Welcome everyone to the #MouthingOff pay-per-view review of the latest AEW pay-per-view, Revolution. I’m gonna break down (to the best of my ability) all the matches that took place tonight on the show, so let’s get right into it. Also unlike the Dynamite reviews since the pay-per-views are mostly all matches that are culminations of storylines so my thoughts during talking about the matches will suffice and won’t need to talk about it further after the rating.
Thunder Rosa & Riho vs. Britt Baker & Maki Itoh
This wasn’t a bad match, It was very clear to me that they didn’t want Rebel wrestling so they used an injury to get someone else in there and it wasn’t surprising they went with Maki Itoh. She’s very over, she’s got loads of charisma, and she’s not a bad worker at all. The thin that stuck out was she didn’t have any chemistry with anyone in the match and when the match was supposed to pick up she was kind of moving slower then expected.
I’ve discussed in the preview to this is a crime that Rosa and Britt were in this match and not one of them in the title match but more on that later. Britt and Rosa have great chemistry and every time they work together I’m very happy to see it.
A spot that stuck out was after Itoh hit a very nice looking swinging DDT, she went for a diving headbutt but Rosa got out of the way. Then Riho came in and went for a running strike but Itoh seamlessly turned it into a single leg crab.
The finish came after, Baker tagged in and hit an Air Raid Crash for another two count. Rosa would kick Baker. Rebel got involved on the apron to argue with Rosa and cause a distraction. Britt was sent into Rebel and hit with a DVDR but Itoh broke up the pinfall. Riho took out Itoh. Britt sent Rosa to the ropes, and Rebel hit her with the crutch and Britt steals the pin for the victory. I thought this was a fine match that didn’t really need to happen but all these ladies did their job and put on a match worth watching.
Match Rating: 5.25/10
AEW World Tag Team Championship: The Young Bucks (c) vs. Inner Circle (Chris Jericho & MJF)
This match was very good, unfortunately Chris Jericho’s recent matches have not been great because he’s arguably lost a step now being fifty years old. He made up for that for the most part in this match. MJF worked well here as well as he always works well in the ring and the Young Bucks are the Young Bucks.
This match seemed to be full throttle from the beginning as The Young Bucks were out for revenge. MJF looked the best in the ring in my opinion he had the best performance. The Young Bucks played a lot of the hits but did a good job of telling a story while doing so. They attempted the Meltzer Driver three times so the story of the match was that for latter part of it.
I enjoyed most of the near falls in the match and when Jericho hit Matt with his bat and MJF hit the heatseeker and Matt kicked out, it was a very emotional kick out and the crowd reacted they way they should it was a nice touch. Things fall apart for the Inner Circle when Jericho goes for the Judas Effect on Nick but Wardlow takes it instead while he was on the apron. Jericho goes for a lionsault but the Bucks hit in stereo superkicks and a BTE Trigger for a near fall after MJF broke it up. Then they hit MJF with a few superkicks in succession, another double superkick for Jericho, then a Meltzer Driver for the pinfall victory.
Later in the night Chris Jericho said in an interview that the Inner Circle will be having a War Council to discuss what’s next for them so that story continues after this loss.
Match Rating: 7/10
Casino Tag Team Royale for a Future Tag Team Championship Shot
This was a great battle royal that I enjoyed a lot and I really enjoyed how it was built up throughout. The Natural Nightmares and The Dark Order’s 5 and 10 were first out. Santana & Ortiz would come out next, as QT eliminates 5. Then the Sydal Brothers are out next. Action continues as Evil Uno and Stu Grayson are out next and Santana & Ortiz eliminate Mike Sydal. No eliminations for a while until Matt Sydal is eliminate by time team number 6 comes out, three more teams come out, Gunn Club, Avalon & Bononi, and The Varsity Blondes. For a while Austin Gunn was cleaning house and hit a Famouser on Peter Avolon, followed by Colton Gunn hitting a less impressive Famouser to Bononi.
Austin then eliminates Avalon, then Austin & Colton go to eliminate Bononi and QT comes from behind and eliminates both Gunn Club member and not Bononi, which gets the attention of Dustin who is mad at QT for eliminating members of the Nightmare Family. QT eliminates himself and spits at Dustin so that team is not doing great at the moment.
Next team out is Bear Country, who go right for Uno and Grayson and eliminate Grayson in the process. Jurassic Express is out next and they are on fire eliminating people, Jungle Boy eliminates Ortiz, and Luchasaurus eliminates Bononi. Then Jungle Boy eliminates Santana next, and Evil Uno ends up on the apron and Marko Stunt gets involved and hits a hurricanrana that apparently goes wrong because Uno literally runs across the apron and eliminates himself after hitting the ring post. At some point after this Griff Garrison is eliminated and The Butcher & The Blade were out next.
Jack Evans appears from under the ring, he isn’t in the match and he pulls 10 off the apron to eliminate him. The Bunny helps Butcher and Blade eliminate Dustin, and then Private Party was out next. Action continues and SCU is out next, then Bear Country takes out Luchasaurus together and then The Butcher eliminates both members of Bear Country, and they pull him out under the ropes and attack him before they leave.
Out next is PAC & Fenix and they eliminate Blade early in their entry, followed by Marq Quen. Then Reynolds & Silver are out next and they are on fire. They hit a dark destroyer on Kassidy and eliminate him next. SCU teams up to eliminate Butcher, then Fenix targets Daniels and eliminates him after some strikes in the corner. Eliminations start to pile up as Jungle Boy eliminates Reynolds, and PAC eliminates Kazarian. The final four is down to Silver, Jungle Boy, PAC & Fenix. PAC targets Silver and hits a really nice looking German suplex and tosses him out but he holds on and Fenix tight rope walks to kick Silver and eliminate him.
They go to double team Jungle Boy and he somehow gets PAC out so its down to Jungle Boy and Fenix. Jungle Boy slides outside under the rope for a second and Fenix hits a suicide dive through the middle rope and picks up so much speed, that he lands in the audience. Back in the ring, Jungle Boy hits a superkick, a clothesline and follows it up with a really nice looking poisionrana. He goes to eliminate Fenix but Fenix gets back into it hits a superkick of his own and eliminates Jungle Boy to win. Just to add I loved the pacing of this match and it was one of the better battle royals that I’ve seen especially one that included tag teams.
Match Rating: 6.25/10
AEW Women’s World Championship: Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Ryo Mizunami
This was a pretty good match as expected, these two have a big history of working together in Japan and it showed here. The crowd was barely into it though as you could tell they didn’t really know Ryo. They traded a lot of great moves and there was some great false finishes and the crowd came around eventually and enjoyed the match.
There’s a nice spot where Shida gets a chair and sets it up and jumps over the top rope and she’s caught by Ryo who tosses her into the crowd upon catching her. They continued to trade some strikes throughout the match and Ryo had a resurgence towards the end after hitting a Uranage, followed by spear, and hits the guillotine leg drop for a very closes near fall.
Back up after that near fall, Shida hits a great looking straight jacket German suplex but Ryo gets back up immediately and hits a big lariat in the back of the head, but Shida answers with a falcon arrow and they trade strikes again and Shida hits another falcon arrow for a near fall. They trade strikes again, Shida does a thumb to the eye and goes for a quick roll up for another near fall. Shida follows this up with her knee strike for a two count. She then goes for a corkscrew knee strike for the pinfall victory.
Post match, for some reason Nyla Rose comes out and attacks them both, Britt and Maki Itoh come out as well and then Thunder Rosa’s music hits to even the odds. I don’t think this was necessary at all just to set up a six woman tag on Wednesday. Regardless I enjoyed this championship match despite me not being keen on how the tournament went.
Match Rating: 6/10
Miro & Kip Sabian vs. Best Friends (Chuck Taylor & Orange Cassidy)
This match began by Miro and Kip attacking Chuck and Cassidy backstage and leaving Cassidy laying on a crate Chuck was thrown through a glass window and he was bleeding from his arm and head and Miro brings Chuck to the ring to the start the match. Miro is in control for the most part and Kip tags in and Chuck starts to fight back, Miro then tags back in and takes control back and Orange Cassidy limps out to join the match.
It eventually turned into the usual Orange Cassidy match as he takes control hits a flurry of moves and then gets to his lazy kicks spot with Miro who laughs it off, Orange Cassidy then fires up hits a few Orange Punches and Penelope gets on the apron and Miro knocks Orange Cassidy into her off the apron and he doesn’t care at all, Kip is checking on her. Kip was legal and he’s checking on Penelope and Miro is yelling at him to tag him in. Kip tags Miro in and immediately goes back to check on Penelope.
Chuck is now legal and hits a quick small package on Miro after he tagged in but Miro kicked out. Miro gets back up and hits a thrust kick followed by the Game Over for the submission victory. Miro still doesn’t care about Penelope as Kip looks at him.
It was a fine match that was clearly done to start tension between Kip and Miro while also keeping Miro looking strong. I thought it was fine but might actually be the worst match of the entire show without it actually being bad.
Match Rating: 5.25/10
Big Money Match: Adam “Hangman” Page vs. Matt Hardy
This was another good one, the match started off slow and built up and I enjoyed this match but I had a hard time feeling excited for it. I don’t know why because it should be a great match I just didn’t care that much. It got to a point where they were trading shots and signature moves.
