AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/6 - 4/12 Part 2

AEW Dynasty 4/12/26

Darby Allin vs Andrade

MD: There's something to say for implicit storytelling in pro wrestling. You find it in Stan Hansen matches. You see it in shoot-style. Two characters. Two sets of attributes. Two histories. Two motivations. Two styles. One ring. A chemical reaction where things make sense because of two wrestlers being absolutely true to who they are, because things could not possibly play out any other way. You're not looking at conventional storytelling, but instead at fate, at nature playing its inevitable course. 

You're not going to learn who Andrade and Darby are from promos. You won't learn from video packages or media appearances. You won't even learn from Darby's artistically produced stunt films. With these two, you learn everything you need to know from watching them in the ring.

So who are they? They are two men whose greatest strengths are also their greatest weaknesses and their greatest weaknesses are also their greatest strengths.

Darby is undersized, but his shadow looms. You might say he's brave. You might say he's fearless. You might say he lacks common sense. Were you to say that he lacks substance, you might not be far off, but maybe, just maybe, that's what makes him constantly exist on the edge. Maybe he's never found anything else to make him feel alive. While he's a skilled and clever wrestler, that wouldn't be enough to survive in a world of relative giants, so he turns his body into a weapon and relies, bolstered by both experience and blind faith (contradictory as that may be) that his body will withstand whatever the world throws at it, even himself.

Andrade is a third-generation wrestler. He's been everywhere and done so many things. He doesn't have to push up against the darkness to feel alive; he's life incarnate, brash, bold, confident. He started his career as Brillante, Jr., and then made his career as Sombra. Light and darkness, he's seen it all. He carries himself that way, swagger driving his offense, dynamic and explosive. He would not be half the wrestler if he didn't lean so thoroughly into it, even if that means he pauses to hang in the ropes, even if that means he extracts himself from the action to take a picture with a fan in the first row. 

So that's who they are, a little of what they need in life, but what do they want here? The winner gets a title shot. What does that mean to them? 

Darby came into this claiming that he cared more than anyone. I don't actually think that's true, but I think, to the character of Darby Allin, it needs to be true, and the only way for it to be true, is for him to make it real. Everyone else cares about Everest (well, not wrestling fans), so if he climbed it, obviously he cared too right? Everyone cares about the world title, so if he claims it, then he must care too. He must care about something other than that momentary thrill. He must be a real boy. There must be substance to him. Unable to tap into the journey, all he can do is cling to the destination. 

And then there's Andrade. He's always been one for association, and here he's associated with Don Callis. A mouthpiece. I don't think he's looking for brotherhood in the way Kyle Fletcher does. But having been burned before, having been underutilized and unable to prove himself, he was looking for representation. It came at a cost. And now he was being used as a bargaining chip, as a mercenary, to keep Darby away from MJF. It chafes. It's not enough for Andrade to succeed; he must succeed as himself, leaning into the swagger, embracing the role, to prove to everyone that he can be the person he wants to be, that he wants to see in a selfie, if not a mirror, and still be a champion. 

Like any other form of fiction (and wrestling is a form of fiction even if it has athletic elements and live interactive qualities), structures and frameworks can help pro wrestling feel coherent and meaningful. Things work very well if you have a heel and a babyface, a shine with moments of heel triumph before comeuppance, heat with hope spots and cutoffs, and a comeback leading into a finishing stretch. But if the characters are strong enough, consistent enough, committed enough, compelling enough, a match can be carried without these things.

That meant that while this was close to 50-50, or at least 60-40 (Andrade), and had elements of your move/my move, the momentum shifts between your move and my move tended to be character driven, organic, meaningful, resonant. They were based on the opportunities created by the wrestlers' attributes and skill and likewise created by the weaknesses tied to them.

Andrade dodged Darby early by hitting a tranquilo pose in the ropes. Darby crashed right into him like a wrecking ball in response. He couldn't capitalize because of the damage done to him in that process and Andrade reversed a whip into the barricade. Instead of following up, Andrade took a selfie, letting Darby hit a dive off the top. Darby followed it by hitting a dropkick down the arena stairs, but he hurt himself and thus, when back in the ring, when he slammed his own body into Andrade, he faltered and buckled (selling in a meaningful way, not a performative, box checking one; this both was consequence and created consequence), and Andrade was able to take over.

The match continued on like that. Where it became 60-40 instead of 50-50 was because of Andrade's strength advantage and a chess move here or there. Andrade took an extra few seconds to pull his pants off before going for the moonsault, but he was ready for Darby to move (one of the few times where his double moonsault, unfortunately done in every match, felt organic). That meant Darby had to try all the harder, including hitting a crazy crucifix takeover off the top as a reversal, right into a hold. 

They continued on like this, Andrade locking in, Darby battered but undaunted, until Darby was able to survive Andrade's abrupt spinning back elbow and sneak out a "Last Supper" bridging pin to win. Post-match, pride bruised but undiminished, Andrade went back to shake Darby's hand. He had more to prove but nothing to be ashamed of. Darby, on the other hand, now has to live with the burden of success, of being the number one contender. Now he has to show both the world and himself just what is truly inside of him. Is he just a mindlessly determined crash test dummy or is there a fully fleshed out human being capable of caring and worthy of regard and admiration inside of him after all? The stories that pro wrestling can tell.

It was almost seventeen minutes that felt like a brisk ten. They teased finishers but didn't truly hit them. They left with mutual respect for one another, Andrade refusing to do anyone else's dirty work, wrestling only for himself. There's more left on the bone for a rematch. There were big spots and huge bumps, but this was character-driven and tightly-focused, especially for a match that was so evenly fought. You don't think of a Darby Allin match as showing discipline and restraint but this did. There wasn't a single spot which felt out of place, contrived, or worked back from instead of worked towards. Which meant, of course, that it worked brilliantly, both despite itself and because of itself.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/16 - 10/22

AEW Collision 10/21/23

Bryan Danielson vs Andrade el Idolo

MD: I'm going to pass on the battle royal. There were a couple of cute bits (even some involving Dustin) but nothing I feel the need to write about. 

I don't have a strong "in" on this one either. What it showed me, more than anything else, is that we missed out on another heel run from Danielson due to injuries in 2023. It would have done the elite feud a world of good for a heel Danielson to be able to be on some of the TV matches leading to Anarchy in the Arena or Blood and Guts. It's unlikely, given that he's on his end-of-fulltime-career odyssey right now that we'll really see him get to go full heel over the next nine months either. This match, where he's up against a guy determined to stand as a babyface when LFI is right there waiting for him, let him stretch those January 2022 muscles a bit though. 

This started out clean. It almost felt a little like a lucha match in its own way. They started chain wrestling (first set of exchanges) and escalated into rope running (second set) before things boiled over with Danielson throwing a chop, Andrade following suit, and Danielson escalating further with the kicks. Who knows if they had Mistico vs Rocky on their mind. Once Danielson took out the arm, though, things really opened up. That included the jumping jacks during the commercial break with Andrade rushing in,  hot-headed, which is about the only time I've seen that actually get under someone's skin (other than the crowd's) during his AEW run. The problem was, and this is going to be a problem for the next year if Danielson ever wants to lean this way, that the crowd wanted to chant for him. You'd get either "This is awesome" chants or "Danielson"/"Bryan." To be fair, Andrade has been a heel for so much of the last few years that while he's fought valiantly against the House of Black or Bullet Club Gold, I don't think the fans really buy into it yet. We'll see if the Miro feud changes that. My guess is that they get behind Miro; the Andretti match later in the night was very smartly put together but the fans kept on chanting for Miro despite it. 

I really liked the transition towards the comeback and finishing stretch. Danielson threw that right arm clothesline (not exactly a Danielson staple) a week or two ago. He's got the Luger-implant now, the bionic arm, and it gives him one extra narrative weapon to throw around, potentially a KO blow in a way that you wouldn't normally expect from a guy his size and style. Andrade ducked it though, which brought them into the stretch. Pulling back to last week's review, Bryan had me a little worried after the back elbow. It was just the way some of those first few roll-ups went. Fool me twice, shame on me, I guess, but it'll probably keep working again and again until All In next year. Danielson's doing amazing work; you can see here how he chose to work this one a darker shade of grey. I'd hate to lose even one potential match while we still have him like this.

Eddie Kingston vs Jeff Jarret

MD: First and foremost, the execution here was top notch. Eddie was excellent throughout, acting, reacting, being the valiant hero, fist-busting Dave Brown, standing up to the odds as defiantly as possible, and creating all the big moments. Jarrett was a big, blustery, over the top villain, willing to take every insult Eddie was going throw at him, physical, emotional, or otherwise. All of Jarrett's coterie played their parts well. Sometimes that meant Sonjay running into a fist and sometimes it meant Lethal hitting a cutter through a table.

It was just the theory that was off. It's one thing to do a tribute. It's another to shove it down people's throats. I know that Jarrett lived it. Given the timing, Tony almost certainly had the DVDVR Memphis set and sure, Eddie had Memphis' Bloodiest Matches, but this felt like a copy of a copy of a copy. At some point, you lose fidelity. What made Memphis so special was that the chaos erupted around a steady baseline. Lance was master of ceremonies just trying to run a TV show (or Eddie Marlin trying to run an arena show) and the pressure created by these insane characters and their penchant for uncontrollable violence tore at the seams of the format. The characters were insane, but instead of things happening organically, this played out like the characters running through an elaborately designed set piece. It was more like the final stage of Double Dare, than the sort of streetfight you'd want between Jarrett and Kingston. 

That they went to the concession stand in Tupelo was a symptom of what was going on, not the disease itself. As with things that have been mythologized over the years, the underlying meaning and associated sensation, which are almost always more important than the trappings themselves, get lost in translation. So while there was blood, mustard, and tables, it all felt like a parody awash in sports entertainment instead of pure pro wrestling mayhem. That it still managed to work at all was down to the performances of the wrestlers.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 4/18-4/25

AEW Dynamite 4/20

CM Punk vs. Dustin Rhodes

MD: Hey, it's two of our guys wrestling each other. Phil, unsurprisingly, covered this over at the Ringer, but here's my take. I love how organic this felt. Some of that is Punk adapting, both in the obvious ways, like when the bow and arrow didn't work, but also how he responded to the crowd. The match had spots but it wasn't about them. Punk knew that the crowd was going to get behind Dustin when he was in holds, but he couldn't know what the split would be or how best to capitalize on it before the fact. It gave a pretty good preview overall to what Punk vs. Page might look like and how Punk might adapt with the crowd.

The other half of it was how both Dustin and Punk responded to the moment. They sold everything, both physical and emotional. At one point a CM Punk chant broke out, even when he was on top, and he gave Dustin a sly grin. Likewise, when he taunted Dustin later with the Goldust bit, the crowd turned on him and he again reacted accordingly. The turning point of the match was after Dustin went flying through the ropes and hurt his knee. There was a chance Punk wasn't going to capitalize on it, but Dustin kicked up at him and it visibly pissed Punk (the character) off and he started on it. Later on Dustin had control and hit the ten punches in the corner only to sell the leg huge as he landed back on it again. Everything had weight and consequence, not just the spots but every incidental movement, every interaction between the two wrestlers, every reaction from the crowd. The wrestlers cared about everything and then the wrestlers care the fans care and when the fans care you can get real emotion and something like the hug and the handshake at the end resonates and stays with you. That's what the masters do, they take something fabricated and artificial and they give it substance and make it real. It may not be spectacular or conventionally breathtaking in a 2022 sense, but it still can manage to take your breath away in how it engages your heart and mind and gut.

Blackpool Combat Club vs. Dante Martin/Lee Moriarty/Brock Anderson

MD: This had a great beginning and a great finishing moment and some good ring time for Brock Anderson (past maybe landing on his head with Moxley's Half and Half) in the middle. Yuta's turned a corner in his ring-work which is exactly what needed to happen. One of the first things he did in this one was to pull Martin back to his corner by the ear. The early Martin vs Danielson stuff was really good too. I know we're not getting those long single epics from Danielson right now but there's still a lot of value in seeing him with little exchanges like that in tags. Everything built to Moriarty coming in to get the hometown pop and he made the most of it. Danielson turning the Border City Stretch into a capture suplex was fairly magical too. Things felt a little bit out of control and unhinged towards the end until the Blackpool Combat Club got control with the stomps and hammer and anvil elbows and Dante went way up for the Paradigm Shift. Overall, this was a functional piece of business with a couple of unique, fun exchanges that furthered along Yuta's development and everyone else some ringtime or shine.

Darby Allin vs. Andrade el Idolo

MD: A lot of the spectacle of this one was in the first half leading to the Sting dive. The back half had a little too much set up or getting things into position, but the payoffs were all good so it only matters so much. Because it was structured to have all of the nonsense up front and end with Andrade vs. Darby, I could have used another minute or two in that section, maybe a little more back and forth, even if a totally believable aspect of Darby's MO is to survive everything and win with a big one-two shot where he sacrifices his own body, as happened here. If this is the feud blowoff, it feels a little past due, but they have a lot of masters to serve. I'm curious where both wrestlers go next.

AEW Rampage 4/22

Eddie Kingston vs. Daniel Garcia

MD: Apparently about half of this was cut. I rewatched it with that in mind and the biggest takeaway was that the gaps weren't too easy to pick up on, except for that the damage done to Garcia was not equal to what we actually got to see. Kingston's so good at sneaking shots in from every angle when he's working from underneath but still, Garcia's chest would just be lit up or his lip would be opened and you weren't quite sure when that happened. So this explained that. There were a few things going on here, the hierarchical beating and finishing stretch where Garcia kicked out of the exploder and it took both the Saito Suplex and the backfist to put him down; the great equalizer in Kingston taking his stomach/chest/ribs out on the stairs and Garcia using that in his offensive focus and the cut offs. I liked the Big Josh log roll in the corner but it really hammered home how while Yuta is changing up his act, Sports Entertainment Garcia is just Garcia with a new hat. He really needs to work in Road Dogg's shaky legs knee drop or the Worm or a bunch of catchphrases or something. It's not enough to just troll people with the gimmick. He needs to figure out what being a sports entertainer actually means in ring and then work that into his matches. Otherwise, what we actually did get of this was unsurprisingly very good, clipped and all. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 3/28-4/3

AEW Dynamite 3/30

CM Punk vs. Max Caster

MD: Real game crowd for this and Punk was more than happy to lead them through the motions, but I don't think this had the complexity of a lot of his AEW matches. For instance, when this one went home would be where the longer, more extended heat would start in a lot of his other recent bouts. That worked in this match's favor, though, as it never wore out its welcome and it'll make people buy into an earlier finish on Punk's future matches. If they're building him towards a title shot instead of into a feud with MJF about whether he still has it or not, winning some one-segment matches makes a difference. As a side note, he should definitely end some other matches vs. midcarders with that pile driver/Anaconda Vice combo. The early chain wrestling was probably the best executed part of the match, with things getting just a little rough now and again later on (like Caster's A for Effort high ambition dropkick off the top with Punk dangling). It was a hot crowd all night and this was straightforward and to the point and unquestionably moved them.

Bryan Danielson vs. Wheeler Yuta

MD: I'd been sitting on a write up of this one pretty soon after it happened as I anticipated having to watch a lot of other wrestling between Wednesday and Monday, but the CPU crashed and I lost it. Point being, I had to watch this again, and I came out of it once again deeply appreciative of the little bits of close-up magic Danielson does with manipulation of his opponent's body. What popped me most here was a little turn of the jaw that he did before laying a headbutt in. Just one shot but it was so great in the context of what they were doing.

As for what they were doing, it was masterful. You really need the right opponent to fit in all of Yuta's bits of offense (though he didn't do the "through the leg" bit here), but Danielson is absolutely that opponent, and it meant for fun, tricked out, still competitive early matwork and feeling out of each other. When Danielson started to really lay it in and brutalize Yuta through the break, it was as varied and interesting and violent as you'd want it to be. Yuta began to come back towards the end of the break and the second they came back, he was backing Danielson towards the center of the ring and meeting him head-on. The spot where he ate the rolling forearm only to skin the cat horizontally back into the ring and capture a German, only to end up in Danielson's very rare Dragon Suplex was the sort of exchange that can make a guy even on the wrong end of it. And then that defiant spit in Danielson's face as he knew the boots were about to rain down upon him took it the rest of the way. I've seen a lot out of Yuta including his hour long match with Garcia, but I've never really believed in the guy until this one. If he keeps down this path, pushed by opponents like Danielson, with more grit splattered over his indy flash, I'm really curious just what he might become over the next few years. In the meantime, Danielson remains the guy to get him, and everyone else, where they need to be.

ER: I'm pretty bearish on Yuta, and this felt like Danielson pulling out a minor miracle (which is something we are used to). Yuta is one of those modern Rocky Romeros (which Rocky Romero isn't really one of anymore) who is a jack of all trades wrestler of several current styles, who doesn't do any of those styles very well. I don't think he has good offense, I don't think he misses offense well, and I think there's often a disconnect on his selling and bumps. The man looks like a real gruber in the ring, and yet I could see him doing sincerely improving just by working often enough with guys like Danielson. I mean, he's already wrestled a ton of guys I really like (and been undeservingly lumped in as their in-ring peer) and hasn't gotten better through osmosis, but there were a couple signs here that was changing. Danielson brutalized him on every strike exchange, but Yuta didn't come off and wasn't supposed to come off as his equal, so I thought it worked when Danielson kept elbowing and kicking him and Yuta came back for more. The horizontal skin the cat looked incredibly stupid and is the kind of disconnect that will hold him back: Yuta taking a tornado elbow and then pausing, looking for the ropes, then jumping through them, making sure that his stupid reversal didn't look like anything that was caused by the actual elbow. But, when he spit up into Danielson's face right before his face got stomped in? That actually felt like someone reacting to the real moment, knowing that he was not getting out of this without a stomping, and doing the only thing he could do with his arms neutralized. Danielson's stomping, piledriver, and disgusting Yes lock (ripping back on Yuta's nose and mouth while sinking it) was deserved. 

Darby Allin vs. Andrade el Idolo

MD: While we focus on individual matches, at some point you have to stop and recognize that they're stacking these shows. These five guys are not the only guys we like on the roster, but they're almost always going to give you a good match or at least a good performance, and they're all over the shows every week right now. Moreover, these matches often feel very different week to week and within a show. This one was all about Andrade with the early ambush, one that he was able to press with his superior strength despite Darby fighting back. Everything before the bell was imaginative while just barely falling on the right side of the line of still being believable and natural enough. It felt like things these guys would do. Andrade then leaned into the beatdown methodologically, with a few hope spots and moments of Darby's endless resilience but Andrade coming off as a total package in how he cut him off. The pivotal moment of comeback with the crucifix counter off the top was spectacular. Darby will almost always make the decision to leap outside the ring onto interlopers instead of back into the ring against his opponent and it doesn't often cost him in tag matches but in singles matches, it protects him in a loss. Just well executed, high quality, straightforward (in concept if not necessarily execution) stuff.

