AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/23 - 5/29 (Part 1)

AEW Dynamite 5/25

Eddie Kingston/Jon Moxley vs. Private Party

MD: Absolute mauling with a little bit of polish for Private Party at the end before they got crushed. The polish was them throwing themselves at Mox and Kingston and a shooting star press by Quen. Amusingly, Regal, much like us, was more interested in the way Moxley turned his hips on the kickout than the beautiful top rope move and was trying to get the replay to last long enough to show it. Where Private Party shined the most was bumping all over the ring: Nasty over-rotations on power bombs and clotheslines, including when Moxley came back the other way on a poetry in motion, and Quen crashing so hard into the rail that he knocked some guy's drink out of his hand. Still, this probably would have been a little more interesting structurally a few weeks ago when they weren't doing such a hard sell for the PPV match. The act, overall, works better against young faces than young heels, as between the guest announcers sniping and the fact that no one was really rooting for Party, I don't think they got enough credit or rub for surviving the beating they took to come back at the end. 

ER: I agree that Private Party was the wrong team to take this specific beating, even if the match benefitted from the way they physically took this beating. Private Party have gotten good enough that she should be past matches like this, but will likely always be put in matches like this because it looks fucking great when Isiah Kassidy vaults off Quen's back and gets folded all the way across the ring after connecting bad with a Moxley kneelift. I can't believe this is the first time Moxley and Kingston have teamed since September. Their vibes are so good that I have been thinking about them as a team for the entire time that they have not been teaming, bonded together in my brain because of their substance abuses and open faced honesty about them, they're just a perfect natural pairing. Moxley looks as inspired as he has in years, and Kingston played all of this with the right intensity. Quen's shooting star press looked awesome, with a flat rotation that look slightly against physics, and I loved the way Kingston ran in before the finish to lay him out with a running spinning backfist. 

AEW Rampage 5/27

Bryan Danielson vs. Matt Sydal

MD: I can't say enough good things about this one. Great build. Great big moments. Great little moments. This was one of my favorite AEW Danielson matches and seemed to pay off the promise more than when he was running through the Dark Order, for instance. Right from the beginning, there was incredible gamesmanship between the two, things like Danielson sneaking in a forearm on a Greco-Roman knucklelock or just how hard Sydal had to work for that flying mare. Once they got going, Sydal may have needed to put an extra bit of effort into his transitions, but he could; that was the point, speed and athleticism in hitting a leg lariat out of nowhere or landing on his feet to counter a snap mare. Danielson had maybe three just massive moments here: the roll forward to the Romero special, the roll through on the meteora into a crab, and then when he hit the knee at the end, but Sydal had his own with the top rope sunset flip power bomb. They gave Regal and company plenty of little things to note and plenty of big ones to pop for on commentary. About as good of a Rampage opening match as you could possibly hope for.

ER: My brain thinks of these two as "frequent competitors" and that's probably because I had burned DVDs of their one ROH singles match and their one FIP singles match from 15 years ago but can't actually comprehend that happened over 15 years ago. Sydal managed to have 400 matches in WWE and was rarely in the same ring as Danielson. So my brain just thinks of them as natural opponents from the same indy wrestling boom era, and yet they've mostly avoided each other in-ring. I feel like an idiot repeatedly saying things like "This may be my favorite Danielson performance in AEW" but I guess I'm just going to say dumb things like that. Probably the only thing I didn't care about here was Danielson hanging Sydal over the top rope like an evolved piece of Scoot Andrews offense. That might be the weirdest piece of offense to survive from year 2000 indy wrestling. It's almost shocking that there isn't You Can't Powerbomb Kidman throwback offense. 

That move felt weird to me only because every other piece of offense in the match felt *worked for*, and that was the one thing that felt *waited for*. The match starting knucklelock was an absolute struggle, both with shaking arms that allowed Danielson to sneak in an elbow across the jaw. Danielson threw European uppercuts with his entire body, making contact not only on the uppercut but throwing his full shoulder and hip into Sydal. I don't think Fit Finlay would have elbowed and uppercut Sydal as hard as Danielson did. Both broke out more spectacular versions of things they've been doing for years. Danielson's kicks looked more like Kawada stiffing up Kikuchi, Sydal's meteora looked like a guided missile and the Danielson reversal was finisher worthy. However, Danielson rolling through the Romero Special and then elbowing Sydal in the neck until the forced break felt like such a spectacular spot that it should have been saved for the finish of a huge match. That's also a part of Danielson's AEW charm, though, the fact that it instead came 4 minutes into a Friday night match with Matt Sydal. Sydal's sunset flip powerbomb reversal of a top rope back suplex was incredible, impactful enough to believably get a win and pulled off so well that it looked like an organic reversal. I swear Danielson is hitting harder every week on those downward elbows, and they always look like they earn the stoppage finish. This really made me want to look through some spindles and binders for those ROH and FIP matches. I'm not certain they'll be able to top their future selves. 

PAS: This was really great, one of the top minor key Danielson performances, not at the level of Kingston or Dustin or Moxley, but a throwback to us getting cool Danielson singles matches every week. It is fun we have gotten to see this mini Sydal vs. BCC feud for a couple of weeks now. This felt very FIPish which is ironic considering their previous match, just two wrestlers going out there and performing. We all know how perfect Danielson's execution is, but Sydal looked great too. That deep stack on the powerbomb reversal was a thing of beauty, and the Meteora looked super forceful. Love that Danielson has so many ways to take people out, and a weekly Rampage match seems like a great way to keep him relevant for his next big moment.

AEW Special Dark 5/28

Darby Allin vs. Brandon Cutler

MD: Very short match to set up the PPV here, but I liked Cutler running around the ring only to eat Darby's explosive dive anyway. The timing on that and the staggering catch by Cutler were both excellent. I could have lived with Cutler stooging a little more and then having a comedy spot or two, but better to have the match the promotion needs than the match you just happen to want.

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON