AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/2 - 5/8

AEW Dynamite 5/4

Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Wheeler Yuta) vs. Andrade Family Office (Angelico/Butcher/Blade)

MD: This is the first of these trios matches where I came off a little underwhelmed. It needed another minute or two, maybe. Angelico got to do one tricked out submission on Danielson and Danielson responded by kicking the soul out of him in the corner, but it wasn't the 90 second exchange on the mat that we've been itching for since Danielson came into the company. That said, as a cliff notes version of the sort of match you'd want, everyone still got to highlight what makes them special, it's just that no one got to do a whole lot of it. Moxley got to toss Blade around the ringside area, and Blade got to get tossed around; Butcher got to be a brick wall against Yuta, and Yuta got to scrap against everyone and then fight from underneath, and the fans plenty happy to chant for him. This was by far the best use of Yuta's "through the legs" theatrics, and that means something. It shouldn't be in every match and he can do it as part of a feeling out opening exchange, but it's way more effective when used to build to a hot tag. A guy like Butcher is the perfect guy to use it against. Hopefully we get that ten minute Dark match between Angelico and Danielson at some point, that's the pairing everyone wants to see.

ER: I really loved the enthusiasm everyone worked this with, but I also thought that Angelico was the worst part about it. At one point I swear he threw a legsweep at Moxley that swept 5 feet in front of Mox's feet. Moxley still hopped in reaction, and it kind of made the follow up make more sense. But I don't care about Angelico, I care about how good The Blade looked here, because I thought The Blade looked great. I've always liked the Butcher and the Blade team even though I don't view them as a team that has great matches, but Blade gets better as a worker the more he just works like LA Knight. Watch the two of them: the movement is near identical, and the way they feed opponents is identical. Blade has really good timing when it comes to feeds, and I'll always love a worker who tags into a match and then runs immediately into a backdrop. I think Blade is always really good in matches with a lot of guys, as he seems to always be among the best at knowing exactly where to be when everything starts to break down. Also, Blade has Actually Great punches now. He throws a lot of long right hands in this match and I was really impressed by how they connected. I've said before that AEW isn't really a fed with a lot of punchers, and now I have to talk about how The Blade is one of the best punchers in AEW. Love to see it.