ER: I loved the layout of this, with Andrade jumping Allin before the match with a high crossbody to the floor, and Darby being at a disadvantage all match because of it. I'm not sure there is anyone else in current wrestling who can believably come back from punishment the way Darby can, as we've now collected a ton of video evidence of this man taking bumps and levels of punishment that other people just would not recover from. Darby gets dumped on ring steps and ring barricades, and eventually he tries to crash into his opponents instead of into inanimate objects, and it always rules. I thought this was the best of Andrade in AEW. His impact felt much more immediate and he was less focused on cute offense, and more focused and running his boot and knees into Darby's torso. Darby took a backdrop bump so high that it flipped him into a 450 crash, and I liked the big and small ways he made inroads back into the match. His ollie across Andrade's back had to hurt like hell, his code red looked good and was sold appropriately and delivered with as much desperation as you can deliver that move, and his insane top rope crucifix bomb was something that easily could have ended the match (and probably a smart move by Andrade to flip all the way over into a moonsault rather than take it like a typical crucifix bomb). The interference finish (that everyone saw coming) knocks it down the MOTY List a bit, but I loved how hard Sting came storming in with a lariat (running gut first into the apron to slow his momentum) and how it kept Allin strong. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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

AEW Revolution 3/6

Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Jericho - EPIC

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

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

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

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

CM Punk vs. MJF

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

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

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

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

Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Part 1 2/28-3/6

Big week this week so we are breaking it up, with the second half (and PPV) coming on Wednesday


AEW Dynamite 3/2

Bryan Danielson vs. Christopher Daniels

MD: I get that Khan was excited about the ROH deal and probably couldn't keep it quiet long (and surprises help with ratings, certainly) but it probably would have been better to do this after the PPV. Still, AEW is good at doing a lot of things at once in a single match and the post-match accomplished what it had to here. As for the match itself, past some Danielson control and (maybe, if you believe Tony and JR and I'm not sure I do) back focus in the middle, it really did feel like a 2002 ROH tribute. It started with the handshake and stayed pretty back and forth with pin exchanges and strike exchanges and counters and what you'd expect. Danielson is still 2022 Danielson though, so he had that underlying aggression and made sure to slip in the confident flourishes, and in turn let Daniels clown him in response (which drew some respectable Fallen Angel chants). He also pulled at the face multiple times, first in response to getting clowned and later to counter the second Iconoclasm attempt, proper heeling which made proceedings more interesting than they might have been. The big critique against Daniels over the years is that his stuff always looked too smooth and too clean to the point where it seemed artificial and he's aged like fine wine in that regard. I haven't seen his stuff in years but wear and tear of a hard career has made him rougher around the edges and given him a welcome grit. I can't say this didn't overall feel just a little out of place, especially so close to the big Mox vs. Danielson match but Bryan kept it just nuanced enough to make it work.

AEW Rampage 3/4

Darby Allin vs. Sammy Guevara vs. Andrade

MD: This was a three-way and it had some of the problems you'd expect a three-way to have, but a lot of that was tempered by picture perfect execution and timing that fostered the illusion and the underlying characters at play. Darby and Sammy started out aligned against Andrade, which came into play throughout a majority, though not all, of the match. The numbers game won out early, until someone actually tried to win and Sammy and Darby broke ranks against one another. Andrade was out of the ring for a bit too long here (the cardinal sin of these matches). I think he could have gotten away with it if he returned to playing up his start-of-the-match instinct to leave the ring and not face uneven odds. Instead of coming off as opportunistic, however, he visibly (in the corner of the screen just mulling about) sold that early offense almost too much.

Regardless, the payoff was him coming in for a big tower of doom spot, made unique by Sammy holding Darby up on the top rope while waiting for the superplex. I can't say I 100% bought this because I can't remember Sammy doing a lingering superplex like this to begin with, but Darby does have a tendency to try the upside down knee counter when up for a normal suplex and the spot was cool enough visually that I could sort of go for it. I liked the thematic consistency of Andrade's heat (returning to the 1 on 2 motif during the break), where he dropped one wrestler over the ropes and the second over the turnbuckle and the first back over the guardrail and used his belt for good measure. They came back by forcing a 2 on 1 strike exchange, which made Andrade look like a star. The double flip moonsault, in general, might be the single worst move in all of wrestling but it sort of worked here considering he was targeting one person with the first moonsault and a second with the second. It popped the announcers at least.

Down the stretch, they paid off a lot of what had been happening in the match and took the characters to logical conclusions (including a revenge belt shot on Andrade). Sammy hit a coast-to-coast on Andrade while Darby was diving for him. Darby stole Sammy's dive by shooting in from off screen as only he can to nail Andrade on the outside. They had the quick pin exchanges you'd expect from the two of them and then ultimately went to a choreographed-but-you'd-hardly-know-it finishing stretch of dodges and shots and bombs before Darby got Sammy out of the way after the GTH but not far enough out of the way that he couldn't come back in and steal back the win that Darby had already almost stolen. There were a lot of moving parts here but I think it worked more than not given the impossible hill to climb that any three-way match has. That doesn't mean it didn't have a contrived spot or two but when the spots are executed so well by people who can manage nearly impossible things, the laws of physics bend just a little to provide a crutch to your tottering suspension of disbelief. So it wobbles under its own weight but never entirely falls.

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WWE Summerslam 8/23/20 Taking My Sweet Time Blog

I am not expecting a whole lot from this show, and those shows can sneak up and surprise me. It feels like I've been saying that about every show the last year +, and that's probably because I have not been excited by many on paper lineups they've been throwing out there. But good matches are always a possibility. Sadly, this card doesn't feature Pat McAfee, so good matches on this show aren't as likely. Also, sad to see Renee Young leaving, but obviously she is talented enough to just not be in wrestling. Her commentary with Regal during 2014 NXT is some of my favorite WWE commentary of the decade, and she was never properly utilized after that on any important program. Honestly, she stuck it out longer in WWE than made sense, and I'm sure she's going to crush wherever she winds up.


Apollo Crews vs. MVP

ER: Pre show matches deliver more often than not, and this one added to the "delivered" bucket. MVP working as an opportunist is a fun undercard thing to see, loved him shooting for a kneebar to start the match, then just blindsiding Crews while the ref separated them. His superplex was sloppy, but in a way that kind of added to it and made it feel impactful. MVP also throws his strikes with more immediacy, which is one of Crews' shortcomings. In fact the weakest part of this match was Crews seemingly holding way back on a lot of his offense. He was treating MVP like he was mid 90s Giant Baba, barely touching him with his forearm strikes, and hitting these weird weak avalanches. That was mainly a problem earlier in the match, as once he hit his nice flip dive he felt a little more normal in the ring. The match finishing dead lift blue thunder bomb ruled, and Crews needs to do more cool stuff life that.

Asuka vs. Bayley

ER: I really liked this, but felt like it lost a lot of steam in the final minute or two. They kept up a hot pace, with Asuka coming off nicely chaotic and Bayley scrambling on her heels. Asuka hits the flying hip attack to knock Bayley to the floor, and Bayley manages to take Asuka's flatliner type move off the ring steps and distracted from the fact that Asuka was splatting with a hard back bump. Bayley's scream and sell of that move was so effective in making that spot work. I liked Asuka going after Bayley's arm (even though it really didn't lead to much), and liked a couple of the spots where Bayley went after Asuka's leg. Even though Bayley's actual heel hook looked really awful, the moment where she turned an Asuka missile dropkick into the heel hook was awesome. After that there were a couple hinky moments, like Asuka waiting bent at the waist waaaay too long to take a sunset flip bomb in the corner. The finish was good and a nice call back to the beginning, and I thought the execution was great: Asuka hits the hip attack to knock Sasha off the apron, and Bayley grabs her with a small package off the ropes. Looked great. I don't have a strong opinion either way on whether Asuka should have won or lost, as I'm a fan of both acts, dig what Sasha/Bayley have been doing and have no problem with them dominating the belts.

Andrade/Angel Garza vs. Street Profits

ER: I think this might have been helped by a live audience. That sounds like an obvious statement, but I think these kinds of matches are really hurt by no crowd. The kind of match that plays like a cold tag or a fun Smackdown match depending on the crowd sounds, like a AAAA center fielder. It's mostly the Andrade show, with Garza practically playing this like a handicap match past a certain point. They worked over Ford and I love how they cut him off by catching the top con hilo and powerbombing him on the floor. That spot could have looked overly planned, but it came off smooth and then mean. They set up the Dawkins hot tag well, and I like his big man leaping back elbow. That move was used by a lot of mid 80s WWF guys, one that I associate with that era, and even though I'm sure he's not consciously doing it because of that, I still like seeing it. Andrade's fake out pump kick into the back elbow always looks great, and I love how hard Dawkins bit on dodging that kick and eating that elbow. Somebody's wrist tape even flies out when the elbow lands, and gear getting knocked off someone after a big impact move is never not awesome. The Street Profits as an act don't do a lot for me overall, and Vega's team actually needs to win occasionally but instead they always seem to go down clean as a sheet. Ah well.

Sonya Deville vs. Mandy Rose

ER: I wish this was worked under different circumstances, as it really shouldn't have taken this long to give these two some kind of PPV showcase singles match. The incident that happened to Deville is genuinely terrifying and it was pretty incredible she went out there and made the best of it. Oh god she wasn't forced to go out there and do this was she? Anyway, I wish this match was better, because they went out there and tried to do the right match. The stip got changed and the feud got cut short and it sucks that things turned out this way. They went out and had the No DQ fight they should have had, it just didn't look great. Rose is someone who has killed it in every house show match I've seen her in, and for whatever reason it does not come off on TV. Whatever crowd connection that I've witnessed firsthand several times is mostly gone on TV. She comes off flat and kind of dead eyed, and I think people think I'm lying about her house show work. It's No DQ, they try to throw a lot of strikes, and a lot of the strikes don't look good. Mandy does this weird thing where she just doesn't sell a lot of Sonya's elbows, just kind of holds still while Deville is throwing blows. They wanted to have a tough fight, and their heart was in the right place.

Even though a lot of it didn't look great, the bar has been lowered a lot this year and even just a match that at minimum aims to work within the story instead of having a "great match" is going to win me over. I liked Mandy trying to slide chairs off a table into Sonya's face, feels like a reckless spot where a camera guy can take a shot in the balls or something. Sonya is also someone who hasn't translated as well as it feels like she should. It didn't help when WWE brought in a bunch of actual MMA women right after she got on TV, but she's also dropped a lot of the MMA stuff that she actually did quite well. I'm sure she could have been told "hey don't work like all of these actual MMA women we brought in", but I also like the fact that she's someone who throws sidekicks without kickpads. Mandy threw some hard knees to make up for her weird strike selling, and there were a couple of nasty spills on hard surfaces. Again, it was the match they should have had and that counts for a lot, and I'm glad it happened. And it's honestly hard to care as much about a match like this when it's so closely related to an actual Manhunter fucking Tooth Fairy incident (incel-dent?), but there were small amounts of carny "on with the show" joy here.

Seth Rollins vs. Dominic Mysterio

ER: No matter how this match goes, Dominic took one of the best on screen beatdowns of the past 5 years, and that can't be taken away from him. The cane beating would have gotten over with a mid 90s ECW Arena crowd, and that's more cool carny wrestling bullshit to find sicko joy in. We are truly blessed getting a Pat McAfee match one night and Dominik Mysterio's debut a night later. Wrestling debuts (yeah yeah I know Pat worked a match a decade ago, it's fair to call this a debut) are always exciting for me. I love seeing how much someone "gets" and what nuanced (if any) part of wrestling they understand from match one. Now, even with that beatdown angle, I haven't been able to get into this feud at all. Rollins is so dull to me, and Dominik really isn't a great actor, in ring or out. I was more excited for the McAfee debut, and that was in a match with ADAM COLE! McAfee/Cole felt like a perfect amount of time to deliver the story they needed to. Yes, it should have ended after McAfee's punt to the chest, and we didn't need Adam Cole's home stretch acting chops, but it was laid out fantastically. This match went too long, and the smoke and mirrors weren't anywhere near as satisfying. Rey and his wife did what they could, and I dug their Louis Vuitton gear. And Dominik did really well for a first match! He hit some fairly complicated stuff, missed a real nasty splash into Rollins' knees, and looked like he belonged. If you saw him at your local indy and this was his first match in, you'd be leaving the gymnasium and at least bring him up positively on the ride home. There was a good match in here, even if this wasn't it. I'm more interested in what Dominik does next.

Sasha Banks vs. Asuka

ER: This was the match I was most excited for. Sasha is probably the wrestler who I like the most, without ever thinking to answer "Sasha Banks" when thinking about wrestler I like the most. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I *always* get excited for big Sasha singles matches. I think she has easily been the women's MVP over the past 5 years, and I think she's easily the most consistent and delivers more often in big matches than the rest of the 4 horsewomen, and she has by far the most natural charisma of the 4. This was the match I was most excited for, and it delivered. These two both took some shots, it felt like it peaked perfectly and ended right where it should have, and the way they laid into each other made it feel important. Sasha went after Asuka's leg and it backfired, as Asuka just started throwing kicks, and I love Sasha when she realize a plan isn't working. The match is tough right from go, loved Asuka yanking Sasha off the apron into a kneebar, felt like a cool dickhead babyface thing to do. Asuka hits ringpost on a kick and winds up eating a nasty powerbomb off the apron to the floor, big THUD sound. Both flew gleefully into moves that targeted their heads, Asuka taking that powerbomb and then immediately eating a head kick, Asuka later landing a DDT off the middle rope that Sasha takes on her face. Sasha is great at taking Asuka's offense, they're an awesome super complementary pairing. Sasha takes the missile dropkick better than any other heel, her bumps less athletic but more ragdoll and interesting. I love their dueling arm and leg work, the battle over the Asuka Lock and Banks Statement is a strong finishing stretch. The double callback hip attack finish was handled well, and the tap for the Asuka Lock felt nicely triumphant. Sasha Banks really deserves a lot of praise for the character work and personality she's brought to the empty arena era. And this was her strongest match of the year.

Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: Very low expectations for this one, which may be to the benefit of the match. Orton starts with a lot of smug stalling, which is the closest we get to Jacques Rougeau style buffoonish smug stalling. It's not anywhere near as good, but I like the tradition. This is a slow paced match, but it felt more natural in its pace than the other purposely slow "dramatic" matches from this weekend. This felt hard fought in its slow pace, and that makes this kind of thing work. Orton is someone I have to be in the right mindset for these days, but he can still work within that window of interest. I liked him spamming RKO attempts early after weaseling out of contact, then ramping things up to meaner stuff like two back suplexes on the unbreaking announce table. McIntyre's spinebuster to comeback looked good and the overhead belly to belly landed heavy. I liked it a bit less once we went into the longish feeling second half, where it felt like it was based entirely on attempts at Signature Offense. The stuff where Orton was just stomping on him and dropping him from a high place where stronger. Still, for a modern WWE title match epic, this felt above average. I wish we could have just had Drew pin Orton with the Claymore kick. Randy Orton is fucking 40, guys. Let a dude in his mid 30s win with his finisher. Let a 6'5 265 lb. guy win a match differently than a Terry Taylor finish.

Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: It's sad when a match between two heavy dudes doesn't inspire me. They keep it short and to the point, and for that I am thankful. But this should be more exciting. The chokeslam into the announce table looked hard and the spear through the barricade was a nice crash. But this felt kind of stale on arrival. This should feel bigger and be cooler, and it shouldn't be that hard. It wasn't terrible by any means. The Braun powerslams where impressive and Wyatt's tool box attack had a stupid 1999 quality to them. Both a pretty uninteresting to me at this point (think of the sadness in that. Braun is 375 and he's not an automatic What Worked for me), so who won or lost didn't interest me. Therefore, the uranage and double Sister Abigail on the exposed ring boards was a cool enough finish to make me come around a bit on it.

BUT of course this match was just a mere slow set up for the real main event, which was Roman Reigns returning after 6 months to kick the shit out of both of them. Reigns looked like an absolute superstar destroying both men, and it's cool as hell seeing him in pure destruction mode. His spears on Wyatt were among the best of his career, and the visual of him wrecking Braun with chairshots was strong. This was the best way to bring Roman back, having him Walking Tall as we fade out. Roman really saved this segment and made it immediately feel more electric. Roman had Braun's best matches and some of Bray's best as well, and it immediately felt like that.

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WWE Backlash Blog 6/14/20

ER: Getting a late start on this show because I visited my sister this weekend, the first time I have driven more than 5 miles in the last 3 months. When I returned I had a cat who had missed me terribly and dishes that hadn't washed themselves since I saw them on Friday. Asuka/Nia is probably the only match I'm really interested in, but there are several matches that could be good.


Andrade vs. Apollo Crews

ER: Fine pre-show opener, though it felt a little more hollow than I was hoping. Both of these guys do cool moves, and both hit those cool moves here, but it never felt like anything bigger than that. But seeing cool guys hit nice exchanges for 7 minutes is nice on the lead in show, and I liked how they jumped things up with Andrade taking a big backdrop bump on the entrance ramp. Crews and Andrade are both good at quick rope running sequences, and I dug how the ran through those at the same fast pace as Andrade slamming his knees into Crews in the corner. Crews' standing flying offense looked really good, landing flush on Andrade, and the finish was a slick sitout powerbomb reversal of Andrade's trap arm DDT. I know these two have a better match in them, but this was good eye candy to start a show.


Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross vs. The Iiconics vs. Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: This was kind of a mess, and these 3 way tag matches just seem too tough to work without some hitches or weird bits of laying about. I think Sasha was the big standout, with everyone else blending in a bit too much. Sasha was the one making all of her individual spots look good, like flying into the corner hard or throwing a knee into the side of Kay's head (while Bayley held her), or how perfectly Sasha handled the finish and how awesome her winning pin on Bliss looked. The match structure made everyone else feel pretty faceless, with the Iiconics far more muted than normal, while Bliss and Cross showed good enthusiasm throughout but felt out of the gate that they were losing. I don't think this was bad, but having three people in the ring at all times just leads to awkwardness.


