AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 9/25 - 10/1 Part 1

AEW Rampage 9/29/23

Eddie Kingston vs. Rocky Romero

MD: I wanted to hit at least one of the TV matches and while there's a lot to cover with the 8 man tag, it's a lot to work through again. I liked how it felt like worlds were coming together and how they held off on using both Bill and then Danielson, but I don't have a ton to say there and AEW is just producing so much content. As I write this on Monday, I haven't even been able to watch Danielson vs. ZSJ yet.

AEW has had a good year when it comes to reigns and I'm hoping we get just that from Eddie over the next six months or so. Theoretically, we can get matches both on AEW and ROH TV and whatever NJPW tends to be doing with their Strong guys against a variety of opponents. Rocky fits really well in that "variety" mold. He's never quite the spiritual successor of Ogawa that I want him to be, but you get just enough of it, tempered by his own eclectic background that it becomes interesting. That was at play here. He'd slam right into Eddie despite the size differential and then pieface him to try to goad Eddie into a headscissors takeover (it worked). He'd throw himself at him with three topes in a row (that didn't work). Meanwhile, Eddie would keep asking for more, goading Rocky back and maybe drawing him out of his game as well, not necessarily out of some sort of grand strategy, but just because Eddie's Eddie and how do you even deal with that level of stubbornness? It let them rationalize Eddie staying in position in the ropes to set up one more or another; he was just asking for more until Rocky gave him enough to keep him stuck there for a few extra seconds.

So yeah, I want to see Eddie against quick guys (for ROH, Gravity and Blake and Andretti/Martin are right there, for instance), and big guys (JD Drake, Lance Archer, Shane Taylor) and sneaky guys like Rocky or Moriarty. As a match in and of itself, this wasn't necessarily going to be as memorable as most of what we got over the weekend, but as a match as part of a memorable title reign, it fit right in.

AEW WrestleDream 10/1/23

MJF vs. The Righteous

MD: I know. I still haven't seen the Danielson match and I'm detouring for this. I'll get there. We have to pace ourselves in this world. Speaking of that, I thought a lot about Punk as the heir to "neo-Bret-ism" which is the idea of making moves matter, or at least that's how I define it. You can see that in some of the reviews here in the last two years. It's about creating a sports-like approach using pro-wrestling tropes and norms that's based in logic and consequence. I don't actually think MJF is that, but he's doing something very similar. He's being the heir to Dusty.

Phil (Schneider not Brooks) and I are both big fans of minimalism in wrestling, but I think Phil leans more towards amazing execution, as in the sheer amount you can accomplish with a punch that either looks legit or is legit. Simple, straightforward, primal, violent, right? For me, the ultimate goal of pro wrestling is to do as much as possible with as little as possible. That's the height of the art form, to manipulate hearts and minds with as little pressure put upon the lever as possible. It's a work, not a sport. You're supposed to work people. Doing it with as little as possible to the highest possible effect means that you leave more in the tank for later.

I loved MJF talking to Alvarez in the post-show scrum trying to explain that this wasn't a gimmick; it was the point, and that by getting the crowd to care about personalities, you can get anything over. I wouldn't put it exactly that way. I think a lot of it has to do with narrative structure and storytelling, and commitment to character and being on all the time (if you believe, they will believe; if you show consequence, they will feel consequence), but it's close enough that I have lots of warm feelings towards this entire endeavor. My feeling on the historiography of pro wrestling, or maybe, I guess, the history of criticism, was that fans in the early 80s were absolutely spoiled with this sort of working, with the artfulness of someone like Dusty or Valiant knowing how to do so, so much with exactly as much as they needed, finding every shortcut (And shortcuts are amazing to watch and appreciate), with guys like Lawler and Bockwinkel knowing when to pick up the pace and control the tempo, to bring things up and then back down. They didn't know how good they had it and became desensitized to the wonders of the form. Something like Dynamite vs Tiger Mask was candy, pure and simple, a drug right into the pleasure center of their brains, and a way to rebel against artfulness through sheer sensation.

And over time what was truly valuable ended up lost traded instead for what was physically difficult but mentally easy, a lowest common denominator put up upon a pedestal as the highest treasure of the land. MJF is trying to reclaim what was lost, one stupid gimmicky move at the time. He walks to the ring setting up the body slam, setting up the kangaroo kick, setting up the idea of choking out Joe, setting up ramming a head into an ass, and then he builds a match to the payoff, teasing it, denying it, fighting for it. And then he provides it. He's the Pied Piper, the Music Man, the Monorail Salesman, and he wove it all together in the face of difficult odds and fighting from underneath and hope lost and gained once more, and it's every wonderful, ridiculous, serene thing wrestling can be when you just lean into making things matter and creating meaning. How can wrestling be better than that?

I guess maybe ask me again on Wednesday after I've seen Danielson vs ZSJ.