AEW Revolution 2022
** The Buy-In **
Ok match, not much special. I thought the intensity, at least coming from Hirsch was adequate to the heat they've been building in the last month, so beyond that, I thought the match was perfectly ok for a pre-show. There was a really scary avalanche electric chair drop, I would have hated to take that spot, just falling on your face from so high up. Hirsch ended up winning after she hit Statlander with a turnbuckle and the escalera moonsault.
Don Callis Promo - He pretty much ran down and hyped the card while making it all about Kenny Omega. Pro work.
Of notice, it seems like Ogogo has finally been able to return to the US, he'd been gone since that terrible feud with Cody that made him a babyface, I believe he was both injured and stuck in the UK due to COVID.
Match was pretty much what we've seen with Hook, but just slightly more competitive, which is good, Hook needs to practice his selling too. Hook won with the Redrum, which is a name that has slightly been annoying me now that Vincent is on Impact and his signature move is also called Redrum, but it's a completely different move.
If you hadn't bought the show already, the House of Black entrance just sold you. Having Matthews as the third horned man was just ((chef's kiss)).
Match was pretty great, we mostly had PAC and Black pair up, Penta and Matthews, and of course, King and Redbeard for the hoss stuff. Everyone was really good, some great spots, a well kept pace throughout the match, and at the end, HoB won after Black hit the Black Mist on Redbeard and King finished him with a Fire Thunder Driver.
** Revolution **
This was pretty awesome, a total King's Road Puroresu match. Any reference to Kobashi and Misawa and Sasaki are not misplaced, that was the feeling the match gave. Kingston is a student of 90's All Japan and surely Jericho remembers a thing or two from his WAR days.
Story of the match was that Kingston dropped Jericho with a half-and-half at the start, so Jericho was 'off' for a while, but as the match went on, Jericho also started to drop Kingston on his head over and over again, until the latter was also groggy. As they went for the ending sequence, Jericho kept hitting the codebreaker, but Kingston survived, hit the Backfist twice, and got the win with a Stretch Plum submission.
Post-match - As per their verbal agreement, Jericho lost and had to shake Kingston's hand and acknowledge him, but instead he walked away. We're not done with this feud.
AEW World Tag Team Championship Three Way Match
This was the party match of the night, and while the story of the heels working together against the babyface in a 3-way is so played out, I really liked and appreciated how it worked in this match. Ever since Fish's debut, and later KOR's debut, the Bucks and reDRagon are reluctantly working together because they're both Cole's friends, but they're surely not friends themselves. In this match, you could clearly see that they were working together to hurt JE, but they both were quick to get an upper hand or quick win over each other.
The match layout was basic in that sense, both teams work together beating up Jungle Boy, everything breaks down between the Bucks and reDRagon, JE makes a small comeback, but then get destroyed by the nature of the 3-way. At the end, JE ended surviving at the end where they finally took control of the ring, hit Thoracic Express and got the win. It be impossible to ran down the spots, but this whole match was just crazy fun and full of action.
Face Of The Revolution Ladder Match
This was really fun, but it had some spots here and there were things felt really forced or where the wrestlers just got a bit lost. This was the best combination of big hosses and small guys to get tossed around, Cage, OC, and Starks, as good as they are, were clearly supporting acts in this match, because this was all about the hosses, and even if you take it further, the match felt like it was Hobbs and Wardlow's, more than Lee's.
Some of the highlights saw Lee and Hobbs take a stage bump after Warlow pushed them off, Starks hit a really good looking spear through a ladder, Hobbs hitting a superplex from the middle of a ladder that laid diagonal against the corner. The one bad spot this match saw Lee toss OC over the ropes and OC overshot his landing, so Cage and Starks missed him and OC landed shoulder first outside, and from what I've read, injured his shoulder.
Winner at the end was Wardlow after he powerbombed Starks into a ladder bridge, he was the obvious choice since they've been building his turn against MJF, and it's pretty much following the Batista/Triple H turn back in the day.
Shane "Swerve" Strickland Signs with AEW - This wasn't a surprise, it had already been announced, but this was the formality. Strickland didn't say much, but made the whole crowd chant "Swerve's House", which already makes him seem like a big deal in his first appearance.
AEW TBS Championship Match
Jade came out cosplaying Mileena from Mortal Kombat and JR said she looked like a superhero, which is kinda like the obvious, but good try. Tay just had her usual war paint.
Match was sloppy, but it was fun. Jade was out there mocking Karate until she got her Karate chop blocked with a legit juji uke. They didn't get a lot of time, but what they got, they packed it in with a ton of spots and counters, at one point Jade hit the Eye of the Storm and a beautiful Frog Splash, she blocked they Tay-KO, but then took a piledriver a few seconds later. At the end, Jade won with Jaded.
The one thing that is probably going to make people complain the most was that Anna Jay, the babyface, used a chair and attacked Jaded behind the referee's back to help the other babyface, and how can a babyface do this!? We don't want real humans in wrestling! Jay had all reason to do that, Jade had previously attacked her out of nowhere for no reason, so I thought it was perfectly understandable to pay her in kind.
Oh yeah, the match started with a kiss, not sure if I missed a promo about that, but I won't complain if two beautiful, consenting women want to a spot like that. I mean, Jade is a huge improvement over Sammy. Could had been cool if the kiss led to a roll up of kinds, but since it was Jade initiating it, she doesn't need no roll ups like that.
Dog Collar Match
From the build, to the entrance, to the match, the intensity, the drama, and the conclusion and post-match, this was perfect. When I think about the years the promotion has existed, hell, when I think about wrestling in the US for the last decade, there hasn't been many matches that gave me goosebumps during the entrances alone. A couple of Lucha Underground matches did it, and of course Zack Sabre vs Pentagon from PWG's BOLA, which was one that you were only able to witness if you were there live. Here, AFI's Miseria Cantare started playing, and Punk came out wearing an update look from his ROH dog collar match versus Raven (also the ROH debut of Miseria Cantare), and Punk doesn't do the clobbering time schtick, he slowly walks to the ring with a smile, and he does the Straightedge sign, and for tonight, he's the Second City Saint, with a laser focus on MJF. The term 'big match feel' is often thrown around, but you never really realize what it really means until you're right there and the anticipation of what is to come becomes overwhelming.
The match was gloriously violent without recurring to huge spots or tons of weapons. They had a steel chain and they used it to hurt each other. One of strongest aspects of this match came when Punk was busted open somewhat early in the match, and dude was out there with a 1.0 in the Muta scale, but the drama came when we keep watching the match and it's going long, and Punk just keeps bleeding and bleeding and MJF isn't, and at that point, it becomes somewhat of a endurance race, because we know that regardless of having the upper hand, the longer Punk goes on bleeding, no amount of offense is going to compensate the blood loss and he'll fall to MJF. That is when our hero rises, when he kept going, busts open MJF, who doesn't have the Punk endurance, and ends up falling faster.
That wasn't all though, MJF's actions in the last, like 2 years, came back to bite him in the ass in what was arguably the biggest match of his career so far. When he's busted open and losing control of the fight, he called out Wardlow to bring him the ring, the same ring he's used TONS of times to turn matches around, but after pissing off Wardlow for so long, Wardlow decides to play dumb, tell MJF he can't find the ring, which was enough distraction for Punk to capitalize and drop him with a GTS. Wardlow then reveals he indeed had the ring, doesn't exactly give it to Punk, but places it for him to use. Punk nails MJF with the ring and pins him. Just beautiful storytelling.
Last thing to bring up about the match was that Punk worked MJF's hand, so he couldn't lock the Salt of the Earth and he failed to hold the Heat Seeker. Punk on the other side, in an attempt to destroy Max, ended up injuring his own knee and elbow by wrapping around the chain around his limbs and use them as weapons, those spots made the most damage to Max, but sometimes, MJF kept reserving energy just to dodge Punk, and that's when Punk really suffered, to the point that later in the match, he was also failing to land his arsenal.
At this point, I think Wardlow and MJF will start their program, which may be interesting to see, because Wardlow has to come out on top, but MJF surely shouldn't lose two back to back feuds like that, I'm guessing Max is gonna have to bring in new muscle, and I wonder who it could be, it has to be someone bigger or at least big enough to counter Wardlow.
Punk, I think he's going to chase after Adam Page now, but I kinda hope it doesn't go all the way to Double or Nothing, it has to stay as a babyface versus babyface match, and a long program would make that harder to pull off.
AEW Women's World Championship Match
This match had a hard time following the emotional backbreaker that it followed, but even so, I didn't think the match was that great, it was kinda boring actually. It had the tired problem of a lot of interference that doesn't lead to the babyface overcoming the odds, but the action in-between wasn't that impressive either, it kinda felt soft to an extent. While I'm rating it the same as the Jade vs Tay match, I did enjoy the TBS title one way more, where I rather watch the sloppiness of that, than be bored with this one. I just don't know why it didn't click tonight, they've had good energy together before.
Britt has a new Women's Championship belt, and it's a big improvement.
Well, the promised violence, and they gave you violence. Mox said that he wouldn't team with someone before bleeding with him, and well, the bled, A LOT. This is not going to be sustainable of Dragon wants to build a stable and Mox has to bleed with all of them.
The match itself only relied on strikes and submission work, but everything these men did was so intense and violent, that it elevated the action by a couple of levels. Weird comparison, but it reminded me of that New Japan Cup match with Nakamura and Fale a long time ago, which wasn't the most technical match ever or anything like that, but Nakamura getting busted just made everything so much intense, and this match did that, but even before the blood started coming out. The aura between the two was just intense. Finish, which played a big part in the story, saw Dragon lock in a triangle choke, Mox who has probably lost a whole pint of blood by now is fading, so he desperately rolls over Dragon, clutches him, and gets the win.
Post-match - Danielson was pissed that he lost to a cheap clutch and wasn't done, and of course, Mox never backs down from a fight, so they ended up brawling again. Referees and security ran down to break it up, but they all ended up running away when the suffocating presence of Lord Regal walked down to the ring to stop the fight himself. He separated them, slapped Mox after Mox wouldn't settle, and then slapped Dragon for laughing at Mox getting slapped. Regal ordered them to shake hands, which they did. This may be one of my favorite formations of a tag team I've ever seen. Right up there with Tanahashi and Okada and the first Brothers of Destruction alliance.
This was a car crash of a match, but in a good way. Chaos is the only way to describe this. It wasn't long, but it was all over the place and it all built to a couple of huge spots for the adrenaline boost. Sammy hit a stage Spanish Fly through some tables and onto the hard ramp on Kassidy. We never saw them again.
Andrade, Sting, Allin, and Hardy all brawled through the crowd and it ended when Sting hit a freaking stage dive on Andrade through a tower of tables, which was safe in terms of impact, but that spot could have gone wrong so bad. And at the end, Allin got the win over Hardy with a Coffin Drop, that was more of an inverted diving headbutt because Hardy was miles away.
Butcher and Blade were out there, but they mostly helped set up the tables all over the arena.
Dynamite match announcements - They announced some matches for Dynamite, and I usually like that they do this, but they announced Thunder Rosa vs Leyla Hirsch in a number one contendership match, and that was a big mistake. The match can make perfect sense, but they NEEDED to first explain that Rosa was pretty much cheated and taken out by Baker's seconds. They should had done a Rosa promo for Twitter on Monday, set up the match on Wednesday, and have it on Rampage. Anyway, it's likely building to Rosa vs Baker in a match where everyone is banned or something, and have Rosa win the title in her hometown on that St. Patrick's special show.
AEW World Championship Match
This was a really good match, but in a long night with some total bangers, this felt underwhelming. After sleeping on it, it really was a great match, that watched on by itself, it greatly improves.
The match was mostly a race to hit their signature moves as much and quickly as they could, but neither was able for a while, and even when Cole hit the Boom, but since he hadn't removed his knee pad as he usually does, the impact hadn't been as devastating, so Page kept going. When Cole got desperate, reDRagon ran down to aid him, but Page overcame it until the Dark Order came down and balanced things out. Page and Cole exchanged some more near falls until Page himself lowered his knee pad, hit the Boom, hit the Buckshot, and got the win.
While this show wasn't as newsworthy as ALL OUT or other shows, this was most definitely one of the best AEW shows in terms of in-ring action. Top to bottom, event he Buy-In had great wrestling, and the 'worst' stuff, was still above average for US wrestling.
Kris Statlander vs. Leyla Hirsch - 5.5/10
Ok match, not much special. I thought the intensity, at least coming from Hirsch was adequate to the heat they've been building in the last month, so beyond that, I thought the match was perfectly ok for a pre-show. There was a really scary avalanche electric chair drop, I would have hated to take that spot, just falling on your face from so high up. Hirsch ended up winning after she hit Statlander with a turnbuckle and the escalera moonsault.
Don Callis Promo - He pretty much ran down and hyped the card while making it all about Kenny Omega. Pro work.
QT Marshall vs. Hook - 6/10
Of notice, it seems like Ogogo has finally been able to return to the US, he'd been gone since that terrible feud with Cody that made him a babyface, I believe he was both injured and stuck in the UK due to COVID.
Match was pretty much what we've seen with Hook, but just slightly more competitive, which is good, Hook needs to practice his selling too. Hook won with the Redrum, which is a name that has slightly been annoying me now that Vincent is on Impact and his signature move is also called Redrum, but it's a completely different move.
Death Triangle (PAC & Penta Oscuro) & Erick Redbeard (w/Alex Abrahantes) vs. House Of Black (Brody King, Buddy Matthews & Malakai Black) - 7.5/10
If you hadn't bought the show already, the House of Black entrance just sold you. Having Matthews as the third horned man was just ((chef's kiss)).
Match was pretty great, we mostly had PAC and Black pair up, Penta and Matthews, and of course, King and Redbeard for the hoss stuff. Everyone was really good, some great spots, a well kept pace throughout the match, and at the end, HoB won after Black hit the Black Mist on Redbeard and King finished him with a Fire Thunder Driver.
** Revolution **
Chris Jericho vs. Eddie Kingston - 9/10
This was pretty awesome, a total King's Road Puroresu match. Any reference to Kobashi and Misawa and Sasaki are not misplaced, that was the feeling the match gave. Kingston is a student of 90's All Japan and surely Jericho remembers a thing or two from his WAR days.
Story of the match was that Kingston dropped Jericho with a half-and-half at the start, so Jericho was 'off' for a while, but as the match went on, Jericho also started to drop Kingston on his head over and over again, until the latter was also groggy. As they went for the ending sequence, Jericho kept hitting the codebreaker, but Kingston survived, hit the Backfist twice, and got the win with a Stretch Plum submission.
Post-match - As per their verbal agreement, Jericho lost and had to shake Kingston's hand and acknowledge him, but instead he walked away. We're not done with this feud.
AEW World Tag Team Championship Three Way Match
Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus) (c) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) (w/Brandon Cutler) vs. reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly) - 8/10
This was the party match of the night, and while the story of the heels working together against the babyface in a 3-way is so played out, I really liked and appreciated how it worked in this match. Ever since Fish's debut, and later KOR's debut, the Bucks and reDRagon are reluctantly working together because they're both Cole's friends, but they're surely not friends themselves. In this match, you could clearly see that they were working together to hurt JE, but they both were quick to get an upper hand or quick win over each other.
The match layout was basic in that sense, both teams work together beating up Jungle Boy, everything breaks down between the Bucks and reDRagon, JE makes a small comeback, but then get destroyed by the nature of the 3-way. At the end, JE ended surviving at the end where they finally took control of the ring, hit Thoracic Express and got the win. It be impossible to ran down the spots, but this whole match was just crazy fun and full of action.
Face Of The Revolution Ladder Match
Christian Cage vs. Orange Cassidy vs. Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Keith Lee vs. Ricky Starks vs. Wardlow - 7.5/10
This was really fun, but it had some spots here and there were things felt really forced or where the wrestlers just got a bit lost. This was the best combination of big hosses and small guys to get tossed around, Cage, OC, and Starks, as good as they are, were clearly supporting acts in this match, because this was all about the hosses, and even if you take it further, the match felt like it was Hobbs and Wardlow's, more than Lee's.
Some of the highlights saw Lee and Hobbs take a stage bump after Warlow pushed them off, Starks hit a really good looking spear through a ladder, Hobbs hitting a superplex from the middle of a ladder that laid diagonal against the corner. The one bad spot this match saw Lee toss OC over the ropes and OC overshot his landing, so Cage and Starks missed him and OC landed shoulder first outside, and from what I've read, injured his shoulder.
Winner at the end was Wardlow after he powerbombed Starks into a ladder bridge, he was the obvious choice since they've been building his turn against MJF, and it's pretty much following the Batista/Triple H turn back in the day.
Shane "Swerve" Strickland Signs with AEW - This wasn't a surprise, it had already been announced, but this was the formality. Strickland didn't say much, but made the whole crowd chant "Swerve's House", which already makes him seem like a big deal in his first appearance.
AEW TBS Championship Match
Jade Cargill (w/Mark Sterling) (c) vs. Tay Conti (w/Anna Jay) - 6.5/10
Jade came out cosplaying Mileena from Mortal Kombat and JR said she looked like a superhero, which is kinda like the obvious, but good try. Tay just had her usual war paint.
Match was sloppy, but it was fun. Jade was out there mocking Karate until she got her Karate chop blocked with a legit juji uke. They didn't get a lot of time, but what they got, they packed it in with a ton of spots and counters, at one point Jade hit the Eye of the Storm and a beautiful Frog Splash, she blocked they Tay-KO, but then took a piledriver a few seconds later. At the end, Jade won with Jaded.
The one thing that is probably going to make people complain the most was that Anna Jay, the babyface, used a chair and attacked Jaded behind the referee's back to help the other babyface, and how can a babyface do this!? We don't want real humans in wrestling! Jay had all reason to do that, Jade had previously attacked her out of nowhere for no reason, so I thought it was perfectly understandable to pay her in kind.
Oh yeah, the match started with a kiss, not sure if I missed a promo about that, but I won't complain if two beautiful, consenting women want to a spot like that. I mean, Jade is a huge improvement over Sammy. Could had been cool if the kiss led to a roll up of kinds, but since it was Jade initiating it, she doesn't need no roll ups like that.
Dog Collar Match
CM Punk vs. MJF - 10/10!
From the build, to the entrance, to the match, the intensity, the drama, and the conclusion and post-match, this was perfect. When I think about the years the promotion has existed, hell, when I think about wrestling in the US for the last decade, there hasn't been many matches that gave me goosebumps during the entrances alone. A couple of Lucha Underground matches did it, and of course Zack Sabre vs Pentagon from PWG's BOLA, which was one that you were only able to witness if you were there live. Here, AFI's Miseria Cantare started playing, and Punk came out wearing an update look from his ROH dog collar match versus Raven (also the ROH debut of Miseria Cantare), and Punk doesn't do the clobbering time schtick, he slowly walks to the ring with a smile, and he does the Straightedge sign, and for tonight, he's the Second City Saint, with a laser focus on MJF. The term 'big match feel' is often thrown around, but you never really realize what it really means until you're right there and the anticipation of what is to come becomes overwhelming.
The match was gloriously violent without recurring to huge spots or tons of weapons. They had a steel chain and they used it to hurt each other. One of strongest aspects of this match came when Punk was busted open somewhat early in the match, and dude was out there with a 1.0 in the Muta scale, but the drama came when we keep watching the match and it's going long, and Punk just keeps bleeding and bleeding and MJF isn't, and at that point, it becomes somewhat of a endurance race, because we know that regardless of having the upper hand, the longer Punk goes on bleeding, no amount of offense is going to compensate the blood loss and he'll fall to MJF. That is when our hero rises, when he kept going, busts open MJF, who doesn't have the Punk endurance, and ends up falling faster.
That wasn't all though, MJF's actions in the last, like 2 years, came back to bite him in the ass in what was arguably the biggest match of his career so far. When he's busted open and losing control of the fight, he called out Wardlow to bring him the ring, the same ring he's used TONS of times to turn matches around, but after pissing off Wardlow for so long, Wardlow decides to play dumb, tell MJF he can't find the ring, which was enough distraction for Punk to capitalize and drop him with a GTS. Wardlow then reveals he indeed had the ring, doesn't exactly give it to Punk, but places it for him to use. Punk nails MJF with the ring and pins him. Just beautiful storytelling.
Last thing to bring up about the match was that Punk worked MJF's hand, so he couldn't lock the Salt of the Earth and he failed to hold the Heat Seeker. Punk on the other side, in an attempt to destroy Max, ended up injuring his own knee and elbow by wrapping around the chain around his limbs and use them as weapons, those spots made the most damage to Max, but sometimes, MJF kept reserving energy just to dodge Punk, and that's when Punk really suffered, to the point that later in the match, he was also failing to land his arsenal.
At this point, I think Wardlow and MJF will start their program, which may be interesting to see, because Wardlow has to come out on top, but MJF surely shouldn't lose two back to back feuds like that, I'm guessing Max is gonna have to bring in new muscle, and I wonder who it could be, it has to be someone bigger or at least big enough to counter Wardlow.
Punk, I think he's going to chase after Adam Page now, but I kinda hope it doesn't go all the way to Double or Nothing, it has to stay as a babyface versus babyface match, and a long program would make that harder to pull off.
