AEW REVOLUTION 2023 REVIEW
Let’s get this out of the way now – I loved this show.
Let’s also get this out of the way now – I don’t agree that this was one of the ‘Best Wrestling PPVs of all time’.
I’m likely out on an island on this one, and it feels strange to be the King of Bad Takes while praising a show that I thoroughly loved. However, the fever pitch around this PPV makes me feel like I watched a completely different video feed to everyone else.
Still, this show highlights some of the best aspects of AEW’s product offering, and it ranks in their top 3 shows to date. Nothing to sneeze at. But no doubt I’ll be flooded with “WHY DID YOU HATE THIS SHOW!!?” messages from smooth-brained punters. Let’s see.
Match #1 – Chris Jericho vs Ricky Starks
For all the hand-wringing that Chris Jericho is ‘stale’, a ‘heat vacuum’, and his ‘feuds go on way too long and don't get people over’ (insert the biggest eyeroll humanly possible) – he sure seems to lose most of his feuds in line with the PPV cycles, have great matches, and have his opponents consistently getting screen time.
Funny how the narrative around this company rarely matches up to the on-screen offering. But we’ll get into that more later.
What AEW (and Chris Jericho) DOES do, is play on the audience’s long-term conditioning to expect terrible wrestling tropes and then subvert them to stick the landing. Ricky is coming off beating Jericho already, and they announced JAS were banned from ringside alongside the commentators saying “Jericho is a veteran, he must have a backup plan”.
Hacky wrestling tradition would dictate that in this scenario Jericho gets his win back through shenanigans (like Andretti turning heel on Ricky), or the baseball bat nearfall.
Nope, Ricky beats Jericho again clean as a whistle, having Andretti only appear to play defence against an interfering Sammy Guevara. The action wasn’t flashy, but it was solid (these two have chemistry) and the win adds another notch onto the belt of Ricky Starks – who the office are clearly high on, and audiences are slowly agreeing. This perfectly landed the story (ping for later) of Ricky’s rise and Jericho’s hubris downfall.
3 ¼ stars – A definitive victory in a fun little match that subverts expectations.
Match #2 – ‘Jungle Boy’ Jack Perry vs Christian Cage – Final Burial Match
I didn’t know what to expect from this coming in. The build was split between part fantastic (Christian Cage’s supreme promos, Jack Perry slowly getting more of an edge) and part terrible (stalling of momentum due to injuries). The last-minute addition of the casket match stipulation, a notoriously turgid match type, meant this had the potential to really be a stinker.
I should have never doubted them. While the casket stip did hurt the moment-to-moment drama and psychology of the match, it helped it to stick out on a card that is full of fellow ‘grudge settled between the ropes’ stories.
Where the match excelled was in storytelling (ping) – Perry, starting the feud as the most vanilla of babyfaces, upheld the high road across the build, vowing never to stoop as low as Christian did when he double-crossed his mentee. But slowly and surely Christian chipped away at Perry’s psyche, through systematic undermining of everything Perry held close (his friendship with Luchasaurus, his safety net of family, his respect for his late father).
This match sees a version of Perry on his last nerve, freed from the shackles of his moral code (and the ‘Jungle’ aspects of his gimmick) and reaping the rewards. The action was deliberate and memorable, with gruesome bumps onto the steel staircase, belt whippings, big dives, blood, and dirt.
The fantastic closing sequence came with Perry catching Christian in a shovel-assisted Snare Trap on a pile of dirt, before delivering the most sickening looking con-chair-to I’ve seen in my history of wrestling fandom. Shortly after, Christian gets sealed in the casket (which then dropped down a hole a few metres, it looked nasty and took me by surprise) for the Perry win.
A great little brawl-y match that really developed Perry’s character and sets him on course to the next phase of his career. While it wasn’t the best weapon brawl of the show, it was fun and hit its objectives.
3 ½ stars – Great storytelling and good highspots try to overcome a challenging stipulation.
Match #3 – The House of Black vs The Elite - AEW Trios Titles
Maybe my hottest take of this review – again, strange that it’s coming from a point of praise – is that this was the best match on the show.
It may not have had the build of the other matches on the show, I’ll grant you that. But what more story do you need than “6 of the best wrestlers on the roster want to fight each other for titles on PPV”. It’s a pure wrestling narrative at its heart and I LOVE it. You want a story? The bell rings and a bunch of dudes fight to see who’s the best. Perfect.
