AEW Revolution

[WingedEagle]

Pretty big show tonight. Arguably the deepest, best built show in a few years other than a main event that some (I) find lacking by virtue of not wanting to see a senior citizen get murdered. Who's watching?

[Blehschmidt]

That tombstone and that Angel's Wings in the opening match both looked absolutely horrific.

[Blehschmidt]

3 for 3 on matches with nasty looking bumps. Afraid to see what Ospreay does in a cage if they are attempting to one up each other on trying to kill themselves.

[Blehschmidt]

Well that tag title match killed the streak, but Storm and May picked it back up. This show has been fantastic.

[MoS]

Storm-May was incredible. Ospreay-Fletcher honestly felt like a longer, cheaper, inferior version of Storm-May. Way too long for starters, and I can go the rest of my life without watching an interference in a cage match again

Hey, congrats to Cope for managing to find a way to not do a job yet again

[MoS]

Toni-May should have been the main event. Easily MOTN and a MOTYC

[sek69]

Toni-May was indeed incredible. Perfect blowoff to the feud, but I wonder where each go from here.

[The Thread Killer]

I decided to check this out, since I had nothing better to do and I haven't seen any AEW in ages.  I've been following the weekly TV results from the PW Newz sites, but I have seen very little actual action from them aside from the odd YouTube clip here and there.

-> I thought MJF vs. Hangman was alright.  Bias alert: I don't much care for Hangman in general, and I'm over MJF at this point.  There was a time that I honestly believed he was going to be an all timer, but his entire act is getting stale to me. This match was good, but I wouldn't say it was great. It was a lot slower paced than I had been expecting. I was kind of surprised to see MJF do a clean job. It was what it was, but to be honest that might not be a fair assessment on my part.  Both of these guys would have to go pretty damn far to impress me, because I'm really soured on both of them.

-> Mone vs. Watanabe. One of my recurring issues with this show (and with AEW in general) is that I find it hard to enjoy matches when the winner isn't really in doubt. I'm not at all familiar with Watanabe but I certainly didn't expect her to win this match...and she didn't.  I didn't think the match itself was anything to write home about, which was apparently due a foot/ankle injury that Watanabe suffered during the match. To me, this was the very definition of "meh." I am also very tempted to make a comment about Watanabe's ring gear...but it probably won't be taken particularly well.  All I will say is that perhaps when it comes to picking out ring gear, Watanabe should apply the Latin moto "Nosce te ipsum."

->Swerve vs. Ricochet. I've never been a fan of Ricochet. To me, he's always been just another flippy guy, but with the added caveat that he didn't seem to have a convincing personality and couldn't cut a decent or believable promo. Much to my delight, that was one of the first things Tony Khan addressed when he signed Ricochet to AEW, so full marks to him for that. But at the end of the day, Swerve is a Main Event guy and Ricochet just isn't, I don't care how you dress him up.  I didn't see Ricochet winning this match...and he didn't. Much like the first two matches, this wasn't a bad match...but I wouldn't say it was great.  They definitely kicked it up a notch for the finishing sequence though...that was excellent.  And thankfully, this result means that Swerve is going back to the Main Event where he clearly belongs.

-> Okada vs. Brody King. Not going to lie, I was expecting more from this match. When I stopped watching AEW, Brody King seemed like he was just on the verge of breaking through, and based on this match he really hasn't done it yet. I freely admit I am not a New Japan guy.  I saw those matches with Omega and a couple of excellent matches with Naito, but I never saw most of the matches which supposedly made Okada the legend people say he is. To me, in AEW he is presented as just a guy and this was just a match.  Much like everything else on this card so far, this was good...but this match would not have been out of place on TV.