AEW Women's World Championship Match
Dr. Britt Baker DMD (w/Jamie Hayter & Rebel) (c) vs. Thunder Rosa - 6.5/10
This match had a hard time following the emotional backbreaker that it followed, but even so, I didn't think the match was that great, it was kinda boring actually. It had the tired problem of a lot of interference that doesn't lead to the babyface overcoming the odds, but the action in-between wasn't that impressive either, it kinda felt soft to an extent. While I'm rating it the same as the Jade vs Tay match, I did enjoy the TBS title one way more, where I rather watch the sloppiness of that, than be bored with this one. I just don't know why it didn't click tonight, they've had good energy together before.
Britt has a new Women's Championship belt, and it's a big improvement.
Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley - 9/10
Well, the promised violence, and they gave you violence. Mox said that he wouldn't team with someone before bleeding with him, and well, the bled, A LOT. This is not going to be sustainable of Dragon wants to build a stable and Mox has to bleed with all of them.
The match itself only relied on strikes and submission work, but everything these men did was so intense and violent, that it elevated the action by a couple of levels. Weird comparison, but it reminded me of that New Japan Cup match with Nakamura and Fale a long time ago, which wasn't the most technical match ever or anything like that, but Nakamura getting busted just made everything so much intense, and this match did that, but even before the blood started coming out. The aura between the two was just intense. Finish, which played a big part in the story, saw Dragon lock in a triangle choke, Mox who has probably lost a whole pint of blood by now is fading, so he desperately rolls over Dragon, clutches him, and gets the win.
Post-match - Danielson was pissed that he lost to a cheap clutch and wasn't done, and of course, Mox never backs down from a fight, so they ended up brawling again. Referees and security ran down to break it up, but they all ended up running away when the suffocating presence of Lord Regal walked down to the ring to stop the fight himself. He separated them, slapped Mox after Mox wouldn't settle, and then slapped Dragon for laughing at Mox getting slapped. Regal ordered them to shake hands, which they did. This may be one of my favorite formations of a tag team I've ever seen. Right up there with Tanahashi and Okada and the first Brothers of Destruction alliance.
Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara & Sting vs. AHFO (Andrade El Idolo, Isiah Kassidy & Matt Hardy) (w/Jose The Assistant) - 6.5/10
This was a car crash of a match, but in a good way. Chaos is the only way to describe this. It wasn't long, but it was all over the place and it all built to a couple of huge spots for the adrenaline boost. Sammy hit a stage Spanish Fly through some tables and onto the hard ramp on Kassidy. We never saw them again.
Andrade, Sting, Allin, and Hardy all brawled through the crowd and it ended when Sting hit a freaking stage dive on Andrade through a tower of tables, which was safe in terms of impact, but that spot could have gone wrong so bad. And at the end, Allin got the win over Hardy with a Coffin Drop, that was more of an inverted diving headbutt because Hardy was miles away.
Butcher and Blade were out there, but they mostly helped set up the tables all over the arena.
Dynamite match announcements - They announced some matches for Dynamite, and I usually like that they do this, but they announced Thunder Rosa vs Leyla Hirsch in a number one contendership match, and that was a big mistake. The match can make perfect sense, but they NEEDED to first explain that Rosa was pretty much cheated and taken out by Baker's seconds. They should had done a Rosa promo for Twitter on Monday, set up the match on Wednesday, and have it on Rampage. Anyway, it's likely building to Rosa vs Baker in a match where everyone is banned or something, and have Rosa win the title in her hometown on that St. Patrick's special show.
AEW World Championship Match
Adam Page (c) vs. Adam Cole - 8.5/10
This was a really good match, but in a long night with some total bangers, this felt underwhelming. After sleeping on it, it really was a great match, that watched on by itself, it greatly improves.
The match was mostly a race to hit their signature moves as much and quickly as they could, but neither was able for a while, and even when Cole hit the Boom, but since he hadn't removed his knee pad as he usually does, the impact hadn't been as devastating, so Page kept going. When Cole got desperate, reDRagon ran down to aid him, but Page overcame it until the Dark Order came down and balanced things out. Page and Cole exchanged some more near falls until Page himself lowered his knee pad, hit the Boom, hit the Buckshot, and got the win.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
While this show wasn't as newsworthy as ALL OUT or other shows, this was most definitely one of the best AEW shows in terms of in-ring action. Top to bottom, event he Buy-In had great wrestling, and the 'worst' stuff, was still above average for US wrestling.