Showtime for the Last Time...It's the Let's Watch Some Wrestling AEW Revolution Review!

 

Good Morning!

AEW Revolution happened Sunday night, and while I’m certain I’m going to be watching it again, as it stands right now it’s the best show I’ve watched this year, as well as the best pay-per-view All Elite Wrestling has hosted in a while. That’s not to say the last few haven’t had some good moments – it’s just that everything on this card felt like it was building to that insane, wonderful, nearly perfect sendoff to The Man They Call Sting.

We’re on a bit of a tight schedule, so let’s get into a lil’ recap of what we saw!

The Let’s Watch Some Wrestling AEW Revolution Review!

Just so we’re keeping track, my current PLE/PPV record is .500. A perfect Elimination Chamber was preceded by an abysmal one outta six for NXT Vengeance Day and a half-and-half Royal Rumble. Hopefully it was just a rough start to the year, or people will start to doubt my incredible prognostication! 

We’ve got eleven matches on the card per Wikipedia, although that includes a pair of Zero Hour matches. However, since we know they’re happening, they still count towards the overall record. The main card features six championship matches and another fight for a title shot. We’ve got a lot of predicting to get to, so ramblers, let’s get rambling!

Zero Hour Match: The Bang Bang Scissor Gang versus Planet Jarrett, Private Party, and Willie Mack in a twelve-man tag team match

We were right, the “good guys” won! It was a silly match, and one that was there to get a lot of guys on the card, but it was still pretty good! The finish saw Jay White get a pin on Willie Mack, and afterward Jay grabbed a mic and talked up the combined might of The Acclaimed and Bullet Club Gold, and teased a solo match for the Switchblade on March 13th. It was revealed later in the night that we’ll be seeing Jay White take on Darby Allin in Boston for Big Business, which should be an awesome match on a really important card for AEW.

Zero Hour Match: Julia Hart and Skye Blue versus Kris Statlander and Willow Nightingale in a tag team match

The good guys won here, too, but I guessed wrong on that front. Another fun match that was good, not great, but served a purpose. Sure, it could have been on any random Dynamite or Collision, but these women need time in front of a crowd to improve, and to see what works for them as they continue to work together in matches. Willow and Stat were cohesive throughout, and Julia Hart’s return to the ring, while not without some hiccups, reminded us that she’s evil and capable. Skye Blue continues to impress, and I’m thinking we’ll see some combination of these four in the weeks to come. 

Christian Cage © versus Daniel Garcia for the TNT Championship

Well, despite my longing for an Adam Copeland return and heel turn, tonight really wasn’t the night for it. In hindsight, anything that happened on this show would have to be replayed out of the shadow of Sting’s retirement match, since that kinda loomed over everything. However, we did call the Christian Cage win, so that’s something!

Garcia paid tribute to the Icon with a cool, colorful scorpion jacket during his entrance, and he and Christian Cage had a solid match! Of course, interference by Killswitch, Nick Wayne, and Nick’s mom were enough to overwhelm Daniel and his pal Daddy Magic. Garcia had some really good offense near the end, but a Nick Wayne stunner allowed Cage to hit his Killswitch finisher and retain his title.

Eddie Kingston © versus Bryan Danielson for the Continental Crown Championship

“I see Eddie retaining, earning that handshake…” You know, he did just that. This was exactly what it needed to be, with Kingston constantly coming back after wave after wave of offense. Danielson looked sharp, and there were several spots in the match where I thought he had it, but in the end the story really needed to end with Eddie Kingston getting his arm raised in victory by a defeated, and respectful (after a little playful will they/won’t they handshake) Bryan Danielson. Danielson even led the crowd in a full on standing ovation for Kingston as he stepped off the apron and allowed Eddie to soak in the arena’s love. It was really good, and if this is the last we see of these two, a fitting end to their rivalry.

