A Pay-Per-View Event by AEW

It has been a crazy few months in AEW. Cody Rhodes has seemingly quit the company as of last month, and Tony Khan outright purchased Ring of Honor Wrestling. Fans saw appearances by Keith Lee, Jay White and many more adding some new blood to the roster yet again. With the rapid expansion, I hope the company can stay balanced and not collapse under it’s own weight, but I’m sure everything is in good hands. Going into Revolution 2022, the above BIG changes seemed to catch some off guard, and as a result some storylines abruptly ended and new ones started up. The finally got there, and the show seems to have coalesced into one of the better cards they have ever had. No big gimmicks, no big promises, just some solid wrestling on the card. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on this show.

For anyone wanting to watch this, I would recommend Fite.TV. you can get some FITE credits (10 dollars I believe) with the following code: “6m6lyyn”. I’m sure there are other ways to watch it, but FITE has a solid interface and has been worth it so far.

The Card:

• 1P “Legit” Leyla Hirsch defeated Kris Statlander by pinfall Singles match 9:50
• 2P Hook defeated QT Marshall by submission Singles match 5:00
• 3P House of Black (Malakai Black, Brody King, and Buddy Matthews) defeated Death Triangle (Pac and Penta Oscuro) (with Alex Abrahantes) and Erick Redbeard by pinfall Six-man tag team match 17:20
• 4 Eddie Kingston defeated Chris Jericho by submission Singles match[19] 13:40
• 5 Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus) (c) defeated reDRagon (Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly) and The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) (with Brandon Cutler) by pinfall Three-way tag team match for the AEW World Tag Team Championship 18:55
• 6 Wardlow defeated Keith Lee, Orange Cassidy, Powerhouse Hobbs, Ricky Starks, and Christian Cage Face of the Revolution Ladder match for a future AEW TNT Championship match 17:20
• 7 Jade Cargill (c) (with “Smart” Mark Sterling) defeated Tay Conti (with Anna Jay) by pinfall Singles match for the AEW TBS Championship 6:50
• 8 CM Punk defeated MJF by pinfall Dog Collar match 25:45
• 9 Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. (c) (with Rebel and Jamie Hayter) defeated Thunder Rosa by pinfall Singles match for the AEW Women’s World Championship 17:25
• 10 Jon Moxley defeated Bryan Danielson by pinfall Singles match 21:05
• 11 Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara, and Sting defeated AHFO (Andrade El Ídolo, Matt Hardy, and Isiah Kassidy) (with José The Assistant) by pinfall Six-man tornado tag team match 13:20
• 12 “Hangman” Adam Page (c) defeated Adam Cole by pinfall Singles match for the AEW World Championship 25:45

My Thoughts:

As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything resembling the typical ratings people give in wrestling reviews. I stopped awarding “grades” to things long ago, after my gig at a videogame site slid into them manipulating scores. I usually go through the show and pull a half-dozen or so things that I thought were significant or that I liked. You might think some of my choices are dumb and that’s okay – we all like different things!

The House of Black:

being a big fan of metal music, I can’t believe that AEW actually has allowed Malakai Black to have the aesthetic and music that he has obviously always wanted in any of his stints in big feds. Black Metal is controversial genre and an acquired taste, but sticking some generic “butt-rock” on the guy did him no favors in his later WWE run. Here we have Black, King, and Matthews decked out in their best vaguely Behemoth-inspired gear with ambient black metal riffs in the background. This visual was awesome for me, and I can’t wait to see what these three can do, especially if a trios title comes into being soon.

Kingston Always Delivers:

In the last few shows, Eddie Kingston has been the low-key wrestler of the night for me. What the man lacks in elaborate flips and power movies, he makes up for in his no-nonsense street fighting style and his ability to tell an amazing story in the ring. He was definitely the sympathetic babyface here, with Jericho pushing the crowd’s buttons the entire match. Getting that clean win definitely shows he belongs where he is, and elevates him even closer to main event territory.

Lord Regal Returns!

I want to call this group “Daddy Regal and his two idiot sons” for some reason, because daaaaaaaang did he lay the law down here. Regal came out after witnessing the bickering between Moxley and Danielson and literally slapped sense into each of them. You can tell when he gives the above look, all bets are off – it’s very same one that my friend received at a local wrestling show when he referred to Regal’s robes as “a nice dress”. My friend just about gave him his wallet out of shame. I can’t wait to see what happens here, or if Regal ends up in some sort of authority role in the future. What a solid pick-up for Mr. Khan.

STING… IS… 62… YEARS… OLD!

Not much to say here other than pointing out that Sting is out here doing crazy stunts, and he’s literally almost old enough to get medicare and an AARP membership.

Awesome Call Back

Punk coming out to his old ROH attire and theme song was a cool idea. With Tony’s acquisition of ROH, it makes me wonder what they have up their sleeve for the show next month? Assuming that’s still on of course. The dog collar match was also VERY good, and was a great way to finish this feud up, that is assuming it doesn’t escalate from there.

Hell of a Women’s Match:

While I wish Rosa won, this match was great and made them both look very strong. I fully assume we’ll get a rematch at St. Patrick’s Day Slam, and I low-key hope Rosa wins this time!

New Women’s Title:

BIG improvement over the last belt. Makes me assume we’re about to have a change pretty soon in regards to who holds it.

Another Big Win:

Hangman Adam Page is once again showing why he’s the man that carries the belt right now. After some stellar matches with Bryan Danielson and Lance Archer, it was no surprise that this match was of the utmost quality as well. Truthfully, I felt like the build between the two Adams was somewhat weak, but it turned out to be a solid program in the end, and further moves the storylines forward. I fully assume MJF gets the belt at some point this year, but I have no idea how we will be getting there as of yet.

Conclusion:

Considering the lackluster reception the last Revolution pay-per-view got (mostly by trolls tbh) on account of the technical issues with the exploding cage match, it seems like this 2022 edition had a little bit of everything to make everyone happy. There wasn’t a big gimmick match other than the dog-collar match between MJF and CM Punk, and the title matches weren’t even the real stars of the show. AEW spent the better part of a year building MJF vs Punk and Baker vs Rosa, and both were great. I didn’t post it above, but my low-key favorite part of the entire show was watching Wardlow finally start separating from MJF, creating what I expect is the next big feud and a series of matches that should cement him as one of the next big stars in the company. Overall, yet another solid show from All Elite Wrestling, a company that always delivers time and time again.