AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/7 - 8/13

AEW Rampage 8/11/23

Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage

MD: There are two times when I want to see Cage, when he's up against someone ridiculously over the top like Willie Mack and the match will be so dumb that it's enjoyable and when he's up against someone small who is going to bump all over the ring for him. This was as much the latter as you could possibly get. Contrast makes the world go round. We are most easily defined by what we are not. The most straightforward stories involve two opposing forces. And no one is going to make a behemoth look better than Darby Allin. Some of the bumps in this were just gnarly. I thought he was going to helicopter to the top of the arena on the F10. He had a way of overbouncing on the outside-in suplex and a power bomb. That one topple off the top rope had him landing like an accordion. It's Darby and he has Gates of Agony, Christian, the Swerve/Fox coffin match, and Luchasaurus all ahead of him over the next few weeks, so we're probably not going to remember any specific bump here, but the overall picture is ever memorable.

I thought Cage had solid presence throughout. He was a little more methodological than usual, a little less cute, full of trash talk and posing when the time was right for it (like during the commercial break). Darby snuck in some hope here and there and got squashed for his trouble (with Nana being the deciding, disrupting factor in the stretch). While Darby made all of Cage's stuff look absolutely deadly, some of Darby's stuff seemed a bit off and weirdly labored against Cage. You'd expect a guy so big and strong to be able to hold for it better maybe? I would have liked a slightly more elaborate finish with a couple of Darby roll-ups leading to the Last Supper, but a single one causing the banana peel probably did protect Cage a little more. I'm just not sure he needs it given what Darby has a head of him. Still, what a bumping exhibition by Darby here.  

AEW Collision 8/12/23

House of Black vs. CMFTR

MD: When you write about AEW week in and week out, you end up talking a lot about the commercial breaks. When you write a lot about Collision main events that tend to go closer to 30 than 20, you end up writing a lot about multiple commercial breaks and how they structure the time. Here, they had two to deal with, which, as you can imagine with a team as monstrous and dominant as the House of Black, probably meant some sort of double heat. That's how AEW manages most commercial breaks. They end with some sort of bang and then do heat in the Picture in Picture. Here, it wasn't quite so simple. They finished the shine/initial pairings/exchanges teasing Punk vs. Malakai Black, with the crowd absolutely buzzing for it before settling into CM Punk chants that were drowned out by boos. That tease culminated with both in the cross-legged seated position and everything threatening to break down. The commercial break started with brawling on the outside (CMFTR gaining the advantage) and the challengers getting too cutesy; this time it was Cash who did the Hogan pose, to more boos than cheers even in North Carolina, and a pretty pedestrian transition moment of Black getting a reversal in on Dax in the corner. 

When they came back, we had Punk's comeback and another bit of connective tissue of CMFTR dominance that took them to the second commercial break, where Julia utilized a distraction (albeit a bit mistimed) to let Black knock Punk off the top so that Brody could crush him in the corner. That led into the commercial break and the real section of heat for the match. In truth, despite going thirty minutes, this whole thing was a tease for stories they're not going to tell right now. Joe caused the finish to set up All In, FTR are moving on to Wembley and the Bucks, who knows what's going on with House of Black yet (but some consistency with the House Rules might be nice?). But they can go back in a month or two to Black vs. Punk or FTR vs. Brody/Buddy or even Punk vs. Brody, because he was absolutely protected during the early going. That's a testament to all of these guys, that they could put together a match so long and really just leave everyone wanting more and more.