2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston vs. Danielson CC Semi

 

2. Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson AEW Dynamite 12/27/23

ER: A couple weeks ago I wrote about Bryan Danielson's match earlier in the Continental Classic against Daniel Garcia, a very good match that somehow left me a bit uninspired. We're so used to seeing Danielson have the same kind of good matches that even liking his wrestling can still leave me dry. It's the least exciting result of anything you consume: when you are forced to honestly break it down into uninspiring technicalities. "I think that movie deserves an Oscar but I can't see ever watching it again" or "That pizza was good but I doubt I'll ever go out of my way to have it again" are perhaps internal looks in the mirror that you are not appreciating life enough, or perhaps you are too bored with having it so good. 

Maybe you deserve to go without for a stretch, to re-center, to realign. To learn to be thankful again. In my review of that Danielson/Garcia match I was more negative than I typically am when writing about something I thought was good enough to recommend, but I suppose there is always room for humdrum within nirvana. I said that Danielson couldn't just will himself to have a match like 2013 Cena or 2018 Brock with a He's Good wrestler like Daniel Garcia. He elevates matches with lower guys to a certain level, but gets transcendent against Legends. Big Match Danielson is so much better than Great Match Danielson. And while Eddie Kingston, my boy, is not a legend in the same way John Cena or Brock Lesnar are, he has never been more a pro wrestling legend than coming into this match. Other than after this match. Because that's the kind of run Kingston has been on, making each match feel like his biggest battle. 

Kingston's AEW run has been such a necessary late career revelation, crossing over to the biggest crowds of his life with a charisma that makes every next match feel like one of the most important matches of his career. He has denied haters and spoken directly out into TV screens, the best years of his life happening in his 40s. He knows how to connect with people, and Danielson knows how to transcend with others who can connect to crowds. Kingston can make moments out of anything - I enjoy every era of Kingston's career, even Shabby Hair and Beard Pandemic Depression Kingston and TNA Flak Jacket Kingston - but this is a man who knows how to shine especially bright in Big Matches. Danielson transcends to Legends, Kingston is one of the all time great Everyman Legends. 

This was a semi final in the Continental Classic and had real tournament implications, as a Kingston win meant he would be the one fighting for 3-7 of the various belts that AEW gives everyone upon completing a one year probationary period. But the great thing about the best Kingston matches - and this is certainly one of those - is that you can strip away any of the match's implications and the Kingston performance stands alone. This would have played just as big had Kingston already beaten Danielson a couple of times, or if there was not a straight-faced Larry Sweeney amount of fake belts on the line, because Kingston has that power. 

It would easy to say that this was Danielson's WWF UWFi style vs. Kingston's Kings Road, because both of those elements were there in the match-long build, but this felt like the first time I've seen these two work an Ikeda/Ishikawa match, and it was like this beautiful Venn diagram of three of the greatest Big Match styles. Danielson took after Eddie with the kind of surly glee that comes with the best Ikeda matches. Danielson grinned so many times the way Ikeda would when he would collapse Ishikawa with a kick, and Eddie is one of the most sympathetic salesman since Ishikawa. Eddie knows how to weather damage the way Ishikawa could, Eddie just sets up his comebacks like Kings Road and not like a Fujiwara Follower. Kingston catches Danielson several times the way Ikeda would get caught, when he would start having too much fun with his sadism that he ends up losing balance and control. I love when Danielson similarly commits too hard to something, enjoying the punishment too much, tipping control back when he goes harder than needed. I'm so glad the ringside camera got such a perfect angle of Danielson missing that running corner dropkick that led to Kingston fucking him up with a clothesline. What a shot. Eddie endured an Ishikawa level of punishment in this, maybe his defining AEW match. As if the match needed it to make his win feel like a big deal. This was the best of modern wrestling, while loudly shouting out the days of tape trading. 45 years of combined experience both in the ring and on the brain. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Danielson vs. Garcia

 

11. Bryan Danielson vs. Daniel Garcia AEW Rampage 12/8/23

ER: Matt already wrote an insanely in-depth analysis of this match back when it actually happened, touching on storyline elements that wouldn't have even crossed my mind while watching the match, and does one of my favorite wrestling review things (that I am mostly intellectually incapable of doing) which is to look inside - and perhaps beyond - the possible intentions of what two wrestlers were working towards. As in, reading Matt's reviews, I often find myself thinking that he knows more about the match stories and intentions behind structure and build than the actual wrestlers in the matches. Importantly, he manages to do so without ever coming off like he thinks he knows more than them. He can take visuals in front of him and apply meaning to them where, perhaps, the wrestlers themselves had no meaning, and gift them something deeper. Our brains all view wrestling slightly different, and Matt has an ability to go a bit deeper in viewing wrestling. My mostly useless little review is going to be more like "DaMn DaNiElSoN KiCkS HARD!!!!!"

It's safe to say I am likely spoiled by Bryan Danielson matches, because I am kind of tired of Bryan Danielson matches. They are so repeatedly good in so many similar ways that, stepping back from it, makes me wish we actually did get any of these Danielson Style Changes that he has been hinting at over the years. We get teased with different Danielsons but at the end of the day his matches still feel like the same quality of Danielson work we saw in 2013. We could have gotten full Danielson BattlArts - he is clever enough to work BattlArts style violently and safely - but we only get part of it and never the full commitment. We could have had maestro lucha Danielson, we know he's capable of doing compelling mat matches with some basing, but it has only been teased. These styles have been sacrificed at the altar of Reliably Great Matches. This was a great match, but to me these Great Danielson Matches have felt like by and large the same match for a very long time now. There are standouts and next level exceptions, but to me it feels like every Danielson match passes a certain quality line while staying below a next level experience. 

It's impossible to get to that level of the 2013 Cena or 2018 Brock match. You can't get to that level with a good wrestler like Garcia, and so, Danielson gets the Garcia match to his expected level. And yes, every single Danielson leg kick looked brutal, even match finishing. He was not holding back on Garcia's hamstring. Every hit looked severely damaging, and the match easily could have been built around Danielson just demolishing this leg. But it wasn't built like that, and instead the vicious kicks made every single miss look weaker and mapped out, not throwing misses anywhere near the same as he throws hits. But this isn't really a vet stomping out an upstart, it's more a vet who almost allows an upstart to try some things and then responds with something worse. When Garcia tries to mimic something Danielson did it never goes quite as effectively. It felt like too many things looked worthy of finishing the match, and I think the more they went to those extremes the more it weakened the match after. When Danielson hit a Gotch piledriver and rolled it into a triangle choke, ending with him holding a triangle while sitting on Garcia's chest and throwing punches...I don't know how that didn't end the match, let alone wind up leading to an entire third act after. It didn't come off - to me - like Garcia weathering and persevering, it felt like an escape that was necessary to continue the match and get to the other plans. 

There's been a distinct lack of selling in a lot of AEW Danielson matches, and he tends to encourage it from his opponents too. When Garcia was leaning allllll the way back on the "Dragontamer", making Danielson's heels touch his ass, I was left wondering what damage at all he had weathered. Nothing Danielson did seemed to have any effect on Garcia, and vice versa. Anything done to accumulate damage, didn't. The effective things were the ways they left themselves open, like Garcia leaving his chin open during that Dragontamer, allowing Danielson to hook it. The damage didn't ever seem to lead to anything, but the openings while delivering damage lead to the best parts of the match. In the theme of paying receipts back more viciously, Danielson delivers his trapped arm stomps to the jaw FAR meaner, and I love this meanness. I guess I just wish this meanness felt like it was in service to something bigger, and not in service to checking off the list of things happening in his Great Matches. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Orange Cassidy vs. Angelico

 

21. Orange Cassidy vs. Angelico AEW Rampage 12/8/23

ER: I'm not sure I could have possibly predicted how much of a Modern Orange Cassidy Lover I have become. I am old and much more forgetful than I used to be, but I cannot think of another wrestler who went from one of my least favorite guys on the scene to one of my absolute favorites to watch. If Doc Brown had shown up at my house with a dot matrix print out of AEW's 23/24 roster and asked me to guess My Future Favorites, it would have been pretty easy to quickly pool Darby, Danielson, and Kingston. That hasn't changed. But I'm not sure how I would have explained to myself that in the future we will come to love Orange Cassidy. Liking Trent Beretta is one thing (I do), Wheeler Yuta is another (his improvement isn't a real shock I guess), but I really did not like Orange Cassidy. My hate for him was the kind of hate that was coupled with him as the masthead of a whole Type of wrestling I did not like. 

Every time I write about OC I am still framing it around my actual shock that he connects with me as much as he does, but I shouldn't be shocked anymore. It's been too consistent. I was probably on board with OC by the pandemic Jericho match, but that felt like me occasionally liking a Johnny Gargano match rather than me coming around on his style and gimmick. But now he is must watch for me, a perfect babyface. Maybe I like Jefferson Starship more than Pixies and that shifted my mental balance. Maybe my tastes have changed so much that I no longer recognize my tastes. I don't know. But I'm great at recognizing just what works for me, and he works. 

