AEW Revolution 2022

[RingoPlaysDrums]

Another great AEW PPV... but it did burn me out. Fair play, they want to give fans their money's worth. And there is only four shows of this length per year. Problem is that there's really very little down time - and I did kind of tune out for the two women's championship matches. 193 minutes of wrestling if you include the pre-show.... that's a lot.

- Hirsch and Stadtlander really went for it. Some awkward moments but probably the best women's match on the show as it turned out. That apron hurricanrana was nasty. Hirsch had to win this after Stadtlander's awful comments.

- Hook's longest match to date but once again he killed it. I wonder if they're in a bit of a difficult position now. Fans want to see Hook continue to bulldoze through his opponents but he'll need to work longer matches in order to improve. QT played his part well.

- House Of Black vs. Death Triangle & Redbeard. Really good. This Penta/Black feud has been going on a while but with the addition of Buddy and Redbeard it felt pretty fresh. Redbeard put in a great performance and I loved his exchanges with Brody King. Possibly a bit excessive for a pre-show match. Solid win for the House of Black.

- Nice Omega tease. Good heat directed at Callis and a reminder that Omega will be due back soon. Possibly as a babyface this time.

- Loved everything about Jericho/Kingston. The entrances, the match itself and the aftermath. Clear All Japan influence. Jericho's best in-ring performance in years which isn't surprising given the shape he's gotten into. Hitting that top rope frankensteiner was something else. Big win for Eddie who is over HUGE right now... but he's still yet to win Jericho's respect, so looks like this will continue.

- Triple threat tag was nuts and thankfully Jungle Boy was the star of the show. I feared that the champions might be forced to take a back seat to the Bucks/RD drama but that really wasn't the case. Great win for Jurassic Express who are having a successful title reign.

- Fun ladder match with a bunch of memorable spots. Some a bit contrived, some really inventive. Everyone had their moments but I was particularly impressed with Hobbs. Big moment for Wardlow. Very intrigued by his upcoming push. Will he dethrone Sammy? Will he beat MJF? Feels like the sky is the limit for him right now.

- Hot debut for Swerve. He was presented like a star and the crowd gave him a star's welcome.

- TBS title match was a chance to breathe. Cool special entrance for Cargill. They kept showing Page vanZant alongside Lambert and the MOTY so I wonder if they're planning Cargill/vanZant. This match was actually alright.

- What can you say about Punk's entrance? Incredible moment. The match is itself was sufficiently brutal. Good use of the chain, thumb tacks, lots of blood and a hot finish. Maybe not quite at the level I was hoping but my expectations were extremely high. Loved the finish with Wardlow playing his role well and getting the big pop when he left the ring on the canvas. It's 1-1 now and I would imagine they'll do a rubber match at some point but perhaps further down the road.

- Found it hard to pay attention to Baker/Rosa I must admit. Glad Thunder Rosa didn't get the win here. It wouldn't have felt right for Baker's reign to end at this time. You'd think they'll have another gimmick match now.

- Danielson/Mox was very good and they had to work to get the crowd involved again. As promised, they gave us violence. Post-match with Regal making his debut was fantastic. What a well built handshake.

- Tornado trios match was bonkers. Reminiscent of the Jurassic Express/Superkiq 6-man from Full Gear. Everyone's understandably talking about Sting doing balcony dives at 62 but how crazy was Guevara's spanish fly on Kassidy? Just insane. With the way the match played out I became even more convinced that Jeff Hardy would make his debut here but maybe that's coming this week.

- I was knackered by the main event. Ended up being a pretty good match but I just wasn't all that invested. Must be said that the crowd seemed to enjoy it though.

9/10 probably.
Hard to pick a MOTN. I'd probably go with Kingston/Jericho or Danielson/Moxley. But it could also be Punk/MJF for the whole presentation.
Another note: JR was really annoying throughout. Generally I think he's been better recently but not on this show. At times his comments hurt the effectiveness of a moment. The pre-show was just Excalibur and Tony, it's significantly smoother when it's just the two of them.

 

[El-P]

Ridiculous PPV. Britt vs Rosa was the only underwhelming match, although the ending got hotter. Sure, they got put in the death spot, but considering what the trios clusterfuck ECW tribute match ended up to be, it's understandable (even more when you consider how *there* most of the match was in the end). And let's be honest, Britt has been kinda underwhelming inside the ring lately, seems like she's plateaued. This match went nowhere for a good amount of time before the last part, which got much better.

But apart from this, holy fuck.

Jericho vs Eddie was basically a 90's japanese fetish "let's kill each other match". Terrific

Young Bucks vs reDDragons vs Jurassik Express was just an awe-inspiring spotfest with great dynamics. Top 3 match of the night

The ladder multi-men was the expected craziness, with some really great creative spots. The least interesting guy to me won, but it makes sense considering the overall booking.

Jade vs Conti was pretty good, although I find Tay to be pretty self-conscious still at times. Jade is a great heel and she showing new shit every time around is like the best thing about Goldy in 98. She needs to not lose before long. 

CM Punk vs MJF was a great storyline infused match, high on selling and blood match. CM Punk coming to his old theme was such a nice touch (no idea why some idiots would bitch about it, it was explained right there by the announcers).

Mox vs Danielson just beat the living fuck out of each other and it was awesome. Top 3 match of the night. I did not expect Regal there, so I popped like crazy.

The trios match was just complete insanity. That spanish fly... I though Kassidy was dead. Sting channeling his inner Tommy Dreamer/Terry Funk was just... WTF ?

