AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/23 - 12/29

AEW Dynamite 12/25/24

Darby Allin vs. Ricochet

It was a Christmas miracle. 

Ricochet hit a 630 senton from the top through a table to the floor onto Darby Allin in the Hammerstein Ballroom in front of the smarkiest fans imaginable and there was no This is Awesome chant. There was no AEW chant. There was no Fight Forever or Both These Guys. There was concern for Darby Allin. There was jeering for Ricochet and his antics after the fact. There was a face and there was a heel and there was a clear preference from the crowd that one wrestler beat another. The fans were invested in something other than the idea of perceived greatness. They were responding to the action unveiling before their eyes in real time, but more than that, they were moved by the consequences of that action. If that's not a pro wrestling miracle here at the end of 2024, in front of this crowd, after a spot like that, with a wrestler like Ricochet who I'd never imagine it possible six months ago, I don't know what would be.

Stooging is an investment. It's a means to an end. Just like everything else in a match. It generates heat. It creates a pressure for the heel to get what's coming to him. It builds it up and when it's paid off, there's a feeling of gratification and justification. It shouldn't be done for its own sake just like nothing else should be done for its own sake. It can also be considered an investment because it does have a cost. It takes the place of more conventional, traditional action. There are critics who will stack demerits onto a match for it. But this was such an amazing demonstration of its power. 

Ricochet started the match by complaining about a hairpull in the corner, Ricochet being the baldest man alive. When Paul Turner cried foul, he immediately went to the tights as if Darby pulled them, changing his story. As Darby had him in headlocks, he made faces as he strained, mugged. He eventually slipped out by using the baldness as a tool and then celebrating as if he'd truly accomplished something special. He was consistently on, hitting flashy spots after he had taken control with a cheapshot in the corner, but the immediately rubbing it in the crowd's face. 

The match had a second, smaller miracle, one of the best, most fortuitous hope spots of the year. The crowd has started throwing toilet paper at him (the sort of streamers a heel like him, so full of himself, deserves). If not for safety and clean-up concerns, I half think they should have Swerve debut toilet paper with Ricochet's face on it that they sell in the arenas. Maybe it's worth it despite all that. Anyway, the hope spot was Darby sweeping a distracted Ricochet's feet off the apron. But what made it all come together was that there was a roll of toilet paper on the apron and Ricochet made it so the distraction was due to him throwing it back into the balcony. They couldn't have possibly planned for that but it call came together perfectly (Ricochet was constantly "on"), as did the cutoff where Ricochet cruelly slammed Darby's back in the post, giving the fans absolutely nothing to like about him. 

So when Ricochet hit the 630, they absolutely didn't have to "give it to him", or celebrate how wonderful AEW was in general. They were honed in on how much they hated him, how much they loved Darby, how worried they were for him, how much they wanted to cheer for him and how much they wanted him to stop Ricochet from making it to the semi-finals of the tournament. There's not one right way to do pro wrestling, but there's not any one way quite as right as that. 

There's a change in the air in AEW: with Fletcher, with Ricochet, with Okada, even guys like Takeshita. They're more willing to look vulnerable, to stooge, to be something other than cool athletic marvels who go 50-50 with the most exciting matches they can possibly have. It's unlocking tools left long dusty and the crowds are reacting. The reaction for Fletcher vs Benjamin and Fletcher vs Okada was nothing short of remarkable, and the reaction here for Ricochet vs Darby was, as I noted, miraculous. 

Don't get me wrong. I think in a match like Ospreay vs Komander or Ospreay vs Dante Martin (or even Ospreay vs Okada as the finals of the C2, even if it's not the match I would have chosen; instead I would have had another five minutes of Okada working the leg after Ospreay got stuck in it as a second heat and then built to an even bigger comeback), it's a great sign of success to have those This is Awesome chants. However, you don't want that when there's a clear heel doing fiendish and underhanded things. You don't want that when there's a wrestler the fans are supposed to dislike and ideally pay money to see lose, or at least to revel in their losing after they've already paid money for the AEW experience. 

In a situation with a clear heel/face dynamic, a This is Awesome chant isn't necessarily a sign of success. It's a sign that the fans aren't engaged in the storyline being told and are instead enjoying things in their own way; if that's the case, then why are you even trying to tell the story in the first place. In that case, it becomes something done for the sake of it, waste and to some degree, a failure. 

But this match right here is proof positive that by leaning into the old ways, of having the heel stooge and be as unlikable as possible, even when they do escalate down the stretch, the fans are going to be not just entertained, but also invested (as the stooging itself is an investment) in the actual outcome of the match and in the face overcoming and the heel getting his. It's still possible in 2024, and it's another, incredibly potent tool in AEW's toolbelt, one that create an even more engaged and loyal fanbase. 

So no, maybe this wasn't a miracle. It was an experiment, a hypothesis. 

It was proof.

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Found Footage Friday: TAJIRI~! HHH~! BABA~! EIGEN~! FURNAS~! MVC~! SPIVEY~!

Dr. Death Steve Williams/Terry Gordy vs. Dan Spivey/Doug Furnas AJPW 10/19/90

MD: I like Kroffat as much as the next guy, move even, but Spivey being in there instead increased the hoss level considerably. This was heated from the start too. Doc had it out for Furnas for some reason. He gave him the middle finger before the match. Furnas returned the favor by swinging a kick at him as he was squaring up with Spivey. Doc wiped his sweat in Furnas' direction. Furnas gave him the finger. Doc told him to kiss his butt. You get the idea. It's a good way to start a match. 

It doesn't let up from there. Furnas uses the three point stance to knock Gordy down, but Doc's able to grind Furnas down well enough that he makes sure to rush over and smack Spivey around a bit too, before mouthing off and maybe even spitting at him drawing Spivey in and it's just an absolutely chaotic feel early on.

What follows is about five minutes of the best wrestling you'll ever see. Doc catching Furnas in mid air and bringing him to the top rope, the two of them trading slaps and Furnas leaping over him to hit a belly to belly. Doc and Spivey smacking each other all the way out of the ring. Spivey hitting a bossman slam on Doc and boos ringing through the air as Gordy breaks it up. The place absolutely exploding as Furnas press slams Gordy only to eat a lariat. It's a hell of a five minutes before everything settles down to holds.

They take it down before building it back up and the overall effect is a hell of a thing. Gordy and especially Doc get a ton of heat. Furnas is able to clap up Spivey. There are a bunch of great nearfalls down the stretch before an extremely definitive ending but one that took that bit of extra effort. These are the sort of lost matches we hope to find.

ER: I love All Gaijin matches in All Japan because it's interesting to see how they can organically draw heat and interest without any kind of Nativism at play. No side is necessarily more loved or hated, only more established. Dr. Death understands that and leans into the MVC's established rep and for seemingly no reason goes hard on Doug Furnas. I have zero reason to believe there is any kind of animosity between Dr. Death and Doug Furnas, but everyone in this match made me believe there was. Doug Furnas was fairly established at this point. Not at the level of beating teams like Doc and Gordy, but already a two time All Asia tag champ who had beaten big teams. Doc quickly turns him into an underdog babyface which leads to a more spirited wild eyed performance from Spivey and some incredible payoff when Furnas finally starts throwing them around. 

Everyone was so good in this match that I fully bought into Doc and Gordy as two guys who actually hated Furnas (they didn't), Furnas as a guy out of his depth (he wasn't) and Spivey as a guy fearlessly telling MVC to back the fuck off and stop taking liberties with Furnas (they weren't, but at times it didn't seem like Spivey realized that). Doc was doing some performative middle fingers and phony baloney heat drawing across the ring while Furnas looked like a guy making the universal face of "Hey man I didn't do anything to you do you have the right guy?" You could tell Doc had the right guy when he sat Furnas on the top rope and slapped Furnas so hard to break. Furnas looked like Allen Covert and sold the slap by making the face that Allen Covert makes when his girlfriend leaves him in one of the few Sandler movies where that happens. Doc is great at bullying Furnas to rile up Spivey, and Spivey is that great combination of large and reckless and Just Getting Real Good so that he always gets too amped up on his first punch of an exchange and throws some potatoes before dialing back a little. He always looks ready to pop off, and it's a killer distraction from Furnas finally popping off. 

Doug Furnas gorilla press slamming Terry freaking Gordy - and the scared face Gordy makes while being held up high in that press - is an incredible spot. It would have been an amazing press slam anyway, but once Furnas added a pump it became an all timer. The crowd lost their minds at that press slam and that hyped Doug up so much he did a backflip and then ran as fast as he could into Gordy's biggest clothesline of the match. Doug finally suplexing Death was so cool. I love the way Doc bumps when he's reeling, just as I love when he decides one turnbuckle isn't enough for a stampede. MVC made damn certain that they were the bad guys here and were so convincing that the fans bought them as bullies against two of the toughest dudes. Terry Gordy out here getting booed over and over for breaking up pins and picking on Mega Athlete Doug Furnas.   

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Akira Taue vs. Harkua Eigen/Motoshi Okuma/Masa Fuchi AJPW 10/27/90

MD: This is a recent Classics drop and a Baba 30th Anniversary match. Jumbo gives him a plaque before the match and everything. This gets a ton of time, 20+ it feels like and it's just packed full of character and comedy. It's hard to do justice to it all or even half of it but I'll point out a few things.

First, Eigen, amazing as always, really shines at the start. He faces off against young Taue to start but then darts to the corner and slaps Baba before running out. They reset, he does the same thing but this time teases Baba and slaps Rusher. Then when facing off against Rusher, he ducks and slaps him twice before leading him to the corner for a long heat segment. They kick away at him forever before we ultimately get some goofy stuff with Okuma and headbutts. There are a ton of headbutts in this match and while Rusher gets some in, a lot of them are eaten by Taue.

Taue's a lot of fun here. I've seen every bit of 1990 footage we have of him and he wasn't there yet, but here he's got this sense of wild abandon, limbs flying and flopping about, that would soon be gone from him. He looks like he's going to become an entirely different wrestler here between his selling of the headbutts and a sort of physical recklessness.

This refuses to end, a lot of the normal things you think might end it getting broken up. They run some of the best Eigen spit spot stuff ever, as both Taue and Baba get to do it, with Baba getting it on his hand and everyone almost cracking up (and Kobashi cracking up decades later on commentary). Then Rusher goes for it, but he's blocked, and Baba comes in from the other side with a chop and it's pretty hilarious let me tell you. The finish is a fun combo of Taue hitting an atomic drop sending Okuma into Baba's foot and then right back into Taue's belly to back. My only regret is that they didn't repeat the atomic drop/boot sequence a couple of times first. Great fun that no dirtsheet would have appreciated at the time but that we can absolutely appreciate now.

