• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • Elvis: Austin Butler

      REVIEW: ELVIS beautifully mythologizes the King of Rock and Roll

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 25, 2022
    • The Black Phone: Ethan Hawke as The Grabber

      REVIEW: THE BLACK PHONE is a flat, dull, rushed non-horror movie

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 25, 2022
    • Jurassic World Dominion Logo

      REVIEW: Jurassic World Dominion – Here we go again…again

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 12, 2022
    • Three Men and a Baby: Tom Selleck and Ted Danson

      Three Men and a Baby is still awesome thirty five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 31, 2022
    • The Bob's Burgers Movie Poster

      REVIEW: Bob’s Burgers The Movie is Bob’s Burgers The Show, which means it’s great

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 28, 2022
    • Top Gun Maverick: Tom Cruise

      REVIEW: Top Gun Maverick is a sequel that soars!

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 27, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Johnny Cash Cover

      Johnny Cash: The American Storyteller

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 2, 2015
      Music Blogs
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga’s discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
  • TV
    Featured
    • Nancy Drew S03e01: Kennedy McMann as Nancy

      Nancy Drew S03E01 Review: The Warning of the Frozen Heart - Uh-oh!

      By Salome G
      | October 10, 2021
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • Riverdale S06e18: Camila Mendes as Veronica Lodge

      Riverdale S06E18 Review: Biblical – Spooky chaos!

      By Salome G
      | June 29, 2022
    • Roswell, New Mexico S04e04: Heather Hemmens and Sherri Saum as Maria and Mimi DeLuca

      Roswell, New Mexico S04E04 Review: Dear Mama – Emotional?

      By Salome G
      | June 29, 2022
    • Evil S03e03: Katja Herbers and Aasif Mandvi as Kristen Bouchard and Ben Shakir

      Evil S03E03 Review: The Demon of Sex – Contrived?

      By Salome G
      | June 29, 2022
    • Dark Winds S01e03: kinaaldá Ceremony

      Dark Winds S01E03 Review: K’e – Swoon!

      By Salome G
      | June 29, 2022
    • Roswell, New Mexico S04e03: Sibongile Mlambo, Lily Cowles and Michael Trevino as Anatsa, Isobel and Kyle

      Roswell, New Mexico S04E03 Review: Subterranean Homesick Alien – Treading water?

      By Salome G
      | June 23, 2022
    • Obi-Wan Kenobi Series: Ewan McGregor and Vivien Lyra Blair as Obi-Wan and Leia

      REVIEW: Obi-Wan Kenobi had a good season and little else

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 22, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
    • Mario Headphones

      The SNES Turns 30: A look at some of the system’s best soundtracks

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 22, 2021
    • Metroid Dread Poster

      REVIEW: Metroid Dread reawakens the old gamer in me

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 11, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • Wwe Payback 2017 Poster 2

      Your SO OF COURSE preview of WWE Payback 2017

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 30, 2017
      WWE Blogs
    Recent
    • AEW Double or Nothing 2022: CM Punk vs Adam Page

      REVIEW: AEW Double or Nothing 2022 delivered an up-and-down show

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 30, 2022
    • MJF on AEW Dynamite 17th November 2021

      Getting AEW to the next level…

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 29, 2022
    • Raw 210501: Triple H and Stephanie McMahon

      May 21, 2001 – A (forgotten) date that will live in WWE infamy

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 20, 2022
    • WWE WrestleMania 39 Logo

      Your WAY TOO EARLY predictions for WWE WrestleMania 39!

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 20, 2022
    • WWE WrestleMania 38 Poster

      Your SO OF COURSE preview of WWE WRESTLEMANIA 38!

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 30, 2022
    • Wrestlemania 31 Paige Aj Lee 2

      BOOK REVIEW: The Women of WrestleMania is a balanced take on an under-valued slice of history

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 16, 2022
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • Riverdale S06E18 Review: Biblical - Spooky chaos!
    • Roswell, New Mexico S04E04 Review: Dear Mama - Emotional?
    • Evil S03E03 Review: The Demon of Sex - Contrived?
    • Dark Winds S01E03 Review: K'e - Swoon!
    • REVIEW: ELVIS beautifully mythologizes the King of Rock and Roll
    • REVIEW: THE BLACK PHONE is a flat, dull, rushed non-horror movie
    • Latest Comments

    AEW Revolution 2020 PPV Review

    By Matthew Martin
    | March 3, 2020
    AEW

    AEW has committed themselves to put out only four PPV events per year, and considering the $60 price tag, and the fact that fans have been conditioned for over half a decade to think of PPVs as worth no more than $9.99, it’s a smart move.

