AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 3/9 - 3/15 Part 2

AEW Revolution 3/15/26

Jon Moxley vs Konosuke Takeshita

MD: Who are we as a people? What do we deserve? What do we demand? What standards do we hold ourselves to? What standards do we hold others to?

The most pernicious truth of the last ten years is that the worst thing a public figure can do is apologize. At best, he can tell people that he's sorry for how his actions made them feel. So long as he doesn't look down, doesn't hesitate, just posts through it, then even in the worst case, he will likely survive to enjoy the fruits of his actions with very few consequences.

What does this have to do with wrestling? Everything. Wrestling has always been a mirror of society, a morality play where wish fulfillment fantasies of justice finally being done could play out in the form of violence and stooging comeuppance.

What does it say about AEW and what does it say about us that Jon Moxley was allowed to get away with what he did without true punishment, all because he worked hard, spouted platitudes, and most importantly, won?

Let's recap some of what he did again. He betrayed a brother, committing regicide and fratricide all at once, ending a man who even on the downswing of his career had reached the pinnacle through his own efforts. And why? Was it because Danielson had lost sight of the goal? Had left promises unfulfilled to achieve personal gain? Was it that the inner peace Bryan found made him complacent and lazy? Was the world still on the wrong trajectory, the Jack Perrys of the world getting title shots instead of the truly deserving? Was the only course correction possible one of betrayal and destruction?

Or was it something else? Jealousy of not just this brother but all of his brothers near and far? Jealousy of the peace Bryan found when his own heart was roiling? Fear that he was being left behind? That those things he claimed to believe in mattered less than ever? 

Maybe it was a little of both. Every crime has motive and opportunity. That inner peace of Bryan Danielson? That provided the opportunity. I don't buy that it created a valid motive. 

So a bag went over Danielson's head. Cleaning solution went down Orange Cassidy's throat. Darby Allin was tossed down stairs. Mark Briscoe was crushed even after dedicating victory to his children. Will Ospreay's neck was shattered. Lies were whispered again and again in poor Wheeler Yuta's ear.

And the hypocrisy went hand-in-hand with the fell actions. Private Party were bullied into elevating themselves and not a word from Mox for their triumph. The belt was locked away. No one under thirty was getting title shots. 

Instead it was Cope and Cope and Cope again. And with Cope came the baseball bat with nails on it, Spike. But as Spike came down upon Mox's back, fear found its way to the forefront of his heart.

That fear created an opportunity for Hangman Page to defeat Mox and restore the belt to its proper place, to bring it back to the people.

The fear didn't fade. It made Jon Moxley tremble as Darby Allin got revenge, delayed as it was. Having tapped once, he found his back against the wall, first against Daniel Garcia (who he was able to recruit instead of vanquish, more whispered lies) and then against Kyle O'Reilly. Running, hiding, tapping. He was a wounded animal on his (damaged) back foot. Yes, some, like Darby had gotten a measure of revenge on him. Yes, even Bryan Danielson had come back to help ensure he didn't leave All In with the title. But was that justice? Had he truly gotten his comeuppance? Even looking the coward, even looking WEAK, had he truly paid for what he had done?

He had reached a sort of bottom, a physical bottom, a reputational bottom. But had he paid for what he had done?

And what about his claims of justification? Had he made AEW stronger? Better? Maybe. Or maybe its strength was always in plurality. Many different styles. Many different voices. Many different views of what pro wrestling is and what it can be. 

See, maybe it was never about AEW at all. Maybe it was always about Jon Moxley. Maybe he realized that the world was leaving him behind. Maybe it was a last, desperate grasp of a conservative man to hang on to relevancy, to force meaning itself back into a shape that he could recognize, that he was comfortable with. 

So at the start of the Continental Classic, he was a man who, to the world, looked like he had so little left to lose, but that too was a lie. He had lost so much but had never truly paid for what he had done. He was, in many ways, right back to where he had been before betraying his brother, except for now, it was all revealed to the world.

Maybe that's what he needed after all. A reputational bottoming out. To gain something tangible and then lose it. To be pushed against the wall. Maybe he needed to build something up, a false castle of sticks instead of stone and see it all burn down so that it might burn with it the brush that had grown around his soul. 

Hobbled, he entered the C2. No interference. No compromise. No surrender. None of the crutches of the last year. Just a man against other men. A man against nature. 

And after an initial deficit, a fallen man falling even farther, he triumphed. He triumphed through one battle after the next. Sometimes he got a bit of help from the machinations of those around him, Fletcher's failed attempt to cheat, how far Takeshita had pushed Okada (before his successful cheating attempt), but he triumphed none the less. And then he stood in the center of the ring and pretended like it was enough, that it was all his doing, that this was the world he had made through his wretched actions, a world of warriors, of valor, of hard work. 

And here's the thing. I think he may well have believed it. The fans had started to support him again, and they'd only support him more and more in the weeks to come. After all the underhanded chicanery of his world title run, he had insulated himself through the rules of the Continental title. 

The worst thing about all of this wasn't that he had a title again, wasn't even that the Death Riders hadn't turned on him for his weakness, the monster he created devouring him. It's that he found a delusional sort of peace through it all, a mockery of what Bryan Danielson had actually worked for.