ER: This is one of those Wrestling Heaven situations for me. I love my King's Road, and I love my boys. Give me 20 minutes of VILLAIN SHOKAI up to their old bullshit and the nuanced twists that come with every new 20 minutes. It's crazy how many ways they found to do their same bullshit slightly different over the years. You recognize the behaviors but there are always things they do different, things I've never seen, or realistically perhaps things I've seen a million times but don't care because they all work so well together that I don't ever get tired of them. All of these old men matches (Masa Fuchi was 36 lol) were written off unfairly by morose tape traders, so now everything in them is ripe for discovery. Nobody was talking about how great Haruka Eigen was when I got into trading, none of these guys were getting any kind of acclaim. We're long past that now.

Now, before this even starts, you just know Eigen is going to get up to shenanigans before Villain Shokai starts bringing headbutts and hamstring kicks. Eigen starting the match with a slap and run routine on Baba and Rusher is so classic, celebrating in the aisles with young boys you barely recognize, knowing he was going to get paid back down the stretch. A lot of these start with long heat on Kimura, eating boots and headbutts and selling the headbutts so believably (that happens here), but that's not where the match stays. I thought they did a great job integrating everybody and keeping Baba's involvement short and exciting. Villain Shokai made quick tags and this settled into me being excited watching an Akira Taue who didn't wrestle a single thing like my favorite wrestler Akira Taue. 1990 Taue is so cool as can see hints of the Taue that would be there just a couple years later but you'd only notice them if you were familiar with them. For the most part, he's a totally different guy with totally different offense and movement. 

His most important characteristic that he apparently always had, was his realistic approach to bumping. Watch how he sells an Okuma headbutt to the mouth, watch the way he falls with limbs flopping around and not in a controlled wrestling school back bump. The realistic bumps and selling were the things that instantly drew me to Taue at the end of the 90s, and with all the '90 Taue we have as evidence we can see that it's just who he is, a thing that would be near impossible to teach someone. He also has completely different offense and I love "elbowdrop Taue who doesn't use his giant feet in any way" but maybe I only love it because I know we're not far away from "big feet to face and the best chokeslams ever" Taue. 

You get so much tough guy sneaky prankster Eigen that you forget they had already started honing the Spit Spot this early. It's still early, as the front row all knows what's happening when it's happening, but nobody is holding up newspapers. People are fleeing, which only draws attention to one woman who is not moving at all while every other woman around her scurries to safety. Baba getting involved in Eigen's Spit is a thing that does not happen in most of these, and his involvement here brings two incredible moments: Baba clutching Eigen under the chin and clubbing his chest, only for Eigen to spit all over Baba's hand, leading to Baba wiping off his hand all over Eigen's head; then when Rusher is winding up to club Eigen, Fuchi intercepts his arm. While the two are locked in struggle, Baba creeps in from the other side and just knife edges Eigen. Taue's back suplex drops like a damn anchor. These 20 minutes always feel like 5 to me, something I never say about Modern Epic Wrestling. 

HHH vs. Tajiri WWE 1/25/03

MD: This is the sort of Vault drop that we're looking for, Hunter reign of terror match or no. Previously we only had a few minutes of this. With the introductions and post-match this is 30+ minutes. The biggest takeaway, past maybe how good Tajiri is here and how it's a shame we don't have a bunch of other 20+ minute matches with him from this era, is that Hunter consciously worked it differently than almost any other match of the period. Maybe even almost any other match of his career.

There's the whole bit about Hogan doing two extra bits of chain wrestling in his Japanese appearances (when it's more the reckless energy and Axe Bomber people should be looking at). To me, this was more about Hunter getting to work the sort of classic NWA Title match style that he didn't think the current WWE audience would appreciate. The problem was that he just didn't have the reps with it (which isn't really his fault). It meant he did the sort of stuff you'd expect him to be good at (feeding into headlocks and other holds) well, but when he tried some fancier escapes, it didn't quite click. The headstand escape to the headscissors was cute and all but people haven't clipped him basically comedically putting himself back into the hold to set up the positioning for it.

What did work were the transitions, the hope spots, the cutoffs. Hunter took over by clipping Tajiri with a clothesline on the handspring and that looked great. They worked a lot of hope spots given the time the match had to breathe and it meant when Tajiri did comeback, it felt momentous. Lots of moving parts and hoohah on the finishing stretch but the fans certainly got their money out of all of it. I loved hearing Earl talking up close too. That's something you'd rarely get in the heavily produced WWE, even in the early 00s. This just felt very different and refreshing in a sea of 2002-2003 Hunter matches I have memories of but really don't want to revisit.  

ER: I remember being 21 and reading about this match in the Observer and DVDVR but now I'm twice as old as I was then and my wants and priorities have changed. How far away, the post college years where my friends and I split an Observer subscription for several years and my friend Jason would use his work photocopier to copy even double issues for all of us. If this match had been taped, I would have traded for a tape to see this match. The 2025 version of doing that is me making 30 minutes of time to watch a HHH match. I'm glad I did. It closed a loop and lived up to its release. I love that it's shot handheld, I love the format, and I loved the story.  I always love the story of a guy who isn't World Title level getting a lengthy main event title match. If it exists, I'd be equally excited to see Brooklyn Brawler getting a long Shawn Michaels title match on a house show after winning a battle royal. 

HHH works this much more like a heel Bret Hart match and shows that he's better at that than when he's working his touring champion Flair match. Thank god this isn't his touring Flair match only in Japan. He's more execution focused than when he's in his Flair Entertainer mode and while I don't think he's anywhere near Bret as an execution guy there were several moments that I thought he looked a lot tighter than expected. He's better at bump as Bret than he is bumping as Flair and it made the match come off harder hitting than theatrical. Tajiri's kicks were great ways for him to storm back into the match and I liked how he would use them as unpredictable combos thrown at different body targets. HHH is bad at standing still making an "I'm waiting to be hit face" but much better at taking strikes that are less expected. We didn't have to see him hold his head a certain way as he waits to hair whip react to a punch, instead we just got Tajiri throwing kicks up and down his body. 

HHH as a guy working over shoulder back breakers is one of the coolest versions of HHH. Do more of that. Less Irish whips and more backbreakers! When Tajiri finally slips out the back of one of the backbreakers it's this great spot that looks like it's going to fall apart entirely and end in an awkward tangle but it somehow bumbles expertly into a clean sunset flip pin away from ropes. I thought for sure both men were falling and going to wind up in an ugly heap of blown spot but instead it made it all look like HHH was struggling to stop Tajiri's momentum. Tajiri using the Tarantula while the referee was out seemed like the one time where it would have been acceptable to let HHH Act. Just let him scream and NXT sell for a full minute while completely stuck, no ref to save him. I was disappointed that Tajiri maintained the 5 second rule. We didn't get enough of Tajiri maniacally refusing to break Tarantula. 

Tajiri kicking out of the Pedigree was something we all read about in 2003, but it plays far crazier than it reads. This is a detail I remember reading about. It was shocking to hear that Tajiri had kicked out of a Pedigree, but the details at the time actually downplayed what really happened. When it was reported, the reporting made it sound like the Pedigree was hit and Hebner - blinded by mist - took an eternity to make the count. That makes sense and it still sounded surprising that Tajiri kicked out. In actuality, the whole thing happened in under 10 seconds. Tajiri kicked out of the Pedigree less than 10 seconds after it was hit, which nobody else was doing in 2003. 

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70s Joshi on Wednesday: Nancy! Seiko!

44. 1979.08.XX2 - 01 Nancy Kumi vs. Seiko Hanawa

K: Matt is correct in that this show is actually from July, as the commentary hypes the Jackie Sato vs. Monster Ripper title match on July 31st. To prepare for this project, I made a good effort to catalog every 70s AJW match there’s footage of and put them in chronological order, but because of the lack of dates in written sources/me not understanding Japanese, a lot of that came down to just looking at the footage and guesswork. The auto-translated captions on YouTube have since given us some new insights.

I’m writing this very shortly after seeing a tweet saying “Everyone knows the legend of Jackie Sato. But Nancy Kumi was one of the best of the 1970's.” It’s not my style to call anyone out in these posts but I’m going to use that as bouncing off point, as I certainly have not come to this conclusion about Nancy Kumi from the footage we’ve made our way through so far. She’s been an extremely uninteresting wrestler. But I’ll give her another shot here as she faces her junior Seiko Hanawa.

Well the first thing of note I saw was Nancy miss a flying crossbody, but Seiko just stood there for a couple of seconds looking a bit confused before deciding she’s supposed to go on offense now. That was a bit strange. But then again this whole match is a bit strange. They both seem to be working heel for some reason, at least in terms of structure. Seiko’s control isn’t the most engaging wrestling ever but when Nancy counters a headscissors and takes over everything grinds to a halt as she sticks her knee into Seiko’s back and, well do you know this hold where they just do that but also with the feet as well? This goes on for a minute or so and the commentary really put over how important this is by cutting to one of the announcers walking around chatting with fans.

Most of the match is Nancy in control, and it’s not that bad in a vacuum. She does have some malice in her hits and normally I’d want to get behind whoever she’s whacking with a chair on the outside. I think really Hanawa is the bigger problem here. She just doesn’t really do anything to make you want to get behind her, though like I said it’s like she was working heel earlier in the match. This all comes together when we get Hanawa launching into her comeback to utter silence and it’s just sad. Crowd could not care less about what’s happening in the ring at this point. The only thing that wakes them up a bit is when Nancy goes up top to finish this failure of a match.

3/4*

MD: This was the US vs Japan preliminary league and I’m not convinced this isn’t from July and not August due to the commentary. Lots of distraction as they had fun with the high school boys in the crowd so they weren’t fully focused on the match. They did list off some of the standings and it was more than I could follow.

Kumi was the primary aggressor here. They both went for dropkicks at the start but immediately thereafter, Kumi was slamming Hanawa around ringside. Hanawa came back after a missed move off the ropes and had a nice rolling headlock but Kumi deadlifted her up by her head out of it and took over for most of the match. That included some brutal chairshots on the outside and a bridging figure four.

Hanawa came back with this impactful gobehind roll up that almost felt like a snap German and then had a great fiery comeback with a lot of takeovers before Kumi shut her down. Kumi finished her off with these sort of Northern Lights Gourdbusters and a top rope twisting splash. Pretty good sprint overall. The legwork went nowhere, of course, but I liked the transitions and that goes a long way. I'm kinder to it than Kadaveri was but certainly not required watching.

