AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/29 - 8/4

AEW Dynamite 7/31/24

Darby Allin vs Adam Page

MD: Darby performs miracles regularly. On some level, it's simple. Wrestling is about heat. The babyface shines brightly, then takes and takes and takes, gets hope here and there, comes back, and they go to a finish. That's wrestling. It's worked for seventy-five years if not a hundred, across multiple cultures (though maybe not all). You build anticipation and you pay it off. Darby, being an absolute sponge for punishment, someone who will bump, crash, burn, someone with a few key hope spots he can work out of anywhere, who wins half of his matches with roll-ups, is perfect for it. And he overlays it again and again and again against opponents who don't want to be confined by that tried and true structure at all. And somehow, it works. It almost always works. It's wild.

So many of my problems with Page have been alleviated with this heel turn. You could sum them up with six words: too big, too soon, not consequential. You could go deeper into how he lacked low and mid-level offense and had too many bombs in his arsenal for even a ass-kicking babyface, when he should have been leaning more on brawling instead. Rewarded for all the wrong reasons, he was a tree that grew tall in all the wrong ways (but still, the tree was tall; you couldn't deny that). Now though, he's letting it all breathe.

Here, vs Darby, knowing he'd lose, he had to be protected even while Darby had to be kept strong given his role now and in the future. Tough balance. But Darby was explosive enough that he could make a lot out of a little, and Hangman's bombs worked well here, because they were well-placed, well-timed, and quite consequential. That first German on the floor after Darby leaped backwards into his arms set the tone for the match. The Death Valley Driver cemented his control. The power bombs on the apron were brutal insults to injury. The fall away slam onto the stairs was a cut off spot, and the one off the top rope told everyone who had been away for a commercial break just what the score was. Things were made to matter. For a normal match, I'd say these spots (even well placed) were maybe too much escalation. But there's nothing necessarily normal about Darby and it all worked out. He's larger than life and because this is the Hangman of 2024 and not the Hangman of prior years, there was just enough of a measured, fuming, moody approach that it all worked. So no, it wasn't all Darby, and Page deserves plenty of credit for taking a breath and being the wrestler the company needs as opposed to maybe the wrestler it wants, but that doesn't make Darby any less miraculous.

ROH TV 8/1/24

Dustin Rhodes/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs Iron Savages

MD: After a month or two of these being relatively quiet, Darby being back from injury, Dustin being heavily featured in Texas, and Danielson being used more... well, it's keeping me busy. This is a good problem to have. I will fully admit to missing Bear Country as Bear Country. It's hard to explain. The Iron Savages are probably an easier to digest act, less abstract than Bear Country, but it was the surreality of the old identity that made them stand out more, just these two huge guys with a barely discernible gimmick presenting themselves as a giant hurdle for pushed mid-card acts to get over. There was something dangerous and unpredictable about them, something that probably couldn't exist in modern WWE just for how random they were but might have shown up in 93 WWF next to some of the oddball acts. That said, while I think Boulder is lessened by this, Bronson probably comes off slightly better and more focused overall. It's a more palatable act for general audiences (and it's not like it's not weird with the sauce and titty city and everything else; it's just weird in a way that makes sense as opposed to one that doesn't). Let me sum it up: Bear Country would have fought Survival Tobita (or fought beside him); the Iron Savages wouldn't.

On to the match. Hey, they had Dustin play face-in-peril here. Nice little switch up from the last two. There was a fake-out before that where it looked like Ross might but then he got to hulk up and keep the shine going. If you're going to have anyone on the roster Hulk up, an Von Erich isn't a bad choice, but maybe I'd pick Marshall and maybe not during the shine. I liked the set up for the hot tag quite a bit: Bronson cut off Dustin and rushed to the corner to knock the Von Erichs off. Dustin had no one to tag but then Bronson got cute with it and rolled him up to get him out of the corner instead of just dragging him out. That turned Bronson himself around just enough to keep the rotation going and walk into Dustin's tight power slam. Then, Marshall did get his moment and got to bodyslam Boulder, before they took it home with the fun Shattered Dreams spot and the claw/belly to back combo on Jameson. Another triumphant showcase where they had to climb a formidable hill over gargantuan opponents.

AEW Collision 8/3/24

Darby Allin/Mark Briscoe/FTR vs The Beast Mortos/Roderick Strong/Matt Taven/Mike Bennett

MD: Unfortunately, this is only going to get one paragraph because MJF is stealing their space (sorry, FTR; I know you guys are used to it). I really do enjoy these extended 8-man tags though. This had a shine that only got broken up by Mortos, long heat on Cash, what would have otherwise been a great finishing stretch, a second short heat on Dax where they kept cutting off some huge comebacks from him, and then a hot stretch including big dives from Darby and Cash and the Froggy Power Coffin Plex which was a hell of a thing. Some really novel pairings here, Darby and the Kingdom, FTR and the Kingdom (which has never happened, even after the debuted by calling FTR out), and FTR and Mortos. I'd like to see FTR vs the Kingdom this year; Kingdom's very good at a lot of conventional tag elements like cutting off the ring and FTR doesn't always get to stretch with guys so tried and true with that stuff. I'd like to see what they could do if they really pared things back to the fundamentals for a match.

CMLL Super Viernes 8/2/24

MJF vs Templario

MD: Did not plan to cover this, but it deserves it. This was a very good traveling champ performance by MJF, something that doesn't really exist anymore in this day and age. Even the International Title matches we've seen elsewhere so far haven't quite looked like this. This felt much more like what Race/Flair/Bock would do (though of course they're not all interchangeable). That meant getting real heat on the locals (and say what you will about the execution of the pre-match spiel: 1) it worked and put wind behind Templario's sails the whole match and 2) Rocky did an excellent job of getting even relatively jejune comments over with his expressiveness and inclination; all credit to Rocky), carrying yourself like an absolute piece of shit, and then putting over your opponent as selflessly as possible knowing that you're going to go over in the end.

This was a hugely selfless MJF performance in my eyes. He's a guy who has clear confidence issues at times and a desperate need to be acknowledged as "shoot good" and not just "work good" (or the modern equivalent of that, which is "spot great" and not just "work great" maybe?). Here he never tried to prove to the world that he could hang with Templario. This wasn't lucha MJF. It was unbridled heel champion MJF in a classic lucha setting. That meant he took his time early and let things breathe, just built up the pressure until Templario got over on him in very simple, very direct ways, pure comeuppance. It was the continued runs into the corner until Templario turned it around. It was putting on a figure four and cheating only for the ref to give him said comeuppance. When he tried to take over, it was by going to the shoulder to wear down Templario and set him up for Salt of the Earth, but even there he (as a character in over his head) couldn't keep the pressure on. Part of the job of the traveling heel champ is to come off as vulnerable so the local hero looks like he not only can but might, should, will win.

It was real commitment to the act, even at the cost that certain critics might say that he didn't "go" in the way they expected in CMLL or that he slowed down Templario too much. But the counter is that the fans were entirely behind Templario the whole way. It wasn't about seeing a MOTY; it was about MJF getting what was coming to him. Most refreshing setting and most refreshing sort of match in the world in 2024. There wasn't any sort of post-modernism or deconstructionism to MJF rolling all the way out of the ring only to eat a dive with no twists or tricks or clever reversals; instead, he did it twice, the second time going head over heels as he got caught up on the ramp. He kicked KeMalito off the apron but it was to set up the finishing stretch and Templario's biggest nearfall, that last bit of ramping things up before paying them off. Of course, he's got to be an ass to me too by doing the Long Island Sunrise to set up the brainbuster finish. I get that it has a lore element given Cole's behavior but come on; it's physically hurting me to watch people hang out with their head down for no reason week in and week out.

In general, this was exactly the performance it should have been and it gives me some hope that maybe, just maybe, that riot I want in Wembley is actually a possibility. He just has to be laser focused on the idea that that pro wrestling, at its very core, isn't about love; it's about cold, cruel denial onto people who already know so much denial in their day to day lives. What defines a babyface, what defines a hero, is his ability to burst through that most frustrating of walls and provide the fans the sort of satisfaction they can't get anywhere else.