Jeff Hardy vs. Sheamus

ER: I thought this was really good, a match worked straight with some nasty spills and great collisions, no shenanigans, no stupid finish. Sheamus is in the discussion of best 10 minute TV match worker of the decade, and he brings that to a nice clean PPV match like this one. He provides a big solid base for Hardy to slam into, he's never gonna be the guy who bails early on a rough collision, and I dig Hardy vaulting off stairs into him, flying into him in the corner, using his body as a projectile no matter how Sheamus was positioned, and then flying even harder into awful landings. Sheamus has real brick wall offense, the kind that makes the stuff of Sheamus vs. Scott Norton the stuff dreams are made from. He kept finding cruel ways to cut Hardy off, with the worst being him hitting a front suplex and catching a knee on the ringpost, or Sheamus reaching up to knock Hardy off the turnbuckles and Hardy just pitching forward into the ropes. I love seeing Hardy fold on Sheamus clotheslines, or the way his body crumples when he flies to the floor directly into a Brogue kick. This hit hard, landed hard, built nicely, a super professional match that still felt like it was worked aggressively. I never get excited for Hardy matches anymore, but he has seemed really focused since coming back, and Sheamus looks a good as ever. Strong match.


Nia Jax vs. Asuka

ER: Outside of the unnecessary 80s TV match non-finish, this was really good. I've always liked how these two match up, how Asuka knows how to ramp up the stiffness to counter some of Nia's bull in a China shop movement. Nia always looks really strong against Asuka, so I love moments like Nia simply shoving Asuka off into the ropes, because it looks like Asuka is really being flung whether she wants to or not. Nia really crushed Asuka with lariats and avalanches, and I love the way Nia tumbles when Asuka is able to side step and throw in strikes. Asuka swinging into a crucifix, leaping around Nia's body to get a great octopus, or flinging herself at Nia for a guillotine attempt all look really great, because they always look like Nia is actively struggling to prevent them from happening. Jax is really great at being broken down by submissions, really plays a great giant being brought to their knees. She shows off these cool moments every time Asuka snares her with something, and I think it's the perfect kind of spot to show of the dynamics of both. Asuka really hurls herself hips and butt first into Nia, kicks away at her legs, and Nia pays her back whenever she catches her in a big slam, reverses a sub attempt with a Boss Man slam or slapping her into the mat with a sitout powerbomb. Really, I loved all of this outside of the double count out finish. Even the post match hip attack off the apron looked great, and the facials from both ruled. There was no reason to do a double count out finish. Nia wouldn't lose any "mystique" from winning to Asuka, because Asuka rules. They give Asuka the belt without her beating the champ, then you have Charlotte beat her the night after Charlotte lost her belt, then you can't let Asuka win her first PPV title defense. She has done nothing but lose or not win ever since getting the belt, and it's totally unnecessary. As a match, though, this was really good.


Miz/John Morrison vs. Braun Strowman

ER: Modern WWE handicap matches just aren't good, because WWE doesn't want them to be good. The best handicap matches are deeply imbued with southern wrestling. WWF used to run handicap matches like this, understood that you need an element of stooging and the rhythm needed to be different than typical singles matches. Modern WWE handicap matches are worked like a singles match, only the two guys just may as well be masked twins. Something like Razor Ramon vs. Jeff Jarrett/Roadie works great, because Jarrett and Roadie know exactly how to fill time in between taking beatings and know how to gloat when they get an advantage, knowing how to perfectly act like the guys celebrating their advantage as if they don't already have the built in advantage. Braun makes for some good moments, as his misses can still miss dangerously, and I'm not sure there are many big guys who do a ringpost bump as nicely as he does. Morrison's knee strikes looked real junky here, and I couldn't get into a lot of this. Handicap matches can be more interesting than this. Modern WWE handicap layout does nothing for me.


Bobby Lashley vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: This had the feeling of two semi-trained Power Plant guys doing all of the big slams they learned and watched others do, and that is a much better vibe for this match than Main Event Heavyweight WWE Match. McIntyre tosses Lashley into the barricade with a belly to belly, Lashley runs McIntyre horizontally into the ringpost and nearly murders him with a crazy death valley bomb on the floor, the whole thing is just a big Power Plant power move spotfest and that kicks ass. This really felt like the best possible Sean O'Haire vs. Chase Tatum match, with McIntyre going on to hit a wild superplex, plus awesome stuff like grabbing a kimura off a Lashley spear. I like that we didn't get prolonged strike exchanges or tons of dramatic kickouts, but instead the focus was on two big guys slamming each other in cool big guy ways. WWE needs more Power Plant influence, as that sense of danger due to guys not knowing their limits was important.


Viking Raiders vs. Street Profits

ER: I hope that this satisfied the fans who were exited to see it, and the women who find Ivar cute.


THE GREATEST MATCH EVER

ER: The crowd was electric for this. There was this great sense that - even though I had no history with these two - that they had a great history with each other, and knew what to expect from the other. There were no cutesy I reverse U spots, more like physical chess with both of them knowing what to expect two moves ahead. There were elements to the work that I had never really seen before, simple things that I loved, like putting your forearms up to block an elbow strike, or dropping down to a knee to sandbag a powerbomb. Every guy I saw attempt a powerbomb before this had either hit that powerbomb right away, or got backdropped over. An actual struggle over a big move was a bit of a revelation to me. Seeing Orton drop to a knee, widen his base, grab onto Edge's leg - anything to keep himself from being powerbombed - and that was eye opening. The strikes landed harder than anything else I had seen, and well, I had never seen a man bleed from his ear before. I don't think anything good ever came to anyone after bleeding out of their ear.

And all of that stuff still holds up as special. It's a great match. The level of improv based around things you can't plan (where a guy falls after taking a move, the position he winds up in), all of the ring positioning, it's all impressive stuff. You can see gears working when a strike was supposed to land harder and it didn't, and you can watch some sequences get kind of reworked and changed and added to without ever altering the course of the match. Edge's kicks all land sharp, with that early thrust spin kick especially looking like it decapitated Orton. I actually remember seeing people use "restholds" as a complaint about this match, but I'm sorry, to watch each man's respective hold and to be so disbelieving seems a bit cynical to me. Orton's face lock looked like he was clearly trying to block Edge's breathing with his arm, and Edge's stretch plum looked as if he was trying to separate Orton's neck from his shoulders. There was nothing restful about either of those holds. We get some crazy moments like Edge punching Orton out of the air off an apron drive. Orton actually changes trajectory in mid air from being punched! Edge finally hitting that folding powerbomb was a huge moment and a great nearfall (of several), and while I didn't find the head drops excessive, that Tiger Driver 91 is still shocking. It really is quite the door slam to the match. I hadn't watched this match in probably 8+ years, and at this point I'm not seeing a reason it won't keep holding up.


ER: Strong deliveries from Nia/Asuka, Sheamus/Hardy, and McIntyre/Lashley, plus an arguably perfect main event that will henceforth be known as "6/7/20-6/14/20", means this was perfectly fine show to poke around on a Sunday evening.

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WWE Elimination Chamber Close to Live Blog 3/8/20

ER: Chamber shows seem to deliver a higher rate of success than other yearly WWE PPVs, and this card looks especially strong on paper. I'm so used to not being very excited by cards (and then being pleasantly surprised) that it feels weird going into a show actually excited for most of the matches.


Viking Raiders vs. Curt Hawkins/Zack Ryder

ER: I'm used to seeing Hawkins and Ryder work even matches with guys who most people don't even realize are on the roster, like Eric Young or Shelton Benjamin. But every year or so they show up on a PPV pre-show and suddenly they're the ones cutting of the Viking Raiders. I expected this to be the Vikings absolutely wasting these two, but instead we get a cool section of Hawkins and Ryder cutting off Erik from Ivar. Hawkins even dropped Erik with a vertical suplex on the floor. That ended once Erik tagged in Ivar, and Ivar had the kind of hot tag that really snaps a pre-show crowd to life. Ivar's timing looked really good, hitting a huge lariat on Hawkins after cartwheeling past him, flattening Ryder with a crossbody, drops down with a great butt splash, and their finish looks like a damn finish, a big flapjack into an over the shoulder powerslam. The finishing stretch of this really made them look like the kind of wrecking ball tag team that WWE hasn't been featuring as much, but I also like how we got a fun stretch of them selling. Typical good pre-show match.


Daniel Bryan vs. Drew Gulak

PAS: I am used to seeing these kind of non-WWE style matches hidden on 205 Live or NXT UK, but this is the most un-WWE match I can ever remember seeing on an actually big card. It is crazy that Bryan has the juice to work a 15+ minute match with Drew Gulak, have it go almost entirely on the mat and get in on PPV.  So much to love here, total star making performance for Gulak, who got to dominate most of the match, with the story that he knows Bryan better than he knows himself. He is like the Survivor super fan who knows all of Tyson or Boston Rob's strategies.

Bryan took a hellacious beating to put over Gulak, that Saito suplex was awesome looking with Bryan selling a stinger, the released suplex looked a horrific as one of those has ever looked, and I actually thought Bryan might have Misawa'd his neck. All of the little things were cool too, with Gulak able to either win the mat exchanges or fight Bryan to a draw. Nasty grinding mat wrestling too, after the leglock exchange, Gulak had a mouse over his eye, and Bryan had multiple welts and bruises.  Finish run was so class, the Ultimo Guerrero reverse suplex into the Gulock was perfect, and I really thought Gulak might go over. But the desperation reversal into the super violent Yes lock for the pass out, was really great grappling. I had super high expectations for this match, and it exceeded them. Gulak's career match and honestly really high on Bryan's career list too.

ER: Wow. The other night I watched a real dream match for me, Eddie Kingston vs. LA Park, and it landed at #1 on our MOTY List. And now the very next night I get ANOTHER genuine dream match of mine, and it immediately, easily becomes my favorite match of 2020. This is a real teacher vs. student match, trailblazer vs. acolyte, two guys having a match that looks like no WWE PPV match has looked before. Gulak wouldn't be in WWE if it weren't for what Bryan did in wrestling in the 2000s. There's a chance Gulak wouldn't be in wrestling at all if it weren't for what Bryan did in wrestling in the 2000s. This match is Gulak's return to TV wrestling, a guy who has seemed rudderless since they took him off 205 Live with no warning almost a half year ago, and here he is in his first WWE PPV match. Nobody rightly expects dream matches to fulfill their potential to this degree.

These two take it to the mat and work it so intensely that you really see how easily a WWE audience could get trained to get fully behind that style. They built the matwork in a way that kept the crowd engaged, even thought they weren't working strikes or highspots for the first half of the match. This kind of extended matwork is rare on any TV (even lucha TV format has phased out a lot of extended primera matwork), and here is an all time legend making another star on a big PPV working a rugged mat style. They cranked headlocks, twisted ankles, bent knees, fought with intent over kneebars and each wrangled over Boston crabs. Gulak booted Bryan right in the chest to break a hold, and it wasn't long into the match before both bodies were showing bruising. The fans got into a surfboard as if it were a move they'd never seen before, and by the time Gulak dished out chops and elbows in the corner they were even more into it.

Gulak and Bryan kept that matwork looking like a fight at all times, so that by the time the two were actually fighting, the building had been ramping up for 7 minutes. We got some of the nastiest throws and suplexes seen in WWE history, like the two were fighting to be included in highlight packages featuring Brock and the Steiners. Gulak throws Bryan with a Saito suplex like a Russian Olympian, and his release German is one of the most holy shit spots I've seen in WWE (which is saying something since the match also had a vertical suplex from inside the ring to the floor). Bryan got launched halfway across the ring and lands squarely on his left shoulder, and as the cameras linger on his body slumping and folding into the mat you get to visually see how much punishment his body has been through. The expertly teased count out finish really felt like it could have been the actual finish. Bryan took a complete beating here, and his known history of neck problems made every fall feel even worse. Sure, he had his own shots, Gulak had his own bruises and got dumped with a nasty dragon suplex, but Bryan looked like a guy really getting put through the shredder. Bryan takes a hard fall onto the top buckle, and as Gulak is locking in the incredible reverse superplex, I think Gulak really has a chance to win this. This really was built to make Gulak look like a star, and he looked all of it. This match hit a point where it ceased mattering who won or lost, just because of how unforgettable they had made it. That superplex and Gulak bending Bryan's body backwards into the Gu-lock would have been violent enough to successfully run a fake Bryan injury retirement angle. But Bryan's victory seemingly opens the door for them to do more. This was really the first time in WWE that Gulak hasn't been featured as a comedy figure on the main stage, and I have to think this match really opened some eyes.


Andrade vs. Humberto Carrillo

ER: I thought this ruled too. Andrade went out there clearly realized he had to follow what Gulak and Bryan just did, and so he beats the hell out of Carrillo. These two have had a lot of matches already, several on TV and one great one a couple months ago at TLC. All of their matches have gotten a lot of time to do their thing, so they've really been able to grow their style a bit. Phil and I were chatting about the match, and he thought they should have worked more of a Rey/Juvy match than working a similarly stiff match to the already legendary match that preceeded them. But I've seen them work their Rey/Juvy match, and I liked it, but now I'm glad I got something different. I actually thought they were going to have a 4 second match, and honestly thought that would have been cool. Andrade's whipping back elbow looked like it decapitated Carrillo, who took it like he ran headlong into a doorframe he didn't see. Carrillo kept pasting him with shots, and I liked the way Carrillo worked into slick flying spots around the violence. Carrillo benefits from being in there with someone like Andrade, and Andrade takes his payment in bruises. All of his shots landed hard, from his elbows looking like Carrillo was getting knocked back to his heels, to his running knees threatening to break Carrillo's collarbones. But then he made Carrillo's biggest moments look even bigger. That super rana showed they had retained the crowd after a real tough match to top, and he put that kind of bumping energy into everything Carrillo did. The finishing roll up sequence was inventive and I thought the narrow win off a quick leveraged pin was a great way to have him escape. This PPV has started great.


The Miz/John Morrison vs. Robert Roode/Dolph Ziggler vs. Gran Metalik/Lince Dorado vs. Heavy Machinery vs. Big E/Kofi Kingston vs. The Usos

ER: New Day are wearing all white Paint By Numbers gear, with a key for the colors on the back, and it's some absolutely all time gear. Is Paint By Numbers style a trend that I haven't heard? I love it. The crowd is noticeably quiet during the Usos/New Day opening, and those are teams that usually get reactions. It's possible they got burned out from the previous two matches, but I think the ring entrances for this match alos dragged on too long. Too many long, separate entrances felt like too much of a cooldown. But they didn't let it discourage them, which can happen. The match gets fun when Lucha House Party gets in. Just as Drew Gulak had his first PPV match, this was somehow the first PPV appearance for either Metalik or Dorado. That's really cool, and they both come into the match hot (a little too hot, as Metalik ends up taking a powerbomb on a failed rana attempt on Big E, but they treat it as if the rana connected) and once they settle down we get a great run from them. Metalik does his gorgeous ropework that always gets a reaction, and he and Dorado work some fun misdirection chained spots, ending with two nice moonsaults. Metalik was also getting reactions from big bumps (always gotta have a lunatic taking the hiptoss bumps on the edge portions of the Chamber), and Dorado gets to be the guy flying off a Chamber pod onto guys, and then gets to hitting a Spider-man shooting star press onto everyone from the top of the Chamber. Dorado's spot off the center of the Chamber is probably the most successful version of that kind of spot. Shame they got eliminated by a Heavy Machinery compactor literally right after, but I like the attention to detail in having Otis be the only one to be left standing after Dorado's big moment. Tucker tossing Ziggler off a pod and Otis catching him was a super impressive spot, and the hotshot Otis gave Ziggler right after looked great, but catching Ziggler felt like such a big deal that it felt like it needed a bigger exclamation point than the hotshot. Felt like it needed a big slam. But then Tucker flies off the top of the pod with a cannonball into the remaining bodies and goes tumbling away from the group. Tough to top that right?

Well Otis immediately tops it by crashing through two walls of the pod to fly completely out of the Chamber to the floor. He crashed through those pods like Pee Wee riding a motorcycle through a billboard. It was a total Wile E. Coyote spot, and one of the all time greatest spots in a gimmick match that has created a ton of all time great spots. Otis slander can stop now, this guy is a tank. I wish they would have gone all the way through with Heavy Machinery, would have been nice to see them have a run, even keep the Mandy story going with a Roode/Ziggler feud. Usos vs. Miz/Morrison doesn't excite me much, feels like I've been watching Miz fight the Usos frequently for the past 5 years. Morrison brings something different to the equation in theory, but it still feels like a thing I've seen too much. Ending a Chamber match with a feet on the ropes roll up is a pretty amusing way to do it, but I'm not sure it was the right move. I like the dichotomy of the match having some really crazy moments, then ending with the oldest trick in the book, but the purist in me feels like you need something stronger there. Good match overall though, plenty of memorable big moments.


AJ Stlyes vs. Aleister Black

ER: This had a lot of strong work, but was much slower paced than not only other No DQ matches, but slower than the two very similar matches we've had on this card. This was focused on some stiff striking and wrenched in submissions in the same way Gulak/Bryan was, with Black hitting several kicks to the chest that Styles made look like he was getting hit with a full baseball swing, and Styles throwing several kicks and stomps to work over Black's leg. Styles would kick his leg at a buckling angle, and had a couple real sick calf crushers. But the downtime in between the cool stuff left a lot of the crowd cold, in a way they perhaps wouldn't be had they been attending a lesser show. This was a show that already had a lot of stiff strikes and big highpots, so this was a tough position for these two. Plus, the Singapore cane stuff felt far less interesting than any of Black's kicks. I also didn't care a ton for Black's knee selling, getting a little too performative at times. It's kind of neat seeing a guy hopping around on a leg selling a limp, but after seeing him go for another quebrada you start to think he's maybe asking for a sore knee. This match loses me once the OC get involved, but at least the finishing Black Mass looked good (it always does, but still). The No DQ stip didn't lead to anything interesting, a regular match between them would have been fine. This might have stood out more on a weak show, but this has not been a weak show. The Undertaker stuff does not move me in either direction.


Street Profits vs.  Seth Rollins/Murphy

ER: Hey here's a match I didn't want. How to lose my interest in a great show, check out these past two matches. This match is really shoveling on the dirt, and the quiet crowd appears to be with me. Street Profits keep some fans interested, but Rollins is so cold for me. What's funny is that Rollins and Murphy each had a headlock that I really liked, it was all their athletic spots that I thought looked light. Murphy can make a scary bump off the apron look like a routine tumbling exercise, and he has a tendency to bump everything with the same level of impact, actually doing his opponent's offense a disservice. Dawkins' hot tag was good, big man lariats and his 360 spin avalanche is a great signature hot tag spot. Ford takes some big bumps (really liked him eating knees on a high frog splash, and liked Rollins turning it into a small package), but can also come off a step slow in ring. Rollins/Owens isn't a match that I am interested in seeing, don't care about the match involvement, but this match made the show feel an hour longer. But I will watch Viking Raiders vs. AOP.


