2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Allin vs. Aichner

106. Darby Allin vs. Fabian Aichner EVOLVE 1/18

ER: We loved basically every Darby Evolve match from his time there, and there are still a ton we hadn't seen. Evolve was a promotion I really loved while also a promotion that I didn't actually follow regularly. Fabian Aichner was the Evolve champ at one point? News to me, pal. Aichner has become one of my favorite WWE roster guys and this is him right after losing that Evolve title, and aiming to take all of his frustrations out on Darby's body. Like the greatest Darby Allin matches, a lot of this is his larger opponent (and Aichner was at the height of his beefiness in this match) hurling Allin disgustingly into hard walls and surfaces. Aichner got a lot of mileage out of literally just running Darby into the guardrails and turnbuckles, not even doing any actual offense, just running a man into things. His actual offense does look really great (if you can't make your offense look good against Allin, you should rethink your moveset), with some strike combos that really move Darby, a wicked pop-up powerslam, awesome brainbuster, powerbomb into the ringpost, all of it great. 

Darby picked his spots well, hitting a great low tope and dodging out of the way of an Aichner running knee, sending him patella first into the post. I really liked how they moved to the knee injury portion of the match, as it wasn't immediately after Aichner hit the post. Aichner rolled back in and went back to decimating Allin, with Darby only taking control when Aichner's knee buckled on a powerbomb and Darby landed with a Bombs Away, then went hard after Aichner's knee. I love how the match went from Aichner dominating, to Allin suddenly having this great in, to Aichner panicking and getting the hell out of there with his feet on the ropes. The finish was cool for a cheap finish, with Aichner essentially just throwing Allin off the top rope with an inside cradle. Allin went splat, Aichner used the feet for leverage, then walked off. It played nicely into their match the next night (where Aichner smashed Allin during his ring entrance) and I thought it was a cool way to run the same match on consecutive nights. 

PAS: I hadn't seen very much of Aichner before, but I enjoyed him as a meathead with fun power offense. He was a bit mechanical in between spots, but when he got his hands on Darby he brought Darby down really hard. I liked the delayed knee sell, I really bought that knee bar as a near fall. Darby is so fast, that staying with him is like trying to stay in front of Kyrie Irving. You throw a bum knee into that equation, you are drawing dead. It seemed like Aichner was out of answers, until he violently threw Darby down from the top rope and put his legs on the rope to steal one. Darby versus a strong guy is a really great match up and we need to see a John Silver match on Dark or something.   

2019 MOTY MASTER LIST