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Actually though, the worst thing was that we, as fans, were just meant to accept it. That's how it looked at least. Maybe the worst thing was that we were accepting it. The Continental Classic had been masterful. It took a Moxley at the end of his rope and had him climb, hand after hand, inch after inch, all his way to victory. 

He earned it. He earned the title. But that didn't mean he earned the speech. That didn't mean he earned forgiveness. 

But in front of crowds who are just happy to be there, who just want to cheer for all the wrestlers and see awesome things, it was enough. He was an awesome thing. His struggle was an awesome thing. Crowds were in awe of it. 

It was a babyface turn that wasn't earned. A turn without a turn. In many ways, it mimicked both Hangman and Statlander's journeys, where the crowds went for them before they did something worth going for. Where they got their prize before apologizing (in Hangman's case) or deciding to stand for something again (in Statlander's). 

Moxley is a star. He is a presence. The fans want to cheer him. 

It left the Death Riders high and dry. They didn't turn on Moxley to cement it, not at his lowest or not when he won the title and started spouting off in ways that went against everything they had done in the previous year. It meant that instead of two months of Wheeler Yuta hiding hiding his hair from the world, he had to reveal it quickly, his own heat muted because Mox is a de facto babyface. It means that we're back to the early days of the BCC where they can be babyfaces one day and heels the next, good hands that can be fit into matches, interesting matches even, but that don't actually mean half as much as they could in the grand scheme of things. 

And it meant that we had this very strange match where a babyface who acted like a heel went up against a heel who acted like a babyface.

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Takeshita wanted what Moxley had, redemption (true or false) through combat. His sins weren't quite as bad. He had betrayed Omega years earlier, had been a bully and a rogue, was trapped in an association, a family, that no longer valued him as it once did. 

But he was a man remembering his honor and he wanted what Moxley had, a shield against all the evil of the world, including the evil within him. Being Continental Champion meant no interference but still having plausible deniability to his own family members for why they couldn't be there to do dark deeds in his name. 

He had taken Moxley to the limit but that wasn't enough. Takeshita wanted this badly. Moxley needed it, for the second he lost the title, he would lose this shield to hide behind. No longer able to hide from the world, and especially from himself, his peace would be shattered.

So they fought, and it was a clever, clever match, both the parts I enjoyed and the parts I didn't. 

They met in the center of the ring to begin, forearms smashing into one another's face. Usually, this was exactly where Moxley loved to be, in the midst of a strike exchange. Takeshita was younger, larger, stronger, just as tough, and Moxley was forced to retreat. 

One thing that's incredibly clear to Mox now, however, is that it didn't matter how he wins. All that mattered was that he does, so he honed in on Takeshita's damaged eye (damaged in a battle with Claudio). He pounded it. He bit it. He dragged it across the top rope. The eye opened up the leg. 

And the leg was supposed to open up Takeshita completely, was supposed to allow Moxley to hit the Death Rider, a Pile Driver, his stomp. It didn't though. Takeshita refused to bend. Moxley could chip away at him but not hit bombs. Takeshita, on the other hand, hit his bombs, the cradle tombstone into the German, the Blue Thunder Bomb. But he hit them as hope spots he couldn't capitalize on. 

They went into a second strike exchange and this time Takeshita's knee gave out. Moxley couldn't hit that stomp the first time on the apron, but he powered through and got it the second, opening Takeshita up both literally and figuratively.

As they passed the twenty minute mark, the match went off the rails and became a fighting spirit epic. Takeshita came back to get the best of a third strike exchange, and both men not just hit bombs, but hit them in a way to show their over the top toughness. They kicked out of finishers. Takeshita even kicked out at one. They popped back to their feet and hit move after move without consequence until both fell over. It's all the stuff I tend to have no use for because it inverts the narrative weight of moves the deeper the match goes. I get the value of it. I get the excitement. I get the warrior spirit it represents and how it highlights adrenaline and toughness and everything else. I just don't think it's worth the cost relative to showing the escalating weight of moves down the stretch.

Here, though? Here, maybe it was worth it, not because of anything specific they did, but because it was very much Takeshita's match at this point, his world, and because Jon Moxley survived it.

Jon Moxley endured it. Jon Moxley powered through it, forcing that leg to give out one last time, finally locking in the choke, finally stamping down Takeshita's final act of defiance to lock the arm, finally making him pass out to win the day.

Once again, toughness, grit, determination, endurance were shown to matter more than anything else, including conventional morality. Once again, might made right.

And so Jon Moxley was rewarded. He put out his hand, and despite his better judgment, despite his first instincts, despite all the emotion in his heart, Takeshita returned to the ring and shook Moxley's hand. 

Peace through combat. Fabricated peace in the soul of Jon Moxley. So long as he continued to win, he'd never, ever have to look down again.

It's the perfect crime for our modern world.

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But then the lights went off. The video package played. The whole arena went green. The music hit. And there was Ospreay. 

A loose end. 

And I don't know what to think. I really don't. Look, there's an amazing story here. Jon Moxley did horrible things, unforgivable things. He burned it all down to build it all back up, all for his own sake, and he was finally at peace for it. The fans were back behind him. He had gold once again. The Death Riders were by his side and a willing, even loving, part of his glorious facade. He hadn't done a single thing to earn redemption except for to fight and win. He hadn't owned up to anything. And yet, he had his cake and ate it too. It was the perfect modern male fantasy in so many ways. 