Braun Strowman vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Cesaro/Sami Zayn

ER: This is another match that I don't really care about, so the unfortunate Styles/Black match followed by the dull tag, capping it off with a kind of silly handicap match, isn't going to help the show. BUT giving Sami Zayn an IC Title run is an actual great move. His kind of opportunistic undersized weasel works great as a mid level title holder, always making a babyface look good in the chase, and he's a good guy at getting clowned for 75% of a match and still somehow win. So this was a kind of nothing match that had a fun end result that should make for some entertaining programs, so it was an overall win.


Asuka vs. Sarah Logan vs. Liv Morgan vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Ruby Riott vs. Natalya

PAS: This was clearly designed to get Baszler over, and pretty much everything after she came in was an angle, but man what a delivery. I want to give real props to Logan, Natalya, and Riot who all absolutely killed each other in their section before Baszler came in. The Riott senton off the side of the Chamber was nastier and cooler then any of the crazy highspots in the tag chamber, and Logan's running knees to Natalya and the plexiglas were super nasty. Once Baszler came in she rampaged. I think they should have worked the times a bit, I think Baszler had to dance around a minute or two too long before the pods opened. I also would have liked to see her tap the women with different submissions instead of always the RNC, although I get how you want to establish that as deadly to people who don't watch NXT. I am a Baszler fan, so I enjoyed the monster push, and hope they have her beat Becky too. You need to set up Baszler vs. Ronda when she comes back.

ER: I really liked the looks of this match on paper, almost all of my favorite women on the roster in my favorite gimmick match. And I thought this match absolutely ruled...whenever there was actually a match happening. There has been a killer violent streak happening in the women's division this year, with some nasty under the radar TV bouts (Asuka vs. Natalya, Carmella vs. Bayley, and a host of other individual performances) and this continues that trend. Riott, Natalya, and Logan really killed each other. All of the stuff pre-Shayla was hitting hard on every level for me. Riott had a great return to prominence. Her trash talking was great as she smashed Natalya with shots, but then took a hard beating of her own with a couple nasty bumps on the Chamber edge (including a great powerbomb). Logan looked like she broke Natalya's face when her pod opened, flying into her knees to chin. When Baszler came in I felt bad that those three got completely steamrolled by Brock Baszler, after all they had just all clearly worked their ass off in the main event of a big show, but the killing was handled so well that I loved it. Baszler murdered Logan and Riott with knees, and her rear nakeds on both looked braincell reducing. Logan especially sold it incredibly, and Riott had a great sell from the kneelift.

But the match made a major faceplant by hanging Baszler and Asuka out to dry by stubbornly sticking to actual real time. This desperately needed a worked clock, as Baszler did not have enough material to fill in the incredibly, fast forward worthy downtime. How did nobody call an audible? The downtime was so long, and the crowd got deservedly restless. Who in the back is so dedicated to the art of taking proper time, that they didn't realize the MAIN EVENT was in danger of dying? Baszler/Morgan and Baszler/Asuka delivered, even though I wish Liv got a longer go. She's been a strong house show performer that for some reason hasn't been given much of a chance on TV the last year, and she died a valiant death here but deserved a run in charge. Asuka vs. Baszler felt like a big deal main event (one that fans had to wait a deathly long amount of time to see), and Baszler was killing her with knees. Asuka has so much charisma and has been absolutely unleashed the past several months, and I thought she was actually going to conquer Shayna with her chickenwing choke. But the final showdown came off great, they just bizarrely blew out two of their tires on the easy trip to the finish line.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE Royal Rumble 2020 Actually Kind of Live Blog

ER: These PPVs start HOW early and go HOW long!? This thing had already started by the time I got back from freaking brunch and will end hours into darkness. But I think the card looks good on paper, and the Rumble has traditionally been a favorite gimmick of mine. Admittedly, I do not get as excited for the Rumbles as I used to. Even when I end up liking them (I remember really liking the 2018 Men's Rumble, for example), they have still felt very same-y the past decade. I'm not sure what it will take to freshen it up a bit, whether the answer is to move the concept forward or backward, but I'm here for it.


Sheamus vs. Chad Gable

ER: Damn this feels like a pretty big match for the pre-show. Maybe it's just because I'm very excited for the on-paper potential of this match. I've been a high voter on Sheamus and I think higher than average on Gable, and the pairing seems natural. This is Sheamus' first TV match in over 9 months, and it's a tough spot to be in for your comeback match: 75 minutes before the actual PPV starts, while people are filing into a large baseball stadium. And Sheamus *does* look rusty for the first couple minutes of this, mainly in the way he perfunctorily went through standing exchanges; Sheamus is a good wrestler, he's not someone who sleepwalks through missed clotheslines and rope running, but he was clearly a guy finding his steps, looking a little careful. They even start talking about ring rust on commentary (and after the match) which sounded like they were smartly covering by just admitting. But Sheamus knocks Gable hard to the floor in a fun violent way and the tone shifted to more stiff and confident from there. Sheamus worked like a more WWE-style Timothy Thatcher, bending Gable by the hand and wrist, kneeling on his head, pushing on his face while stretching a limb, even busting open one of Gable's ears. He also aims to cave in Gable's chest with 20 or so clubbing forearms, really getting that filing in crowd going the more the match went on. Gable fought back in cool ways, tons of foot stomps and hard elbows, and ever harder overhand chops. He threw a couple different overhand chops that landed loud and left Sheamus in an almost stunned laughter, and then he would go right back to nasty stomps to the feet. Gable hit a nice dropkick to take out Sheamus' knee, and Sheamus is a compelling limb seller who works in some nice knee moments. I really liked him catching Gable off the top rope and buckling his knee, leading to Gable spiking him with a nice DDT. The nearfalls were exciting, Gable broke out a cool Chaos Theory and it looked plausible that Gable could actually beat Sheamus in the latter's big return match. I thought this played honestly and was a real nice return match delivery. This was a real good "first match" from these two, plenty of cool ideas I wasn't expecting, and a nice reminder of what Sheamus can bring.


Humberto Carrillo vs. Andrade

ER: This had a lot of ideas I liked and what I thought was a great Andrade performance, but also thought it was one of those matches where Carrillo oversteps. Carrillo has a lot of fun ideas with sometimes iffy execution, and his best matches tend to be when his dance flourishes get reigned in. He was pretty free to try things here and Andrade is a generous base, and I do think we got a few too many dance sequences muddying up things (for a guy who likes dance-y missed kick reversal sequences, Carrillo isn't always great at them). But there was a ton of match that wasn't those kind of things, and Andrade put fun twists on a couple familiar Carrillo spots. I liked the fight over a crucifix pin, like the way Andrade can insert some struggle into moves that could come off too smooth. Andrade has great small stuff, which adds to matches like these: hard stiff leg kick to the stomach, heavy back elbows, sharp forearms to the jaw (he had one early that really snapped Carrillo's head back). There were also good believable nearfalls in this one (a nice theme for the show) and the pairing is really good when Andrade is running the show. The match ending springboard rana reversal was cool and there probably aren't many guys in the fed (maybe Cesaro?) who could have taken it better. This match also benefitted from Zelina Vega's fun ringside presence, a loud, active manager with always amusing reaction shots.


Falls Count Anywhere: Roman Reigns vs. Baron Corbin

ER: This was one of those matches where I started the match into it all, and got less interested every passing minute. Before the match, Corbin was carried out to the ring in his meh throne, and Roman jumped him during the entrance and threw around the guys carrying him. I was into it. Turns out, that would be my peak moment of interest. The match didn't really land for me. Sometimes it literally didn't land, as early on Corbin seemed to be leaning way out of strikes. The brawling through the crowd felt sluggish, the concept of brawling around an entire baseball stadium was hurt by keeping most of the camera shots too close. They may as well have been brawling around a civic auditorium for over half of the brawl. By the time we got to the interference from Ziggler, Roode, and The Usos, my interest was waning. By the time we get a porta potty spot I was more than ready to get to the next match. You go to the extremely stupid lengths to set up a fake row of porta pottys, you need to go the lengths of making the spot as stupid or as dangerous as possible. Either Corbin comes out of that thing covered head to toe in fake shit, or he needs to take a stupid bump through a row of toilets. They did neither. The match goes 22 minutes which was so much more time than it needed, and the few big moments (and Uso dive off a high stack of equipment, some impressive bumps through tables) didn't sustain the match. "These two have been through hell and back," Michael Cole says unconvincingly. Nope.


Women's Rumble Match

ER: Alexa and Bianca is an opening combo I can get behind. Stadium entrances make Rumbles infinitely cool, and when Bianca's music hit I said "Man I hope Bianca skips all the way down the long damn entrance," and she did, and it was great. Great Big PPV Gear from Bianca, killer black/gold combo with 10/10 gold glitter boots. Alexa's faces as Bianca danced were also great, so I am firmly on the side of this match. And a Molly Holly appearance is clearly only ever going to be a plus. Let's do a Backlund moment and keep Molly in there for the match. Lana is genuinely terrible on the mic, has no originality, stumbles over words, and isn't quick on her toes...but she clearly puts energy into it and seems to enjoy the role, and she plays a good dummy who isn't as smart as she thinks. And that kind of saves the act. Mercedes Martinez is a nice surprise. The Lana/Liv pull apart brawl felt better than it should have been. Mandy looked good in her first two minutes, getting into it with Nikki Cross and stopping her with a shoulderblock, nice running knee, and a slap that echoed hard in the stadium.

