AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/3 - 11/9

AEW Dynamite 11/5/25

Athena/Mercedes Mone vs Willow Nightingale/Harley Cameron

MD: Mercedes Mone is a star. Athena makes her shine all the brighter.

I'm quite high on Mercedes for much that she does. I think her reactions in the moment are believable. Her matches are ambitious in many ways. She has an incredible work ethic. As an ace, she's tremendous at treating each and every opponent differently; I loved seeing her switching up her taunts and crowd interactions for Olympia's strength for instance. 

That said, there is often a rehearsed feel to her matches. It's a perfectionist's bent, a practice makes perfect sort of feel that's impossible to escape. While the matches feel alive in the moment, sometimes the overall effect is a little plastic, a little blunted. It's more DDP than Randy Savage. That's fine. 98 DDP was great. But it's not transcendent.

Athena, endlessly reactive, endlessly electric, as dynamic as any wrestler in the world, helps Mercedes transcend herself and become her own personal Randy Savage.

They worked so well together here and it felt natural as could be, a meshing of two disparate but tangential egos, two parallel characters, two parallel paths to a flawed sort of kayfabe greatness. You could see it right from the get go when Mercedes pulled a seething Athena to fawn over the belts and how it transitioned right to the two of them almost immediately switching gears with Mercedes seething behind Harley as she entered the ring and Athena posing with her big Yaaaaaay! after their successful initial ambush of the babyfaces. 

The structure was double heat, but Harley carried both face-in-perils. That fit the hierarchy very well. It allowed Harley to gain sympathy, allowed Willow to come in like a wrecking ball after the first hot tag, and allowed Athena and Mercedes to look like the very best in the world as they took over with a tandem backstabber out of nowhere, the wild Athena dive through Mercedes' legs, and an absolutely perfect but still chaotically organic double team move where Athena basically hit Mercedes with the MoneMaker but right onto Harley. 

That unique no shine/double heat structure let them utilize a Willow blind tag (instead of a conventionally hot one) after the break and allowed for things to break down a little early without it feeling unearned or unbalanced. The finish, with Statlander coming out to disrupt Billie and the belt and distract Athena (who had just hit one of her super impressive strength spots), furthered the Full Gear title match and set up a few matches in the future including Athena vs Harley for the ROH title. 

My big takeaway, however, is that while I understand Athena and Mercedes going out like this (they were almost too big to continue on in the tournament and this furthered other storylines) the pairing, either feuding or teaming, is just too good not to go back to sooner than not. 

It's pro wrestling. You need your stars shining as brightly as possible as much as possible, and Athena burns brightly enough to be the perfect spotlight for Mercedes Mone.

Samoa Joe/Powerhouse Hobbs/Katsuyori Shibata vs Eddie Kingston/HOOK/Hangman Adam Page

MD: Keep your eye on Eddie Kingston.

I came across an obituary of Gene Wilder a week or two ago. In it, the writer noted it was a known secret in the acting industry that actors that wished to "better themselves would do well to watch a movie with Gene Wilder in it and pay particular attention to him in a scene when someone else is speaking, someone else has the focus. He was always acting in those moments too, reacting or listening in perfect character and supporting the scene with his presence. A lot of good actors are good when they have something to do. Gene Wilder was good all the time."

I had immediately connected that to Negro Casas actually, and the work he did in trios matches when he wasn't the main focus of a feud.

But then I saw this match and it clicked here as well.

Eddie's not even in this feud. Eddie is HOOK's plus-one. But he managed to do something that was absolutely a contradiction here: he not only stole the show, but he then took what he stole and donated it back to his partners. 

Here's the key: he's constantly, consistently both engaged and engaging. Someone can be the one but not the other and it goes both ways. I love watching Ultimate Warrior on the apron in tags, but he's not necessarily responding to what's happening in the moment and adding to the overall match. There are also plenty of guys able to put their arm out for a tag but not also able to use it to draw you into the match. And Eddie draws you right in while making it about what's going on in the ring and not about himself. 

Some of that is his strength as a storytelling but I honestly believe so much of it is his foundation as a fan. He remembers caring. Hell, he watches certain matches over and over and over again because he still cares. He cares as much as anyone reading this and as much as the person writing this and he's able to channel that feeling into what he was doing here. 

That meant he showed his disgust when Samoa Joe started the match by dodging Hook and tagging out to Shibata, that he sold chops as if they were hurting him, and that when Hook was trying to fight back (and after Hook hit the suplex that threw his back out the rest of the way), he'd lean halfway into the ring to try to will him over to the corner.

And when it was time for him to get in there, he did exactly what he should. That meant getting beaten on by Samoa Joe in the corner, his comeback chops ineffectual. It meant being able to fire back against Shibata but cutting himself off due to the fact he's still working his way back to full strength. It meant that when it was time to mount a comeback, he climbed that hill and almost, almost worked with Hangman to hit a tandem Uraken/Buckshot (we need to see that at some point, TK, just saying; you've teased it now and let the heels rob us of it so you have to pay it off). 

And then after Hobbs crushed Hangman at the top of the stage, he found the inner strength to fight back against all the odds one last time. That's the only shame here. If this match had five more minutes, it could have been not just a double heat, but a triple heat, with Hook making that first tag to Eddie, with Eddie coming back after a 3-on-2 beating, and then with Eddie having to crawl back after Hangman got taken out, lasting just long enough in that All Japan Trios style for Hook to recover, even if it would all end in brave but futile heartbreak. 

But that's still out there on the table for another day. What we got was the best supporting player in all of wrestling pouring his heart out for yet another one of his award winning roles (not that he'd ever admit it, but those who watch closely... we know). 

Don't believe me? Next time you get a chance, just keep your eye on Eddie Kingston. You'll see it too.

Darby Allin vs Daniel Garcia

MD: Styles make fights. Contrast makes the world go round. Character drives action. 

Three sentences. Three true statements. You put them together and you get this match. While Darby is accomplished on the mat, he's no Daniel Garcia. While Garcia has a chip on his shoulder, has been training with Moxley and has been fighting full of grit, he's no Darby Allin. The difference between these two drove this one. In the ring, whether it be in the early feeling out process or trying holds down the stretch, Garcia had an advantage. When things hit the floor or got dirty, Darby tended to have an advantage. 

But Garcia was going to blink first again and again, because he had more to prove, because he couldn't get out of his own way (that's the character bit). That meant teasing the dance after choking Darby with the turnbuckle connector protector. It meant trying for an additional suplex (or neckbreaker) after hitting a superplex. It most especially meant mocking Sting when he had the Scorpion on, which ultimately cost him the match. 

There was a third character in this one as well ( and I don't mean PAC who set up a nice nearfall countout), the ring itself. They could have done this straightforward, eye gouges, ear biting, armbars and headscissors, but they chose to go inventive with it instead. After using the turnbuckle protector, Darby stuck Dany's arm in side the ringpost. Garcia's big transition to heel offense was trapping Darby in the apron. The stairs were used liberally. Garcia hooked Darby's chain to the corner. Pretty clever stuff all around which added to the chaotic nature of the match while keeping it character-driven and laser-focused on the contrast between the two. 

Three sentences that point to true north for almost every match and Darby and Garcia followed the map to their destination here.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/4 - 8/10

AEW Collision 8/9/25

Hangman Adam Page/JetSpeed (Mike Bailey/Kevin Knight) vs LFI (Rush/Dralistico/Beast Mortos)

MD: There's a fine line between genius and madness, likewise greatness and disaster. Sometimes the qualities that make wrestlers stand out, make them dynamic and brilliant, are also the factors that can drag a match down in excess, that can muddle a match in chaos and confusion. Likewise, if properly channeled, some of the worst qualities on paper can channeled into strengths. Sometimes all that matters is the sheer intensity of the qualities at play.

RUSH is as visceral as any wrestler alive. He's a seething, fuming, tinder box of pride (ego might even be a better word), aggression, and a lack of impulse control. He blurs the line better than most wrestlers of this century. You might be frustrated by a Rush match, but you're never going to be bored by it. If anything, you're going to be irritated because he manages to shut enough doors that you don't get all the matchups you want to see with him. Dralistico has his own issues, a tendency to go into business for himself and leave the match's purpose behind, a lack of cooperation, a certain bent for unevenness when it comes to how cleanly he hits his most spectacular offense. It's hard to say much negative about Mortos but sometimes I think he gives too much too soon and works too small. For instance, the tornillo is spectacular but it's not the sort of thing I want to see every match. It should be a huge deal when he goes to his higher agility offense. 

So many possibilities, so many things to be controlled for, some of them being entirely human instincts and emotions and not just something you can move around on a board.  

This was Hangman's homecoming, a rare Collision appearance, an attraction six-man tag main eventing a show just down the street from where he went to college. While there was an existing issue between JetSpeed and LFI, Hangman was here as the ace, the champion, the sheriff who's sick and tired of all of the injustice around him. He's a lead babyface who's going to support the rest of the locker room with his stare, and his words, and if need be, his fists. 

And it's a testament to how this was put together that it all worked exactly as it should have, strengths accentuated, weaknesses (or at least potential disruptions) channeled for the good of the match. Let's look at Rush, for instance, one of the most exciting potential main eventers I can imagine, and certainly a main eventer in his own mind. He was laser focused for Hangman for much of the match. Of course he wanted to go toe to toe with the champ. Early on, he gave just enough. In their strike exchange, he often had advantages, but he took them by switching gears first. He switched from forearms to chops when Hangman was starting to get the better of him. It created the illusion of being in control when he actually wasn't. Later on, he wiped Hangman out on the apron for absolutely no reason, exactly the sort of thing you think he'd do; at face value, it didn't fit into the match, not really, but it set up the big final comeback, as he tried it late in the match and Hangman caught him and nailed him, allowing for the hot tag and the setup for the finish. 

