AEW Revolution preview: The Icon

AEW’s first pay-per-view of 2024 is loaded. Momentum is building around both this card and the future of the company. By honoring a retiring legend 10 days before debuting two S-tier wrestlers (Kazuchika Okada and Mercedes Mone), AEW is positioning itself for a tremendous year. That doesn’t even consider a likely increase in media rights (money is good) or the return of big-name wrestlers currently out injured – Kenny Omega, Adam Cole, Britt Baker, and MJF to name a few. The last time the stars seemed to align like this was around The First Dance. We all know how that ended, but for a brief period, nothing was hotter. Here’s hoping this year is more of that without the heartbreak.

These PPVs always deliver. Even if they are plagued with questionable builds and hastily booked matches, the in-ring quality tends to be top-notch. This card promises more of the same in terms of match quality, but this time the builds and stories are strong. This is the most cohesive build a major AEW event has had…ever? They booked a major tentpole match months ago – Sting’s last match – and worked backward to fill in the rest of it. It gave the show structure and stability to work around. More of this!

Others on the internet, and this site, will offer far more eloquent and thoughtful reflections on Sting’s career and his impact on the business than I ever could. This piece from 2022 by Cameron Hawkins at The Ringer is my personal favorite. My job is to preview the matches. Let’s do it.

Jon Moxley & Claudio Castagnoli vs. FTR

Just a good, solid pro wrestling build to this one. Nothing sexy, nothing fancy, just four dudes who want to beat the crap out of each other. Sometimes it’s just that simple. The first tag match was a delicious appetizer, and the six-man tag this past Wednesday only made me hungrier for something more on a PPV stage. Give this 15 minutes to open the show and let it rip.

This program just started to heat up and should keep going. FTR rarely loses standard tag team matches, but I get the feeling that changes on Sunday. Mox and Claudio stay hot leading into their feud with the entirety of CMLL, and hopefully more with FTR.

Prediction: Jon Moxley & Claudio Castagnoli

All-Star scramble: Wardlow vs. Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Lance Archer vs. Chris Jericho vs. Hook vs. Brian Cage vs. Magnus vs. Dante Martin

My reaction to the sadly postponed Meat Madness match was “hell yeah dudes rock.” Now it’s a more tepid “heck yeah some of these dudes rock.” To be clear, Lance Archer and Powerhouse Hobbs still get a full-throated hell yeah, but the rest of the dudes are kind of just there. Lord knows, Wardlow went out and tried his absolute best a couple of weeks ago on Dynamite. It’s the best promo he’s cut in AEW, but it still wasn’t enough. The bloom is all the way off that rose. It doesn’t look like it’s ever fully coming back, either.

Whoever wins this has no shot against Samoa Joe, Swerve Strickland, or Adam Page, so it’s all about figuring out who can give them the best match. That’s probably Lance Archer – which means oh my god Chris Jericho is winning this, isn’t he?

Prediction: Sigh, Chris Jericho

Will Ospreay vs. Konosuke Takeshita

Rarely has a wrestler this talented been so divisive. By any objective measure, Will Ospreay is almost unimaginably talented. There is truly nothing he can’t do physically. But there’s still a bit of a disconnect for me. My main criticism of Ospreay is that he tries to be everything in the same match. I’ll rip off the great Dr. Ian Malcolm and say that young William is so preoccupied with whether he could, that he doesn’t stop to think if he should. He does not need to always go out and try and have the best match of the week/month/year/all time. Not every match demands that level of performance. If everything is the greatest or the best, isn’t it all the same?

It’s clear that Ospreay loves wrestling, but too often it feels like he’s trying to break an arbitrary rating scale for a particular website. A website you happen to be reading right now. If his matches were a bit less self-indulgent and more purposeful, they would resonate so much more. They would stay with you.

The sooner our beautiful, massive, adult son Konosuke Takeshita disentangles himself from the Don Callis Family the better. Diamond Don had his moments earlier in AEW, but now it’s more of the same, tired stuff. This grouping does not serve Takeshita at all. This is someone the crowd wants to get behind because of what he can do in the ring. He is a special, special talent.