-> The Tag Team Title match was the first match I had a serious issue with. I have a friend who is a huge AEW fan and loves The Outrunners. He was actually hyped about this match, for some reason and was trying to convince me that I don't "get" The Outrunners. I am familiar with them, I saw them in OVW and I'm pretty sure I saw them in Billy Corgan's NWA as well. I guess they are a comedy act, and supposedly they move a lot of merchandise (for AEW.) Here's my problem.  AEW has, by my estimation: The Undisputed Kingdom, 2.0, The Gunns, Big Bill & Brian Keith, The Gates of Agony, Top Flight, Lio Rush & Action Andretti, The Righteous , Private Party, The Von Erichs, MxM Collection, The Young Bucks, Shane Taylor Promotions, about a million combinations of different Luchadores and...oh yeah...FTR, who are the greatest Tag Team in Pro Wrestling right now, and maybe of all time.  And I know I'm missing other teams on top of these I just listed. And of all of those different options, AEW decides to put The Hurt Syndicate vs. The Outrunners on PPV?  Come on.  When you have a Tag Team division that is as stacked as theirs, if you don't use it...that's just shitty booking.  And this match was basically just a glorified squash, so I'm not really sure what the point was.

-> Toni Storm vs. Mariah May.  So I know from reading the reactions online that this was the match that made this show for everybody. I've seen people saying it is an all time classic, that it should have been the Main Event, etc. etc. etc., and all that. Problem is that I haven't been following the weekly TV so I wasn't really caught up in the ongoing story/angle/feud. The other issue is, I don't really like garbage matches and I especially don't enjoy them when it's Women's Wrestling. This match wasn't bad and I'd never say it was boring, but the best way to describe it would be to say that it wasn't for me. It didn't appeal to me, and it that makes me out of touch, I can live with that.

-> Omega vs. Takeshita. This match and the cage match were basically the whole reason I watched this show. I thought this match was hands down the best match on the show, and overall I think it was outstanding. My biggest complaints about Kenny Omega are that his matches are too long, there are too many damn false finishes, and he doesn't sell.  This match was on the long side, but it didn't bother me any.  There were a ton of false finishes, but I think that was pretty much appropriate to the match...and the psychology was outstanding.  The announcers did an excellent job of selling how dangerous this match was for Omega due to his recent surgery, and Takeshita and Omega did an excellent job of focusing on that.  The spot where Takeshita dropped Omega gut first across the chair was executed to perfection. This was one of the best matches I have seen in a long time. If AEW was stuff like this, I'd still be watching every week. Just outstanding stuff.

-> Fletcher vs. Ospreay. On the positive side, I really have to give it to TK and AEW. The last time I was watching AEW with any regularity, Kyle Fletcher was a skinny geek who certainly had a ton of potential, but that was about it.  Dude looks like a legit superstar now. It's been a pretty amazing transformation, and TK and Fletcher deserve a ton of credit for it.  THIS is how you develop original talent, and that way you don't have to depend on 50 year old WWE hand-me-downs. And as annoying as I find him, Ospreay is probably one of five best Pro Wrestlers active in the World today.  As far as the match goes...my feelings are mixed. As I stated earlier, I don't like garbage matches. They have been overdone to the point where they just don't mean anything anymore.  I used to be an FMW/ECW fan, and now I'm at the point where if I never saw another table spot, barbed wire bat, or thumbtack again, I'd be perfectly happy with that.  And if you absolutely have to do that kind of stuff...you do it ONCE per PPV. Toni Storm and Mariah May already did the hardcore crap earlier, so to me, this was just gratuitous and unnecessary. I was kind of hoping we were going to see two great wrestlers have a wrestling match in a cage, but of course we didn't.  Honestly, I don't see the upside in matches like this.  These guys don't need props, it kills the crowd, and you run the risk of guys getting injured...and for what?  I get that this was a blood feud or whatever, but I was honestly disappointed with this match.