He's just an excellent babyface, and that's that. He defies the odds such, that here I am writing about a truly enjoyable match against one of the Top 50 IWRG Wrestlers of 2010 and plenty of Danhausen at ringside. If this is slop, I guess I'm a slop swiller now. I liked every little part, even the stupid stuff. I loved OC tying up Angelico's arms and the exhibition rope running and avoidance they started with, the fighting over Angelico keeping Cassidy's hands out of his pockets, and the 1-2 of Orange finally getting those hands in his pockets but hurting his knee while showing off. The pocket hands headscissors looked great, the knee buckle on the pocket hands kip-up perhaps even better. 

Angelico's work on Cassidy's knee was good, and I loved the way Cassidy was able to sell that leg convincingly while still hitting big offense. It's not easy to sell well while still building to the hot part of the match, and while I don't need every match to feature someone limping around and grabbing at their knee, I like when Cassidy does a limb selling match. Angelico had some great asshole stuff on OC's leg: running around the ring to kick his leg out, knocking him back on his face with an inside ankle kick after Orange had just fought to his feet, twisting hard into the Grapevine, and an awesome moment where he lifted Orange for a knee breaker and instead ran him knee first into the top turnbuckle (spinning him around nicely into a back suplex). Would I have wanted less of Danhausen and Serpentico at ringside? Probably. But I liked when Serpentico was throwing punches at Cassidy's kneecap, and the payoff to Danhausen punching Serpentico in the dick was well done. Angelico's fall after catching the Orange Punch right after is a beauty, takes it on the chin and goes sideways and stiff on the fall. I eat-a the slop now. It's delicious. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston vs. Danielson

 

Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson AEW Collision 12/2/23

ER: I think what I liked about this match, their second AEW singles match and third overall (2010 Chikara hosting the other), is the way a lot of it didn't live up to my internal hype. That's possibly on me, or it's possibly on two guys who know how to build individual hype to every singles match they have regardless of opponent. Kingston and Danielson are perhaps so big at this point that a match against each other is something they're almost too big for. I'm not going to be able to explain this well. This review is going to be worthless. Danielson vs. Kingston is such a Dream Match between two guys who have constantly risen to that level over the last 20 years, that I think it's bound to underwhelm by virtue of it being Too Big a Dream Match. Their own individual stories are big enough that they don't really need a story for them to have a Great Match. 

Against each other they have been involved in nothing but great stories and cool matches - the ROH/CZW Cage of Death, the last Chikara King of Trios weekend I went out of my way to watch, Anarchy in the Arena - and yet the expectations every time for a singles match is that it will somehow be better than those things. On paper, Kingston and Danielson are probably my two favorite AEW guys (non-Darby Allin Division) and yet I think their best use might be against others. Give me a showdown between Aaron Judge and Ranger Suarez and odds are that the result won't be very satisfying for those rooting for either. Judge likely won't hit a 460' HR, Suarez will likely get them to fly out, or it will be a walk and well, nobody will leave the at bat thinking they actually saw something too special. 

I don't think this match was a home run, I don't think it was a ground out, I thought it was good. Good in a way that won't be able to live up to the myths these two have created in very different ways over the last couple decades. The things I was hoping to play out, never really came up. During the opening Collision promos, Eddie said, "I don't care about your eye, I don't care about your arm, I'm gonna bust you up." And during the entire episode - this match was the Collision main event - Nigel McGuiness was on commentary calling Danielson "Brittle Bryan" and a couple other nicknames that I actually think really added to the hype, that Danielson is so broken down and hiding so many injuries, that now he's fighting a guy who really wants to batter him in any way he can....and then neither guy really worked the match within any of those story frames. Danielson - eye patch not withstanding - didn't really come off broken in any way. I don't think he wrestled any differently here than he has in any other AEW match. Sure, he looked hurt after taking certain moves, but hurt by Kingston the same way Kingston always hurts his opponent. I did not see any kind of built up long term Kikuchi-level selling from Danielson - I thought he seemed far more concerned about adjusting his eye patch than he did actually selling accumulated damage or damage accrued from this match - and while I think Eddie went hard after him where he could, I never got the sense he was seeking to batter Danielson. 

Look, they hit and kicked the hell out of each other, and I loved the way they did it. I appreciated it, even. Every single kick Danielson threw at King's shin looked like he was legit trying to break his tibia. Eddie was checking the leg kicks really well, but also in a way that looked like he was getting his leg fucked up. That looked like Danielson had heard Kingston talk about battering him up, and decided to keep him at bay and slow him down for later in the match. And, when Kingston threw a stiff-legged enziguiri late in the match, looking like he had no mobility in his leg at all, it blew up on Danielson as I don't know if I've seen King hit a better enziguiri. They battered each other up in a mostly expected way, and while I'm not sure it could ever live up to a Danielson/Kingston Match in My Specific Brain in 2023, it also aired on the same night that Brody King and Claudio Castagnoli kept insisting on throwing the downright worst forearm exchanges of the month so they looked extra good by comparison. Eddie Kingston getting his arms, chest, and legs bruised and knotted up is going to look so much better. Brody King is bigger than Scott Norton and he throws forearms like Action Andretti. Bryan Danielson is smaller than Action Andretti and throws kicks like Frank Shamrock. 

I like seeing Lion's Den Danielson and 1999 All Japan Kingston. I like the way those styles work and don't, and I like how they would have done a totally different match 5 years ago, or 10 years ago. What year would been the best year of their respective careers for this match to happen? It happened in 2010, but I think it would have been better in 2008 or 2012. I would have loved it in 2002 but it would have been so different. What's the worst year for it to have happened? One of the Danielson brain injury years I guess. But there's a chance 2023 is the very best year of their careers for them to meet like this. I like Eddie throwing backfists and chops as hard as possible into Danielson's neck and taking painful rigid body suplexes. Big Match Kingston is different from My Body Is So Injured Everywhere Kingston and it felt good to see him slug it out without having to limp, hold his back, or shake out an arm the entire time. 

It's hard to imagine these two doing something that wouldn't be worth watching and writing up. I just don't think I know what the best version of their match would look like. Is this it, or is there more? It feels like there is still more to explore, and some of those things I assumed would be explored here.  

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Santana Breaks Up With Ortiz

 

20. Mike Santana vs. Ortiz AEW Rampage 10/27

ER: We don't get that many matches that are blowing off an actual real life breakup. This is probably the least you could do in a Good version of one of those rare matches, but we don't get many specifically-reasoned real world-kayfabe world blowoffs like this so the match existing is already kind of interesting enough to make it good. No matter what they did in this match, there would be some kind of psychological implications or the opportunity to project psychological implications onto them due to their situation. 

Santana and Ortiz were one of the best tag teams of the 2020s, Jersey indy guys who became a consistent highlight and major part of AEW. They were in the literal main event of the first episode of Dynamite, against the guys with an ownership stake in the company! Stadium Stampedes, the Parking Lot Fight, Anarchy in the Arena, Blood & Guts, all great fights that are among the best matches in AEW history, and these two were real highlights of them all. But, they got bogged down in AEW roster bloat, relegated to being not even the featured tag team in their stable, never sniffing the tag titles, a total miss for reasons I don't know. Still, it was a good steady gig. 

But Santana wanted more out of work and life - which is an impossible thing to not respect - and Ortiz wanted to keep the guaranteed gig, and they had a normal real life disagreement like men. If you are exclusively a tag team wrestler with one man for over a decade, you have ceased being a pro wrestling tag team and become an actual real life partnership. You are married, you are in a band that constantly tours together, you have never been in a car for more hours than you have with this person, you are a full on real partnership. And, if you start wanting different things than your long time partner wants, the only fair way to proceed is for both of you to be 100% honest with each other about your wants and needs. Santana wanted his fake first name back, Ortiz was happy with his last name and his place in life, and so two men came to the end of the trail. 

But at the end of the trail they got to officially implode their partnership and their AEW deals with a No DQ match on television. When it ended, it didn't really feel like the blow off of a 10 year + partnership, but they had some nice peaks where the emotion suddenly went from lurking to out in the open. It's a fun show-off singles match between two guys who rarely had singles matches, which is kind of an oddity in itself. Santana and Ortiz were in AEW for 5 years and literally 95% of their matches were tags with each other. They aren't singles match guys at this point. Now they're done. Santana has been out with a knee injury, Ortiz has been off television, and now they're back having their last AEW singles match. 

For a match with a real life disagreement and break up at its core, I don't think it lived up to the possibilities. It didn't deliver for me like their tag matches regularly delivered, and those didn't have any drama attached. This is a tag team having their first and only singles match, and too much of it felt like any two guys on this roster having a 10 minute singles match on Rampage. Now maybe Santana's 2024 singles matches have been really great, I haven't seen them, but I know for a fact they were really good at tag team wrestling. This is singles match wrestling with potentially emotional and violent stipulation, and too much of it felt like the exact same match Jack Perry would have had with Juice Robinson. So that sucks. 