We're months into it now and he's up against heels. He made it past the point of no return. Over the border. He's safe.

Yet here's Ospreay, a ghost of his past, someone the crowd will support, someone who theoretically can call Mox out for all he did, and all he had become, and all he still was, no matter how much he won. He could beat him, but in a perfect world, he could remind him what that would mean again and again before he did. Even in pro wrestling, justice can and should be more than just putting someone through a table.

But it's Will Ospreay, who for all of his charisma, innovation, athleticism, and enthusiasm, has the nuance and subtly of a brick to the skull. It's not a good "moral high ground" month for Will either, given some of what happened in EVE recently. And the fans are already firmly behind Mox, so to call him out in all the ways that matter and that will make them uncomfortable, the ways that matter not just for this storyline, but also in restoring a moral underpinning to literally every storyline AEW does, an essential cornerstone that is already weak and frayed, preventing emotional investment and narrative coherency from audiences in ways that matter most (and that may not fully register with the creative forces within the company, I hate to say)... 

Well, I guess time will tell, won't it. Maybe, unlike Jon Moxley, we're getting what we deserve after all.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 3/3 - 3/9

AEW Revolution 3/9/25

Toni Storm vs. Mariah May

MD: We live in an age of lore, where the immediate gratification of social media crashes up against corporate created media full of first episode twists, end-of-movie stingers foreshadowing sequels years away, mysteries layered on top of mysteries where every answer just brings forth two more questions. We see it in wrestling too, albeit less in AEW than elsewhere. 

In AEW, much of the storytelling happens in the matches themselves. Even here though, things tend to be bogged down by excess and bloat. Sometimes that manifests in small ways: despite being both poetic and visually brutal, it wasn't enough for MJF to meet his comeuppance from the Angel's Wings; he needed to eat a Buckshot too (no, he didn't). Sometimes it manifests in medium ways: trust me, the Swerve vs Ricochet match really, truly could have ended after the Vertebreaker on the table and the subsequent House Call. They didn't need to go into a second finishing stretch. Sometimes it manifests in huge ways: I haven't actually watched Ospreay vs Fletcher yet, but I'll get there and then make sure to do everyone a favor and not write about it. All too often Chekhov's Gun fails to go off or outright misfires. Elements are dropped, forgotten, overutilized, made blatant where subtly would be more effective. 

Yet here we had a match which cleverly and organically looped in elements from over a year's worth of television, full of what might be considered excess were it not for the skillful structuring and execution, which could have easily fallen to pretention and navel-gazing but instead led with emotion and beautiful brutality. Here we had a match which was theatrical without being forced to be "cinematic," that was artistic in its imagery but trusted in all the strengths of the medium. Instead of using the genre it evoked to escape the stigma of pro wrestling, it highlighted the form instead, enhanced it, shined a spotlight on the sort of cathartic release and dramatic finality that can only come from this violent spectacle that we love so much.

It closed every parenthesis but never in a way that felt like busywork or an obligation. Instead, each easter egg and resurrected plot point, from the image of Toni and Mariah's bodies intersected after the early Sky High all the way to the use of the shoe at the very end, felt like an opportunity that they were able to make the most of. Every perfectly crafted image (Mariah writhing after being crotched on the barricade; the first real look at Toni bloodied, as she blinked her eyes in a shot that would have made Norma Desmond seethe with jealous; Toni laying sprawled as if plucked from a grisly murder scene) contributed to the whole while never feeling fabricated, never robbing us, the viewers, of our suspension of belief and sense of immersion. 

And they hit so many of these narrative marks: the hip attacks (enhanced by the rail, the chair); the finisher stealing which makes more sense in these matches with the two characters playing one another than in any other before it; and yes, the stomach-churning climax: Mariah's trademark champagne celebration turned into a nightmarish horrorshow. There, the match called upon Onita as much as it did a Spaghetti Western, that sense of anticipation (the wrapping with tape, Mariah's determination mixed with fear, Toni's old timey bareknuckled boxer stiff upper lip, the first few ducked shots) leading to deathmatch paymatch of Mariah getting punched in the face and the glass strewn across the mat (which did a great job rationalizing some of the finisher kickouts). 

Everything led back to the hall of mirrors carnival set piece burned in our memories, the top of the entrance where Mariah betrayed Toni. Here, Toni did whip Mariah with the belt, a final act of symmetrical revenge, but once again showed just an inch of merciful hesitation with shoe in hand. Unlike in London, however, it was brief, fleeting, and when Mariah tried to take advantage of it like the unredeemable villain that she was, she brought forth her own final comeuppance. 

