AEW Dark Worth Watching: CIMA vs. Darby

Darby Allin vs. CIMA AEW Dark #1 10/8/19 

ER: Going wayyyyy back to the early days of AEW Dark, and these were the kind of matches that filled out Dark in these early episodes, when it was used less for squash matches. Allin/CIMA not being on at least Dynamite is pretty amusing in retrospect, but these were large shows in a full attendance world. And this was a really good "only happened once" kind of match, not sure when these two would ever be in the same place at the same time again, already seems like an oddball one off 18 months later. CIMA has been having fun matches like these for 25 years now, his entire adult life, and he's a cool different version of Darby. Darby packs a lot of insanity into a 7 minute match, with this awesome wrecking ball tope and a coffin drop that lands him squarely onto CIMA's knee. He makes all of CIMA's offense look great, like when he gets torpedoed into the middle buckle and crunches the back of his neck, then crunches it right after when CIMA dropkicks him back into it. CIMA locks in a great stretch muffler/bow and arrow that looks even better with Darby's flexibility. CIMA also blasts him in the back of the head with a cool meteora, which leads to a great moment where CIMA goes for another meteora and just does a hard missed double kneedrop. I'm just a couple years younger than CIMA and the idea of jumping up and landing on my knees for anything at all sounds like certain death. There's a fun transition where CIMA is bringing modern puro into things and starts a mid match chop exchange, but Darby just punches him and throws body shots when it's his turn to derail a match with a dumb standing exchange. Not taking the bait on a pointless chop exchange? A babyface after my own heart. Darby's comeback is really great, and has him landing fast hip attacks at CIMA's knee while CIMA is in the tree of woe, and the match finishing coffin drop is a beauty. Darby has such great accuracy with the move, and the match finisher is so high arcing and perfect.