BUT the moments that actually met the gravity of their team's collapse were when this actually went into something beyond. Beyond move trading, beyond strike trading, suddenly it felt like two guys who had been waiting to hit each other. Like they had been waiting a really, really long time to start teeing off on each other, and it turned a fairly typical TV No DQ match into something better. I'd be hard pressed to name too many "fight from your knees" exchanges or the best standing slap exchanges because they are things that usually make their matches worse. Here it was those played out stand-off moments that made this match worth writing about. Trash can lids and kendo sticks don't much thrill me anymore, but knuckle punches into foreheads will always thrill me; two brothers throwing fast slaps without holding back will always thrill me. Those punches and slaps were what I will remember about this. They were finally working the proper emotion for the important occasion. 

Plenty of things here looked good - Ortiz getting suplex off the apron onto a pile of chairs he pulled out, the way he theatrically went vertical for Santana's rolling cutter, the way Santana went hard on a short arm clothesline or his winning sitout powerbomb, even just the way Ortiz started lightly jogging to loosen up his body after getting a nearfall - but Santana stepping up with actual passion, demanding to be set free, was what brought emotion to a match that should have been overflowing with it. Santana did not want to be part of a team any longer, and when he was throwing slaps with both arms it looked like that was exactly what was being communicated. Ortiz didn't shake his hand after the match. This wasn't what he wanted. He was happy, he was content, and his face after the match was not one of a content man. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Eddie vs. Komander

 

13. Eddie Kingston vs. Komander AEW Collision 10/7

ER: I really love the Eddie Kingston King's Road era, and I think it's partly because I'm happy that Kingston got to last long enough in pro wrestling to have the clout to do a King's Road era. A lot of us are of the age where we backyarded (or cleared space in the All Japan matches we didn't understand, and Kingston is a tape trader who lasted long enough to get to do it well. I love what he does, I love his influences, and I love the way his influences are represented. It's so cool that Kingston lasted long enough to be a Dream Match Wrestler they want to put in styles clashes. Kingston came up on this. I go stretches of not thinking about Eddie Kingston as a Chikara Original because he's so obviously spiritually aligned with 2001 Jersey All Pro. I laugh my ass off thinking about Eddie Kingston now - my favorite wrestler to watch on TV if Darby Allin wasn't on that episode of TV - working Komander, because 20+ years later Kingston just gets to wrestle the best possible version of Jolly Roger. We've seen a lot of Kings Road and puro Kingston, and it just feels good to see him have a really great Chikara Kingston match. AEW's roster is filled with the best of the Chikara Guys Who Made It Through, like Orange Cassidy, Claudio, Evil Uno, and plenty of good or even great guys who would have been Chikara Guys, like Dante and Darius Martin or Komander. I'm saying, there is a shocking amount of Chikara influence all over AEW TV, in a way that tightens the match quality and drops almost all of the constant Sex Pest vibes. 

This was different than a lot of my favorite Eddie matches of the last several years, because this is the first time in ages I went in knowing Eddie was going to win. I knew it would be a fun match, I knew Eddie was going to give Komander a fun match, and I knew Kingston was winning. What took my fandom of Kingston to the next level several years ago was when he just became a guy I actually wanted to win. He is great at losing but he is fun at winning, but there is always strife and always a fight. This match promised no Real fight, just fun, and it was a real great version of that match. I like Komander, and he was ON here. Not only did his flying look great - that torpedo dive over the corner with the perfect Eddie catch, or that in-ring tornillo that hit video game flush - but I was surprised at how good he looked in a style clash strike exchange. I knew it was going to be fun when Kingston hit a little guy, but I forget that Eddie is maybe even better at selling for little guys' strikes as he is going to war with a guy who can actually hit harder that he. But he was so good at getting in front of Komander's flurries, great at missing his shots, great at hitting his shots. When Komander chopped him and Kingston made a fun loud sound like they both knew he caught Komander fucking up, it made every chop after that excited OOO sound even better. I don't think Kingston ever caught luchadors - real or fake - better in Chikara than he did here, and Komander would have been a top 20 guy in Chikara, so the fact everything hit so well here thrilled me. Eddie Kingston, knowing he was going to win, laughing at Komander and getting surprised by Komander, 10 minutes fucking flat. One of those matches where you can be proud of 2002 indy wrestling's modern influence, which is one of the main things that AEW has been so good at delivering. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston vs. Yuta

 

Eddie Kingston vs. Wheeler Yuta AEW Dynamite 8/30/23

ER: I started this out writing "I don't think I have ever Bought In on Wheeler Yuta before..." but I think I said almost the exact same thing about him in the great BCC vs. Dark Order trios from 3/15, so at this point maybe I should just say "I buy into Wheeler Yuta, especially when he is working with or against some of my all time favorite wrestlers". That is still being probably too unfair to Yuta, but it is also tough for me to determine just how good someone is when they are the opposing force to a classic Eddie Kingston Crumbling Body match. We get a lot of Bad Back Kingston and not as much Sharp Pain In My Elbow Kingston, and it is a treat. I buy into Eddie having a sore elbow, and I buy into Wheeler doing things to make it more sore, and I fully buy into Eddie doing things that would make his own sore elbow worse. 

Eddie Kingston has a relatable way of selling big or small injuries. We are all old and we all have aches and pains depending on the day. My personal day to day aches come from much less interesting things, but just the other week my right elbow was sore Just Because, and it bugged me all day. I couldn't move a computer mouse without this thing screaming out a tiny bit, and yet I had to keep using this elbow for every single thing that I did. I was not adapting to using my right handed mouse with my left hand, I was just resigned to spending the day flexing and stretching and shaking out my arm every time I got a little sting. Eddie Kingston is that relatable Dumb Man, someone who gets some dental work done and pokes and chews at his novocaine'd cheek while he can't feel anything and then deals with the consequences later once that novocaine relief is gone. King comes into the match with a big head bandage and his right elbow taped up, and after an engaging, combative lock up, Yuta wastes no time going after that arm. 

Yuta then works almost the entire match in control, in a way that clearly shows that he is always one move away from no longer being in control. Yuta does real, constant damage to Kingston, but everyone does that. That's not what made his match stand out. What made it stand out to me is a confidence that was never present in Yuta. He worked this match not like he could beat Eddie Kingston, but like he knew he was going to. I expected cool flash from him, like that sick tornado single arm DDT that looked like it popped Kingston's elbow, but I was more fascinated by little moments like the way he threw Eddie's arm bandage into the crowd after ripping it off. This was Yuta working like a man who wins fucking fights, and after the way he looked throwing that bandage I actually thought he had a real chance at winning this. Yuta was always someone who could "do the moves" but he always came off like a guy who just wanted to do those moves, not like a guy who embodied those moves. Here, I bought it. The way he would bait Kingston into using that bad arm for chops knowing that the chops would hurt, but more importantly knowing that he could absorb them to then do more damage back, driving knees into Eddie's arm and elbow and running him hard into the ringpost. 

Kingston's big comeback was great, and sudden, and clubbing One Hit that sent Yuta ass over elbow to the floor and then a tremendous emotional tope. It doesn't bring Kingston out of the woods, but he's a momentum guy, and I liked the small changes Yuta made when Kingston started being fueled by momentum. He was still going to be able to catch the arm and fire elbows into that and into Kingston's face, and he was able to pull out Classic Goofy Yuta Offense and scrape by...for awhile. I am vocal about my real hatred for rope rebound offense, but Yuta desperately dipping into his Indy Reserve Offense to swing outside of the ring by the bottom rope - very stupid - only to swing back in and juke Kingston into a German suplex, is a fine example of Yuta tricking King into thinking he's still an indy goof and using his reaction against him. King lunged forward and Yuta's rebound while Yuta was ducking that lunge into a go behind. 

I love when Kingston starts to Blunt Object an injured body part, like how he straightens out that hurt arm to blast Yuta with a corner clothesline, and how you know, Yuta knows, we all know how he's going to go for that backfist. Yuta's selling down the stretch was excellent and it totally made the finish something special. The momentum had shifted but Yuta never showed a hint of panic, and he looked like a guy who would win right up until his knees got wobbled. Kingston bounces him off his neck with a nasty suplex and rolls Yuta up directly into a backfist that bows Yuta's legs inward. Yuta knows it's over in the same exact way we've seen Kingston realize when something is over, and so Yuta stands up in Kingston's face showing him that he can take at least one, and there was still that slight chance that he was bating King one last time...but if he was baiting him, Kingston snatched that bait clean off the hook. Yuta sold the match ending backfist perfectly, dropping to his back and side with a thud, body rigid, arms tucked to his side and chin slumped to his chest, a man who has studied enough World Star street knockouts to understand how to bow to a King. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby & Orange vs. Swerve & Keith (Lee)

 

11. Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs. Keith Lee/Swerve Strickland AEW Dynamite 7/5

ER: I didn't consciously set out to write about every Darby Allin match I haphazardly cherry-picked my way through, but it's certainly become that. It would be great if I could just watch a Darby match that I didn't feel the need to say something about. Alas, he does too many things I like, finds too many ways to do new twists on old crash landings, and manages to do something every match that is astonishing enough that it makes me exclaim aloud. When compared to any of the other wrestlers who make me do the same on such a consistent basis during nearly every match of theirs I watch - Stan Hansen, Fit Finlay, Necro Butcher were the first that came to mind - it puts Allin in the immediate company of my favorite wrestlers of all time. It is still probably too soon to say that Darby Allin is one of my favorite all time wrestlers, but he's certainly put up some numbers through his 20s and I've been persistently surprised by his sustainability. There are only so many times I can say that before his run is cemented as legendary, regardless of when it ends. 

I've written up plenty of matches that I thought were Darby elevating one or even three opponents to something grander, but I think one of his great strengths is how selflessly he interjects his stunts and feats. Darby Allin manages to take Shane McMahon stunt bumps in a way that is in service to his opponent, never to himself as a Show Stopper. At this point there is a lengthy list of people who have had some of their greatest performances and matches while in the role of Darby Allin Opponent, and that is not a coincidence. Darby is a canvas that allows wrestlers of all sizes and styles to rise to something greater, in the same way Rey Mysterio or even Amazing Red did. 

Keith Lee is one of our great Should Be So Much Better wrestlers. He is a study of a man shaped like a root beer barrel who mostly works the least interesting style for his size and shape, a Mo Vaughn who bunts and works walks with men in scoring position. Swerve has a CVS receipt length list of matches where his focus was on doing a cool one armed handstand before hitting a move rather than just hitting a move, a John Morrison with more thigh slaps and less backspins. This match, surely not coincidentally against Star Maker Allin, was Lee and Swerve working to their full potential. This was a typically great show opening Darby Allin performance, with a constantly pushed pace getting one-upped all the way to the finish, laying things out to the strengths of every person involved. Keith Lee was Donkey Kong instead of a man the size of Trent Williams doing rope running reversals. His Only On Darby biel to start the match set a tone that every Lee match should have. Darby and Orange played off Lee perfectly, using him as a rock climbing gym who could throw them, and I love how their team works as one man split into two attacking beings, attacking in 1-2 flurries, one sacrificing his body so the other might have an opening to land a shot. 

Lee focuses too often on agility, Orange and Darby made him focus on power. He looks more powerful than ever with Allin getting ragdolled over ringposts and bouncing violently on throws. He brings interesting dogged struggle to stopping OC's constant attempts at diving DDTs or Slumdogs, and his lack of neck makes him impervious to backpack sleepers. Swerve forgets about matching athleticism with Darby, instead focusing on hitting him hard and torturing him. Swerve wedging Darby under the ring steps so that Lee (carrying Cassidy on his back) can walk up the steps while Darby screams like he's slowly being crushed in an industrial press? That's four men coming together to creatively inflict pain on a masochist babyface icon. 

I loved OC climbing all over Lee, attempting to drag him down by the neck while kicking his legs against Lee's resistance, before finally holding Lee stooped over with two consecutive Slumdogs, setting up an actual plausible way for a man Lee's size to bump for a Darby code red. Lee hadn't taken a bump all match and they found a complicated set up that could have looked bad at every step, and instead built to the most logical use of a Keith Lee Agile Bump. The finish is Darby and Orange as Santo and Casas: OC diving off the top with a leaping DDT that spikes Swerve onto his head while sending himself running and diving straight through the ropes into a the exact same DDT on Lee, while Darby ensnares the spiked Swerve in a Last Supper. It's a great twist on Santo's rolling senton/tope, taking out the man on the floor while Casas majistrals the man left in his wake. I don't seek to keep comparing Darby Allin with the greatest names in wrestling history, but he sure does make it easy. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Cage

7. Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage AEW Rampage 8/11 

ER: Maybe one day I will tire of watching Darby Allin fall in ways I don't think the human body should fall, but this tunnel is black with no sign of any light at the end. Darby Allin appears to not just lean into bad landings, he seems to relish aiming the plane directly at them. I can't get past it. Darby has this Low Ki precision to his landings, but Low Ki's landings were works of athletic physics that made his body spring across the mat and ropes with a violent control. Darby seems to have the same incredible control but opts to make his landings worse. When Prince Nana clotheslines his legs out from him on the top rope, there were dozens of ways he could have take a great-but-less-painful bump; he didn't have to get swept onto the back of his head from that high up, but he constantly seeks to aim the plane beyond the runway. That's important in a match with Brian Cage. Darby is the most ideal opponent for Cage, and again I must state that it is no coincidence that the AEW roster works UP to Allin. When Brian Cage asks himself "How do I view myself as a pro wrestler?" you can bet that he views himself as the guy throwing Darby's ass around in this match. If you wrote out The Whole Basic Idea of Brian Cage it would read like this match. Darby Allin allows wrestlers to achieve their full potential. 

I used to think Cage was a doofus who did too much and not enough at the same time, but he somehow means more to me in 2024 than ever. He's a real dummy, and I need gassed to the fucking gills lunkheads wearing silver face paint in wrestling. I need a freak with a distended HGH belly that leaves him prone for an apron Coffin Drop. Of course all of Cage's offense wouldn't be possible without a willing opponent, but I've seen plenty of guys hold back with very willing opponents, and Cage does not do that. That's important. I knew I would be writing about this match the moment Cage stopped a full speed Darby tope with a shoulderblock, like he was setting a screen against a guy on a moped. Darby bounces extra hard on every landing, and Cage throws him into landings that deserve that bounce. The way Cage threw himself into his inside-out vertical suplex from the middle buckle, running through a table like he was jumping into a swimming pool while wearing a Darby Backpack, and throwing Allin so hard into the turnbuckles that Darby hit them as fast as possible, sideways, on his neck, just seemed like what would happen if you were thrown by Brian Cage at his Fullest Powers. Darby Allin makes Brian Cage look like an Essential Worker. Darby Allin is a boon to American Prosperity, making everyone's dreams possible. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: AEW PARKING LOT BRAWL 2

 

13. Trent Beretta/Chuck Taylor vs. Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley AEW Rampage 8/4/23

ER: This is the second Best Friends Parking Lot match, and if the Height of the Pandemic words I wrote about the first one are to be believed, I thought that one was one of the best matches of the year. That one was against LAX, who doesn't exist anymore. This one is against Blackpool Combat Club, who didn't exist then but is as good and as watchable as LAX was then. But this wasn't as good as that and I know that even though I couldn't tell you one clear detail of that first match which I loved if you had a gun to my face, I would guess, but it would be a lie and I would spend some days unexpectedly suddenly afraid that I cheated death and would someday be forced to pay back double. That first match was the first match Chuck Taylor was a part of that I thought was great. Now it's a couple years later and he has the dark red cheeks of a man with lupus and it reminds us all how we've aged since our last parking lot fight a couple years ago. 

This match knew what it was, in a way that hurt it. It didn't have the freshness or the element of surprise that the original had. This was violent - Trent Beretta essentially got busted open good in the first few seconds - but had this weird approach where everything that happened in the parking lot was equally damaging as anything else that happened in the parking lot. Selling is less important to me in matches where guys are just taking "real" bumps. But this felt long in ways the other one didn't, moving at a pace that was like the match walking alongside itself. Getting hit with a spoiler was about the same as getting piledriven on the roof of a KIA which was about the same as getting powerbombed through a windshield. The price was about 3 seconds. It felt like they were on an itinerary. But also Trent Beretta tried to recreate the legendary Real Parking Lot Fight where Cliff Booth threw Bruce Lee into the side of a Lincoln Continental. 

Really it's the Trent Beretta match. That's why we watch this. We love Claudio doing strong man spots in a junkyard brawl, we love Moxley bleeding almost as quickly as Trent, but Beretta is the guy doing the spots you want to see on cars. That cannon ball into the side of the car was sick, Claudio press slammed him on top of a car, he got slammed inside the engine and stayed inside as Taylor was powerbombed on the hood, he gets bombed through a windshield, Claudio swings him into the head of one of those big yard waste bins, and every time he fought back his offense it was just him taking the same awful falls only offensively instead of defensively. He drove this forward and his body kept taking the most real bumps on concrete and cars and then getting right back up to do it again. I don't give a shit about his mom. Chuck Taylor siphoning gasoline should have led to something special - and I'm not looking up whether Taylor actually siphoned like a divorced dad who hates his wife's new boyfriend, because I believed he was that man; eyes flaring redder than his rosacea cheeks, he thought only of his hallway that used to be lined with pictures. But a man siphoning gasoline shouldn't lead to the weakest stretch of the match, not when guys are out there killings themselves. 

