2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Brody

I wrote this 15 months ago and never posted it. Another love letter to Darby Allin. 

 

Darby Allin vs. Brody King AEW Dynamite 11/27/24

ER: It feels like a bit of a visual cheat to send Darby out there covered in bandages and tape. I understand selling a beating but I also love the idea of Darby's injuries all accumulating internally, his bones sounding like a wrench in a cement mixer when he moves. I don't need him biting into blood filled condoms every other week like Ken Shamrock, but I like the quiet dignity of a nutcase who has to be compiling injuries and refuses to show them. Now, Darby is showing all of them! His head is bandaged, his ribs are wrapped, his thigh is wrapped so visibly that it's wrapped over his leggings! In my day, men used to start wrestling in chaps or trash bag pants to hide their knee braces, but Darby is now wrapping his legs over his leggings.  Darby, I want you to hide your physical pain eternally, and to only let us in by way of screams and panicked writhing after a crash. I don't think I've ever seen a Darby match where he was doing this much physical selling before the bell, already holding his ribs and hopping around on one leg, and I don't know if I needed it. Not now. Don't tell us.  

I don't think the extra visible tape made this match any better than it was already going to be. But it is great, and Darby is provided hardly any openings. Brody catches the first kick thrown and chucks Darby into a reverse 450, then starts hitting full weight sentons, chops Darby off the apron to the floor, and introduces Darby to various areas of the floor and railing. 

There are two great missed spots by Brody that really move this match - excellently capped under the 10 minute mark - to another level: first, he misses a chop into the ringpost. I'm kind of over the missed chop into the ringpost as it's more expected than ever, but Brody is smart enough to not make it the singular miss. He swings hard and misses painfully in a way that easily could have broken his tibia, but the miss only drives him to set up something more risky, which leads to his second miss, a cannonball into the guardrail. One miss led to the bigger miss, and a twist of fate made that second miss even more special because it caused the production to short circuit. The TV screen went momentarily white, and when picture returned the commentary booth was disconnected. I really like the Excalibur/Schiavone team, but this match instantly felt different and special with no commentary, only the sounds of Darby's guttural moans and the impact of Brody's body. I wish the audio stayed unrestored for the entire home stretch. 

Where the considerable body tape continues to not work for me is during Darby's small comeback. Am I to believe his body is now in worse condition than ever before, as he does his tope and his two awesome Coffin Drops? Part of the big joy of Darby is not seeing how much pain he is going through to deliver these crash landings. I do not need visual clues beyond his own selling that Darby's skeleton is in pain. We all know he has to be in pain, and the imagination is a more powerful visual than any wrapped body part could be. I don't know if I've ever seen Darby come into a match selling damage before the bell, and it's kind of a foolish exercise as you knew those injuries were going to take a backseat once he got the chance to get moving, which is what we all wanted. The tape is not necessary for Darby. Leave that for other wrestlers. He transcends it. 

The finish rocked. They did a great job hinting at the double count out without milking drama from it, and then they just went straight to the end, playing off more than one classic plausible Darby finish in just 20 seconds. Darby is poised on the top rope, waiting for King to roll back in, waiting for that Coffin Drop. But if Brody had a miss so big that it sent the production truck scrambling, Darby had a miss so big it led to his near instant defeat. Darby trust falls straight back into Brody's big waiting arms. When Darby flipped back over into a pin, I thought my boy was going to sneak out with another one. But Brody dragged himself to his feet while never letting go of that hangman's sleeper. That sleeper also could have finished the match. Darby's eyes said that he knew it was going to finish him. He had no answer to two huge arms locked in tight around his neck and head with his feet not touching earth. Maybe Brody didn't want to chance it, maybe he didn't want to risk Darby lasting longer than his arms...so he finishes it so decisively with an over the shoulder piledriver so violent that anything other than a firm 1-2-3 would have proven Darby's T-1000 identity. He is mortal. He just shouldn't need tape. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST