AEW Revolution 2021

[Yakashi]

Plus, if it was meant to be like that, why is Eddie Kingston dead?

[RedRooster]

2 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Everything went off though. There were no trigger points in the centre of the ring. The best you could say is ‘maybe there was more smoke planned’, but the ring was only rigged for Kane corner pyro, rope triggers and the 2 landmine bases on the floor.

It was so spectacularly shit that I can't believe this would have made it to air - I just can't believe that there wasn't supposed to be more to it than this. If this was a case of everything going off without a hitch, then in many ways it's more shocking than it would have been had the spot actually looked good. 

[Supremo]

I forgot to mention what was probably my favourite part of the show - Dark Order helping Hangman hit his finish and then the group hug afterwards. Tremendous stuff.

Raw’s going to open tonight with the biggest pyro display of all time, isn’t it?

EDIT: For a company who are trying to act like the explosion went as planned, they’re sure as fuck trying to get footage of it removed from social media as much as possible.

 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Supremo

[d-d-d-dAz]

Just now, Supremo said:

I forgot to mention what was probably my favourite part of the show - Dark Order helping Hangman hit his finish and then the group hug afterwards. Tremendous stuff.

Raw’s going to open tonight with the biggest pyro display of all time, isn’t it?

 

 

Be funnier if they opened with the same sparkler show.

Throw to the announcers: “by god what a spectacular start, and not even on PPV.”

Edited March 8, 2021 by d-d-d-dAz

[FLips]

After having some sleep I realise now why such a sour taste was left in my mouth after that PPV, and it was because I went to bed feeling like an idiot for staying up. Not just disappointed or deflated by the ending, but genuinely stupid.
In the build to this I've been telling the people around me like my wife and brother, and casual lapsed friends "oh this AEW is different, they're doing a barbed wire deathmatch, it's gonna be nuts" and now the smoke has settled I can't even show them the big spot because it was pathetic and you realise after a night where Christian was a big surprise, a ladder match was somehow so boring I stopped paying attention, and Matt Hardy is slogging through a singles match that this company isn't different. It might have been, but slowly but surely it's just changing into WWE-Lite. I stopped watching WWE because every show made me feel stupid for watching, and now this is getting no different.

The opener was OK but never lived up to the grudge match build. It was just a regular tag match.

Tag Gauntlet was fun but nothing of any note happened.

Shida vs Ryo was decent and with the tournament before it, felt like a big deal. Turning it into a 6 man deal after was a misfire though, save it for dynamite. Don't use a tournament to then downgrade to a 6 man feud.

Miro finally looked like a beast but unless he moves on from these geeks it's all for nothing. I like Orange Cassidy, and I like Best Friends as a tag. I don't like Kip Sabian or Chuck Taylor on his own. 

Hangman has better things to do than fuck around with a nutcracker shaped knackered old Matt Hardy and again aside from Dark Order at the end, nothing of note happened in this match. Hangman's slow build stopped being cute a while ago now. He needs to shit or get off the pot with Dark Order.

Why is Scorpio fucking Sky winning that? Aside from maybe Ethan Page who at least has the element of unknown, he was the last person that should have won. No idea what the Cody shoulder stuff was about either but I certainly didn't care about him, he dragged the match down. Not that the company needs a culling right now, but if they did SCU would be first to go for me. 

Street Fight was creatively shot but I'm fed up of cinematic matches now. I heard this was taped in advance but hoped it would be more like the Parking Lot Brawl which actually felt like a real match. Some good stuff in this and I winced at Darby getting chucked through the glass and then the frame bonking him, but please just move on from cinematic matches. Certainly didn't need a 4 man commentary team, and you feel bad for the people in the building who paid to watch Sting on a big screen.

Main Event threw me off the second I saw the ropes weren't barbed wire, just normal ropes with single strands of barbed wire on them. They made it work though and it wasn't long before I was sold on it. The drama was great, the spots were creative, especially the One-Winged Angel kickout, but the ending was a total bust. From the moment Mox ate the pin it felt like 10 minutes of fucking about before we got to the big spot and then the big spot felt like a gut shot. That's what I was sat up at 4.30am for? £15 down for that? 

