AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/24 - 7/30

AEW Dynamite 7/26/23

Darby Allin vs Swerve Strickland

MD: I kind of miss AEW bringing out the numbers for rematches. This is the third singles match between these two in AEW though there have been Royal Rampages and tags as well, of course. It feels like the tenth singles match maybe, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They're well matched up. Darby can take all of Swerve's stuff naturally and has an almost preternatural way of getting himself in position or setting himself up to where things that shouldn't be possible or feasible seem at least not a wild stretch. Moreover, Darby's whole gimmick is resilience. He takes and takes and takes and takes and then has the two or three moves he can do to turn the tide and get a lightning-quick win out of nowhere. It allows for slightly more escalation than I'd put up with otherwise. They start with the overly fancy chain wrestling and go from there all the way to an avalanche death valley driver onto the apron, with precisely timed counters and cutoffs to keep the transitions interesting. 

Swerve really does bring a lot to the table, and I especially like the Swerve/Nana pairing compared to some of the other things they tried. I'm not sure of some of the timings on the distractions or specific things Nana said to Darby or Wayne, but the general vibe of the two of them dancing in sync or Swerve shuffling over the corner to seek reassurance after the Last Supper had them completely on the same page. In some ways, though, Swerve's entirely dependent on his opponent being able to fit into his act. When it's not quite grounded enough, you get something too floaty like the Wayne match. If someone can't keep up or feed into the spots, you get something like the Tanahashi match. Here though, everything hit and there was plenty of clever learned psychology and enough selling and resonance to keep it from going from clever to cutesy. I'm still hoping for a coffin match sooner than later between these two.

AEW Collision 7/29/23

Darby Allin vs Minoru Suzuki

MD: Not a lot to say about this one. Darby needed a win to heat him back up after a couple of losses and Suzuki is absolutely credible, especially as a surprise opponent. It never feels like a small thing to beat him. When you look at the annals of wrestling commentary over the decades, more workrate-heavy analyses are going to ignore Darby's initial reaction to Suzuki's music hitting, but the announcers certainly picked up on it and it underpinned the early, desperate onslaught. If the wrestler portrays investment, then it's easier for the crowd to be invested. It's the difference between people hitting a bunch of spots (clean or clever or otherwise) and a fully formed character acting in a compelling manner. You can run a throughline here: Darby wanted a fight. Darby realized what he got into. Darby ambushed at a key moment of the song and stayed on Suzuki. Darby realized that he could only chip away at him so much through conventional means but that he had to press the offense with strikes as there was an opening before him. Darby took Suzuki's stuff. Darby took the opening Suzuki gave him by going for his strike flurry instead of a chop and hit the Code Red. Darby realized that he could only put Suzuki away by throwing his body at him but in doing so, opened himself up to the sleeper. But he's Darby so he did it anyway and then found a way to sneak a win through desperate resilience. That's part of what makes Darby so great. It's all character driven based on the reality of the moment. Yes, he takes crazy bumps. Yes, he throws himself into everything. Yes, there's a real sense of danger with his stuff. But it's all grounded in something that resonates.