On Sunday, March 5th, AEW put on their first pay-per-view of 2023, Revolution. After the quarterly AEW PPV cycle online going from “what is this build how am I supposed to get excited for this” to “that was incredible thank you Tony Khan you’re my father now” it’s time to kick back and reflect on the show that AEW put on. Revolution this year was a (mostly) nonstop hard-hitting affair that made four hours fly by, and that’s including an hour-long iron man main event. Without further ado, let’s look at a play-by-play of the matches from AEW Revolution.
Ricky Starks vs. Chris Jericho
This is maybe the match I was looking forward to least on the card, so it’s great that it was up first! Ricky doesn’t do a whole lot for me personally, and this feud has been completely bizarre over the past few weeks. Ricky wins a match but he’s not happy with the finish so he wants to do it again, dooming him to more time on the JAS event horizon. Aside from all that, this match was pretty solid. Jericho has gotten a lot more used to a slower, more methodical pace and because of his new pacing, his moves feel very deliberate. Sure you see a lot more of the Judas Effect but when he busts out a Lionsault it feels like a way bigger deal.
With Ricky, I can see why people like him, he is incredibly talented in-ring and there have been promos he’s cut where I’ve seen what other people have but he just doesn’t click. Despite me not really caring I was surprised by this match, there were a few very good spots, chief among them Jericho countering Starks’ spear with a Codebreaker. The JAS being banned from ringside ultimately doesn’t matter much except for Sammy Guevara coming out anyway to try to do a distraction finish that doesn’t work and establishing that Action Andretti is still trapped firmly in the JAS’ orbit for the time being. At just under 14 minutes this match doesn’t overstay its welcome, with some memorable spots and a seeming end to Starks vs the JAS feud, I would give this match a solid 7/10.
“Jungle Boy” Jack Perry vs. Christian Cage
The casket match being called “The Final Burial” is a bit of the agonizing wink wink nudge nudge do you get it wrestling online smart marks nonsense that AEW does sometimes. In a perfect world, this match would have been done ages ago, and Jack Perry would have been off to other feuds, but this is wrestling and the reality is that people get hurt and it’s best they take all the time they need to heal. This match was one where you remember it being good but the more you try to remember it the more you can feel the details slipping out of your grasp. Neither wrestler is bad; Christian took all the late career skills from Edge in the divorce and Jungle Boy is an incredibly athletic and talented young wrestler.
The problem with this match is that to me it felt very much like a formality. This is a blowoff to a feud artificially stretched by injury with a few pit stops for Perry while he waited. A lot of fleeing from Cage, Perry in close pursuit, and some fun dirty tricks from both parties outside of the casket. Jack Perry is one of the people on my list of “would have been really fun to watch in an ECW match I found on YouTube in 240p,” and he takes to matches with stipulations like this really well. In all, a solid match with the most memorable thing about being the coffin dropping when Jungle Boy shut the lid on Christian, 6/10.
AEW Trios Championship: The Elite vs. House of Black
YEAH, BABY. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! THIS IS REAL WRESTLING. This is the kind of match that would have me pacing watching it if I wasn’t sitting in a movie theater. Absolutely non-stop, pulse-pounding action from start to finish. As someone who is a sworn hater of the House of Black, I could feel this match slowly chip away at the stone that surrounded my heart until I didn’t care who won, I just wanted it to keep going forever like a pro wrestling Valhalla.
It wasn’t personal with the House of Black, I’ve made my stance on wrestling lore known, it’s just that nothing they could have done would have made me happy or gotten them over with me. It doesn’t matter that they got the guy who played Pinhead to narrate their endless video packages, they could have had vignettes directed by John Carpenter, what mattered is that they were only ever scary against jobbers. It’s one thing to talk big but it’s another to talk big and never once win a match when it mattered, it became impossible to take them seriously. Adding onto that people caught in feuds would end up misted which would cause dark, serious changes such as nothing in Miro’s case, or nothing in the case of Pac, or even a gimmick change in Penta’s case that resulted in, you guessed it, nothing.
