AEW Revolution 2023

AEW Revolution 2023

San Francisco, CA - March 2023

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this show, MJF was the AEW World Champion, Jamie Hayter was the AEW Women's World Championship, the TNT Champion was Samoa Joe, the TBS Champion was Jade Cargill, the FTW Champion was HOOK, The Gunns held the AEW World Tag Team Champions, Orange Cassidy was the AEW All-Atlantic Championship, and the Trios Championships were held by The Elite (Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks). 

Revolution 2023 kicked off with Chris Jericho vs. Ricky Starks in a bit of a grudge match as Starks had defeated Jericho on the first Dynamite of the year (Jericho had also lost to Action Andretti in December) and agreed to have the Jericho Appreciation Society banned from ringside in order to get his win back against Starks. Starks has a ton of energy and delivers a very good performance here, showing great fire and resiliency against a rather dominant Jericho. I thought this was smartly worked, especially the finish as Jericho struck Starks in the ribs with "Floyd" (his baseball bat) but there was enough time between the hit and Jericho's failed attempt at his Judas Effect back elbow to make it believable that Starks would have the mood scouted and the energy to counter it into a Roshambo. I'm not sure why the match didn't immediately end with a DQ when Sammy Guevara showed up, but whatevs. Not a bad opener at all. (3/5)

Christian vs. Jack Perry in a Last Burial (Casket) Match was next. Plenty of heat for this grudge match. They brawled in the crowd a bit and then went to the stage area, not wasting really any time getting to the weaponry and high spots (Perry launching himself off the stage for a front-flip cannonball onto the floor was the match's peak). Christian got bloodied along the bridge of the nose at one point but I'm not sure where. I really liked Christian tripping Perry up on the steel steps at ringside as it looked nasty and was a great prick heel move. Perry eventually won after a vicious-looking Con-Chair-To. Good performances out of both men and the right man won, but there's not much more to say about this beyond that it was a really good 15-minute "sports-entertainment" match. (3/5)

The AEW Trios World Championships were on the line next as The Elite - Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks - defended their titles against The House of Black (Malakai Black, Buddy Murphy, Brody King, and Julia Hart in tow). Right from the start, the crowd and the commentary team played this up as being something of a dream match and a "guaranteed classic," the audience chanting "This Is Awesome" before anything of real note had happened. This match did not disappoint one bit, though I'm not sure if I'd consider it "must see." The fact is, with these six, you knew you were going to get an extended car crash with loads of high-flying and counters and false finishes and Brody King being a murderer and Kenny Omega and Malakai Black squaring off and superkicks and everything else that these guys do so it was almost impossible for them to overdeliver or exceed expectations. We expected a hellacious fight and that's what we got. I really liked how much they made King look like the difference-maker and a monster. I liked Julia Hart's involvement towards the end, adding yet another layer to the match when I'm not sure anyone was really expecting her to be involved. I thought the finishing sequence and the false finishes that preceded it were really well-executed and actually lent some realism to the match as the House of Black finally put all the pieces together to sufficiently get the W without getting the count broken up by an Elite member. I can see the argument that this match played it safe by being a bit of a Greatest Hits and leaning heavily into all the expected sequences and high spots that one could've predicted before the bell rang. That being said, the beauty here is seeing them deliver on all those expectations without it feeling like they're sleepwalking through the match or doing anything half-assed. This delivered and kept me engaged and enjoying what I was seeing from beginning to end. Imperfect but undeniably excellent. (4/5)

Saraya and Ruby Soho challenged Jamie Hayter for the AEW Women's World Championship in the next match. Saraya was backed up by Toni Storm as the two had combined forces to form a stable of "Outsiders" that looked down on the "AEW Originals." Yeah, it was not a good storyline. Hayter's back-up was fellow "homegrown" talent Britt Baker and Ruby had been playing the role of a "tweener," not siding with either group. Once the bell rang, this was a considerable step up from Saraya's match at the previous PPV, though I think a ton of credit should go to Hayter, who was really good in this and clearly "the glue." Watching this match, you can see why Hayter was considered the best in AEW at the time (and its kinda sad that, post-injury, she hasn't been able to reclaim that mantle). Some of the sequences here were really good and ones I don't think I'd seen before. Unfortunately, the post-match was so bad that it basically ruined what had been an above-average match. In a fit of frustration, Ruby had tossed Saraya out of the ring and then had her hand raised by Hayter (who had won the match clean), signifying that Soho was respected by the AEW's homegrown stars. Inexplicably, Soho turned heel by attacking Hayter and Baker and then spray-painting them alongside Saraya and Storm. Was this the plan all along? If so, why didn't Soho and Saraya team up the rest of the match and make it a 2-on-1? If it was a sudden decision, why did Saraya and Toni trust Soho would join them in the post-match beatdown? Also, this pretty much ended any chance of Soho standing out as her own woman, a role that would've actually fit her image instead of having to be the 3rd banana of a heel team that had little chemistry and felt like a re-hash of better "outsider" stories from the past. (2.5/5)