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoe vs. Bad Apple

 

13. Mark Briscoe vs. Bryan Keith AEW Rampage 9/20/24

ER: I can't imagine what it's like being Mark Briscoe. I haven't gone through the pain that he's gone through. I've never had a brother, never lost a brother. Not just a brother, but a tag team partner. Most of you with brothers never would have spent anywhere near as much time on the road trapped in a car with your brother. How many other people have ever lived a life like that with your brother, for over 20 years? I hate that right now I don't get to see Jay Briscoe unleashed as the Jon Moxley style maniac that Jon Moxley could never be. We don't get to see Jay Briscoe as the top guy - which would have happened - but Mark Briscoe doesn't get to see it either. I hate it, but I love that he's wrestling. This match felt important, because it really felt like a guy refining himself as Singles Match Mark Briscoe. I'm sure in the last couple years he's had plenty of Meltzer 4 star + singles matches, and I've seen enough of those, but the ones I did all felt like AEW Style Great 14 Minute Match Formula. This match might not have been his most ambitious singles match over this 2 year stretch, but it felt focused and impactful and tight in a way that I associated more with Jay singles matches. This wasn't him going on Crazy Mark Briscoe autopilot in a six man, this was a guy who looked like a singles champ. 

His Redneck Kung Fu is used as comedy in those six mans tags, here it's the perfect mix of goofball delivery and stiff finish. His baseball slide was thrown with joshi speed and heavyweight impact, and his Cactus Jack elbow off the apron was one of the best elbowdrops of the year. He landed with impact on everything; on his bumps, on his follow through, on his chops that got more intense the longer we went. His clotheslines hit like a champion's. The J-Driller should be the most protected finish in AEW. I can't wait to watch the rest of his 2024 singles match run, because this suddenly feels very different. 

I've said that I don't fully buy into the Hangman Page character, but Bounty Hunter was a character I didn't buy into even a little. I don't buy Bryan Keith as a Bad News Brown. I think he looked so good in his spaghetti western Entrance Pancho that a lot of people bought in on sight. But he wrestles like a 2024 Scoot Andrews update and wears his pants at 75 year old luchador height. He makes a lot more sense as Already in the Ring Bad Apple Bryan Keith, so he worked great as Singles Star Mark Briscoe's opponent he was 100% going to beat. I don't like matches he works as a back and forth, and think he benefits from a match where he has a few minutes of control in the middle and a couple spots down the stretch. It tightens his 3-4 minutes and it all looks better when stacked. He has a great kneedrop and I am always going to rate a guy who uses a kneedrop in 2024, and not one of those safe ones to the chest, an honestly worked kneedrop to the temple that would have played in a Nick Bockwinkel match. He leaned into chops and clotheslines and he doesn't just have a good kneedrop, he has a good kneelift.  

There's a real sweet spot in hitting a nicely built 12 minute match. AEW should pepper way more 8-12 TV classics into their cards than ringing the 20 minute Great Match bell so often. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/16 - 12/22 Part 2

AEW Collision 12/21/24

Claudio Castagnoli vs Darby Allin

MD: This had a great beginning and a great finishing stretch and both were somewhat invalidated by what immediately happened thereafter. Claudio is a guy who, like Christian, is used to working matches against the same opponent multiple times. While Christian is a genius in that area, Claudio is no slouch. The C2 in general has allowed him to play upon spots and finishes and invert them over time.

In this case, Claudio and Darby played off the start of their last match together, where Claudio kept moving out of the way whenever he got knocked to the floor early, thwarting Darby's attempt to dive on him. This time, he didn't wait for the bell. Instead he leaped right at Claudio, clinging on to him all the way up the ramp and enabling the balcony dive. That was a great start considering what had come before, but I don't think it meant much in the grand scheme of the match. Once the bell rang, Claudio hit a lifter and followed it with a ridiculous Giant Swing. That did give him the advantage but it also gave him a huge round of applause. Remember, this is the guy who betrayed Bryan Danielson. At times, the crowd is going to have to "give it to him" because he is so impressive but doing one of the biggest swings ever in AEW in front of this slightly smarkier crowd was probably a mistake. There's been too many such things out of Claudio as of late and it's not doing any favors for the Deathriders storyline, already struggling as it's cordoned off into one small area of the main event and not creating any overarching effect on the show overall (save for the first few weeks). 

Of course these two are a natural pair for heat and hopespots and comeback and it was all impressive. I liked how Claudio would at times just lift Darby up by the waist and that's something he ought to do more if he can. And then the finishing stretch hit just right with another big spot through a table on the floor, and Claudio going for his recent finishing move, that clothesline after an opponent barely makes it in from the count. Sometimes patterns can get too repetitive and take you out of a match because it's no longer believable but I buy these guys getting into this situation given the physical force that is Claudio Castagnoli. So Darby ducks it and they keep going through levels of escalation, with Darby finally getting hit with it and kicking out, with Claudio going for the Ricola Bomb only for Darby to turn it into a Code Red, for Claudio to get his knees up on the Coffin Drop, and then to hit the Ricola Bomb leading to a kickout not once but twice. With anyone else it might be a bit much but with Darby, at this point so late in the C2 it felt like proper escalation.

It built to a pretty clever finish where Claudio, frustrated by Darby's resilience in the face of his best moves, went for a chair. The ref took it and when distracted, Claudio hit him with knucks. Clever finish, right? 

One little problem.

Red Velvet had turned heel the night before doing it to Leyla Hirsch in an even more clever way since she used a turnbuckle rod and a hidden wrench she had gotten from under the ring. Same finish (which is not a common finish! I've barely ever seen the sort of switcheroo played out here, ever!) two nights in a row in front of the same crowd, one of which being a heel turn. Not to mention that the knucks would be a better gimmick for Velvet anyway as a puncher (I've got a campaign going for her to dust off the Heart Punch; I think it'd be unique and super over). I don't even know what to say. I haven't seen a lot of complaining online so they probably get away with it, but you'd almost have to put Velvet in the Deathriders and say that Claudio had been inspired by her actions or something otherwise to cover it. They lucked out I guess, but it, like the Swing and the opening flourish not meaning anything, definitely put a blemish on an otherwise excellent match. 

ROH Final Battle 12/20/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs The Righteous (Double Bullrope Match)

MD: This was a good complete package with a solid build that added something different (and violent) to a pretty well put together PPV overall. I think, especially given the build, I would have wanted a bit more of a straight brawl instead of something so plunder-filled with tables and ladders and what have you, but that's hard to avoid in almost any match of this sort in the era that we live in. We see what Blood and Guts and War Games look like these days. 

That said, my favorite parts of this were when Dutch and Dustin were brawling out on the ramp (even if it devolved quickly into Dutch's Bossman slam) and surprisingly Sammy laying in forearms on Vincent on the floor (which quickly led to Sammy hitting the post and eating an Orange Sunshine). I could have used about thirty percent more of that (or sixty, or ninety, but I get it). Speaking of Sammy taking that, despite the Tornado Tag nature, they did a good job of getting people out of the way so that the big themes could play out, most especially through Dutch going through the barbed wire table of course. And Sammy wiping out as well. 

I thought those key moments hit. The nearfalls with Sammy making a last second save all worked for me. What worked even more was how at one key juncture, it was Vincent, having escaped the Rope, using it to choke out Dustin. You'd expect that moment and the subsequent comeback by Dustin to belong to Dutch, and Dutch was the one Dustin beat in the end, but despite the familial connection being Dutch's, Vincent was the one who was pulling the strings, and in this case, pulling the rope around Dustin's neck. 

At some point, I really would like to see AEW/ROH trust in a crowd to do a more minimalist brawl, especially when there's a solidly built issue like this one, but maybe this wasn't the match for that (I'm not entirely sure Dustin feels like what he has to offer along those lines is enough for a 2024 audience, though it is, 100% because no one can do it like he can). It certainly wasn't the crowd. More on that momentarily. 

Athena vs Billie Starkz

MD: When you look at a match as a thought experiment interesting things can happen. In this case, they were putting together and executing a match with over a year of build, yes, but also with just a few weeks of build, but more importantly, one where most of the crowd and the audience watching at home weren't actually familiar with either. That's fascinating. I had misgivings about the build, which I noted last week, but the reaction online didn't pick up on my misgivings at all; instead people were just frustrated that Billie didn't win on her second chance and that Athena wasn't freed up to go to the main roster. 

It showed a clear lack of understanding of the week to week storytelling that was occurring. Tourists dipping in on ROH for a PPV and the year end PPV at that, and ones with ulterior motives and interests as well. They didn't plan on hanging around ROH so they wanted Athena where they could more easily and regularly see her. They're more familiar with the idea of Billie Starkz than the Billie Starkz who has been on screen in 2024 and more than that, the idea of an idea of someone like Billie Starkz, a young talent beloved because of her indie run who was ready to take a title. 

I won't speak to real life, but on screen, she wasn't. She absolutely wasn't ready to win. I know everyone made fun of Heyman noting how early the Bloodline storyline was in being completed, but here it's valid. Billie hasn't even really seen the light yet. She's still a heel. She's just a bullied, put upon heel who petulantly stomped her foot until she got a title shot. She wanted more attention not Athena. She didn't outright claim that Athena was evil or wrong or had to be stopped. If anything, she was trying to be her own Athena. If their match last year really got her established in MIT, then ultimately this one should start the road for her to leave it and find herself, but I'm not 100% that's the path they're going to take with her. I do think Athena is headed for bigger and better things, at least in the short term. I'd like to see Billie get some different mentor but outside of Emi Sakura (and wouldn't that be interesting?), no one in house really fits the bill. 

I thought the match itself was good. Just to focus on the finishing stretch, the moment where Athena clearly has an advantage and could go for the O-Face but chooses to use the mic instead out of paranoia/a lack of more fiber/Lexy wanting to please her and then almost losing because of that was a perfect character beat. And that moment in the corner after she had eaten Billie's finisher once and ended up back on her shoulders with the turnbuckle pad in hand is an absolutely perfect encapsulation of Athena as a talent. Yes she's agile. Yes she's believable. But it's her emotiveness in the moment! She went from the worry that she was up in the electric chair position to the surprise that she had the turnbuckle pad in her hand to the savvy bit of control that she could hit the poison rana all within a split second and it played out on her face like a method actor. She was living it and it was all organic and not overwrought. No one else in wrestling today can do that. 

But yeah, it must be weirdly aggravating to book a PPV more or less how you should, but having the fans just unprepared for what they're about to see. The 2024 ROH PPVs have a much better build than 2023 ROH PPVs, with the TV really setting things up, even if I don't agree with every decision, but it's almost wasted on the audience that tunes in a couple of times a year relative to the crazy sort of sickos matches they were doing without build previously. Like I said, an interesting thought experiment. This match certainly deserved a better reception online overall.

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Hangman

 

12. Darby Allin vs. Hangman Page AEW Dynamite 7/31/24

ER: I don't buy Hangman Page as a character. I don't buy the wild card persona that they push on commentary, I don't buy this threats to the referees, I don't buy his emptiness any more than I buy into the emptiness of any man. I don't think his strikes fit his villainous turn. He needs better shitkicking kicks. When he throws a kick to the ribs of a grounded man, his body language is far too flowy, too West Side Story High School Production. If Page is indeed a Bad Guy, I want to see him kick Darby in the ribs. Darby will do worse things to his own ribs in every match, and I need a Villain to not pull his kicks like a background fight scene Jet. 

But it doesn't really matter whether I but Hangman or not, because I fully buy Darby Allin. I buy into the level of punishment Darby is able to absorb, because he is literally right there absorbing all of that damage in full view with no smoke and mirrors. Darby absorbs inhuman punishment and he walks through the fire, and it's the most entertaining act in wrestling. He makes up size like nobody else and he does things that nobody else will. And while I might not buy into Hangman Page: The Character, I do think he works great as a Darby Opponent. Now, I also think that nearly everybody works as a Darby Opponent, but Page seems to understand even better just what he can do to Darby in a match, and knows how to take his offense in cool ways. 

I was really impressed how Page made his catches not feel like catches. When Darby Coffin Dropped off the entrance...circle?...Hangman didn't wait for him with his arms out. He stood there wobbly with his shoulders in, leaning forward into it the Drop like he was trying to counter it or block it, but at the same time he's making a perfectly absorbed catch. When he gets his ass knocked off the ring steps with a battering ram tope, a real weapon, he sticks with it and takes all of it. Darby does not need Page to lean into his offense to come off dangerous, but it sure doesn't hurt. You know he is going to make Page's offense look as great as possible - those three weirdly Too Sexual powerbombs he took on the apron and violent post-coital breakup fallaway slam into the edges of the ring steps, and how he didn't have to take the Death Valley Driver as vertically as he did, getting turned inside out attempting a Buckshot lariat - because that is who he is. But it's his dedication to making everything look good is what sets him so far above the rest. 

Darby Allin understands Walk and Brawl better than almost any ECW wrestler. Nobody tries to make Walk and Brawl look good, most just, well, walk. When Darby walks Page back to the ring with a tight headlock, his free hand pulling at Page's upper jaw, it looks fully believable that a guy Darby's size would be able to force a larger man to walk with him, like he is giving him no choice at all. He takes spots that others sleepwalk through and makes them matter. Look at the way he works a 10 count on the floor. There's no rolling around until 8 and then sprinting back into the ring. This man took real damage, he's selling that damage on the floor, but when he needs more than 10 he slowly rolls in to break and then slowly rolls back out, still selling everything he should be selling, no miracle  resurrections. He is small, but knows how to make his offense look effective against men of any size. His shotgun dropkick, back elbow, coffin splash, all of it lands like a heavyweight, and the way he lands lower on the hips always makes his Code Red set up look like he understands the physics of all his offense. 

I didn't love the finish and didn't love the set up for the majistral, but I buy into Darby, and love how he makes me buy into others. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: EXIT~!

Fugo Fugo Yumeji/Sanshu Tsubakichi vs. Munenori Sawa/Keita Yano EXIT 08/24/08

https://youtu.be/dCkb-5mpA7E?feature=shared

MD: Honestly, a match that defies words for the most part. Sanshu and Keita are in this, absolutely, and they are important to create a sense of normalcy and a baseline for things to push up against, but their mastery on the mat is completely overshadowed. This is about Fugo and Sawa being Fugo and Sawa, right? They throw hands, and then they throw heads, and then they throw hands again, and then they throw feet, and then it's back to the heads. I say hands because said hands are open and smashing directly against the skull and face of one another. Those come, more often and not from the ground and the kicks from a standing position and the heads fly from any position imaginable. 

They feel here like a perfect match, like an aligned pair, like each is the only one in the world that can complete the other. Granted, it also feels like if they were to touch for too long, it would set off a chain reaction and the entire world would explode. That sort of match. Fugo was all but unstoppable here, even from Sawa. There were two moments where he escalated matters into a suplex. After one, he held an advantage over Sawa so strong that the latter barely knew where he was, even as he kept coming in for more and kept giving more. And yes, Fugo was unstoppable as he captured Keita in a hold (after yet another headbutt) and Sawa kicked and kicked and kicked at him, the damndest kicks you'd ever see, and Fugo just held on until he got the tap. It's one of those matches that can't really be analyzed, only experienced. 

PAS: Fugo is such a malevolent force in EXIT, a grinning violence troll. Sawa was never my favorite BattlArts guy, a bit too flourishy for my taste, but anyone trained by Yuki Ishikawa can hang in this dungeon, and he just unloads with everything here, even his silly little skip kicks were full force to Fugo's torso. Fugo unleashed those disgusting headbutts and a keylock so violent you could almost see Yano's muscle tear. Exactly what you want from some guys in some chains. 

Toshiya Kurenai/Aki Shizuku vs. Ai/Kikujiro Umezawa EXIT 09/25/11

https://youtu.be/qNybdbDJmU8?feature=shared

MD: This match had the biggest pitfight feel out of the lot of them with the criss-crossed chains to express the barrier, the intergender aspect, the gloves on Ai. This is a little simplistic but until the final Ai/Aki exchange, this felt a little like rock/paper/scissors to me in the best way. Ai and Kurenai were the scissors, throwing kicks and evenly matched against one another. Then when Ai realized she was making no headway she tagged in Kikujiro and he was the rock, just absolutely streamrolling Kurenai with some of the best deadlift offense you'll ever see, just getting in close, throwing headbutts, and hefting him off the ground like he was absolutely helpless to stop it, no matter how skilled a fighter he was. Then Aki came in, pure paper, using holds and finesse to cover Kikujiro's large frame, outtechniquing him and stretching him in ways that should have been implausible to watch but that came off as absolutely believable. The opening few minutes of this felt like some of the most beautiful "different style" wrestling I've ever seen in that way. The last few felt like an absolute war between Aki and Ai as they went all out for even the slightest edge. 

PAS: Awesome match where I wasn't really familiar with anyone in it, and came away wanting to see more of everyone. Loved both women wrestlers who were throwing pure heat at each other with speed and force, it was like watching Lioness Asuka and Toshiya Yamada sped up without losing any of the pop Kikujiro was awesome just a golem, huge unmoving and violent, throwing these great looking deadweight suplexes hard on the concrete floor and smushing people with headbutts. This looks like the basement of container ship where the sailors made people they were human trafficking fight to the death, which is about the coolest wrestling atmosphere ever.  

Jota vs Kazuhiko Ogasawara EXIT 02/14/10

MD: This is a jaunt outside my comfort zone but one I'm glad to take.. Ogasawara is the master in a gi, older, calm, confident, at peace. At times he is in danger here but he is almost entirely unflappable. Jota is young, bald, a striker's striker who is able to get the absolute utmost torque on his holds. I didn't think this would last a minute honestly, because when Ogasawara got him down for the first time, the only word I could think of to describe the strikes he was laying into the leg, the side, any open area on Jota's body was "ground beef." That's what those strikes were doing to Jota. It was downright grisly.

But Jota either was able to lace limbs and joints together for a hold or get back to his feet and throw kicks. All it would take was one for Ogasawara to crumble but it had to be the right one and then he'd have to follow up, something that proved difficult. Mid match, he did got in a hold that trapped Ogasawara's head like a butterfly (we couldn't fully see what was going on with the arms from our angle) but he was able to get a break. Once back to his feet, Ogasawara broke his stoicism for the only time in the match letting out a yell and driving Jota back (almost from the sharp and sudden yell alone), but he was able to recover. The whole match there was the sense that Jota was doing everything in his power to contain Ogasawara, that one false step and he'd get crushed, but that he could win with one daring strike as well. When Ogasawara finally felled him with a swift kick, the one that would herald the beginning of the end no matter how many times Jota just barely managed to get up, it felt like a moral victory of sorts: Ogasawara's belt fell off. Symbolic as that might have been, it was ultimately futile, though the effort itself from Jota remains worth noting.

PAS: Big time Ogasawara fan from his Zero One days, and he is just a beast here, just pulverising Jota with every punch and kick, the shots to the body especially felt like they were powdering bone and pulping internal organs. I loved the first big Jota comeback as he hits an upkick, with Ogasawara doing this killer delayed sell. All of a sudden the kid had hope!! And he hits the vet with everything he had, only for Ogasawara to keep walking him down, until he finally puts him in deep freeze with several knockdowns. So awesome, so glad this existed and someone taped it.

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El Deporte de las Mil Emociones: Captain Redneck Goes Caribbean

Week 42: Captain Redneck Goes Caribbean

EB: Thanks to his win in the Royal Rumble match CSP held on January 12, the Original TNT had been bragging about beating Carlos Colon, who was the last person eliminated. Carlos took exception to this due to it being a multi person, everyone against everyone type of match and that Original TNT had been the last one in, so a one on one match was signed. The match took place on January 19 in Caguas and Carlos won by disqualification when El Profe interfered. Carlos had Original TNT in the figure four leglock and El Profe jumped into the ring to break it up with an elbow drop. This was done in front of the ref and caused the disqualification. However, Profe was successful in getting Carlos to release the hold, allowing Original TNT to immediately pounce on Carlos and put him in the cobra sleeper. The ref called for the bell to get Original TNT to break the hold but he kept it on, his intention was to put Carlos out. Suddenly, someone ran out of the stairwell towards the ring, it was TNT! He was not scheduled for that night’s card but had just returned from his tour of Japan. TNT kicked Original TNt from behind, causing the cobra hold to be broken. TNT then put the Cobra Dinamita on Original TNT as the crowd cheered on. Original TNT struggled but was taken down to the mat. Meanwhile, Carlos had gone after El Profe, chasing him around ringside. Profe would eventually run away down the stairs. In the ring, TNT had put to sleep the Original TNT and left him unconscious on the mat. After Original TNT had been left sleeping, TNT made his way to the ringside table and grabbed a microphone. As TNT addressed the crowd. Profe reappeared from the stairs and went to the ring to check on the still unconscious Original TNT. On the mic, TNT mentioned he had put that guy (pointing at the ting) to sleep and “Now, I want that impostor to drop the name and take off the paint, because whether it is here, China or Japan, the only TNT is me!”. 

One other notable happening that occurred during the week is that we have new Caribbean tag champions. The January 19 match between the Super Medicos and Mendoza & Valentine ended a bit controversially, with the bell ringing signaling a time limit draw just as the rudos had the cover on one of the Super Medicos (of course, this was after cheating with the loaded glove). A rematch was held at the January 23 TV taping, where Mendoza and Valentine ended up bloody messes but walked away with the Caribbean tag titles after once again using Mendoza’s loaded glove. We’ll discuss some of the other happenings from January 19 as we go along, but for now let’s go to the Campeones episode from January 26.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSjc-kb_E

Hugo and El Profe are our hosts, with Hugo welcoming the viewers as always to the 4pm time slot on TeleOnce. Hugo then introduces his co-host as the supreme leader of El Club Deportivo, his majesty El Profe (which Hugo qualifies by stating this is how El Profe was asking to be introduced). Profe is pleased by the intro and Hugo also comments that he sees Profe is matching his mask colors with his suits for the show. Profe starts talking about how good he looks and Hugo ignores him and talks about what we’ll see on today’s episode. We’ll get our first look at ‘Captain Redneck’ Dick Murdoch as he faces Huracan Castillo Jr. in a match from the Three Kings Day show. We’ll also have the latest in the rivalry between the Super Medicos and Rick Valentine & Galan Mendoza, a Caribbean title match from Christmas Day as Bronco #1 defends against Ivan Koloff, and the fire match between the Super Medicos and Valentine & Eric Embry. Hugo mentions this was the match where Embry was injured and thus taken out, to which Profe responds that thank goodness Galan Mendoza stepped up as Rick Valentine’s new tag partner. 

