I believe this was one was always going to be a given, as should be the expectation when a man plummets several feet to knock himself senseless and any other decision but to call things off is made. That’s what happened at All Out 2020, and as a result of this retrospective review, I was confronted with watching everything in its painstaking detail; and thus here we are. 

Hardy and Sammy Guevara were clashing in a “Final Deletion” match, essentially a Last Man Standing match that took place in Daily’s Place venue rather than the ring. Not much had really happened up until the moment of significance, with Guevara attempting to run Hardy over in a buggy and getting beaten on his way to a scissor lift; as one does when a lift is before them, Hardy opted to take Guevara up and sought to throw him onto some conveniently placed tables. However, Hardy cleared the tables just slightly and bonked his head on the floor, laying in a clearly incapacitated position and going pale as a sheet as referee Aubrey Edwards visibly panicked and threw up the ‘X’ gesture, signaling the match to end through the injury. Only, the match did not end. 

Guevara pulled Hardy to his feet, Hardy’s legs declined the proposition, and he collapsed. Once more did he try to pull him up, once more did Hardy’s legs do the one thing everyone else should have done and gave up. Hardy collapsed to the floor once more, glassy-eyed and grasping for Guevara’s trunks, so much so he almost pulled them off. And then finally Aubrey Edwards threw up the ‘X’ again and the doctor arrived on scene. The match was over, Hardy could be checked out, and this could be addressed when he is healthy and not knocked into the next year. 

Only, the match didn’t end there. Commentary thought the match was over, they even said multiple times that the match was over, the bell had rung and the match was over. Yet, the cameras followed as a concussed Hardy ambled after Guevara, and it definitely didn’t feel like it was over. Sure enough, it wasn’t. Hardy caught up with Guevara, the bell rung again and Hardy – who, it really should be emphasized, had knocked himself out just minutes ago – continued to wrestle, or at least something that barely resembled wrestling. The concussed Hardy then followed Guevara up as he climbed the rafters – you know, blurry vision and vertigo being symptoms of a concussion – and wrestled with him, once again, several feet above the ground. At least this time it was Guevara who took the fall through significant padding, but then that begged a whole other question: Why did the scissor lift spot need to happen in the first place? 

In any case, what transpired was a purely irresponsible mess that put safety on the line at every opportunity. Things very easily could have been worse, and AEW would have been culpable for it all; even still, the fact they allowed this to happen the way it did is a stain enough.

Written by Max Everett