AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 4/17 - 4/23

Ring of Honor 4/20

Lee Moriarty vs Konosuke Takeshita

MD: I'm a low vote on Takeshita. That's probably not entirely fair. I'm a relative low vote, which I suppose is what being a low vote means in the first place. Eric manages to be aloof and carries more of a purity in his reviews than I do. I'm as low on Brody because of what he does in the ring (bumping without selling, crummy looking offense, dragging down AJPW tag matches that look fun on paper with his antics), but it feels like a personal crusade because of the pillar he's put on by people who don't revisit his matches. If Takeshita wasn't an absolute darling of the community, voted most Underrated, and looked at as unquestionably (or at least unquestioned) great, he probably wouldn't bug me quite so much.

But he is, but he does. I'm happy to admit it. Just like I'm happy to admit the positives. He has size, to the point where he stands out against the AEW roster. His stuff generally looks good. He stays in the moment and throws himself into his matches and connects with the crowd. The whole "wrote a thesis on the German Suplex" concept is very good when used smartly. There's a lot of upside. In fact, even down to his emoting, he reminds me a lot of Adam Page, not in who he is, but in both a lot of the upside and why he doesn't work for me in many matches. With him, it's just too much, too soon. When he's in a position to work from underneath and have to fight to earn things, the build and the payoff is there. When he's against an opponent whose idea of wrestling gels more with his own, it's a lot of noise and not a lot of resonance. Pop ups and strike exchanges and Germans flying freely. It's kinetic and exciting and I probably would have loved it twenty years ago, but there's no meat on the bone and no substance to the action; engaging in the moment but forgotten with the next spot. So he has great raw talent but instincts that bug me and probably, like Page, a real pride that what he's doing is the right thing. It gets a reaction, doesn't it?

Thankfully, Lee Moriarty is having a pretty solid year so far and he has enough skill, stuff, and focus to keep Takeshita engaged and interested but sticking to a plot. It was a pretty good one too. The AEW house style is one of tease and tease and payoff. Sometimes the payoffs come too early. Sometimes that still works due to the idea of a reversal later on. An early payoff should be momentous and impactful, should change the course of the match. Too often, Takeshita hits something bit early and it doesn't matter nearly as much as it should. Here, he went for the Blue Thunder Bomb twice and Moriarty was ready for it, driving the arm down and opening up the match. Takeshita has a tendency to drop limb selling for bursts of offense, and while he, as the protege of Akiyama can get away with that, it's not often something I personally want to see. Selling isn't something to be done dogmatically for no reason; it's the definition of "reason" within a match. It's the primary way to express consequence to action. Actions are fine. People like actions. Reactions are what gives the story weight. There's a narrative gain to shrugging off selling in order to hit a burst of offense but there's a cost as well, not just to the match and everything that had happened in it, but to every match as it conditions fans that moves are actually not impactful. For guys with a lot of big offense, it's shooting themselves in the foot in the long term. 

Point being, that didn't happen here. Takeshita used the need for a crutch (or at least a splint) as a crutch and it helped explain Moriarty's cutoffs and why he might be able to hit a move but not capitalize. Everything was harder for him. Everything was more interesting as he tried to overcome. He was protected despite having the size advantage and letting Moriarty take so much of the match. Lee looked like a precision killer. The counters and reversals were compelling. Because he was starting from a detrimental point, Takeshita's kickouts and escapes and reversals actually seemed gutsy and resilient as opposed to just it being his turn to get stuff in. You really got the sense it could go either way or that Moriarty had a clear advantage until Takeshita jammed one reversal too many from Lee and dropped him on his skull. Even after that, there was a question of how Takeshita was going to put him away with one arm and without the bridging German (The answer was a knee to the face). Good showing. I don't need every Takeshita match to be limb-based, but because he was willing to commit fully here, it gave him an easy focus to lean into. I don't care what that focus is in most of his matches, so long as it's there and consistent and grounded. Here it was and it made for probably my favorite Takeshita match ever.