Likewise Dralistico. It doesn't always work out this way, but given the chaotic and bombastic feel of the match and opponents who could do things that were spectacular enough to stand out, that he was uncooperative at times, that he was blustery at times, that he played to the crowd at times, that things seemed a little rough around the edges at times, all added to the gritty fight feel. At times, Knight was forced to contort his body this way or that in order to try to hit a piece of an offense and that made everything feel all the more organic, believe it or not. And Mortos? Well, yes, he hit his dive, but it was perfectly placed and he took out both of JetSpeed in the process, before helping to base for Rush's subsequent dive. That made it feel larger than life in a way that you can't quite accomplish in a singles match against a smaller opponent. 

It was there all the way to the finish. Hangman got the better of Dralistico, planting him down and then scooting backwards to skin the cat and set up the Buckshot. He had to fight off first Mortos and then Rush on the apron, however. That allowed for Dralistico to recover, only for the math to play out and JetSpeed to take him out as well. They followed up with dives of their own (clearing the table for the finish, the real purpose for dives, being means and not ends, in so many lucha trios matches). And then Hangman could flip back over the rope to victory. In wrestling, anything is possible with enough thought and care. Likewise, the opposite. Negatives can be channeled into positives. Positives can decay and mutate into disaster. Thankfully though, this match threaded the needle and maximized possibilities extremely well.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 4/28 - 5/4

AEW Dynamite 4/30/25

Hangman Adam Page vs The Protostar Kyle Fletcher

MD: Full disclosure: I was looking forward to this as much as anything else AEW has done this year. Also full disclosure: if you had told me that 18 months ago, I would have called you crazy. Let's put Fletcher aside for now. I was not an Adam Page guy (and everyone seems to be an Adam Page guy). There was plenty to like (how he emoted, how he hit clean, how he hit hard, the entire anxious millennial cowboy deal), but I likened him to a tree that grew big in all the wrong ways. His matches escalated too fast, too quickly. The crowd went up for them but they came off as empty to me, ephemeral. A lack of mid-level offense. A tendency to spend too long down the stretch and not long enough building to it. Those early match death valley drivers and springboard clotheslines didn't do him any favors. Ever since he started leaning heel, he slowed down his pace, creating a seething methodological mood in a way that very few wrestlers today are able to create mood, and to enable that, he took on a number of things (even if it's just violence as opposed to "moves") to bridge the gaps. He's carried a lot of that forward now that he's leaning back babyface.

And of course, Kyle Fletcher is the most exciting wrestler in AEW. After two generations of cool heels who refused to take things seriously, refused to show weakness, refused to let themselves care about anything, who had to be in on the joke and let everyone know they were in on the joke, Fletcher is relighting a torch long put out as a stooging, cowardly, unlikable, absolutely genuine heel. He's part of a movement that is the most refreshing and wonderful thing in pro wrestling (one that depending on the day can include MJF and Ricochet, and increasingly wrestlers like Blake Christian and Lee Johnson and Red Velvet, and even believe it or not, Okada). I look forward to see what new bit he'll work into his matches each and every week (I miss the pullaway pants already). But it's his reactions in the moment as he responds to his fellow wrestlers, the ref, and most especially the crowd, that really put him over the top. I loved the build of this the week prior where Hangman charged down to the ring while Fletcher had the Don Callis Family around him. He went from cocky to terrified as Hangman grabbed him back to confident as his team was beating Hangman down. Fletcher wrestles with his heart on his sleeve as a heel and heart is absolutely everything.

The good in the match was very, very good. I loved the first two thirds and thought the finish was very good as well. The opening feeling out chain wrestling (which made sense as this was a tournament match) had a nice wrinkle or two from Hangman. Fletcher hitting the floor, first in response to Hangman getting one over on him, and then to avoid the Buckshot was everything I want from him, especially when Hangman came out of nowhere to clothesline him over the barricade. The laceration on Fletcher's back added an flavor of grisly realism. I liked the throughline of Fletcher using a bit of distance/distraction to hit superkicks to stay in it. I don't think that was overdone. Fletcher's shots in the corner while in control, whether they're boots or the sweeping elbows he does, are a huge part of his act, just him reveling and basking in his shitheel dominance. That makes the comeuppance he receives all the better.

And he absolutely did receive comeuppance. Hangman's comeback after the first commercial break was great. Total standing tall hometown hero stuff. I loved all the different lariat variations he used to fill the space and punish Fletcher. That's so much of what I thought he was missing two years ago. He had the corner clothesline, the sliding one, the corner repeated shots. All of that meant that they could build to the death valley driver (after one attempt at it) instead of using the death valley driver to build to something else. Same with the fall away slam. 

They were set to go long, which meant things escalated to the apron brainbuster/Orihara moonsault off the rail/tombstone spot on the floor to set up the second commercial break. That's where I though the match got a bit off course. The second commercial break was a bit of selling (Hangman nominally selling the apron brainbuster well after the fact) and then 50-50 stuff, culminating with another superkick takeover by Fletcher, and ultimately building to Hangman's big escape from the corner brainbuster and the subsequent superplex. That heralded the return from the break and the beginning of the true finishing stretch. 

This section, to me, felt fairly formless, which might be understandable as it was during a second commercial break in the match, but there was no reason not to go back to that tried and tested strength of AEW: stack heat in the commercial breaks. Fletcher was losing. Hangman had the hometown crowd. They had a spectacular finish planned with the lowblow nearfall followed by the roll-through quasi-Buckshot off the top. I get that there is a certain 2010s NJPW Tournament style that they try to ape sometimes, but this wasn't the time, place, or set up for it, not given the combatants, the locale, and that second break.

Instead, I wished they would have just put a little more heat on Fletcher. It's what he's there for. Have him reverse that tombstone on the floor and hit it himself. Go to break. Have him get a second round of heat and ramp up the pressure more and more. That's what pro wrestling is all about. Build and payoff. If you have the right wrestlers in the right place in front of the right crowd, there's nothing better than double heat! Instead, the crowd chanted at Don Callis and waited for the finishing stretch to begin as Hangman and Fletcher went 50-50 for a minute or two. If they had went back to having Fletcher grind down on Hangman while being an ass, they could have still built to the exact same moment in the corner but the crowd (probably, hopefully, probably) would have gone up even higher for it. 

It would be win-win-win. Fletcher would have been protected just a little more in the loss, not that he really needs it with the way that he responds to everything. Hangman would have had to overcome just a little more to make his win resonate even more; he'd already had a very dominant comeback after all. There would have been a clearer narrative going into the tighter, more focused finishing stretch, with more contrast with it and what came before. The crowd would have been all the more ready to boil over with the superplex and everything that came after. More, more, more (by doing a little less, actually, but that's the art of pro wrestling for you).

If they wanted to capture that tournament feel, they've got Ospreay vs Hangman coming, face vs quasi-face, and I'm sure that'll tap into it for good and ill, even (and especially, I suppose) with as far as Hangman has come. Still, despite all that, I had been looking forward to match for a reason and in most of the ways that mattered, it lived up to my expectations. With Fletcher, in Hangman's home area, I just really wanted a little bit more and I think if they had doubled down on the heat, they could have given it to me (and to everyone else too, of course!). Maybe that was greedy of me, but he's the sort of wrestler who is exciting enough to inspire greed. And he deserves all the credit in the world for that.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/11 - 11/17

ROH 11/14/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Love Doug/TJ Crawford

MD: Dutch having Dusty's cowbell as one of his last students is a good compelling real life wrinkle to the feud. I think on some level, I don't want to think about Dutch having a life outside of being a member of the Righteous though. It's not like they're wildly fleshed out as characters. I don't know why Vincent became who he is. He's just here fully formed and snapping, so it's kind of weird to think of Dutch in development doing promo class with Dusty. It'd be interesting if they were able to link this to how he fell somehow. I guess it's a sort of "don't open the door, unless you are willing to fully walk through it" sort of deal. Unless they're putting the belts on the Righteous, they're kind of okay as two dimensional characters who serve as physical threats. If they're going to try to do anything more out of them, I think we need to get to the heart of what makes them tick more. This could be a good step along that road or it could be messy depending on how this places out.

Likewise, the idea of Dustin and Sammy having a tag match and the Righteous having one on the same show, with a Righteous beat down after the former, is a pretty good bit of work too. Just nice, straightforward booking keeping things moving. Here it let them introduce the cowbell too, carried by the commentary. And the Righteous' new finisher which is Vincent picking someone up in a fireman's carry and then Dutch hefting both of them over his shoulder. 

The match itself was fun fluff with Shot Through the Heart feeding and feeding and feeding, with no care for the rules. Normally, I'd cry foul but they basically just kept running into Dustin and Sammy's offense, save for a brief respite while they were waiting for Sammy to hit a dive. It fit the characters. It fit the moment. It put Dustin and Sammy over strong right before they were about to get wiped out and the emotional element was to be introduced. Just good episodic pro wrestling TV.

AEW Rampage 11/15/24

RUSH/The Beast Mortos vs Alec Price/Richard Holliday

AEW Collision 11/16/24

RUSH/The Beast Mortos vs The Acclaimed

MD: The squash on Rampage was effective. We've seen Mortos basing for smaller luchadores and working against other talent equal, but it was very nice to see him just crushing people. The Buzz Sawyer-esque power slam stood out as much as anything else. 

The Acclaimed match needs to be unpacked a little more. Let's talk about the Acclaimed first. Something has to give. I don't know what that is yet. Traditional pro wrestling booking would have it look like Caster was going to go with the Hurt Syndicate and Bowens be the one to do it first. That would be a mistake. For one, Caster can't be a babyface. He took the FIP here and it felt GOOD. It felt great to see Rush take the cord and flip him over his head to the floor. That was one of the most refreshing, rewarding, satisfying moments of the year in AEW. You want to see him get beat up. And it's wrestling, so he can use that, not as some sort of edgelord heel like he's been as a face, but instead as a stooging, heatseeking, scummy, scuzzy Eric Embry/Rip Rogers type. It's obvious by this point that Perry isn't going to really lean into that so there's still a window. 

