AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/15 - 5/21

AEW Dynamite 5/17

Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs. Lee Moriarty/Big Bill

MD: One brief thought. I'm only going to speak for myself here, because Eric really has his own way of looking at things, even though the two of us agree a lot. When you watch as much wrestling as we do and are just awash in so much discussion about wrestling, you're often juggling multiple contexts. This is where some of the old prevailing thought (and I won't name names) that people can't judge old wrestling because they're not looking at it with the specific context of its time is silly and dismissive and throttles conversation instead of encourages it. This match is a great example. Do you know what excited me the most about this? The fact that I saw a couple of spots that Allin and Cassidy tried out in the House Rules match against QT and Hobbs (and maybe the Moriarty/Bill match from the day before which we don't have). There was the ref-missed hot tag hope spot while Cassidy was trying to knee his way out of Bill's suplex and then the combo Stundog/Code Red. I was legitimately happy that they were using the house show run as an experimental proving ground to see see if something worked or not in front of a crowd and that we had video proof of this.

Now then, if I were to watch two Rockers vs Powers of Pain matches from January 1990 at MSG and Philly (which I wouldn't because we don't have Philly that late) and they ran almost the same match both time, I'd probably be disappointed instead of happy. I'd forgive them given the travel schedule and the fact that there would be almost no way that someone would have seen both matches, but I certainly wouldn't be excited about it. There's a joy in watching Buddy Rose in Portland where we have him on a week to week basis, often against subpar opponents, in front of the same crowd, where he has to constantly keep things fresh. Likewise with Negro Casas in Arena Mexico year in and year out. You almost always see something, an action, a reaction, and interaction, new and different in each match. It's not dissimilar with modern television workers. They're in front of the same TV audience ever week and have to switch things up to a degree. But here we really got to see Cassidy and Darby workshop something in front of a controlled crowd and then immediately, just a few days later, unveil it on a national stage, and that was exciting to see.  

AEW Rampage 5/19

Dustin Rhodes vs. Bishop Kaun

MD: There's not much in wrestling as comforting and reliable than Dustin getting an AEW feature match in Texas. On paper, including him in the extremely prolonged Swerve vs Keith Lee feud might not be the world's best idea, but I'm not going to argue about additional Dustin matches. He and Kaun matched up pretty well. Kaun's obviously a few inches shorter but he's presented, with Toa, as monsters, and he carries himself decently along those lines, though I would have maybe liked to see him somehow swallow Dustin up more when he was in control here. I'm not sure what that would have looked like. It probably would have looked like more woundwork and less neckbreakers, actually. 

The opening was very good. Dustin had an answer for everything Kaun had, leaning into his size and expertise. He could come back on every chop. He was dealing with Skandor Akbar in 1990. Prince Nana isn't going to distract him all that much. It took the reversal into the corner and amazing bump into the camera to change the direction. Really, that was one of the best transitions of the year, and as it was on a time-shifted Rampage, it's something they should steal for a PPV match at some point. I'm not sure if anyone on the roster could execute it as well as Dustin did here, but even half as well to lead to blood and a beating would be memorable. Kaun was focused after that and of course Dustin drew sympathy and brought the crowd up and down for his hope spots but given the amount of blood at play, I could have used just a little more viciousness. Dustin's string of signature spots on the comeback were as crisp and perfectly timed as ever, and everything worked out well post match to set up, hopefully, a singles match at the PPV. They could have gotten here quicker and more directly, but if they're going to have an extraneous player, better Dustin than almost anyone else.