Trent Beretta is a guy who I just realized has three different Tags on our site because I've spelled his name differently three different times. But I thought he was so good in this match that it made me take the time to go back and fix all of the times we tagged him as Trent Barretta. I didn't have the energy to update the ones that just used Trent. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Danielson vs. Rush

 

2. Bryan Danielson vs. Rush AEW Dynamite 2/8/23

ER: Whatever happens in the future for AEW, whether they go on to have a TNA-length run - only with actual success - or something bad happens and they lose TNT/TBS and wind up on Freevee, I think it will always be impressive in hindsight that they were the ones who best captured the Dream Match phenomenon that founded ROH in 2002. The Dream Match is something that should have a limited shelf life - and surely does - but AEW has made it seem like a fresher concept than anything since those early super indy years. Their fans respond to Dream Matches, AEW themselves know how to present them as Dream Matches, and the growing number of actual cool first time/only time matches that have already happened there is a surprisingly resistant list. Danielson vs. Rush wasn't really a match I had considered as a Dream Match, even though I've championed each man since early on in each of their respective career's. But the second Danielson ran down to the ring and Rush started stomping him out in dazzling gold boots and black attire, this felt like a Dream Match that I've wanted to see for a decade.

It's great. It's excellent. It's a match I literally never thought once about happening, and the second it was happening I wanted to see nothing more. Some Danielson matches have the tendency to play like favorite matches from my own wrestling history. Whether or not that's because Danielson and I have similar tastes in wrestling or I'm just projecting my own favorites onto him, who's to say, but Rush walking away from Danielson's tope only to get hit past the ringpost with an even harder tope is like Danielson distinctly showing us he's recreating El Hijo del Santo vs. LA Park from Monterrey and I don't think that's accidental. Danielson taking an overhead belly to belly to the floor is like a classic NOAH big show main event spot, except Our Pillars were almost never dripping plasma the way Danielson was while flying off the apron and certainly never splashed said blood across the camera lens on the way down. Because you see, Danielson started bleeding a lot really early on after Rush kicked him into a chair and the guardrail. It's arguably not the most dickish thing Rush even did, as he also kicked a bunch at his kinesio tape and chopped away at Danielson's pectoral that's connected to the kinesio'd shoulder, and he knows how to look like a real ass while doing it.  

A fun thing about the best Dream Match wrestling matches is when they make you wonder things like "Is Danielson the hardest kicker Rush has ever faced?" Nakamura wasn't kicking him as hard as Danielson does here. Or, "Is Rush the hardest chopper Danielson has ever faced?" I sure haven't seen Danielson shying away from chops 10 minutes into a match the way he did here against Rush, although I guess I don't know how damaged his shoulder or body was in other matches. How about, "Is this the hardest Rush has ever gone after anyone?" Maybe a couple dozen LA Park matches are in contention here but at worst this is Rush "not holding back" to the level of his best Park fights. The headbutt exchange coming so many years - literal decades - after the earliest Danielson concussion worries plays almost surreally. I've gone through more than one phase of "I don't want to see Danielson wrestle anymore because I am worried about his health" that by this point I have ceased to worry and have just accepted him as a Randy the Ram who merely knows how to present himself as "smarter and more elevated than that". Thus, I am now unburdened, free to laugh like a sicko at the way Danielson collapses after Rush asks him to punch him in the neck, and Rush hits him back twice as hard. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Dustin vs. Swerve

 

10. Dustin Rhodes vs. Swerve Strickland AEW Rampage 2/15 (Aired 2/17/23)

ER: I don't know how he keeps doing it. At the time, I didn't know Dustin was only in his late 20s during his heavy schedule years as Goldust. That was half his and half my life ago, and he wasn't taking Death Valley Drivers on the ring apron then. He's an old dude and he keeps surprising us. A 6'6" great actor is almost a curse. It doesn't matter how good Tim Robbins or Jeff Goldblum are, it makes everything tough when your leading man is a foot taller than everyone. Liam Neeson's wife and family die in every movie so he can just be 6'5" alone in every scene. Dustin is a 6'6" old guy who is somehow a perfect opponent for every style opponent. I guess shooting guard bodies age with more grace than center bodies, but seeing Attitude era Dustin I wouldn't have guessed he'd be this adaptable into his 50s. Swerve is a talented guy who sometimes shovels a ton of bullshit onto things that don't need shoveling, and I let out a loud HA when Dustin just kick stopped some kind of slow motion handstand capoeira to hit an all time Code Red. 

Fighting Dustin made Swerve cut down on the bullshit and just kick and stomp on a seeping cut, raking his wrist tape across it to cover his arm deep red. I wish Dustin had been wearing all white instead of all red; it's like he was trying to cover up how much he was bleeding. He doesn't even need to bleed to draw sympathy, but he hides his blood showing he doesn't need such gimmicks; he bleeds for his love of the boys in the back. Dustin fucking slaps Swerve a couple of times. I like that Swerve's offense doesn't hit as hard as Dustin's. He's taking his shots and walking through them, an old man winning a gym game 10-8 over a young guy who keeps claiming he was shot from cardio day. I could never see Swerve do a handstand again, but I love how good he is at different angled spikes on his head. He'll take piledrivers, Code Reds, suplexes, a Cross Rhodes, all of it bouncing on or around the top of his head. Every nearfall worked. Retirement will never happen. Dustin is Satanico. The Code Red will get adorably slow but gracefully old but his uppercuts will be exactly the same. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby/Orange vs. Gates of Agony

 

7. Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs. Toa Liona/Bishop Kaun AEW Dynamite 5/31

ER: Yeah, I'm pretty in the bag for Darby Allin matches and I can't see what can drag me out of the bag at this point. I was a huge Spike Dudley fan and that was without Spike running as fast and hard into his opponents as possible. Spike sprinted headlong into danger like few else, while Darby does exactly the same, somehow endures the punishment, then throws his own body as a weapon. He is weapon and he is a projectile and he has the ability to be thrown so hard that I can only watch captivated while not thinking of a day where his body while suddenly shatter into a million pieces. Darby Allin is a supernova who will explode into stardust while doing something stupid like getting pounced out of the air on a tope en reversa or being dropped back first onto the top turnbuckle. Nobody gets blown up like Darby, nobody offers as much of himself in recompense, nobody but Darby has issue taking as much punishment during his opponents' swarms as during his own triumphs. Imagine if Ricky Morton had also murdered himself during his end of match comebacks, or if Spike Dudley's matches had finished not with a cooperative bulldog but with him throwing his own body even more violently into his opponent than they had just been throwing him. 

I liked Bishop Kaun's match against Dustin a couple weeks before this, but I liked it because I thought it was Another Excellent Dustin Match where he bled a ton for no real reason on a B-show and thought Kaun could have been just as well have been 50 other guys on the roster. It was a Dustin match and Kaun was interchangeable. Here, with two smaller opponents, Kaun and Toa looked exactly like the monsters they're championed as. They leaned in for all of Darby's blows and because of the size difference, Darby got to hit them as hard as possible. Darby is fearless, and the sequences where he slaps Toa across the face and then pays for that for the next couple minutes is key to everything. Kaun whipping Darby into railings while Toa sprints around the ring to upend OC, running almost so hard that he nearly flies into the crowd himself; later you can see Darby running full speed back and forth into the corners to send all his weight into these beasts, and you can see the rag in their faces as they get suckered into running after him just as hard. I love moments like Darby using an Irish whip to knock Kaun off the apron, even though it slows him down enough to leave him prone for a nasty Toa hip attack. 

The timing of everything was  - and seemingly always is - so good when Darby is in there directing traffic with his adamantium skeleton. The way he smacks Toa around with back elbows and ducks a big swinging arm just in time for OC to hit the Orange Punch, allowing Darby to hit his cannonball tope which is now so expected that it's almost easy to forget how much of an all time great tope it is. I remember buying a lucha tape and seeing Black Warrior hit a tope so hard that it flipped him upside down on collision, making the tope read like a car crash with the physics causing the elements to fly off into their own trajectories. Darby's topes always look like a man was trying to sneak through a more-red-than-yellow light and getting t-boned, and Darby is the world's most durable Yugo. 

