AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/25 - 5/31

AEW Collision 5/30/26

Konosuke Takeshita vs Daniel Garcia

Konosuke Takeshita is a very special wrestler.

While size is relative when comparing modern wrestling to the wrestling of old, Takeshita clearly jumps off the screen. Whether due to sheer height or the combination of size and his theatrical presence, he towers over opponents in a way that most current wrestlers do not. When it comes to his athleticism, he reminds me of Barry Windham at his prime. There's an electricity to how he moves, to the intensity he brings to the table. Given his size and his proclivity (academic and practical) for the German Suplex, you might compare him to Jumbo Tsuruta but his seething stares and alacrity of motion reminds me more of Riki Choshu. 

He's a star. He looks like one. He moves like one. Most often, he carries himself like one. Yet, he is a star specifically made for AEW. He balances the brooding seriousness with a super indie excessiveness in his match layouts (for good and ill) and under the surface of it all is that DDT-crafted smile.  In a perfect world, he would be in that Conglomeration opening credits tron instead of Ishii. 

But this is not a perfect world. It's one where the character of Konosuke Takeshita felt spurned by New Japan, spurned by the Blackpool Combat Club and the Elite, where he allowed Don Callis to whisper dark thoughts in his ears on what he needed to prove, on how he needed to prove it, where he went from a young man who found his way to America and fell in love with Cinnabon to the Alpha of the Don Callis Family. What he found, time after time, was that no matter how much he proved himself to the world, there was always something else. He always came up unsatisfied. 

He rose all the way to IWGP Champion, but he was overshadowed by Okada when he walked in to the Tokyo Dome to defend his title. Even that might have been fine; Okada was a legend after all, but despite being stablemates, Okada rubbed salt into the wound again and again and again. Takeshita could find no peace. Then, finally, after defeating Okada for the International Title, his found family turned on him, his brother-in-arms Kyle Fletcher being the one to turn the knife. 

So he stands on his own, reconnected with the fans, holding the International Title once more, but in other, more important ways, alone in the world again.

Daniel Garcia is a very special wrestler. 

All of those things Takeshita has? Garcia's got none of them. He fails the airport test. His music hits and the fans don't quite pop, not really. He's stumbled from one identity to another (in character and out), picked up a sports entertainment dance, lost it. Tried to pop people with triple superplexes no matter how far away that his from his own personal true north. 

But.

Unlike almost everyone else in pro wrestling today, he's move over by the end of a match than he was at the beginning. 

We're trapped in a world where people are arguing that WWE matches should be shorter and entrances should be longer. That sort of world would drive Daniel Garcia to extinction. But he defies it. He gets people to care about what happens in the ring at every moment, not just finishes and looking to the back for run-ins. He gets them engaged in a way that has nothing to do with "This is Awesome" chants or even "bald" chants. 

Why? How? First, he's genuine. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He's relatable. He's not a big superhero. That's his strength. He's a guy who put in the work, who loves pro wrestling, who cares, who picked himself up from a car crash and dragged himself every step up the way to being on TV. You see it in his reactions. You see it in his face. What you see is what you get and in a world built upon fabrication, that stands out far more than any Phoenix Splash or Fosberry Flop ever could. Far more than any triple superplex might. 

Second, he's pays attention to details. He's going to stay on a body part, and when he falls off of it, it'll be due to a character reasons not just to enact some cooler spot. He's going to set something up to pay it off later. He's not going to meander on a side trip. He's not going to do something for the sake of it. He's not going to fall into excess (except for those self-conscious triple superplexes). The thing is, he has to pay attention to details. Other wrestlers can lean on athleticism and pop the crowd again and again and play to the 5* Observer checklist. Garcia can't, not better than them. So he has to build something that stands on his own instead. He builds matches that are timeless, that work in the moment and move the crowd in the right way, that will still work in thirty years even while those other ones fall to the wayside as athleticism continues to advance.

Putting Garcia and Takeshita together led to one of those matches that will stand the test of time.

Takeshita does best against contrast. You give him someone else who is explosive, who will push him to the physical limit, and it often all becomes noise. Garcia was going to push him to emotional limits, to push his body in far more single-minded, driven ways. 

Early on, Garcia's reactiveness gave Takeshita so much to work with. They chain-wrestled to start. Garcia fell prey to Takeshita's superior reach but pulled hair to get out of a headlock and made sure to flex when he turned it into a headscissors. But they both had a chip on their shoulders, and as Takeshita escaped, he stared Garcia down and smacked him on the chest, sending a message. Garcia returned the message, piefacing and paintbrushing Takeshita in the corner before smacking his chest. Then, when Takeshita tried to take off Garcia's head in the opposite corner for his affront, Garcia ducked out of the way. Takeshita held the pose, forearm against turnbuckle, for just long enough for it to sink in with the crowd, a great visual. And then, of course, Garcia ran right into a big boot, because in this match, he was a heel and when it comes time for it, he was the sort that stooges to make the star bigger.

