AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 1/31-2/6

AEW Dynamite 2/2

CM Punk v. MJF

PAS: I wrote a ton on this match in my new feature for The Ringer. It was great!!

MD: A lot to cover here but this was very well worked. Punk's selling especially stood out, with the arm damage coming from over-exuberance early on based on how punchable MJF was and the leg damage stemming from desperation and how limited he was due to the arm with his dive. He sold them both well, dropping the arm really only for the twenty punches in the corner, which was a very appropriate time to drop it. Having two limbs damage gave MJF multiple ways to fill time interestingly, as you got the sense he was trying to build to the Salt of the Earth, but he could also cut off Punk with a kick to the leg, and his Tequila Cloverleaf was pretty great. It gave Punk multiple ways to cut off his own hope spots through selling too. Ultimately, given the way he got hurt, it protected him as much as MJF's cheating did.

Some structural points: I really enjoy how Punk, in this run, tends to have almost complete narratives, with a mini shine/heat/comeback, before the match opens up to whatever it'll fully become. It's almost like the shine is an entire sprint of a match that ends with a GTS tease before the real heat starts. I'm not sure if it'll hold up over another year, but I've been enjoying it. When we talk about 2021-2022 AEW big TV matches in ten years (and we will, just like we talk about the Shield run of six-mans or whatever else), there'll be a lot of time given to the way the PiP/Commercial Breaks are dealt with. It's clear and blatant. Basically, these matches have three different audience: the crowd at home, people watching the live US feed, and people watching the international feed, either live or on delay. I did the last one, on delay, and of the three, that's probably where the conscious change of pace stands out the most. It hurts suspension of disbelief, even if I sort of like the way things are forced to slow down and how more character work/crowd interaction becomes a necessity. There were three such breaks here and even if they were able to organically work in one or two pace-shifts, three was a reach. It's also where, in their matches in general, a big chunk of the heat falls. That, in turn, is fine for the live crowd and the people watching the international feed, but it probably hurts the match for the live US watchers. Anyway, it's a bigger issue than just in this match, but I've been watching AEW for half a year now and it's cumulatively starting to weigh a bit.

Overall liked the match, thought Punk's selling was great, thought the false finish worked since it served as a transition that led to some hope for Punk until he hurt the leg too. Two minor issues. The Pepsi Plunge felt like a transition towards the finishing stretch. That made sense to some degree because Punk couldn't capitalize but if you protect a move for over a decade by not doing it, it should probably be a killing blow, especially because the story at that point was that Punk couldn't hit the GTS or Anaconda Vice due to his damaged limbs. That's the super move that was left. I have no idea what was up with MJF's "stinger" off a normal bounce off the ropes. It wasn't him playing possum. It didn't really lead to anything narratively or open up any possibilities for Punk, and it was off a moment that doesn't usually cause such a thing, so it took me out of the match more than anything else. So a couple of nitpicks (or maybe more major criticisms as these were big moments), but overall, very good stuff.

ER: I don't think I'm someone with a short attention span, but it takes something big to keep me invested in a near-40 minutes wrestling match. I don't think this needed to be nearly 40 minutes, but I liked what they did with a lot of the time and don't think it felt like 40 minutes. That's a good thing. I also liked that they had the match I think a lot of people expected them to have and didn't incorporate any NXT main event "look into the mirror CM Punk, as we are the same and you too have evil inside you" and that's one of the things that gives AEW main events freedom to grow differently than WWE main events. We all thought MJF would be the first to use cheap shots, the one that would roll to the floor to avoid action, and they left it as exactly that while letting the natural story work. I thought the re-start worked really well and I think it worked because I think the would have also been a good finish. I'm much happier with the match we got but I also would have liked to see whatever match would have happened had MJF's wrist tape choke out actually ended this match. I'm thinking that most of what I enjoyed about the match was that I didn't know exactly what direction they were going to go, even while they worked a logical and expected match. 

I trust both enough to know there was a high likelihood things wouldn't go anywhere stupid, that they have a great idea of exactly what their feud is, that MJF choking out Punk with his wrist tape would have instinctively made more more interested in the follow-up. But I'm also a sucker for the match re-start as a gimmick and thought it made a great entry into the rest of the match. Punk's missed charge into the ringpost looked great and all of his shoulder selling for the rest of the match was very convincing and I loved the extra burden of dealing with that shoulder while his leg was getting worked over. Punk's cutoffs were all good and they impressively kept the plausibility of either man winning. The nearfalls all worked and I loved Punk's sell after the Pepsi Plunge. I'm a couple years younger than Punk and the idea of dropping in off the top rope knees first sounds terrible, the way he held his left knee after the Plunge felt exactly how I pictured it. I fully agree with Matt's thoughts on the usage of the Pepsi Plunge, but I still like how Punk handled the sequence itself. That's kind of a boring way to sum things up, but it's satisfying watching guys who have a good idea where they're taking a match.  

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