AEW Revolution was 99.9% a perfect show

Well…. it is the morning after and the smoke has cleared (what little there was). Revolution was a great PPV marred by one of the biggest, funniest, and most disappointing botches of all time. How bad was it and how great was the rest of the show? Let’s dig in.

Riho and Thunder Rosa vs. Britt Baker and Maki Itoh: Once again, the second women’s match is on the pre-show. Normally I try not to be too critical of the pre-show, but the way it has been used in AEW is extremely frustrating, as just a way of fitting in a second women’s match to meet the quota they seem to have for themselves.

Miko Itoh was a great surprise, though. I personally don’t know much about her other than the little bit I’ve seen in the last month, but I did enjoy what I saw. I’m wondering if we will see more of her with how much time she got. The only issue I took with this match was that I wish we had gotten more Britt since we haven’t seen too much of her recently. Overall, though, great match.

Young Bucks (c) vs. Chris Jericho and MJF (AEW World Tag Team Championship): The build up to this match was weak, insofar as I didn’t care who Jericho and MJF were facing. Instead, I was extremely interested to see how the Inner Circle drama would end up panning out.

This was an excellent choice to start things off after the pre-show — there was so little down time and everything came fast. It did a great job showing the different styles of the two teams while not making it feel obvious; the differences were subtle but tangible. I honestly was not completely sure who was going to win. I could see the rationale for both teams winning and every false finish really felt like it could have been the end.

There were some great comedy spots and some intense spots as well. It was a superb, well-rounded match all together. I was watching with some friends over Discord who had never watched wrestling before and it was a great match to kind of give them an idea of the range wrestling has to offer.

Casino Tag Team Battle Royale: This match definitely suffered a bit from having too many people in the ring. There were times where I just could not really follow what was going on. This match would have been a lot better if they had just removed two teams. That being said, battle royals are not really there to tell a super in-depth story anyway, so this is more a minor complaint.

One interesting thing of note was QT Marshall possibly turning heel, which might result in something actually interesting happening with the Nightmare Family as a group. I also noted that two person elimination Butcher got. Hopefully we see a bigger push of Butcher and Blade in the future?

For how much a spot fest the match overall was, the battle between the final four was an amazing sequence. I was emotionally invested in everyone there and I honestly felt like any one of them could have won. They keep building up Jungle Boy as something big. The fact that they keep pushing him but not pulling the trigger could be frustrating for some, but honestly, it has me on my toes.

Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Ryo Mizunami (AEW Women’s World Championship): I think everyone was surprised by who ended up facing Shida — many were convinced it would be whoever won the American side of the tournament, so that was a nice surprise. That being said, once again there seems to be little emotion behind the match because for most of us, we’ve hardly seen Ryo, so the build up to this was not really there. In the end though, that didn’t matter, because it was a great match.

This match was absolutely hard-hitting and brutal. It was a more methodical pace, which can bore me sometimes, but this match was amazing. I can’t put my finger on why, though — perhaps it’s because there were very few breaks between sequences. Perhaps it’s because everything was absolutely clean, no botches. This match could have stood to even be a little longer.

Miro & Kip Sabian vs. Orange Cassidy & Chuck Taylor: A lot of people have been complaining that Miro has been badly booked, and I will admit that he hasn’t been given much to work with. But what he has been given I have absolutely loved and this match gives me hope of a bigger push to come.

This match did not disappoint. It was hard to watch from a narrative point of view simply because they absolutely destroyed my boys Chuck and Orange! But it’s just what Miro needed, so I absolutely loved it. He was finally able to show himself as extremely dangerous. That ending was absolutely perfect where he just pulled up on Trent, locking in the Camel Clutch. It was simple and yet seemed absolutely brutal.

It was a good length, too. It wasn’t too long and was a perfect transition/filler match. It knew what it was and it stuck to that. Yet another great match.

Adam Page vs. Matt Hardy (Big Money Match): The character work by everyone involved leading up to this match has been absolutely amazing. Hangman Page has to be one of the best babyfaces in AEW, maybe even wrestling in general. And although I was sad to see Broken Matt Hardy go, I have loved Matt’s dynamic with Private Party. Everything leading up to this match just felt like a lot of buildup, but this felt like the spark that has lit a fuse.

The match itself was a much slower pace, an unusual choice considering both of their styles. I would normally say this was a terrible move, but I didn’t mind it too much for two reasons. First, almost all the matches up to this point had been relatively fast, so it was a nice change of pace. Second, the feud leading up to this definitely felt a lot more personal. 

However, the match overall could have had a bit more zing to it, a bit more spice. I enjoyed it, but it is not a match I’ll go back and rewatch.

6 Man Ladder Match: There wasn’t much leading into this match, of course, but it is a 6 man ladder match so you don’t necessarily need too much of a plot and for it to still be fun — the chaotic nature of the match itself is often enough to make these matches good.

I am extremely glad it was not Cody who won and I am absolutely happy with Scorpio Sky getting a shot. He deserves a bigger push. They’ve been teasing at it off and on for a while now, and while I do not think they’re going to actually give him the belt, it’ll be nice to see him get some more time on Dynamite.

https://twitter.com/tde_gif/status/1368762331879141382

The match was a treat. Lots of intense spots, my favorite being Pentagon hitting that destroyer on Cody on the ladder, but Lance had his share of amazing spots as well. I was a bit underwhelmed by the last 20 seconds or so though. There was no reason for Cody to come back at all and they could have had the ultimate last moment be between Scorpio and someone else.

Sting & Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage and Ricky Starks: This feud has been going on a bit too long, constantly showing up on Dynamite at least 3 times a month. It should have ended with Cage challenging Darby for the TNT belt but AEW just seems like they don’t know what else to do with Team Taz.

Honestly, I could have passed on this match. It was the one match that I didn’t really care about it going in which is a shame since it was Sting’s big debut match. The match seemed sort of empty of anything substantial and while there were some impressive stunts, the only really big one that got my attention was the ending. Meh.

Kenny Omega (c) vs. Jon Moxley (Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch for the AEW World Championship: Let’s talk about the actual match first with this one before digging into the rest. I really liked it. I thought it was a great match.

What was in here was absolutely brutal, hard to watch, and so well done. The Paradigm Shift onto the barbed wire, scraping the bat along Kenny’s back, the V Triggers into the barbed wire — all of it was so well done. And Eddie coming out to save Moxley was absolutely beautiful. I expect to watch this again and again.

My one complaint with the match itself was it felt like a step backward from the 2019 Lights Out match. That one felt so much more intense as compared to this one.

OK, that being out of the way, let’s talk about the explosions, or lack thereof. Taking a step back even before the explosion at the end, the pyro felt pretty lackluster. The little puffs of smoke felt almost comical. The only really big moment it added to anything was with the first bat hit. And then… well I don’t have to tell you about the end.

And all of this is a shame because the story itself was excellent. The match itself was great. It was just a matter of a technical issue where things went downhill, but the entire premise of the match hinged on that technical issue. So no matter how they attempt to spin it in kayfabe, ultimately it’s still going to be disappointing. They may be able to patch it up to a certain degree, but everyone will still think of what could have been.

Wrap Up: I loved almost everything about this PPV. Leading up to the end I was considering giving it a 9.5, but the botched ending was just so deflating and too much to ignore. It was no Hell in a Cell 2019 in terms of bad endings, but it still detracted from the experience.