7 Ups & 1 Down From AEW Revolution 2023 (Review)
3. This Is What Pro Wrestling Violence Should Look Like
Wrestling violence isn't being speared through a barricade. It should be horrifying. And so long as these people aren't staring at their hands, it should horrify its heroes.
Bruno Sammartino walked out of the cage when the bad guys had had enough. Here, Hangman Page nearly choked Jon Moxley to death at the awesome finish of an incredible, committed and polarising Texas Death match - but only because he happened upon a means of leaving it behind.
The intensity with which it was worked bordered on terrifying. Bricks, barbed wire, chairs wrapped in the stuff: all were used to tell a simple, harrowing, compelling tale: who makes it out of the desert?
The drama was never overshadowed by the plunder. The disturbing set-pieces, like Page taking a somersault header through a suspended barbed wire board, would have meant nothing had both men not stumbled, dazed, into standing positions - sometimes with defiance, sometimes through dumb luck. The violence while grotesque wasn't executed for the sake of it.
An uneasy, agonising suspense was threaded through everything, and it never once peaked. The creeping feeling that only something awful could put an end to it never subsided, and the finish paid that off. Moxley tapping out was the perfect ending. He wasn't obsessed with keeping himself strong. The man was going to die. He had to escape.
What's ironic, given the inevitable outrage that followed the match, is that the blood was shed with purpose.
On the go-home Dynamite, Hangman Page lamented violence. Near the finish, Jon Moxley wrapped chain around his neck, but was undone by his thirst for blood.
Page did what he had to do when the opportunity presented itself to him. It was no source of pride, or even enjoyment. He was challenged as a man and the violence was a byproduct of that. Of his environment. Mox, cosplaying Bruiser Brody, used violence as something to glorify; Page recognised it a necessity.
The "wrestling is cinema" craze on Twitter is excruciating, but thematically, this had as much in common with a western as a pro wrestling grudge match. Wrestling is a lawless world, but it isn't without honour.