Maybe I'm being harsh on the show and on a repeated watch it'll come across better, but I've been super high on AEW lately and they lost a lot of good faith with this show. I remember last Revolution with the Bucks vs Page and Omega I couldn't stop telling people how good it was, then you had Pac vs Orange, Cody vs MJF's blood feud and the feel-good Mox win. That was a fantastic PPV. This one was not. There's not a single match on here I'm desperate to tell people about, and honestly would be embarrassed to show them that main event. 

[Jazzy G]

As soon as I saw Bryce Remsberg cosplaying Doc Brown in his little bazmat suit it took me right out of the main event. Presumably Aubrey Edwards and all the other refs passed on that wonderful bit of wardrobe. He was probably loving it, though. All their talk of being in "special flame retardant clothing" but when Mox does go through the exploding board at ringside with no shirt on he looks fine, aside from a few cuts. He even lays there for a second, somewhat underwhelmed by the whole experience before he realises he has to sell, and it was some hammy selling.

The tag opener was good. The battle royal was good. I thought Jungle Boy was going to win when it came down to him against two guys. The fake finish was good as well.

Ethan Page in the ladder match was "oh, him". How long before we're getting Karate Man on Dynamite?

The women's match was good, but would have benefited from a little more build than them shaking hands and glating at each other in the ring for a minute. The tag match could be good on Dynamite.

Page Vs Hardy was decent. Had a good story. Be interesting to see where it goes with the Dark Order from here.

The street fight was fun, and it was nice that Sting won, but how's it going to look when Darby Allin has done that elbow from that high up into that pit then shows up to defend the TNT title on Wednesday? Especially if Moxley is going to be off TV for a while after the "explosion".

Christian arriving, and not doing an interview or anything, just signing his contract, doing his salute in the corner and showing off his new shirt (available on shopaew.com) then pissing off was almost as dsappointing a pop as those fireworks at the end. 

Spending the morning copyright claiming all this stuff to try and cover it up isn't a good look for the company either. They're going to have to build some goodwill back. Presumably Schiovane will interview Christian on Dynamite on Wednesday, who will hopefully talk about the opportunities he has in AEW, rather than bitching about being underutilised in WWE. A friend and I joked about Chrstian Cage Vs Brian Cage in a steel cage for the right to use the name Cage.

[Snitsky's back acne]

5 hours ago, FelatioLips said:

They built a PPV around 3 big moments. The surprise entrant in the Ladder match, the "huge signing" and seeing explosions. They completely missed the mark on all three.

I don't know who Ethan Page is other than I saw a clip of him karate fighting himself and then he cried and quit the company because he looked stupid. The surprise nobody wanted to be Christian was of course Christian. Then that ending. Like Supremo said, they almost had it but for it to end like that and nobody to call and audible made them look so bad. That will be infamous in botches and wrestlecrap now when it could have been huge.

Not a bad PPV by any means, some of it was really good, but the three things everyone tuned in for were really underwhelming. 
 

AEW's rapidly losing any goodwill they've built up, especially with that desperate attempt at saving face explanation about the climactic explosion by Tony Khan. 

'We couldn't REALLY blow them up, guys!' - No, but you could have looked at the classic FMW time bomb matches and seen how visually impressive their explosions were.

The 'big-big, mega huge star' being Christian is TNA levels of over-hyping and eye-rolling. Even AEW die-hards are struggling to spin all of this as a positive.

[FLips]

Just now, Snitsky's back acne said:

AEW's rapidly losing any goodwill they've built up, especially with that desperate attempt at saving face explanation about the climactic explosion by Tony Khan. 

'We couldn't REALLY blow them up, guys!' - No, but you could have looked at the classic FMW time bomb matches and seen how visually impressive their explosions were.

The 'big-big, mega huge star' being Christian is TNA levels of over-hyping and eye-rolling. Even AEW die-hards are struggling to spin all of this as a positive.