I can’t possibly recap the action in this one, it was a ‘MOVEZ’ match and your enjoyment of it will hinge entirely on whether you see that as a good thing or a bad thing. For my personal tastes, I love that type of match. Even listing the biggest highspots and false finishes would take more page space and memory recall than I have available to me. Everyone had their moments to shine (including Julia Hart) and everyone’s big team moves got a nearfall.
It was awesome, the House of Black’s ‘spooky bullshit’ tendencies were kept to near-zero, and belting up the House of Black with a clean finish was the right move. Just incredible.
4 ½ stars – The perfect example of what the Trios style can be. Match of the Night.
Match #4 - Jamie Hayter vs. Saraya vs. Ruby Soho - AEW Women’s Title
This struggled following the previous three matches. The crowd were in preservation mode here - and in their defence, they weren’t presented with anything that tried to change that perception.
Jamie is a fantastic worker in a division of people who just can’t keep up with her. Ruby has her moments, but having a Never-Was like Saraya to work around really capped the potential ceiling of this match. Jamie and Ruby rallied and dragged this match up to ever so slightly Above Average, which honestly exceeds any reasonable expectations of it.
The ‘ex-WWE people banding together’ storyline is maybe the weakest in the promotion, and it was the central throughline to this match. Jamie got the deserved win here, which felt like a mere formality to get to the post-match angle. The heel turn by Ruby makes some sense (even if it was followed up by a cliched You People explanation promo on Dynamite), but this whole segment was white noise while the audience reset their energy.
2 ¾ stars – A mediocre angle disguised as a match.
Match #5 – Hangman Adam Page vs Jon Moxley – Texas Deathmatch
Right, let’s talk about AEW storytelling.
In the weeks and months leading up to this show, all you’d ever hear about in terminally-online wrestling circles is that ‘AEW doesn’t tell long-term stories’ or ‘AEW are just flashy matches that mean nothing, while WWE tells good stories.’ There are too many examples of this shit take to comprehensively cover in sassy hyperlinking.
Hangman and Moxley have a match where Hangman gets legit concussed. Pissed off at that, Hangman wants a rematch and Moxley receives a worked concussion during it. To settle it they have another rematch that ends with an inconclusive roll-up finish. Both guys are filled with venom, spite, and bitterness so they decide to settle it in a Texas Deathmatch at the PPV, a match tailormade for Mox’s sadism and a match type that Hangman has never lost. GET INTO IT.
And yet, you’ll still have people saying that THEY DON’T KNOW WHY THESE GUYS ARE MAD AT EACH OTHER. While this is all happening, Hangman keeps having to do backstage interviews with Mox’s wife – presented as completely professional with the undertone of personal hatred bubbling underneath. The ACTUAL ART OF SUBTLETY when a current supposed ‘greatest storyline of all time’ has wrestlers delivering mid-match promos to tell you exactly what they’re feeling, while the commentators repeat it dozens of times, in case you temporarily suffered a stroke.
And suddenly, the narrative always seems to shift when the numerous well-built long-term stories (MOTHERFUCKING PING) all coalesce and peak right as the PPV hits. It’s called booking! But now the narrative is “AEW booked too many stories to fit on their PPV”. IS IT TOO FEW, OR TOO MANY? Stop shifting the goalposts. I understand this all comes from two decades of monthly PPV-cycle audience brainrot from WWE’s preferred business model, but believe it or not you can build longer-term stories that don’t peak to a match for months, or that get diverted on a tangent of a few weeks before getting back to business!
Anyway, this match.
Having spent an entire tangent on the torrid discourse that surrounds AEW’s booking model and using this storyline to highlight why those criticisms are hollow, I feel a bit silly saying that I was lower on this match than most.
It was a really good match, don’t get me wrong, but in a world where this is receiving 5 stars from various outlets and a 9+ on Cagematch I must confess this doesn’t align with my personal tastes. This is completely my personal cross to bear, but in life I am squeamish with blood at the best of times and deathmatches in general make my stomach turn. The gore suited the story and the violence was completely earned, however, it did affect my enjoyment.