Tonight they will be in Caguas, where there will be  rematch for the World tag titles between the champions the Texas Hangmen and the challengers Invader #1 & Bronco #1. An important stipulation for the rematch is that the bullropes are banned from ringside, which means that they played a role in helping the Hangmen win during the lumberjack match held on January 19. Profe seems a bit worried about the bullropes being banned but he clarifies that they’ve only served to equalize things and they won’t be necessary tonight. 

The TV title will also be decided in a six man tournament tonight. The first round matches will be announced that night and the three winners will then draw numbers to see who gets a bye to the finals, with the other two wrestling first and the winner facing the third wrestler afterwards in a no DQ, no countout, there must be a winner match to crown the new TV champion. Let’s go to our first match, which is our first look at Dick Murdock in CSP.

Murdoch’s opponent is Huracan Castillo Jr., who is a substitute for the originally scheduled Jimmy Snuka. Murdoch immediately attacks Castillo just before the bell rings, raking the eyes repeatedly. Murdoch still has his ring jacket on as he continues going for the eyes. The ref warns Murdoch about having an object in his hands, which Murdoch tosses away. Murdoch does the horn symbol to the crowd and finally takes off his ring jacket. Murdoch continues punching Castillo and yelling at the fans, but gets distracted by thrown debris. Castillo uses this opening to fire off some counterpunches of his own, causing Murdoch to head for the corner and beg off in the most amazing way possible. While Murdoch begs off, Hugo and Profe have the following conversation about Captain Redneck: 

Hugo - “All of a sudden they’ve got him dancing rock and roll in the corner. Castillo is dominating now and showing Murdoch that if he wants to fight, a fight he will get.”

Profe -  “This Redneck is a weird man, he is one of those wrestling veterans that they call a redneck, you know what that means? They’re crazy, wild, they drive big trucks…”

Hugo - “And very racist.”

Profe - “Very racist, they hate Puerto Ricans  and blacks, they…”

Hugo - “They hate everyone but their own redneck race. But..”

Profe - “He’s even a member of the KKK”.

From here Hugo says he won’t go into that but that whatever criticisms you can have about Murdoch’s character, you have to give him credit for his experience, being a vicious rudo and that he is looking to dominate here in CSP. By this point in the match, Murdoch has regained control and starts using a foreign object to attack Castillo. Profe and Hugo talk about Murodch’s legendary tag team of the Outlaws with Dusty Rhodes, as Castillo rolls out of the ring. Murdoch follows after him, picking up some debris thrown by the fans, and he uses it to attack Castillo. Hugo makes a point that Murdoch’s attacks have been with objects tossed in by irresponsible people that are an embarrassment to the sport of wrestling. Profe says that those are El Ejercito de la Justicia fans that do that, Club Deportivo fans are well behaved. Meanwhile, Murdoch has taken Castillo over to the fence area and rammed Huracan into it.  Murdoch heads back into the ring and grabs another piece of debris, as Castillo slowly makes his way back as wel. Hugo continues on his rant about the small group of fans that throw stuff into the ring, insisting that the tecnicos should give a message to the fans to not do that. “It gives a bad image of all of us.”  

Murdoch continues in control as we go to commercial, but when we return Castillo starts making a comeback. Murdoch starts begging and cowering when Huracan starts punching him. Castillo rams Dick’s head into the turnbuckle, causing Dick to fall to the mat after stumbling for a bit. Murdoch rakes Castillo’s eyes, but acts as if he got hit in the eyes as well so that the ref doesn’t call attention to Dick’s actions. Castillso gets punched to the outside, with Murdoch following and stalking Castillo. Dick tries to ram Castillo into the fence again, but Huracan blocks and Murdoch gets rammed instead. Murdcohs stumbles around as Huracan continues the attack, with Murdoch even sitting on a chair and getting knocked over. Castillo hits a dropkick on the outside as the bell rings, it looks like we have a double countout. Castillo attempts to continue his attack but Murdoch takes him down with a low blow. Murdoch then hits Castillo with a brainbuster on the ballfield, leaving Huracan spasming on the ground. Profe says that it looks like El Ejercito de la Justicia has a big enemy in Dick Murdoch. 

MD: Talk about a guy made for a territory. Murdoch was electric here. The only person I can compare him to is Funk in the mid 80s when he came in. Just constant stooging and antics. I’ve seen the criticisms that Murdoch would get too goofy at the wrong time but there’s almost no wrong time on the mid-card in Puerto Rico. He begged off early and it was wonderful. The fans tossed something into the ring and he screwed with it for a minute as Castillo made it back in only to whack him and then hand it to the ref blaming the crowd for the entire state of affairs. He made a massive showing of sneaking up behind Castillo to choke him and then tried to run him into the stadium fence only to take the bump. He hit the most blatant and flagrant foul I’ve ever seen in Puerto Rico and then crushed Castillo with the brainbuster on the field. So over the top, absolutely 

EB: The match is followed by a  series of promos from three of the participants in tonight’s TV title tournament. The focus of the interviews is to mention that each of the participants is looking to win the tournament, but also to send a message to their current feud rival. Scott Hall has a rope with him and he warns Giant warrior that he will use it to pay back Warrior for attacking him last week with the big boot. Kim Duk (holding a baseball bat) and El Profe talk about the tournament but also send a warning to Migueliro Perez. For his part, Miguelirto puts over the TV title as the second most important singles title in the WWC and that he promises to win the tournament. But he also wants to get his hands on Kim Duk for throwing salt in his face and attacking him with the kendo stick last week.

We also get a rundown of tonight’s card in Caguas: a rematch for the World tag titles as the Texas Hangmen face Invader #1 & Bronco #1; the tournament for the TV title featuring TNT, Scott Hall, Giant Warrior, Original TNT, Miguelito Perez and Kim Duk; a no time limit rematch for the Caribbean tag titles as the Super Medicos challenge Galan Mendoza & Rick Valentine; Sasha defends the Women’s World title against Monster Ripper; and other great stars.   

MD: I’m sure Esteban will explain this better, but it seems like we’ve got Hall vs Warrior, Duk vs Perez, and Original TNT vs TNT, and then the winners do a coin flip to see who is the odd man out and gets a bye into the finals for the TV Title. I remember Global doing something similar not too long after this where three people were vying for the title and someone (I want to say Eddie Gilbert) got the bye. Hall says he’s going to have a friend with him and that Giant Warrior beat him with his boot. Duk didn’t give us much to work with. Perez gave us more. One note on the card presentation: we saw a glimpse of a super bloody Rick Valentine and Galan Mendoza and I wish we saw what led to THAT. Ah well.

EB: Our next match is from Christmas Day 1990, as Bronco #1 defends his recently won Caribbean title against the fearsome Ivan Kooff. As they start, Ivan tries to punch Bronco in the midsection, but hits Bronco’s weight belt and complains about hurting his hand. Profe on commentary also starts complaining but Hugo defends Bronco by saying that it’s been approved as ring wear by the WWC, he doesn’t use it as a weapon and it hasn’t hurt anyone else so far (calling into question that Koloff was faking it). They work some holds, with Koloff getting a hammerlock and Bronco countering with a stepover takedown. Bronco works Koloff over on the mat, as Hugo mentions how Bronco has won the fans over in his short time in Puerto Rico. Koloff tries to punch Bronco but gets knocked down via a counter punch, which causes Ivan to complain again to the ref. A lockup leads to Bronco getting a wristlock on Ivan, which he eventually counters with a takedown but Bronco quickly gets out of it before Ivan can lock a hold in. Bronco does some of his hopping to get the crowd into it. They continue working holds as we go to commercial break, and we come back to Bronco ramming Ivan’s head into the turnbuckle. Bronco attempts an unsuccessful cover. Ivan takes over with a punch to the throat and rams Bronco’s head into the turnbuckle (where Ivan had conveniently placed part of his chain over the pad). Ivan gets a swinging neckbreaker and legdrop, but Bronco starts getting fired up and launches a counterattack. Bronco gets a backdrop, but Ivan grabs onto Bronco’s belt and throws him to the outside. Ivan knocks Bronco off the apron but on the second attempt to punch Bronco off, Ivan accidentally hits the ref and knocks him down. Ivan tries to suplex Bronco into the ring but ends up tripping over the ref instead. The momentum carries Bronco over and on top of Koloff, allowing Bronco to get the pinfall. Bronco retains the Caribbean title over Ivan Koloff. Bronco has his hand raised as Koloff complains it was only a two count.

MD: This was pretty good. Another stadium match. Koloff had a lot to give still in a place like this that valued what it did. Bronco was cartoonish but made it work, constantly appealing to the crowd and remaining active and in motion. Here he had a medically approved waist band which Koloff hurt his hand on. Ivan took over, in part by slamming Bronco’s head into the chain that he had brought to the ring and was just hanging out over the top rope. He played King of the Mountain but elbowed the ref who had been trying to pull him back. The ref ended up on his knees; Ivan tried to suplex Bronco in; Bronco fell on him as Ivan tripped over the ref. Clever finish.

EB: Giant Warrior cuts a promo talking about the TV  title tournament and Warrior is confident he will win tonight because he has never lost a match in Caguas. Also, he’s going to pay back Scott Hall for everything Hall has done to him so far.

MD: Warrior is a perfectly fine promo, especially when they have Kim Duk cutting his own, but I do miss the crazy music videos we were getting in 90.

EB: We also get interviews from the two teams involved in the World tag title match tonight, which has the stipulation that the bullropes are barred from ringside (during last week’s lumberjack match some of the wrestlers at ringside got involved and in the confusion the bullrope was used to allow the Hangmen to get the win). Profe says that it will not make a difference, the Hangmen will get the job done tonight. Psycho speaks for both Hangmen, promising that they’ll show tonight that the tecnicos do not deserve any more title shots. Bronco and Invader respond, with Bronco promising that those belts will go to them and Invader mentions that he’s got the mask on because tonight is serious and they will win the tag titles. Time for the Hangmen to show if they can get it done without the bullropes.

MD: Big takeaway here for me is that Invader, now that he’s teaming with a masked guy again, is donning the mask. That’s a nice bit of thematic escalation given who they were facing. Bronco’s promos are akin to how he wrestles, very energetic.

EB: The Campeones episode ends with the fire match we’ve already reviewed between the Super Medicos and Eric Embry & Rick Valentine, though this is your chance to watch it in a normal aspect ratio. The show ends as the wrestlers fight to the dugout, with the commentators reminding the fans that this is the match where Embry was injured and forced to leave the island.

Now we go to the west coast version of Superestrellas de la Lucha Libre from the same day. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtsmLpah0kg

Hugo opens the show by welcoming the viewers and runs down what we will see on today’s program (including TNT’s first match since coming back from Japan). Hugo then talks about the latest happenings in the Super Medicos and Mendoza & Valentine rivalry, asking the director to show what happened the previous week. Mendoza talks about how last week the Medicos paid off the timekeeper to ring the bell to call for a draw when it looked like they were going to lose the Caribbean tag titles. Tonight, Mendoza and Valentine will show who the real Caribbean tag champions are. The Super Medicos then get a chance to respond, with Medico #1 making sure that everyone knows that they did not pay anyone to ring the bell or need anyone to save them. We then go to a Caribbean tag title match from the TV taping, where Mendoza hits Medico #1 with his loaded glove, causing Valentine to fall on top of  Medico #1 and get the pin. A very bloody Mendoza and Valentine have won the Caribbean tag titles. An irate Medico #1 cuts a promo at ringside after the match, demanding that the commissioner grant them a rematch as soon as possible (which the commissioner agreed to). That rematch will be tomorrow in Hormigueros and will have no time limit. Hugo runs down the rest of the card before going to the first match.

MD: I get the sense that Mendoza is a pretty solid promo all things considered. They didn’t have Ripper of Valentine do much here. Medicos were heated and for good reason. Clip has them losing the titles to the loaded glove to break up a move, and then a very effective passionate post match promo at ringside with a bloody mask. We’d seen the loaded boxing glove but this hits different (no pun intended).

EB: We have the Caribbean Express taking on Mendoza & Valentine, with Hugo noting that the rudos were still hurt from the match against the Medicos where they were busted open. Hugo and Eliud are on commentary and the Express start off hot, focusing their attacks on the forehead of Rick Valentine. The Express controlled the first part of the match with quick tags and double team maneuvers (including a nice baseball slide by Castillo on Mendoza). Mendoza gets a DDT on Perez and tags in Valentine, giving the rudos their first control segment of the match. The rudos tas in and out and keep Perez near their corner in order to maintain their advantage, but Perez mounts a brief offensive flurry after an attempted clothesline in a corner. Another missed charge into the corner allows Perez to tag Castrillo in. All four men end up in the ring and in the confusion Castillo comes off the top with a crossbody onto Valentine. However, the ref is busy getting Perez out of the ring, so Mendoza sneaks in a blow with the loaded glove and rolls Valentine on top of Castillo for the pin.   

MD: Good match. I could have used a little more heat in the middle before the comeback but Valentine and Mendoza are wrestling extremely vulnerable so it made sense. They were great early bumping and stooging actually. The Express caught the by surprise pre-match and yanked off their bandages and started some woundwork. Mendoza hardly even seems a step down from Embry here to be honest. I liked the double elbow smash that the Express did but they were very smooth in general. Valentine hit a DDT out of nowhere but they didn’t hold the offense for long. Perez’s stuff looked especially good on the comeback. Mendoza snuck in a fistdrop to break up a pin (with the loaded glove of course) and they stole another one.

EB: After the match we get some promos, first is Migueito Perez who explains why he didn’t appear last week in Hormigueros. It seems that Kim Duk busted up the windshield of Miguelito’s car. Hugo asks Perez if he saw Duk do it, but Perez says that the people that were there saw Duk do it with a baseball bat (which explains why Duk had a baseball bat with him in the promo he did on Campeones). 

We also get promos from the two teams in the no time limit match for the Carribean tag titles. The Medicos tell Mendoza & Valentine to be ready for payback after everyone saw how the rudos stole the titles from them. Mendoza and Valentine cut their promo still bloody from having won the belts. The rudos again reiterate that the Medicos must have paid off the timekeeper but it does not matter now, they are the champions and they don’t need that much time to beat them again tomorrow.

The January 27 card in Hormigueros is as follows: The Texas Hangmen vs Bronco #1 & Invader #1 in a steel cage; the awaited match between TNT and Original TNT; no time limit for the Caribbean tag titles as Galan Mendoza & Rick Valentine take on the Super Medicos; a rematch between Giant Warrior and Scott hall; Miguelito Perez vs Kim Duk; and Huracan Castillo Jr. defends the World Junior title against El Profe. 

MD: They’re really leaning hard into this one. Now we get a great visual promo where Ripper has the belts and Mendoza and Valentine are absolute bloody messes. Everyone gets to talk here and it’s impassioned and effective.

EB: Next is Scott Hall vs Herbert Gonzalez. It’s a short match with Hall making a strong showing and pinning Herbert after the crucifix.

MD: Some of the stuff Hall does here (like controlling the arm down to a legdrop onto it) is the same sort of stuff he was probably doing for years but the confidence and timing just seemed to hit in ways it hadn’t even a year or two before. He dismantled Gonzalez in the ring and dangling over the apron before putting him down with a Vader Bomb type splash and the crucifix. Good squash.

EB: We get another series of promos from the Texas Hangmen and Bronco and Invader. Tomorrow they’ll be in the cage and both teams are looking forward to hurting their opponents in the cage. Invader makes note that no one can interfere, unlike the lumberjack match from the previous week. 

MD: They have an engine now, different lead heroes with different partners up against the Hangmen, all leading to steel cage matches. I’m not sure how much longer it can last but you can always cycle them down to feud with the Castillo/Perez or the Medicos just as easily and build those to cage matches too.

EB: We have TNT’s first TV match back from Japan and his scheduled opponent is Kim Duk. The wrestlers are introduced and Duk proceeds to do a salt tossing ritual in each corner before the match starts. As both men feel each other out to start, Eliud mentions that last week TNT made a surprise appearance during the Carlos Colon vs. Original TNt match and put Original TNT out with the Cobra Dinamita. As TNT works over Duk’s arm in the ring, Hugo reminds the fans of the history between TNT and Original TNT. The match progresses with TNT remaining in control by focusing on Duk’s arm despite Kim’s attempts at countering. Things turn in Duk’s favor when TNT misses a spinning kick, allowing Duk to counter with a kick of his own to gain control. However, Duk ends up throwing TNT over the top rope, causing him to be disqualified. But it seems that it was all a plan, as Original tNT runs out to attack the unaware TNT at ringside. Original TNT locks in the cobra sleeper and puts TNT out, with El Profe and Kim Duk watching. Duk even takes out some crew members that made a move to help TNT. Original TNt leaves TNT unconscious on the floor, paying him back for the previous week. Original tNT yells at the unconscious TNT (calling him an impostor) and even slaps him across the face a few times. The rudos leave ringside without waking TNT up, so Victor Jovica (flanked by Giant Warrior and the Caribbean Express) makes his way to ringside to help wake TNT up. TNT comes to but is in rough shape, so the tecnicos take him out on a stretcher to make sure he gets checked out.   

Afterwards we get interviews from Original TNT and TNT about their match tomorrow. TNT has an ornate head mask on and mentions that his throat is still feeling the effects of what Original TNT did. He even has to stop part way through talking because his throat starts acting up. He says that he’ll only address the imposter as ‘perro’ from now on and promises that he will not stop until he takes the paint and name of that impostor ‘perro’. 

MD: Former partners colliding. There was a slight sense of familiarity here, mainly with Duk taking over by ducking a TNT kick. They ran a big angle where Original TNT snuck behind TNT on the floor and put him out (getting revenge on him and setting up their next match). It would have been more effective if it was after a TNT comeback and both him and Duk were on the floor maybe? He still got the heat and it did seem sudden and unexpected but sometimes things in wrestling are paced to click just right and I’m not sure this was.

EB: We end the episode with a couple of videos involving the two wrestlers involved in the Universal title situation. The title is still vacant and it looks like Greg Valentine and El Profe have indeed agreed for Valentine to face Carlos Colon in a cage match to settle things once and for all. We first get a video for Greg valentine set to ‘Here Comes The Hammer’. We get highlights of Greg against various opponents, such as Huracan Castillo, Miguelito Perez, one of the Super Medicos and Carlos Colon. It’s a shame we do not have more footage of Greg Valentine in Puerto Rico, but at least we get a little bit of him in this environment with this video. 

Carlos Colon’s video is next and shows him training at the Albergue Olimpico, doing a more traditional training program in preparation for the upcoming cage match. The video ends with Carlos sending a message of thanks to the fans for the calls and messages. He promises that he is ready physically and mentally for the challenge to come. 

MD: The Valentine video was delightful but it just made me feel sad for all the Valentine stuff we’ve missed out on. Lots of elbows. Moving the kneepad. All the good stuff. Ah well. The Colon video was very olympic. Lots of traditional training including swimming a lane and running a track. We’ve missed some big matches before, obviously, but this whole Valentine run feels like the first full run we’ve been missing.

EB: Next time on El Deporte de las Mil Emociones, if you want to get caught up on what has been happening so far in 1991 we have just the TV episode for you, as we get recaps of all of the major feuds going on. Also the feud between the Texas Hangmen and Invader & Bronco reaches a dangerous peak as Invader’s taped fist enters the picture. And who will finally be crowned the Universal champion when Carlos Colon takes on Greg Valentine inside the steel cage? 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/16 - 12/22 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 12/18/24

Will Ospreay vs Darby Allin

MD: It was breathtaking, mindblowing even. They had jockeyed for position, to see who would be able to hit a top rope move onto the other. Ospreay gained the advantage. He flipped and twisted and landed on his feet as Darby moved. He was believably staggered from the effort though and Darby rushed forth to lock in and hit the Code Red. Ospreay shifted his weight and flipped him back over. Now Darby was staggered and completely open for a hidden blade. Ospreay butterflied Darby for the Stormbreaker, lifted him up, hefted him over, and Darby continued the momentum hitting a Code Red. Unquestionably amazing sequence, maybe one of the most impressive and spectacular in AEW history.

Work with me for a few minutes here and imagine a world where the match ended there.

Up until that point, it had been excellent. Darby tried to contain and frustrate Ospreay early with a headlock but to no avail. They had an answer for one another during that opening feeling out process but Ospreay liked the answers more than Darby did, maybe. That's why Darby went big early, wanting that Coffin Drop bad, too bad, and choosing to go for it long before Ospreay was softened up. He wiped out hard on the corner of the apron.

