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Credit: All Elite Wrestling
All Elite Wrestling only has a few pay-per-views per year, but AEW Revolution 2022 showed that what they lack in quantity, they make up for in quality.
This event was absolutely packed to the brim with an overflowing lineup of matches and an abundance of talent.
With nearly all the belts on the line, a dog collar match and a Face of the Revolution ladder match, there was enormous potential for this to be a standout event in more ways than one.
Now that the event has concluded, let’s look back on the results and break down some of the biggest takeaways from what transpired!
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Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Among great competitors, Wardlow was able to grab the brass ring and win the Face of the Revolution ladder match.
This proves MJF wrong, as he had said Wardlow wasn’t going to win. Perhaps now that the belt is within his grasp and Wardlow turned on MJF by giving Punk the diamond ring, The Salt of the Earth will back out on his promise to let Mr. Mayhem keep the belt.
That appears to be the next feud for Wardlow. The only question is whether he’ll be champion for it.
Assuming he can retain the TNT Championship over Scorpio Sky, Sammy Guevara is going to have his work cut out for him. Wardlow has been on a tear and he has the size advantage, as well as momentum on his side.
It makes more sense for Wardlow to become the new champion at St. Patrick’s Day Slam to give that event something significant, rather than for Guevara to score the upset.
Then, MJF can either invoke the clause in his contract and steal the title, or at least grant himself a title match and try to command Wardlow to lay down for him, or be fired.
If that’s not the case and the belt is going to stay on Guevara, it will likely be due to MJF interfering and costing Warldow the win out of spite.
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Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Last year at Revolution, Christian Cage was signed. This time around, AEW has welcomed Shane “Swerve” Strickland to join the roster.
AEW can’t sign everyone, but if a wrestler has something to offer, they should absolutely be snatched up.
Strickland is only 31. He still has plenty years ahead of him, while already being a veteran. That means he can fulfill two roles of working with the rookies while still having room to grow into a more prominent member of the roster in his own right.
It was great to see that he can keep his Swerve nickname. Over the past few years, he’s built up some value in that moniker and should capitalize on it as much as he can, rather than starting over from square one.
There will be plenty opportunities for Swerve to have great matches with a laundry list of wrestlers. He may even be able to form a different version of Hit Row and succeed in a way WWE never gave him a proper opportunity to do.
This is a great new home for him, and he’ll be someone to keep an eye on.
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Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Dr. Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa were in a tough spot following the dog collar match. The crowd had spent all their energy and needed a break, only for these two to have the unfortunate honor of filling that time.
Along with an audience that couldn’t quite get hyped, this match was plagued by not being able to match the level of violence of what came before it both in the Punk vs. MJF fight, as well as the Lights Out match that these two had nearly a year ago.
That was one of the best matches of the year. This, though, had all the handcuffs of a normal match with no added benefit of being something we hadn’t seen before.
Instead of being an epic follow-up with two of the top women in the company battling it out in a classic, it was a slog to get through and should have ended several interference attempts before its inevitable conclusion.
Everything was predictable, the moves didn’t have much impact and it didn’t quite do anything for anyone involved. Baker doesn’t look stronger and Rosa is stuck as a could-be champion hoping for another shot down the road.
The only truly positive talking point to come out of this was that the new championship belt looks great.
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Credit: All Elite Wrestling
It was already intriguing enough that Bryan Danielson was so interested in teaming with Jon Moxley, rather than flat out feuding with him. Those two are fantastic and the idea of them as a duo could be very dangerous.
But after beating the hell out of each other and bleeding profusely, an even better wrinkle was added to the mix with William Regal’s appearance.
As a mentor to both of them, Regal acting as a go-between to get them to shake hands is a buzzworthy moment if there ever was one. This appears to be the start of not just a tag team, but a potential faction, with one of wrestling’s greatest minds of his generation at the helm.
Regal is awesome, so it’s great enough to have him in AEW. But if he’s going to be associated with both Danielson and Moxley, the sky’s the limit for this group.
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Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Over the past few weeks leading up to Revolution, the writing was on the wall that both The Elite and The Andrade-Hardy Family Office were heading toward disaster. Now, some of the biggest cracks have formed that make it a certainty these groups are doomed to split sooner, rather than later.
In the case of The Elite, Don Callis flat out said Adam Cole would only be a transitional champion until Kenny Omega would return to win the AEW World Championship. Later, communication between The Young Bucks and reDRagon broke down and resulted in both those teams fighting each other and neither winning the tag titles.
The A-HFO didn’t have a great night, either. Andrade El Idolo, Matt Hardy and Isiah Kassidy fell short against Guevara, Sting and Darby Allin. This isn’t the type of success El Idolo, nor Hardy can be happy with. Considering Hardy took the loss, watch out for Andrade to take the H out of that stable’s acronym.
The Dark Order doesn’t have the best win-loss record, but that group is the biggest with the least amount of problems at the moment. In a short while, it may be the de facto largest faction in the company after The Elite and The A-HFO break apart.
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Credit: All Elite Wrestling
To round things out, here are some other honorable mentions or smaller takeaways from the night:
- Jade Cargill is steadily improving and carried herself like a star even more than normal.
- Orange Cassidy is a treasure. Any time he’s in a multi-man match, in particular, he always finds more ways than one to stand out and shine.
- Three matches may be too much for the Buy-In. While it’s good to give fans the action, putting those fights on television instead of getting lost in the pre-show might be a better strategy, as it’s doubtful those bouts would have led to anyone on the fence ordering the event.
- Blood really does help sell a match, nearly every single time. The dog collar match wouldn’t have been the same without it, nor would Moxley vs. Danielson have appeared as brutal.
- MJF is the most reliable storyteller in the company. He’s never not playing into his character perfectly, even in a loss by spitting in Punk’s face.
- Sting crashing through tables at over 60 years old is amazing.
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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