Page vs Page, well, if you don't get why Cole is a great worker there you probably won't get it ever, personally I'm sold (which I wasn't 100% before the match), the match was absolutely brilliantly structured toward the final escalation, Cole got so much interesting ideas (he's also such an amazing and smart bumper). Page proved once again why he absolutely deserves his spot and why he's one of the best workers in the world today. Top 3 match of the night.

I expected Strickland as soon as Tony referred to them working together before. Comes off like a star too.

That fucking company has been on a historical streaks of insanely great PPV's. 

[Tetsujin]

I enjoyed the PPV overall, if only because the two main matches I was hyped for delivered + two and a half pleasant surprises. But gotta say, the order of the matches doesn't feel right to me, and there clearly was a problem with the crowd losing interest throughout the whole thing, so I wonder if changing the order could have helped things.

Kingston/Jericho was the MOTN, something I never expected. I fucking love Eddie Kingston man, he just works in any context against any type of opponent. He's so natural and relatable. Huge win for him, he should win the main title as soon as possible (but not from Hangman I guess).

Didn't care for the tag titles, but saw the ending and some highlights on Twitter, and they looked great.

The ladder match was the big dissapointment of the match for me. Yeah It had some really cool, creative and character-driven moments, specially by Orange who was the clear mvp of the match, but I don't think the whole thing was done as greatly as they could have done it. For example, Christian, one of the most fucking experienced ladder match workers in history, did almost nothing. No real Starks-Hobbs dynamic either, neither as a team nor as enemies. Not enough Keith Lee showcase. Wardlow did look great though, and he was the guy who had to won so they made that right, and it's still a pretty fun multiman ladder match far ahead of the worst type of those matches, but kind of wasted potencial.

Strickland's debut was fine, but I don't feel he has any room now. AEW needs to stop hiring relevant masculine wrestlers.

Jade/Tay was solid. Fun carryjob by Cargill, who looks awesome, but Conti needs to get better if she wanna look convincent on tv. One of those women matches that clearly got less time because they are women and AEW has a problem with that, but considering Conti's level and Cargill's dominating persona, the lenght felt justified this time.

Punk/MJF was a 3'75* star match with a 5* presentation and build up, so yeah pretty great. I didn't like that it was thrown in the middle of the show, between the two women matches, instead of like, semi main event or something. They used the dog collar gimmick good enough (even if most of the thumbtacks spots didn't looked as well), had great dramatic selling, and the Wardlow turn was done perfectly if you ask me. I wasn't too sold on MJF, but after this rivalry and match, I'm 100% sure he has to be a main event guy in the future. And Punk, my god. It's impossible to not feel him when he's motivated. The guy has the biggest passion for our little fake sport, it's wonderful he recovered it after so many years.

Brit/Rosa was clearly the worst match of the night, and the only one I would consider it failed to some degree. Part of it is because of the finish, obviously: It looked like typical WWE overbooking bullshit where the heel wins at the end so nobody does; but also, the wrestling itself wasn't good enough. Both girls had her moments, specially Rosa who is pretty solid, but Brit really needs to improve if she wanna look like a real star, not only when cutting promos. She has some character moments but that's not enough. It's bullshit that AEW didn't pull the trigger here so we can have a Rosa win in her hometown next week or fucking whenever, that looks like the kind of bullshit Gedo is known for ("don't worry about Naito not getting his moment yet! In two years WrestleKingdom happens on a weekend!"). God fucking dammit gimme her win now and have her celebrate with her hometown crowd in a promo or something, now I've lost all the interest I had in her victory. PPVs should prevail over weekly shows, even if you only have four of them (hell, I would even say *specially if you only have four of them*).

Mox/Bryan was really fucking good and a match that didn't deserve the crowd it had. It was worked wonderfully, because they treated each other with respect but they're both also two big kings of the jungle at their reapective ways, so of course the character clash was inevitable, and the violence scalated appropiately. The match also was good enough to give us something special between the two of them, but not as much as they could give us in a bigger scenario (after a long feud, or for the world title, for example), so they left gas in the tank for a future, more decisive encounter, and that guys is clever pro wrestling. I liked that Mox won, it sets up an eventual Bryan vendetta over him at the long term, but right now we need their tag team and what a fucking way to start it. Eddie/Jericho was the MOTN, but Regal's debut was easily the best moment of the show. So hyped for this.

The Sting tríos match was insane. I can't do It justice with words. One of those rare matches that you have to WATCH if you wanna truly believe how crazy it is. And to think I almost skipped it...

Didn't watch the main event, I wasn't interested sadly. Again, watched some highlights on YouTube and Twitter and it looked good enough, but the lenght, the build up, Cole not having any chance at winning... All of that made me care a lot less about the whole thing, so didn't bothered, sorry. Glad Hangman won, now he desperately needs a really good storyline to give his title reign a proper burst, because he started super well against Bryan but then It always has looked like his stuff wasn't even top three most important things to look for. That needs to change.

[Alucard]

On 3/7/2022 at 3:52 AM, Jimmy Redman said:

Jade Cargill took me on a WILD RIDE. The big PPV entrance. Starting a match with sexual assault. (I assume/hope beyond hope that it was an allusion to the character she was dressed as that I didn't understand.) 

Jade from Mortal Kombat II with the outfit and "Kiss of Death" was one of her moves, but there was also an escalation of how Jade kissed Anna Jay on the cheek in their match, kissed Tay on the forehead in the build up to this and then here, Jade kisses Tay to start while later Tay kisses Jade back before delivering her DDT. So it seemed all wrapped up there but they've been hyping up Jade's Kiss of Death ever since so may be part of her character now

[sek69]

Hate to be the WELL AKCTSHUALLLY  guy, but Jade was a hidden character in Mortal Kombat II, and the Kiss of Death was/is Kitana's move.