It was a masterpiece not just for the violence, not just for the over the top excess, not just for all the references, but for its own restraint. Everything mattered. Everything was done with care. Everything created an effect. Instead of forcing any number of contrived sequences to cascade on top of one another, it gathered all of the narrative opportunities of the last year and managed to deliver upon the full storytelling potential of each and every one. The cart didn't drive the horse. Nothing was done simply for the sake of doing it. At every point, the characters drove the action. As I said, it was theatrical and not just cinematic; full of gif-worthy images, but never meant simply to create them; a payoff worthy of the build, and a bloody classic of a finale to join the canon on the Permanent Tapes. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/26 - 3/3 Part 2

AEW Revolution 3/3/24

Sting/Darby Allin vs Young Bucks

MD: I was on the fence whether to write this up or not. It's one of those matches that defies analysis, transcendent in the emotion. With a week's distance, however, I figured that maybe it might be fun to try to take a more clinical approach to something so impossible to break down. As I was writing, I think I ended up getting emotional anyway, but I'll at least give it a go. Let's start with the Bucks. I do not write often about the Bucks. I won't deny their talent certainly. I have a long essay in me about how they got ahead by breaking norms because if they would have wrestled within the norms, no matter how well they might have done it, they would have never gotten ahead. That's admirable on the one hand and probably very destructive in another. Metatextual deconstruction in an art form that relies upon suspension of disbelief is harmful over time. It takes a genie out of a bottle, changes incentives, modifies the relationship between wrestler and fan. I absolutely believe that it was what they needed to do to get ahead and it's hard to fault them for it, but ... well, like I said, I have an essay but that's not what I want to write about here.

I will say this, however. The act needed an overhaul. They work best when they're representing a sort of counterculture, when they're pressing against something, rebelling against something, when they have a chip on their shoulder. The story of the Elite and All In and early AEW is that they bet on themselves (and against those who said they couldn't do it) and won, that they created a new paradigm where they could succeed outside of the old systems where they could not. There was a certain amount of time right at the start, through the pandemic, as crowds came back, when that sort of celebratory spirit could carry things. I think we're past that now and certain swings, such as the trios division being created to celebrate their vision of pro wrestling, sort of fell flat because of that. Obviously with the Punk situation, they had something they could press up against, but legally and practically, they weren't allowed to in a way that would draw money. Things weren't working. To their credit, they stopped, retooled, and looked at all of the current criticisms against them to pull together characters based in a sort of assumed reality that better fit guys in their mid to late 30s than the traditional "Young Bucks" gimmick did. Suddenly, they have something to press up against again; suddenly there's a chip on their shoulder once more; there's something with meat on the bone to give them an edge.

And that edge allowed for a program that needed to be something more than just two athletic guys bumping and selling and feeding and providing motion for Sting; it allowed for it to have the emotional weight and gravitas it deserved. By the time you hit the match itself, however, we were all in a sort of exceptional situation. There was always the hint of doubt that Sting would actually win due to some of the traditional pressures of pro wrestling. The retiring hero should lose on the the way out and put over younger talents. The champion should lose the belts to keep continuity. Darby is going off to climb a mountain. The Bucks were particularly ascendant in their new characters; the champions would be gone and the challengers would have to carry the territory. And up until the Dynamite before Revolution, the Bucks had all the heat. Yes, Sting and Darby were undefeated and had won the titles, but during the build the Bucks were in control of the situation. That changed on the 2/28 Dynamite, with head games and Sting dropping from the rafters for the final image of a Death Drop on a Jackson (not a stooge, not security). So some of that heat was blunted already. The Bucks had already gotten a taste of comeuppance. The champs were on the rise. It was okay though, because the iconic moment was worth it. This entire situation was exceptional; it bent the rules of pro wrestling. It was a once in a lifetime event. That's why the Bucks maybe did make sense as opponents; they've excepted themselves from those rules for their entire career. They could swim these uncertain waters as well as anyone.

And they swam right into the start of this exceptional match, with the breathtaking entrance of three Stings (three Bordens) and an immediate numbers game advantage for the babyfaces. The Bucks already needed some sort of wedge to get and keep control due to the size and presence differential. They had superior teamwork and experience, maybe (Sting and Darby were 29-0 after all), but that didn't really come into play during a Tornado Tag. The heel interference that was part of the Elite's 2021 heel run wasn't in play here either. Like I said, no stooges. But again, it didn't matter, because the fans were there to celebrate Sting. The family got their revenge early on. In some ways, that story closed itself off and it came down to the titles and the question of whether Sting was going to leave undefeated with gold around his waist, with the lingering secondary question of just what sensational and dangerous thing Sting or Darby might do on the way out. While that's a question that sort of tugs at suspension of disbelief, it only does so far. Sting and Darby are so confident in their own skin, so comfortable as the characters they embody, that you believe their crazy dives are meant to even the odds of size and age and actually harm their opponents. It's not gratuitous or simply living up to expectations; there's a reason that those expectations exist in the first place. Here, the snake eats its own tail in the best of ways.

They moved away from the ring and got the Borden kids out of play. There was never any explanation for this. In a tornado tag, anything goes. That said, when you're pulling against norms as thoroughly as this match did at times, you don't want extraneous questions. Maybe there could have been a throwaway line that they had come out for the entrance as planned and cleared, but then got involved in an unplanned way. Now, they had been escorted away by security, not because the interference was illegal, but because they were not cleared to wrestle or had signed any waiver to perform and AEW had to protect itself legally after what had happened a few weeks prior? Something like that. On the other hand, do you want to waste any emotional time on it? Sure, part of me wondered why they weren't helping out when the Bucks were doing major damage late in the match, but maybe it didn't bother anyone else. Maybe we just accept the moment for what it was and that the story had moved on. I'm never very good at just accepting the story had moved on myself, not when it comes to selling, not when it comes to dangling plot threads. But again, maybe that's just me. I spent a paragraph on it, but I'm also willing to let it go and not look back once I hit "enter" twice to start the next one.

