Backstage Fury Over AEW Revolution Explosion! | WrestleTalk News

AEW’s Revolution PPV this past Sunday was built around the main event of Jon Moxley vs Kenny Omega in an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch, with the promise that after thirty minutes, the ring would explode. That’s not my 90s induced bloodthirst. That’s literally what they told me.

The match itself was brutal, compelling and something I’d never watch again. But it was the angle that followed that was pure magic. Moxley’s former friend turned enemy Eddie Kingston ran down to save him as the bombs counted down from 10, covering his body with his own to shield him from the explosion. I’m not crying, I’ve just been cutting onions.

A heartbreaking, sincere gesture, that was completely undermined by the planned explosion not working, and it being about as impressive as a Gillberg entrance. Which, to make it even more awkward, Kingston and Moxley sold not knowing how bad it looked.

Bryan Alvarez has confirmed this wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Just like the Matt Hardy vs Sammy Guevarra botch at All Out, where they had ran through the spot with a stuntman before the show to make sure it was safe, AEW had even tested the big explosion finish ahead of Revolution and it worked perfectly. But the ‘bomb’ they used on the actual show just happened to be “a dud.”

Unsurprisingly for such a huge part of the show going wrong, Alvarez adds that Kenny Omega, the match’s winner, was “furious” backstage with the finish. A quick coverup story by Tony Khan on the post-show media call gave the kayfabe reason that it was Omega’s faulty engineering that stopped the big explosion going off, which isn’t exactly what you want associated with your top champion.

How would you cover for the botch on tomorrow’s Dynamite? Let me know in the comments down below because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE.

WWE Reaction To Christian Joining AEW

Something else that got a mixed reaction from viewers on Sunday’s show was the debut of Christian Cage in AEW, who was the hyped up Hall of Fame worthy signing who has now joined the company on a multi year deal. Christian only returned to in-ring wrestling after a seven year retirement at the Royal Rumble in January, but due to negotiations with WWE falling through, he was never signed to a deal with the company.

Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select has now reported that WWE higher ups felt “let down” by Christian’s decision, but ultimately blamed the company “for not having a contract locked down.” Them knowing ahead of time was why WWE stopped mentioning him on TV despite his Rumble return being one of the biggest angles of the year.

We might not be getting that Edge and Christian reunion for WrestleMania, but at least we’ll always have Shane McMahon vs Braun Strowman. Right? Right?

Weird Shane McMahon Promo Explained

On last night’s Raw, Shane cut a really weird promo, where he took about ten minutes in real time, or ‘five hours in experience time’, to say essentially nothing, while fumbling over his lines and going on tangents. It was so bad, many viewers were worried about Shane’s health.

But silly us, right? WWE meant it to be that bad.

Sean Ross Sapp on Fightful Select is reporting “the promo went pretty well the way that it was supposed to” as the goal is to make Shane “less likeable” than Braun, and “taking forever to get to the point was a part of that.”

Go make WrestleTalk.com your homepage for loads more wrestling news, but now it’s time for my review of last night’s Raw, in about 5 minutes!

WWE Raw Review

The Hurt Business are so god damned cool. They opened the show walking down a corridor backstage wearing their suits and draped in gold. And the only one of them that doesn’t have a championship has a really cool cane instead. I love them, love them, love them.

After an in-ring Miz promo where he just pretty much recapped what the video package at the start of the show had already told us – seriously, Raw now has more repetitive recaps then Married At First Sight Australia, and that show is barely 40% new material each episode. But I still love it. The opening of Raw was designed to be the official beginning of the Almighty Era, complete with a new entrance for WWE Champion Bobby Lashley that includes a special video bumper like he’s his own show, lightning pyro and a giant augmented reality Bobby Lashley in front of the real Bobby Lashley. Oh I hate you A-you know what, I’m just going to be appreciative of all the good pyro we get this week, thank you pyro.

This was just a prolonged squash match for Bobby, where he made Miz tap out with the Hurt Lock – in lieu of the advertised Championship Celebration that appears to have been dropped without reason.

Speaking of the Hurt Business, WWE then announced this year’s WrestleMania slogan that’s going to get very old, very quick: WrestleMania – Back in Business, with the Rock’s voice saying ‘finally’ about getting fans back live.

What happens first? Fans in the arena, or Rhea Ripley’s full call up? She’s still coming soon.

Drew McIntyre tried to cut a promo on Bobby backstage, positioning himself as the number one contender, but Sheamus attacked him – setting up an excellent No DQ match between them.