    As an added bonus, the extra few months in between each show allows the company to craft slow-burn storylines that reach a fever pitch right as the next super show arrives. For years fans have been begging WWE to book their stories with an eye toward three months, four months, six months down the line. In fairness, WWE’s “creative” team is so inept and hamstrung by Vince’s random mood swings and mind-changes that it’s a miracle if there’s a storyline that has a logical beginning, middle, and ending within even a one month window.

    AEW has been in business for a year but they’ve only been on television since October. In that time they’ve run a single PPV, Full Gear, which occurred only one month after their TNT debut. It’s been nearly four months since then, making this our first opportunity to witness how well the company can craft a slow-burn storyline.

    If Revolution is the indicator, fans have nothing to worry about.

    Aew Revolution Poster 2020

    The show was phenomenal; easily it was their best since Double or Nothing, and might’ve even surpassed that great event. Here are three big takeaways from the event, all pointing to good things to come for the hot new wrestling enterprise…

    HANGMAN PAGE

    Hangman Adam Page went from being a guy getting a polite but lukewarm reception from fans in the first days of AEW, to being, arguably, the most over guy on the show one year later. When we first met Page he was earning his way into the AEW World Championship-crowning match with Chris Jericho. To say fans were conflicted would be an understatement. The consensus was…there was no consensus. Half the fanbase wanted to see the veteran Jericho win, thinking he’d be the perfect guy to bring instant-credibility to the title, while the other half of fans were worried about what it would look like putting the title on a semi-retired, past his prime guy best known for being from another promotion.

    As it turned out, the latter fears were unfounded; Jericho was the perfect inaugural champion and will be looked back on as someone as pivotal to the company’s early success as Terry Funk was to ECW. The thing is, though, if you look back on the hand-wringing about the inaugural-title match, 90% of the talk centered around  Jericho; Page was an afterthought. He was seen as a bit too vanilla, a bit too unremarkable to be the champ. Most wanted to see Kenny Omega vs Jericho be for the title; no one was really actively rooting for Adam Page and when the match came, his crowd reaction was tepid at best, with most of the heat being directed solely at Jericho.

    What a difference a year makes.

    Through simple storytelling, and—most of all—patience, Page won the hearts of the AEW fanbase. In what was, easily, the hottest match of the night, featuring Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, it was Adam Page who had fans hanging on his every move, reacting to his every taunt, cheering his every offense, and booing every time he took a pounding. He was the most over man in Chicago since CM Punk in 2011.

    It’s a turnaround that wouldn’t have happened had his character not been allowed to evolve slowly over the course of these past several months.

    LISTEN TO THE FANS

    Orange Cassidy Pwg 3

    If not for Adam Page, the race for hottest performer of the night would be neck and neck between Darby Allin and Orange Cassidy. I don’t want to make this too much of a WWE bashing thing but it needs to be said, for comparison purposes, just how mistreated these two guys would be in WWE.

    Allin would be a cartoon character, cutting stupid wannabe-goth promos written by old men who have no idea how to relate to his character.  He’d also probably get some stupid single-name moniker like “Darby” and would lose basically every match. He’d be a jobber to the stars, no more, slightly lower on the totem pole than Ricochet is right now.

    Orange Cassidy would be Santino Marella. He’d be Gillberg. If there was still a Sunday Night Heat, he’d be there. He’d never show flashes of greatness as he did against Pac. He’d be stuck as the “guy who doesn’t care” and come out to increasingly smaller reactions every week until “Cassidy” (as he’d be known) was a guy you never saw except when there was a battle royale. He’d be stuck in catering for the duration of his five-year contract.

    In AEW, performers are given the freedom to be themselves. What works in front of 150 fans can work in front of 15,000 fans with the right commitment and trust from the boss. Both guys have made huge names for themselves in less than a year and, in the case of Darby, it’s because a concerted effort was made to get him over (whereas WWE would have decided he didn’t deserve to get over, no matter how popular he might be). In the case of Orange Cassidy, AEW just got out of the way and let him do his thing.

    The fans love these performers and that’s why they’re being pushed and protected. How novel.