That leaves us with Bowens. I think Bowens could be a successful aggressive, athletic heel, sure. But why? He's one of the two most likable guys in the company off screen. He's got a great story. People want to get behind him. He's short which would be a detriment as a heel but works fine as a babyface who can go and who can bring it. Look, I get it. Whatever the company wants to do right now, it's not Tsuruta-gun vs the Super Generation Army. Maybe we'll get there in a few months, maybe not. Daniel Garcia is Misawa in that case. He's 100% Miswa, unquestionably Misawa. Maybe Hook is Kawada, maybe not. There was a world where Yuta could have been Kobashi but he's Taue now, the turncoat. Bowens is one of the only guys in the company that can be Kobashi, that can push up against monsters bigger and stronger with him through heart and intensity and passion alone. Just let him be himself and let him face off against all the darkness in the world. The fans will get behind him. They got behind the Acclaimed an idea, a concept, a hand gesture, an attitude. They'll get behind Bowens as a person. I'm sure of it. He just needs to believe in himself and to have the company believe in him. The fans believing in him? That's the easy part. 

And then there are RUSH and Mortos. Given what's happening with the Acclaimed right now and just the general positioning of LFI I would have much preferred a roll up pin after Mortos wiped out in the corner as opposed to him eating the Arrival/Mic Drop combo. It might be counter intuitive but one protects him more than the other. You can forgive a banana peel roll up more. 

Here's another "Look". Look, I get that RUSH has a history of... you know, everything under the sun, right? Being uncooperative, having a few injuries, supporting Cuatrero, all sorts of stuff. But if you're going to have him on your roster and pay him well and use him steadily anyway, USE HIM. There are maybe four people on the roster (with two of them being Mox and Athena) who can bring the same level of seething, immersive intensity. Rush is a generational talent. When he was gone more often then not, it was fine to use him as a sort of gatekeeper/mercenary for bounty situations because he's instantly credible just by showing up in the ring. Now that he's a more of a weekly character, he can't just be a normal guy. 

I'm pretty sure that one of the biggest matches they can put on for the Texas All In, at least if you care about walkup, is finally getting LA Park to put his mask up against Rush's hair. Rush's hair was one of the biggest draws in Mexico for years in the 2010s. Granted, I don't know the lucha politics nor do I want to in this case. The point more is this. He draws the eye. He captures attention. He has that feel to him of "Well, it's not all real, but maybe it's a little real when this guy is in there." Someone said a few days ago that if Rush knew what Caster had been saying on his rap, the match might have gone very differently. Obviously on one level you don't want that, but it's a double-edged sword. Genius and madness go hand in hand in pro wrestling, and you have to tap into the talent you have as much as possible. Give him a brass knucks title and feud him with the wildest people on the roster. Build to he and Moxley completely dismantling the set in the world's craziest no contest. Make him the threat that Bowens has to overcome over time like Hansen to Kobashi. Something. Anything. He's lightning in a bottle. Use him to light up the world.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and friends) 9/23 - 9/29 Part 2

AEW Collision Grand Slam 9/28/24

Claudio Castagnoli/PAC/Wheeler Yuta vs Private Party/Komander

MD: I'm going to pass on Moxley vs Allin. I just have more to say about the Collision matches. It was very good. It's wrestlers pressing each other to the limit. It's exactly what we need. I'm not going to cover too much of the actual happenings in this trios match either. Obviously, Claudio was an amazing base; PAC is really finding himself in this role, is reveling in it; Kassidy, Quen, and Komander saw their opportunity and fought from underneath and showed fire with a never-say-die attitude.

But really, this was all about the interplay of Yuta with his partners. This will play into the Jarrett vs Page match as well, but balancing complex characters in pro wrestling is hard. At the end of the day, it has to transfer to the ring and has to live in front of a crowd, an opinionated, reacting crowd. You can't control these reactions except for through craft and cunning. We're in an age of instant response where people will tweet about a new episode of scripted television, but that won't affect those shows in the moment. It doesn't impact the actual art as it's happening in the same way as wrestling where the crowd is part of the overall effect.

It means that if you lead with real complexity, you could get a split crowd when you don't want that at all. But if you can actually pull it off? Well, then you get something that only a tiny fraction of all pro wrestling ever has managed to deliver upon and that has almost always been a success.

Wheeler Yuta is the most interesting character in wrestling right now. By its inherent nature, this moment can’t last. He's going to make a decision one way or another. Then, maybe he'll be a heel, one who has to live with his decision and his actions and the constant peer pressure around him. He'll be the living, breathing definition of a young man trying to justify what he had done and what he had become, likely by throwing himself entirely into the dark vision that Jon Moxley presents. He could be a heatseeker, bolstered by his betrayal, getting under everyone's skin, made all the worse because deep down, everyone knows that he's just weak. Yes, there are some parallels to Jack Perry that they'll have to navigate but it's not quite the same.

Or he can lean hard into what the fans want right now, can master his rage and frustration and emotions and stand for something. He can be the light that continues to shine after Bryan Danielson has gone off into his retirement. He can be the nucleus for a new Super Generation Army, someone to actually be elevated into a star. He could be a Kobashi who represents the fans' love of wrestling and the spirit they all want to have inside of them. Remember, AJPW didn't push Misawa and company to the moon right after Tenryu left. They held steady on with hosses like Hansen, Doc, and Gordy on top until the younger talent was built up, into 1991. That paid off for years. Yuta can be built in the same way. He can press up against PAC, Claudio, Moxley again and again, getting just a little farther each time, until he finally overcomes. Is that something AEW wants? Do they want to sacrifice part of the now, maximizing the moment, in order to truly build people, to not just give them one big feud, one big moment, and then shunt them back down onto the card because they don't fit the Dynasty dynamic?

I don't know, but right now he's Schrodinger's Wrestler, trying to control his own emotions, with all of us unsure where he’ll land. Jon Moxley has given into his emotions. Bryan Danielson has conquered his own. Yuta is in flux. He's a trained killer with a good heart. It's so essential here to have Claudio and PAC clearly coded as heels in the ring, ones that believe in something, ones with a chip on their shoulder, ones with a point, but ones that are absolutely painting a crystal clear picture. The crowd knows exactly how to respond to them. They're the grounded stability that makes this sort of complexity possible. Claudio has an almost familial expectation for Yuta, simple and direct. PAC, finally at home in a way that maybe he never was with his last set of partners, in turn has an almost bestial glee at the idea of Yuta giving into the twisted spirit and joining them. Every cut to him snarling and smiling provides the exact color this storyline needs.

And Yuta walks the line like the star he could be, believable, compelling, engaging. He's an unlikely protagonist but wrestling is an unlikely business. The fans have cautiously let him into their heart, for in so many ways he represents them in the face of what’s happened. If a TV deal is just about to be signed, there's never a better time to take a risk. It could well be time to make a leap of faith and take a gamble on Yuta for the sake of the future, no matter which way he falls. After all, there isn’t currently a better story in wrestling.

Jeff Jarrett vs Hangman Page (Lumberjack Strap Match)

MD: And Hangman Page is the second most interesting character in wrestling. I think this needs less breaking down, but I do want to note a couple of things. Hangman won the match. After doing so, he slapped the mat like he was a fired-up babyface. Then he hung a guy. Before that came a low blow and the Deadeye. Before that came him basically fighting off nine people, including someone's wife and a giant, all with straps. Talk about being all over the place narratively. Or at least, it should have been on paper. But it worked on the strength of Hangman Page and Jeff Jarrett as performers, maybe with a little of Tony commentating based on what Page had just threatened to do to him too. That's super impressive (and incredibly compelling) when you think about it.
 
What I loved most about this one, however, was how they treated the gimmick. Maybe a straight up chain/dog collar/strap match between the two would have been more visceral and gripping, but since they decided to go this route (seemingly to transition Page towards the BBG; small concern there as they're not the same sort of constants that Claudio/PAC are playing - it could get messy), the way to do it was to treat the straps held by the lumberjacks like a big deal. They built to Page getting whalloped by basically everyone and they built to it smartly. That meant him getting pushed towards the apron early on and treating it like a huge thing, something to be avoided at all costs. He took it seriously with total earnestness. There was no inkling of irony. It reminded me of how Onita would get over the exploding cage early in those matches. If you build up a gimmick as something the wrestlers are wary of, then the fans are going to care about it too.

They were laser-focused and consistent with it. When they did play things as cute, for instance when Jarrett got tossed out to his cronies and they gave him a hug and pushed him back in, they immediately turned it by Page throwing him out the other side of the ring so that the heels over there could give him some shots. Therefore, when Page finally did hit the floor, him getting whipped as a huge deal. Remember, this was a show with a Texas Tornado tag and a Saraya's Rules hardcore match. They'd seen crazier things than even Satnam whipping someone, but none of it was built to like this. Just impressive stuff overall. If Hangman can keep some of these lessons close to his heart moving forward, the sky is the limit for him. I know a lot of people think he was always great, but this little bit of discipline, this little bit more of giving himself over to believing and getting the fans to believe, well, it can take him even further, further than he's ever been.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/29 - 8/4

AEW Dynamite 7/31/24

Darby Allin vs. Adam Page

MD: Darby performs miracles regularly. On some level, it's simple. Wrestling is about heat. The babyface shines brightly, then takes and takes and takes, gets hope here and there, comes back, and they go to a finish. That's wrestling. It's worked for seventy-five years if not a hundred, across multiple cultures (though maybe not all). You build anticipation and you pay it off. Darby, being an absolute sponge for punishment, someone who will bump, crash, burn, someone with a few key hope spots he can work out of anywhere, who wins half of his matches with roll-ups, is perfect for it. And he overlays it again and again and again against opponents who don't want to be confined by that tried and true structure at all. And somehow, it works. It almost always works. It's wild.

