They really moved on.
That was my overriding thought as I watched Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega step into the ring last night at AEW’s “Revolution” pay-per-view. For weeks, they announced this “deadly explosion of barbed wire,” but my mind couldn’t quite get to the point of fully accepting that it would happen. How can something so patently ridiculous really … be?
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m still a relatively new fan of wrestling. Or recently entering my third phase as one, at least. I was a fan as a child. Then, again in college. And again. It’s been a few years, but I’m still not at the level where I can list several indie promotion games where things got like a cartoon like this. That kind of thing, barbed wire and explosives, this is for the truly hardcore and possibly the really broken. The stories of matches like this with Mick Foley or Terry Funk or Atsushi Onita, are like modern reinterpretations of the Odyssey. I don’t know if they did, and if they did, it can’t have been the way tradition describes it. And if they did, I’m glad they happened out of my sight. I know the names, and I even saw Foley a little bit in my college days, but they are basically ghosts and stories of legends.
Deadly fighting was for the real fan / lunatic. The normal start of the ventilator did nothing more, because it could not break its numbness. They did not watch the fight, but used it. A fix. The one who needed that level of violence and blood to feel again, or something. Increasingly successful is what they were. They should not be in the pay-per-view of a large company with a TV network contract. They shouldn’t be exposed, so to speak. Deadly fights take place in a dark warehouse, two buildings below where cockfights take place. This is supposed to be a corner of society that never sees the sun.
And yet, there they were. The very idea of all of this is just crazy. It is not enough that the ropes are wrapped in barbed wire. No, they also need to cause an explosion. And the floor was full of explosives under wooden boards adorned with barbed wire as well. This is what would happen if a hotel designer in Las Vegas caught the wrong mushrooms (or the right mushrooms, depending on your point of view). This was a game designed without ever hearing “no” or “this is too much”. It is the wrestling version of capitalism without restrictions, basically.
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And until it started, I couldn’t believe it was happening. “They’re not really going to do that, are they?” I’m not a horror movie guy, but I think for the first time in my life I understand why people are. The distorted emotions and the ride of not wanting to watch something and yet being unable to look away. That’s it. I knew what was coming – fire, blood, pain, basically what your parents thought metal shows were – and I still couldn’t understand when it happened. I was squirming and leaning at the same time.
The fascination of this, at least to begin with, is who takes first place in the barbed wire and in the explosion. You know they’ll tease you for a while, which only made me curl up even more. It was Moxley after about five minutes, and after that it becomes a study in an attempt to discover what you have become. I can only imagine what it would have been like in a crowded arena, if it were possible in a crowded arena. Perhaps the large amount of space between the ring and the fans that AEW had to operate with during the pandemic is the only way to do something like this.
But after the first explosion, I couldn’t help wanting more. And I can hear the crowd at Daley’s Place howling in approval. Seriously, what are we? Who swallows it? Why does anyone talk to us? Why didn’t they lock us up? We are clearly a loss.
And then you just accept it. That is what you are, you are very involved now. Those whispered corners of society that you never thought would see where that kind of thing happens? Yes, you are there now. I am part of it And I love it. It is too silly and exaggerated not to be fully embraced. After I let go and let the chain take me, it became a joy. If I am going to lose connection with the proper society, let it be wrapped in barbed wire and explosives. More guns, more big points, all the blood, whatever. I have nothing else to hold on to. I know what I am.
Unfortunately, for the second time in a few months, the conversation will scoff at how a massive AEW show ended. In “Winter Is Coming” it was the announcement that Omega’s heel turn would be explained in another promotion, Impact. This time, it will be the erectile dysfunction of the final explosion.
The ring was set to explode immediately at the 30 minute mark. Until then, they played everything perfectly. The fight itself was an excellent dual-track showcase of Moxley and Omega’s wrestling skills and unparalleled chemistry alongside the brutality and sheer surreality of the fight. The post-game defeat revolved around Eddie Kingston, who had his own epic rivalry with Moxley, going out to save Mox from the final explosion, a brilliant narrative between two old indie friends who had pushed each other to the limit when they were together on TV for the first time and still couldn’t get rid of the old ties.
And then… duuuuhhhhhh. The ring “exploded” with some sparks and one or two explosions that would not exceed your friend’s beer farts. Something clearly went wrong, because Kingston and Mox, at least in the beginning, were trying to sell as if they were part of something comprehensive and truly frightening.
It is a pity that this will be the narrative that will come out of this pay-per-view event, because AEW has successfully brought something from the dark corners and alleys to a massive audience, and has done it superbly. And even though the PPV as a whole was overstuffed in a very WWE-like way, it contained some great fighting, too, like the women’s championship or Sting’s cinematic comeback.
But if you don’t hit the target, the judges will not give you the perfect score. If you are going to enter these waters, you cannot retreat. Which is the sensation of the last facial plant of an acrobatics. Whether it was a defect or planned, it seemed that AEW could not end. Couldn’t confirm. After all, they brought us here, they turned us into this desperate and howling horde for 30 minutes. You have to take us to the end.