WWE Hall of Famer Booker T has taken aim at the finale to AEW’s Revolution pay-per-view this weekend, which saw the Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match between Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley go out with a fizzle rather than a bang.
On the latest episode of the Hall of Fame podcast, Booker T and co-host Brad Gilmore opened up about the moment the ring “exploded” – saying it was initially a good idea.
“The sparkles at the beginning, that was a good idea. The sparkles was almost like lighting a fuse. I thought from an initial standpoint that it was perhaps, it was cheesy, but when that spark led to a firecracker going off, then roman candles went off and then white smoke came up. No shrapnel, no nothing.”
“I know Eddie Kingston was covering Jon Moxley saying, ‘Man, just lay right here, we ain’t moving, we’re going to act like something happened.’ Then Eddie Kingston rolls off him and it’s like he got the shock from the bomb going off. He can’t hear nothing, he can’t see nothing.”
The WWE Hall of Famer would divulge that he doesn’t think there’s a place for those matches anymore, saying “you can’t make movies like that anymore” – but clarified that he doesn’t think wrestlers are “soft” nowadays.
“Those matches man, were made for those types of guys back then, I don’t think those guys are made anymore. Am I saying the wrestlers are soft? No, I’m not saying that but the mentality that those guys had going into those matches back then and what they put into those exploding death matches, it was like watching Ben-Hur. You can’t make movies like that no more man, you can’t do Ten Commandments the way they did back then, you can’t do that.”
The WCW legend added that the finish “bombed miserably” and that Kenny Omega shouldn’t have actually taken the blame.
“I think that’s what these guys were trying to do and it was a bomb. It bombed miserably in front of the world. Don’t put yourself in a situation like that ever again. To blame it on Kenny Omega? Kenny Omega is a tech guy now?”
Booker would call it comical, before dismissing the explanation from Moxley and Khan.
“Who was the tech guy? Who put that thing together because the ending and finale with the bombs going off, it was comical. It was comical in a sense too, ‘Was that it? Are you kidding me?’ Then to cover it up by saying Kenny Omega, he built this thing? Come on here.”
The WWE Hall of Famer added that the match should never be recreated, and that AEW has to find a way to move past it.
“It’s definitely going to be one of those things where they’re going to have to figure out how to get past that and move forward because it’s something people are going to be thinking about for a long time. I don’t think we should ever try to recreate that match ever again, that’s just my opinion.”
h/t Wrestling Inc.