Takeshita would go for the running boot again but this time Garcia scurried to the floor for a time-out. You could see the panic and hesitation on his face as he did so. He laid himself bare for the world, vulnerable, human. Takeshita gave chase and Garcia went all the way from one side of the ring to the other. When Takeshita made it out to the apron, stomping away, Garcia took the blows (which made this feel less like a planned spot and instead like something more organic, something so important, and something he's so good at), and used the ringskirt to trap Takeshita's leg. 

Garcia attacking the leg and most especially using it to cut Takeshita off would drive the rest of the match. Of course, Garcia did it as meanly as possible, a bulldog, a shark smelling blood. He placed it on a chair on the outside and just stood on it. He refused to reenter the ring until he twisted the ankle one last time. He countered Takeshita's cradle tombstone attempt by turning it into an ankle lock. Likewise with the Blue Thunder into an inexplicable but amazing STF. He caught the running knee and took advantage when Takeshita stumbled on another attempt. Even when he seemingly lost focus, like when he started to pop off push-ups right over Takeshita's knee, he pivoted quickly and turned the motion into a kneedrop to punctuate the final push-up (even as Mox left commentary to yell at him). Focused detail-work. Once upon a time, maybe, you could give the crowd some more rope to work with. With someone other than Garcia, maybe you can do that and even if they don't get entirely where you need them to be, they'll still get somewhere nice and happy. Garcia doesn't leave things to chance. He ties it all up in a bow and presents it to the world, to history itself, like a present. He did that here and Takeshita was happy to go along for the ride, selling, wincing, limping, struggling the whole way.

Which brings us to the real moment of comeback, the elephant in the room, that pile driver.

Oh there had been a hope spot or two first. Takeshita created some distance with strikes but as he turned to hit the ropes, Garcia took out the leg. Then, of course, was the Blue Thunder attempt, where no one expected Garcia to turn things over with a headlock. Garcia had been using the legwork to control the match as the great equalizer, but it was also a key to unlock a door, and he meant to go through it with his pile driver. Takeshita had jammed it once, but he couldn't jam it on the attempt that followed so quickly after. Garcia hit it clean.

And then time stopped. Takeshita slowly, painstakingly, drew his head back, locked eyes with Garcia, rose, struck him down. 

And that's the cardinal sin, right? To "no sell" a pile driver, one of the most sacred and profane of all moves. It's one thing if you're Hawk (maybe not a good thing) and it's one thing if you're Clon and use technique to dull the impact.

Takeshita is neither, but he is, maybe, just maybe, the one guy on the roster who, now and again, should get away with something like this. He's so tied to the notion of fighting spirit, of carrying all of that brooding, seething power within him. He has the size, the presence. He's larger than life. Now and again, so long as everyone else isn't doing it, so long as no one else is doing it, he should get to assert himself and take up all the air in the room.

Rules are structural. They create a foundation where someone like Daniel Garcia can succeed, where everyone does better and everything matters more, where the spectacular can be grounded and have meaning. But they also give people something to push off of now and again, when it makes sense, when it will have an impact, when it turns a wrestler into a star. 

Konosuke Takeshita is meant to be a star and Daniel Garcia is so good at what he does that he can help make someone a star. 

Just as important, the detail work was there. Garcia had targeted the leg the whole match, not the head, not the neck. Those were healthy, strong, vibrant. Garcia had unlocked the door but he hadn't done the legwork (figurative since he'd ONLY done leg work) to drag Takeshita through it. In a different match where there had been bomb after bomb, that might have played differently. I saw people complain about Takeshita's selling as he looked up and pulled himself together, but given the context of the match, it more or less worked for me. When you're breaking all the rules, you're treading new ground. It was a callback of sorts to Takeshita escaping the headscissors early in the match. It cost him something but was worth so much more. 

It didn't feel like that perfidious tendency that is "delayed selling" to me so much as an act of defiance, of assertion, of staking a claim to something greater in this world. 

Just this once, it worked for me. Maybe next time it will to so long as it's built well enough and sits well enough within a match. Like anything else in wrestling, it is entirely situational.

Things moved into a finishing stretch from there. Garcia escaped a Blue Thunder. He positioned Takeshita for that Superplex, but Takeshita countered, only for Garcia to turn his top rope lariat into an armdrag and then, ultimately the Dragon Tamer. It was a great spot because it didn't feel rote. It wasn't a signature spot. It was the character of Garcia adapting in the moment. And then, after landing, he let everything sink in for a moment, letting the crowd take a breath after what happened and before what was about to happen: The Dragon Tamer. 

It would ultimately fail (Garcia's wrench back is the ultimate gambit; it either works immediately or costs him the hold) and Garcia's second attempt to hit a tricked out takeover on Takeshita would fail as well. Konosuke, channeling his preternatural strength, held Garcia there clung to him as time stood still. He slapped his own leg to give it life once more, and managed to suplex Garcia over. The beginning of the end.

Wrestlers are not one size fit all. There's not only one way to be talented, to channel that talent, to connect with crowds, to create matches and moments that resonate with people. Konosuke Takeshita and Daniel Garcia bring very different attributes and skillsets to the table. When you put them together, however, you can create a unique sort of magic built out of contrast and driven by details, one that highlights everything that makes Takeshita special by being underpinned by everything that's special about Garcia.

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