Drew attacked Sheamus during his entrance and the weapons came out immediately, with both guys showing great physicality, really getting over this blood feud’s intensity.

They went through at least one commercial break with another pay-per-view calibre match: a Future Shock DDT onto a chair. A Claymore, but Sheamus fell out the ring. A Brogue Kick outside the ring. Even though Drew beat Sheamus clean last week, they were so competitive, it made you invested in the outcome. They both picked up steel stairs to have a Stair War – Stair War, title of your wrestling pay-per-view – the Thunderdome started chanting This Is Awesome when it actually was, making it… the perfect time to call off the match because they can’t compete. They hit each other with the steps, knocking them both out, and the referee ruled a draw.

It was a very anticlimactic finish. Not, you know, that anticlimactic, but it still soured the effort the wrestlers put in. Fastlane is next week. You could just save the match until then, and give us an actual finish. Oh god they’re going to form the Bar 2.0.

And that was the moment Raw gave up.

After a really solid opening with that match and the Almighty Era presentation, WWE effectively pooped the bed. Beginning with the WrestleMania feud nobody asked for: Shane McMahon vs Braun Strowman.

Braun wants an apology from Shane McMahon. Why? I don’t really know. Shane gave him a tag team title match last week, which didn’t work out. But Braun’s the face here, you see. Shane’s meant to be the heel, despite definitely doing the major face action of making Miz fight Lashley last week. So McMahon came out, said he’s sorry, then walked off.

This, by the way, isn’t even to mention R-Truth doing a Men in Black memory wipe gag in all of this which is… 24 years old.

But wait, it gets worse!

Shane invited Braun out to the ring again later on to give a fuller apology. The idea, reportedly, was to position McMahon as a heel – maybe don’t align him against the Miz last week then – by having him stall, and change the mics, and ramble. But the problem here is that requires the special ability of ‘acting’. Something Shane appears to lack, creating a torturously long, drawn out promo whose interpretations range from: well this is incredibly boring, to, is Shane ok, I think he’s malfunctioning.

Shane then called Braun stupid, and pretended to flee in a car when Strowman chased him.

Xavier Woods rolled up Shelton Benjamin in a standard tag title feud build.

Matt Riddle was more concerned with who’s going to look after his scooter than his match against Slapjack next. They actually had some decent action for the three minutes they were given. Riddle will be defending his US title against Ali next Monday in a match announced a whole week in advance.

WWE had the audacity to go from a recap of Nia Jax screaming about her hole to a plug for WWE’s Girl Up campaign for International Women’s day, and then back into a throwaway women’s tag title match that was more about Reginald the sommelier than anything in the ring.

I genuinely don’t think they see why this is potentially counterproductive. I really think they’re all like, we are so good to women.

Nia pinned Lana after Naomi was distracted by Reginald.

Please like Charlotte, here she is driving a shark shaped speed boat with Stone Cold Steve Austin. And here she is being way taller than Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke.

Rhea Ripley is still coming.

And the main event was Randy Orton vs AJ Styles, which meant Tom Phillips achieved peak orgasm because he got to say IT’S A WRESTLEMANIA CALIBRE MAIN EVENT every other segment. They’re both heels. The opener had two heels. Everyone’s a heel now!

These two have great chemistry, though, and it was interesting to see Randy embody his new, more Fiend-ish character – where he moves around twice as fast as he normally does. Which is about just as fast as the average match pace in 2021.

But no-one can resist looking at the big man, and AJ got on top following Orton’s distraction. And then for double distraction points, Alexa Bliss appeared on the tron and shot pyro from the turnbuckles – causing Randy to vomit up black liquid (that’s what AEW should’ve done), and AJ to hit a Phenomenal Forearm to win.

What did you think of Raw? Let me know on our Poll on a Pole match on the Community Tab, where 67% voted for Pyro that works! The Almighty Era begins.

Just like last week, this had a very good opening hour, and main event – minus the supernatural guffins – but almost everything in the middle was either just there, or actively bad like the Shane stuff. And no Damien Priest is a bad sign for how much stock the company actually has in him. This week’s Raw is AvRAWge.

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Subscribe to the WrestleTalk Podcast channel for mine and Luke’s full podcast review of Raw today. Tease it, Luke!

Click the video on the right now to watch that! And Christian has left WWE and signed for AEW! Click the video beneath that for my review of AEW Revolution and its embarrassing main event finish. And make WrestleTalk.com your homepage for all the latest breaking wrestling news. I’ve been Mr Davis, Jam that Jam.

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