So many of my problems with Page have been alleviated with this heel turn. You could sum them up with six words: too big, too soon, not consequential. You could go deeper into how he lacked low and mid-level offense and had too many bombs in his arsenal for even an ass-kicking babyface, when he should have been leaning more on brawling instead. Rewarded for all the wrong reasons, he was a tree that grew tall in all the wrong ways (but still, the tree was tall; you couldn't deny that). Now though, he's letting it all breathe.

Here, vs. Darby, knowing he'd lose, he had to be protected while Darby had to be kept strong given his role now and in the future. Tough balance. But Darby was explosive enough that he could make a lot out of a little, and Hangman's bombs worked well here, because they were well-placed, well-timed, and quite consequential. That first German on the floor after Darby leaped backwards into his arms set the tone for the match. The Death Valley Driver cemented his control. The power bombs on the apron were brutal insults to injury. The fall away slam onto the stairs was a cut off spot, and the one off the top rope told everyone who had been away for a commercial break just what the score was. Things were made to matter. For a normal match, I'd say these spots (even well placed) were maybe too much escalation. But there's nothing necessarily normal about Darby and it all worked out. He's larger than life and because this is the Hangman of 2024 and not the Hangman of prior years, there was just enough of a measured, fuming, moody approach that it all worked. So no, it wasn't all Darby, and Page deserves plenty of credit for taking a breath and being the wrestler the company needs as opposed to maybe the wrestler it wants, but that doesn't make Darby any less miraculous. 

ROH TV 8/1/24

Dustin Rhodes/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs. Iron Savages

MD: After a month or two of these being relatively quiet, Darby being back from injury, Dustin being heavily featured in Texas, and Danielson being used more... well, it's keeping me busy. This is a good problem to have. I will fully admit to missing Bear Country as Bear Country. It's hard to explain. The Iron Savages are probably an easier to digest act, less abstract than Bear Country, but it was the surreality of the old identity that made them stand out more, just these two huge guys with a barely discernible gimmick presenting themselves as a giant hurdle for pushed mid-card acts to get over. There was something dangerous and unpredictable about them, something that probably couldn't exist in modern WWE just for how random they were but might have shown up in 93 WWF next to some of the oddball acts. That said, while I think Boulder is lessened by this, Bronson probably comes off slightly better and more focused overall. It's a more palatable act for general audiences (and it's not like it's not weird with the sauce and titty city and everything else; it's just weird in a way that makes sense as opposed to one that doesn't). Let me sum it up: Bear Country would have fought Survival Tobita (or fought beside him); the Iron Savages wouldn't.

On to the match. Hey, they had Dustin play face-in-peril here. Nice little switch up from the last two. There was a fake-out before that where it looked like Ross might but then he got to hulk up and keep the shine going. If you're going to have anyone on the roster Hulk up, an Von Erich isn't a bad choice, but maybe I'd pick Marshall and maybe not during the shine. I liked the set up for the hot tag quite a bit: Bronson cut off Dustin and rushed to the corner to knock the Von Erichs off. Dustin had no one to tag but then Bronson got cute with it and rolled him up to get him out of the corner instead of just dragging him out. That turned Bronson himself around just enough to keep the rotation going and walk into Dustin's tight power slam. Then, Marshall did get his moment and got to bodyslam Boulder, before they took it home with the fun Shattered Dreams spot and the claw/belly to back combo on Jameson. Another triumphant showcase where they had to climb a formidable hill over gargantuan opponents. 

AEW Collision 8/3/24

Darby Allin/Mark Briscoe/FTR vs. The Beast Mortos/Roderick Strong/Matt Taven/Mike Bennett

MD: Unfortunately, this is only going to get one paragraph because MJF is stealing their space (sorry, FTR; I know you guys are used to it). I really do enjoy these extended 8-man tags though. This had a shine that only got broken up by Mortos, long heat on Cash, what would have otherwise been a great finishing stretch, a second short heat on Dax where they kept cutting off some huge comebacks from him, and then a hot stretch including big dives from Darby and Cash and the Froggy Power Coffin Plex which was a hell of a thing. Some really novel pairings here, Darby and the Kingdom, FTR and the Kingdom (which has never happened, even after the debuted by calling FTR out), and FTR and Mortos. I'd like to see FTR vs the Kingdom this year; Kingdom's very good at a lot of conventional tag elements like cutting off the ring and FTR doesn't always get to stretch with guys so tried and true with that stuff. I'd like to see what they could do if they really pared things back to the fundamentals for a match.

CMLL Super Viernes 8/2/24

MJF vs. Templario

MD: Did not plan to cover this, but it deserves it. This was a very good traveling champ performance by MJF, something that doesn't really exist anymore in this day and age. Even the International Title matches we've seen elsewhere so far haven't quite looked like this. This felt much more like what Race/Flair/Bock would do (though of course they're not all interchangeable). That meant getting real heat on the locals (and say what you will about the execution of the pre-match spiel: 1) it worked and put wind behind Templario's sails the whole match and 2) Rocky did an excellent job of getting even relatively jejune comments over with his expressiveness and inclination; all credit to Rocky), carrying yourself like an absolute piece of shit, and then putting over your opponent as selflessly as possible knowing that you're going to go over in the end.

This was a hugely selfless MJF performance in my eyes. He's a guy who has clear confidence issues at times and a desperate need to be acknowledged as "shoot good" and not just "work good" (or the modern equivalent of that, which is "spot great" and not just "work great" maybe?). Here he never tried to prove to the world that he could hang with Templario. This wasn't lucha MJF. It was unbridled heel champion MJF in a classic lucha setting. That meant he took his time early and let things breathe, just built up the pressure until Templario got over on him in very simple, very direct ways, pure comeuppance. It was the continued runs into the corner until Templario turned it around. It was putting on a figure four and cheating only for the ref to give him said comeuppance. When he tried to take over, it was by going to the shoulder to wear down Templario and set him up for Salt of the Earth, but even there he (as a character in over his head) couldn't keep the pressure on. Part of the job of the traveling heel champ is to come off as vulnerable so the local hero looks like he not only can but might, should, will win.

It was real commitment to the act, even at the cost that certain critics might say that he didn't "go" in the way they expected in CMLL or that he slowed down Templario too much. But the counter is that the fans were entirely behind Templario the whole way. It wasn't about seeing a MOTY; it was about MJF getting what was coming to him. Most refreshing setting and most refreshing sort of match in the world in 2024. There wasn't any sort of post-modernism or deconstructionism to MJF rolling all the way out of the ring only to eat a dive with no twists or tricks or clever reversals; instead, he did it twice, the second time going head over heels as he got caught up on the ramp. He kicked KeMalito off the apron but it was to set up the finishing stretch and Templario's biggest nearfall, that last bit of ramping things up before paying them off. Of course, he's got to be an ass to me too by doing the Long Island Sunrise to set up the brainbuster finish. I get that it has a lore element given Cole's behavior but come on; it's physically hurting me to watch people hang out with their head down for no reason week in and week out.

In general, this was exactly the performance it should have been and it gives me some hope that maybe, just maybe, that riot I want in Wembley is actually a possibility. He just has to be laser focused on the idea that that pro wrestling, at its very core, isn't about love; it's about cold, cruel denial onto people who already know so much denial in their day to day lives. What defines a babyface, what defines a hero, is his ability to burst through that most frustrating of walls and provide the fans the sort of satisfaction they can't get anywhere else.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/8 - 7/14

AEW Dynamite 7/10/24 

Bryan Danielson vs. Adam Page

MD: There are so many bad faith criticisms of AEW: bots, grifters, tribalists, just kids who are getting their kicks off of it like kids have always done since the start of the internet. It makes it hard to parse through what's real and what isn't, what's meaningful and what's not. For instance, the notion that AEW doesn't tell stories is patently ridiculous. Sometimes something on Rampage slips through, but in general, every match is there to further a rivalry, to heat someone up for something else, to set up a post-match, to reinforce a theme. Where I think that throws some people who are acting in good faith, is that story is not necessarily plot, and many of them have been conditioned to look for plot. This is an issue with serialized storytelling across a bunch of different genres, mediums, and properties. There's the idea that if there's not some sort of worldshattering permanent change then nothing worthwhile happened, even if characters were developed and explored in meaningful, heartfelt ways. It's an immature way of consuming fiction, one maybe a bit too focused on canon and lore. Look at Danielson vs Kingston from earlier in the year. It was full of story, full of emotional, character stakes. Bryan Danielson wouldn't see the change in Eddie, the value in him, the merit. Kingston just wanted the proof of a handshake from someone held to such high standard, that held him to such high standards. They played it out in the ring and Eddie got his handshake and Danielson found peace in himself. It's wonderful. It's brilliant. It's maybe some of the best character development that can happen through wrestling. Danielson moved on to other things. Kingston lost the Continental Championship soon thereafter. So maybe for all the great story, it didn't have canon-shaking plot. Plot is having the fate of the company at stake in a ladder match. It's who's going to join the NWO next week? (It's Who's the Devil? by the way). Story should be enough because story takes you on a journey but fans have been conditioned otherwise and as much as I hate to say it, sometimes plot does hit just right.

