AEW Revolution 2024: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s annual review of AEW Revolution, which is the show where Sting retired. That's what it is, that's what it always will be, you know it and we know it, which is why a decent portion of this column is dedicated to Sting's last match and everything surrounding it. Yes, we'll go into some other matches — Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson, the All-Star scramble, Toni Storm vs. Deonna Purrazzo — but even there, you're probably going to get some Sting mentions, because Sting impacted everything on this card. And as for matches like BCC vs. FTR, Christian Cage vs. Daniel Garcia, the damn world title match ... sorry. Not talking about you here.

Of course, our live coverage/results page is always available for those who want to know all the details about the show. This column is about how we felt about the show. And on a show like there one, there are a lot of feelings. So without further ado, here are three things we hated and three things we loved from AEW Revolution 2024.

If I were Tony Khan, I'd expect some pushback to the idea that Revolution was the greatest PPV of all time. For one thing, some of us just don't have a ton of nostalgia for Sting (sorry, I guess?) and it would have been nice if even one thing actually happened on this show to break up the monotony.

I can already hear AEW fans bristling. Look, the matches were good, okay? Nobody is saying the matches weren't good. But very little happened, in the end. Just one title changed hands, which we all saw coming. Very few stories were advanced, though some certainly ended. There were no big debuts or surprise appearances, there wasn't even any kind of standout performance on the undercard that nobody saw coming. It was a very straightforward wrestling show. Will Ospreay vs. Konosuke Takeshita, which was well-executed but desperately needed some kind of story behind it, didn't even get the boost of having Ospreay split from Don Callis or something. The only thing that really qualifies as a surprise was the return of Kyle O'Reilly, but even that was done in very strange fashion, as O"Reilly didn't get involved in the finish of Orange Cassidy vs. Roderick Strong and didn't take any decisive action for or against the Undisputed Kingdom. As returns go, it was pretty weak.

In the end, apart from Sting's last match, Revolution was just a lot of meat-and-potatoes wrestling, which is fine unless you prefer your food to have some spice. I get that anyone whose wrestling fandom doesn't fall within the Venn diagram of "is fine with just a lot of good wrestling" and "misses WCW" probably shouldn't be watching AEW, but since it's my job to watch and tell you what I thought, what I thought was that it could have used some more flavor.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

The "Timeless" Toni Storm character has been a smash hit, largely (although I do worry about its shelf life), so when her old music hit and it appeared as though Storm was coming out in her old, not-lost-in-a-time-warp attire, as good as "she" looked in the moment, I'm sure some may have worried for a moment that Deonna Purrazzo got what she was looking for in snapping Storm back into reality. Instead, once it set in that this was simply Mariah May doing some spot-on Toni Storm cosplay, look, presentation, the whole nine, there wasn't anything to complain about here whatsoever.

This not only put May in a prominent position for the first time since her AEW arrival, by pulling off the Storm lookalike bit but also by playing a key factor in the outcome of the match, enabling the champion to defend her title. Further, it added a special story beat to Purrazzo's saga, as "The Virtuosa" lost all that she was vying for by being distracted by who Storm used to be while getting snatched up and defeated by who she's become.

Down the road, naturally, there's some May-Storm business to take care of, and plenty of story to draw upon from their relationship thus far, with tonight helping to further and deepen a lot of that with a few simple looks, mannerisms, and interactions between the two. Go back and check out the look May gives the title at the end of it all for starters. This may have been the beginning of some star-making stuff.

Written by Jon Jordan

Let me put it this way: I was late getting the PPV on my TV screen Sunday night and didn't get to see all of Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston, but it was still the best match at Revolution. And the best part was the part where Danielson lost clean.

For the record, I'm not mad at Sting for winning his last match and retiring undefeated in AEW. He didn't want to do that. If you watched the post-show media scrum, it was VERY clear that was Tony Khan's idea. Nonetheless, it stands in stark contrast to Danielson, who is nearing the end of his own career and has been losing a lot of singles matches recently to the likes of Kingston, Zack Sabre Jr., and Kazuchika Okada. But the loss to Kingston at Revolution seems like the most important, somehow — a guy's who's been the tip-top of the mountain losing clean (for the second time in a row) to a guy who 1000% was not supposed to make it in wrestling. It was good to see on a night like this, especially as the culmination of one of the best storylines AEW had going into this show.

