The Real Winners and Losers From AEW All Out 2022 Match Card

AEW All Out 2022 may go down as All Elite Wrestling's most controversial pay-per-view in its history. It was a heavily heel-focused night where the crowd did not get what they wanted more often than not.

Some major fan favorites fell short, particularly The Acclaimed. However, the crowd may have also set up Max Caster and Anthony Bowens as two of the biggest stars in AEW for years to come.

Jungle Boy was one of a few stars to lose in quick matches, but his loss hit the hardest. He fell to Christian Cage after his best friend Luchasaurus turned against him.

The show opened in a unique manner where Stokely Hathaway took over the ladder match and stole the chip above the ring to hand over to a mystery man.

That mystery man was Maxwell Jacob Friedman, who made it clear he will soon be AEW world champion by dethroning CM Punk, who barely came out on top in a match with Jon Moxley.

On a fascinating night, there were not as many obvious winners or losers, but this show certainly left plenty to discuss for the future as far as who benefited.

The Casino Ladder Match has been a special match for many years in AEW where top stars rose to the occasion. It was the match that made Wardlow and Scorpio Sky,

This year though, the match was used for a surprise spot. A conventional ladder match turned into an angle as Stokley Hathaway's crew stormed the ring to take the poker chip. It was handed to a masked man, who did not reveal himself in the moment.

AEW does not typically have angles like this on pay-per-view. It was a controversial end that left many dissatisfied and did not land well with the live Chicago crowd.

This especially hurt the many stars that have done great work over the past few months to earn that spot in the ladder match. Men like Wheeler Yuta, Andrade El Idolo and Rey Fenix could have used that opportunity.

Instead, it went to a man unmasked at the very end of the night. The new No. 1 contender to the AEW World Heavyweight Championship is...

Maxwell Jacob Friedman, the man who shocked the world when he walked out on AEW, is back, and he is coming after CM Punk.

There was no match that mattered more to AEW All Out than Jon Moxley vs. Punk. The Best in the World was once more in front of a hometown Chicago crowd with the AEW World Championship on the line.

However, neither man stood in the final image of the show. The Salt of the Earth came out and got the biggest reaction of his entire career. He was the star of the show.

After all of the storytelling that dangerously balanced the line between work and shoot, MJF is likely about to become the AEW world champion. Whenever he cashes in, it is impossible to imagine that Punk keeps the title.

This is a story that has been months, arguably years, in the making. It is the moment that MJF becomes AEW's number one guy, and that is even overshadowing the return of The Best in the World to the top of the card.

This night alone did not make Dax Harwood's daughter a winner as her father explained. Finley Gray fought through a serious heart condition over three years to a full recovery.

That is what made the ending of Wardlow and FTR's match against Jay Lethal and The Motor City Machine Guns so special. After the TNT champion won the match, Samoa Joe helped the faces take down Sonjay Dutt before Finley got an unsanctioned pinfall over Dutt.

One of the weaker matches on this card got a massive boost with this spot. It made everything matter.

Feel-good moments do not happen often in wrestling at this level. It will not matter to long-term stories in AEW, but it matters so much more than that. Finley will never forget that moment.

She earned it more than just about anyone ever has. Hopefully, we can all learn to fight like an eight-year-old girl when it matters most.

The Acclaimed walked into a match with Swerve in Our Glory as the clear underdogs. While Max Caster and Anthony Bowens may have the most wins in AEW history, the duo has never come off as a serious contender to the AEW World Tag Team Championships.

However, Caster's silly raps and the unique partnership they have with Billy Gunn have made them popular. What The Acclaimed needed was to levy that popularity into credibility.

Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee have not been champions long, but they have credibility as singles stars that carried over to a title run. This made Swerve in Our Glory the perfect foils to elevate The Acclaimed.

Caster and Bowens have faced FTR and the Young Bucks before, but no one challenged them like Swerve in Our Glory. The crowd invested in every moment of this match as The Acclaimed became one of AEW's biggest tag teams in one night.

While the record may show that The Acclaimed walked out with the loss, no one elevated their standing like Caster and Bowens. The future is bright, and The Acclaimed will soon be champions, an idea that was almost inconceivable a few months back in a packed division.

Jungle Boy promised that he would make Christian Cage pay come AEW All Out. It was supposed to be his moment, the chance to crown him as a future AEW champion.

Instead, Captain Charisma had a plan, proving that he was always in the head of Luchasaurus. After Jungle Boy barely got out of the tunnel, he was attacked by his best friend, setting him up to lose in seconds to Christian.

On a night where half the card ran short, this had a chance to be a special match but instead was the shortest of them all. It barely constituted a match.

This was arguably the most heated rivalry going into the show, and it only got more heated by the end. It was a disappointing result but also sets the stage for something special.

When Jungle Boy can get past his best friend and put his hands on Captain Charisma, the crowd will explode. If he defeats the veteran in the end, he will be made forever.