AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/5 - 8/11 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 8/7/24

Bryan Danielson vs Jeff Jarrett

MD: There's a lot floating around the ether this last week. There were discussions about the best wrestler potentially being the one who drew the most. The Olympics were happening, including one person scoring more than another in gymnastics for a less graceful looking routine because the level of difficulty was higher. While I wouldn't subscribe to the first notion, I do play with the idea that the point of most matches is probably not to have the aesthetically greatest match possible. When trying to examine a match, it's worth figuring out the purpose behind it. What were they sent out to accomplish? How does it fit into a bigger picture? What was the point? Occasionally you'll get something that is meant to be great for the sake of being great, but usually, they're trying to do something else and greatness is, in part, revealed by how thoroughly they are able to succeed at that goal. And yes, some purposes are far, far harder than others. In fact, I'd say having a great match for the sake of having a great match is generally far easier than any number of other possibilities that could potentially limit unbridled creative freedom.

The point being is that what they accomplished in the first half of this match was downright miraculous, as high a level of difficulty of anything I've seen this year. The purpose of this match was not to give people a potential dream match in Jarrett vs Danielson, though that didn't hurt. The purpose of the match was to heat up All In's main event, most specifically by heating up Swerve Strickland and making him out as the most dangerous man in the company. Swerve was shown watching from the back on a monitor and came out post match, but he wasn't otherwise involved. Ricky Steamboat was on commentary instead. It was up to Jeff Jarrett to push Bryan Danielson, a man he claimed to respect and admire, as hard as humanly possible in order to reinforce the artistic concept that Swerve Strickland was dangerous enough to warrant such torturous treatment in a "tune up" match.

And they nailed it. Jarrett attacked with the guitar even as Danielson was making his entrance, and the next many minutes of brawling backstage and through the crowd brought forth into the world an idea, a notion, a truth: Strickland was simply that dangerous. It became undeniable. They bounced off of jarringly unforgiving trash cans. They hit each other with some of the most beautiful punches of the year. They went up and down stairs. They drew a mob around them in the concession area that didn't feel like they were watching a pro wrestling spectacle, but instead like they were watching an actual fight; that last bit was like nothing I've seen on televised wrestling in ages.

I'm not entirely convinced that it completely survived back in the ring, but very few good and true and pure things survive in front of a 2024 pro wrestling crowd unfortunately. That was ok, though, because once they hit the ring something else happened. The job was already done. The idea was birthed into the world with two proud papas laying in shots on one another with a real sense of chaos. The match was now big enough for a second idea and the second idea was just as perfect in its own way and solved the other necessary half of the equation.

Jeff Jarrett had the purest intentions; to take this man that won the Owen Hart Cup, a man a generation younger than him but that was tapped into the true spirit of pro wrestling, that represented so much that Jeff loved and that this family had loved for generations, and give him the one last push he needed to make it all the way to the top one last time. Jarrett knew that he was just the man to do it, that he'd walked the paths of darkness and light and come out the other side, beaten and battered, grizzled and aged, but knowing all about the limits that a man need be pushed to. His intentions were pure. He meant well. But you don't step into the shadows without the shadows changing you. You don't get so close to glory without glory tempting you. Jarrett was just the man to give Danielson what he needed, but that meant that he was a man always walking the precipice of his own weakness.

And in the back half of the match, blinded by the light, he slipped and he fell back into the darkness. He lost sight of all of his good intentions and gave in to his old instincts. It no longer became about sharpening Danielson's steel or hardening his hide. The means became the end and the end became destruction. The goal shifted, no longer to strengthen Danielson, but to break him, to snap his leg.

If the first half of the match was about establishing just how dangerous Swerve Strickland was, then the second half became about showing how Danielson could overcome. He escaped Jarrett's attempt to use a chair to break his leg. He used the chair in a moment of brilliant visual desperation and innovation to escape the figure four. And then, chair bracing it, he put a knee through Jarret's chin, opening him up and scoring the win.

It's ok to watch this and appreciate moments of execution, to bathe in the great punches, the immersive selling, the clever spots, the chaotic feel. But take a step back and really think about what they were trying to do. Think about how many other matches you've seen that actually accomplished the sort of challenging task that they managed here. They hyped up the main event of the biggest show of the year by indirectly making a third party (the champion) look more dangerous and then, through channeling who and what Jeff Jarrett is and has always been, redirected the spotlight back onto Danielson (the challenger) to show how he can meet that threat head on. There may be greater matches this year, but I'm not sure I can imagine a greater in-ring accomplishment in 2024.