Also, as someone who used to not be amused in any way by Orange Cassidy, he is one of my favorite babyfaces now. I get excited to hear Starship, I give a thumbs up with my thumb barely extended, and I flipped out for how hard he crashed onto his tailbone while hitting Stun Dog, holding Toa in place for a code red. I am a full on OC Guy now. That said, he's even better when Darby is the one setting up the timing of the misdirections. Darby just makes everyone stronger. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: The Elite vs. Top Flight Fox

 

Kenny Omega/The Young Bucks vs. AR Fox/Dante & Darius Martin AEW Rampage 2/15 (Aired 2/17/23)

ER: On paper the idea of The Elite working a 10 minute long NBA on TNT match filled with amateur Harlem Globetrotter routines sounds fucking terrible. I mean just awful. They're wearing jerseys and yucking it up real chuffed with themselves, throwing the rock around. It sounds so fucking bad man. But I guess my brain is just wrecked on gas station Stay Hard pills because I enjoyed all of it and actually wish it had way more basketball spots. How were the basketball spots in this actually good? Everybody in the match handled a ball much better than I would have guessed and what should have played as Bad Chikara Shit played out as Good Chikara Shit: Jump balls leading to atomic drops or superkicks, Kenny catching a ball to the nuts running in to interfere, Nick getting a ball thrown at the bridge of his nose two different times! Who could have possibly guessed that everyone but AR Fox had Necro Butcher Throwing Chair precision with a basketball. 

Fox didn't really contribute to any of the good pass drill clown hijinks, but he at least spammed a hall dozen high hang time dives. AR Fox dives look impressive in air but make very light contact, so spamming them as a swarming attack instead of impact attack works better. They made the smart choice and made all of the basketball spots end with actual impact. The Comedy lead to The Violence. A basketball to the face hurts, and the ball was flying around the ring while guys were busy doing other spots. Darius Martin looks cool backflipping with a basketball. Really cool. Like the Phoenix Suns Gorilla cool. The Goon worked excellently as a violent hockey player gimmick because it's cool seeing big Bill Irwin checking guys into boards and going low on shoulderblocks. We've never gotten a Bill Laimbeer/Draymond Green violent basketball player gimmick. We're not there yet. The technology isn't ready. But the basketball spots in this match transcended Human Tornado dunking on a huracanrana and I was not expecting that. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Dark Order vs. Blackpool Combat Club

 

6. Stu Grayson/Evil Uno/Hangman Page vs. Jon Moxley/Claudio Castagnoli/Wheeler Yuta AEW Dynamite 3/15

ER: AEW is often at its best when it hits the level of a 4th match of the night trios from the middle of a 2003 NOAH show, and that's what this felt like to me. Everything hummed and flowed like the best NOAH trios, and almost everyone hit like they were wrestling in a NOAH trios. Evil Uno works like an old fat All Japan undercarder who's having a big night anyway, so it only makes this even better. He's like old ass Mighty Inoue or Mitsuo Momota breaking out of old man comedy and coming alive and showing everyone that he's still the guy they might have seen on a 1979 IWE show. But the big story of this very cool match is Stu Grayson. 

Stu Grayson is a guy who I haven't had an active thought about at any point of my pro wrestling fandom. It's a name I relearn every time I see a Stu Grayson match and then it just as quickly drifts away, just out of reach. Like a night's dream you're trying to recollect, the more you attempt to recall the name Stu Grayson, the farther away you feel from catching it. Except Stu Grayson exists beyond that plane of waking life, as you never once get the urge to actually recall your memory of That Time You Watched A Stu Grayson Match Because You Were Home On A Wednesday. How many Stu Grayson matches could I have actually watched. Half a dozen? A full dozen? I am no longer a religious weekly watcher of TV wrestling, while also being a person who constantly watches wrestling, including a lot of AEW and WWE. I am a pro wrestling Hardcore Viewer while simultaneously being the elusive Casual Fan that has been lusted after demographically for literal decades. And that is the reason why I have probably seen eight Stu Grayson matches. Without remembering any Stu Grayson matches. Maybe those matches were all actually John Silver or Raymond Row matches. 

But in this match, this Stu Grayson Match, I found his excellent babyface energy captivating. He really started connecting with me when he took a cool fast bump through the ropes to the floor, and the BCC did a sick group piledriver on the floor as The Thing to kick off their big heat on him. I thought the Combat Club were awesome at making quick tags so that every member could inflict their own personal constant damage, tagging in to suplex and hit and kick and uppercut Grayson. The heat was all really well done and the action was seamless, giving Grayson time to credibly sell while also believably not leaving him spaces for a comeback. When he did make a one move comeback - with a huge running knee straight into Moxley's mouth - it was a huge hot tag moment. A well built and well timed hot tag is always a thing to be celebrated, but I loved how they used the hot tag as the means to build up to another run towards the finish, not as the actual run to the finish itself. Uno had a big senton atomico and all of the quick hit car crash action perfectly cleared the ring for Moxley and Page...which was just a way to quickly settle things down into the run towards the real finish, as Yuta took out Hangman with the ring bell. 

Despite being an early-AEW supporter of Evil Uno - one of the guys who consistently made the What Worked side of that first year or so of AEW Workrate Reports - I wouldn't ever call myself a Dark Order Guy. And yet here I was, completely losing it thinking that Uno and Grayson could plausibly pin Jon Moxley. Their entire finish run, from Grayson's flip dive over the ringpost, to all of their chained together offense and double teams, all made me actually think - and be excited for -  Uno and Grayson were actually taking out Jon Moxley. The Fatality nearfall was huge, and Yuta's best moments of the match were him saving Mox from that finish and then running over to pull Uno off the apron to stop the tag and ice the momentum. Stu Grayson makes the great looking finish look like an even greater finish. It's cool seeing him hit 450s and big ranas and dives with real distance, but I love how he Athletically Eats Shit taking Claudio's pop up uppercut. This was NOAH trios perfection, and if I manage to forget about Stu Grayson again in a couple days, it is likely merely the signs of my advanced brain rot and not anything that is the fault of Stu Grayson's ability.  

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Bennett

 

6. Darby Allin vs. Mike Bennett AEW Rampage 1/6/23

ER: Darby is such an excellent opponent for nearly any wrestler to paint a masterpiece. Mike Bennett is a wrestler who I like without also having much of an opinion on him either way. If I had been asked before this match what my favorite Mike Bennett memory was, I would say with no hesitation "his leather WWE ring jacket that had Maria and their baby airbrushed on the back". This is Valentine's Day. This is going to be the day I add a Mike Bennett match to a MOTY List. That perfect jacket and he/his wife's perfect WWE theme "True Love" are more highlights than many wrestlers I like. But those are things. That's me connecting to two things associated with Mike Bennett, not connecting with his wrestling. I don't think I've ever connected to Bennett in an actual wrestling match the way I did here. Part of that is due to Darby as an opponent, part of it is to Bennett going all out and taking a real fight to Darby. Importantly, this is not the kind of Darby match we've seen where he withstands a mad beating and body breaking bumps before eking out a win; it is a match where Darby withstands a mad beating and body breaking bumps while also going toe to toe with his opponent. 

I don't think I've written about a Mike Bennett match since ROH was airing on Destination America - a TV channel I am sure has not existed since 2015 - but this Mike Bennett is one worth writing about. Mike Bennett is great at being the larger man in a Darby Allin match (a role almost every Allin opponent is placed into) while making certain to work only so much larger. Bennett works this knowing he is larger and is almost surprised by Darby working as his equal. Several times in the match Darby catches him over and over with these awesome whipping punches, like the best version of Jeff Hardy's punches, thrown 3x the speed as Jeff's and able to land multiple times before Bennett realizes what is even happening to him. Darby, sitting on the top rope, starts whipping Bennett's face left and right and it's like it forces Bennett to start shoot punching him back. Later on when Bennett catches a kick, he stands there absorbing so many of these whipping punches that it's as if he's stunned by them, realizing they're happening but only realizing it after the seventh one lands. He finally just drops the leg but that leads to him immediately eating some of Darby's hardest elbows, and all the man can do is respond with chops thrown as if he was Drew McIntyre size and cut off more elbows with a single Kawada-like right hand. Darby's toughness seemed to inspire Bennett's stiffness, which inspired Darby's toughness. 

Both men got rocked onto their heels multiple times, and their execution and impact on everything was cleeeeean. Jaws rattled, Darby ploughing into Matt Taven at full speed with a low rope tope con giro, Bennett sacrificing both of their bodies with a side Russian legsweep off the apron, and of course Darby hitting a flat back missile dropkick from the top to the floor, Bennett prone in a folding chair, Darby knowing at best he is taking a 10 foot drop flat onto his back...I felt it all in HD. Every impact felt important. I loved the false finish bullshit to set up our real finish, involving Maria stalling the Coffin Drop by laying over Bennett so Taven could kick Darby off the top into a great Bennett piledriver. Two piledrivers on this Rampage that looked like finishers. Every finish to every Darby match is the best. He either dies biggest or crashes hardest and it always rules. Bennett gets greedy and wants the avalanche piledriver, but Darby turns that into an Avalanche Code Red, then finally hits that Coffin Drop as Tenryu hitting an elbowdrop. Crumbling Kingdoms, Wrecked Ribcages. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Cassidy vs. Moriarty

 

11. Orange Cassidy vs. Lee Moriarty AEW Rampage 2/8 (Aired 2/10/23)

ER: I've never been a Lee Moriarty Guy. I didn't use to be an Orange Cassidy Guy, and then one day I realized I had become an Orange Cassidy Guy. It doesn't always work but I root for it to work much more than I used to. So I'm an Orange Guy but not yet a Lee Guy. For 5 or 6 years now Lee Moriarty has done a mechanically sound recreation of a style I have grown tired of seeing; a guy doing a Technical Wrestler gimmick with the precise hollowness that the Smooth Technical Wrestler gimmick requires. Did the acting get better from both, to the point I eventually grew to like each of their styles? Maybe. I think their styles have grown and evolved and now they're both just better versions of the guys they were when I didn't like watching them wrestle. 