But this match was different, the House of Black was a threat to someone that had an entrance theme. The Elite’s tandem offense worked on a bulky bruiser like Buddy Matthews, who looked way better in this match than he maybe ever has in AEW, but it doesn’t work on the slippery Malakai and it definitely didn’t work on the mountainous Brody King. They felt like a unit, each fulfilling a different role that brings something to the team. Buddy Matthews is a shock trooper, starting the match out against Kenny Omega and coming to aid whenever possible no matter how much punishment he takes. Malakai Black is a tactician, with the showy yet precise offense he ends up looking like a fighting game character in the ring. Brody King feels like a monster and is one of the best big men in the business if not the best. He felt like a Terminator, eating move after move and moving forward, completely unstoppable, an obstacle that has to be overcome while his teammates plan their moves around him.
The Elite, as always looked incredible, but they weren’t prepared for a team like House of Black. Kenny Omega is observant, not letting Julia Hart distract him, scouting that she’s buying time for her teammates to set up an attack. The Bucks, however, are not. Buddy Matthews, the first one out, the one who story-wise barely wants to be with this group interrupts the Bucks because they weren’t paying enough attention and the House of Black won. This is what they should have been this entire time. 10/10.
AEW Women’s World Championship: Jamie Hayter vs. Saraya vs. Ruby Soho
It’s alright, there’s just a general cloud of malaise over this match for me. Maybe it’s because I’m not as big on Jamie Hayter as other people are, maybe it’s because I don’t really care about the AEW “homegrowns” vs “outsiders” (both groups have women that worked extensively in indies before their work in major promotions) but something didn’t click. Maybe it was just the adrenaline come down from the previous match.
Saraya looked better in this match than she did against Britt Baker but it still wasn’t the best. Jamie Hayter retained but this match felt more for the post angle, which did actually get me. Setting up for the past few weeks the begrudging teamwork between Ruby and Britt only for Ruby to turn on them in the post-match is an interesting swerve and it did interest me slightly. With Ruby on the Outsiders side, that means there’s more room for Willow (who has been wrestling since 2015) on the homegrown side, and she’s just delightful — 5/10.
Jon Moxley vs. Hangman Page
E C DUB! E C DUB! The only thing I disliked about this match was the absolutely tragic cover of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” Hangman came out to. Jon Moxley is such a pro when it comes to deathmatches and using props in interesting ways and Hangman and his El Desperado-inspired gear are no different. These are two wrestlers with a skill for showing some color.
When you see a match like this it’s easy to be cynical if you’re a deathmatch ghoul like me. The barbed wire is fake, the bricks are fake, but this isn’t a backyard deathmatch this is “airable on TV” deathmatch. Think less “MDK all f*ckin’ day” and more “MDK all freakin’ day,” the sentiment is the same but one will fly on a TV-14 rating. It’s not about any of that though, it’s about how well you can sell it. Anyone can put someone’s hand between two fake bricks and have someone else stomp on that hand sandwich, it takes talent to sell it like that other guy just broke half the bones in said hand. To their credit, AEW has gotten a lot better at hiding the fake elements in matches like this, which is a shame because all the work hiding how the barbed wire sorta slides off the wrestlers goes out the window when they show the entirety of Moxley blading.
While I love big ugly bloody messes, I will admit a decent chunk of the time it’s to cover up the fact that the wrestlers can’t really wrestle all that good, but that is not the case with either of these men. Mox is phenomenal, one of the best in the world, and most importantly incredibly adaptable. Mox is no high-flier but his entire skill set is in bringing wrestlers of all kinds down to his brutal, hard-hitting level. Hangman, however, is sprier, with a Buckshot Lariat finisher that exploded the leg muscles of at least two other wrestlers that have tried it over the last year. The match is a brutal back-and-forth between Moxley’s brutal momentum and Hangman’s fiery offense, interspersed with some incredibly nasty spots that make you wince no matter how fake you know it is.