-> Cope vs. Moxley. Here's the thing...one of the reasons I quit watching AEW was because I fucking loathe Jon Moxley. There is literally nothing about him that I like. There might be somebody in Pro Wrestling who is more overrated than he is, but I can't think of who. People like to bag on LA Knight as a Stone Cold/Rock ripoff, but to me Moxley is like a hybrid Mick Foley/Stone Cold ripoff, without any skill or charisma. For a supposed brawler, his offense is laughably bad. His promos are unconvincing and comically corny, and on top of all that, I am pretty sure that he's just a legitimately stupid human being, based on every interview I have ever seen with him.  I don't hate Adam Copeland, but he has no business being anywhere near the Main Event scene at this point in his career.  And if you go to Cagematch and check his Won/Loss record since coming back from his injury in 2020, it becomes glaringly obvious that dude does NOT like doing jobs.  I have seen interviews with him (especially after he signed with AEW) where he talked about working with younger talent, and I know he is close buddies with FTR and he hinted that at some point that he and Christian wanted to work a program with them. YES PLEASE.  Give me Copeland and Christian vs. FTR.  Hell, make it for the Tag Team Titles, it's not like it could be any worse than what is happening in the AEW Tag Title scene right now.  But if Copeland really does want to start helping younger talent, he needs to get on with it, because he's starting to look his age.

Let's be honest...this match was awful.  I didn't love this PPV, but up until the Main Event you can't honestly say there had been anything resembling a "bad" match on this show.  Not all of them were to my taste, but everybody worked hard, the crowd was into it, and the show had momentum, until this match sucked all that right out of the building. A great way to tell if a match sucks is if the commentators have to make some excuse why the crowd is being so quiet...and very early into this match, Excalibur did just that.  On top of everything else, this match managed to make Christian look like a geek, so good job TK. Here's what needs to be done:

- Copeland needs to go to the midcard where he belongs, working with younger talent and actually putting them over.

- Swerve needs to beat Jon Moxley for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship, and go on to face Omega, Ospreay, Fletcher, Okada, Hobbs, or one of the other countless AEW guys who deserve the spot.

- Jon Moxley needs to be strapped to a rocket which is then shot directly into the sun.

Problem solved.

Overall, this was a really good show.  I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as a lot of people did because I don't like garbage matches, but if you can't watch a match like Omega vs. Takeshita, then I don't know what to tell you.  Bottom line is, shows like this generally aren't aimed at fans like me but I managed to find stuff to enjoy anyhow. If Tony Khan clears the crap out of the Main Event scene, I might actually go back to watching AEW TV again...especially since because thanks to their new Canadian TV deal, I don't have to pay to watch it anymore.

[WingedEagle]

I hope that awful main event is a wakeup call and they strap up Swerve again next month en route to building Swerve/Page for Texas. An incredibly strong, deep show marred by a terrible main event.

[sek69]

  On 3/10/2025 at 5:43 PM, The Thread Killer said:

People like to bag on LA Knight as a Stone Cold/Rock ripoff, but to me Moxley is like a hybrid Mick Foley/Stone Cold ripoff, without any skill or charisma.

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Mox wants to be American Onita, right down to using Wild Thing as his music pre-Death Riders. The guy's practically his role model.

[KingBoggs33]

I just wish that a steel cage match would actually be respected as such. Meaning it’s dumb as hell to have someone just randomly bring in bolt cutters and come into the match for no reason whatsoever. Nobody wants to see Mark Davis get involved. It did nothing to the story and to make it worse. He decided to blade as well. Which was absolutely pointless. 

That was my main issue to many people bled and for no reason. Someone made a comment about WWE turning into Starrcade 85. So what do you call this? It’s obvious the producers for the matches don’t go over things to make sure things are being saved to be special. 

I thought that the woman’s match was good but it didn’t need that much blood or really any blood for that matter. Call me whatever you want but I felt uncomfortable watching women bleed in a wrestling match. I was not a fan of that and it ruined the whole experience for me and the glass on the gloves made it really uncomfortable for me and I just went back to playing 2K25 and quit watching. I know I’m not the market for that match but I don’t really know who is honestly. I guess it’s for the sickos. 

