Tag: All Out 2023

Below are notes from the post-AEW All Out media scrum.

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Adam Cole —

• Cole said that he’s having the most fun he’s had in 15 years in wrestling in his pairing with MJF. He notes that the two were just “thrown together” and neither thought it would click as well as it has.
• Cole said that he & MJF are open to facing any tag team on the AEW or ROH roster in defending the Ring of Honor Tag Team titles.

Christian Cage —

• Cage spoke entirely in character.
• Cage said that Khan had recently re-signed him to a “fat” contract. 
• Cage said that he collects things of great value including watches, and wrestling titles. 
• Cage said that he had added so much prestige to the TNT Championship that he thinks it might soon be called the TNT World Championship. 
• When asked about the possibility of his friend Adam Copeland joining AEW, Cage said that he has no friends besides Luchasaurus. 

Kris Statlander —

• When asked about Mercedes Mone, Statlander said that she would welcome the challenge. She also mentioned a rematch with Jade Cargill, Toni Storm, Jamie Hayter, Saraya, and Willow Nightingale as potential future opponents.
• Statlander said that she appreciates everyone’s concern for her health after returning from two knee injuries, but that she wouldn’t have come back if she wasn’t capable of doing everything in the ring she could before the injuries. She noted that she hasn’t modified her style since returning.
• Statlander put over Orange Cassidy as her best friend and noted that the Best Friends group with herself, Cassidy, Trent Beretta & Chuck Taylor are legitimately best friends who travel together and hang out together.

Bryan Danielson —

• Danielson said Ricky Starks carried him through their match at All Out. He said he thought that Starks was good in the ring before, but that the two had never touched prior to their match and that Starks is every bit as good as he thought he was. He praised Starks for using his promo on Saturday’s Collision to elevate Big Bill.
• Danielson said it was very hard to argue against Jon Moxley being the best wrestler in the world after stepping up with another great performance at All Out.
• Danielson noted that the Blackpool Combat Club can straddle the line between being good guys and bad guys depending on what the particular story they are involved in calls for.
• Danielson said that he was cleared not only by AEW’s medical staff but by an outside surgeon (implied that the surgeon who performed surgery to repair the broken arm he suffered at Forbidden Door) to return for his match with Starks.
• In light of people being concerned for his health, Danielson said he would pull back the curtain and noted that there were lots of smoke and mirrors in the match with Starks to protect Danielson’s arm, mentioning that he never threw a strike with his right arm.
• In speaking about Tony Khan calling him out as being a point person to help run AEW should anything happen to Tony, Danielson said that balancing work and his personal life is something he strives for and that he spends a lot of time thinking about. He said that he would want to help AEW out.
• Khan noted that Danielson working Collision on Saturdays would probably be good for that work/life balance.
• Khan said that Danielson traveled with him for a few weeks and could not keep up with Khan’s schedule and recommended that Khan hire Jimmy Jacobs to travel with him and help keep him organized.

Tony Khan —

• Asked about Sonny Kiss, Khan confirmed that he had not renewed Kiss’ contract. He put Kiss over as a great wrestler and a person that he likes a lot, but that he can’t keep everyone under contract. He did not rule out Kiss returning at some point, pointing to Stu Grayson as an example of someone who left the company and came back.
• Khan said that he found out Saturday that Billie Starkz was not cleared to compete and that forced him to change some booking for All Out: Zero Hour, but that he wanted to showcase Athena on the card.
• Regarding the business of All Out, Khan said that preliminary numbers indicate 100,000-plus pay-per-view buys and somewhere in the range of 10,000 tickets sold for a gate north of $800,000.
• Khan said that CJ Perry had not signed any type of long-term deal, but didn’t rule out the possibility of signing her depending on how the story with Miro plays out.
• Khan said that Jack Perry is suspended indefinitely following the backstage incident with CM Punk.
• Khan thanked Punk for his contributions to AEW as a wrestler, and would not comment when asked if there would be a non-compete period following Punk’s termination, noting that he was not a lawyer who would interpret the language of a separation agreement.
• When asked about running WrestleDream on a Sunday against the NFL, Khan said that he would like to avoid running against the NFL if at all possible and called it the most powerful media entity in the world. He said that he felt strongly that WrestleDream this year needed to take place on October 1 to honor the first anniversary of Antonio Inoki’s passing.
• Khan said that All Out will likely be held at the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois next year due to an event held at the United Center [I believe he was referring to the Democratic National Convention, but that is taking place a week prior to what would be All Out weekend].

The full scrum can be seen below: