After Adam Copeland took out his Death Riders, AEW World champion Jon Moxley came to their main event match at Revolution alone… and at his own sweet pace. He probably figured he was owed it after the Los Angeles crowd serenaded Cope with an a capella rendition of “Metalingus”.
Tasked with following Kenny Omega & Konosuke Takeshita and Will Ospreay & Kyle Fletcher (not to mention Toni Storm & Mariah May’s epic), the two veterans opted for a slower pace. The opening minutes featured striking exchanges, followed by several of Mox working Cope over while focusing on his surgically repaired neck.
Crypto.com Arena woke up a bit for fka Edge’s comeback…
… but that proved to be short-lived, even after Cope managed to plant Mox on the ringside concrete the champ himself had exposed. They managed to get a nice pop when the challenger survived a bulldog choke by reaching the bottom rope.
Mox beefed with referee Bryce Remsburg after that, and Remsburg was inadvertantly taken out by a Cope charge after fighting with the chief Death Rider over a chair.
With the ref down, Mox went to snap his opponent’s neck with a Con-Chair-To, the same move Cope took out his teammates with. He managed to recover and thwart that, which brought us to the obligatory run-ins portion of the match. Wheeler Yuta arrived and hit Cope with a Busaiku Knee, revealing that he was still brainwashed despite his moment with Copeland on Wednesday’s Dynamite. Jay White ran in, but ended up accidentally hitting Cope with Moxley’s case.
He recovered and seemed poised to win after hitting Mox with multiple spears, but a hooded figure pulled the recovered Remsburg out before he could count three. It was Christian Cage, finally cashing in his title shot contract from last year’s Wembley Stadium show to make this a Triple Threat — after hitting his ex-tag partner with his metal clipboard, of course.
Cage speared Cope, but the Rated R Superstar kicked out. A Killswitch follow-up probably would have won it, but Moxley pulled Christian off and slapped on a choke hold. The Patriarch almost managed to cover his former friend (in kayfabe anyway) while getting choked out, but Mox pulled him away and finished the deal to retain.
But wait, there was more! As the champ went to exit through the crowd, he was cut off by Prince Nana, who was reminding him that his man Swerve Strickland won a #1 contenders match earlier in the show. He was also stalling Mox so Swerve could stomp him from the seats above the tunnel where they were arguing!
Not really the right choice to main event an otherwise excellent show, but at least they ended on a note of hope for the future.
Get complete results from Revolution and coverage of the entire show here.