The main event was about as piss poor booking as you could get. Why they decided to fuck over the Christian angle and make that contract be pointless is very stupid. I read Fightful said that the decision was made a week going into the PPV. Which just means TK never had direction for it and was just throwing shit at a wall and hoping it stuck. So congrats TK you managed to make all three men look like goobers. 

That was a good PPV though. I also found it funny they signed The Costco Guys to a contract when they are about to use up their 15 minutes of fame. 

I say a solid 7/10. 

[KawadaSmile]

Didn't Mox have the idea to have his program with Punk go on like Rocky 3? With him in the Clubber Lang role?

And now he's the top champ choking people, retiring fools and all that? And no one stopped him in his bullshit?

LOL.

[NintendoLogic]

Omega/Takeshita was indeed excellent (I noped out of Storm/May when it turned into a Taipei death match). The internal narrative probably wasn't deep enough to justify the length, but there were plenty of cool moments and nothing that grossly offended my sensibilities. I dug Omega having to get the win with a cradle because the damage to his midsection made him unable to execute the OWA. I also popped for Don Callis hurting his hand when he punched Omega. We need to make wimpy managers a thing again.

[strobogo]

Petition to rename the Muta Scale to the Toni Scale. Also lmao this storyline with all the references to 30s 40s classics including Ben Mankiewicz doing multiple appearances during it ending up in a Bloodsport reference. 

[NintendoLogic]

  On 3/11/2025 at 2:06 PM, strobogo said:

Petition to rename the Muta Scale to the Toni Scale. Also lmao this storyline with all the references to 30s 40s classics including Ben Mankiewicz doing multiple appearances during it ending up in a Bloodsport reference. 

Expand  

You mean Kickboxer, right?

[strobogo]

I guess I did. Those movies are blurred together in my brain.

[The Thread Killer]

  On 3/11/2025 at 3:07 PM, strobogo said:

I guess I did. Those movies are blurred together in my brain.

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Come on, man. Bloodsport > Kickboxer by every definable metric.

[El-P]

MJF vs Hangman into Mone vs Momo into Ricochet vs Swerve : best 3 opening match sequence ever. Great match after great match after great match.

Okada vs Brody was a Savage WCW match : "You beat my ass, then Rainmaker". Brody looked terrific.

piss-break match (after 6 months or so in the company, the Hurt Syndicate are still producing jackshit, tag titles are deader than dead, fix this)

Then...

Toni vs Mariah : MOTYC (loved Mariah & Toni paying hommage to Ian & Axl)

into

Omega vs Takeshita : MOTYC (Omega is a genius at pro-wrestling)

into

Ospreay vs Fletcher : MOTYC (I have no words)

Ridiculous.

A few big spots & the bullshit "saved" a main event that had no business main-eventing. Closing the show with Swerve, which I totally expected (likewise getting rid of the stupid cash-in gimmick, hopefully they don't do it anymore ever), was the right choice, because the show had already peaked. 3 times.

Ridiculous streak of classic matches, interrupted by a pathetic tag team title match (get the belts back on great tag teams; job Lashley to Swerve and off my TV they can disappear) and a misplaced (and really, which should not have been booked despite the decent build-up of the last few weeks) world title match (Swerve needs to beat Mox next month and the Deathriders storyline ends, it was a failure, time to wrap up, NOW).

Almost a legit GOAT show. Almost. In term of pure peak quality, probably at the very top.

[Microstatistics]

I attended live. Really good show with 4 hours of compelling wrestling. The tag match and the ending were the only misfires.

