Official Revolution (2021) Thread

Kahn said that explosion was kind of an angle like Mox said about Kenny. It was a way to obviscate the seriousness of what the blast should look like, collapsing ring and all, Onita style. I guess America just isn't allowed that level of brutality here. I didn't personally like Kahn's sentiment of what really more could fans have expected without danger to the opponents. I await response from Onita, Mick Foley, and the Funker. There should have been a safe way to "blow up the ring, " even inside an arena.

Post show notes with TK -- Just the revolution specific stuff, the other stuff is going in the main thread:

-- Darby did A LOT with the creation of the street fight. They utilized his film-maker side a lot for this one and Tony was really happy with everything Darby did for it.

-- Regarding the botched ending. Tony said in kayfabe that he's not surprised Kenny's crappy crayon drawing led to a dud. Somewhat truthfully he also hinted that while it may not have been what he wanted, there was also only so much they could do without actually blowing the guys up, so he also doesn't know what people could want from him.

-- Said they'll address the botched ending on dynamite as well. In full kayfabe of course, but honestly, what else can they do? He knows it was a screw up, and he knows it was a big one. All they can do is spin it into the story now.

I mean, there totally is. some fireworks around the outside from cannons, and then a heavy amount of smoke bombs. done.

I hope I'm not talking over walkingturtles, but I guess I can see this perspective somewhat.  AEW's brand of storytelling is very different than most of what we're familiar with at least over the past 20 years.  So much of the storytelling and story evolution takes place in the ring.  Look at the split between promo time and match time in AEW vs other promotions even outside of WWE.  We're accustomed to storylines advancing with backstage segments and long in ring promos.  

As somebody who has never really been big into NJPW, there was definitely an adjustment period for me.  Early on I was super excited for the product, but didn't totally "get" it.  I remember saying a lot that they needed to cut match times and add more promo segments, which I totally disagree with now. 

It took some time to appreciate the nuisances (the face/heel tunnel, callbacks during matches, etc) and learn the read the story the way they were writing it, if you will.  It's definitely not going to be for everybody.  WWE's product, by design, is meant to be a sitcom style where a brand new viewer can jump in mid episode and quickly get some idea what is going on.  That's not a knock - it's very effective for the product they want to present.  But I think it also means that AEW's longform story telling feels very strange if you aren't used to that sort of story.  

With that said, I can't get behind the idea that they aren't telling basic stories.  They're telling pretty rich, layered stories.  They're just doing it using tools and a format that takes elements of what US audiences are accustomed to and blends it with a more in-ring based storytelling.  

It’s just the way some things are done. Kenny’s heel turn was rough, are the Good Brothers heels or are The Bucks heels? A lot of things come off choppy and not fluid. I feel like the commentary does more explaining what happened versus the visuals.

Also I thought the PPV was fantastic. Ethan Page wasn’t ready for that spot. Christian will be a big boost to Dynamite but he’s not a game changer. The main event was good but final explosion did suck. AEW isn’t experienced enough to call that audible to make it seem like Kenny pranked them. I think this week on Dynamite should be them cleaning up any issues from the PPV.

Also it’s time for AEW to cut some guys.