What made this match so special is that it was bursting with plot that was underpinned by story, by character motivations. The stakes couldn't be higher. This was the finals of the Owen Hart tournament. The winner gets to main event at the biggest show of the year and go for the title. (That's the plot; here's the story). Last year, it was about friendship. That was well and good and fits AEW well. This year though? For Page, it's about justice, about hatred, about the gratification of tearing something down that should not stand. It's about punishing the fans for rewarding (or at least forgiving or ignoring) evil deeds. It's about being the hero of your own story when the entire world is more then villain every day. It's about reclaiming what was lost and putting reality back on track. It's about crossing a line and knowing you crossed a line and knowing further that the only way you can justify it, that you can make it right, is to win. Only then can you put things right by taking that title and setting the company right; otherwise, you did all of it for nothing and you're left a villain. Page needed to win. But then, so did Danielson. For him, it's about the end of the road, the final countdown, a retirement for the sake of family. Page would tear down the world for his family; Danielson would build one up instead. He needs closure. He needs to show the world that this is on his terms, that he is the best, that he would be the best, that he will always be the best, that this isn't him running away from wrestling, but this is him running towards love in the name of a promise with nothing else to prove. This is him showing the world that now because he has reached the absolute pinnacle of pro wrestling, he can climb the mountain of being the best dad imaginable. It's about leaving no regrets so that he can look ever forward towards his daughter and not back towards his grappling past. And all the while, the end is snatching at his heels (or in this case, his neck), threatening to take every decision out of his hands. For Jarrett, it's all about the past, it's about the decades when he didn't look back, when he didn't properly grieve, when he let the demons consume him instead, about the peace he's subsequently found and about doing one last good thing in wrestling in the name of his friend and his friend's family. Jarrett has nothing left to prove; all of his wrongs have been righted and all of his rights have been wronged. He still has agency though. Blood still flows through him. In the name of his friend, he can still change the course of history one last time, a last ride of the Last Outlaw. It's not his story anymore; he knows that. He can do his part to make sure that the story ends how it should though. So you have these three characters, three worldviews, forced into a pressure cooker where each has to reach their destiny but not all can.

Then it's just the simple matter of turning all of that into a wrestling match, right? Bots, bad faith grifters, good faith kids, they all get to say that something is all good or all bad, something's the best or the worst. Unfortunately, I'm too old to have that luxury. This stuff is complicated, and I have a complicated relationship with Adam Page's wrestling. He's put up on a pedestal by a lot of well-meaning people who have bought into the many qualities he has to offer. I like the idea of him. I like a lot of about his act, plenty about his presence. I just struggle with how he structures so many of his matches. To me, wrestling should be about build and payoff, about gratification delayed. He sure likes to gratify people and people, in turn, like to be gratified. Too much, too soon, (and I know how this is going to sound) too cool. There's something to be said about making art that you and your friends would like; it's an art student's mentality and it often drives the form forward. There are drawbacks though and a time to be disciplined as well. He does so many individual things well. He emotes so well. He wears his heart on his sleeve in the ring in a way that creates deep engagement. And now, finally, as a heel, he's slowing down and creating a different sort of mood, imposing, stifling, unrelenting, but also methodological. He's sharing his pain with the world, rubbing his knuckle into the wound of life, and it's a slow, measured twist of the knife. This Adam Page is creating atmosphere instead of just shooting off fireworks. (And, as an aside, I still think one of the biggest attainable money matches in wrestling is Page, worn down to raw, bitter fury by the weight of the world vs a carefully built-up Mad Dog Connelly, the mysteries of soulful eternity trapped behind his eyes; this is attainable for 2025. This is attainable! It can happen!). 

So here we had this match, at the intersection of plot and character, with every stake imaginable, not just hints but entire swaths of the real underpinning the fiction, an uncertain outcome, with wrestlers ready to bring everything they had to make it work. Everything played out to its logical conclusion, from Page walking out the babyface tunnel, Jarrett looking the other way, and the subsequent spit, all the way to Danielson pulling out one last miracle roll-up to survive and push forward to Wembley. Along the way, Page, seething, took every advantage, and Danielson, bleeding, pulled out every stop. He was the whimsical master early with the Lance Storm rolling half crab in Calgary, but when his back was against the wall later on, he whipped out his ROH flip dive that he hadn't done in years and years. And it all built to Jarrett standing tall between them, refusing to sink to Page's level, forcing the match to end in dignity. Page, in his current state, perhaps couldn't triumph in a situation held up by dignity and honor. He was the hero in his own mind, but one has to be true and pure (as Eddie had been) to slay the dragon on his final ascent towards the heavens. There are people who will refuse to see the value in this match; for those who choose such a thing, I have nothing but pity. For the others, who can't yet see the glory within, I have envy instead. Someday they'll find it and see it as if for the first time. They'll get there in time and this will warm their hearts and rouse their spirit, just like it did for all of us that were living and breathing it last week.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 1/8 - 1/14

MD: Brief programming note. Puerto Rico should be back this week. We ended up getting our hands on a bunch of footage not on Youtube so we've been trying to make sense of it all. It will help the project overall. Way too much wrestling going on right now. I'm not going to hit everything from the last week, but I am grabbing one match from Dynamite, Rampage, and Collision each. Only one will annoy you and I apologize in advance.

AEW Rampage 1/12/24

Eddie Kingston vs. Wheeler Yuta

MD: When I call Yuta a "rat boy", I do so with the most possible affection. I hope that's apparent. It's not that he's a direct heir to Yoshinari Ogawa, because he's not, but I just see the parallels. Honestly, here, he was more of a buzzing fly, just one with the technical precision of the ROH Pure Champion.

Yuta had both nothing and everything to prove. He's already the Pure Champion (with this being one of only maybe 5 times where the Pure Champion was in a situation to win the ROH World Championship as well). He recently defeated Shibata. He's been on a run on Rampage. On the other hand, Eddie is higher in the hierarchy and he just mowed through the rest of the BCC.

Eddie came in like the ace he is, forward looking, ready to lock up in the center of the ring. Yuta dodged him, too a powder, only engaged on his terms. The idea wasn't to break Eddie, I think, not like Claudio and Danielson and Moxley tried to do. The idea was to frustrate him, to annoy him, to draw him out. Yuta wanted to isolate his hand, and then, once started to work on it, he wanted to frustrate Eddie so much that he would want to use it on Yuta's face and chest again and again and again, creating a self-defeating but entirely human and understandable wedge that would allow Yuta to stay into the match.

It worked too. Yuta made himself as annoying and punchable as possible even as he chipped away at Eddie's hand. It let him stay in the match when Eddie should have been able to get some distance on him. It let him come so close with a top rope DDT following Eddie deciding that he had absolutely no choice in life and that he had to chop Yuta instead of doing something else. That brought Yuta close, but it wasn't enough to put Eddie away and without that, the good gameplan could only be so good.

All it took, after all, was Eddie catching him once. And he did, trapping the arms and throwing him over, ducking under and hefting him. The size differential was what it was. Yuta would deviate to try to throw a bomb or two to get Eddie in a position to put him away. All he had to do was chip away enough to lock in the seatbelt, but being brash and young and human himself, Yuta lost the plot down the stretch. That's the thing about Eddie: he's pretty punchable too when he's surviving all that you have to throw at him. Eventually, the goading shots of Yuta turned into things full of actual rancor. That meant he was playing Eddie's game, and when you play the continental champ's game, you ultimately lose.

AEW Collision 1/13/24

Dustin Rhodes vs. Willie Mack

MD: Every time they heat Dustin up for one last big match, it's a gift. That they keep on doing it is a testament to just how good Dustin is. That they're doing it this time around so he can face Christian Cage on Dynamite, well, that's a gift for me personally. Thank you for the gift.

This didn't go long, but I thought every exchange was more or less what it should have been. Dustin could hold his own against Mack's strength and speed and size early but it took little flourishes like putting a hand up to ask for a second or using the handshake to create openings. Mack, however, brought so much to the table, that he was able to not just get back in it but do a little dance before controlling in the corner or the Goldust taunt before hitting a standing moonsault.

He went for too much, too soon, however, and Dustin got back into it not by overpowering Mack, but by taking advantage of a mistake, which is what you'd want between these two. The problem with the Destroyer, as much as anything else, is not that it's inherently flippy or anything like that. It's that it usually makes the wrestler taking it do something that breaks the suspension of disbelief; either they have to move in a way that they normally wouldn't in any other match or they have to stay in a position for too long. Here, it made sense that Mack might be winded in that specific way after the missed moonsault, so I didn't mind it. It set up the finishing stretch of Dustin hitting some visually impressive power stuff (set up by believable experienced, finesse counters). To say I'm looking forward to Dustin vs Christian is an understatement. I hope it gets enough time on a show with at least two other title matches even if it's probably just a stop on the road to whatever Christian will be up to next. 

AEW Dynamite 1/10/24

Hangman Adam Page vs. Claudio Castagnoli

MD: Of my many pro wrestling islands, the one that feels loneliest is my dislike of many if not most Hangman Adam Page matches. Coming into his return in October 2021, I'd never even seen an Adam Page match. I had no preconceived notions. He won the title shortly thereafter and early in the reign he was up against Danielson and Archer those left me feeling fairly positive. The more I saw though, the more I started to pick up on patterns. You see something off in one match and that could be anything. You see something in two, and you still can't be sure. There are agents. There are multiple wrestlers with inputs on every match. There are weird nights and TV constraints and all sorts of other things. But you keep seeing it again and again and it becomes pretty clear.

A few things were apparent. He was almost entirely lacking low and mid-level offense. Everything he did was a bomb. No bodyslams or standing vertical suplxes or backbreakers or side slams or even things you'd expect from his character like corner clotheslines. Because everything he did was a bomb, that meant he would be throwing bombs too early in matches and there'd be nowhere to go, nowhere to escalate to. I'm almost certain this helped him get over because it made him look better than his peers that were playing by more conventional pro wrestling rules. It's the same reason why Suplex City Brock feels like such a towering presence. He's doing stuff no one else generally does at times that almost no one does them. It's also a reason why so many of the matches are unsatisfying on a rewatch and it screws up the balance of cards and shows as a whole.