The Bucks needed a major shift to take over considering they had already received quite a bit of comeuppance. They received it with Darby crashing through the glass. When you're in a situation where you can only have a relatively short heat segment with the heels in control, it helps when you have dynamic offense, spectacular suffering, and blood: the more the better. Darby's entire back was lacerated. That made everything feel absolutely serious quickly. Then, instead of getting to hit one of his signature dives, Sting was cut off and took a spectacular bump through a table instead. The Bucks did more than that, but just from those two flashpoints: the image of Darby's back and the image of Sting going through the table, they had everything they needed to capitalize on the drama of the moment. Sting made his superman comeback attempts (and the kickout on the EVP trigger was it's own sort of magic) but the numbers game was too much for him. Again, most people expected this to be celebratory; the whole show was a celebration of Sting, but there was always the tiniest kernel of doubt for reasons awash in the moment and ones listed above about the nature of pro wrestling retirements; if Sting demanded that he do the deed on the way out, who could really say no to him in the end? All of those things came together like a bolt of lightning to empower Darby's big save. That hit as perfectly as any pro wrestling moment ever does, that feeling in your stomach watching that makes you want to gasp and cheer and sigh all at once.

From there it was academic and, of course, exceptional. Sting won on the way out. It felt like the most right thing in the world. They broke three or four narrative rules in the build, in the start of the match, in the result. I'm not going to say it shouldn't have worked because of that. It was too big to fail, over 16,000 people and almost 40 years big, and fueled by respect and love and admiration, created by people who understood the worth and value of pro wrestling and the power of believing in something bigger than yourself. But as hard as a pill as it might have been for me to swallow at the start of February (and as hard as it is for me to accept at all, because I just don't want to see the guy go), this was the right place and the right time with the right people to create something that was exceptional not just in its nature, but in its quality as well. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/26 - 3/3

AEW Dynamite 2/28/24

FTR/Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley

MD: If this wasn't on a PPV week, I'd give it more words. Let me go quickly. Structurally, it had to cover a lot of ground. Two commercial breaks. Two feuds. Double heat. Guys who never teamed together. A rare chance to do Danielson vs FTR. Needing to make the faces look strong even though you were putting over the heels. A lot of ground to cover. There was a wonkiness to the timing of the commercials too. They teased Danielson vs Kingston before having Bryan heel it up and avoid contact. A brief exchange or two lately and they were brawling on the floor to lead into the first break. The match probably would have been stronger with clearer pairings and exchanges but you have to factor in the masters the match was trying to serve. At least I think you do. Maybe that's why I don't do star ratings. 

First heat was on Cash and the second on Dax. The Cash/Moxley interactions were molten lava. There are a few guys in the company (RUSH) that Mox just syncs with perfectly and while you might not think Cash would be in that category, you'd be wrong. There's something roiling underneath with him that he can channel in the best way. I'm very sympathetic to Dax. He wants everything to make sense. He wants everything to fit. He thinks about consequences. He strings together complex narratives. I blame myself for this for listening to the podcast and him breaking down his own matches, but I do occasionally see those strings in ways I might not have otherwise. On the one hand, it's fascinating. On the other, it takes me out of the match a little. I don't have that problem with Cash. Anyway, this built and built until it was Danielson and Kingston in the ring finally, which is how you want a match like this to go. We'll probably forget about this one in a few months but it worked very well in the moment.

AEW Revolution 3/3/24

Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston

MD: I don't think we're going to forget about this one. That said, AEW puts out so many great matches on an almost weekly (if not weekly basis), and we have big stops ahead of us for both Danielson and Kingston in the months to come, I wanted to memorialize it. More than not forgetting it, I barely have to write anything. The match spoke for itself. Excalibur has been on the top of his game with these matches, hitting the high points during the matches themselves, and if you don't get it there, there's always the Danielson post-match interview where he lays it all out after Eddie leaves. But again, life moves quickly, so best to at least try to do this justice.

Much of 2023 was about Eddie Kingston's journey to become his best self. As this year goes on, he'll continue to serve as a whetstone to sharpen those around him and eventually, at some point, will have to deal with cracks in his own armor for even the best Eddie Kingston is still Eddie Kingston. For now, though, he's a constant, a paragon, consistent, stalwart. Danielson, on the other hand, is coming to grips with his own mortality the fact that his life as a full-time wrestler is winding down. You can draw a direct line through Danielson's last few big matches. He lost to Kingston in the finals of the Blue League bracket of the Continental Classic; he sought to break Eddie, was sure he could break Eddie. He could not. He defeated Hechicero, yes, but only after getting stretched and humiliated for the entirely of the match. Therefore, when he came out against Sabre, Jr., he wasn't his usual reactive, passive, opportunistic self. Instead he was aggressive, taking much of the match, even in a losing effort (one where, maybe, he had psyched himself out at the very end). I think he needed that performance against Sabre to reconfirm to himself just how good he was. This isn't a straight line. He came out weaker after the win against Hechicero and stronger after the loss to Sabre. It put him in a headspace where he could wrestle the match he wanted to wrestle against Kingston though, one where he was no longer going to try to break him mentally but to lay in wait for the right opportunity and dismantle him physically instead.

