Within a year after AEW's first show, the promotion presented what remains one of its best matches, pitting Kenny Omega and Adam Page against the Young Bucks.
Across the first seven years of AEW's existence, the promotion has presented some truly exciting wrestling matches, in both the singles and tag team divisions. Many of the company's best matches came after the first few years, but one early match stands out as one of the absolute best: Kenny Omega and "Hangman" Adam Page taking on the Young Bucks over the AEW World Tag Team Championship.
At the end of 2019, just a few months after the debut of "AEW Dynamite," Omega and Page were tag team partners, having both suffered disappointing losses at the first AEW Full Gear in November. They found plenty of initial success together, though, defeating Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian for the tag titles on the episode of "Dynamite" taped during Chris Jericho's annual cruise.
Naturally, that success brought Omega and Page up against Matt and Nick Jackson, Omega's fellow EVPs and tag team legends in the making. After a series of successful TV defenses from the champs, and the Young Bucks winning a battle royale to become number-one contenders, the highly-anticipated bout was booked for the first-ever AEW Revolution, on Leap Day – February 29, 2020.
Read more: AEW Stars: Meet Their Spouses & Partners
Tensions within The Elite boil over
Tensions between the Young Bucks and Omega/Page had been building for months, on and off, with most of the emphasis on the growing divide between "Hangman" and his friends. That strife grows throughout this match, made ever more serious by the fact that Omega and Page managed to win the title before the Young Bucks, despite their reputation as arguably the best tag team of their generation.
As the bell rings, the crowd gives its full support to Omega and Page, while the reception to the Young Bucks is much more mixed. The Jackson brothers play up the heelish side of their personalities throughout the match, especially against Page, who also has his dark side on display at times.
Thankfully, in this case, the in-ring action rises to (or even surpasses) the level of the soap opera playing out outside the ring. While all four wrestlers are quite obviously gifted in different ways, in my mind, it's Omega who has immaculate pacing, and it's on full display here. Knowing full-well that they're going 30 minutes, the teams avoid starting off too hot, instead opting to re-establish all their interpersonal issues inside the ring. It's setup for all the payoffs to come later on in the match.
The pack quickens as the Young Bucks start to enact violence on Page, with the brothers double-teaming "Hangman" and keeping him away from Omega, until Page is able to turn the tables. He targets Matt's lower back, which the tag specialist had been selling for years (or at least what felt like years). However, when Page goes to tag Omega in, the two get into a brief spat, with the camera capturing Omega's passive aggressive expression as a breadcrumb for their own eventual schism.
The perfectly-paced bout continues
Page tgas himself back in after only a short break, with the future world champion continuing to ratchet up the level of violence against his former friends. The Young Bucks get fired up in return, with Nick retaking control of the match and taking on Page and Omega at the same time. He can't keep it up forever, though, and with Matt indisposed, Omega was there to break up a submission on Page.
Around the halfway point, the pace gets faster yet again, with momentum shifting back and forth through tightly-executed sequences of offense. All the while, the Chicago crowd could not be any more invested in what was taking place, heightening everything going on in the ring.
After the pace reaches a new high, the Bucks slow things down by taking Omega out of commission and brutalizing Page on the ramp, showing the slightest bit of remorse in the process. With Page now down, Omega gets back on his feet only to find himself alone against both brothers. They take turns hitting Omega with superkicks and a double V-Trigger, but they fail to take advantage of the situation, with Omega kicking out of their pinfall attempts.
A turning point in the match takes place when Matt begins ripping the athletic tape off Omega's body, only for Nick to confront him and question his actions, with Matt becoming regretful. This provides Page with an opening, which he uses to sneak up on Nick to powerbomb him through a table. Then, Omega and Page deliver their Buckshot V-Trigger to Matt, but even this is not enough.
With Matt fighting out of a One-Winged Angel attempt from Omega, Page tags in and delivers Omega's finisher himself. Nick breaks up that pin attempt, leading to Page hitting Nick with a Buckshot Lariant on the ramp. He then lands the same move on Matt in the ring and then pins him for the three-count, retaining the AEW World Tag Team Championship.
Omega & Page vs. the Young Bucks may be AEW's best match
This match remains a high mark in AEW's catalogue because it was the best early example of the heights this roster could reach when firing on all cylinders. There's just such a strong aligning of planets around this match, from the long-running storylines, the total engagement of the crowd, the carefully-timed pacing, and the sheer athleticism.
A big reason why the match had such a high degree of investment, beyond involving the company's most popular wrestlers at the time, was because it intertwined a few stories that had been brewing for awhile. The match addressed the Young Bucks chasing their first tag title win, the drama taking place among The Elite, and though we didn't know it yet, it was building to the world title reigns of both Omega and Page.
Speaking from my own point of view, this match was an early example of AEW delivering on the promise of its very existence. When AEW first began, mainstream American wrestling was in a pretty bleak place, with Vince McMahon's iron grip over WWE leading to creative stagnation. When Tony Khan created AEW, the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) promise was to deliver a combination of American independent wrestling and the style of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and this was (up to that point, at least) the best example of that.
Don't miss any of the major wrestling headlines. Sign up to our free newsletter for the biggest stories, sent straight to your inbox. You can also add us as a preferred search source on Google.
Read the original article on Wrestling Inc.
Category: General Sports
