AEW Revolution 2024: Biggest Winners And Losers

AEW presented the fifth Revolution event on Sunday and the show was a veritable cornucopia of action, headlined by the retirement of former WCW, NWA, and TNA World Champion Sting. The show had plenty of twists and turns and ups and downs, but as always with professional wrestling it was a show full of winners and losers.

With the Revolution in the rearview mirror and the road to AEW Dynasty beginning, here are the biggest winners and losers from last night's PPV: from people who were on the show, to one guy who wasn't but was seemingly there in spirit.

I'm not sure Jack Perry meant to become the poster boy for glass when he threw his little tantrum in the middle of his match against Hook at AEW All In, but nonetheless, the former AEW World Tag Team Champion has now become synonymous with that particular brand of violence and Sunday night was a big win for Perry and any other glass-heads that might be out there.

Sting's final match –a historic contest that will be revisited time and time again both for the historic implications and for the sweet, nostalgia-laced dopamine hit that old matches provide– was awash in what appeared to be both real and sugar glass. Sting himself went through a pane, and Darby Allin dove from the top of a ladder, through another pane of glass and a number of chairs, carving his back into a gruesome spectacle. What could've normally been considered an unnecessary risk was a perfect story beat, removing Allin from the match for a considerable amount of time and leaving Sting one last opportunity to tap into his superhuman strength and overcome two wrestlers who are decades younger than him. 

As loathed as many might be to admit it, Jack Perry was right about the power of a good pane of glass.

I hope I am proven wrong but the AEW women's division simply doesn't get a lot of opportunities. Unless there is a drastic shift in the number of women's matches on AEW programming, there will only be room for champion and challenger. The addition of the TBS Title has not done much to change this limitation.

With Mercedes Mone set to debut any day now and the TBS Title currently trapped in the Skye Blue/Julia Black storyline, Deonna Purrazzo's loss to Toni Storm on Sunday all but assures that she will get lost in the shuffle. An immensely talented wrestler, hopefully, Purrazzo will find her way back into title contention soon but for now losing her opportunity at the AEW Women's World Title means that she will be relegated to the corner of AEW programming that contains Serena Deeb and other women who are phenomenal talents in the ring but somehow unable to scratch their way into the main circle of AEW talent. This is not Deonna's fault, this is by design.

Unless the women's division gets many more opportunities to show what they're made of, Purrazzo won't be the first ultra-talented new signing who gets relegated to the "loser" section of an editorial like this one.

While we're on the topic of losers who are not losers by any fault of their own...

What the hell happened to Daniel Garcia? Where did it all go wrong? At one point he felt like a sure thing to be the next homegrown AEW star, and in some ways he still is, but his loss on Sunday highlights an issue with AEW's frustrating commitment to the future and the past at the same time.

AEW TNT Champion Christian Cage is clearly set for a collision with his former friend Adam Copeland, as Copeland is working his way back to get another shot at the TNT Title. Until then the two old men are spinning in circles, Copeland taking open challenges and having exhibition matches, and Christian finding everyone on the roster with a dead father and reminding them of said fact. There's nothing wrong with some young guys getting some time with these veterans, but Daniel Garcia's entire AEW career has seemingly seen him passed from veteran to veteran, using his immense popularity to keep the stars of yesterday popular today and it's getting old.

Eventually, Garcia will be too old to be "the next young upstart." Eventually, people will tire of his dancing. From his time trapped in Jericho's orbit to now, Garcia has been trapped in the past and if his fortunes don't change, he will end up feeling like a relic of the past before he ever got to be a part of the future.

Despite spending the last few years wrestling like he wanted every match to be his last match, Sting made it to the end of the road with his head held high and his dignity intact. The WWE Hall of Famer not only got one last display of superhuman strength but he won the match, retiring undefeated in AEW competition.

Vince McMahon tried to tear him down at every turn. TNA let him run wild with ideas that could've probably sunk a less charismatic wrestler. Even for the ignoble world of professional wrestling, where legacies are dragged through the dirt regularly for an extra dollar or two, Sting had plenty of opportunities to go out on the wrong note. An affable guy who always brought a "go along to get along" attitude to wrestling, he was often outright disrespected by promoters in WWE and WCW, and yet took the indignities standing up. It was always possible that he would've ridden off into the sunset without ever getting a proper goodbye, but luckily Sunday night felt like a true "proper goodbye" (an abrupt end to the PPV feed aside.)

The Bucks played their role well, Darby Allin almost derailed the entire match by nearly dying in the middle of it, but everything went off without a hitch. Sting went out on top in an arena that means the world to him and his fans. To a nicer guy, it couldn't have happened.