AEW All Out 2026: Draws & Duds

This weekend, AEW All Out 2026 comes your way from the Now Arena in Chicago, Illinois. As of this writing, the main card sits at eight matches, all of which will be contested for titles or title opportunities. Among other things, Will Ospreay will defend his newly-won AEW World Championship against Jon Moxley, while Steven Borden, the son of Sting, will make his AEW PPV debut alongside TNT Champion Darby Allin.

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

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

These two women fought over the AEW Women’s World Championship back at AEW Redemption in July, with Nightingale finally reaching the mountain top by defeating the “Toxic Spider” to become champion. Their match was good, albeit a little predictable given the obvious direction of Nightingale vs. Mercedes Mone at Wembley Stadium, but their upcoming match at All Out seems a bit thrown together given what has happened with the current champion.

During her win at AEW All In, Mone broke her nose and has not been medically cleared to compete this weekend. This has led to Thekla and Nightingale having a Redemption rematch for the right to face Mone at the next pay-per-view, AEW WrestleDream in October, and while that sounds good on paper, the weekly television has been pointing in one direction that makes this match even more predictable than their initial title fight.

Nightingale still has a broken hand, Thekla has been cutting promos on Mone since the moment All In finished, meaning that the original plan for All Out was most likely Mone vs. Thekla. There’s nothing wrong with that direction, but it kind of makes this match feel a bit pointless. Sure, we could see Nightingale get the win and she could have an All In rematch at WrestleDream, but that feels a bit too repetitive despite how good all of the Mone/Nightingale matches have been. Thekla is a fresh direction for Mone which makes the result of this match feel even more concrete.

If Tony Khan really wanted Thekla on the All Out card, she still has the Artist of STARDOM Championships with Julia Hart and Skye Blue — let the Triangle of Madness defend those titles and bring over some STARDOM talent instead. You let Nightingale heal up, Thekla stays on the card with another win to keep her momentum ticking over, and just for good measure, Skye Blue gets a hometown moment since she’s from Chicago. It would have made more sense than to just replay a match from two months ago, but here we are. It will be good, but you just feel like there’s a missed opportunity to do something more interesting.

Written by Sam Palmer

I am old enough to remember when I was young. I am not elderly or infirm. I am still, hopefully, in the very middle of life, but I am old, so much older than I was. Once — for reasons that can only be understood by young, dumb open mic performers — I was running an American flag around a bar that I used to frequent when I slipped on a patch of black ice, crashing down on my side so as to keep the flag off the ground as I landed. I immediately stood back up and finished the lap, and the performance. Today, that same incident would leave me a broken puddle of bones and blood on the pavement. People are physically and spiritually immortal in their twenties.

On Saturday, six men — all older than I am — are going to take part in a ladder match that is promising to set an impossible standard, and I am looking forward to watching them try. The Young Bucks and Cope & Christian both made names for themselves in similar matches in their youth-steeled twenties. 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 something of a spiritual successor to the TLC match.

All of the promos leading up to this match have promised to live up to the lofty standards of TLC and Ladder Wars, while being as legally distinct as possible. But none of these men are in their twenties anymore. This will not be the usual “Man fights Man” or “Team fights Team” story of pro wrestling. This will be “Man fights Nature.” Any plans they might have for the match will likely be thrown to the wind by whatever physical limitations are caused by their age and conditioning.

I’m not saying someone might die. I’m just saying no one above the age of 35 can “plan” for a ladder match. They simply have to accept whatever comes, and that is going to provide for a more entertaining match than anything they could’ve ever put together back when they were young and invincible. Wrestling is predictable by nature, but not a match like this. I can’t wait.

Written by Ross Berman

Steven Borden is currently white-hot in AEW, in both the sense that he’s beloved by fans on social media, and in the sense thast he’s on an undefeated streak following a successful debut on AEW’s flagship show on September 9 following a slew of dark matches. At All Out, he’s teaming alongside TNT Champion Darby Allin to take on the Don Callis Family’s Kyle Fletcher and Kevin Knight for a future shot at the AEW World Tag Team Championships. Despite Borden being an exciting rookie, in addition to the caliber of the other three stars involved in the match, the outcome of this All Out bout is predictable, making it a dud.

As mentioned, Borden is undefeated, and as the son of the legendary Sting, his first loss is unlikely to come before he and Allin get to challenge for the tag team championships, though it’s unclear who is going to be holding those titles by the end of the night. While Fletcher and Knight are excellent talent, there’s no doubt that Tony Khan will want to capitalize fast on Borden’s popularity as Sting’s son, and will want to elevate him and Allin to the tag title scene as quickly as possible — even if that means just giving them a shot off the back of Borden’s first-ever pay-per-view victory.

Fletcher hasn’t exactly been thrilled that he’s been paired up with Knight in recent weeks, and he’s been vocal about it both on social media, as well as on AEW programming. The egos of these two young heels are two big to compete alongside one another for long, and dissension in this match is more than likely. That dissension could further Fletcher’s break from the Don Callis Family, as well, which would make for a much more interesting story, but doesn’t do much to make the outcome of this match unpredictable. Also, while having a number one contender’s match on a pay-per-view isn’t a bad thing, the triple threat ladder match where the titles are on the line will be the tag team highlight of the show, which may make this match feel a bit less than when it comes to the “wow” factor.

Written by Daisy Ruth

For a show where many of the matches have only had a few weeks to build due to how recent AEW All In London 2026 was, the main event for AEW All Out 2026 is not only one of the longest-running stories in the company, but is likely the reason why the show has been sold out for a number of weeks.

Following his triumph at Wembley Stadium, Will Ospreay will make his first defense of the AEW World Championship against the man who is partly responsible for him being the champion in the first place, Jon Moxley. After putting him on the shelf in August 2025, Ospreay came back looking for revenge but quickly realized he wasn’t at 100%, or at least he wasn’t healthy enough to get one over on Moxley and the Death Riders. Seeing an opportunity to create the ultimate weapon, Moxley brought Ospreay into the Death Riders, trained him, healed him, and when Ospreay didn’t want to go all the way in on the Death Riders lifestyle, Moxley let him go.

Moxley’s overall goal for the Death Riders was to force the AEW roster to get as good as him in order to improve the company as a whole. He achieved that, but it almost seems that was just part one of his full scheme, with part two having Moxley create the literal perfect wrestler imaginable, have him win the title, only for Moxley to take it back right away as a way of showcasing that after everything we’ve seen in the past two years, he is still the one true ace of AEW.

That is what makes this match a draw as it’s a little more unpredictable than one might think. Most first defenses are pretty easy to predict as it’s not like Tony Khan went through all the effort of giving Ospreay the title at Wembley after everything he’s been through only to take it away immediately. However, the story could call for it because Ospreay wouldn’t have gotten over that last hurdle without Moxley, and even though he has earned back the respect of the fans, Moxley will always put himself first when the AEW World Championship is involved.

There is also the possibility of the Death Riders reaching its natural end at this event, with Moxley maybe not being good enough to beat his own creation and the group sensing weakness. Either way, this will be one hell of a way to close out this weekend’s show.

Written by Sam Palmer