They fought outside for awhile and Matt hit a Twist of Fate on the outside and wanted a count out victory. Page got back in at nine as expected, which frustrated Matt. After more fighting outside, a moonsault from the inside out from Page, and a crossbody for a near fall. Matt gets back into in and hits a BT Bomb for a near fall of his own. Matt then goes for a Twist of Fate again, but Page fights out and hits the Dead Eye but Isiah Kassidy gets involved causing a distraction to help Matt Hardy recover.
Matt gets back into it and eventually hits the Twist of Fate but Page kicked out which frustrated Matt. Matt then calls for Private Party to help him but the entire Dark Order comes out to thwart them and Page gets knocked off the apron but is caught by the Dark Order and they put him back on the apron and he hits the Buckshot Lariat for the pinfall victory.
As I mentioned I enjoyed this match for the most part it just became hard to get into at certain points and that’s nobodies fault, it was very good and the right person won it.
Match Rating: 6.25/10
Face of the Revolution Ladder Match: Cody Rhodes vs. Scorpio Sky vs. Penta El Zero Miedo vs. Lance Archer vs. Max Caster vs. Ethan Page
This was a fine match that I felt kind of dragged at certain points. That’s not to say I hated it at all but their was numerous times where I expected it to end but he didn’t, and that hurt it a little. Regardless of that Ethan Page was the surprise which was really not a surprise to most people as it was expected. Cody is selling his shoulder throughout and is taken out of the match at one point but of course he came back against doctors orders.
The thing hanging above the ring is as they called it “the brass ring” which you know was Cody’s idea and it looked like a giant ring from Sonic the Hedgehog or a gold donut you sit on it was so blatantly bad looking.
There was a lot of great spots in this match but there’s way too many to call out really. So I’ll talk about some that I really enjoyed, that will probably be out of order. There was a spot where Penta used a ladder as a spring board and did a flip outside onto Cody and Caster. At one point Page had Archer sandwiched between a ladder and Page hit a Razors Edge on Scorpio on top of Archer. Page then put a ladder on top of Archer as he climbed, but Archer was powering out and lifting the ladder up while that’s happening Penta ran in and hit a backstabber on Page as the ladder is flipping.
Cody and Penta were fighting back and forth in the ring and there was a ladder bridge set up outside, and Penta hits a Destroyer on the bridged ladder which is what took Cody out before he came back. There was a ladder set up in the corner and Cody climbs it like he plans to jump off but he Archer catches up the ladder and hits a superplex off the ladder, which Max Caster then followed up with an elbow drop off the ladder on the back of Cody.
The close of the match after Archer hit the black out on Caster on top of a ladder he climbs the ladder and Page runs in and grabs Archer off the ladder and hits another Razors Edge and he goes to climb but Jake Roberts gets involved and then is kicked by Penta. The close sees Cody and Scorpio fighting each other on the ladder and their trading shots and Scorpio targets Cody’s shoulder again and says something to him and shoves him off the ladder to grab the ring for the victory.
As I mentioned this match sort of dragged on but it was still a good ladder match that made everyone look good for the most part and honestly Scorpio needed a big win and he got it here and he’s facing Darby for the title this Wednesday.
Match Rating: 5.75/10
Street Fight: Team Taz (Brian Cage & Ricky Starks) vs. Sting & Darby Allin
This was a cinematic match as I expected taking place in a big abandoned warehouse that just so happened to have a wrestling ring in it. I didn’t like that they did hokey entrances with the music or that there was commentary for a pre-recorded match it didn’t work for me. Regardless of that it was a good match that did what it was supposed to do, mask the fact that Sting is almost sixty-three and can’t really work and settle this story that needed to end for a very long time.
They started fighting in the ring but ended up throughout the warehouse for a while, Cage fighting Darby, and Sting fighting Starks pretty much for the whole match. Cage and Darby ended up fighting all around the warehouse and worked their way up the warehouse for this big spot later. They fought on a staircase and Cage had Darby in a suplex position and carried Darby up the staircase in that position, which was very impressive, and then dropped him on a trash can.
Everyone is fighting together later on upstairs and Sting and Darby are trying to take out Cage together but Starks gets involved. Darby climbed a beam and hit a coffin drop onto Starks. Then Will Hobbs comes in wearing an orange ski mask and powerbombs Darby into a wooden beam. Hook comes into help as well and then Cage and Hobbs take Darby and swing him into a glass window which was gnarly looking but I liked that spot a lot.
They are now all going after Sting and bring him back downstairs and when Darby recovers he tosses Sting the bat to get the upper hand on his own. Sting then places Cage on top of this tarped area and Darby jumps from the higher floor down on top of Cage with an elbow drop, taking them out of the picture.