The problem for Danielson, however, is that Eddie Kingston is just a special sort of wrestler. Even though Danielson's plan played out perfectly, the benefit was limited and the struggle incessant. Danielson wrestled defensively. Usually it's more of a subtle thing, an almost Fujiwaran element to how he wrestles. Here, it was overt. His hands kept popping up to try to snatch a limb off of a Kingston strike. The problem was that Eddie was just too good at striking. It took Danielson goading him on the apron, both of them slightly off balance, to force a mistake; Eddie chopped the post and Danielson would have a wedge to pry his guard open for the rest of the match. With almost any other wrestler or even any other version of Kingston, this would be enough for Danielson to achieve his goal. It would be an academic dissection of a body part over the span of minutes. This version of Kingston, however, was just too much. It gave Danielson an edge (Kingston's shots weren't hitting as hard and he had to pause to recover in certain moments) but while it created an imbalance, Eddie was able to wrestle or tough his way out of any attempt to deepen the damage. 

Danielson is endlessly adaptable, though, and he moved with fluidity from one opportunity to another. It meant that he controlled much of the match, and when Eddie came back, it even meant that he did everything right in cutting him off, in opening him up, in creating exactly what he needed, like when he kicked the hand away so that he could hit his first knee. It was just that Eddie, on this night, in this moment, was too good. For much of the duration, Danielson wrestled a perfect match. For Bryan Danielson, of all people, to wrestle a perfect match, his perfect match, and to not be able to keep someone down? Of course it drove him to distraction. Eddie had been lured into a mistake early. Danielson, disgruntled, allowed himself to make one late, getting into a striking contest with Eddie. Even one handed, the jabs and out of nowhere shots that Kingston was able to throw were heartstopping. They weren't enough to put away Danielson though. This was almost a case where both wrestlers were simply too good, a battle of attrition, trench warfare where they fought to gain inches on a map. Danielson's mistake was just a bit too late in the match. Eddie just had a bit more down the stretch. On this night, he was just slightly, ever so slightly, the better man.

But Danielson wrestled a match without regret. He had wrestled his best match, not one where he got in his own way due to preconceived biases. This time around, Danielson did not defeat himself. He gave it his all and was beaten fair and square by the best wrestler in the world today, the AEW Continental Champion, the holder of the modern Triple Crown. And you could see it after the match, as Danielson came to grips with it, and in the post-match promo after Eddie left. By losing against this wrestler after a match where he gave it everything he had, Danielson ended this small journey of his own, a journey that started and ended with Kingston, and with Okada, Hechicero, Nagata, Sabre, and Akiyama along the way. As he winds down the last half-year of his fully active career as a wrestler, he can move forward with a restored peace (and openness) of mind. And Eddie Kingston can walk forth, head held high, dragging his titles behind him, the respect of his peers warning in his beaten and battered heart.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/27 - 3/5

AEW Rampage 3/3

Keith Lee/Dustin Rhodes vs. Swerve Strickland/Parker Boudreaux

MD: For reasons that would probably surprise no one, there were a few years towards the end of the 00s where I wasn't watching much wrestling. One of the things that got me back into it was 2009 WWECW. Not unlike Rampage, it was a brisk and enjoyable hour-long show. It featured Christian as babyface ace champion, Regal as the lead heel, and somewhere in the background, a two month feud between Goldust and the debuting Sheamus. Sheamus had anchored local promotions and worked FCW before this and was a lot farther along than Boudreaux, and was working guys like Noble, Regal, and even Steamboat on untelevised events at the time, but it helped to transition him to working TV and helped to get him over as a threat to the crowd. Basically, the AEW house shows can't come soon enough. Boudreaux has size. He's only 24. But his instincts and positioning just need so much work. If they only have a few months of Dustin left, he ought to be paired in a few last dream matches during that time. On the margins, though, there's no one who could better see if there's anything worth developing in Boudreaux.

Here they gave him time with both Lee and Dustin. During the heat, Swerve came in to cut Dustin off for the most part, while Boudreaux primarily did damage, the bits less concerned with timing. On the comeback, Lee got his hands on Swerve a few times, taking most of his shots and powering through with justified rage but it was only a tease for a blowoff to come. Boudreaux got hefted up to take the fall. It's probably fine not to protect him more at this point. He's a physical prospect but it's still too early to know if there's anything there and they can always build him back up when ready. Right now he needs ring time.

 

AEW Revolution 3/5

MJF vs. Bryan Danielson

MD:  When you watch a match like this, you're looking for the overall narrative, for the transitions, for the selling in the moment and deep in the stretch, for the false finishes and the real ones, for their ability to keep things interesting and fill time but also to make things meaningful and resonant so it's not obvious that they're filling time. You look to see if minute 13 somehow inevitably leads to minute 48. You're looking for Chekhov's collections of guns, the ones that fire off successfully, the ones that never go off, and the ones that strike without warning in build. In most cases, something fails and something falls because it's a long time to fill and humans are fallible. I thought this hit most of its marks pretty well, far better than most of the matches you'd compare it to.