"Hangman" Adam Page vs. Jon Moxley in a Texas Death Match was next on the card. This one was a brutal, bloody fight with heavy use of barbwire, chairs, and, later on in the match, extensive use of bricks. I liked that they stuck to just those "tools" for violence instead of filling this up needlessly with ladders, tables, and whatever else. Moxley controlled the majority of the early going but got bloodied in the process (Excalibur noted that a light breeze could open Mox up). Page also got cut up by the wire. Other highlights included Moxley taking a great surprise back bump into a bed of wire, Page powerbombing him through the seat of a steel chair, an awesome crash landing Hangman took into another barbwire board and onto the floor, and a whole slew of lariats straight out of Japan. This was not as gory and cringe-inducing as some of the other death matches we've seen in AEW over the years, but that's not to say this wasn't plenty violent. My biggest gripe would be the finishing sequence as it featured some no-selling out of Moxley in order to get to the finish (Hangman living up to his moniker and hanging Moxley with a chain over the top rope). (3.5/5)

Samoa Joe defended the TNT Championship against Wardlow in the next match. Unfortunately, this one gave me 2010s TNA vibes as Samoa Joe did the job here, dropping his title after a "nothing special" match. Credit where its due, Joe was much more engaged and engaging in this match than when he was at his low points in TNA, but this was still nothing to write home about. There were good bits in this - I liked Joe's precision with his kicks to take out Wardlow's knee, for example - but it still didn't feel like it ever got to "the next level" and the crowd seemed spent after the Mox/Page war. (2/5)

The AEW World Tag Team Championships were on the line next as The Gunns defended their titles against Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett, Danhausen and Orange Cassidy, and The Acclaimed. Considering the AEW tag team scene was once rich with "true" tag teams - FTR, the Young Bucks, the Lucha Bros, the Jurassic Express, Private Party, The Butcher and the Blade, and, at one point, The Hardys - this was what I considered to be something of a "low point" for the titles as they'd bounced from Swerve In My Glory (two singles guys teaming up) to The Acclaimed (a team I'd consider well below FTR and the Bucks in terms of delivering great in-ring matches) to The Gunns, a very green team. That being said, this was a solid outing that started out hot with some great work out of Cassidy, Lethal, and Jarrett before things got a little unstable once Satnam Singh, Danhausen, and the two less-experienced teams (The Gunns and The Acclaimed) became the centerpiece. (2.5/5)

Main event time - MJF defending his AEW World Championship against Bryan Danielson in a 60-Minute Ironman Match. There was much to love about this match as MJF and Danielson did an excellent job of building the suspense and including just enough curveballs to make this match engaging and exciting from beginning to end. Highlights included MJF hitting an absolutely disgusting cradle piledriver that had Taz audibly uncomfortable, a brilliant running knee on the outside by Danielson, MJF going down 1-0 after a Baisuku but then cleverly getting himself DQ'd with a low-blow (to go down 2-0) before scoring two rapidfire pinfalls to even things up, and a wonderful stretch of dizzying pins and counters...and all of this was within the first 30 minutes or so. Its also worth noting that, during the first part of this match, MJF had grabbed a drink from a fan's hands and doused a child with it, a news story that - at the time - got a ton of press and attention on Wrestling Twitter but nobody seems to really care about or ever mention nowadays because, well, it was a bit of a nothingburger and points to how much the "IWC" was focused on turning every AEW event into yet another scandalous affair on the same level as "Brawl In." The second half of the match was as impressive as the first half, if not moreso. I loved both guys going for big swings and desperation moves, upping the ante with high-risk maneuvers and MJF putting Danielson through two tables (one with an elbow drop and the second with a piledriver). I loved Danielson's facial expressions as the match wore on, knowing that the deeper the water got, the more out of his element MJF was. Both guys ended up bloodied, we got some good false finishes after the match was put into sudden death overtime - something we've seen before, most famously at WrestleMania XII - and I liked that, in the end, while MJF had certainly cut corners to get there, Danielson actually tapped out rather than just "going unconscious" after being hit by a weapon. Excellent match and easily one of the better Ironman matches I've seen with great performances out of both men, a hot crowd, and (somewhat surprisingly) solid commentary. (4.5/5)

With a relatively strong 3.13-out-of-5 Kwang Score, Revolution 2023 is arguably the best PPV that AEW had produced since its inception. While its two "instant classics," the Danielson/MJF Ironman Match and the Elite/House of Black showdown, are the show's high points, the first two bouts on the card highlighted AEW's rising stars and the Texas Death Match was plenty violent, rounding out the show nicely. The show wasn't perfect - Joe/Wardlow was a disappointment, the AEW Women's Championship match wasn't great and had a woeful post-match, and the tag 4-way wouldn't have felt out-of-place on a random Dynamite - but what 4+ hour show could ever be?

FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand