AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 4/6 - 4/12

AEW Collision 4/11/26

RUSH vs Anthony Bowens

MD: I'll get to the PPV in a couple of days, at least Darby vs Andrade, but I wanted to take a quick stop over here first because this was interesting and Rush is RUSH.

I complained a couple of weeks ago about how Bowens vs Moxley was a bit like mud, something where the alignments and the objectives didn't seem all that clear, something where having disparate, unrelated, conflicted characters interact with one another didn't make the world feel richer necessarily, but instead more confusing.

Yet this, which really wasn't all that different, worked for me, and that just shows you that sometimes art doesn't follow rules and patterns exactly how you'd expect. That's part of why you actually engage with it. 

This match was to determine the number 2 position for the Casino Gauntlet for the vacant TNT title; a chance for a chance. Bowens is still coming off a pretty rough year where he had a strong but overstuffed babyface presentation, where some plan (which we will never know) failed to work out, where they glommed him on to Caster again, and where it all fizzled out. Now he's trying to audition for what's basically a two man stable in the Opps, and the Opps really ought to just take him all things considered. I have no idea where this will land. Hook/Shibata/Owens vs the Conglomeration sounds fun. Who knows? But it means that while he's never really done anything overly heelish (just annoying, not evil) and he sort of presents himself as a babyface with babyface trappings; he can still be sympathetic due to his size and fire, but his current motivation is to become a heel. Sort of. 

And Rush is RUSH, right? He's recently back from injury. He's in the heel locker room, but he's more of a force of nature. You can argue Moxley is a force of nature too, but he's one that tries to explain himself, even if it's in mysterious and arcane ways. Rush doesn't try to explain himself. If you mess with the bull, you get the horns. He's there to run through people, to espouse the value of brotherhood, to cause as much destruction as possible. Cheer him? Boo him? Fight him? He doesn't care. He's Rush. He's an attraction, the personification of violence. 

But still, he's almost always up against babyfaces, right?

There was a moment, right when the split first happened, when I saw Bowens as a potential Kenta Kobashi type figure. There was something about his size, his likability off-camera, his presence, his fire. And you could see him fighting Mox again and again, just like Kobashi fought Hansen, getting a little closer each time. You could see him battling Joe, or Big Bill, or yes, absolutely, Rush, and he would build himself up into someone that the crowd could get behind, could believe in. 

And while that's a hint of a memory now, dust floating in the ether, this match almost feels like a proof of concept for something that now will never be. 

They went to strikes immediately, and Bowens, wanting to prove something to Hook, to himself, to TK, to the crowd, to history, stood up and fired back. You could tell that Rush was a little surprised, more amused than bemused, probably. But you're not going to beat Rush striking, and Bowens didn't. He got swept under immediately, dumped like trash in the corner for the Horns dropkick fakeout, had to endure the Tranquilo pose and then was goaded right into a power slam. 

Business as usual then, despite a little spark. Bowens isn't just someone who received a pep talk or ate a beatdown. He's a guy with his back against the wall, at the end of his rope. He's volatile. And as Rush pushed him too far and took him too lightly, he exploded ramming blows up and down Rush's head and face repeatedly. He tossed him to the floor and rebounded him off the rail. This was Rush's domain, but Bowens wasn't hearing it. Nothing was going his way, life itself had turned against him, and if he was going to have to shout into the wind, then he would shout. Yet still, he found time to scissor someone in the crowd, found a moment to toss a catch phrase at the camera. Even in the midst of brutalizing not just a opponent, but THE opponent, he still didn't know who he was, who he should be, who he could be, save for that he was the hero of his own story. 

Thankfully, Rush was there to keep him focused, spitting in his face (and drawing a kick). Bowens ground down on him with a cobra clutch, and the crowd, unsure of who to cheer for and unable to treat Bowens as an underdog given how the match was playing out, started to back Rush. He's an attraction after all, and if they can't cheer anything else, they will cheer violence above all. 

Rush escaped, hit a front dropkick and pressed Bowens, but, perhaps to his surprise, Bowens pressed back. The fire, once awoken, wasn't ready to go out quite yet. That's the strength of Rush, his ability to draw that out of someone in that Hansen-ian way. They went back and forth. Rush snuck in a winding back suplex. Bowens charged forward to stop the Horns and hit his twisting DDT in the ropes. They crashed into one another in a way you'd expect out of Rush but not out of Bowens. 