I hope that the fallout from this match leads to Takeshita splitting from the Callis Family and doing his own thing, and a loss to Ospreay sets that up. Sometimes you have to go back to move forward.

Prediction: Will Ospreay

Orange Cassidy vs. Roderick Strong for the AEW International Championship

To avoid turning the Undisputed Kingdom boys into even bigger geeks, they need some non-Ring of Honor gold. ROH titles do not count unless they are held by Eddie Kingston or Athena. Those are champions giving the titles meaning, not the other way around. The gold they seek must be legitimate. That’s what Orange Cassidy has spent more than a year doing; making the International title a meaningful secondary title. No one has worked harder or more often than the guy who doesn’t want to work at all. But the time has come for a change. Would it be nice if the change didn’t involve a dead-on-arrival faction? Certainly, but Strong can continue making this title the workhorse title Cassidy turned it into.

Few are better at wrestling similar-sized or smaller wrestlers than Rod Strong – the best wrestler in the Undisputed Kingdom, Adam Cole included – and I’m already wincing at what Strong is going to do to OC’s chest and back. This should be a whole bunch of fun.

Prediction: Roderick Strong

Christian Cage vs. Daniel Garcia for the TNT Championship

Pull the trigger, and make the guy. If any of you are selling your Daniel Garcia stock let me know, because I’ll buy it all. Finally, mercifully, free from the Chris Jericho vortex, Garcia can fully show what he’s capable of in the ring and on the microphone. The dancing has become a nice complement to his act rather than the sole focus. That focus is now sharply on what he can do in the ring and on the microphone. It’s clear to anyone who’s watched AEW that Daniel Garcia is already a star. Sunday is the time to etch that in stone by giving him his signature moment.

This version of Christian Cage is an asset to any company. It’s almost impossible to properly value him. His segments remain must-see. His war on Dads continues, unceasing like the ocean waves. He constantly elevates his competitors and is hated enough that when someone finally gets to pay him his comeuppance, they are a made guy. Who better to deliver that comeuppance than Garcia? It’s his time.

Prediction: Daniel Garcia

Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson for the Continental Crown Championship

Claudio may be Kingston’s forever rival, but Bryan Danielson is his one true person. Much like the far ends of the political spectrum are closer than each side would realize or admit, so are Danielson and Kingston. They both live for this, and they LOVE this with every cell in their body. The two approaches, while different, both come from similar places. They come from a deep love of the history and art of the sport. Borrowing from the past and paying tribute to it is foundational to their essence as performers. Both wrestle with such passion – Kingston’s born from a seething desire to prove that yes, he can do this, and Bryan with a passion only the purest love can evoke. That’s why Kingston’s wasted potential infuriates him. He sees someone that could have been one of the all-time greats. One of the people who is paid tribute to by future generations. Instead, he’s “just” Eddie Kingston, which isn’t enough for Danielson.

Beating Danielson in a major PPV match is the last BCC infinity stone for Kingston to collect. Winning the ROH title from Claudio Castagnoli and beating Jon Moxley in the finals of the Continental Classic were tremendous accomplishments. Beating the greatest wrestler of all time on a major show? That’s something else entirely.

Prediction: Eddie Kingston

“Timeless” Toni Storm vs. Deonna Purrazzo for the AEW Women’s World Championship

The Timeless Toni character is on its last legs. This was a fairly ambitious gimmick, and they did some interesting things with it. The slow descent into madness and the black-and-white camera both worked well. It might be generous to call it a success, but it was ambitious and different, and things like this are worth trying out. Absurd gimmicks like this have a definite shelf life, and it’s hard to see this having much more.

This program with Deonna Purrazzo has been clear and made sense. Drawing on their shared history was great, the tattoos were a nice reference, and Toni covering hers up was a unique story beat. We love it all! Normally this is where a title change makes perfect sense – a fresh debuting star beating a champion that’s been at the top for a while – but there is another debut looming that hangs over the result of this match.

