Triple threat matches aren’t always the best idea. While they can certainly deliver once the bell rings, throwing a third competitor into the mix often muddies or waters down the storytelling. Instead of good vs. evil or two fan favorites competing with mutual respect, you have … well, three combatants, each of whom needs a motivation and a narrative with two other people.
Yet there are rare times when triple threat matches are exactly the way to go, and AEW is heading for one of them right now. A CM Punk–Jon Moxley–MJF title bout at All Out isn’t just a great idea, it’s absolutely what the company should do.
Here’s why it works: Each wrestler is perfectly slotted into the role they’re currently playing. Moxley is the rough around the edges, take no BS fan favorite, sort of like a 2020s version of Stone Cold Steve Austin. MJF is simply the most over heel in pro wrestling today, a fact his recent radio silence should only help enhance if handled properly.
(This is assuming, of course, that MJF’s persona non grata status is simply part of the act, which most people believe that it is, whether it started out that way or not.)
And Punk? His reportedly partially unscripted promo last week on Dynamite proved that he’s come back as something other than a traditional babyface. He’s more of a tweener, with a bit more of an edge than when he went out with his injury, and that’s a great place for him to be.
It’s also not hard to set up. Punk and Moxley need to meet to unify the AEW World Championship, and when Punk returned a few weeks ago, the assumption was that it would happen at All Out. Instead, their showdown got bumped up to the Aug. 24 Dynamite, which caught a lot of fans and observers by surprise.
The New York Post’s Joseph Staszewski wrote today that it’s the perfect time to bring back MJF, and he’s absolutely right. Have MJF show up to interfere in the main event on Dynamite, and bam, people are talking. Regardless of who wins, his intervention creates enough controversy to have him added to a rematch at All Out.
The dynamics don’t need much help to come to life. Punk and Moxley had to be pulled apart multiple times last week on Dynamite, and will have a new score to settle after this week’s show. Punk and MJF have already proven they are gold when paired together. And Mox and MJF have tangled before as well, with Moxley beating Friedman two years ago at All Out.
If there’s any downside to this plan, it’s that there isn’t a whole lot of time to build up the program more because All Out is less than two weeks away. When you have a trio where Moxley is the worst promo guy, you’ve got yourself an embarrassment of riches on the microphone, and having only one Dynamite and a live Rampage to work with seems like not taking advantage of it to its fullest.
Then again, said Rampage is in Chicago (or near Chicago, anyway), as is Dynamite and All Out itself. It’s Punk’s hometown and a crazy wrestling market in general. So the setting for all of this is also ideal.
And let’s face it: AEW needs to do something to get fans who enjoy the entire U.S. wrestling scene buzzing again. Both AEW and WWE have their diehards who enjoy only their company of choice, but there’s no question that for everyone else, WWE has taken back the “cool” factor since Paul “Triple H” Levesque took over creative. The return of Johnny Gargano this week on Raw only added to that perception.
It’s worth noting, too, that All Out and WWE’s Clash at the Castle are on the same weekend in September, which is a rarity. Clash at the Castle is first, however, which gives AEW the chance to leave the lasting impression.
That’s not to say that AEW should try something just for the sake of making people notice them again, but when the ingredients are already there, it’s smart to just bake the cake. Punk vs. Moxley vs. MJF makes too much sense not to happen, and we’ll know soon enough if Tony Khan and company agree.