AEW Revolution airs this Saturday night, February 29, available on B/R Live and on pay-per-view. The show features an AEW World Championship match between Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley, Cody Rhodes finally getting his hands on MJF, and much more. Come back to UPROXX on Saturday night for Lethal Leap Year Revolution results, an open discussion thread, and everything else you need to know. Here’s the full card as we know it.
AEW Revolution Card:
1. AEW Championship Match: Chris Jericho (c) vs. Jon Moxley
2. AEW Women’s Championship Match: Nyla Rose (c) vs. Kris Statlander
3. AEW Tag Team Championship Match: Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page (c) vs. The Young Bucks
4. Cody vs. MJF
5. Dustin Rhodes vs. Jake Hager
6. PAC vs. Orange Cassidy
7. Darby Allin vs. Sammy Guevara
8. Pre-show: SCU (Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian) vs. The Dark Order (Evil Uno and Stu Grayson)
As always, we’ve got your complete rundown of the card and analysis below, featuring predictions for all eight matches. Make sure to drop a comment and let us know who you think’s winning, and be here on Saturday night to see if you’re correct.
Here’s what we think will go down at AEW Revolution.
SCU (Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian) vs. The Dark Order (Evil Uno and Stu Grayson)
What You Need To Know: The Dark Order — apparently a cult of little wrestling dorks who are kind of like the Ministry of Darkness by way of Jehovah’s Witnesses — want to recruit former (different) cult leader Christopher Daniels to their cause. The problem is that Daniels is really enjoying being part of a trio of aging southern California veterans who just want to get cheers for doing sarcastic heel stuff and win tag titles. At Revolution, we’ll hopefully find out where Daniels’ allegiances truly lie, and who the Dark Order’s “Exalted One” really is.
What Will Happen: This is less about the match and more about the Exalted One. The Dark Order’s been pitching him for weeks, and we’ve got a few likely suspects:
- Christopher Daniels himself, because the correct answer to most wrestling questions is the simplest. The guy who protests too much about joining the heel group is actually in charge of the heel group
- Matt Hardy just got obliterated out of WWE by Randy Orton’s Conchairto and Evil Uno used the word “obsolete” in a promo, so it might be him. Plus, weird spooky cult leader seems like more of what Hardy wants to be doing with his time
- Lance Archer is set to debut for AEW on Wednesday, and the Dark Order used the phrase, “everybody dies” in one of their ads
- Raven has experience leading cults and was seen sitting behind the Dark Order on Dynamite
- Luke Harper is expected to show up in AEW soon, and he JUST got out of a family of swampbilly cultists
- Marty Scurll. The Dark Order ARE villains with an enterprise, after all. Woop woop.
Choose your own adventure. My brain says Daniels, especially since this match is on a pre-show and they might just skip the Exalted One’s reveal and drag it out a little longer, but my heart says Raven. Mostly because I want more former WCW Monday Nitro mid-carders in positions of power in All Elite Wrestling.
Staff Picks
Scott Heisel – The outcome of this match seems like a foregone conclusion: The Dark Order will win. The question is will we get the reveal that Christopher Daniels is somehow involved, possibly as the Exalted One? Or will it be another red herring? Maybe Raven will be sitting ringside again…
Elle Collins – I’m just going to be meta and cynical about this. SCU have already been Champions and are now out of the title scene, while the Dark Order are building up to the debut of their leader. SCU can afford to lose right now, and the Dark Order needs to win, so that’s my guess.
Emily Pratt – Revealing Christopher Daniels to have joined The Dark Order on the pre-show would be an odd move, so I’m guessing this is just a fine tag match (with Daniels at ringside) that leads to some sort of SCU-Dark Order standoff.
Darby Allin vs. Sammy Guevara
What You Need To Know: Sammy Guevara, Spanish God, is the worst guy on a team of terrible guys. Darby Allin is a “half dead” skateboarder with 50% skull face who has become a fan favorite, and the moral arbiter of All Elite Wrestling. He’s always showing up to deal SKATEBOARD JUSTICE. Guevara used that skateboard to injure Allin’s throat during an attack several weeks ago, and now Allin, communicating through posterboard, basically wants to rip out Guevara’s with his bare hands.
What Will Happen: If PAC and Orange Cassidy doesn’t come together like I’m expecting, Guevara vs. Allin is the easy choice for dark horse match of the night. You know Cody’s going to bleed and deliver southern wrestling pathos and the Elite is gonna go bonkers in the tag match, but Allin and Guevara are the perfect compliment to each other and are both hungry to be the company’s next big star. This should be flippy as hell, sprinkled with just the right amount of hate, and I see absolutely no reason why Darby Allin won’t win. It’d be Just Desserts if Sammy got HIS throat injured, and had to use those picture-in-picture HIT ME UP signs out of necessity instead of ego.
