Last year, Revolution was highlighted by the retirement match of the icon, Sting, who had a 40-year career, and while the car crash aspects of his final bout weren’t needed, the general consensus was that it was a successful show and the buy rate for the pay-per-view reflected that, as it drew one of the better PPV numbers of 2024 for the company.
This year, All Elite Wrestling’s Revolution event underscored the main notion usually associated with the product, the structure or lack thereof will often see one step forward and then two steps back. There’s a reason that viewership has declined 40% in the past two and a half years, and no amount of star ratings are going to provide the solution. In fact, one event or even a series of events within themselves are going to be the key to an upswing for the organization, but rather a consistent effort toward quality and logic that builds the overall perception of the promotion over the course of time.
There was undoubtedly a lack of consistency and quality control during this pay-pay-view.
One of the issues that will probably always be there for any Tony Khan-produced card is the lack of a measured approach to the line-up, mostly because tailoring the time given to an individual segment would require booking, not just matches on the page. The opening three matches on the card were all given about 20 minutes, while the middle of the card were given about 10 minutes, and the last three bouts were given thirty minutes each. That copy and paste approach doesn’t take into account if the match-ups or specific storylines truly justified that amount of time, What if one of the first three matches would’ve peaked earlier than one of the others and instead of that twenty-minute mark, which saw a drag toward the conclusion, 15 minutes would’ve been much for suitable?
It sounds trivial, but a lack of precision created a flat point when matches went an extra few minutes too long. Furthermore, the absolute disregard for any logic as far as how much you can throw at the audience, or the effectiveness of something if was already seen earlier in the night was ridiculous at certain points of the show.
The show opened with MJF/Adam Page, two guys that were a part of the company at its inception, and also two performers that the argument could be made were less over after they were AEW champion than they were prior because of the subpar booking of each reign. Much like Page’s baby face character at the moment, this feud with MJF was lukewarm at best, and even MJF, who was supposed to be future of the company, has cooled off considerably. Aside from the fact that he wasn’t on television as often in recent months because of the Happy Gilmore movie, he was beaten down by the Undisputed Kingdom, a faction that worked the pre-show before Revolution, at the last pay-per-view. Yes, I understand that the premise of the angle was that MJF attacked Christopher Daniels, but with as many baby face and heel switches as Page had in the past year, it’s a tough sell to get the audience to rally behind him.
The match was solid for what it was, but on a four-hour pay-per-view, they were kicking out of finishing moves and at one point, MJF landed a tombstone on a chair on the outside of the ring. Sure, Friedman is smart enough to be in the opener of most of his PPV appearances so he doesn’t have to follow a stunt show, but at the same time, this contest went to the floor when neither the match or the angle justified those types of bumps. Page got the victory, but it’s doubtful that, just as mentioned earlier, one match or angle, in this case for Hangman specifically, is going to be the major upswing in his AEW career.
Next up was Mercedes Mone defending the TBS title against Momo Watanabe. In a similar fashion to the first match, the was a solid in-ring performance, but this was an example of something that went too long and was hindered in its quality in the process. It’s important to point that Watanabe is a good performer, but very little was done to truly introduce her to the audience, and if this is a one-off match for the PPV, wouldn’t the TV time have been better used to establish someone under a full-time contract?
Also similar to the opening match, this bout had bumps on the floor and on the apron, which only hampers the effectiveness of some of the more dangerous bumps later in the night. The audience can only watch so many car crash spots before it becomes routine. Mercedes retained the title, and the match was decent, but this was presented in a slapstick manner rather than anything the audience should’ve been invested in as far as the result. If there were plans for Watanabe and she got the “shocking” win, maybe there could’ve been some substance to the contest, but in terms of importance, it didn’t have the ingredients to truly have anything at stake, especially when it was fairly obvious that Mercedes wasn’t dropping the belt.
Ricochet vs. Swerve Strickland was the third match in a row to get assigned twenty minutes, and ironically, or unironically depending on your perspective, it’s yet another bout that the same thing can be said that was mentioned for the first two matches on the card. It was a solid segment, but it had a reverse hurricanrana on the apron and then a vertabreaker on the announce table in the third match of a nine match card. At this point, what bumps hasn’t the audience already seen? There was also a death valley driver on the floor that looked nasty. There was only another three hours of the show, which again, means every dangerous bump after this was less important than it would’ve been otherwise. Swerve got the win to become the number one contender for the AEW world championship. If he has the momentum to be a credible challenger, especially after he was somewhat lost in the shuffle after the Adam Page feud, remains to be seen.
The next portion of the card was the matches that were given about 10 minutes, and while the copy/paste approach shouldn’t be used like this on a pay-per-view, the next set of bouts were much more digestible, simply because with only 10 minutes, nothing dragged and there wasn’t enough time for any of them to jump the shark in terms of bumps or high spots. I want to make this clear, the first three bouts weren’t lackluster, and in a vacuum, they were very solid, but in the context of a full pay-per-view, particularly after the Swerve/Ricochet contest, where they kicked out of finishers and took bumps on the floor, apron, and announce tables, it was too much of a car crash to the point that it diluted the rest of the card.
