The closing scene of AEW Revolution ended up being a dud as sparklers went off to culminated the exploding barbed wire deathmatch between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega. Fans were left disappointed and AEW had to do damage control, saying Kenny Omega rigged it poorly and joking that IMPACT help set it up.
Fightful Select reported in March, "a third party rigging crew responsible brushed the situation off and were not very apologetic about the way that things happened."
Speaking on the Dan Le Batard Show, AEW President Tony Khan explained what happened and why he didn't end up paying the crew.
"I'll never let the non-wrestling people...I was trying to be too safe and I let the professionals handle the stuff and they are guys who don't understand wrestling. A professional pyrotechnic guy. They totally shit the bed. I ended up not paying them. It was like $100,000 they ended up refunding for all the expenses of the match. I ended up not paying for the (exploding) barbed wire deathmatch, which I shouldn't have. They screwed up royally. We put together something great. Kenny and Jon worked their asses off and all they had to do was set up the final explosion. This is because we used professional pyrotechnic people who are supposed to know. The next time we do this, and I will do it again because the match drew. Everything Jon and Kenny did up until that point was outstanding, it wasn't their fault it didn't go off. Long story short, it was a long time ago and we've bounced back since then. That was three months ago and everything has been pretty perfect and couldn't have gone much better. I was really grateful that the next pay-per-view was up and did a big number," he said.
Kenny Omega was reportedly "furious" with how things went down and Eddie Kingston said he went to the back and thought "what the fuck."
Exploding deathmatch legend Atsushi Onita explained he felt responsible for the dud explosion. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
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