In the end, Mox has spilled enough blood to make the Lucha Underground fan in me happy and Hangman stands victorious, hanging Moxley from the top rope with a chain forcing him to tap out. It’s a big win for Hangman in a story I wasn’t too keen on, and more importantly, it’s a big deal because no one makes Jon Moxley tap out. A brutal, teeth-gritting deathmatch that’s fun for the whole family, 9/10.
TNT Championship: Samoa Joe vs. Wardlow
A while ago I made the claim that I don’t want to see TV titles on PPVs. Keeping them on TV means that they’re not padding out the PPV but also, in a perfect world, it keeps them as belts you give to hot talents who aren’t main event level to give them consistent TV time so that they can get to that level. I won’t sit here and lie and say that the TNT title hasn’t had a rough year. They’ve been playing hot potato with this title between anyone who’s got space in their luggage to take the belt to the next show in such a way that it’s killed any prestige the belt may have had. The last time Wardlow had the TNT championship, a TV belt, he vanished off of TV. All of this discussion of the horrible, no good, very bad year the title has had is a preamble to my review of this match: Bad.
Samoa Joe, hot off back-to-back banger title defenses against Darby Allin, has an absolute stinker ahead of him here. The problem with the Darby/Joe dynamic vs. the Wardlow/Joe dynamic is Darby makes Joe look powerful because Darby’s an insane person who will let Samoa Joe throw him around like a ragdoll. Wardlow, however, is also powerful, but also a lot more limited than Darby. When you pair someone who is supposed to come off as powerful but is limited in what they can do with a 43-year-old man whose years of insane bumps are catching up with him you get an immensely sluggish unsatisfying match.
Here’s the major problem: Tony Khan doesn’t know what to do with Wardlow. You might think “but isn’t TK a huge fan of WCW? Why does he not just do what they did to make Goldberg, who was more limited than Wardlow, look powerful for Wardlow?” These are all very good questions but in life, we must be content that we will never know all the answers. There was a stretch where Wardlow was booked solid, and not just against jobbers, but a shambolic TNT title run where he played second fiddle to FTR in an uncharacteristically terrible Motor City Machine Guns match (on a PPV no less), cut a promo that began with him saying “people on the internet have been saying I’m bad,” and teamed with Samoa Joe and was surprised when Joe, the least trustworthy wrestler in four separate companies, turned on him, and he never really had a chance.
In the match itself, we cut to Hobbs clutching a giant Sonic ring which means it’s his turn on the TV title run and also they’re on commentary talking about how that match is Wednesday (!!) so is it any surprise that Hobbs goes on to win the TNT title back from Wardlow after 3 (!!!) days? YES because even in inglorious defeat Wardlow has to have the dignity Shang Tsung soul sucked out of him because the person that does him in is QT Marshall (!!!!) while the commentators scramble to remind you “hey remember when Hobbs and Marshall were friends? No? Well here’s the payoff.” Goodnight Wardlow’s momentum, sweet prince, may you be remembered at all, 4/10.
AEW World Tag Team Championship Four-Way
Alright look, we all know why this was here right? We have this match so that The Acclaimed can burn their rematch clause, the Gunns can retain, FTR can come back with a heel tag team to target, and most importantly Double J Jeff Jarrett, the best in the world at carny bag chasing, can get that sweet sweet PPV payday. Do not let my flippant attitude fool you, this match was a lot of fun. All four are good at their own blend of comedy that meshes really well and leads to a lot of genuinely funny spots and on top of that they’re all good wrestlers.
The only real complaint I have is that there are not a whole lot of surprises. Gunns are solid slimy heels, Sonjay Dutt and Satnam Singh are at ringside for comedy pratfalls, the Acclaimed will get the “scissor me” pop, and Billy “Daddy Ass” Gun will show off his 4-foot vertical leap at nearly 60. I’ll tell you one surprise that Danhausen guy can go. He’s been injured and thus relegated to a manager role for so long and any matches he’s been in it’s been in recovery mode. Incredible worker in a stable of other incredible workers and I’m very excited to see more of him.