Kazuchika Okada beat Brody King to retain the Continental title, and even though the result was obvious since there wasn’t much steam behind this storyline, this was still very well done, mostly because Brody King was given the chance to look like a strong contender against the more established champion. That said, I’m not sure what’s next for either of them, but I will still say that Okada should be in something more important than a spot in the middle of the card. There’s not much to say about the tag title match, other than it was a dominate win for the champions. The Out Runners are an entertaining comedy duo, but there was no reason, or any point during the segment, that it looked like they had any chance to win the titles.
The AEW Women’s title match was the definition of overkill, and a prime example of how the company takes one step forward and then two steps back. As I’ve written previously, the Toni Storm/Mariah May feud was well done, specifically because it established May as a legitimate heel within the All Elite landscape. She went from a secondary lackey to a star for the company, which should be the goal in terms of making new money-drawing stars for the future. There’s no doubt that a grudge match is justified for the payoff. That being said, this bout went too far in almost every aspect. First, Toni put Mariah through a table off the stage in the first two minutes of the match. In theory, that should be the conclusion of the segment, not the kickoff to the contest. Furthermore, while it’s great to see women’s wrestling get the spotlight in deserves, and females can definitely and have been the main event of major pay-per-views, there’s just something unsettling about seeing Storm and May bleeding everywhere. I don’t mean that in any type of misogynistic way at all, but rather to point out that there will be a portion of the audience that doesn’t want to see females bleeding on the show. Let’s be honest here, Toni Storm and Mariah May are much prettier than Bruiser Brody and Abdullah the Butcher so it’s much easier to watch Abby and Brody bleed than the ladies.
Toni Storm bled buckets, and don’t get me wrong, both women put in a tremendous effort, but regardless of if this was the female division or not, the argument could be made that the amount of blood was too gory for a national promotion. Keep in mind, this isn’t an independent show in a parking lot in front of 200 fans, it’s the second largest pro wrestling group in the United States. It’s very possible that something this gory could sour some of the audience on the product. Toni Storm retained the belt, but instead of a satisfying payoff to a storyline that had legitimate progress for the company, it will probably be known as a polarizing segment.
The final third of the card was those thirty-minute matches that were mentioned earlier, and this is where the lack of restraint so to speak previously led to diminishing returns as the latter portion of the card unfolded. Kenny Omega vs. Konosuke Takeshita was an incredible display of fast-paced, hard-hitting action. This was top-notch quality, and it would’ve meant a lot more and stood out a lot more if Ricochet/Swerve wasn’t a lesser version of it about an hour prior to it. Just like the bout that Swerve won, Omega/Takeshita had the high spots, the bumps on the floor, and the bumps on the table. The thirty-minute edition was better, but you can only show the audience so much of he same stuff until it becomes just a homogenized presentation that blends together rather than stands out. Following a good series of counters, Omega got the pin to win the International championship, but unfortunately, this probably got lost in the shuffle rather than being known as something memorable.
Very similar to the Women’s title match, the Will Ospreay/Kyle Fletcher cage match was a longer version of a blood bath segment. The effort was there, but there’s no reason a match like the women’s title should be booked on the same card as the cage match if there’s going to be both competitors bleeding in both matches. It’s simply just a matter of diminishing returns. It was also similar in that there’s a case to be made that the cage match was too gory and could sour some of the audience. More specifically, tasting an opponent’s blood is just disgusting and there’s no point or entertainment value from it. The Spanish fly off of the top of the cage was insane, but of course, it wasn’t the finish, they had to be another series of moves before Ospreay got the win to devalue the legitimate risk of the bump from the top of the cage.
By the time the main event was in the ring, there were so many car crashes and repetitive bumps that the pay-per-view became an exhausting viewing experience. Jon Moxley and Adam Copeland were in a no-win situation because the audience had already seen everything and short of setting someone on fire, there probably wasn’t a realistic chance that they were going to get a crowd reaction during this match. So, the audience was quiet throughout the majority of the segment. Ultimately, the match was rather meticulous and didn’t develop any type of anticipation or drama toward the conclusion.
Prior to the finish, Christian Cage cashed in his title shot, and with the way this was done, I got the impression that Tony Khan didn’t have any plan for what to do with Cage, and instead needed a way write the title shot off of the show. If Christian being the one that was choked out to allow Moxley to get the victory was done as a way to continue the Copeland feud, I’m dreading the rematch. Edge was a tremendous star, but I just don’t see the upside of building the main event scene around a 51-year-old former WWE guy with a history of neck injuries when the company has Ospreay, Takeshita, and Okada on the roster.
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Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
