2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Premier Athletes vs. Kings of the Black Throne

 

10. Tony Nese/Ariya Daivari vs. Brody King/Malakai Black AEW Rampage 7/12/24

ER: Kings of the Black Throne? House of Black was fine, but it wasn't enough so now I have to type out something truly stupid to refer to a monster finally wrestling like a monster and a jaundice-thighed Dutch kickboxer. What's happening with the AEW jaundice tan? We established orange as the ridiculous tan color for two decades and suddenly the Big Yellow 5 feels emboldened by a lax FDA to start branching out into other areas, away from sodas with a high school reputation for shrinking dicks. I don't know what's happening with Black's legs and midsection but something needs to stop and we need to contain this. This isn't normal. You would be called Piss Boy every year of high school if you showed up with yellow legs from some kind of chemical burn accident, so there's no way we should be letting 40 year old Dutch kickers and skinny fat bunny hopping piledrivers get away with it. 

Maybe Brody King worked big in this match due to the fatigued state of his friend, finally throwing aside the middling forearm exchanges and fake big man work for stiff clotheslines and aggressive size. His Throne Buddy's brain is slowly being eaten away as the yellow spreads outward through his tissue, but it's making King hit hard and miss with a toppling big man intensity. His work with Premier Athletes associations was a real plus for the match, taking a great out-of-control-big-man bump to the floor on a low bridge, and aiming a crossbody at Daivari through Mark Sterling. It was a good way for him to stay occupied and make this more of a match. 

Tony Nese is arguably the least cool AEW worker to champion but I like him. I didn't like him in Evolve but I grew to enjoy him in 205 Live when I was watching that a bunch for Drew Gulak, Jack Gallagher, and Oney Lorcan matches before those guys were retired or canceled or canceled into partial retirement. Nese isn't so different from 30-40 other good body speedy backflip guys in AEW but I think he's better than a lot of them. He's good at getting naturally into place for unnatural offense, falls in some ways you wouldn't expect, is good at pinballing between two guys, and is capable of fucking up in cool ways that feel like part of his character. He goes up for one of the highest backdrops in AEW history, has shockingly good worked arm strikes, and he repeatedly eats shit on his 450 splash no matter where Black sets up. People love holding the opinion that Great Sasuke slipping off the ropes only makes his Jushin Liger match more legendary, but nobody is quick to accept missed spots as part of a wrestler's charm, unless it's a JT Smith situation. Tony Nese does these missed spots that are almost surely unintentional but can read like expertly planned out Chris Hamrick or Juventud Guerrera misses, because they're never sold as something that connected and they often lead to his downfall. His meathead athlete Dave Portnoy energy makes the misses more charming, and his first overshoot barely got him a nearfall. His second was supposed to hit knees and instead his rotation is fucked up and he winds up connecting knees hard with Black and whipping his own head into the mat. Tony Nese has the tight physics on headscissors and backdrops like Billy Kidman with the same type of "I kind of want him to mess up this finisher though" charm. 

Nese and Daivari are both really good at getting in the way of Black's crescent kicks, and you know who has spent years gently flying under the radars of anyone offering a wrestling opinion? Ariya Daivari. Daivari is another guy I fell for during the glory days of 205 Live, but doesn't get talked about because his brand of professionalism can fade into the background. He has a consistently good floor, and a style that has always reminded me of Christian, but with less offense and less upside. He's great at using logic in matches the same as Christian, like the way he changed his pescado delivery here in an attempt to actually damage Brody King, getting a running leap that he doesn't otherwise do, just to throw more weight. He doesn't bump big like Christian but he has good selection in bumps. My favorite here was the way he fell off rigidly to the side after a running back elbow. The finish played great: Nese getting his face in the way of another kick while King hanged Daivari's motionless body off the apron in a sleeper in the camera foreground. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST