AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 11/15-11/21

AEW Dynamite 11/17

Bryan Danielson vs. Evil Uno

PAS: It was fun to watch Danielson turn full heel with a very well done mic segment to do it, and he was a total dick in the match with Uno. I thought the early parts of this felt a little off, like their timing was a bit skipped. It picked up near the end with Danielson being really vicious, telling the crowd he was going to kick Uno's fucking head in, and then unloading with some really nasty stomps to the temple and the double flex triangle. Uno had some moments, I liked the slaps and the violence party, but he was there to be a foil and was great at that. 

MD: They covered a lot of ground here. This got over Danielson's heel act immediately as he pushed Edwards right from the get go with the "I've got til five" act. Then, instead of starting a chop fest with Uno, he just slapped him across the face. There was a lot of that, Danielson goading Uno and Uno responding with violence, but a lack of control that would cost him in the end. I don't know how many other big moments he's going to get in his AEW career (I could see at least one more if O'Reilly comes in) but he milked the chants and that one moment on the apron before he went up to the top for as much as he could. My favorite bit of this was probably his too, when he kept walking up and planting Danielson on the face with kicks. The spinning forearm from Danielson was amazing and seemed to parallel the big shot from Suzuki onto him a few weeks ago. Each member of the Dark Order brings something unique to the table, so it should be fun to watch Danielson mow through them.


AEW Rampage 11/19

Darby Allin vs. Billy Gunn 

ER: Darby Allin vs. way larger opponent is always a great match, and Billy Gunn is the largest guy on the AEW roster. Billy Gunn is maybe the wildest guy from the 1993 WWF roster to be this active in 2021, but Gunn is basically a better version of the wrestler he was in 1999. He's a great stooge and can stall in fun smug ways, and as AEW's Giant he absolutely runs over Darby for the first 80% of this match, and it rules. He launches Darby way into the air on a backdrop and brutally oles him into the guardrail on a fast Darby tope. During the commercial break he drags Darby around by the neck scruff and tosses him by his rib tape, then punches him right in the jaw in the center of the ring. Gunn really knew how to milk the build to the comeback that every single person in attendance knew was coming (Billy Gunn isn't pinning Darby Allin on TV while Sting watches), and it made Darby's comeback kick so much ass. 

Darby starts by hitting a Coffin Drop into Gunn's two dumb sons, then just assaults Billy with everything that makes Darby so great. But what was maybe most impressive about the finish, was just how good Billy Gunn has gotten about occupying himself while waiting to take offense, and how good he's gotten at getting into position for offense. Gunn sets up all of Darby's coolest stuff really well, and had a bunch of logical sells to get him into position for whatever was coming next. He sells the flipping stunner by stumbling, pitching forward and stopping himself from face planting by settling into a drunken 3 point stance, which sets up Darby's Code Red. Gunn flips the Code Red so that he lands in position to get stuck by the Coffin Drop, kicks out at 1 and then drags his body away from the corner, only to get nailed by another Drop mid-crawl. Gunn was never this good at acting his way through anyone's comeback, and now I want to see Billy Gunn working some lucha matches with other near 60 year olds. 

MD: I'm not going to try to follow Eric move-for-move on this one, but I will point out a few things. Depending on where you look on the internet, you get wildly varying reactions. Obviously, you get some people who saw this as a disappointing joke after the Malenko/Guerrero stuff in Darby vs MJF and then you get someone like Dutch Mantel who thought Gunn led young Darby by the nose through one believable sequence after the other but that obviously the wrong person won. This is probably why someone shouldn't go out onto the internet.

Anyway, Gunn is a dinosaur, big and old, and he's outlived all the other dinosaurs and now finds himself in a world of small mammals, with Darby as one of the smallest, most tenacious, most dangerous mammals of all. Gunn took his time, was smart in his hefts and throws and shots and cutoffs, treated Darby as Darby and not just some random opponent. I love how he managed the picture-in-picture commercial break which is always the most problematic part of a Dynamite or a Rampage. Usually that's where they bury the heat which provides structural issues but he slowed it down even more and worked the crowd and just grinded it out in a way that put more fuel onto things. 

It's 100% telling that the crowd went from goofing on Gunn's kids with a Danhausen-inspired chant (and Gunn was great at stopping what he was doing, turning the match around and reacting to that instead of just moving on) to cheering for Darby to come back. That's a testament to Darby and to Gunn, because on paper, a modern crowd is more often than not going to want to get itself over than giving in and buying into a match. Darby choosing to take basically his first, best opportunity for offense in the match and use it to drop onto the Gunn kids instead of attacking Billy is completely in character for him. The fact that it took two coffin drops to take Gunn out tracked with the lack of damage Gunn had taken so far. I can't speak for the rest of you, but I know Eric and I would be on board for a featured Gunn Club vs. Darby/Sting/Paul Wight match. Someone has to give them their first loss as a trios after all.