Having said that, it is a very un-deathmatch deathmatch and I would still highly recommend it to people with a stronger constitution. Hangman in particular looks like an absolute killer in this one – beginning from his entrance all the way to making Mox tap by literally hanging him with a chain noose, he finally comes across more like True Grit and less like Ralphie Parker.
While I know it’s not my personal preference, I can still recognise the effort these guys put in and (yet another) perfect delivery of the storyline completely during bell-to-bell action.
4 ¼ stars – An incredible, stomach-churning bloodbath between the two true outlaws of AEW. Recommended.
Match #6 – Wardlow vs Samoa Joe – TNT Title
Much like the women’s three-way match before it, this one got caught in the challenging position of following an emotionally exhausting segment. Also, like the women’s title match, there wasn’t too much here between the bell to combat it – they knew they were up against it and powered on through anyway.
Most notably, Powerhouse Hobbs (who was seen through various cutaways) was the most over guy in this match despite not actually being in this match. The Wardlow win made sense in the story they were telling, and Samoa Joe doesn’t look any worse off because of it.
I do think that the Wardlow ship has sailed for now, and Joe needs a good dance partner to truly be great in 2023. This had no business being on the PPV – it would be the third most memorable match on an average episode of Rampage.
2 stars – A match that was a mere formality to the next story beat and was wrestled as such. Worst of the Night.
Match #7 – The Gunns vs Lethal/Jarrett vs Best Friends vs The Acclaimed – AEW Tag Titles
Another match that was well aware that it was acting as a palate cleanser. However, this one smartly tackled this problem with comedy and a mass of different crowd-favourite gimmicks, to more success.
The wrestling here wasn’t anything memorable and it probably went a bit too long (you could’ve achieved this in 8 minutes), but it was decent enough and successfully reset the crowd for the main event.
The biggest takeaway from this match is the FTR return after the bell, which should hopefully lead to a re-emphasis on the tag division and fewer FTR Bald terminally-online tweets.
2 ½ stars – A forgettable sorbet before the main course.
Match #8 – MJF vs Bryan Danielson – AEW World Title – Iron Man Match
Alright, this is the take I’m least looking forward to putting out into the world.
This was an all-time unforgettable 25-minute match stretched out to a just-better-than-good 60-minute match.
60-minute Iron Man matches always struggle with the fact that you can feel the length as it’s occurring, especially when the wrestlers are pacing themselves in the front half of the match.
The throughline of this one was good, with MJF attempting to outwrestle Bryan to feed his ego but being thwarted by his own comparative inability and training. The constant water breaks, failed submissions, and crying as the clock kept on ticking was masterful character work by MJF, the standout performer of the match.
There were two things I thought this match did well in relation to the Iron Man stipulation. The first is that it didn’t suffer the usual Iron Man trope where commonplace nearfalls suddenly start getting a 3 count to inflate the score. The first fall of this match came from an established finish 25 minutes in, exactly how it would if this was a standard one on one match. The following falls kept this pattern going.
The second was the creative strategy MJF used to twist the Iron Man rules to his own advantage. By voluntarily losing a low-blow DQ fall, he was able to quickly pick up two successive falls right afterwards. Smart, true to character, true to the storyline, and fun to watch.
Unfortunately, the majority of this match’s highlights come from the final 15 minutes and overtime. The first three-quarters of this match felt padded out and slower than usual. Does it make kayfabe sense, given both guys know they’re going 60? Yes. Does it make it any more fun to watch? No. The final 15 minutes and overtime were spectacular and peak wrestling storytelling, but I couldn’t get over how much nothingness I had to sit through to get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Still, this is one of the most critically lauded matches of the year (and honestly, decade) so please don’t let my opinion get in the way of checking it out and judging for yourself. Whenever my view varies this much from the consensus, I’m not blind to the fact that the problem is likely with me, and I am missing something here.
Watch this match. It’s good work by all-time workers, who are at the peak of their respective characters. I hope you enjoy it more than I did (though I still enjoyed it thoroughly!).
3 ¾ stars – 45 minutes of a 2.5-star match followed by 15 minutes of a 5-star match. Recommended.
Overall Thoughts: I thought this was a really good show, with some incredible in-ring action but also a fair few valleys to accompany the peaks. Definitely go out of your way to watch it, but don’t let yourself get sucked into the ‘Best Show Ever’ hype.
Average match rating: 3.31 of 5 stars (or 6.62 of 10).