Staff Picks
Scott Heisel – SO HERE I AM, GETTING OLDER ALL THE TIME, LOOKING OLDER ALL THE TIME, FEELING YOUNGER IN M——sorry, got distracted by Tony Hawk Pro Skater again. Looking forward to Darby pulling out a Christ Air 900 from the top rope for the victory.
Elle Collins – Darby should win, and I think will win, this match. Sammy’s a rising star too, don’t get me wrong, but Darby’s really catching fire with audiences as a babyface, and I think they should ride that wave. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.
Emily Pratt – I’m very hyped to see these two men who are very good at YouTube go at it. Fingers crossed for Darby winning! Fingers not crossed for this match being excellent because that’s a given!
PAC vs. Orange Cassidy
What You Need To Know: One guy doesn’t care about anything. The other cares SO MUCH, about EVERYTHING. PAC needs to murder somebody after getting screwed in the Ironman Match on Dynamite — don’t @ me — and per Chuck Taylor, Orange Cassidy’s “gonna TRY.”
What Will Happen: If Cassidy’s really trying, this is going to be the most memorable bit of the show. He’s super secretly awesome in the ring — you have to be to be THAT good at being THAT bad at pro wrestling — and PAC will give him just enough shockingly competent offense and stunned glares to put him over big time, win or lose. And obviously he should lose, because, come on, it’s PAC.
Staff Picks
Scott Heisel – This has “show stealer” written all over it. While I absolutely adore Orange Cassidy — you’re looking at a guy who spent $20 on one of his oversized foam thumbs when AEW was in Cleveland last month — he has to be on the losing side of this, right? He’ll look good in defeat, and as a Freshly Squeezed stan, I couldn’t give two shits about his win-loss record, I just wanna see him look cool. PAC will smash Orange into a pulp.
Elle Collins – You could say that both guys are going to win this match. You could also say that Orange Cassidy is going to lose this match, and you’d be more right than if you said the other thing. PAC’s going to beat the juice out of him, but Cassidy should have a chance to show everybody who doesn’t already know how good at wrestling he actually is.
Emily Pratt – If this isn’t the match that reveals Orange Cassidy’s true skill as a pro wrestler (if you know, you know), then I don’t know what it will be! I can’t imagine PAC in a full OC comedy match, but if they do one of those I won’t be that surprised (or disappointed, probably!) either.
Dustin Rhodes vs. Jake Hager
What You Need To Know: Back in the early days of the Inner Circle, mute MMA jerk Jake Hager “sent a message” to Cody Rhodes on behalf of Chris Jericho by breaking Cody’s brother Dustin’s arm in a car door. What Hager didn’t take into consideration is that Dustin would get better, continue aging backwards in a Curious Case of Benjamin Button situation, and kick his ass about it. This’ll be Hager’s debut in the ring in AEW, and fingers crossed he doesn’t ‘Savage’ Jake Strong it all to Hell.
What Will Happen: There’s nothing I want more from this card than for Dustin Rhodes to shit-kick Jack Swagger and pin him. There’s nothing I know more certainly as a wrestling fan than Jake Hager’s not going to lose his in-ring debut after several months of tease and build, no matter how much I want it to happen.
Staff Picks
Scott Heisel – AEW’s been on a weird string of having big hoss heels lose their first match — both Wardlow and Jeff Cobb come to mind. It seems startlingly short-sighted for a company that prides itself on long-term booking. But I predict that trend stops with Jake Hager, who will take Dustin to the woodshed as only a Sooner could.
Elle Collins – I love Dustin Rhodes, and I don’t like Jake Hager at all, but I know what has to happen here. Dustin’s AEW gimmick is “One Last Ride.” He doesn’t need to beat Hager. He needs to put Hager over, so there will be more drama later when Hager fights Luchasaurus and whoever else. It’s fine.
Emily Pratt – Hager is not a “good wrestler” or even provably a “good MMA fighter” in 2020, but Dustin is still so great at everything about wrestling that there’s a good chance this match will still be entertaining. Everyone wants to see Dustin whip Hager’s ass in like five minutes somehow and every moment of this match in which that doesn’t happen will stress people out, and there’s a lot they can do with that. Hager will probably win and I will probably be upset exactly how AEW wants me to be upset.
Cody vs. MJF
What You Need To Know: Cody Rhodes, formerly the biggest and jerkiest asshole in professional wrestling and now reformed into a beloved and complex southern wrestling super hero, took Maxwell Jacob Friedman, jerk asshole in training, under his wing. When Cody started realizing he could wrestle matches AND be loved, MJF took it in the other direction and kicked him in the balls. That cost Cody the ability to ever challenge for the AEW World Championship again, and MJF’s made him jump through increasingly dangerous hoops to get this grudge match. We’re talking bloody-faced moonsaults off giant steel cage walls and Passion of the Christ-style lashings in the middle of the ring. Cody is gonna kill this motherfucker.
What Will Happen: The wrestling fan in me feels like Cody won’t actually get to kill this motherfucker, because we’re trained to expect the worst from scenarios that seem to positive and pleasant. I would LOVE if Cody just beat the piss out of him for five minutes and put him away with six Cross Rhodes (and whipped him with a belt all the way to the back), but that little pessimistic voice in my head (I call him “Tony”) (Tony Khan) says, “You know Cody’s losing this somehow, probably when someone he loves like Dustin or Arn or Brandi turns their back on him at the last minute to join MJF, right?”
Staff Picks
Scott Heisel – Pathos, thy name is Rhodes. After everything he’s been through to get MJF in the ring with him, I can’t possibly imagine a situation in which Cody loses this match — but I bet *he* can, and is probably being talked out of it by the other EVPs now. Cody, it’s okay if you win this feud. The fans want it. Just try not to bleed too much, okay?
Elle Collins – Cody sort of has to win, after everything he went through in the build. But on the other hand, Cody never REALLY has to win. He runs the company, he’ll be okay and they can always build him up later. It might be worth the loss to take MJF to the next level as a heel. So now that I’ve talked myself in a circle, I’m picking MJF.
Emily Pratt – Several factors lead me to predict that this will be the match during which I’ll be most tempted to get up and do something else. I don’t care for Cody’s faux-prestige drama most of the time and I think about one minute of MJF content per month is good. The Rhodes family means nothing to me because I was born in the ’90s. Also, Cody happened to cut his promo on MJF in which he listed all this expensive stuff he owns on a day I was dealing with a very scary financial emergency and it made me want to lie on the ground and go into a coma. I guess I hope Cody loses? I think the quality of this match will be perfectly average and couched in a lot of overwrought theatrics that I won’t care for.
AEW Tag Team Championship Match: Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page (c) vs. The Young Bucks
What You Need To Know: The Elite is a group of terrible friends from New Japan Pro Wrestling who left to form their own promotion, and now have to play it like they’re just goodhearted Executive Vice Presidents and player-coaches who would never manipulate the card or their wrestlers to their professional advantage. As it stands, Kenny Omega is one half of the Tag Team Champions and the winner of Wednesday’s Ironman Match thanks to his friends, The Young Bucks, who are also his pay-per-view challengers. Meanwhile the other half of the champs, Hangman Adam Page, is discovering that the alcoholism that made him a pariah from the group might actually be keeping his mind free to notice and catalogue their bullshit.
The simpler read of the situation is that everyone in the Tag Team Championship match is in the same group and should be friends, but also really want to be champion, and are willing to break a bond over that whether they say they are or not. Also they’re gonna do SO MANY MOVES.
What Will Happen: The Bucks will be Tag Team Champions eventually, but I hope the champions retain here to keep Hangman Page’s unexpectedly rocketed momentum rising. I think it’d be a killer story if the Bucks lost the match fair and square, presumably to Page and Omega’s ultimate murder strike combination, and let hate consume them. The Young Bucks are so, so, so much more fun as people you’re supposed to boo for doing all the booable stuff the Young Bucks do.
Staff Picks
Scott Heisel – I’m cool with the Young Bucks ending Omega and Page’s brief reign as transitional champs and truly becoming the cocky shitheels we all deserve, elevating Hangman in the process (and setting up Omega/Page for Double Or Nothing in May). It’s been a long time since a depressed alcoholic was also the fan favorite. Just keep Hangman Page away from the TitanTron for this match, okay?
Elle Collins – This match could go a lot of ways (way more than two) depending on what story they want to tell in The Saga of Hangman’s Alienation. I’m picking the Young Bucks to win, because I think that leads to the most drama, but it could go either way.
Emily Pratt – I’m going with the most obvious prediction here: The Young Bucks beat Omega and Page, leading to Page drifting further away from the rest of the Elite.
AEW Women’s Championship Match: Nyla Rose (c) vs. Kris Statlander
What You Need To Know: “Native Beast” Nyla Rose was finally able to wrangle the AEW Women’s Championship away from the 90 pound Japanese woman who dominated the division for the first several months of its existence, and because of that, Nyla’s now insistent that she can beat ANYBODY, she DON’T EVEN CARE, she BREAKS BITCHES. That’s making her a lot of enemies, including this tall lady who thinks she’s an alien and likes to boop people on their noses.