This was made all the worse in scenarios where Page was driving things and has a size or hierarchical advantage. That's when he starts throwing around death valley drivers and springboard clotheslines and the fallaway slam and his moonsault in the first few minutes. It's less noticeable and less of an issue when he's fighting from underneath against a bigger threat. While probably not ideal relative to punching up and fighting back, he can use those individual bombs as hope spots against a monster. Even better is when one is used for the actual comeback spot. However, he's not often put into that situation because of his place in the hierarchy and the overall presentation of his character. And he's been rewarded time and again by the crowd for narratively dubious pro wrestling for multiple reasons. On one level, he's probably giving a lot of them what they want, excitement and sensation and dominance. Cowboy shit. The coolest match possible. The incentives have never been there for him to adapt as opposed to just going with what got him over, even when he became champion and had different responsibilities. It's just not what I want out of pro wrestling and I don't think it's sustainable. Giving the crowd what it wants isn't the same as giving the crowd what it needs.

Despite all of this, I do like the guy behind the guy in general and I see the value to him. I like the idea of him. I like his out of character interviews. I think the whole notion of being an anxious millennial cowboy is interesting. It plays with the concept of modern masculinity in a productive way. It gives the AEW crowd someone to relate to, someone to cheer for. There's that notion that every day is a struggle which fits quite well with serialized storytelling after all. There are certain physical things that Page does that are executed well. Plenty of good stuff, plenty of tools. He can be a very strong half of a whole. He's been in a number of matches against guys who can either rein him in or that are built and presented in a way that naturally force him into better structures than what we see if he's left to his own devices. He'd be an amazing Stan Hansen opponent (which makes him a pretty darn good Jon Moxley opponent). That's the thing. If he had less going for him, he wouldn't be nearly so frustrating to watch when it's his turn to drive and he sails the car over a cliff.

And I try to watch, try to keep an open mind, but when I look at the patterns, I tend to dread his matches. Another guy who isn't dissimilar is Takeshita (slightly better post-heel turn but he's all bombs with no discernible sense of when best to place them and when not to throw them); their match together was one of my least favorite AEW matches I've ever seen. It was something that most people who watched it were over the moon on. And that's ok, but I felt like I was talking a totally different language from them, that there was no middle ground or understanding to be found (or at least it wasn't a two way street; it's not hard to understand why they liked it and it's maybe harder for me to express why I loathed it).

If you want a real simple shorthand for how much I'm going to like or dislike a Hangman match, one good rule of thumb is to look for where he positions the death valley driver. If it's within the first third of the match, I'm probably going to absolutely hate the match. If it comes later, the thing at least has a fighting chance.

Here, against Claudio, the move fit pretty well into the closest thing we have to an AEW TV house style (where you have a fairly complete initial heat and comeback with signature babyface spots heading towards an apparent finish before the heel turns it back around and they go into commercial break and a second round of heat). It was his big comeback spot after Claudio took the first third of the match. It was explosive and credible as a way to help Hangman get a flurry of offense. He'd hit the fallaway slam and a dive before Claudio was able to catch him with the amazing press slam to the ramp. Afterwards, Claudio brought things back down for the break and Hangman had to pull out bigger and bigger comeback spots against Claudio's unrelenting strength. This was one where not everything was placed exactly where I would have wanted it, but where the overall effect worked because the heel was big enough and larger than life enough to make up for the holes that are often found in Hangman's narrative toolset. If you're looking at the shorthand, take a look where the death valley driver showed up in the JD Drake match as well. I liked that one too.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/8 - 5/14 (Part I)

MD: Instead of going longform this week, I think we'll do a two parter. Yes, it's a shame that Dark and Elevation are gone, but boy do I like house shows and while we're sure they're taping these and we are going to have to live with the fact that no footage is going to show up for some of them (Corbin, KY, we're looking at you), it is nice when a fancam pops up. Catch these while you can. I'm pretty sure the Claudio vs Daniels match was up before and now it's not.

AEW House Rules 5/13 Salem, VA

Toni Storm vs Skye Blue

MD: Obviously Storm's been active for a while, but her WWE time on the main roster was primarily during the pandemic and she only had a handful of house shows once they started touring again. But she was everything that I wanted from a live event heel here, over the top, stooging, stalling, She ambushed Skye early, posed, preened, and then immediately got shown up with an elbow and a headscissors takeover. That led to stalling on the floor, a rush back in, more stooging, and another powder. This time Skye went after her, got ambushed, but then versed a whip into the pole with a nasty thunk. Skye followed it up by beating her around the ringside area until Toni finally rolled in, begged off, and lured Skye into getting draped throat first on the second rope to set up the hip attack to the floor and the heat. It's the sort of stuff that wouldn't work on TV due to hierarchy and the current angle and Storm's current character, but here in front of a couple thousand people in Salem, VA, it was loads of fun. 

I like Skye. I'm probably going to cover Athena vs Skye on Wednesday actually. She's scrappy, leans into her shots, has that great looking knee in the ropes, isn't afraid to take a beating. I think she's got a ton of promise. Here she takes that beating with Toni bigtiming her with the posing and general Outcast attitude leading to a transition where Skye fires back after a slap (and subsequently gets her stuff in: the knee, the spinout kick, the body press). Things switch back to house show mode with Toni pulling the tights right in front of Aubrey, leading to a rare shove by Toni and the old schoolboy ref push spot and a big pop for a fun nearfall. That was followed by some goofing with the spraypaint backfiring and Toni selling it like she was getting electrocuted with Skye superkicking her (and sending it into the third row), before Toni got a lucky shot in and hit the hip attack and Storm Zero out of nowhere. For a sub ten minute match this had an almost perfect balance of early stooging, heat, hard-hitting, and late stooging. Because it hit that balance so well, it was the sort of match people were going to talk about on the car ride home. I have no idea where Storm would have picked up that level of Larry Zbyszko excellence but she absolutely nailed it.

Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs Powerhouse Hobbs/QT Marshall

MD: Speaking of house show stooging, here's QT. They seem to be branding a lot of these shows around the unique (and sort of out of continuity so long as they don't keep following up like they did last time) pairing of Darby and Cassidy, and as much as I'd rather they brand it with Deadly Draws/Lethal Lotteries instead, it's not a bad choice. This was another one where we had the heel charge right in but when the heel is Powerhouse Hobbs and can move with that much accelerated intensity, there's no reason to complain. Hobbs and Darby are natural opponents and it's been a while since they faced off; Hobbs is a different wrestler with different presence than he was in 2020. Starting the match off with Hobbs tossing him about made me want a singles match between these two pretty badly. That led to QT really leaning into the antics. If he had just realized that he should have wrestled like Jeff Jarrett instead of someone who makes sure to do one or two flashy spots a match just to prove that he could, he would have filled a manager who wrestles niche so much better than the wrestler who manages niche we ended up, but it's hard to fault a guy for having pride. As it is, he gives me what I want here, screwing around with the crowd by refusing to get in and then refusing to toss Darby around, right up until the point where he does it one too many times and pays for it.

Paying for it meant that Cassidy got to come in and QT's a natural foil for him as a guy completely unafraid to show ass 90% of the time (it's that 10% that gets him, but like I said, not here). Cassidy went to the pockets, QT bumped his ass off, and Hobbs imposed himself out of nowhere in the best way (followed by some fun mocking of the pockets bit, which makes me think that there's actually a ton of money in a Hobbs/Big Bill heel tag champion run). It was a bit of stretching of Hobbs' character which is one of those things you can absolutely get away with during a house show. This was during the second bit of heat which had QT mock Cassidy to set up a hope spot, the ref miss a hot tag (OC reversing a suplex with the knee and reaching out) due to Hobbs drawing him away, and Cassidy really milking that final moment, going up and over, backwards, upsidedown, and through legs in order to dive across the ring for a hot tag. The finishing stretch was all action, including Cassidy and Allin hitting a new rapid fire Stundog/Code Red combo after Cassidy reversed the Dirtsheet Driver and a triumphant finish that let them celebrate with kids. I don't think they would have worked this quite the same way on TV and even if they did, the commercial break would have made the timing trickier and the effect muddled. Instead we had a straight up southern tag with double heat with babyfaces that don't get nearly enough credit for understanding the alchemy of putting together a match because people are so distracted by the trappings they throw into the mix. My only regret is that we didn't get to see the match vs Moriarty/Big Bill from the night before.

Adam Page vs Big Bill

MD: Speaking of Big Bill, I won't linger long on this. I'm no fan of Page's matches against guys that match up similar to him (like Takeshita), but when you have him in a match with contrast, it can be a lot of fun. This, for instance, was a lot of fun, with Page constantly going to the weapons to get an advantage and Bill leaning wonderfully into that most amazing thing a heel giant can do, act like a cowardly chickenshit heel. That dissonance pokes hard at the part of our brain that registers things like fairness and honor and drives us nuts in the best way. And Bill poked hard at Page's eyepatch-clad injury to get almost every advantage in the match even though he's a literal giant. Between that and all of the character he shows as he lives in the moment, I really hope they have plans for the guy. Anyway, this was big rousing babyface stuff, Dusty in Florida or Texas standing tall against the odds, with an injury, a size disadvantage, and the numbers against him. It's exactly how they should have ended a house show, with the local hero being larger than life.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 9/5 - 9/11

AEW Dynamite 9/7

Bryan Danielson vs Adam Page

MD: I am not a big fan of Adam Page. Let's just lay that out there. I think his execution is fine. I think his selling is quite good. I have absolutely no problem with the longform storytelling he tries to do and the anxious millennial cowboy character and the way he works that into his actual matches. That's not all my issue with him. You can't fault his intensity. Nothing but positive things to say about all of that. I'm such a structure/layout guy though, and the lack of escalation in his matches because he starts at a 9 and more or less gets to a ten as things progress, is just such a killer. He comes out the gate with the fall away slam/springboard clothesline/dive, brings things up to the death valley driver, and then starts teasing the Buckshot and Deadeye. Left to his own devices, his entire match would be one long finishing stretch. It's Daffy Duck blowing himself up on stage: a good trick if you do it once but devastating over time and just blows a massive hole in any attempt of making individual moves and sequences resonate as important up and down the card. I'm not going to throw my hat into the CM Punk issue when it comes to interpersonal or professional things, but in ring, Punk spent the last twelve months trying to reclaim the struggle and impact of things like superplexes so that they could matter and that matches had another level to escalate to and Page shows no sign of understanding any of that nuance, even for all the good things he does.