    THAT “BIG EVENT” FEEL

    Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

    YouTube privacy policy

    If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

    Cody vs MJF felt like a WrestleMania blood-feud fight, in that it was a big, bombastic, gimmicky, spectacle of a match, heavy on storytelling and pathos and less about technical wrestling. It’s the kind of big match that his daddy made his name having, but centered around a core story/blood feud.

    The whole show felt like AEW’s WrestleMania, in fact. That’s probably because so many of the matches had literal months of build-up. WWE only puts that level of work into a PPV in the extended time between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania (and even then they have one or two shows to keep their lazy writers busy in the interim).

    If we get this every three months I’ll be ecstatic, and the fact is we very well might. If the storytelling stays at this level, with three months of buildup every time, we’re looking at having not just one PPV a year being a big, important show, but every PPV.

    FINAL THOUGHTS

    Revolution ran about 3.5 hours, or half what WrestleMania is expected to go this year. By the time Mania’s main-event finally arrives, you can be sure the fans in attendance will be exhausted. Many of them will have left, in fact; that’s partially due to tiredness and partially because the main-event is typically not what fans care about, but I digress. Seven hours is just too much Wrestling.

    The Chicago crowd for Revolution was on fire all night long, losing no energy at any point, not even during the matches that followed the hottest fights of the night. The passion of the crowd carried over into commentary, into the performances in the ring, even to those watching at home: A hot crowd can make any good show feel like a great one. Many WrestleManias that might’ve been regarded as great are, in fact, thought of as subpar, mostly because they overstayed their welcome.

    Revolution left me wanting more.

    10/10 – AEW’s first slow-burn PPV was a smashing success, setting the stage for more greatness to come. 

    Share this article:

    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit

    Tags

    AEWAEW Revolution

    COMMENTS

    Please read our Commenting Policy before you join in with the discussion.

    Note: If you have email notifications enabled, please check your email spam folders to ensure emails are not missed.

    Subscribe
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    Notify of
    guest
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    guest
    6 Comments
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    Gavin the Binge-Watcher
    Gavin the Binge-Watcher
    2 years ago

    What stood out to me is how much each wrestler was putting their heart into it, especially Adam and Cody. The WWE is ruining Ricochet and it does my head in.

    0
    Reply
    Drewsi
    Drewsi
    2 years ago

    I love how AEW are given much more freedom than WWE stars. They can establish their own persona. I’m loving Page. It’s true, I was cheering for Jericho a year ago.

    0
    Reply
    KeeperofUnicorns
    KeeperofUnicorns
    2 years ago

    Oh wow, it sounds like I missed some entertaining matches. It’s amazing that some of AEW’s rising stars were once lost among WWE’s massive roster. I wonder if Vince has any regrets about that.

    0
    Reply
    Snarky-Guru
    Snarky-Guru
    2 years ago

    There are rumours going around that Kenny Omega broke his hand and suffered a head injury during his match. I hope he’s okay and that the rumours are untrue. He’s really making a name for himself and needs to keep the momentum going. I can imagine the frustration he’d feel at being injured now.

    0
    Reply
    Drewsi
    Drewsi
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Snarky-Guru

    I didn’t hear that. It’s understandable though. It was a great match! Full of crazy excitement. I really hope that he didn’t injure himself, for real.

    0
    Reply
    Silver
    Silver
    2 years ago

    As much as I already liked AEW, I was still pleasantly surprised that this PPV was as entertaining as it was from start to finish. I’m becoming a huge fan of MJF. He’s incredibly talented and I dig his persona.

    0
    Reply

    You might also like

    • The Wednesday Night War Report: February 2020

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 1, 2020
    • Which wrestlers should jump ship from WWE to AEW?

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 26, 2019
    • AEW: pros and cons after three PPVs

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 15, 2019

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    Wrestling Topics

    Recommended for you

    • REVIEW: AEW Double or Nothing 2022 delivered an up-and-down show

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 30, 2022
    • Getting AEW to the next level…

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 29, 2022
    • May 21, 2001 – A (forgotten) date that will live in WWE infamy

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 20, 2022
    • Your WAY TOO EARLY predictions for WWE WrestleMania 39!

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 20, 2022
    • Money in the Bank and making a main-eventer

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 31, 2017
    • What we want from an AEW video game

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 31, 2021
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter
    wpDiscuz