And through no real fault of his own, Bowens came up short. The gas tank couldn't outrun the storm, especially after spending so much of the match driving headlong into it. Rush took things back outside, got some revenge against those barricades, and rolled him in to lay in the Horns.

It was a testament to what Rush is and has always been and a testament to what Bowens could have possibly been and could, maybe, somehow, someday be. And even though it was as full of grey shades as the Mox vs Bowens match, it worked far better nonetheless. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/9 - 6/15

AEW Dynamite/Collision 6/11/25

Kyle Fletcher vs. Anthony Bowens

MD: We'll get to match itself down below as it was very good but elephant in the room time first. Despite having developed a slew of great heels, AEW has a young babyface problem. We'll leave HOOK aside other than noting that he's not necessarily in a different/more developed spot than he was a couple of years ago. Maybe he's in the midst of a shift after walking away from ringside a few weeks ago. Maybe it doesn't even matter if he's just an attraction. 

And we'll just talk about Daniel Garcia briefly since I wrote about it before. He won the TNT title and then instead of defending it on a weekly basis against any heel that they could throw at him, he was immediately tossed into matches with Briscoe (twice given the C2), Shibata, etc. on the way to a feud with Adam Cole. This is when he was developing his old school babyface routine and trying to connect to the crowd. You can't outbabyface Mark Briscoe easily. Completely short-circuited the connection. 

Ok, Bowens time. I could just write a snarky tweet about how he's 95 DDP and how Billy Gunn is either Maxx Muscle or the Diamond Doll, but I don't want snark. I want the guy to succeed. He has everything in the world on his side except for height and for a babyface who can work from underneath, that doesn't really matter. From the outside in, the other thing he's lacking is confidence. Because why else would he hide behind so, so many gimmicks. He's got the Jane's Addiction song, the nickname Pride of Professional Wrestling, the American Gladiators half chest gear, the Mollywop finisher name, the scissoring, the five tools bit, and the "Five Tools, one rule, Prove. Me. Wrong" catchphrase. And yes, the worst of all, Billy Gunn to steal his big moments (and whether he means to or not, he actually does) and to make him look even smaller. He's working hard, putting himself out there, doing a ton of media and highlighting on social media that he's doing it. But the screaming catch phrase laden promos aren't it. 

Maybe they would be if he was a guy who was unlikable and had to push past it, but that's not Bowens! Listen to him in an interview. Watch some of the stuff he does on his own. He's incredibly human and relatable. It's the same issue as Adam Cole, where Cole's likability doesn't transfer at all into his character. With Cole, it's because he plays things as too cool and refuses to show vulnerability, refuses to be himself. With Bowens, I do think it might be a confidence thing. If he just talked to the fans instead of shouting catch phrases at them, if he just told them how he was feeling, I think they'd go along for the ride. They want to like him. He calls out to be liked. He's sympathetic and gets how to work as a babyface well. He just needs to be himself and not sixteen gimmicks.

And to me, that's not on him. How Garcia was presented is not on Garcia. It's on the booking. It's top down. It's not enough to make good matches every week. It's not enough to put guys in positions where they can have four star TV matches. That's not good enough. AEW is where the best wrestle but the wrestling isn't enough. There has to be a strategic plan, three months, six months, nine months. It's not enough for a match to have a story behind it and a destination to a different match later on. It needs to make people feel something. Young babyfaces are investments. You have to pay into them. You have to pay them off over time. You have to build the ladder so that they can climb it. The pillars weren't built in a day. Neither was Magnum TA or Mistico. It takes extra work. It means living less in the moment and more over time creatively. Maybe it's less fun for a booker/matchmaker. It's taking your medicine. But it's necessary if any of this is going to work. I'm a firm, firm believer that things can and do matter. I believe that in the ring, wrestlers can build a match and create meaning and not just sensation. I believe that over time with booking too. Where is a Willow going to be in nine months? Where is Bandido going to be in nine months? Where will Hobbs be in nine months? Maybe you can't do it for everyone and maybe everyone can't make it through the glass ceiling, but in year six, great wrestling matches aren't going to do it alone. There are diminishing returns without strategy and purpose to underpin them.

Wrestlers can come up with their own ideas. They can be sent out there to succeed or to fail, to get over with the crowd or to lose them, but at the end of the day, it has to be a top down approach with a plan behind it. Bottom up can create a spark but top down needs to fan the flames and give kindling to the fire. Danielson is already gone. Guys like Joe and Cope can only last so much longer. There are only so many new people to bring in given the state of the indies. The heels need babyfaces that, even if they aren't bullet proof, are still resilient. 

