Wembley after everything he’s been through, only to have it taken away immediately. History may demand it, though, because Ospreay wouldn’t have made it past that last hurdle without Moxley, and even though he earned back the fans’ respect, Moxley will always put himself first when the AEW World Championship is involved.

It’s also possible that the Death Riders will meet their natural end in this event, with Moxley perhaps not good enough to defeat his creation and the group feeling the pinch. Either way, this is going to be one hell of a way to close out this week’s show.

Written by Sam Palmer