MJF vs. Adam Page: Solid opener, albeit a little long. I would have liked some more hateful brawling but MJF's heel antics were fun. **3/4

Mercedes Mone vs. Momo Watanabe: Very good stuff as you'd expect from Mercedes. First time watching Momo and she was a little slow on the uptake but grew into the match and story. ***1/2

Swerve Strickland vs. Ricochet: This was shockingly good and maybe the best match of the night, the last thing I would have expected. Great action, even if Ricochet's selling wasn't the best, and the Nana story was incorporated very organically. ***1/2

Kazuchika Okada vs. Brody King: This was alright but pretty by-the-numbers. Seeing Okada sell like a comedy heel was strange (even if he did it quite well). **1/2

Hurt Syndicate vs. Outrunners: Shelton looked good as always but this was terrible and a complete waste of time. Should have been a 3 min squash instead. *1/2

Toni Storm vs. Mariah May: Their All In match was my 2024 AEW MOTY and while this didn't hit those heights, it was the perfect ending to a memorable trilogy. Few of the transitions and selling were rather lazy but the violence and vitriol were on point, to a disturbing degree. Excellent, climactic finish. This should have been the main event. ***1/2

Kenny Omega vs. Konosuke Takeshita: Pretty good, better than their All Out 2023 match in terms of psychology. Takeshita looked like a beast and Kenny worked well as the underdog vet. Don Callis drew crazy heat. Great finish that protected both guys. ***

Will Ospreay vs. Kyle Fletcher: Maybe I was a little burned out after 3 hours because the start was so slow and devoid of anything interesting. But they won me over by the end with the escalation of crazy spots and violence, though the repeated blood consumption spots were revolting. ***1/4

Jon Moxley vs. Cope: The match itself was actually ok (Moxley's off-selling notwithstanding) but the finish was nonsensical and completely killed the crowd. They had a truly great ending right there with Christian's crafty one-handed pin but instead made him look like a complete chump. **1/4

[Tetsujin]

Sorry, and no offense, but people complaining about women bleeding in wrestling brawls is so weird an uncomfortable. It's 2025.

[DMJ]

I'm cool with people not liking it and owning it as something they personally find difficult to watch. Is it misogynistic or sexist or whatever...I don't care, I think its okay to just find it "icky." There are worse things people choose to hate that they should be judged on than whether or not they want to see women do blade-jobs. 

It worked for me because I found it to be very amusingly and absurdly over-the-top in the same way that Toni's Timeless gimmick is.

Its like, the Timeless gimmick is soooo heavy-handed and deliberate and extra as the kids say. It is absurd.

So, if she's going to do a big, tasteless hardcore match, it has to be equally extra and over-the-top and absurd. Like, a trickle of blood wouldn't work - it needed to be BUCKETS. And it was.

 

[MikeCampbell]

I watched the show live with a bunch of friends. We all lost our collective minds during the Hollywood Ending, an absolutely perfect way to blow off a longstanding feud (or as one might say: FINISH. THE. STORY).  Then they lost their shit again for Omega/Takeshita, and I was like "It's fine, but I don't think it's all that great." Then they lost their shit again for the cage match and again my response was "Really? I don't see it?" I thought that Toni and Mariah just burned me out, and I coudln't fully appreciate what they were doing. So, after some time to decompress, I fired them both up again last night. Honestly, nothing much changed for me. Both of them had nearly 30 minutes and didn't accomplish what Toni and Mariah did in less than half.

 

Takeshita/Omega was straight out a 00's NOAH main event with Kobashi. The midsection stuff was great, with Kenny taking some truly nasty bumps. But, other than his inability to do the One Winged Angel, it never felt like he was truly inhibited. To the point where Takeshita was hitting elbows right in the ribs and Omega wasn't even registering them. I will give them credit for a smart finish, with Omega escaping the Raging Fire instead of taking it and kicking out, and outwrestling Takeshita to win. But, it just felt too long and drawn out for what all they did.

 

Look up "Overkill" in the dictionary and you'll find a pic of the Osprey/Fletcher cage match. Run ins, buckets of blood, tons of props, at least three different points in the match that should have been an absolute murder death kill sort of finish, only for a regular ass hidden blade to do it,while Fletcher is screaming his head off.