Mercedes Mone is coming, and she will immediately be the top star in the women’s division by orders of magnitude. There is, frankly, no one else like her. A one-of-one. A star with so much presence that she can block the light from anyone else. That’s what happens with a star of that caliber, sometimes. How much purpose would it serve for Purrazzo to have a major win on her first AEW PPV and then immediately be overshadowed 10 days later? Purrazzo is in the right place, she’s just showing up at the wrong time. This makes me think Toni keeps the title for just a bit longer.

Prediction: Toni Storm

Samoa Joe vs. Swerve Strickland vs. “Hangman” Adam Page for the AEW World Championship

Wrestling Samoa Joe is like getting into a knife fight in a phone booth. There is no path for retreat. You’re in there with him until he decides you aren’t. If someone is going to get past, over, or even through him, they will have earned it. They will be fully deserving of the gold and accolades that go with it. The physical toll will linger – their bodies aching at even a mention of him. He is Samoa Joe, the rightful king of AEW and a real-ass world champion.

His opponents in this match have built a literal blood feud in under four months. It took exactly two matches for people to begin salivating at what could be the beginning of a years-long rivalry. All it took was drinking blood. Happy marriages are built on far less. The alignment between Swerve and Page is fascinating. The guy who broke into the other’s house and implicitly threatened an infant is somehow the good guy here. And it works! Swerve has so much charisma, so much presence, and so, so much talent, that we are willing to overlook legitimate psycho behavior. It also speaks to Page’s versatility that the audience bought into him as a heel. The guy just wanted to protect his family! For years he has been one of the most loved wrestlers on the roster. Now he’s doing fake injury angles and rocking a devastating mustache.

These three should put together something special on Sunday, but I’m a bit puzzled as to where things end up when the show goes off the air. Rarely does AEW do transitional champions with the big belts, and Samoa Joe is only a few months into his reign. But Swerve remains hotter than a Middle Eastern climate. No one would second-guess a title change here. There’s just something in the back of my mind that says it won’t happen. I can’t shake the notion that Page will do whatever it takes to prevent Swerve from winning, even at his own cost. I can see Page willingly sacrificing his own success just to prevent someone else from achieving their dreams. We love a petty king.

Prediction: Samoa Joe

Sting’s retirement match: Sting & Darby Allin vs. The Young Bucks for the AEW Tag Team titles

Surfer, Crow, Joker, Icon. However you know him, this is Sting. Sting’s significance transcends athleticism or what he can do in the ring. His magnetic presence – the face paint, the black baseball bat – became symbols of resilience and defiance in the 90s. Crow Sting had the wrestling world in a chokehold from 1996-1997. It was the first time I knew something was cool even though I couldn’t explain it. I don’t even think I knew what cool was back then – surely it was not me – but I knew enough to beg my parents to let me stay up and watch Nitro just so I could see what I called “the guy on the roof.” He captivated the world in different decades, in different promotions, and different ways. His journey from the vibrant arenas of WCW, to an injury-shortened stint in WWE, and now to AEW is appropriate for someone who epitomized evolution in wrestling. Flowery prose aside, Sting has always been the dude.

His retirement, like the last chord of your favorite song, rings bittersweet. Beginnings are fun, but the end always comes, and the end is always hard. We always want more; a selfishness born out of love. How wonderful for Sting to be able to go out fully on his terms; something sadly few wrestlers get to do. How wonderful to do it in historic Greensboro. And how wonderful to have it be a celebration of what he is, and what he meant to an entire industry, rather than a sad reminder of what he couldn’t do. The outcome of this match is secondary, even tertiary, to the larger spectacle that this will be. This is the rare occasion in this silly sport where who wins doesn’t matter. All that matters are the feelings and the moment. And what a moment on Wednesday when Sting descended from the rafters one last time. The child in my heart was bursting with a happiness I did not expect. A legend like Sting getting to experience a fulfilling final chapter is something that should bring a smile to all wrestling fans, regardless of which company they support.

Prediction: Sting goes out on top