And who knows, maybe when Danielson actually retires, Tony will talk him into finally winning a title in AEW a month before the end and not going out on his back. But I doubt it.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Unless you count Dante Martin almost killing himself at least three times, or Jake "The Snake" Roberts just kind of standing there at ringside, the thrown-together, eight-man, "All-Star" scramble match didn't do much to get any business done whatsoever. Sure, Wardlow won, earning himself a future world title shot, so that's a thing, but since we've already been told about 400 times since Adam Cole was revealed as The Devil (remember the whole Devil thing?) that Wardlow will eventually be winning the AEW World Championship only to hand it right over to Cole, we kind of already accepted that as an eventuality. Plus, you can't say that sort of thing and not ultimately pay it off. And AEW always pays things off in a fulfilling manner, right? Right.

Beyond all that, what was the point of HOOK's superhuman performance against Samoa Joe not all that long ago if he wasn't going to go on this dominant streak and win, oh, I don't know, matches like this with a bunch of gigantors? And why is Chris Jericho in this match? Because he needs to earn a guaranteed title shot at this point? He barely got through his tilt with Aquaman III (or whoever) last week on "Dynamite." And what did this do for someone like Powerhouse Hobbs, who could really use a little boost since he could probably make something out of it at this stage of his career. And why isn't Lance Archer more of a threat by now? And Brian Cage had cool Sting facepaint on so that's a plus. And Magnus ... I can't muster a single word there.

Worst of all, this match ate up nearly 16 valuable minutes of time in accomplishing its nothing while the rest of this card (which was pretty damn good overall, by the way) seemed a bit rushed in between matches (where valuable story-building could be utilized) and let's not forget that this company, that loves announcing its Wednesday night overruns more than most people do breathing, ended up ABRUPTLY CUTTING OFF STING FOLLOWING HIS LAST MATCH EVER.

We didn't need 11 matches. 10 would have still been too many, but subtracting this one would have been about as big a get via addition by subtraction as possible.

Written by Jon Jordan

It feels like not a week goes by that doesn't see AEW CEO Tony Khan kissing the feet of WBD for giving "AEW Dynamite" an overrun, to the point that those extra 5-15 minutes of post-show time are baked into AEW storytelling. Which is why it mildly infuriating — and admittedly a little funny — that the end of Sting's career saw him stutter, say "Hold on, I'm getting cues," then fade to black and a graphic reading "END OF AEW PROGRAM." It was a hilariously ignoble end to a rock-solid PPV.

There's plenty of armchair-producing one could do directly after that sputtering finale — did they need a 20-minute scramble match? Especially one that felt so thrown-together and underdeveloped? If ever there was a night to swing the pocketbook around and buy some extra time, surely it was for the night which included the final words of "The Icon" Sting. Alas, it was not to be. Maybe Metallica's "Seek And Destroy" cost too much, maybe Khan was right to cut the feed before Darby Allin bled to death while Sting delivered his final goodbye; hindsight is a perfect imperfect thing. No matter what could've happened, what did happen probably could've been accompanied by the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" theme song without much question.

Written by Ross Berman

Considering that at one point Sting's final-ever match was his infamous WWE Night Of Champions match against Seth Rollins, the fact that audiences and Sting himself have been able to get to this point is a beautiful thing, and something that a career such as his deserves. AEW has treated him with the utmost respect from the moment he debuted, but the presentation of Sting's swansong at AEW Revolution was beautiful.

The company built the right level of drama around the match by making it personal and adding elements of Sting's family into it, and the fact that it all played out here was special. From the pre-match video of Sting re-watching clips of his career to him receiving a standing ovation after getting the win, Tony Khan knocked this out of the park. His entrance was truly special, and the idea of having his sons dressed as older versions of him was a brilliant one.

They added to the encounter early on, in what was no doubt an emotional moment for the three of them. Choosing to blare out Metallica was also a great call, setting the tone for the chaos and energy the match was about to have. By this point, everyone knows what to expect with Sting's matches in AEW, but they took the violence, emotion, and risk-taking to a whole new level for the end.

While Darby Allin's bump through the glass is sure to divide opinion, there's no questioning that it heightened the drama and helped to ensure people won't forget this one. Sting took his fair share of big bumps too, from being put through several tables to being launched into a plain of glass. It was clear he wanted to go all-out here, and that's exactly what he did. It summed up Sting's entire career perfectly, being someone who left it all inside the ring for the fans, and that's exactly what he did here.

The audience was hooked from minute one, and while there was a slight hiccup at the end when it came to his speech, the actual presentation of the last match couldn't have been done any better. While we can be quick to judge and criticize Tony Khan, he certainly deserves his flowers for how he put this together, while everyone involved in the match deserves credit for their efforts which wrapped up a great PPV, and an even better career in style.

Written by Matthew Wilkinson