That said, I actually thought this was a really good wrestling match. Fletcher is amazing. He has incredible instincts. But most of all, he sells everything that happens emotionally. He started this off by being a jerk to both Bowens and Gunn but the second Bowens turned it back on him he lost his cool and rushed in so that Bowens could outwrestle him and make him stooge. Then he came right back with meanness and frustration over the indignity that he faced. He is developing that Buddy Rose quality of looking like an absolute fool when he's backpedaling but then able to flip a switch and be completely brutal on offense.

And that's even when he teases things as well. There was a moment where he played on the apron power bomb from a few weeks ago, teasing it on Bowens right in front of Cole. That cruel mental distraction, that streak of viciousness towards both Bowens and Cole meant that Bowens was able to fire back. Fletcher's eyes went off the ball for a moment because he tried to do as much physical and emotional harm as possible. Incredibly rich piece of character work there serving multiple purposes at once and even playing on the real world backlash from the previous spot. Fletcher does multiple things like that almost every match, taking his time, being as present as anyone in wrestling, having it all lead to comeuppance. 

And of course Bowens, wanting to prove himself and come back after his last loss against Okada, knowing that Fletcher was someone opposed to him in so many ways,  wanting to put himself in TNT title contention with Cole at ringside, kept pushing, kept driving for his finisher. I wouldn't say that the finish protected him enough honestly. Archer got his hands on Gunn and that distracted Bowens so that he ate a clean pin loss after a move. That's a case where at least Fletcher could have gotten his feet up on the ropes maybe (that sort of finish helps both him and Bowens). But if it leads to Bowens losing Gunn, the most harmful of all of his gimmicks (because he steals those big pops/moments and towers over him), maybe that's a step in the right direction. And steps are needed because AEW can't afford to give up on such key parts of its future. 

ROH TV 6/12/25

Bandido vs. Mansoor (Proving Ground) 

MD: I was talking with a friend the other day and we were noting the move away from wrestling as a morality play, from being more about good vs evil. At some point along the way, wrestling went from being about more universal human issues and just became about itself. That's almost entirely WWE's fault and a side effect of WWE losing competition in the early 2000s. As a monopoly it was able to turn inwards. Punk's Pipe Bomb and Bryan Danielson vs the Authority were more about wrestling nerds getting more of a say against the established norms than anything more human and universal like Dusty vs Flair, Hogan vs Dibiase, or Austin vs McMahon. The snake has come to eat its own tail. AEW plays with notions of friendship a bit more but so much of it is still about wrestling as wrestling as opposed to wrestling as a lens through which (even simple) social issues and tensions can be explored and played out. (As an aside, that's why some of Hangman's journey is so powerful, because so many people in the 2020s can relate to the anxiousness ingrained in the character).

Despite this match being a bandit-themed luchador against a male model, I thought it tapped into the notion of good vs evil pretty well. Maybe it's a stretch to call Mansoor evil, but he certainly represented vanity and arrogance, quick to preen and pose at every opportunity. Moreover, he was seconded by Mason Madden, Johnny TV, AND Taya, and they interfered again and again and again throughout. Even though they may have come off as clever and talented, they made sure to portray themselves as scheming and underhanded. At no point did they try to get the crowd on their side. They knew their roles and played them exactly as they should, allowing for Bandido to shine heroically against all odds. 

In this case, driven by the interference and on top of it, that meant overcoming Mansoor's targeting of his back. Bandido had to power through a double arm stretch, had to overcome his own pain when he couldn't suplex Mansoor, had to survive a late match backstabber. The villains, fueled not by Bandido's inner strength but by their own weakness of character, cheated too much and too brazenly and overstretched, being caught by Ref Aubrey and sent to the back (Mansoor acted as if their removal physically hurt him which was a great bit of emotional selling). Left in a fair fight, even if he was damaged, Bandido pushed on and persevered, good triumphing over bad. Not every match has to work along those lines but it's primal stuff and it's sure nice to see it play out now and again. 

 

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

ROH 11/14/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Love Doug/TJ Crawford

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

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

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

AEW Rampage 11/15/24

RUSH/The Beast Mortos vs Alec Price/Richard Holliday

AEW Collision 11/16/24

RUSH/The Beast Mortos vs The Acclaimed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 1/17/-1/23

AEW Dynamite 1/19

CM Punk vs. Shawn Spears

MD: I get here first so I'm wondering if Phil or Eric will say five words about this? I'll say sixty more: I like that Punk didn't just catch Spears in a fireman's carry but instead teased his rotation neckbreaker and then did a double fake to get him up. Spears knew he was there for the build up and for the bump so he went full mechanic on that and sold the spasm. If they were going to do this, they did it about as well as they could.

ER: This was about as well worked as you can get with a 10 second match. The swinging neckbreaker twisted into a trapped arm turned into a GTS, and it's one of Punk's best thrown GTS in AEW (I guess I can technically say "in the past decade" and be correct) and I sincerely think Shawn Spears of all people took the GTS better than anyone in recent memory. I loved the way Spears took it under the chin and folded forward. 

Darby Allin/Sting vs. The Acclaimed

MD: Different layouts keep the attraction fresh. This one was pretty smart, with them taking Darby out early in a believable, over the top way and then getting the better of Sting by taking the top turnbuckle off. Then came the long heat on Sting, a comeback, a cut off, Darby flying in out of nowhere to save the day, and the big finish. While Darby got a couple of big spots and Sting had his big dive, this was all about showcasing the Acclaimed, and they had a pretty good mix of style and substance. Bowens works to integrate the deep voice trash talking in the match and I'm not sure the camera always catches it well, but him welcoming Darby to the Black Parade on the chair shot was funny stuff, as was Caster doing the Acclaimed Scissor-finger handshake with Bryce after a 2 count when he was holding the two fingers up during the PiP. Sting drew a few Let's Go Sting chants from underneath and I liked how Bowens had to work to knock him off of Caster during the Scorpion; it made everyone look better (Sting for holding on, Caster for not tapping, Bowens for hitting him hard enough to get him off). I like how everyone sold the beatings and injuries and comeback during the stretch. It wasn't just a bunch of moves at the end and despite the fire of the comeback, they would have beaten the hurt Darby if it wasn't for Sting recovering enough to make the save. Sting's dive over and through the table was pretty unique. Maybe not the most photogenic thing ever but that made it feel all the more wild and dangerous. If they're going to keep highlighting Sting and Darby in a way that feels special, they have to keep changing it up, and this one definitely felt different than the last. 

PAS: I am a big fan of the partner-gets-taken-to-the-back trope in tag team wrestling. I think it is pretty crazy that 62 year old Sting is in the workhorse role in this match, but he does a great job fighting off both of the Acclaimed, eventually succumbing to the 2 on 1, leading to Darby's awesome out of nowhere leaping return. I loved the camera angle on that explosion. Sting doing the biggest highspot in a match with Darby Allin was pretty unexpected, and it seems like Sting is stretching himself every time he goes out there. His stage dive was insane. Liked the Acclaimed a lot here too, lots of shit talking and bumping, and their offense looked pretty nasty. I think they are ready for the titles and could see them having a nice run with the belts.

ER: Crazy how much of this match was Sting working two tough guys 2 on 1, keeping a quick pace the entire time until Darby's return. It's unfathomable that Sting is this good at 62, as it's not just young guys bumping for an immobile man. Sting's missed Stinger Splash, with Bowens removing the turnbuckle pad, was an excellent bump that Sting made look like it was happening in 1992. Darby gets taken out immediately with a disgusting spot, getting run into the ringpost with a chair opened around his neck, and his return (coming out of nowhere to blow up Caster off the ring steps with a diving shoulderblock) was perfectly done. But Sting held this whole thing together by keeping things go go go and I just was not expecting that. I say that, but what I was truly not expecting was Sting breaking out one of his craziest highspots ever, doing a Superman dive through a table that was just nutty. I would have been perfectly happy typing "I really liked Sting's Scorpion Deathlock, with a really low base putting a ton of pressure on Caster's back" and instead we all get to talk about Sting reinventing the dive. Darby's big Coffin Drops looked great, The Acclaimed are becoming a must watch act, and I just had no idea the Sting/Darby team would have this durability. Blessed. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 12/27-1/2

AEW Dynamite 12/29

Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz vs. Daniel Garcia/Jeff Parker/Matt Lee - GREAT

