AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/4 - 9/10

AEW Dynamite 9/6/23

Darby Allin vs. Nick Wayne

MD: Wayne's an interesting case. He's so young but he only has 50 less matches under his belt than a Daniel Garcia or Isiah Kassidy. I worry that the reward structure may have been skewed for him poorly on the indies (I worry about this with Billie Starkz too, who has more matches than half of the women's roster), like a tree that was allowed to grow strong but in a stilted direction because of obstacles in its path. Working with a good chunk of the AEW roster will help him, and working with some of the rest probably won't, so it's a roll of the dice how he ends up in a couple of years.

Still, this had to be a huge deal for him, main eventing Dynamite against Darby. While this was a babyface match and mentor vs. student, there still needed to be a wedge to deal with the hierarchy and that came when Darby, on instinct as much as anything else, went for one of his early match dives and absolutely wiped himself out as Nick (instinctively himself) dodged out of the way. They had to burn two commercial breaks on this match for some reason and this let them burn the first even as it explained why Darby didn't just swallow him up early. In the time before Darby was able to mount a comeback, Wayne hit a combo superplex/fisherman's suplex. I didn't love it but when you keep in mind that Wayne hadn't taken any damage yet in the match and the fact that it's easier to take someone over with a fisherman's suplex than a standard suplex, or, you know, a falcon arrow, it was something I could live with in this very specific situation. It goes back to wrong lessons though. I'm sure that we'll see him do it again in his matches, especially down a stretch where it'll get a big pop but will devalue a standard superplex (poor Phil, who worked so hard to increase their value).

Darby kept coming back into it. Against a Luchasaurus that was demolishing him, he needed big hope spots. Against Nick Wayne, even with a damaged back, he was going to take back the offense. In fact, he brought things back to center so thoroughly that he got on the mic and told Wayne to hit him harder. Wayne responded with an opportunistic superkick. They were clever here in coming up with ways for Wayne to justifiably stay in it: the missed dive, said superkick, Darby hesitating on the coffin drop. Somewhere in there Wayne hit Wayne's World and it was all a little too abrupt to work as a nearfall. That's a needle Wayne will have to figure out how to thread: how to hit a move that should be sudden and unexpected, that needs a leap off the ropes and can come off as contrived if not careful, but also make it feel weighty enough to the crowd to come off like a finisher. I know people are split on it, but Van Dam always selling the impact of the five star frog splash gave it a little extra oomph. Maybe Wayne could kind of hit an overbump bounce as he lands with it? Anyway, while I was thinking about this, they went into a hot roll-up heavy pin exchange for the finish before Darby just decided to end it with a stretch and some stomps for good measure, something that felt totally believable that a "big brother" would do when he's had quite enough of his little brother. Like I said, I didn't love every part of this, but the parts I didn't love I'm probably at least ok with. I'll give Darby credit for that but with a pinch of optimism for Wayne's future.

AEW Collision 9/9/23

Darby Allin vs. Roderick Strong

MD: Some interesting math on this one. They had to make Roddy look strong to counterbalance his nebbish sort of character. He can be sniveling and detestable but he still has to be potentially dangerous. They had to protect Darby, especially as he's coming off of that loss against Luchasaurus (no matter how that actually played out) as he'd be losing again. The finish was going to be at least moderately clean, or indirectly unclean at best. That is, Strong was, with no direct interference at the end, going to hit his finisher and get a clean pin on Darby. So what do they do? A lot, maybe too much. They led with a pre-match Luchasaurus ambush. They ended with Fox and Wayne getting in each other's way as they brawled with the Kingdom.

Somewhere in the middle, you had a guy with a hurt back against a guy whose whole deal is to target the back. Maybe, just maybe, that might have been enough? Strong's act was probably a little too cutesy twenty (or almost twenty) years ago, even though he figured out how to broaden it well in the 2010s. In today's world, though, when the percentage of matches focused on a body part is much lower than it was back then, it really does make Strong stand out. Darby is a selling machine. Most of the cutoffs of his comebacks in this one weren't do to anything Strong actually did, but just because his body gave out on him and he slumped down. That's fairly unique. You see a babyface fail to pick up his opponent due to the back giving way or the heel getting in a cheapshot to the back, but here Darby just hit a few shots and then slumped with Strong doggedly right back on him. So the little moments were compelling, and then the big shots of Strong crushing Darby on the top turnbuckle or the apron or the rail were as grisly as you'd expect from Darby. I don't know, maybe there were a few too many moving parts by the end, but say what you will about Darby's back or Roddy's neck, they were both strong enough to carry all the things this match had to achieve.