AEW Five Fingers of Death: 9/26 - 10/2

AEW Dynamite 9/28

Bryan Danielson vs Matt Menard

MD: Long story short, I would have liked a little more stooging. Menard came in hot based on the promo but at the end of the day, he's still Matt Menard. Danielson is Blackpool Combat Club, but he was also stirring up shit and somewhere in there is the guy who was on Saturday Morning Slam too. There was probably a way to tap into that with Menard while still staying true to the moment and the characters involved. This is a bit of an issue with modern Danielson. He's going to push you to your limit. He's going to drive you back and shove you forward. In wrestling him, you're going to be the most of what you can be, the most intense, the most driven, the most violent, the hardest, the sharpest. Sometimes that means that certain aspects get left on the cutting room floor. You can almost imagine a 2022 Danielson/Danhausen match looking like the Brock vs Danielson match, with Danielson playing Brock. And it'd probably be pretty good, but it'd also only be a fraction of what Danielson vs Danhausen might be if Danielson could figure out a way to work all the comedy in. If the match is good and appropriate, as this Menard one was, is it an issue? Only if you're dealing with a guy so thoroughly lauded as the best in the world, I think. If you're the best, you should find a way to walk all of the tightropes involved in playing to the angle and leaning into the BCC stuff and acknowledging the chip on Menard's shoulder and still tapping into his core strength as a wrestler, the stuff that makes him unique and special. When you're wrestling Danielson, you'll be the most a wrestler can be, your aspirational self, the hardest worker, but it might come at the cost of some of the things that make you unique and special. Let me put it this way. I caught this once shortly after it happened and I thought the narrative of the match was that Menard needed Parker to keep an advantage and after Claudio took him out, the match was a glorified hierarchy squash. That wasn't the match at all, but it was what I remembered after a first viewing. That's probably not a great thing. 

After losing an early striking battle, Menard actually took most of this on his own, albeit with some underhanded tactics like pushing Danielson off the top. He worked the crowd during the break which was the most he got to show his personality, when he was far away from contact from Danielson. He was able to maintain due to the lingering damage to Danielson's back from the Moxley match. Eventually hierarchy won out and Danielson toughed it out to come back, prompting Parker's interference (which consisted primarily of getting Menard out of the way) and Claudio's emergence. After that, it was elementary and over quickly with no finishing counters, something needed now and again to keep the finishers over. Still, in a bubble, given the circumstances, you can't fault this too much right? It's not just in a bubble though. It reminded me a lot of the Dark Order series from last year where everyone remembers Danielson kicking in Cabana's teeth, but nothing else from that match. Or the Uno match. Or the Angels match. Or the Silver match. Disparate wrestlers with such unique tendencies. Not maximized by the greatest wrestler in the world. Still, this was a good match! It's just from Danielson I expect more than that, fair or not.