I'm not ready to call myself a Moriarty Guy just yet but I can say this match is the most I've liked him in a match. There's still a theatrical disconnect there in the application of every single thing, so it's a lot of faces and ham, but now his stuff has a much better combination of painful application and stiffness so that it overshadows the times it veers into mechanically technical. Cassidy brought even more ham with a match-long arm sell that was aggressively present in a way that I appreciated but wish we actually saw less. Most of this match is Orange Cassidy shaking out his arm like his hand was stuck in a hornet's nest, pervasive enough that it felt like a waiter topping off your coffee too often, not understanding the rhythm of too much or not enough Checking In. You were getting constantly topped off coffee and mostly avoiding eye contact while saying a sincere but progressively muttered Thank You. 

But all of Moriarty's stuff stretching out and bending at Cassidy's arm looked painful and Cassidy's athleticism gives him fun ways to fight out of snug holds. Moriarty has good elbows and strikes while working holds now, and he has a real gas tank. Like Cassidy selling the arm too dedicatedly, Moriarty comes off probably too active. But they both work this like limb shaking overactive spazzes and I'll take hyperactivity when it leads to Moriarty getting spiked by two different awesome tornado DDTs and weird spots like Cassidy climbing all over him like a sleeperhold spider monkey. I like how Moriarty goes floppy limbed on tightly timed late kickouts, and the way he flops too much for bumps. When there's actual honesty to the holds and leveraged pins, the hyperactivity adds to the game. Maybe I am a Moriarty Guy now. Maybe it only clicked for me this one time. That's fine. I click with a Natalya match every couple years and maybe Moriarty fills that Natalya Niche. 

I can't see a future where I suddenly find out I'm a Danhausen Guy, but I guess that's why we watch this shit. Maybe I'll be a Danhausen Guy next week I don't fucking know. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Danielson & Mox Chop Fight Top Flight

Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley vs. Top Flight (Dante & Darius Martin) AEW Rampage 1/6/23

ER: I am not really a "Top Flight" guy. They are the style of wrestler of which AEW already has Too Many. There are 50-70 guys on the AEW who wrestle exactly like this. The timing changes, the moves change, the backflips differ, but the beats are all the same. Any indy show I go to has a half a dozen Top Flights - at minimum. There are good versions of them and bad versions of them, but it is now the most commonplace style of wrestling for every young athletic man foolish enough to get into pro wrestling. I have never been moved by a Top Flight performance, while acknowledging that both brothers are creative and capable of doing athletic things and clever combos that probably puts them above their similarly complicatedly styled peers. But Top Flight vs. Top Flight Doppelgängers isn't a match that excites me, because odds are I have already seen two other Top Flight vs. Top Flight matches on whatever card I'm watching anyway. 

It turns out, the way to get maximum enjoyment out of Top Flight, is to pair them with a couple of dudes who have doing this for longer than any wrestler could sensibly hope to wrestle, who have gone through the dark tunnels of addiction or career ending injury and come through the other side with new zeal, ready to hit smooth athletes like Top Flight as hard as humanly possible. And Top Flight gets to successfully play the role of All Japan young boys who are being playing above slot, lasting longer than they were supposed to last, making it more of a match than the men with freshly washed balls expected it to be. Dante Martin makes the same teeth clenched fist-balled expressions in every match of his I've seen, but after watching him absorb kick after kick from Danielson I finally bought into his determination as if finally seeing it earned for the first time. Athletic wrestlers like Dante Martin act like they've been through A War in every match, and here that acting finally felt like it wasn't An Act. 

This also felt like the greatest Darius Martin performance. Dante is the younger, more consistent bother, and the one who has been tabbed as the breakout star of the two. Here he is actually given the chance to respond as the first born, sticking up for his brother after a major beating. Dante has some inspired moments of putting one over on the vets: taking out Moxley with a a blindside top con hilo over the ringpost during Moxley's entrance, flipping onto his own feet to stop a rana after Danielson had literally just been standing on the top rope potatoing him in the head, but a lot of this was Dante being punished. Stiff kicks, stiff chops, stiff punches, a Mox piledriver that stands him on the top of his head, a Mox clothesline that flips him inside out to a degree that his hang time lands him on top of Mox. It is a beating to be withstood, and it leads to a tremendous hot tag moment from his older and less acclaimed brother. 

I'm not sure I've ever loved a Top Flight moment more than when Danielson and Moxley kick each other in the shins because Dante collapses, and then Darius tags in to stand up for his little bro. The way Darius goads Danielson - who should know better - into kicking him harder and harder, catching the challenge kick and throwing by far the hardest elbows and chops I have ever seen him throw, that's fucking pro wrestling. I've seen hundreds of shitty moments in these matches where two guys challenge each other to hit harder, and it almost always feels rote and out of place, a moment you create because at a certain point it became expected to have this moment in half the matches on a card, but this was a rare example of this spot feeling right. I believe that Darius actually wanted to know how hard Danielson could kick. I believe that he wanted to know that he could take Danielson's hardest and survive, take his worst and learn more about himself in the process. It doesn't lead to a win, and nothing the brothers do ever makes it feel like a win was going to happen, but everyone hit their moments so perfectly that every part of this felt like a win. 

I loved a late match use of a save, something too under-utilized in wrestling, and one important thing that made this feel like a big Kings Road tag rather than the kind of AEW match where a few guys kick out of a few other guys poison ranas. Danielson's Busaiku knee to Darius face was the most match-finishing moment of this match, flipping him on top of his head and down hard on his face, and Dante's expert timing with the pinfall save extended the match without diminishing the impact of that vicious knee one bit. Dante is thrown from the ring, Danielson is clearly going to finish Darius, and Moxley is prompted to hit a completely unnecessary and fully passionate plancha to take Dante out on the floor for good, when he easily could have just watched the ropes to prevent another save. Danielson and Moxley were not ever in a real position of danger, and yet they were pushed beyond a point they expected to be pushed into, goaded into foolishness they shouldn't have been goaded into, two clear winners forced to show how Gotten To they were. 

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Happy New Year! Kenichiro Arai vs. GENTARO Broadway!

 

3. Kenichiro Arai vs. GENTARO Mutoha Pro 2/5/23

MD: One can make the argument that the two most important elements of wrestling are struggle and consequence. If you wanted to elaborate a bit, you could call it the illusion or perception of struggle and the narrative force of consequence. Basically, everything has to allow for enough suspension of disbelief that one can perceive real struggle between the two combatants and the things that happen have to have meaning and weight in the overall narrative. Wrestling has to create it's own seamless reality (which is different than seeming real) and then things have to matter within that reality. 

This was an amazing example of both of those elements. GENTARO and Arai wrestled for an hour. At no point did anything, even the simplest front face lock, feel like it came easy. They would grapple through four or five permeations of positioning attempts before a more familiar hold emerged. That emergent hold could be as basic as a top wristlock or as complex as GENTARO's rowboat stretch, but the process to reach that point was so grueling and competitive that each and every distinct submission attempt that was ultimately locked on felt like a massive accomplishment and also a massive threat to the recipient. That was true for every distinct reversal or escape as well, often drawing appreciative applause from the crowd. Likewise, almost every pin attempt took three or four disparate bits of leverage manipulation and gamemanship to maneuver into and because of the amount of effort and friction involved, each one felt like it could lead to a fall.

That leads to consequence. It worked here a bit like a feedback loop. Because they were putting so much effort into laboriously ensuring that every hold was its own individual strategic war, something undeniably worth fighting for, it was easy to portray the effect of even the slightest bit of joint manipulation. If snatching a hold meant so much to each wrestler and if avoiding being in a hold meant so much to each wrestler, obviously there was considerable pain and damage that would be inflicted. Moreover, and this is where things get really interesting, it meant that there was a calculated risk in each and every grasp of a limb and shift of a body. If nothing ventured, nothing could be gained, but every venture brought with it danger. 