When you have so many positive qualities, however, a really great wrestler can shape them into a really great match. I think that was true with the Punk match and it was true here with Danielson. Relatively early on Danielson started to dismantle the arm. Adam Page may not have a first or second gear on offense, but when you pepper his bombs through a match as hope spots that get immediately cut off due to the damaged arm and when he's not allowed to chain them together in the first five minutes of a match, everything ends up working out so much better. Danielson basically controlled all the way to the start of the second commercial break and it meant that when they moved into an actual finishing stretch, there was space to inhabit. 

AEW Rampage 9/9

Darby Allin vs Sammy Guevara

MD: Punk's gone for a week and all of the work he did trying to make superplexes matter again over the last year is completely destroyed. I guess it came early enough in the match before too much cumulative damage was done that it wasn't as bad as it could have been? It was still pretty bad. Before that they were almost working a title match version of Sammy vs Darby, which made sense given the stakes and was a cute way to start this one. It escalated how you'd expect with the big spots and counters and Sammy walking tightropes. The Tay/Sammy act is still fairly fresh between AEW's roster being so big that we haven't had a ton of Sammy singles matches in the last few months and the fact they were away for the wedding. They're constantly thinking of new ideas and trying new things like the wedding ring bit here. Interference of people on top of Tay is going to get old quick though, but I get that they were in a bit of a pinch due to the injuries and the suspensions. Darby really does need a big win one of these days. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the contrast inherent in Sammy vs Moxley.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/23 - 5/29 (Part 2)

Double or Nothing 5/29

Darby Allin vs. Kyle O'Reilly

MD: I had to run this one back a second time to get a better feel for it. First time through, it felt sort of disjointed, with Darby getting opened up immediately and that botched first dive not helping things, plus the finishing stretch coming off as a deflation instead of impactful (more on that in a bit). Second time through worked better. The skeleton key here, which Ross missed completely and Excalibur came to too late, was that this wasn't just a match for the sake of a match. The whole point was Darby going for revenge while it was just business for O'Reilly. O'Reilly had lured him out and he was prepared to capitalize on not just mistakes but on basic emotion. O'Reilly was ready right from the get go, countering the initial single leg and opening Darby up. Darby was able to hit his counter-based offense (like the flipping stunner) but his dives and drops were themselves countered. Then, towards the end, O'Reilly used Darby's chain necklace against him to set up the choke, the kicks, and the knee drop off the top. I fully admit I haven't seen a ton of O'Reilly's AEW run so if they've built up the PKs as a deadly finish for the crowd, I missed it. They didn't look all that great and the kneedrop was to the side and not the skull, and it's Darby whose whole deal is resilience so I'm not sure I bought the finish. Overall, though, the underlying story worked for me, even if the announcers could have told their side of it better, with the choppiness chalked up to Darby being out for revenge.

Anarchy in the Arena: Danielson/Kingston/Moxley/Ortiz/Santana vs. Jericho Appreciation Society (Jericho/Menard/Parker/Hager/Garcia)

MD: Sort of hard to write about this. Obviously the finish absolutely worked. Danielson had Jericho beat. Kingston marched back to the ring covered in blood, murder in his eyes. He was ready to set not just Jericho on fire but Danielson as well. Danielson ends up the one who pays the most for it setting up whatever's to come next. What might have been most impressive here was the production, from the looping music (with the fans popping big once they realized it was looped) and Jericho shutting it down to the fact that they were able to capture so much of the action overall while never making us feel like we were truly missing out. We were missing out, absolutely. We missed transitions. We'd come in and one guy would be winning the fight, cut to something else, and come back to have the situations reversed. It didn't really matter though because it all felt like a welcome part of the chaos. We didn't really see how people got opened up. We didn't need to. The blood on their faces and their chests were enough. We have no idea what happened in the freight elevator with Kingston and Garcia. That's fine. We saw the aftermath. I did feel Regal's absence here but I'm not sure how you would have best utilized him in the match. Overall, Jericho actually carried the emotional brunt of this, first with the brawling with Moxley, which was entertaining and had history behind it, and then by being front and center for everything that happened at the end, but everyone had their moments and Parker and Menard bleeding, stooging, and clowning really deserve recognition too. One of my lowkey favorite moments was Garcia hitting a shining wizard in the middle of the concessions area on Kingston obviously as tribute to his new mentor. He should start using that to set up the 1990s style Liontamer instead of the lean-back Sharpshooter. Anyhow, the match lived up to its name, but that almost goes without saying.

CM Punk vs.  Adam Page

MD: I am relatively new to Adam Page. I hadn't seen any AEW until Punk and Danielson showed up and it's not like the blog has gone out of its way to cover 2010s NJPW. In fact, given the prevalence of that style in the overall community, one could argue that we went out of our way not to cover it. I like the interviews I hear from Page. I appreciate his social media presence. I admire that the guy has persevered through his issues and has been open with them. I think there are certain things he does very well in the ring. He emotes well. His stuff hits hard and clean. He brings a lot of energy and aggression and dynamism. We all liked the Archer match from earlier this year. In general, though, his matches kind of drive me nuts. He goes straight from punching and chopping to the fallaway slam/kip up/springboard clothesline spot, usually followed by a dive, and he never looks back after that. I don't know if it's taken from an all-bombs NJPW style I'm not familiar or just Brock-ism, and I get that I'm an outlier on both fronts, but the lack of mid-level offense that lets a match build before escalation really gets to me. There absolutely isn't one way to do things and there shouldn't be, but his matches somehow both seem to miss a chunk of something integral while still being overflowing with stuff. 

Meanwhile, CM Punk has been all over the promotion, and he's brought with him this sort of Neo-Bret-ism: slowing things down, fighting hard over the value and payoff of single spot, bringing the bodyslam back into wrestling, heavy focus on limb selling that reoccurs throughout a match and drives narratives, interesting match layouts that work around the commercial breaks. Danielson, on the other hand, has brought a sort of hard-nosed, forward pressing aggression that interfaces with whoever he's in the ring with. It meant that Page's matches with him ended up less of a clash of styles but instead a merging of them. 

In the ring, this match embodied the underlying stories of the program far better than the lead-up or promos or announcers had been able to present them. It felt like a battle between at least what I imagine the AEW of 2019 and 2020 to be and what the AEW of 2022, with a broader roster and more diverse inspirations, seems to be. Page had overcome his demons, overcome the challenges that plagued him in 2019 and 2020 and finally conquered the AEW that he helped create. In the meantime, however, he had taken months off for the birth of his child and the AEW he returned had grown and changed, in ways that were not at all aligned with his norms and values. Despite that, he had overcome Danielson, only to see that CM Punk was in the center of every promotional image, only to watch Punk lay down those bodyslams and start to pull things back to a world that he felt that the Elite had transcended, building back up old idols that they had successfully torn down, just as the successful NJPW of the 2010s didn't resemble the NJPW of the 80s or 90s and as the Young Bucks continuously have immense success tearing down the norms of traditional tag team wrestling. He finally won, finally reached the top of the mountain, only to realize that it wasn't everything he had hoped and dreamed for. He faced down the challenge of Danielson, a physical challenge, one based on hard work and toughness, only to realize that there was a more invasive, more perfidious challenge before him and his kingdom, in the preachings of Punk. And Punk, who was working with all of the younger talent, who was putting the time and effort in, who was trying to be a decent human being no matter how much of a strain it was when he's just naturally a grumpy bastard, didn't see why Page was so upset over a little thing like his heresy. But a king has to defend his kingdom, from ideas most of all, and Punk, more secure in his own skin after all he'd been through, realized he had the higher moral ground for once. And he acted upon it.

So the match, a match still between two crowd-favorites, between two babyfaces, became less about who would win and more about who was right? In the end, that mattered far more to Page than to Punk. Page had his doubts. Punk had arrogant assurance. Punk wanted to win more, but he had his ego and he believed in his values, and he was going to return Page's affronts within the match with ones of his own. As the match went on, it got both of them in trouble. It took both of their eyes off the ball and the fans, otherwise equal, united in expressing their frustration at either when that occurred. You rarely see that in a match where the fans were not booing the wrestlers, but instead passing judgment upon their actions. You'd see it more in older Japanese matches when someone took a liberty. Here it was when they stopped and taunted, when they refused to follow up but basked in the moment instead, when they tried to prove something instead of trying to win. Maybe, just maybe, Page could beat Punk in a wrestling match all things equal. There's no way in the world that Page could win a pissy bitching content with Punk, though. No one could. That's what he chose to fight, and in the end, after he tossed Punk over the table, after he watched Punk stumble about failing to hit Buckshots, after he hit a GTS of his own, he stood there in the center of the ring, belt in hand, living a Wrestlemania 8 Bret vs Piper moment, and completely lost and adrift. How had he gotten there? Who was he anymore? What had he fought so hard for? It certainly wasn't this. He tried to change course, tried to get back onto the path, but it was too late. 

So, yeah, I liked it.

