When AEW announced that Bryan Danielson and MJF were going to take part in a 60 Minute Iron Man match at Revolution, it drew quite the reaction from professional wrestling fans the world over.

Who would secure the win, the best in-ring wrestler in the entire world, a man so good he quite literally has the “Best Technical Wrestler” award from The Wrestling Observer named after him? Or would it be the man widely considered the best talker in professional wrestling; a man who will, by his own admission, spur on a massive bidding war come 2024, when his current contract comes to an end?

Fortunately, after watching three hours of fantastic wrestling split over Zero Hour and Revolution proper, AEW left their longest match for the final spot on the card and gave fans 60 full minutes, plus a little extra, to really sink their teeth into just how good of a wrestler Danielson remains even as he enters his 40s and how MJF's generational wrestling IQ helped to overcome that disadvantage to retain his title and continue his “Reign of Terror” over Dynamite, Rampage, Dark, and Dark Elevation.

MJF went the distance to slay the “American Dragon.”

After watching Bryan Danielson walk down to the ring to nothing but praise from the assembled AEW crowd, the lights dimmed, and a collection of musicians, all donning devil-themed masks, performed an orchestral rendition of MJF's theme song before the actual recording kicked in a few seconds later. From there, MJF emerged from the back, wearing his devil mask from All Out and a white robe that served as a sort of Burberry-accented counterpoint to his typically devilish ways. From there, the bell rang, and after 30 or so seconds of taking in the atmosphere of 9,00 fans packed inside one of the most cutting-edge stadiums in the business, the match began, with Danielson attempting to lock up and MJF swatting away his hands.

Though the match started off slow, things picked up in a hurry and stayed hot for the first quarter of the match, with the duo going blow for blow, matching moves toe-to-toe, and ultimately avoiding any pins until the 26-minute mark, when Danielson hit MJF with the Busaiku Knee to go up by one with the 1-2-3. Danielson remained on the offensive and even secured a second point when MJF hit him with a low blow where the sun don't shine – resulting in a disqualification point – but “The Devil” used this advantage to land not one, but two points of his own in order to tie things up at 2-2.

With Excalibur and Taz attempting to explain the situation, which was admittedly kind of confusing, the battle went back underway, and Danielson found himself with a bit of an advantage when MJF tweaked his knee on the outside. Attempting to capitalize on the injury, Danielson leaned into his bag of tricks but suffered an injury of his own, falling onto the ring floor and then taking a brutal elbow off the top rope from MJF. Once the duo returned to the ring, MJF took the upper hand, with Danielson barely able to put any power behind his punches as his foe egged him on.

Fortunately, “The American Dragon” found some additional fire inside him and used it to keep the fight going, exchanging blows and submissions with MJF until the duo each secured one more point, leaving it at 3-3 heading into the final minute of the match. This, however, is where things got interesting; as the minutes continued to wind down, MJF found himself locked up in a single crab for the final 60 seconds of the contest, and the match was called a draw.

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Dave Meltzer with a text bubble reading "Those Triple H comments, they aged like milk" with Will Ospreay on his left and Triple H on his right with the AEW Dynasty logo as the background.

Matty Breisch ·

Will Ospreay next to Triple H with the AEW Dynasty logo as the background.

Matty Breisch ·

Tony Khan next to MJF with the AEW Dynasty logo as the background.

Matty Breisch ·

… at least until it wasn't.

That's right, Tony Khan told Tony Schiavone that the match would go into sudden death, and for roughly seven more minutes, the show continued on, with MJF going from sucking down oxygen from a tank in the ring to smashing Danielson with said oxygen tank after Bryce Remsberg confiscated his Dynamite Diamond Ring, and locking up “The American Dragon” in his own finisher, the Lebell Lock, until he tapped out to the gasps of 9,000 some fans.

Did MJF accomplish his goal? Did he prove that he, not Bryan Danielson, is the best professional wrestler in the world today? And what about that water bottle? Where did that come into play? Fortunately, or not, depending on your preference, with the AEW World Championship still around his waist, fans will be seeing a whole lot more of MJF in the ring for Tony Khan's company, even if he doesn't actually wrestle all that often.