Every hold and momentum shift in this match came out of a series of openings created and diverted through multiple attempt to gain advantage. GENTARO was more aggressive and unyielding, working three or four different positions to latch on a hold. Arai was canny and crafty, arguably the more defensive wrestler, always with a canny trick in his holster. Early on GENTARO pried a leg away and went for a takedown through multiple switches and attempts, only for Arai to come down directly upon him, knee first. The match was full of moments like that, GENTARO pressing and pressing and Arai having to devise a surprising answer. Here's another example that sums up the match well: later after GENTARO took the initial fall (again through an unyielding and continuous manipulation of one limb after another, slowly and patient), Arai became overaggressive due to the need to even the odds and GENTARO was able to capitalize. In this match, however, every advantage taken was also a potential risk. GENTARO stretched his advantage to open distance and charge Arai only for Arai to capture him in a flipping scissors hold and squeeze his way to earning the second fall of the match. Here, every attempt at offense was also a risk to be countered. 

This reminded me, as much of anything else, of the great 1983 French Catch bout between Mr. Montreal and Guy Mercier when the two of them were up there in age and putting their all into every hold as well. This maybe had more gamesmanship, whereas that was worked more in-and-out with multiple escape attempts that built upon one another. Here, past a lengthy series of headscissors by GENTARO, no one was allowed to keep such a hold for long. That was except, of course, the finishing sequence of figure-fours; Arai had obtained that monkey paw wish of an actual advantage, providing him the tantalizing hope of a kneedrop off the turnbuckles. He crashed and burned, paying for his hubris (one does not try to wrestle so big in a match this intimate) and allowing GENTARO to start on the knee. It came a price, for it provided Arai with a leg and ankle to work on as well, and the two would trade such holds back and forth up until the time limit expired. 

All in all, this was as exhausting for the viewer as it was for the wrestlers, the logical conclusion to the notion that every exchange, every touch, every torque can matter in the moment of a match, stretched out over the span of an hour. There was no point that they weren't competing, weren't struggling against one another, and all of it mattered. Here, there was always the potential of dire consequence, certainly to failure, but even to success. 

ER: I've spent much of my year writing thousands of words about 2 minute WCW matches from 25 years ago, now I am going to write just a couple hundred words on the longest match I've watched in several years, showcasing what I loved about it.  

The Mutoha ring announcer on crutches, and the way GENTARO smirks when that ring announcer with plantar fasciitis begins to call him "Arai". 

Arai's double arm barred takedown and the way he clasps his hands on his side head and arm choke; how he shoot monkey flips GENTARO like Super Dragon monkey flipping a fan or grabs a headlock and sinks down into a squat, putting his weight onto GENTARO; the way a backdrop bump hits different when it comes 45 minutes into a match.    

I like that by the time GENTARO starts working pins (around 30 minutes in) I had forgotten that this match could have even ended by pinfall, lulled into the seriousness of traditional pro wrestling moves being treated as actual struggle. 

GENTARO's grounded headscissors that looked like it was turning Arai's head grayish purple, and how he gets paid back for that tight headscissors 45 minutes later to end the 2nd fall; the way he hesitates slightly while applying a Sharpshooter and has to suddenly scramble when Arai notices that hesitation. 

GENTARO has one of the coolest cradles - not flashy, not something that would read in a GIF, but an honest cradle - not long after losing the 2nd fall, cradling Arai's left leg and forcing Arai's own weight down on him to smother him. When Arai manages to shift out of it he twists his boot over GENTARO's wrist, which might be the only underhanded act the entire hour. 

Reversed back and forth inside cradles are still going to look silly, but you can appreciate the way Arai crosses his ankles and how each man looks like they're actively resisting the momentum shifts back and forth. They show the difficulty in actually getting a crucifix pin, how much energy you would have to exert to muscle a man your own size over like that. 

The figure four battle is worth the price of admission on its own. The way GENTARO is forcing Arai's ankle down with his elbow knowing that doing so only makes Arai twist on his ankle harder, breathing life into a move we've all seen performed for our entire lives as wrestling fans, a figure four used as the culmination of an hour long match in front of upwards of 50 people in a small building in Saitama. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: LA Park, Pimpi, KAOMA JR?

 

3. LA Park/Sayrus vs. Pimpinela Escarlata/Kaoma Jr. 3Bat Productions 9/9

ER: I wanted to see LA Park live in Richmond, CA a couple months ago. It was a real stacked card with LA Park in a tag team main event opposite Jacob Fatu for the first time since their MLW blow up, Psycho Circus vs. Puerquiza Extrema, what was surely a great tag with Black Taurus, Arez, Canis Lupus, and Laredo Kid, plus an undercard with Faby Apache and Pimpi and others I loved. My buddy Jason and I drove down because that is a total no brainer of a live show right there, and we opted to drive down to buy tickets at the door and avoid the online service charges on the $50 GA tickets. Well smart guy, they were charging *$70* for the GA tickets at the door, with front row seats priced at $220 and the next two rows at $180. I was so shocked to hear that $70 price that I had to ask "Dollars?" Folks, I am not to the point in my life - nor do I think I ever will be - where I am prepared to pay $70 for a lucha show (or any wrestling show) and so we turned back around and drove back from whence we came. To their credit, there was a huge line around the building and it was only kids under 5 who got in for free, so hats off to all the families there with several kids who were prepared to pay $400 to see live lucha. I am apparently a Broke Bitch, which is why I cannot pay $70 to see LA Park live, but I can be paid by my job to watch this LA Park match in the bathroom. 

Honestly, had this match just been Park and Pimpi brawling and slapping each other with Park's belt, I would have added it to my MOTY list. I've seen plenty of Park matches over the past several years that are mostly comprised of belt whippings, and I loved them all. Luckily for us, this match is much more than whippings, and features a totally unexpected (to me) standout performance from Kaoma Jr., a guy who has been around for 20+ years who I don't think I've heard about before this match. Even cooler, is that we get essentially a full Park/Pimpinela fight before the entire match peaks with a Kaoma and Sayrus (another guy I'd never heard of and was expecting nothing from) showcase that totally delivers in every way. 

The Park/Pimpi stretches were everything I wanted them to be. I would have been extremely entertained by the belt not even coming into play, as is evidenced by Park trying to take out Pimpi's legs with a log roll - a large, mossy log gaining speed - but that belt comes into play almost immediately. I don't know how Park keeps Get Hit With Belt fresh, but he does. I loved how he reacted normally to all of Pimpi's belt shots, but the second the rudo ref tried it he snapped to attention, and the ref froze in his shoes in sudden terror...before belting Park right across the fucking FACE. Park falls onto and sits on a woman at ringside, takes a nice shoved bump into the ringpost, and recovers on the floor while Cassandro welts up Sayrus with that belt. Pimpinela's open hand chops hit almost as hard as Park's, and he hits Park right in the neck with those large open hands, then beats him around General Admission with a Piso Mojado placard, and all of the rudos - ref included - throw overhand chops at Park. 

It ramps up even more when Park inevitably turns the tides, beating Pimpi on top of the same woman that he fell onto earlier, Pimpi screaming melodramatically the entire time, sounding like Gretchen from Bob's Burgers. But then Park disappears and triumphantly reappears with a beer cooler...and fucking swings it incredibly hard, by the handle, into Pimpi and Kaoma. I don't care if they got an arm up as a shield, the speed Park swung that cooler at Kaoma could have broke his ulna. When the belt whipping payback comes, it comes with vengeance, and of course the ref gets the worst of it. It's a pair of bad whippings, the kind that made me long for LA Park whipping Johnny Knoxville, Johnny's eyes going wide as he's momentarily silent before breaking out into his high pitched giggle. I've seen Park force a rudo ref to take his whipping live more than once and this was the worst I've seen, capped beautifully by Park standing on the man's palms while the man's pudgy stomach takes a real whipcrack. 

Now, Kaoma. I went into this match expected nothing out of Sayrus or Kaoma, because they were not the men who drew me to this match, and all I really wanted was for them to mostly stay out of the way. But every time Kaoma got in between Park and Pimpi's brawling, he was an instant standout. His overhand chops somehow stood out even more than Pimpi's he takes a high backdrop from Park, and then I really snapped awake when he hit a startlingly convincing shoulderblock into Park. Park has at least 60 pounds on Kaoma, but that shoulderblock looked like something that genuinely knocked Park on his ample ass. His tope focuses on that actual headbutt portion of the tope, a man dedicated to playing the classics with accuracy and violence. I've seen so many Arms Fully Stretched Out dogshit topes that I began to think the odds of seeing a classic flying headbutt done by someone other than Hijo del Santo were next to nil. Sayrus has a really impressive tornillo crossbody block and was a nice dance partner for Kaoma, but Kaoma just kept raising the bar. His tope en reversa senton is an actual incredible spot, executed with precision, like a graceful lucha version of Tenryu's falling top rope elbowdrop. His Atlantida thrown into a backbreaker looked...well, backbreaking, and the man rolls up tidily for a complicated Sayrus huracanrana the way all my favorite rudo bases do. Park and Pimpi's finishing stretch was a total afterthought thanks to Kaoma's fireworks, and I loved how the match transitioned into these two showing out. 

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