AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/16 - 9/22

ROH 9/19/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Alex Reynolds/Evil Uno

MD: This was a Proving Ground match and was touted to me as the Dark Order going full Larry stalling. And that's not quite what this is. When Larry stalled, it was to build up heat for the first bit of contact in the match, ramping up the pressure and getting under the skin of the fans. What people often don't understand about him, having just heard the stories or working off decades' old memories, was that when it was time for that first bit of contact, he was super high energy and paid off all the build. 

This was a different flavor to stalling. Here, it was about the Proving Ground time limit and all about the Dark Order running out the clock to get a title shot. That's the unique wrinkle of the ROH eliminators. I've seen a bunch of these in the last year or two and while there might be moments down a stretch where someone just tries to stay alive or even lock in a hold, I don't think I've seen one where the heels tried to avoid contact from the get go and do everything they could to just pass the time. Obviously that, too, gets under the skin of the fans because they want to see action, but in some ways it's better (in the eyes of the fans) and in some ways it's worse. It's more underhanded and craven since there's a goal behind it but it's also a little bit clever and purposeful as opposed to Zbyszko just being as obviously irritating as possible. In both cases, there's mind games at play too, so that bit's a wash.

To me, this isn't deconstructing pro wrestling but is instead leaning hard into the rules and the norms. It's not tearing it down but building on the inherent logic. I don't think you'd want to see it in every match but like I said, this was one of the first time I've seen it out of dozens and dozens. And it worked. It was different. It was interesting. It presented a unique challenge for Dustin and Sammy and they had to be as aggressive as possible just to force the Dark Order to engage. That in and of itself, opened them up to make mistakes and fall into traps, especially with Silver on the floor running (literal) interference. So when they did go over in the end, paying off a lot of the things that had been teased but denied due to the avoidance by the Dark Order (like the dives) and going deep with things like Dustin's very unexpected Shining Wizard, it meant all the more. Not only did they beat the Dark Order, but they also beat the passage of time as well. That was a good double triumph to set up the 6-on-2 beatdown to end the show. I still haven't seen that pristine and perfect stalling performance I want in 2024 where one gives one's self totally up to the spirit of it all, but this was an enjoyable TV match cousin to such a thing.

AEW Collision 9/21/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Mike Bennett/Matt Taven (Bunkhouse Brawl)

MD: Everyone's focused on the blood and Taven's bumps into the chair, but there was some very smart stuff here. Taven and Bennett are from MA (though admittedly Boston, or, you know, Carver, and Springfield aren't exactly the same) so not only did Dustin and Sammy come out in the local hockey team's shirts (with new tandem music), but they were also in their street clothes while the Kingdom were in their wrestling gear. Somehow that made them seem less genuine and more heelish. 

The big thing, however, was that they made sure all of the tables and plunder was set up pre-match. This started the show (after whatever ROH matches they taped or dark matches they had) and they had the luxury of having everything ready. It meant that Dustin's dive off the stage through a table with his bulldog or Sammy's cutter out of nowhere through a table didn't need any set up. They were brisk and sudden and shocking. Then, during the commercial break when things calm down a bit as the TV format forces, they were able to set up another table or two. Barring having a Fonzie or Nana out there, this was a really effective way to prevent the match being a quarter setting things up. 

That made everything else easier. The heel transitions/cutoffs were good (Dustin getting reversed into his own set up in the corner, Sammy getting tagged by a chair on his dive, the double superkick as Dustin charged up the ramp with a taser). Likewise the comeback spots: Dustin's double groin claw, Sammy turning the Dirty Deeds into his GTH, worked just right. The high spots were memorable, those brutal landings on chairs, including Taven's after they hit the Doomsday Device over the top and he errantly landed on one on the ramp, Sammy going off the ladder. And all the weapons fit in, the chairs, the belt, the cowbell, the barbed wire Shattered Dreams. It was definitely a lot of stuff, but the Kingdom and Dustin knew what they were doing and Sammy added that extra bit of energy and panache. I'm not sure how this will stack up against everything else this year, but you can't say it's not another notch in the belt of Dustin and another great Fight Without Honor from the Kingdom.  

Darby Allin vs Evil Uno

MD: With Danielson at home selling the injury, there was definitely a worry of a sort of overwhelming NWO-esque doom and gloom with Mox and company. The combination of Yuta's very existence and the fire he's showing mid-way through his matches and Private Party foolishly but bravely standing up for themselves is pushing back against that, giving what Mox is doing the sort of traction to push off against that he himself is saying he's providing to Zay and Quen. Darby's front and center for Grand Slam, however, and while we've seen him act in contrast to Mox and physically stand up to him up til now, the backstage promo leading up to the Uno match and then the match itself took things to an entirely different level.

It's war. For this to work, it can't be Mox running through everyone as they try to act sportsmanlike. People can't just play the 1985 Jumbo card as Choshu came in infecting everyone and everything around him with violence. They have to be Tenryu and meet the violence head on. And Darby not only fought with that level of intensity here, but he also forced it out of Uno. Even if Darby manages to triumph over him and keep his title shot, Mox isn't just going away. You don't make a statement with a turn like that and just go back into the woodworks and have another fishing trip. The darkness is here to stay and the dark intensity and violent passion is the thing that can make AEW stand out. It's not the grisly excessiveness of Hangman vs Swerve from All Out, not every week, but it's a Hansen-ian impulse of wrestlers pushing each other to the absolute limit week in and week out. What that looks like, what those limits are, how it all plays out, the different mix of alchemy when you have fliers and technicians and brawlers, when you have luchadores and disciples of the territories and walkers of the King's Road all clashing against one another... well, that's what's going to make it interesting. 

And it was interesting here. Uno took every advantage, but more than that, he wrestled like a man infected, like a feral beast, throwing his hefty frame into Darby from every angle. He was an out of control locomotion. Sometimes it worked, sometimes he crashed and burned, but he kept coming. Darby, in turn, fought as he always did, but instead of just throwing his own body at Uno, he ripped at the mask and bit at the skull. There's so much interesting to be mined here. Just as Uno threw himself with wild abandon to rise to the level Darby inspired in him, Darby made his own potential mistake, choosing to use Moxley's bulldog choke to prove a point instead of something of his own that might have more easily won the day. You push people this far, and much like Darby's facepaint, you see all the skeletons in the closet of their soul. It's the most fascinating, most human element you can distill in pro wrestling.

There's a change in the air. You can all but taste it watching the show over the last few weeks. Something is lurking in the hearts of the combatants. Something is awakening within them. Jon Moxley opened Pandora's Box and if they can fully tap into this energy found within, maybe this company can find a comparative advantage that no one else can match. TK, if our old DVDVR decoder rings are still working and you're picking up on the signal, this is the noise. Play it loud, play it hard, embrace it. Ride the wave and it'll take us all as far as we can possibly go.