And goddamn I am into the comical Mandy fake elimination. She gets casually tossed by Alexa in what seemed like an incredibly underwhelming elimination, almost a punishment to Rose. She was thrown to the far side of ring from camera, meaning we didn't see her hit the floor. And when when the camera shifts to her side we see she landed perfectly onto Otis, who was weirdly laying flat on the floor for some reason. Otis plays it like a fetish, coming off like the world's largest Jimmy Valiant under a glass table. The fans reacted bigger than I expected to it, made a really odd spot come off great. The involvement of Otis on both Mandy and Sonya's elimination was amusing, but Otis had just started being fun yelling ringside encouragement to Mandy, and I wanted the bit to continue longer.

We hit a boring little stretch where Dana Brooke and Mia Yim and Tamina do that annoying modern Rumble trend of coming in and just running through your offense on several people, just a stupid string of ninjas attacking once at a time for trademark spots. Older Rumbles felt like they had more small moments where a guy enters and quietly finds a the most advantageous dude to go after. Tamina has the worst ring gear in WWE women's history, a terrible look, a terrible run of offense, just a clumsy bull in a Houston china shop. Her elimination is thankfully quick, with her taking a stumbling bump to the floor like someone falling for the first time. Once Tamina was gone, things picked up. I liked the Bianca/Alexa hair tug of war on the apron, and Naomi came back after 6 months away and had her greatest look ever, an immediate contender for greatest wrestling hair of the decade, obviously Naomi paying respects to Mr. Niebla in a totally iconic look. And she gets a gimmick moment we've seen before, getting knocked from the apron but leaping to the side of the barricade like spider-man. But whether Intentionally or not, she lands VERY low on the wall. Her feet were just a few inches off the floor, giving her almost no wiggle room. It looked several times like she might just give up and let them hit the floor. Her crawling up to the top felt like a genuine dramatic moment, and I don't care how stupid that sounds. Beth Phoenix apparently suffers a massive head wound at some point, as suddenly there is a huge spreading dark red spot on the back of her head, and it somehow isn't getting nearly the attention it deserves from commentary. Super excited to see Shotzi in the Rumble. We were wondering if it would happen as I know they like to debut fairly new workers like that, and when her name came up I popped. Santina stuff felt dumb and more than a little out of place but they didn't linger on it, which has been a strength of the match. Shayna's entrance run is great, but let me tell you: Not interested in how easily Charlotte dispatched Shayna. That's just dumb. Charlotte was in this match as long as anyone, and made absolutely no impression. Overall I thought this was a good Rumble match, veering into great at times. Finish disappointed me though, and I'm bored watching Charlotte point at the Mania sign. Belair's elimination was disappointing and didn't come off like a big enough deal, and Naomi's long journey back to the ring felt was undercut by her getting eliminated immediately once back. A Naomi Rumble return leading to a big Mania match would work, disappointing they went with such a bland choice.


Bayley vs. Lacey Evans

ER: Not a match-up that's super intriguing to me, and I think most of that is I have not been into heel Bayley one bit. And I don't think I'm alone, as the match played real cold to the crowd. The crowd still seemed to like the Roman match that I didn't, but this match was quiet. This was a better match than Reigns/Corbin, but it did not connect. Stuff looked good, but it needed Sasha making noise at ringside or some other element than them just going out and having a match. This was worked without history and wouldn't feel out of place on an episode of Main Event, and played like a match that would be considered a good match for Main Event. But it felt light and unimportant here.


Strap Match: Daniel Bryan vs. The Fiend

ER: This was slow paced, and the crowd was quiet, and I have very very little interest in the Fiend gimmick or the Funhouse stuff, and there are dozens of guys on the roster that I would so much rather see Bryan face on a big PPV. But I was into this. Bryan comes hard with punches to the head, but before long we get long sets of Fiend slowly whipping Bryan over the back and chest, and Bryan getting a bunch of ugly welts. I thought they made a very compelling match based almost entirely around whipping each other. Both guys knew how to throw nice strap shots, and Bryan added big bumps at key moments. Getting eaten alive by a lariat on the floor and running into the Sister Abigail nearfall are things Bryan does better than most. But they lost me maybe 3/4 of the way through, started overstaying its welcome, and then hit us with some lame character aspects of the Fiend. Bryan really got made to look like a chump, and the Fiend's revolutionary gimmick of just walking through shots and clowning people, has absolutely zero legs. Bryan tried to get people into it postmatch, tried to pull those strings, clearly doing as much as possible to put some sort of dignity to this ending. But man I'm pretty positive the Fiend sucks.


Asuka vs. Becky Lynch

ER: This one felt like a big deal going into the match, but Lynch has a way of turning feuds with potential into kind of boring matches. I don't know why she doesn't seem to connect, but her run of matches during her long feeling title reign have consistently underwhelmed. This didn't get the crowd response it could have and should have been better. But it was not bad, and I thought Asuka brought a lot of color to it. She had my favorite moment of the match, when she splatted with a nasty belly flop bump to the floor off a front suplex from the apron. She threw nice thrust kicks into Becky's face and threw herself enthusiastically into her offense. It had a good finish too, with Becky landing a kick to Asuka's stomach right as Asuka was going to mist her, making cartoonishly mist herself. It's a spot I can see working all through the territories and I liked it here.


Men's Rumble Match

ER: I'm into the idea of a full match Brock run. I don't care. People are tired of Brock, but he's a total freak and I'd love to see him wreck dudes for 45 minutes. And I think he has the selling ability to actually provide some dramatic openings along the run. Right out of the gate, doesn't feel like a necessary move to throw Rowan to the wolves so quickly. At least give his comeback some kind of chance of success, this felt undercutting. But it also kind of makes sense, because Brock *should* run through these dudes. Elias, Roode, yeah, Brock should crush them. Roode shouldn't be hitting a spinebuster on Brock, so hell yeah, toss these men! I am into this idea and into the execution so for. I'm already excited for who will be the first entrant to last until the next entrant, who will finally last long enough to have someone else distract Brock for a bit, and who might be the first guy who Brock actually *isn't* excited to see? This is a different way to book the Rumble, and I am into it. The answer comes quick, as Rey enters while Kofi is still in the ring, and the star power feels bigger and it feels like a bigger moment to see Brock manhandling these two. And when we build to Big E, Kofi, and Rey all swarming Brock, it's a full great sequence of early Brock vulnerability. Trouble in Paradise, Big Ending, 619, Spear, and Brock is just so great at taking finishers. And with a finger snap he tosses Rey, jumps off Big E to hit a superman lariat through Kofi, lariats E to the floor, and disposes of Kofi. Brock as the Royal Rumble Ken Jennings is great pro wrestling for me. The pairings are well thought out: The Shelton Benjamin stuff was amusing, Nakamura hit a cool sneaky spin kick before getting tossed (would have liked a longer pairing here, as that's a 15 year old match I'd actually love to see re-run), MVP is a decent enough nostalgia return and takes super huge bump off the F5 for a guy pushing 50, and Brock keeps making things better with his reactions to Keith Lee at 13.

Keith Lee vs. Brock is a great dream match, and Brock is so good at getting run over by Lee. Lee doesn't hold back, both guys crash into each other like an airshow disaster, and I lost it when Braun was 14. Those 3 are a 305 Live dream, and all the interactions came off like a sequel to Rampage. The only problem is I wish we got way more. Let the three of them throw out the next 6 guys and have them absolutely ruin a city's infrastructure in between. And I was really into the idea of Brock going to the final 4 at least, but how pro was McIntyre's elimination of him? Brock leaned cheek first into that claymore kick, and Brock's big bump to the floor while Heyman flips out was classic. But Drew isn't done many favors as they kind of just have him do exactly what Bock had spent half the match doing. It's a big spot for Drew, but it almost did him no favors to have him be dominant. Plus he gets the bum luck of a few dud entrances, Ziggler and Karl Anderson, people aren't gonna be into that. The Edge return is obviously a gigantic moment for many in the crowd, and while there are few returns that could have been less exciting to me personally, he's a guy the fans filling out a Texas stadium clearly want to see. Edge felt like a major deal, people were flipping out like they were on an Oprah's Favorite Things. But we've fallen into a rut of people I'm not interested in (Gallows, Orton, ugh these are the Raw matches I skim through) and they eliminate Riddle in a minute. That pissed me off. I do NOT have interest in Randy Orton & Edge dancing their age old dance, and this thing is screeching to a halt for me. Is it the show that's too damn long? Or the participants that got less interesting? By the time Seth Rollins hits the ring, the ring is nearly entirely filled with men I do not want to see in a long WrestleMania title match. The final 8 really dragged for me, though it got a little better with the final 4. Edge hitting a spear on Roman came off big, and Drew really killer Roman with the claymore. If this is the big McIntyre push, I'm curious what a Brock match looks like. I could see fans getting into Drew with some momentum behind him, so let's see where this goes.


ER: The show had strengths but a big weakness in just being too long. A lot of the wrestling was good while rarely rising to great. The very first match of the night was my favorite, and that wasn't a match that is going to wind up super high on a MOTY list at the end of 2020. I liked both Rumbles, preferring the women's one overall due to less drag and down moments, but the first half of the men's match showed it could have hit greatness. We had a lot of good individual performances (Bryan, Andrade, Asuka) in so-so matches, which kept the floor of the show high but the ceiling low.

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