ER: I love what these teams do together, and this was another fun TV gem from them. This was great because we turned the format around a bit and had 2.0 dominating a lot of the match, cutting the ring off far more effectively than I've seen FTR do in an AEW ring so far. Kingston is relegated to the apron pretty early, with him brawling briefly with 2.0 (including him fish-hooking Parker). He's great on the apron, and 2.0 get a real showcase against the Inner Circle. Parker especially looked great, like a peak WWE TV match Christian. He's one of the only punchers in AEW, and he has a variety of good ones here, while also bumping explosively for all of Inner Circle's bursts of offense. Garcia gets involved in ways that are more than cheapshots, carrying himself like an MMA bully and vulturing in on Ortiz. 2.0 were given a bit of bad luck when AEW chose to take their longest commercial break of the night during their big beatdown control segment, relegating their most vicious stuff to the tiny picture in picture screen. I would have loved to see full screen shots of Parker's great elbowdrop and low snap suplex, or Lee's hard backbreaker and his elbow smash that knocked Ortiz back into the corner. Kingston's hot tag was King at his fired up best, smashing a avalanche as hard as John Tenta, throwing corner chops to Garcia as blistering as any Kobashi ever threw, throwing a couple crushing suplexes. The finish plays better as angle than Great Match finish, with Matt Lee getting a surprise schoolboy. It could have built to something more dynamic, but Lee plays such a punchable shitheel that I want to see yet another rematch just to see him get smashed, so the finish must be good. 

MD: Kingston started this match with the strap down, literally and figuratively. The match started with him jamming everything Matt Lee tried and dropping him at a nasty angle on a vertical suplex and he really didn't let up for the rest of the match, even though he spent most of it stuck on the apron as the heels beat on Ortiz. He wanted Garcia and they delayed it, but it didn't really feel like MJF's chickenshit performance from the week before. It was more about goading Kingston while Garcia still imposed himself in the match. I have less time for Santana and Ortiz' tandem stuff than most people, but it works best during a shine. 2.0, on the other hand, I really like. They come off like the world's best Disco Inferno: they understand the style's incredibly complex spots, they can take them beautifully, they can't necessarily hit them. The combo of that makes them stand out because they're relegated to older style offense that doesn't take as much suspension of disbelief but looks entirely credible while they still never seem out of place in a modern match. Garcia is always on to the point where his chinlock looks better than a lot of people's best stuff. Point being, the FIP on Ortiz was very good. I didn't think the set up for the hot tag was that interesting but that could have been the curse of having 3 multi-man tags on the show. Kingston running through everyone was great though. Santana stopping the whole world for some long seconds at the end while he waited for Ortiz to get in position for their tandem spot was rough though.

PAS: I really enjoyed this. Kingston is a super expressive performer, and he has that Negro Casas thing where you want to see him on the apron more than the guys in the ring. I am starting to get into the 2.0 and Garcia team, they are just such swarming shitheels, utterly disinterested in doing cool shit, just pure heels. Eddie on the hot tag was awesome, and I like 2.0 continuously stealing pins. I was really bummed we didn't get more Eddie vs. Punk, but this feud has been a nice holding pattern for him, the blowoff street fight should be great, and I do think King can do something with Jericho if that is the next direction for him. 


AEW Rampage 12/31 (Taped 12/29)

Darby Allin vs. Anthony Bowens

ER: 10 minutes of non-stop fun and great Darby exchanges, perfect way to lead off an episode of TV. Bowens is like a modern Xavier, exact same kind of athleticism and snap on nearly everything he does. He's solidly built and throws his body into offense and bumps, so he's like a spark plug version of Darby working the high wired version of Darby. This is another great Darby TV performance, working multiple people into the match without missing a beat, and finding new ways to crash and burn in the most inventive ways. He has found so many all time great ways to get run into a ringpost, but Bowens running him length of the apron and Darby triple salchowing off the post might take the cake. There's a bunch of cool stuff obviously, like Darby's nutbar tope that that sends Darby at Bowens and Caster sideways, or how he is somehow able to make the Code Red still feel like a fresh surprising spot, or the way he took that big Bowens DDT. The Sting involvement continues to wildly succeed as he launches Max Caster into the guardrail, and the Coffin Drop is my favorite finish in wrestling. 