Sting and Starks are now back in the ring as it’s down to them after everyone else was taken out, and they have a standard wrestling match for the last few minutes which ends when Sting turns a powerbomb attempt by Starks around, hits a Stinger Splash to the back of Starks, then hits the Scorpion Death Drop for the pinfall victory.
The visuals of this match were great and I think it was definitely worth the watch, Sting looked good for what they were able to hide with it being a cinematic match and I hope if he has other matches that they do something similar because I don’t need to see him having standard wrestling matches. Everyone else looked great and Darby did something crazy as expected.
Match Rating: 7.5/10
Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch for the AEW World Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs. Jon Moxley
I loved this match so much. A lot of people came into this match not knowing what to expect but I think everything during the match was done correctly it told a story throughout which makes these types of matches worth watch when it does that the right way. This was one of those times where everything that happened built up throughout and it got better as it did. Both guys put on a show here and unfortunately this thing will be remembered for what happened after the match but I’ll get into that when we get there.
I loved how they spent the early part of the match teasing barbed wire spots, I loved how the referee played up and probably was for real how scared he was to be in there. I loved Moxley and Omega literally doing everything they could to win this match and it showed big time. Omega using powder in the eyes to blind Moxley to set up the first explosion of the match was such a great heel move and I loved Moxley’s selling of it as well.
Omega then followed this up with some great work with a trash can slamming Moxley knee first into the top of a trash can and then following it up with a kortaro crusher onto the laid out trash can. Then he puts a bloody Moxley in a figure four leg lock and Moxley grabs a barbed wire wrapped chair rakes it over Omega to break the hold. Back on their feet Moxley charges at Omega and Omega side steps it and Moxley goes right into a barbed wire board in the corner.
Omega then goes for a figure four again and Moxley kicks him off right into the ropes for another explosion then follows it up with a front dropkick for another explosion. These explosions were a good touch to the violent story being told of course and I loved the moments of the match each time. They fight out in an opposite corner and Omega now goes into a board wrapped in barbed wire. Then they continue going at it and Omega gets sidewalk slammed onto to the earlier barbed wire wrapped chair.
They are trading shots and Omega hits two straight snap dragon suplexes, eventually after a big lariat Moxley goes for the Paradigm Shift but gets reversed and Omega shoves him into the ropes for another explosion but the story here is they say it went in Omega’s eyes which was another great touch to the story which I loved. The ref asks for water for Omega to put in his eyes and they end up on the apron trading shots for a while until Moxley hits the Paradigm Shift off the apron into a big board of barbed wire on the floor, which also had some explosions which seemed to hurt Moxley more and took him a while to get out of.
As Moxley gets back up he takes a long strand of that barbed wire and uses it in the ring to punch a bloody Omega and then hits a piledriver on Omega for a near fall. After Omega hits a powerbomb with a stacked cover for a near fall their are back up again trading shots and Omega hits the One Winged Angel. This was my favorite of the match where Omega goes for the pin and when looked like he had it won they made it look like he put too much on the cover and the explosives went off breaking the pin, so it wasn’t a kick out it was just too close to the ropes causing the break, I absolutely loved that.
At this point The Good Brothers get involved and bring out a barbed wire bat and Moxley fights them off but Omega gets the bat and when he hits Moxley in the face with it, it explodes as well. Omega goes for a pin expecting that to be the end he gets frustrated, The Good Brothers come back in set up a chair in the seated position and Omega hits the One Winged Angel again this time on the chair to get the pinfall victory.
After the match Omega and The Good Brothers continue to attack Moxley which and commentary mentions that the big explosion rigged to go off at the half hour mark is still in play. They tie Moxley’s arms behind his back with barbed wire and beat him down more, and the clock reaches a minute left. Omega and The Good Brothers leave the ring and with about twenty seconds remaining Eddie Kingston runs out followed by Butcher, Blade and Bunny, Kingston runs in the ring and tries to help Moxley as they leave. The time runs out and Kingston covers Moxley and what goes off is more of giant sparklers in each corner and a tiny explosion nowhere near the ring that leaves smoke in the arena.
The problem is they sold it throughout as being a giant explosion and we got that, and then Eddie Kingston sold it like he was passed out on top of Moxley which did not help it only hurt it. The fans started booing and now that amazing match is going to be remembered for that dud finish that came after and that’s really unfortunate. Regardless of the story at the end, I absolutely loved this match it was way better then I expected, everything was paced perfectly the explosions during the match sold it big time and really did the job I don’t think the “grand finale” should be associated with the match because of the exploding barbed wire matches that I watched before this one, none of them told the story that this one did or kept me as invested as this one did all I have to say is bravo to Moxley and Omega, boo to whoever set up that final explosion.
Match Rating: 8.5/10
What are your thoughts on AEW Revolution 2021? Do you think these matches are rated well? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @SLTDWrestling.
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