One of the most, if not the most-anticipated matches in the history of not only AEW, but professional wrestling as a whole was the Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch that took place at the Revolution Event between AEW World Champion Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley. Prior to Revolution, the Deathmatch was really heavily promoted as well as advertised and massive things were expected out of the match, but not all things went according to plan.
At the end of the matchup when the timer hit zero, a big explosion was expected to happen, but it did not materialize as intended, instead the explosion turned out to be a dud, however in the rehearsals, everything went according to plan. Several reasons were given on why the explosion turned out the way it did, with one reason being that AEW Executive Vice President Kenny Omega built the bomb in such an awful way.
According to Dave Meltzer on a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Omega has had the idea for the Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch for more than a year now and the AEW World Champion had even decided at the time that Moxley will be his opponent. Meltzer also said that the idea behind the Deathmatch was to have the greatest and most spectacular match of its kind, with the mindset of Omega and Moxley being that the other was the perfect opponent for that job.
Kenny Omega issued the following statement on the botched explosion:
“Yeah, it was really deflating to do so much preparation, test the explosions, have them be impressive in the rehearsal, and then have it be something so much different than what was promised. It made me appreciate everyone who worked hard and did their part even more, though. But like you said, we really wanted to have a good one, and we added real barbed wire to help with the feeling of danger so we really risked a lot. Again, I loved the match, glad we did it, sucks about the finale.”
