AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 11/22-11/28

AEW Dynamite 11/24

CM Punk vs. QT Marshall

MD: Not a ton to say here. It went too long obviously, but it only felt too long because they had the Factory kicked out early and the commercial break, maybe due to the long opening promo, dragged the thing down like an anchor. They seem to be telling the story that Punk's having too much trouble with guys he shouldn't be having so much trouble with, but even so, QT's so far down the card and in that player/coach role that it would have worked out better if interference caused Punk's issues. Also, the announcers (JR specifically as Excalibur tried) didn't give proper credit to QT's low blow during the commercial break (something the PiP wasn't going to let you pick up on so easily) didn't help. What I did love here was the opening bit with Punk leaning hard into his reclamation of the bodyslam and QT selling them like death. Honestly, Punk's shine here was the most I've ever seen QT work towards the "wrestle like a manager, manage like a wrestler" mindset, which is, again, how I think he has the most value in-ring to the company. He should just lean all the way into it and wear the one-shoulder Heenan singlet. So this was worked ok but had some production/creative/layout issues.

Bryan Danielson vs. Colt Cabana

MD: Solid TV match highlighting Danielson's new attitude. I would have liked to see their familiarity play out a little more. You got it a bit in the early chain wrestling, a bit more in some of the dodges, and then with a tiny bit of hesitation at the end, but it played out more on commentary than in the match. I'd argue that the hesitation at the end, when Danielson had Colt's hands and was about to stomp, made the match though. There were other similar milked moments, points where everything stopped and took a dramatic beat, like when they were up on the top, but the pre-stomp one felt electric. It was probably the only thing in the match that did, though. Uno made more of his opportunity the week before. Danielson continued to showcase his aggression and uncaring drive, moving quickly to strikes even when he could have tested himself on the mat with Colt. He worked in the pose before the Lebell lock and brandished the tooth about after the match. In the grand scheme of things, highlighting Danielson's aggression was the most important thing, but it's not like these AEW matches don't often manage a number of different objectives at once and I'm not sure this one did.

PAS: I thought this was better then the Uno match the week before, as Cabana matched the hard hitting nature of Danielson more, I especially liked his short elbows. I am not sure about Cabana, who as at this point an undercarder,  doing a flip flop and fly in a promotion with both of Dusty's son's, feels like something a road agent should have nixed. The match had a lot of energy from Cabana being in Chicago, and Danielson showing no mercy on his friend with the stomps to the head was pretty sick stuff, especially with Dragon parading around with the tooth like a trophy. I am not sure what an Alan Angel's match next week really achieves, at this point I think they should get Danielson some partners and run some trios matches if you want to drag out the feud a bit more (Garcia and Moriarty? Call up Biff Busick?). 

AEW Rampage 11/26 (Taped 11/24)

20. Eddie Kingston vs. Daniel Garcia

PAS: I thought this was really excellent, a master class by Kingston who is on an all time great in-ring run right now.  He established hierarchy early, stuffing Garcia's shot attempts and stonewalling him on strikes. It felt like a grumpy Jumbo Tsuruta performance refusing to play along with what Garcia was attempting. When Garcia gets the advantage after the tweaked knee, he really presses it well, and we get two great Kingston sells: bad knee and damaged ear. Garcia's strength as a wrestler is his persistence,  and the whole match is Kingston repelling that. Kingston is still a bigger guy, and I loved he powered through the knee injury to hit that huge lifting powerbomb, and the pair of sick suplexes with the Exploder and backdrop driver. I also dug him using the missed first backfist to set up the second one where he almost beheaded Garcia. Kingston is a 90s All Japan superfan and it was fun to watch him do Jumbo vs. Kikuchi instead of Misawa vs. Kawada.

ER: This was cool, in that it starts like a Kingston squash and keeps building into something bigger. It's really easy to see Kingston running over Garcia while also constantly clowning 2.0 on the floor, and the first parts of this are just Kingston refusing to play along. Garcia would throw uppercuts or chops and whenever Kingston wanted to take back over he would just throw an eye poke or refuse to be Irish whipped, even biting at Garcia's ear. Kingston is one of the few guys in wrestling who can pull off Face Biting as a babyface move and it fully fits him. A weird thing happens when we move into the break, as Garcia suddenly becomes a monster in Picture-in-Picture, booting Kingston in the face multiple times and working over the knee Kingston tweaked while doing a kneedrop to Garcia. Injuring yourself doing something that benefits you is a thing most 40 year olds who still try to keep in shape experience, and nobody works a self-injury into a match better than Kingston. Garcia's fireman's carry roll into a heel hook looked good, and really made Kingston scramble to break. The knee is clearly Garcia's ticket, and Eddie is the best at continuing a plan regardless, so even with the bad knee he still struggles through delivering a big exploder and essentially a one-legged powerbomb. I kept thinking this was about to finish and they kept managing to kick each others' asses back into a match, with Kingston literally fighting from underneath and punching up at Garcia to break holds, then hitting a double backfist for the finish (well the first one missed but he had a second ready to fire just in case). I don't really need Jericho involved in this feud as Kingston really doesn't need Popular Loud Mic Guy around him, but they're nailing this so far so who am I to say. 

MD: Just a really interesting, hard hitting, multifaceted match that went a number of different places. I'd say it was one of the more ambitious AEW matches I've seen this year. I loved the Punk vs Garcia match, for instance, but that was very much just one thing (Garcia dismantling the leg). This was a whole lot more and wholly driven by the personalities involved and the situation of Eddie coming in banged up. One of my favorite things about Garcia is how he enters every match with a gameplan or a strategy. You rarely see him just locking up with someone. Here, he immediately went for explosive takedowns but Kingston was able to use his size advantage to goozle him. That's how most of the first third here went. Garcia would try something direct and Kingston would just shut him down. That might be wrestling; it might be strikes; it might be slowing things down; it might be using 2.0 as a distraction. None of it would work because of Kingston's size advantage, savvy (the eyepoke), and overall toughness. It (and it was Garcia's persistence and smaller, younger dog attitude) all slowly got under his skin though, to the point where he went up for that knee off the ropes when he didn't have to.

The second third was about the opportunities Kingston's hurt knee provided Garcia. Unlike the Punk match, he didn't go right after it. Instead, he stubbornly wanted to prove himself and his striking game, and started targeting the ear. The knee slow down Kingston's offense and unlocked the ear for Garcia, and maybe the ear would have unlocked more, if Kingston didn't cut him off by outright biting him. Which led to the last third, where the knee gave out again and Garcia honed in on it. Even then, as Kingston kept getting the ropes, Garcia would lose his cool and go back to striking. Kingston would lean on the savvy here, playing possum to lure Garcia in for an exploder, drawing him into strike exchanges when he should have stayed focus on the hurt body part. Garcia was out there to prove himself as much as win though, and you prove yourself against Kingston by meeting him head-on. Kingston leaned into this, squeezing out opportunity after opportunity until he finally managed a killshot. What made all of this work was Garcia's desire and penchant to drive forward with every opening and Kingston's top notch defensive wrestling and selling, the most sympathetic, down on his luck, affectionately miserable guy in the world. In the end, both of these characters care so much, even if Garcia can't help himself and Kingston cares despite himself and that made for such a meaningful, resonant clash.

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