Chris Jericho vs Wardlow vs Powerhouse Hobbs vs Lance Archer vs HOOK vs Brian Cage vs Magnus vs Dante Martin in an All-Star Scramble for a future AEW World Championship match

Our second big multi-person match of the night after the Zero Hour twelve-man was this scramble for an AEW Championship opportunity. Wardlow won, as predicted, but we had a lot of fun along the way. MEAT MADNESS lived on in spirit when Lance Archer, Powerhouse Hobbs, Wardlow, and Brian Cage cleared the appetizers and let the crowd enjoy a four-steak table, and the crowd meat-chanted in approval. The little guys had a chance to showcase their stuff as well, especially Dante Martin, but in the end those recent Wardlow promos wouldn’t have really held up if he didn’t pick up the win here.

Orange Cassidy © versus Roderick Strong for the AEW International Championship

“...Strong gets to be the guy to take the International Championship off of Cassidy after a second run that never quite reached the heights of the first…” Hey, I was right! This match was all about Orange Cassidy’s broken body, and from the moment Cassidy removed his jean jacket to reveal his ribs and back covered in tape, we kinda knew what was coming. Fortunately, if anybody’s moveset was custom-built to take advantage of a back injury, it’s Roddy Strong. The man can turn anything into a backbreaker, and he did in this match.

Cassidy put his all into this match, as always, but it was time for him to get some rest, and End of Heartache put the King of Sloth Style down for a three count. A clean win after a hard-fought match, and now we’ll see what the Undisputed Kingdom does with a full slate of victories coming out of this show.

Oh, and the post-match celebration for the bad guys gave us the return of Kyle O’Reilly! I don’t like to speculate, but Kyle looked kinda…gaunt? Pale? Not great? Regardless, he helped Strong and pals celebrate, but didn’t accept the UK shirt he was offered. We’ll see what develops from here, too!

FTR versus the Blackpool Combat Club in a tag team match

Betting against the BCC is a fool’s errand, and yet I chose to do that. Foolishly. Another bloody chapter in this rivalry saw Dax Harwood get real, real messy. It was violent, hard-hitting, and basically what we got the last few times these teams have met. Which isn’t a bad thing, although I’ll admit I’m over the BCC as a group. But with a tag team tournament looming in the coming weeks, I’m sure we’ll see both of these teams getting involved and maybe meeting one more time. It was a good, if a bit long, fight, and one that gave both teams plenty of chances to pull out a win.

“Timeless” Toni Storm © versus Deonna Purrazzo for the AEW Women’s Championship

Toni retained! It took distractions from both her butler and a cosplaying Mariah May, but the Timeless One held on, as we predicted. I loved the entrance of Mariah May as “classic” Toni Storm, and it took a second for me and my buddy to realize that wasn’t actually Toni. Mariah played her part well throughout, and I’m convinced that we’ll see her and Storm battle in the future – probably after Toni drops the AEW Women’s title and maybe goes even further off the deep end. 

This match with Deonna Purrazzo just never reached the heights I hoped it would. After the admittedly thrown together stinker between Purrazzo and Madison Rayne a few weeks ago, I would have thought Deonna would have been motivated to really put on a show here. It was fine, even good at some points, but never really moved beyond that. And with the women’s division heating up and new additions (and a renewed focus) coming soon, the last thing anybody wants is to be left behind.

Will Ospreay versus Konosuke Takeshita

The match of the night and, on any other night, the match everyone would be talking about for months. If there’s any way you can watch just one match from this show … well, dammit, you should still watch Sting’s last match. But also catch this insane, brutal, fast-paced sprint! I’m incredibly biased towards Konosuke Takeshita, my sweet-faced Cinnabon son, but even without those cinnamon-scented glasses on I was just in awe at some of the stuff these two pulled out. There’s a sheer-drop brainbuster from the top rope that left Ospreay with a bruised butt and might have left lesser wrestlers in a crumpled heap. 

Spanish Flys, gut-wrench German Suplexes from the new master of the move, poison ‘ranas…just, really, if you can find the means, watch this incredible match between two young performers with no reason to fight aside from a need to wow the crowd. And remember, everybody was mostly fine afterwards and Will has made a career out of making moves look worse than they seem for crowd investment. 

It was incredible, and while Will Ospreay won like we’d predicted, it didn’t really matter in the end as both men earned the “Fight Forever” chants they were getting. After the match, Don Callis and Kyle Fletcher joined Ospreay and Takeshita in the ring, and we learned that Fletcher and Ospreay will be facing one another on Dynamite this week as Callis continues to book matches between his “family.”

