AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/3 - 6/9

AEW Collision 6/8/24

Dustin Rhodes vs Johnny TV

MD: As I get older and as the world becomes more jaded and ironic around me, I find myself more and more as a true believer of pro wrestling. The core tenets work. The core tenets always work. They are primal. They play upon certain facets of our brains in the best of ways. There can be holes, flaws, chinks in the armor, dodgy bits of execution, some coldness when it comes to one of the competitors, but so long as you trust in the time-tested theories, it is going to work. And no one makes it work, no one plays upon those theories, better than Dustin Rhodes. 

So there are bits here I wasn't sure about. Some of the execution seemed a little odd, like that Johnny leapfrog that Dustin slid out on, or even some of the strikes. And I can't tell you, because of the quick camera cuts. I get the purpose of quick camera cuts in an HD world, I really do, but if you're not going to trust in Dustin Rhodes to make his strikes look good, then what are you even doing, right? I can't weigh in one way or another except for in saying that the quick cuts took me out of the match far more than actually seeing Dustin's strikes, good or ill, would have. AEW's early success came in pulling back on some of the more "Sports Entertainment" tropes and production elements and now that we're this post-Dunn moment of WWE leaning away from them, AEW only exposes itself with things like that. Trust wrestling. Trust Dustin. I did love the swooping camera shot during the giant swing in the FTR tag though. Experiment but push things forward, not sideways into the land of Dunn cuts. That's my hope at least.

Anyway, the things that worked absolutely worked. Most especially here was the use of Taya. Dustin won the early mind games by sweeping out, taking Johnny's attention to let him hit the flip off the apron. Taya asserted herself almost immediately thereafter and Johnny took over on the steps. Then, during the commercial break they did the old rule of three build to a comeback, except for this time instead of running the same offensive spot over and over until it got reversed, they did the insult to injury kiss leading to the catapult by Dustin. I would have liked that to be the transition instead of the last hope spot building to the double clothesline, but that's a nitpick, and I was all for Johnny going for the dropdown Goldust punch and failing immediately thereafter. Tom and I were going back and forth on Aminata last week, as I think the way she hits makes her a natural heel and he thinks her charisma and story makes her a natural face. My problem there is that as the sort of face she would be she needs a bunch of 80s chickshit heels to run through and I was thinking only Saraya could (or would, or should, as Athena could but should not) really nail that on the roster. Taya's someone else that could probably pull it off though. 

Collision has morphed from whatever it had initially been to a really powerful way to heat up people that need to be heated up for a storyline purpose. On this show, that was the Premier Athletes for instance. They're going to get fed to Joe, Shibata, and Hook, so they needed some credibility. When I heard Dustin had to cancel an appearance at a con to come into Collision, I knew that it wasn't going to be to immediately heat someone else up. The roster is big and broad enough to have people to do that on a weekly basis. It was to set himself up for something bigger. And I think he'll be a great opponent for Perry to really get to flex his heel muscles. I'll be honest though. The Texas residency is coming and I hope there are certain elements of those shows that are constant week after week, because there’s a real opportunity for that in front of a probable repeat audience. There should be some routine and comfort and consistency and I'd hope some things that build from week to week. Maybe that's someone winning a Brass Knucks trophy in week one and defending it each week until the end (with a cash prize for whoever has it at the end). Or maybe, and here's what I was hoping and still am, it could be a multi-week celebration of Dustin's career. I'm not saying you have to do a King of the Road match or anything (though they should), but leaning on Dustin heavily throughout that run in some way meant to be special and to tug on heartstrings would be a blessing both for the booking and for me getting to write up a bunch of Dustin matches.

AEW Dynamite 6/5/24

Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Wheeler Yuta/Claudio Castagnoli vs Magnus/Rudigo/Volador Jr./Esfinge

MD: I'm glad this happened. The CMLL engagement just hits differently. It's closer to my vision of what I'd like lucha to be and while these CMLL in AEW matches only go about 45% of the way stylistically and structurally, tending to be beatdowns that are confined within AEW's rules even if they have some of that old Infernales spirit, it's still somewhat familiar and nostalgic to me. This, and the four-way to start the show, were great ways to follow up from the critical success of the Casino Gauntlet from the following week and to stress the excitement (felt more this year than previous years) of Forbidden Door season. All action, all interesting action, all the sort of action that you can't get week to week anywhere else in the world. 

I don't have a lot to say about the specifics. These may not exactly be the CMLL guys I'd like to see the most, but the Depredadores worked well together and Magnus was a perfectly fine face in peril. I liked the extended BCC beatdown and especially how any of the BCC spots (at least those connected to Claudio) can work with anyone. Danielson did the Hart Attack here. Mox did the dropkick on the swing. Yuta did both on Collision. This needed to be a bit of a Yuta showcase and he shined at the end at least. I would have liked to see Volador get hit in the face a bit more, but that's just a personal thing. We've probably got more Hechicero on the way, at least, but I'm all for the Forbidden Door staying open for many months to come. 

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Will Gather All the Nations

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Seiji Sakaguchi/Kantaro Hoshino/Antonio Inoki/Keiji Muto vs. Akira Maeda/Kengo Kimura/Super Strong Machine/Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami NJPW 8/19/87- EPIC

These multi-man elimination 80s NJ matches are as certified as a wrestling match gets. At this point New Japan had shifted from the UWF vs. NJ feud, into kind of a generations feud, with Maeda on one side and Fujiwara on the other, and Choshu and Fujinami teaming up. Young Muto is a bit out of place repping the old school, which was a fun wrinkle to this match. The energy of these matches is always a standout, everyone is super charged and going at it with such intensity. Hoshino is always a highlight, this little sawed off batamweight getting into everyones face with great looking punches. Our guy Fujiwara gets some great match ups, throwing hands with Kimura, diving in and out of holds with Fujinami. Fujiwara is such a great slow paced technical worker, it is fun to see him thrown into a whirlwind like this. I love how Choshu is used at this time, that lariat is a game ender and the threat of it is always there.  There were some great eliminations, including Maeda calling Inoki into the ring squaring off with him, and eventually sacrificing himself with a headscissors which sent them both over the top rope. The match ended up with Muto against Fujinami and Choshu, and that is drawing dead, Muto had a moment or two, but eventually fell. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Masaji Aoyagi WDF 8/9/97-GREAT

A little minor key for a pair of guys who have the capacity to blow it out, but it had a lot of nifty stuff in there. I always dig kickboxer Fujiwara and it was fun to watch him square off with Aoyagi and realized that he didn't want the smoke. Similarly Aoyagi didn't want to be down on the mat with Fujiwara, to the point where he takes a bite of Fujiwara's leg while he is in a cross armbreaker. I really liked the finish with Fujiwara just dragging Aoyagi down to the mat, transitioning into side control, moving to his back and just sinking in a rear naked choke, it felt like the way a mid 2000s MMA fight with a  jujitsu black belt tapping a kickboxer who didn't train ground defense. Both of these guys are such great spectacle wrestlers, I was hoping for something bigger, but I dug what we got.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

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