What Will Happen: I can’t imagine Nyla Rose losing the Women’s Championship this quickly, but I’d also be extremely into Kris Statlander as AEW Women’s Champion. Gonna go out on a limb here and say that Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, has something to do with the finish, and we start the build to Baker winning the championship from Rose and BRUTALLY shading her for having both macular degeneration and periodontal disease. I just want Women’s Champion Evil Dayjob Dentist, managed by a reluctant Tony Schiavone in a Starbucks apron.
Staff Picks
Scott Heisel – We’ve all seen Independence Day: The aliens have a good outing, but eventually they lay down for the true star of the show. Nyla Rose retains. Also, there are only two women competing on this entire show. Can we do a little better next time, AEW?
Elle Collins – Nyla’s obviously retaining. Even if this match had been built up at all, which it hasn’t, it would still be too soon for Nyla to lose the belt she just won.
Emily Pratt – Statlander definitely seems like a future Women’s Champion, but I hope she doesn’t take the belt off Nyla at Revolution, and I optimistically don’t think she will. Nyla could be a great champion for AEW to build up babyfaces against since she’s the largest woman currently active in the division. Others can have quality matches with her and lose without looking bad. It seems like AEW is finally getting things with their women’s division more together, and I think the next step in the division’s improvement would be some quality feuds for the Women’s Championship, not taking the belt off a well-liked wrestler shortly after she’s won it just to put it on a different babyface.
AEW Championship Match: Chris Jericho (c) vs. Jon Moxley
What You Need To Know: Chris Jericho is the youngest (and first, and only) AEW Champion, flanked by a gaggle of cronies who’ve kept him at the top of the card and done most of his dirty work. He tried to enlist recent WWE-defectee Jon Moxley to the group, but ended up getting a little bit of the bubbly smashed into his head. From there, the feud involved people poking out each others’ eyes with spikes and car keys, and most recently a double-underhook DDT onto a scale. It remains to be seen whether or not all of this is enough to keep Moxley, who in AEW most notably battled Kenny Omega with glass and barbed wire, from putting the fear of God into Le Champion.
What Will Happen: I’m a heel Jericho fanboy, especially when he’s this close to being the perfect mixture of WCW Cruiserweight and peak “best in the world at what I do” WWE Chris Jericho. But even I look at this match like, “yeah, Jon Moxley should win, he’s the biggest star they’ve got now and he’s not almost 50.” It’s the right call. This should be fun and dramatic with tons of faction vs. anti-faction violence, but on a card where MJF’s almost certainly screwing Cody Rhodes in some fashion, AEW’s going to send the fans home happy.
Staff Picks
Scott Heisel – Goddamn, this feud has been a blast. Mox has been built up perfectly as the guy to dethrone Jericho, but I’d also be okay with this stretched out until Double Or Nothing, where he can win the belt inside the same building in which he debuted, inside the city in which he lives. Jericho’s hitting the road with Fozzy this spring, but not a single show is on a Wednesday, meaning the Le Champion is keeping his schedule open. I’m gonna say Jericho retains, but not after a fair amount of shenanigans, and Moxley will finally taste gold in May.
Elle Collins – I think it’s time. I know some people will make remarks about the first two AEW Champions being ex-WWE stars, but honestly that’s a fine choice to make in a company that’s still had less than a year to build its own stars. I think Chris Jericho has been a great inaugural champion, but Moxley will bring something fresh to the Title. He’s such a dedicated friendless tweener that he’ll be able to feud with pretty much anyone in the company. Also I think Jericho needs to drop the belt in time for Fozzy’s Spring tour. A lot of people on the internet have argued that he could play all the tour dates and still make most Dynamites, but while that’s true, at his age and level of prestige as a performer, I can’t imagine why he’d feel the need to do both at the same time.
Emily Pratt – Jericho has been a really fun champion, but Moxley is red hot right now and would at least as entertaining as AEW World Champ #2. I’m really looking forward to watching this match and being sincerely invested in the outcome.
So that’s what we think will happen in Chicago on Saturday night. Agree with our picks? Think Jon Moxley’s going to retain only to immediately get destroyed by Lance Archer for that whole NJPW United States Championship stuff? Drop down into the comments section and let us know about it. And make sure you’re here on Saturday for all the festivities, as we share an open discussion thread, post some results, and try not to be surprised when Arn Anderson pulls a bayonet out of his coach’s vest and stabs Cody in the heart with it.
See you this weekend!