And that's the magic of Darby Allin, isn't it? When the car crashes, you can't look away. Ospreay couldn't look away. The human underneath all the moves and spots and counters burst through and disbelief came over his face. If Ospreay's going to feel that way about what happened, the fans, already inclined in that direction anyway, will feel it double.

Darby had already been selling little things during that opening stretch, a side effect of using his own body so effectively (but not efficiently) as his primary weapon, and now every movement was portrayed as agonizing. Ospreay, momentum on his mind, took the role of the aggressor. Instead of rushing straight from one counter-laden sequence to the next, Darby had to work from underneath and create hope wherever he could manage it. All of that built to the sequence in the corner culminating with the Code Red.

It would have been enough. This is going to sound counter-intuitive but it would have been better, neater, cleaner, satisfying, incredibly satisfying, but still leaving a lot on the table for whenever their next match might be.

Instead they cycled through everything you might expect, even if you wouldn't know the details. The fighting spirit strikes had them hanging on to one another. The big spot was a Styles Clash to the floor. The actual finish had Darby push through it all to hit a couple of Coffin Drops. It was fine but felt like noise after the height they had just hit.

The Code Red had served as the gateway to the last third of the match, a transition towards an extended finishing stretch, when it could have been an exclamation point on the match that people would have been talking about for months. Now it's a nice gif and bit of a highlight reel but people had already moved on to the Styles Clash by the end of the match.

If the match had ended with the Code Red, I bet it'd have gotten a half star less in the Observer than it ultimately will get. But past Dave, not a single person would have been disappointed. It was a great taste of a dream match, more than a taste, a meal, a better meal than the overgorging spectacle we got in the end. It would have been doubly successful for leaving so much on the table and protecting Ospreay as it would have been a banana peel finish of sorts. It had been a complete narrative package, more complete than with the extraneous bits tacked on at the end.

Less can be more, especially when less is so unique and so dynamic and already so much in and of itself. Bigger isn't necessarily better. A match's quality isn't based on how full of stuff it is, even if that's currently the only way to break the 5* WON barrier. There are more important barriers to break; immersion and emotional engagement are more important than elation and fans drunk off of spectacle. There's a better balance to be struck. I really do believe that.

-----

Ospreay made a very gracious and grateful post this last week. In it, he asked for feedback. I doubt he's ever going to see this but my advice to him would be to ground his obvious greatness in the fictional reality of pro wrestling.

There is a Ric Flair mentality that the fans deserve to see every spot in every match because that's how he felt when he was watching Ray Stevens. I see it a little like a concert from someone with a hundred great, classic songs. The ten you get will be different than the ten someone else may have gotten but you appreciate those ten all the more because nothing is assured and because you got some others didn't, even if they got some you didn't. If everyone gets everything all the time, then there's less reason to appreciate any single thing.

I liked Ospreay's early AEW promos. gracious, focused, human. He wanted to raise his family while doing what he loved. AEW was letting him do that. Where he frustrates me is when he mentions performing for the fans. Yes, a basketball player can perform well, but in wrestling, it's best to avoid those blurred lines. The worst example of this is when he called out MJF for having bad matches and said Tony called him to save the show. There was a way to say something similar and implying that MJF's attitude of taking the easy road and cheating was robbing the fans of the champion they should see. Ospreay, instead, could have noted that he was going to push anyone that faced him to their absolute limit. If they could step up and even come close to beating him, the fans would  get their money's worth. It was saying the same thing but in a way that made sense in the fictional world of pro wrestling.

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70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Seiko! Kumano! Ikeshita!

43. 1979.08.XX1 - 03 Jackie Sato & Seiko Hanawa vs. Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita

K: There’s an annoying clip very early on which makes it hard to assess the opening portion of the match. We get the standard-fare feisty babyface Seiko launching right into the attack, then later Black Pair have taken control and we didn’t really see how. But their section mauling Jackie Sato especially is pretty good. Highlights included pulling Jackie’s arm out tort and then headbutting her in the shoulder, and a bit later Yumi would grab Jackie by the back of the head and launch her face-first through the ropes into Mami’s outstretched knee through the other side of the apron. Absolutely every piece of offense Black Pair do just looks dirty. It’s just cheating, or just ugly and unsporting at the very least. It felt near miraculous when Jackie was able to get a comeback in by dodging a double-team so Mami kicked her own partner by mistake, and once she got the ball refused to let go until she picked up the first fall. What a hero.

There’s a noticeable change in pace and tone in the 2nd fall. Whereas the 1st was messy and driven by the heels just causing mayhem, this time Black Pair were being far more measured and controlled in taking apart their opponents. It felt like they were reacting to a chaotic situation of their doing backfiring on them to cause them to lose the 1st fall, so they’re not going to allow that to happen again. After taking out Jackie with a weapon (hiding it from the referee for a bit of extra heat), Mami Kumano just voluntarily allows Jackie to go over and tag a very angry Seiko Hanawa in, who is also protesting to the referee about the weapon use. Black Pair are happy to have Seiko as their target though rather than the superhero Jackie. She also gets meticulously taken apart and beaten. The third fall follows much the same pattern, but this time they capitalise even more by tying Jackie’s leg up in the ropes to finish off Seiko quickly. Nice match this, the 1st fall probably went on just a little too long but that’s just about the only negative thing I’ll say about it.

***

MD: A couple of clips in here around transitions which is never the best but what we get is pretty substantial even if the last few minutes of this is the end credits. Hanawa had to be inspired teaming with Jackie because she attacks right from the get go. We miss how the Black Pair take over, but they sure do take over. This is a great dominant performance from them. They control at length multiple times in the match but the longest is in the first fall where they destroy Jackie. I’m usually higher on Kumano and she has her usual wild abandon and violent stuff, including some new things like a dragon sleeper into a stomach whack. Here though Ikeshita really shined, just rubbing Jackie’s face all over the mat.

At some point they switch over to Hanawa but that really just lets Jackie recover enough to be ready for Hanawa to turn it around on them for a hot tag. She almost reminds me of Hogan in some ways by this point (some might consider that blasphemy). She’s great at taking and taking but when it’s time to give, she’s larger than life, just kicking through faces, just dropping people straight down from a belly to back position, and hitting her cross attack with great camera angles. As noted, the Black Pair did take back over and things got wild on the outside as one might expect. The trick was to isolate Jackie and they did so with the help of their seconds on the floor. In the last fall, they managed it by tying up Jackie’s leg in the ropes. Hanawa was fiery but ultimately doomed.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/9 - 12/15

ROH TV 12/12/24

Athena vs Billie Starkz vs Leyla Hirsch vs Red Velvet

MD: This was to see who would go on to WrestleDynasty and represent ROH. It was set up backstage with Athena demanding that Billie lay down for her. Though we didn't know it yet (though we kind of did) it also set up Athena vs Billie and highlighted Leyla vs Velvet which are the two women's matches at the PPV. 

And, it was a very creative, imaginative four-way right? There are good things about that and there are bad things about that. I liked a lot of the character bits overall. There was Athena ducking out early as everyone was upset with her antics (even Billie). There was Hirsch getting in Velvet's face. There was Athena picking her spots at times. All of that was good. I wouldn't say the creative spots all hit the same way. There were a lot of moving parts. People had to get in position. It didn't always go well. It didn't always feel smooth. There was a particularly bad bit where Athena and Billie had to wait on the apron to get knocked off and then had to wait again until they could get dived on from around the ringside area. There was a tower of doom spot. There was Velvet rolling up two people at once. A lot of imagination and effort but I'm not sure how it worked out in practice. Some things, like Athena holding up Leyla and Velvet at the same time and then doing simultaneous moves on both worked on sheer impressiveness.

Obviously the interplay between Billie and Athena was the most interesting issue here. That made me forgive things I might not otherwise, like a spot where everyone put a submission on everyone else one after the other. Billie, desperate to get out, grabbed Athena's hair. That felt like a small but poignant moment where Billie had no choice. Later on, the ref had to avoid counting a pin for a few long seconds so that Athena could bound off of the pinfall itself to hit a 'rana on Billie. But that was an intentional act as opposed to Billie's desperate one and the story benefit made me look past execution concerns. The finish had Athena stealing the win from Billie and gloating to all parties. And THAT led to the post match backstage where Billie demanded a match and Athena misunderstood and thought she'd be getting an easy night at Final Battle. 

Unlike their match last year, you get the sense that comeuppance is heading Athena's way. I don't know exactly how it's going to go. On paper, she's going to underestimate Billie and get taken by surprise. Then she's free to reemerge in the main roster next year with an excuse for why she lost. I have seen the spoilers from the ROH taping for next week and it sounds like a hot way to set things up but maybe not hot enough. Lots of other things can happen. Maybe Billie emerges as the monster Athena created and destroys her in a bloody mess and becomes the new heel to rule the division. 

I'm assuming that we're just getting a plucky babyface moment here though, and if that's the case, the build hasn't really worked for me. Let's recap. Athena created a monster in Billie, Billie stood up for herself and took Athena to the limit but lost, Athena finally embraced her and guided her to the TV title. Billie lost the title. Athena shunned her. And here we are. At no point has Billie ever become a babyface again. She's still a heel. She's still petulant. Now the difference is that she's a petulant brat that's not getting the attention that she craves from her abusive cult leader. There are a lot of ways this could go that are interesting and complex but us being happy that Billie finally got petulant enough to stomp her foot like a brat and stand up to Athena isn't actually one of them. So I guess hopefully that's not the payoff here, right? We'll wait and see.

It does speak to a broader issue I've seen in AEW that I want to briefly touch upon even if it ends up not being entirely applicable here. AEW has done some great heel turns in the last year, since the start of the company. I'm less impressed by the babyface turns. Statlander's happened backstage. Hangman is cheered but not necessarily acting any different. Swerve just sort of meandered onto the other side of the line and only later did the Gates turn on him. Jay White returned to save his friend who was also probably more heel than babyface last we checked. The list goes on. 

If it just happened once or twice, you could attribute it to a more modern and maybe mature sort of storytelling where people aren't just good or bad but layered and things happen with nuance instead of in a sharp moment of alignment shifting. On the other hand, we still have pretty clear and crisp heel turns and there just isn't any of that nuance (except for maybe in the fans' heads as they try to make sense of everything). I worry that sometimes it's just a matchmaker's contrivance, the idea that if no one's really a sharp face or heel, any match can be made at any time with anyone playing any role. It washes things out though. Dynamism is often traded for a versatility that should be unnecessary given the size of the roster and the fact that people accept face vs face and heel vs heel matches more in 2024.

Face turns, the actual moment of that ultimate crystallization, even when there was subtle or overt build to it (especially then), are some of the most memorable and moving moments that pro wrestling can create. AEW is doing itself a disservice by leaving them on the table so often.

