AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/31 - 11/6

AEW Dark Elevation 10/31

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs Breaux Keller/Myles Hawkins

MD: Not a ton to say here. Eddie was super intense in how he charged right in. Ortiz has a way of almost constantly be in motion that makes him stand out a bit. The STO/Russian Leg Sweep combo looked especially good. Eddie goes way too far and the fans just chant for him all the more, so I'm not sure what the endgame will be here. Good news is that this upcoming week we should have the Slim J/JVSK tag and the Ethan Page tournament match so some of what they've been building will get to start paying off.

AEW Dynamite 11/2

Darby Allin vs Jay Lethal

MD: Hey, it's Jay Lethal working more or less how everyone would want him to work all the time. He was super aggressive, pulled out all sorts of tricked out offense that Darby made look like a million bucks, and was hyperfocused on bodyparts as mean as could be. He met a charging Darby down the ramp and immediately started on him into the ringside table, barrier, stairs, utilizing Satnam as a human shield to cut off Darby's fiery fighting back (and then later on as Darby completely wiped out by diving into the one in a billion brick wall). Darby unlocks so many different spots and possibilities for a wrestler and Lethal is a guy who can galaxy brain his way into utilizing at least a large number of these (like the figure four under the rail!). That said, he can't always work this way. There has to be hierarchy on a card and not everyone should be everything at all times. Theoretically, someone like Lethal understands that as well. This was the second match in a series, after an injury angle to heat things up, starting the show and building to the Jarrett reveal. It doesn't necessarily serve the overall show for Lethal to come out exactly like this next time he's putting over Penta or Ricky Starks in a match that's just meant to be a solid fifteen minutes to give a babyface a good win to set them up for something else. This was a moment and he capitalized on it, and maybe it'll lead to more moments for him. Maybe it won't. At the least it should lead to some sort of gaga-laden blowoff with Jarrett and Sting involved. Last note: unsurprisingly, Darby was great here, the early fire, taking all of Lethal's stuff (some of which were fairly obtuse), the big counters off of the elbow drop and the Lethal Injection, an amazing looking coffin drop off the top and the all-time-highlight clip crash into Satnam, plus selling two different bodyparts at once. I have a feeling the blowoff will be less heated and not more, but again, sometimes that just serves greater needs (just like making the Cole Karter reveal as underwhelming as possible, down to the camera barely catching him using the bat; that brought down expectations to build to the Jarrett surprise... or maybe he just framed his big moment poorly? I tend to err on the side of competence over happenstance, as you likely know by now).