After Revolution, the future for some of AEW’s biggest stars is clear—but for others, what comes next is a huge question mark.
Here’s a look at what might be next for wrestlers like MJF, Andrade, and especially Hangman Page. The following is based purely on speculation and conjecture, and not on any backstage rumors or reports.
Hangman Adam Page
It’s not often that the loser of a pay-per-view main event is the biggest topic of discussion after a show, but then it’s not often that a company’s top star in the prime of his career promises to never challenge for the promotion’s top belt again.
So where do Page and AEW go from here? Let’s start with the simplest (though not necessarily smartest) solution: they eventually break the stip. Page is the one who put his future title shots on the line, though at the post-show media scrum, CEO Tony Khan called it a “verbal contract.” Could Page one day turn heel and simply go back on his word? Would Khan allow him to do so? Would kayfabe lawyers get involved, arguing on behalf of each side?
What if Page and AEW stick to the stip, and he never challenges for the world title again? Lord knows that there are plenty of other belts flying around the company. He could challenge Jon Moxley for the Continental Championship, or Kyle Fletcher for the TNT Championship, or Kazuchika Okada for the International Championship. Jack Perry is also the new National Champion, but he’s also a babyface, so that matchup seems unlikely. If AEW wanted to go to a WWE-style brand split and separate the rosters between the two shows, putting the TNT title on Page and making him the face of Collision wouldn’t be the worst idea.
The third possibility would be that Page’s days as a singles wrestler have ended. He has already won tag team and trios gold in AEW, but a full-time pairing with someone like Swerve Strickland is something that has not yet been explored.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman & Andrade el Idolo
The long-term future for MJF seems obvious—a main event title defense against Will Ospreay at All In in London at the end of August—but what happens between now and then is not clear. A lot of the company’s biggest babyfaces returned at Revolution (Ospreay, Kenny Omega, Adam Copeland, Christian Cage), but all of them attacked heels to settle personal disputes, so they won’t be challenging Friedman right away.
And then there’s Andrade el Idolo. Just two months after his full-time return to the company (following a contract kerfuffle with his former employers at WWE), Andrade has been doing almost nothing except winning great matches. He’s now 7-1 in AEW this year, including wins over Swerve Strickland, Kenny Omega, and now Bandido, the reigning ROH Champion. The sole blemish on his mark was a narrow defeat to Hangman Page, who is now out of the title picture. He’s a fresh face on the scene, he’s got a cool gimmick, and he’s a proven main eventer all over the world.
He’s also a member of the Don Callis Family, and technically a heel. Would AEW want to go with a heel-vs.-heel program on top? There was a tense moment between Friedman and Callis on TV lately, with Fletcher also involved. (Fletcher is another potential challenger for the World title, with no clear challengers for his TNT championship, but he faces the same heel-vs.-heel issues as Andrade.)
If AEW is looking for a strong babyface challenger, the best available candidate would likely be Darby Allin. He has main evented before, he has a history with MJF, and he got a big win over Moxley last year. As of late he has been feuding with Moxley’s Death Riders and then the Dogs, but he has a chance to put all of that behind him and move on to other things after Wednesday’s coffin match against Gabe Kidd.
FTR, Cage & Copeland, and the Young Bucks
FTR beat the Bucks clean at Revolution, but then were attacked by the returning Adam Copeland and Christian Cage. Cope and Cage then posed with the championship belts and said taking those would be the best way to hurt FTR.
The Bucks then muddied the picture by returning to the ring and confronting the Canadians. Fans were buzzing at the staredown. It’s obvious that none of the three teams are done with each other; the only question is who faces who first. One likely scenario: Cope & Cage win the belts from FTR, defend them against the Bucks, and then face both teams in a three-way, perhaps at All In. That would let Cope & Cage drop the belts without being pinned, and that would not be the first time a team of ex-WWE stars lost the AEW tag team titles.
Here & There
From there on down the card, Revolution set up some very obvious scenarios:
- Kenny Omega returned to feud with Swerve Strickland.
- Will Ospreay returned to feud with Jon Moxley.
- Konosuke Takeshita lost to Moxley, and it’s time for him to leave the Don Callis Family and do the feud with Kazuchika Okada they have been teasing forever.
- Toni Storm will, at some point, have a big match with Ronda Rousey, either one-on-one, or teaming with Mina Shirakawa against Rousey & Marina Shafir, or both.
- Thekla defeated Kris Statlander in screwy fashion, so their issue remains unsettled.
- Jack Perry, the new National Champion, can continue his feud with Ricochet, just as the hunted instead of the hunter.
- The new Trios Champions—Mistico & Kevin Knight & Mike Bailey—can just have bangers every week against a variety of opponents. The Don Callis Family alone should be able to put together enough fresh combinations of challengers to last through the summer.