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Best Friends vs. Sabian/Butcher

 

15. Orange Cassidy/Trent Beretta vs. Kip Sabian/The Butcher AEW Rampage 3/8/24

ER: I wrote about this before I knew the Best Friends suddenly broke up. The concept of a team called Best Friends makes me think about a kind of indy wrestling I've set out to avoid since Chikara, but it turns out I didn't need to soften my stance on that wrestling, because the few who weren't canceled just got better. I didn't know when watching this match I was watching the near end of a great TV match era. Orange and Trent were a team I really loved, and two wrestlers who have turned into must see AEW for me. I'm going to miss the Jefferson Starship TV era. Pixies Cassidy doesn't quite hit the same for me. Anyway. 

There are probably better AEW matches that I've watched and will not be adding to the MOTY List for reasons like "it went on longer than I thought it should" or the more accurate "I recognize it was good but not good enough to move me to want to write about it". A match like this feels like more of an accomplishment than a 20 minute ****3/4 match. They're both going to be forgotten about the next week, so I think a great Kip Sabian performance is more memorable. When I think back to the start of AEW, I think about how awful Kip Sabian was and how much TV time he was consistently getting over...well, almost everyone. I think at one point he was the most consistently featured TV worker. Those were the dark days, with guaranteed Kip Sabian and Private Party and Orange Cassidy matches every week. I couldn't stand Orange Cassidy matches for years. Now it's 5 years later, here's a show with Kip Sabian, Orange Cassidy, and Private Party, and it's the same but everything has changed. Cassidy is now one of the guys that make me watch these shows and Kip Sabian is one of the most improved wrestlers on the roster. I guess not everything has changed, as Private Party are still essentially doing the exact same thing in the exact same spot with the same spots done slower. The main event of this episode was the weakest go nowhere match on Rampage. 

I never foresaw loving Orange Cassidy, and I certainly did not anticipate Kip Sabian ever being a wrestler worth watching. But he now is, that. It happened, and it's cool. Cassidy came into the match with his back and ribs wrecked from his title loss to Roderick Strong, and Sabian and Butcher went after those ribs with backbreakers. There were two very cool physical momentum reversals, where Cassidy was slowed and couldn't pull off his round the world DDT, and Sabian and Butcher each stopped his momentum mid-move in ways that felt like both were really fighting to stop it. Butcher had wobbling legs as he powered OC up for a powerslam, then lifted him up by the front waistband of his joggers high enough to drop him over his knee. Sabian always looked like he was fighting OC's momentum, even on roll-ups. 

When they weren't working over his back, I thought Sabian was great at working around Cassidy's selling and his shtick. I liked the spot where Cassidy was fighting to tag out with his hands in pockets, as Sabian expertly crashed around him and into Butcher, credibly fucking up repeatedly against an armless man. All parts of Sabian's game have been tightened. Five years ago I couldn't imagine Sabian as a guy with good elbow smashes, but now he has them. He was always someone who could bump, but now his bumps seem more directed towards the match he is having than an empty athleticism. His bumps are an essential part of Trent's hot tag, he's great at being in position for the finish sprint, and he does it all while taking in-character bumps. The way he kicked his legs in panic while getting tossed with a backdrop, or getting yanked into a Saito suplex and knowing just how to get where he needed to be to lean into a knee, he does it like him. 

Cassidy's Superman punch to set up the finish looked its best and came in with force, like he wanted to get it in quicker than the one earlier that had been caught by Butcher and ended with his back being punished by a half nelson backbreaker. Instead of flying right at Butcher he came at an angle, blindsiding him into a Beretta Strong Zero. Cassidy is impossible to keep down but stayed with it in ways that didn't make Sabian and Butcher's back work feel stupid, it just made him seem tough. It's been five years, the surprise of my Orange love has finally faded, and now I'm spending my time writing glowing things about Kip Sabian. I'm convertible. Who will be the next to convert me?  

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: MULLIGAN~! WILKENS~! STRONGBO[SIC]~! JACOBS~! BOERSEUN~! SCHUTTE~!

Jan Wilkens vs. Blackjack Mulligan South Africa 1982

MD: Another mystery tape by Richard Land (on his Patreon). All around expert Ohtani's Jacket was able to help us identify some names. I'm going to focus on the Mulligan matches. Apparently Mulligan came to South Africa in October 1981 and beat Wilkens for their title. Wilkens was the big star, their Wanz (who had lost to Wanz incidentally in the first CWA title match). This was good. I get the sense it would have been great three or four years earlier.

I get the sense these might have been ten minute rounds. There's a bell after around ten minutes but then things just continue on pretty quickly thereafter. It's two falls to win. Mulligan works it pretty technical, using his size (Wilkens was not small, but Mulligan was Mulligan) to bully him. Wilkens then could show off escape after escape. He had a great slip out of a side headlock into a roll up that I've only seen once or twice elsewhere. When Mulligan got him to the ropes, he'd hit a great strike or two and it built to Wilkens firing back. Once they started in with pins, things moved quickly, with Wilkens getting a backbreaker out of nowhere and then Mulligan powering back with a clashing Neckbreaker Drop. Mulligan hit a knee off the top but when he went for another, Wilkens tossed him off for the win. The crowd was hot for this and it was wrestled well but I think they left more in the tank for the title match to come. 

ER: I am wholly unfamiliar with the South African wrestling scene of the early 80s. I don't know Jan Wilkens, but I sure liked this. This was a cool, tough, 2/3 falls match with great build. It really felt like they aimed to worked each fall harder than the last, so by the 3rd fall they're throwing bombs and falling hard. All falls had strong build, starting with matwork that I've never seen Mulligan do quite the same. Wilkens is a guy with size - not as much size as Mulligan, but a heavyweight only a couple inches shorter - so I got into Mulligan forcing him down with stiff armbar takedowns, leaning into Wilkens body and forcing him down with weight. It's leverage by brute force and it's a good way to establish Mulligan as a brute who isn't afraid of working technical. Then, by the time he was working as a brute, the crowd hated him. 

Mulligan is a bit like Stan Hansen, without the body control. Hansen is this huge man who has incredible control over his body - evident in his selling and the way he pushes back against offense - whereas Mulligan is a big guy who doesn't quite seem to understand how his body is falling. He breaks out his big flying back elbow twice, and after he lands hard on his back each time he appears to collect himself and make sure he was damaged in the fall. I like the dimension that adds, making the big elbow feel like something he knows is a risk, knowing that it's taking something out of him just by doing it. I thought for sure a missed elbow was going to lead to the finish due to the way he was selling the delivery. Instead, he breaks out a top rope kneedrop, an insane move for a man of any size, but especially crazy for a guy as large as Mulligan. When Mulligan got pressed off the top for the finish, I bought it keeping him down because I saw how hard his landings were on his own flying elbows. I agree with Matt that they likely left some stuff for bigger future matches, but this build had me hooked. 

Big John Strongbo/Little John Strongbo vs. Mike Schutte/Boerseun South Africa 1982

ER: Goddamn do I love that there was also a Little John Strongbo. The Strongbos, wearing singlets that look like bastardized American flags and I believe referred to as Die Amerikanas on commentary, look like total freaks. If they are working a fake asshole American gimmick, it's hilarious that this is how South Africans viewed Americans in the early 80s. They're both big (yes, Big John is the bigger, rounder one) and have identical white blond hair done up in short curly bobs. They look like the largest albinos I've ever seen. Even Little John is larger than Edgar and Johnny Winter combined. Big John has a white blond beard that hides in plain sight and only reveals itself during a horrifying close up. Mike Schutte looks like Gorilla Monsoon got shrunk down to 2/3 size, and Boerseun - which translates to peasant, or farmer's boy - looks nothing like a peasant or a farmer's boy. He looks like Ray Traylor-as-War Machine in that one '87 War Games, wearing a black mask, black tights, and a tight black crewneck sweatshirt that says BOERSEUN on the chest in glitter. 

This firmly establishes the 1982 South African 2/3 falls style, where in the first fall all four guys barely look like wrestlers and by the third fall they're all beating the shit out of each other. Mike Schutte was a famous South African boxer who had retired a couple years prior, and the climax of the match saw him finally throw blows with the Strongbos, going high and low and knowing to finish with a big fist off the side of the head. The Strongbos worked more viciously as the match went on, playing slight cowards in the early falls before breaking out stiff punches and kicks in the third. When they tied up Boerseun in the ropes Andre style and got Schutte in the tree of woe, I think that was the first time all match that Little John started laying in shots. The fans were making a ton of noise as the DQ was drawn, and honestly I cannot believe the Strongbos did not bleed with that hair. I assumed the only reason they had their hair done up that freakish color of white blond was because they were going to bleed buckets. 

Jan Wilkens vs. Blackjack Milligan (Title) South Africa 10/1982

MD: This was the big title match. Mulligan said in his promo that it was the first nationally aired wrestling match in South Africa. No idea if that's true but he worked it like it was. It was everything I wanted from their first match and more. After a bit of feeling out (and Mulligan complaining about a hairpull and then going for the tights), Blackjack just started unloading on Wilkens. He dominated both inside and out of the ring, really putting a beating on him. Just big credible shots over and over as Wilkens sold. He brought him in from the apron with a powerslam that almost turned into a Northern Lights Driver and then put him down with an elbow drop.

Second fall was Wilkens coming back huge with some great forearms as the crowd went nuts. Mulligan sold and begged off and got outpunched. Wilkens slammed him from the outside in as well to score the fall. Then they wrestled a third round more evenly with some nice technical bits like Mulligan hanging on to a chicken wing only for Wilkens to go up and over with a headscissors and Mulligan repeatedly ending up in a body scissors. It all built to great slugfest, really good stuff, with Mulligan bleeding as he tried to fire back from the apron before they both crashed into one another and Wilkens draped an arm over for the finish. Mulligan absolutely earning his fee here and wrestling to the level of gravitas the event seemed to carry. Excellent title match that was completely off our radar before now.

Jan Wilkens/Tarzan Jacobs vs. Blackjack Mulligan/Big John Strongbo

MD: Apparently it's just Strongbo, yes. He was a big lad, shall we say and perfect for this match, which was an absolute blast. Maybe it didn't need to be 2/3 falls and go quite so long but the fans were buzzing the whole time as it was one entertaining bit after the next. Pretty early on they bulldog ram Strongbo into his own corner and Mulligan takes a huge bump from the apron off of the collision and that sets the tone for the entire match. So much stooging here. Wilkens had this amazing way of throwing himself into everything he did (especially pinfalls or pin breakups). Jacobs was a stand up fighter with a goofy superkick and unafraid to throw endless headbutts. The heels got most of their offense with ring rope choking in the corner or swarming in the ropes and at times it felt heel-in-peril with Mulligan and Strongbo pinballing all over the place but for a place in time that we're going to drop in and never come back to, I didn't mind it one bit. It devolved into chaos but that seemed somehow fitting.

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