MD: I liked the pacing of this a lot: early feeling out with Darby getting advantage, the really nice transition spot where Darby gave Caster the middle finger instead of playing into his antics but still got nailed by Bowens after a few extra wrinkles, hope spots that were primarily roll ups, and then the build to the stretch with dives, Sting involvement, and everything being earned. Bowens has solid timing, that one strike exchange that looks great and that he can work into different points of his matches, and a nice trash talking presence. I think he'll ultimately shine as a sympathetic babyface but we're a ways away from that. This is probably the best he's looked over the last many months though, and even though he's frequently looked good, you still have to give Darby his share of credit for that. I usually save commentary discussion to message board recaps of Dark and Elevation, but since most people missed it, during the PIP break Starks was a lot of fun ribbing Tony about Tennis elbow and never playing tennis. Maybe my favorite Starks commentary moment so far.

PAS: This was really fun. I want to third the love for Bowens in this match. Darby can basically have a great match with anyone at this point, but Bowens has really good looking snap on all of his offense and I loved his Tenryu-ish forearm chop strike. I am even into his DDT, which could be like Nova in the wrong hands. I'm not sure if Darby should be taking bumps like that ringpost bump on a 10 minute TV match opener, but I do love how nasty it was.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 12/13-12/19

AEW Dynamite 12/15

Bryan Danielson vs. Adam Page 

MD: This is one of the rare ones where I kind of want to crib off of Eric or Phil's notes, but I tend to get in first on some of these, and with this one, the only record we have of Phil was "I liked the Kingston match more." Thanks, Phil. Anyway, I caught this twice, or at least one and a half times. 8 pm is tough for me live as I have kids to put to bed, but I caught a good amount before the TNT app froze on me and wouldn't come back. Then I followed back the next day with the international feed. That was a preferable experience since you didn't lose any of the match or crowd noise to picture-in-picture but seeing a chunk the other way makes me want to raise a point right at the start. There are a few interesting elements at play with this one: Danielson's approach to it relative to his long 00s matches; Danielson's heel role and how he worked the crowd; how well or not well Page was able to hang in probably the most challenging match of his career (probably as I don't think I've ever actually seen him before except for in clips); but maybe the most interesting to me is how they managed the commercial breaks.

I guess more accurately, the interesting factor is that they had to deal with them in the first place. I haven't gone back and watched the long WWE TV matches of the last twenty years, but here it obviously shaped the match. On paper, you'd think that would have an impact when it came to suspension of disbelief. Why is Danielson working this hold for so long? Why is Page bleeding out on the floor so long while Danielson works the crowd in the ring? Because it's a commercial break. We know it, the wrestlers know it, the production team knows it, the crowd knows it. A necessary evil, right? (Except for that one break right after Page missed the second moonsault to the floor where Danielson pulled back the mat and hit the DDT; except for in 2021, that's not that big a spot, I guess, and the call sheet could just have been "Danielson does damage to Page on the floor.") Yet, here was the striking bit. When the sound left for commercials during that first break that started with Danielson working an abdominal stretch, the crowd was up and excited. When the sound came back at the end of it with Page reversing a surfboard, the crowd was up and excited. Listening to the TNT feed, I wasn't expecting it, and it hit like a sudden wave. They'd changed gears, slowed things down for the commercial break, and they still had the crowd. Likewise for the break where Page was bleeding out: yes, towards the very, very end the crowd started to turn on the doctors at least and a small bullshit chant started, but for two or three minutes before that, Danielson had their full attention, doing jumping jacks in the ring, giving them the finger, completely indifferent to Page's plight and drowning happily in boos while literally nothing was happening but some doctor pouring water into Page's mouth as commercials sludged past for the US audience. If the crowd didn't care, if it really didn't impact viewing on the international feed, if it maybe even helped the overall pace of the match by letting things breathe when modern inclinations are to go, go, and then go some more, then it was a potential problem solved.

So much of that was down to Danielson being fully invested in every moment of the match. He was completely on from bell to bell, bringing logic, purpose, attitude, and meaning to everything he did. When I was on Phil's pod the other week talking about Bock vs Hennig, one key factor to me was that you could draw a line from any spot in the match to any other spot and explain easily, logically, and with satisfaction how they got from point A to point B or back. I wouldn't be quite so quick to stake that claim here, but after a bit of hesitation, I probably would agree to it anyway. Moreover, nothing felt like time-killing other than the obvious commercial time killing, and like I said, even that was over and effective and interesting as a thought experiment, even if you don't always want thought experiments in your big title matches. Danielson moved from body part to body part, but he did so based on the current opening and the current opportunity. It almost always built on what came before in the match and it led to what came next. It opened possibilities minutes down the line and was informed by eventualities from minutes previous. It was less on Page to have a gameplan and more on him to just hit his big offense when the chance arose, but he never seemed out of place or lost or like he wasn't carrying his weight in the match.