A lot of what made it work was how self-aware and metatextual it was. Coming in, the match was presented as Danielson wanting to push MJF well past his limits and MJF being vulnerable and unable to hang. That's a little different than the athlete vs athlete nature of most ironman matches, where the gimmick is set up to present both as the very top of human endurance and achievement. That allowed for a bunch of narratives beats you wouldn't normally get, beats and counterbeats really. For instance, MJF opened up the shoulder work after stalling a few times, and even calling out how negatively stalling had been looked at by the sheets over the years (best not to let me get into that). He escaped the ring a few times and when it looked like he might again, he lured Danielson to yank the arm over the top. At times, the character of MJF was using the underlying metatext as a tool. At other times, he lost himself to it and wanted to prove himself. The first fall is a great example of the latter, where Danielson coaxed him into going along for the Malenko/Guerrero pin attempts and blew him up so he'd be open for the knee. 

What made this work was that, with one exception, it never seemed self-aware from human beings putting together a match. It was more than all of the players/characters (including Bryce) were aware of the history of these matches and the history of one another. That's what led to MJF hitting the low blow to get two falls while losing one, and more importantly, getting back into the match after Danielson's initial comeback. It's what led him to taking big chances (missing the moonsault which took his leg out for the rest of the match but hitting the elbow drop through the table). It led to Bryce spotting the ring and taking it off or for Danielson to dodge first before hitting the knee to score his third fall. 

The things that didn't work for me are primarily nitpicks. They went back to the water so many times. Taz covered well for it on the idea that maybe MJF couldn't hang with Danielson's cardio and he was making a mistake but it never cost him and never played into the match save for the one stalling heel moment early on with the fan. I would have liked that to have been a false finish where he tries to blow it at Danielson only to miss and then that set up the oxygen shot, just because they built it up so much, whether they meant to or not. I thought the selling was appropriate for most of the match (Danielson was maybe up too soon after the Storm Cradle Driver but sure, that could have been desperation). I don't think the visual of MJF crawling across the ring with blood in his mouth and making a fish face quite worked though. The overtime period with the tap out immediately thereafter didn't quite work either. That was the one part of that match that openly broke the facade and felt like a homage as opposed to characters being aware of the past. Finally, I would have rather MJF won it with the Regal Stretch but they refuse to even call it (and Tony gets it wrong anyway) so I get why they didn't do it.

I don't want this to be a four paragraph review which has one with nitpicks though, so let me reiterate in paragraph five that this hit far, far more than it missed and in a situation with a high level of difficulty. There was a ton of thought and care put into this and the execution landed. It really did feel like a script where they went over it again and again and again looking for holes. There's an old notion in wrestling that even more than their money, fans are giving the wrestlers and the promotion their precious, valuable time. Here it was sixty minutes worth spending.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Part 2: AEW Revolution 3/6/22

AEW Revolution 3/6

Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Jericho - EPIC

MD: I wondered how Jericho was going to handle this one. There were limitations due to the card. In a world without MJF vs Punk they could have done a bloody brawl or something more cinematic. In a world without Danielson vs Mox, they could have had an absolute slugfest. What we got instead was the most in shape Jericho has been in years and him pushing himself to the limit physically to work a Kingston match. That meant the perfect mix of hard strikes, big selling, and nasty bombs.

Eddie was going to be Eddie. He's a constant, always on, always filling the gap, always thinking, always acting, always hitting as hard as he can and leaning into everyone else's shots to make them twice as resonant. Jericho, however, was absolutely present, selling the emotion of the match, responding to the fans' chants, getting into it with Aubrey to get more heat after a near-fall. He started out from a deficit, getting caught with the half and half immediately. The hole was only going to get deeper when the striking shot because he couldn't match Eddie's chops (in fact, no amount of leaning in that Eddie did could fully justify how much he was selling for Jericho on them).

What he did instead was acutely target Eddie's orbital bone with pinpoint shots. That paid out throughout the match. When he wanted to hit the top rope frankensteiner, he'd shoot a palm strike up first. When he wanted to cut off Eddie in the corner, it would be with a jab to the eye. Of course, Eddie was Eddie and would shoot a poke right back at Jericho. Likewise, Jericho was Jericho and instead of leaning wholly into his strengths, he had to try to outsuplex Eddie with a number of Germans and one amazing Foley-like bump from Kingston off the apron to the floor. It all built to Eddie surviving the Walls, Jericho surviving the backfist, then almost winning by hitting a first codebreaker onto the orbital bone. Eddie bumped for a second codebreaker as hard anyone ever took it, but Jericho's ego and spite won out. He went for a Judas Effect to crush Eddie's face instead of going for the pin and Eddie was able to capitalize with two backfists and the world's most over the top stretch plum. Eddie's match is a hell of a thing, something that wears all of its influences on its sleeve but while making everything matter and everything hit emotionally, and Jericho jumped headlong into it better than anyone could have expected.

PAS:  Eddie just delivers every time in big matches. This was Kingston Road Eddie, which isn't always my favorite style of his, but it was a great version of it. As always Eddie elevates the match over a regular All Japan pastiche by his amazing selling, loved all of the stuff around the eye, and how vicious Jericho was. Potato shot Jericho isn't the way he normally works, but it is my favorite version of him, and he was matching Eddie with every blow, some of those suplexes were really sick, and good on old man Jericho for taking those head drops, and it made total sense for his old crickly neck to be the thing that did him in with the Stretch Plum.

