Recently, we saw another edition of Revolution and for many is one of the best PPVs produced by AEW ever; this is interesting considering a lot of people, mostly WWE fans, thought the card was weaker than previous year and the build was not that good according to some people. While we don’t have numbers in terms of PPV buys, we can see that gate wise they did pretty well, as well as review wise with a lot of people calling this show one of the best produced by AEW and a top contender for overall best wrestling show of the year.
the thing about AEW PPVs is that we always hear by a group of fans that cards are weak or the build wasn’t good enough, it’s almost becoming something common before AEW PPVs. The builds of PVVs can be better but one thing that has been vital to AEW is the fact they always deliver when need be in PPVs, with a few exceptions like any promotion. The big factor here is AEW wrestlers pay attention to social media and when they read the negativity about a card they feel motivated to perform as best they can, and we see those results on every PPV.
A factor that helps AEW’s case in their PPVs is how diverse the card is in terms of the different kinds of wrestling you see on the cards, and with Revolution as the most recent example of this. AEW has always talks about being a wrestling buffet and having a little bit for everyone on their shows. From technical wrestling, the spectacular high-flying stuff to the 30-minute slow burning classics for the main event. AEW being a buffet of wrestling is the key of all this.
It’s always worth mentioning the inevitable comparisons between AEW and WWE PPVs, or I should say premium live events in WWE’s case. AEW PPV’s are obviously more expensive than WWE PLE, but the key here is that Tony Khan books his PPVs taking into account the price of the show and wants to make the money their fans spent on them worth it, that’s the mentality of a booker that not too long ago was just a wrestling like you or me. Meanwhile, WWE doesn’t really try in most of their PLE, with the obvious exceptions of their big 4 PLEs (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Summer Slam and Survivor Series). We also have to put into account the frequency of the shows of the two promotions, obviously AEW only running 4 or 5 PPVs a year is a factor in the pricing of their shows and why they have to deliver big time on each, while WWE has basically a PPV a month.
AEW is still missing their WrestleMania show, some people think it’s All Out while others argue for Double or Nothing, but the truth is neither is AEW’s big show of the year. You could argue AEW doesn’t need their version of WrestleMania because of how PPVs they run a year but other do argue on this (and I include myself here) that AEW needs their big show of the year like WWE has with WrestleMania or NJPW with Wrestle Kingdom. Maybe this is something Tony Khan will come around to one day. It would be cool if AEW had the copyright for Starrcade and contiene the legacy of the show it had for WCW but obviously WWE owns that copyright and there’s the fact most fans would want something new instead of using the name of a PPV of a dead promotion.