All in all, I don’t actually have much to say about the match. A perfectly good tag match with some bits that popped me huge in service of a not-very-surprising return post-match angle, 8/10.
AEW World Championship: MJF (c) vs. Bryan Danielson
Let me be the first to admit, I doubted this match. I didn’t doubt the wrestling chops of MJF and I would be a complete idiot to doubt Danielson, but 60 minutes? An entire hour? I have never been more glad to be wrong. This match cleared my expectations after 30 minutes and in the last half of the match people in the theater were out of their seats with excitement.
When it comes to Iron Man matches there’s a bit of time you have to give them to spin up, especially ones that go for an hour. The first 15 minutes of this match were a bit slow, but even slow feels too negative because it’s still fantastic. There’s something MJF does where he and his opponent roll around in weird ball-chaining pin attempts and with certain opponents, it looks goofy but Danielson played it so well that they were able to carry it out longer than that spot usually goes and kept it captivating.
There’s so much character in the match, and the decision to have no rest between pinfalls/submissions/points scored really kept things moving and played into that. Danielson scored a point legitimately to get a leg up? MJF gets a low blow giving Danielson a second point but then follows up with two consecutive pinfalls to tie it up. The buildup, with MJF targeting Danielson’s arm, sending wrestlers after him to constantly apply pressure to the limb and keep it injured, and trying to get under Danielson’s skin pays off brilliantly. As Danielson has overcome the odds week after week Max has become more and more unhinged, afraid Bryan will beat him and take the Title, the only thing in his life with any meaning. This is not a cocky, joking MJF this is a frantic and frustrated Maxwell Jacob Friedman. His need to keep the belts results in him doing things he doesn’t usually do, like going up to the top rope to elbow-drop Danielson through a table on the outside.
As the minutes tick on and the score remains tied, 2-2 becomes 4-4 and Max becomes more frenzied, leaving the ring to drink from water bottles placed under the ring constantly. As Danielson applies hold after hold Max has to fight the urge to tap and cede the win and crawl to the ropes. In these moments we see the Champ humbled, despite all his attempts he can’t beat his opponent with words and realizes he’s outmatched. With 5 minutes left on the clock both men, covered in blood, show their true colors: Max with tears streaming down his face and Danielson cackling like a maniac. In the end, Max survives, the match ends 4-4 with him retaining by default, he is administered oxygen while Danielson is tended to in the corner. This incredible match ends in a draw.
Until it doesn’t.
Tony Schiavone walks to the ring, Tony Khan has said there will be no draw. This match will go to sudden death overtime, next fall wins. The two trade near falls, Danielson applies a Boston crab but Max escapes to the outside. When Danielson chases he’s met with an oxygen tank to the face, Max hides the evidence and applies a Lebell lock. Danielson submits, MJF retains.
MJF has been, since his return at All Out, spotty. The situation with Punk threw several wrenches into several works and as a whole the company took a bit to find its footing again. You can point to quarter hours and demographics but the shadow of Punk loomed over the back half of the year, storytelling-wise for AEW. No one was hit harder than MJF, having to hastily create a feud with Moxley and turn a crowd accustomed to cheering to booing him. His promos have felt spotty, but this Danielson story is a return to form. Is it him revisiting the Labours of Jericho? Yes, but this is MJF planting the seeds for what’s to come. We’ve seen where he goes when his back is up against the wall, how do others exploit that? And what does this mean for Bryan Danielson going forward? This is the stuff that makes pro wrestling worth watching.
Wrap Up
This PPV was incredible, enhanced even more by watching it in a theater. AEW PPVs being great is usually a safe bet, even if the product is faltering week to week they pull it together for the big shows. To say that and move on feels like it’s backhanded to a show like this, this felt like a genuine step forward for the promotion. Yes, the matches are great, but the camera work was more dynamic this show, likely due to a series of behind-the-scenes hires Tony Khan has made over the past year.
To wrap this whole review up I would give this show a 9.
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