CM Punk vs. MJF

MD: I've watched this one twice now and I appreciate the work and the effort certainly. I appreciate the thought put into it. Nothing is in there without a reason. Everything builds from something else, whether something from four decades ago, two decades ago, or two months ago. The announcers did a fairly heroic job in connecting the dots and laying everything out for the audience, on the understanding that the fans in the crowd would be the most hardcore possible and would know enough to begin with to follow along for most of it. And overall, I did think it worked.

There were things I outright loved. I loved the build early on to the chain being used as a punch-enhancing weapon. I'm a proponent of the gimmick immediately being present and having an indirect impact on what happens in a match but also being built up for an early payoff. That's true with a cage or barbed wire or a chain. Here it impacted movement and was used indirectly and the punch was teased a few times, but when it paid off, it was on MJF's hand and led to Punk gushing. That followed, by the way, MJF using the chain to block Punk's bulldog out of the corner, so it was the ultimate indirect use of the chain leading to the first meaningful direct use of it, which, in turn, led to the blood. By the way, the corner bulldog would come up again twice later, first Punk hitting it with the chain wrapped to avoid the indirect counter and then MJF trying it onto the thumbtacks, which was him, once again, showing his hubris and needing to vanquish Punk with his own move.

Once Punk's gusher started, we got what I thought was the most important moment of the match and the entire feud, when Max took the mic and reiterated that Punk abandoned and betrayed him. Even after the victory in Chicago, even after the ambush last week, even after bloodying him with the chain, Punk was in MJF's head, he had no catharsis, and he lashed out at the fans for not going along with him and seeing him as the hero of his own story. This is pro wrestling and one feud has to move on to the next and Wardlow was waiting in the wings, but that was the moment that signified that no matter how else everything played out in the match itself, the feud could end and Punk could win it. In many ways, it proved he already had.

Still, the match had to get there, and I think it moved along fairly well, through the crushing of the hand, through the submission attempts, through the wrapped knee opening MJF up, through Punk dragging Max around the ring (though that felt a little too collaborative to me), through Punk shattering his knee on the stairs, right up until the tombstone on the apron. That's when things veered off a bit. It was one too many clever spots in a match that could be allowed to be clever, but only up to the point where that ingenuity didn't get in the way of the visceral violence. To me, the tombstone and the thumbtacks that followed ended up as one too many spots from the head when they should have been laying it into each other down the stretch instead. Maybe it's okay because Max had already lost himself the war. Maybe it's okay because he'd already bled (though not nearly enough). Maybe it's okay because Wardlow had learned his worth and was about to show it to the world, but maybe okay isn't what the match was going for and maybe that final patch of being okay snatched away just a touch of greatness. Just a touch though, since there was still a lot of greatness to be found.

Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley

PAS: Wrote this up for The Ringer  . Easily one my favorite matches of the year.

MD: Phil's covered this already and at length, but I'll lead with this: with Punk and MJF, I saw the strings. I appreciated the work and effort put into them. I liked most (but not all of them), but there was never a moment in the match that they weren't clear for everyone to see. It's 2022. That's ok. But.

There were definitely strings in Mox vs Danielson. There were parallels. Mox went for the big clothesline twice before hitting it. Danielson focused on the ribs for a time. They had parallels towards the end with the submissions and the specific flip over counters. They had Danielson and Moxley both use the hammer and anvil elbows and the repeated kicks to the face. There was thought put into this, but there were also absolutely zero gaps to be found.

There were strings because there had to be strings because not all of it could have just been intuitive, but you have to exhume them after the fact, a dry listed out post-mortem at the brains behind the heart. Because this match was all heart and all emotion and all intensity. Every second of it had both guys completely on, completely in the moment, driving forward. If Kingston vs Jericho were a series of moves and moments that all fit the character and all made sense and all hit hard, this was a twenty minute primal scream, airtight blood, and violence, and technique. Danielson, over the last few weeks in interviews, likened this level of intensity to being as close to god as he could possibly be.

Mox wrote an entire book that espouses his philosophy on wrestling and life and you can watch it play out on screen in his matches. With Mox, it was the early egging on, hands behind his back, the headbutts, the burst of energy when he finally hit the clothesline. With Danielson, it was that moment after Mox kicked out of the flying knee, when he just shook his head again and again and again, horrified that he didn't win but elated that there was more to come. Horror and elation sums this one up pretty well as a viewer too.

Darby Allin/Sammy Guevara/Sting vs. Andrade/Isiah Kassidy/Matt Hardy

PAS: Perfect palate cleansing match in between the Moxley vs. Danielson and title match. Just 13 minutes of car crash spots, including two of the crazier garbage spots I can remember (and shockingly neither included Darby, the rare match where he is out nutsed). The stage dive Spanish fly through two tables was so psycho that it really should have been saved for a different match where it could stand out, the level of difficulty on that spot was wild, one one wrong inch could have gone very wrong. Of course Sting diving off of a balcony through two tables was totally wild, the stacked tables meant he didn't have to fall as a far, but that is an insane thing for a 60 year old guy to do, what a treat this Sting run has been, he has just been perfect.

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