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Monday Wargames: -PWX- Team Revolt vs. Team Xperience

Team Revolt (Harlem Bravado/Lancelot Bravado/Zane Riley/Jake Manning/Caleb Konley) vs. Team Xperience (CW Anderson/John Skyler/Gunner/Corey Hollis/Adam Page) PWX 3/13/16 - GREAT

PAS: PWX really set out to run an old school War Games match. They got the double rings, cut down on the highspots and had a bunch of good brawlers brawl. CW Anderson opening a War Games is what you want, and he and Manning threw some pretty thudding punches. Skyler was the star here, taking the biggest bumps, bleeding the most (not enough blood was my main complaint in this match, just a bit from Manning and a lot from Skyler at the end). They do a little booking at the end with Corino (managing the Xperience) jumping a Bravado and stopping him from joining as the 10th man, only for Corino to get run off by Ethan Case. I thought Zane Riley was a bit loosey goosey for the supposed hard hitter, but I dug Gunner as the heel powerhouse. There was a bit of a muddled focus at the end, which is to be expected with this many guys, but the actual finish of Skyler getting jabbed in the eye with a screwdriver was a War Games finish.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WARGAMES

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/30/15 & 10/7/15 Review

9/30/15

1. Matt Sydal vs. KUSHIDA

Well this was pretty unlikeable. This was that perfect combination of uninteresting ringwork combined with constant crowd chanting. Crowd is chanting This is Awesome as the match begins, because you see, they're in on the gag. We jerk off with some bad matwork with one guy holding still so the other can do stuff, and then doing stuff while the other guy holds still. The strike exchanges were weak and the moves were really poorly set up. KUSHIDA has some slow motion handspring offense that doesn't look good if and when it connects, and requires Sydal to either stand there while a man does a handstand, or run face first into a man doing a handstand. KUSHIDA hits a decent flip dive at one point. Sydal still has a pretty shooting star press. Boy I did not like this.

2. Adam Page vs. Will Ferrara vs. Watanabe vs. Moose

Boy we are not doing well tonight. This was a rushed 4 way, starting out clunky then burning through some suplexes leading to the early finish. Page was a standout and this was probably the best I've seen him, showing some personality and setting up offense for others nicely. He also had a really great fallaway slam on Ferrara at one point. Ferrara has terrible strikes but is game to take a bump. Moose is always disappointing. There is still plenty of potential there, and he throws a nice back elbow here, but there's just always tons lacking. Watanabe is from Japan, LAND OF WORKRATE and thus he is awesome and we must all throw streamers at him. He never looks very good. Everybody threw suplexes. Colby Corino took a decent bump from the apron at one point, but he leaned way out of a Moose kick to get to that bump. Steve Corino continues to miss every emotional note, woodenly saying "Colby. Nooooooo. Get off of the apron." At least it was short?

3. Adam Cole vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Well this was disappointing. Cole is not great, and Nak really didn't try too hard. We had Cole doing a bunch of fairly engaging leg work, leading to Nak not caring much at all about the leg work. Some of Cole's superkicks to Nak's leg were alright. I especially liked one to the back of Nak's leg. But almost immediately after the legwork stopped, Nak was back up, throwing knees, doing suplexes, jumping around, being generally just fine. My time felt wasted.


Eh, Rachel was on the phone with her sister and she didn't want me to watch You're the Worst or The League without her, so what else was I going to do. But this show was three matches that could have been good, but none of them were.

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10/7/15

Oh man this show is filmed at MCU Park in Brooklyn and it already looks so awesome. This needs to be done more often. Such a great venue and it reads super cool on TV.

1. Time Splitters vs. Briscoe Bros.

The Time Splitters...are not a team I would like to see again very soon. KUSHIDA is just really bad. Their comedy doesn't work, most of their actual ring work doesn't work, they just don't work. Shelley can at least throw a halfway decent punch. KUSHIDA is one of those guys who has really bad trademark offense, but it's made even worse because he doesn't make any of it look good. He's the one who picked this offense. You'd think he would know more than anyone that he has a shaky handstand and a bad looking jab. But then he goes and does bad handspring offense and just a terrible left jab combo. We get a too long super silly arm wringer segment which I'm sure is amusing to the live crowd and all but I'd rather see Briscoes kicking the hell out of them. And we do get that, we do. We just get so much KUSHIDA. Too much. He's junk. I'd rather just watch the Briscoes fight each other.

2. Watanabe vs. Cedric Alexander

Well hey this was the best I've seen Watanabe look! The match was JIP so who knows what kind of mess we missed, but Watanabe looked like a guy I would actually want to see here! Stiff senton, nice strikes (actual painful elbows! Funny how NJPW main event style always has interminable elbow exchanges, yet most of their guys have lousy elbow strikes), a couple of headbutts I didn't expect. Cedric knows how to miss big and I dug his thrust headbutt. Veda Scott is always amusing at ringside. Maybe Watanabe just likes working in the outdoors more? I had a copy (like a photocopy) of Farmer Burns' old "Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture" and it recommends to always do your calisthenics in an outdoor setting or at least next to an open window. It also recommended eating your daily steak next to an open window. And to use soothing syrups made from only the finest heroin. But still, I have seen many indoor Watanabe matches that were terrible. And now 100% of the outdoor Watanabe matches I've seen have been good. Science.

3. Roderick Strong vs. Kazuchika Okada

For a guy nicknamed Mr. ROH you think they would just spell his name ROHderick. Okada is very much not good but there were moments in this I enjoyed. Instead of their usual guardrail with metal signs on it, the infield had these flimsy plastic barriers (I guarantee there were some people upset that they paid for front row and were denied flat metal to slap their palms on) and at one point Roddy backdropped Okada onto a barrier, overshot a bit and dumped Okada on his head into the crowd. But man the way Okada builds matches is just annoying. He has no clue how to go back on offense. He just gets hit with a move for a nearfall, both men sell, then Okada just does his own move. We get a few strike exchanges, and Strong's strikes completely smoke Okada's, so Strong always gets the better of him, and then every time Strong then turns to run the ropes that's when Okada greets him with a dropkick or something else. This shit happens in every. single. Okada match. It's just lazy structure, and it's why I get sucked out of his way-too-long matches at the halfway point. At a certain point it switches into "opponent does shit until Okada just does his signature shit". Nothing means anything after awhile. Strong gets a nice nearfall with his running kick, people in the crowd can't believe it, thought it was over. But then Okada just gets up at the same time as Strong and hits a tombstone. Story of the match, story of the wrestler. Yuck.

Not a bad show, although I have now officially seen too many Okada matches. I don't like him. BUT I loved the outdoor setting of the tapings. Gives the show a nice fresh look and looks like they got a bunch of people there. Funny as I hated the look of WMIX, but grew to enjoy the look of outdoor shows more and more. I wonder what moment turned me. It could have been Onita riding in a boat to get to a ring. Or a WCW Spring break show with somebody falling into a pool. It may have been CW Anderson riding on the back of a tractor to a ring in the middle of a cornfield. Yeah. It was probably that one. But whatever it was, I love the outdoor show vibe. So, excellent marks for presentation.

Also, A+ on the sound mixing. Kelly and Corino were mixed WAY down so I could hardly hear them, making them so easy to tune out. I don't know if this was Destination America or ROH themselves, but mixing those two dunderheads down is just an excellent move all around. Great job gang!

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/2/15 Review

1. Adam Page vs. Jay Briscoe

A match born out of DISRESPECT! How many times have they gone to that "no handshake" well? But whatever this segment worked. Jay kicked the hell out of Page, stomped his neck and hit a killer tope. Page throws a chair at him then hits the Rite of Passage on a bunch of chairs. Mark comes out throwing chairs and Colby Corino just has zero body chemistry whatsoever. But for a match ending the way it did this was the perfect time and made me want to see more.

"When I beat you...I get those BOYS". Silas Young as closeted gay predator has made him seem so much more interesting. He and Castle can run the Chris Keller/Beecher Oz arc and I could see it being feud of the year. Silas Young becoming one of Castle's boys could be glorious, but only if it ends in him eventually giving in to his desires. The heat and homophobia from the audience during Young and Castle's first kiss would be off the charts, but there will be an extra layer of the audience hating themselves for how good it makes them feel.

2. Cedric Alexander vs. Caprice Coleman

Eh, this was okay. Alexander isn't that good, a whole bunch thigh slaps and some bumps that don't really look connected to the move he's taking. I like his apron kick, that always seems to look good. And I like Veda Scott's goofy scowl faces. Peak was really the postmatch, with Moose decking Cedric with a wrench-loaded punch. Alexander crushed the selling. He charged right at Moose who timed the punch perfect, and Cedric just crumbled immediately and ended up draped over the bottom rope. It was real satisfying, like catching Bald Bull during his Bull Charge.

3. Brutal Bob Evans vs. Cheeseburger

For two guys who really aren't good, I really enjoyed this. You have to throw out all execution expectations. Most of the things these two do don't look good. There's always a disconnect with their bumps, strikes look poor, most of Cheeseburger's stuff whiffs, no actual emotion in either of their faces...but if you just go in expecting things to look poor and just watch the layout, this totally worked. Again, I really enjoyed it. Cheeseburger hits a neat somersault senton on a chair, Bob punches him a bunch in a headlock and rips at his nose, and we all build to that table spot from TV almost 3 months ago. They take their time setting it up which could seem ridiculous in other matches but felt appropriate here, really adding to things as you knew Bob was taking the bump through that table. And certainly, Bob takes a clumsy mapped out bump that in no way looked like the way a person would fall after getting limply punched. But again it totally worked within the context of who these two are. Bob takes a planned careful back bump that still sees him smack the back of his head, and for something bad this was overall very satisfying.

4. Hanson vs. Jay Lethal

So I actually enjoy Jay Lethal as fighting champion, defending both belts and doing it with braggadocio. I just don't really like Jay Lethal singles matches. So that's somewhat problematic. Still, his presentation and the way he carries himself is important, and he's been doing it well, so that counts. Hanson should be better. He should not do fucking springboards or cartwheels. Those things rarely look good anyway, but when you can't actually do them well...get this...they look even worse. Hanson just can't abandon them. And here they noticeably took away from the match. Just do a normal lariat, you don't need to get attention by being a larger man who can do a so-so cartwheel. His moonsault to knees was better, but it fell flat coming off his horrible handspring to whatever. Lethal's run to the finish was good and things were mapped out well throughout, but eh, neither guy does much for me. So I'm left in this weird conflicted area where I like neither guy, but they laid out their match in a nice way, and mostly stuck to it...so we'll just say it was solidly not bad-ish.

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