I came in thinking there were no good booking choices, that they had just gone with this too quickly if they wanted to maximize Danielson and protect Page's reign and all the time spent to build it up, and in the end, they made him look strong to outsiders without hurting Danielson too much, but that was only because they punted the ultimate decision down the field a few weeks or a month. They'll still have to cross that road later, but this draw is going to make things at least a little bit easier for them when that time comes.

PAS: This was a match I liked a lot, without absolutely loving it. It is difficult to keep me engaged in a match this long at all, and I was definitely engaged. I really thought Danielson kept the match together with his heel work, the taunting, the ripping at the wound, the mix of cocky and vicious which he has really mastered. Page was pretty good too, especially for a guy I am not invested in. This wasn't Danielson against a broomstick, he brought plenty, from the huge bump to the floor, the bleeding, the big clothesline. He also kept cardio pace, it is clear that the wrestlers today have the wind to work a 60 minute match at a faster pace then most wrestlers from the 70s and 80s, but they had the sense to do plenty of selling as well. I did think the match got a bit your turn my turn at the end, I think it would have been more satisfying narratively if you had just one guy trying to survive at the buzzer rather then both guys having a chance too, and I also didn't love the long break on the outside with the doctor, feels like there is a count for a reason and if it took that long for Page to get back into the ring, then he should have been counted out. I had a Ringer piece I was pitching on the booking dilemma AEW found itself in, and the draw kind of skunked the piece, but I am interested to see where they go from here, Danielson seems to have way more juice in him for a title run then Page, but I get why Page is important to the promotion and their fans.

AEW Rampage 12/17 (Taped 12/15)

Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz/Pentagon Jr./Fenix vs. 2.0 (Jeff Parker/Matt Lee)/The Acclaimed (Max Caster/Anthony Bowens)/Daniel Garcia - GREAT

PAS: I think it is really smart of AEW to run these six, eight and ten man tags. It's a great way to get a bunch of people involved without burning singles matches. High energy stuff which was really highlighted by the Kingston vs. Garcia feud, loved the high energy finish and the roll up upset. Also was really impressed with Bowens, who was hitting hard, and Santana and Ortiz who carried the workload. Enjoyed how this kept breaking down and coming together and it had fun action throughout. This is what you want to deliver for a TV main event. 

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AEW's Five Fingers of Death Week of 11/1-11/7

Slow week this week, with only one match from our five fingers. We did get an electric face off between Eddie Kingston and CM Punk, one of the great bits of non-wrestling business in years. I love how both guys came in as babyfaces, and left as babyfaces but you totally bought the aggression and hate coming off of both. Hopefully we get a long feud.

Bryan Danielson vs. Anthony Bowens AEW Rampage 11/5

MD: This felt like the most WWE of Danielson's matches so far. It actually felt a little more like an AEW Punk match. You got the sense he wanted to give Bowens some shine and let him get his stuff in and control the tempo. It didn't hurt Danielson at all as he was going to win definitively and it probably did Bowens some good both for his craft and his standing. It was very different than the Solo match along those lines. Bowens and Caster tend to be very hit or miss for me but he hung well here, even if it was hanging with a Danielson that wasn't showing the same levels of insane aggression that he has been recently. The way Danielson blocked the suplex with a kick to set up the cross-armbreaker was really slick. Then, it took both Bowens catching the foot, hitting the electric chair, and then Caster getting the cheap clothesline (which didn't look so great) for Bowens to really take over, which protected both acts. Bowens is good at projecting confidence and acting like he wants to be there, which is appreciated, though I could do without the corner twist DDT thing. Danielson's comeback was decisive and matched the hierarchy. I've seen Garcia win on the indies this year via ref stoppage using the repeated stomps and that would have worked here as a finish for me if they wanted to use yet another finishing move. Instead they went with the Lebell Lock, which was fine. Ok match but it didn't have the extra oomph that we've gotten from AEW Danielson so far.

PAS: Bowens really feels like a performance center guy, which is why this felt like a WWE match. Still Danielson had a lot of great WWE TV matches. I actually liked the corner twist DDT, thought it looked cool and gave Bowens a bit of signature offense instead of just slotting him into the Danielson show, and the same applies to the electric chair on the ring apron. The LeBell lock was good, and Danielson does a nice job of being inevitable but sprinkling in some moments. 

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