Samoa Joe © versus “Hangman” Adam Page versus Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Championship

Hangman has fully lost his mind and compromised his convictions at this point. In a match that really sold Samoa Joe as the indignant champion reminding Page and Swerve that he’s not to be pushed aside or taken lightly, Joe retained while Strickland proved he wants to win with some degree of respectability. Don’t get me wrong – Swerve Strickland is on a roll, and absolutely deserves to be champion, but not in a three-way match on a show that’s destined to be remembered for its main event and little else, despite a number of great matches. 

At one point, Hangman doesn’t just bump the ref – already a replacement from a previous ref bump – he literally pounces on the guy, beating him before heaving him out of the ring. In the end, a series of finishers from all three participants led to Swerve getting dropped out of the ring, and Hangman falling to Joe’s Coquina Clutch. While it wasn’t quite the hara-kiri finish I was hoping for, it did serve to show that Hangman has fully committed to the anything-to-win mindset, while Strickland declined a chance to knock Page out with Prince Nana’s headgear in an effort to get a clean, undeniable win. It’s coming, just not tonight. Still, a good match in the unenviable spot between the main event and one of the best matches of the year.

Sting and Darby Allin © versus The Young Bucks for the AEW Tag Team Championship

“Good guys win, bad guys lose, we all try not to openly bawl.” Yup, yup, and yup. What a sendoff for the Icon, a bloody mess that started with some great video work and ended with Darby Allin just leaking blood from all over his back. A great video with Sting in an empty theater watching highlights from his non-WCW/WWE career led to his entrance into the arena. His sons, last seen getting beat up by the Young Bucks, led the crowd in cheers, dressed as Sting Classic and Sting Wolfpac, respectively. Stinger himself came out to Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy” and to the shouts and volume-raising of your humble author. 

And then the mayhem began. Just the best kind of fun, a full-on plunder match that saw Sting’s large adult sons get revenge on the Bucks with a series of Stinger splashes on both Matt and Nick from, well, all the good guys. Tables, glass, and the tallest ladder AEW could find combined for some gnarly spots, the gnarliest of which was Darby Allin coffin dropping from that ladder in the ring onto a set of steel chairs with a pane of glass set up on top of it. And the resulting carnage took Darby out for a good portion of the match, with Darby’s entire back just covered in blood and broken glass.

As I think a lot of us hoped, the Young Bucks got to be the worst version of themselves after this. Attacks on both Ric Flair, who tried to defend Sting from the Bucks, and on guest timekeeper Ricky Steamboat kept the finish in doubt, and multiple superkicks and BTE- excuse me, EVP-triggers knocked Sting down, but not out. An incredible twist on the HBK/Flair line was unleashed, with the Bucks shouting, “We’re NOT sorry, we HATE YOU!” before double superkicks got a pinfall, but not a victory. Somewhere after an EVP-trigger got a ONE COUNT on the veteran, I think we all kinda knew he wasn’t going out on his back. And sure enough, a returning and bloodied Allin managed one last Coffin Drop onto Matt Jackson, allowing Sting to lock in the Scorpion Death Lock and finish the match, and his career, with a title defended and a victory earned.

Closing Up Shop

What else can I say? That match summed up Sting’s AEW run perfectly. It did exactly what that type of battle is designed to do – hide the shortcomings of an older performer, allow everybody to hit some insane moves and take some questionable bumps, allow the bad guys to look super evil, and then show that, at least in kayfabe, good always triumphs in the end. Maybe we didn’t need to see Darby Allin attempt to slice his entire back off, but if you don’t want that you don’t sign Darby for a match, realistically. 

The Young Bucks deserved this match as much as anyone, and they’ll be able to build some quality bad guy stuff from here, as Darby will be relinquishing the tag team titles for a tournament coming up and I’m sure we’ll have some storyline bullying from our EVPs to come.

The celebration after the title defense was cut short, and it’s around 7am as I write this so I haven’t had a chance to look up Sting’s speech to the crowd and send off from the AEW locker room, but I’ve seen photos and I’ll link it below. It was incredible, well-done, and a fantastic end to an equally impressive show. 

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