"We couldn't really blow them up" is the sequel to "We gimmicked the chair" nobody wanted. When the company really fucks up, Tony Khan is almost childlike in his attempts to gloss over it. Comes across as a right shite arse. Just admit you fucked up, say the explosives never went off or something. 

I don't watch Impact either so maybe someone who does can fill me in because I stopped watching the segments, but how is Tony and Tony slating your show every week with no comeuppance going?

[RedRooster]

17 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

Why is Scorpio fucking Sky winning that? Aside from maybe Ethan Page who at least has the element of unknown, he was the last person that should have won. No idea what the Cody shoulder stuff was about either but I certainly didn't care about him, he dragged the match down. Not that the company needs a culling right now, but if they did SCU would be first to go for me. 

My guess would be that it's either because the match is on Dynamite this week, and they didn't want to job Archer, Cody or the newly signed Page out, or because Sky and his (apparent) new heel persona is in for a renewed push, and he might actually defeat the injured Darby. 

1 minute ago, FelatioLips said:

"We couldn't really blow them up" is the sequel to "We gimmicked the chair" nobody wanted. When the company really fucks up, Tony Khan is almost childlike in his attempts to gloss over it. Comes across as a right shite arse. Just admit you fucked up, say the explosives never went off or something. 

I don't understand why they're not doing that, even if it's untrue. There's an easy out for them here, that would put some level of sympathy on the company. If this is what was planned all along it makes them look far worse than if this was unintentional. 

[TildeGuy~!]

My IPTV box had it on with the Spanish commentary team only for some reason and once they went to the back to Dasha interviewing Big Show about the mystery man whilst she was also translating her own interview at the commentary desk I knew the signing wouldn’t be an amazing coup if Big Show wasn’t even there live to announce it.

Booking Maki Itoh as a heel is just stupid.

The show just got worse from there, the main event just felt like a backyard promotion trying to copy Onita.

From Al Snow being in the audience to the signing of Christian Cage with his TNA Music to the “Death Match” which really reminded me of the electrified cage it really felt like I stayed up until 5am to watch a PPV booked by Russo.

Edited March 8, 2021 by TildeGuy~!

[Jazzy G]

12 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

I don't understand why they're not doing that, even if it's untrue. There's an easy out for them here, that would put some level of sympathy on the company. If this is what was planned all along it makes them look far worse than if this was unintentional. 

They can't really do that after the finish where they had Doc Sampson out there checking on Kingston and Moxley while the commentators were doing their "serious voices" to try and sell the drama. As had been mentioned here, just go to a blank screen or a test card or something to make it look like it was a big deal. Then they can take down all the mobile phone videos of the miserable looking pyro and Moxley shitting on it from social media, show some shaky cam footage of Mox and Eddie Kingston getting first aid and loaded into the ambulance afterwards on Dynamite.

[garynysmon]

11 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

From Al Snow being in the audience to the signing of Christian Cage with his TNA Music to the “Death Match” which really reminded me of the electrified cage it really felt like I stayed up until 5am to watch a PPV booked by Russo.

Fuck, really? That's a good choice!

[Snitsky's back acne]

14 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

"We couldn't really blow them up" is the sequel to "We gimmicked the chair" nobody wanted. When the company really fucks up, Tony Khan is almost childlike in his attempts to gloss over it. Comes across as a right shite arse. Just admit you fucked up, say the explosives never went off or something. 

 

I have to echo what others have said in this thread - I think it's all gone to his head. He's already the son of a billionaire but to be all but fellated by Meltzer and the AEW die-hards for the past few years, along with winning Booker and Promoter of the year, it's not unrealistic to think that he probably feels like he's Billy big-bollocks at the moment.

Sadly, Khan and none of the EVP's seem to deal with criticism well and, in some instances, seem remarkably thin skinned and childish. AEW has been coasting on waves of hope and goodwill for the past 18 months or so. I hope they don't blow it.

[FLips]

I'll give them one thing though, this is the first event I've watched where the biggest pop it got out of me was the preshow. Thrilled to see Maki Itoh show up, she really does have a star quality and she was a bigger signing than Christian Cage or Ethan Page.

[DavidB6937]

But 'outwork' is one word