AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/22 - 6/28

AEW Forbidden Door 6/28/26

Jon Moxley vs Bandido

MD: I want to be clear about something before we dive in. I don't actually think this is the story they're telling. I don't think they're telling any story at all, not really. I think TK is making matches. I think Moxley is flexing, enjoying himself, proving he can do whatever he wants and make it "work." They're slotting the Death Riders in wherever it makes sense. Can they do something down the line with Ospreay one way or the other? Sure. But the point is "one way or the other." It's the flexibility, the ability to make whatever matches make sense. 

Maybe one day that means putting the Death Riders against STP, United Empire, or the Don Callis Family as de facto babyfaces. Maybe another day it means Mox defending the Continental Title against Bandido as a de facto heel. It's exactly how they used the BCC for long stretches and while it's a matchmaker's dream, it's a booker's nightmare, because nothing resonates nearly as much as it ought to. Everything is ultimately wishy washy. There's no moral truth to the universe. There are never any real consequences. Jon Moxley didn't get turned on by the Death Riders because it would have been "predictable." 

Yes, Jon. It was predictable because it was good fiction, because your character committed unforgivable transgressions and then never fully paid for them. It was predictable because the appeal of a fictional world of pro wrestling is to get to live out and experience all of those moral consequences that don't really exist in the real life. We're dealing with this bullshit day in and day out in everyday life. We don't need you wrestling through it.

Yet here we are. And the fans are more or less going along with it (though far, far less than if there had been clean lines and true consequence, which is the true crime of it all). 

I should just accept it, should just move on.

But the text is the text regardless of whether it's truly going anywhere or whether there's true intention behind it. 

And I will call the text as I see it.

Which is to say...

----------------------------------------

Jon Moxley sits on a throne of lies. He rules over a kingdom of dust. He is full of shit. Maybe he can back that shit up, but it doesn't make it smell any better.

He talks a good game. He tears down institutions not with anarchy or revolution but with nihilism. Then he builds himself up in their stead. 

Against most wrestlers, that's fine. Maybe they're not much better.

Bandido is not most wrestlers. Bandido stands for something. He wears a white hat and a white mask. He fights for justice. He never gives up. 

Jon Moxley doesn't even believe justice exists, not anymore, maybe never. And he succeeds, triumphs, gets away with it all, so long as he makes sure everyone else believes the same. That's the only way he escapes with his head held high.

Bandido has a good heart, sees the best in people, wants to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even Moxley. The fans seem to want to give him that benefit and Bandido listens to the fans.

So he thinks this is going to be a title match like those he grew up on, a lucha title match fought within the rules. Matwork to start, escalation, two men pitting skill against one another, not an apuestas match, not even a heated trios. 

He starts it with swagger, winning an exchange and pointing the finger gun right at Moxley.

This isn't a game Moxley can play. This isn't a game Moxley can win. He knows there's no solid footing underneath him. He knows that his actions won't stand up to scrutiny. He needs the crowd to buy into what he's selling. He can't have Bandido outdoing him, outflashing him, out shining him. 

He tries to shoot it down, to put his middle fingers up instead. He refuses to play along with the Yay - Boo dynamic. He has to take the air out of the room. He tries to draw a line in the sand instead, tries to intimidate Bandido. 

Bandido does not back down.

Moxley tries to outquick him, to beat him at his own game, slipping his way back into the ring to hit a dive. Bandido hits a far more spectacular one.

So he gets his feet up as Bandido charges in and drops him skull first onto the ring stairs. This isn't a game. It's not a clean, honorable title match. Maybe Mox could win that. Maybe he couldn't. But he's too much the coward to take the chance. He can't afford to lose. He can't afford to look weak. He can't afford to let anyone, the wrestlers in the back, the Death Riders, the fans, doubt him for a second.

He tears at the mask. He makes that "white hat," and the white mask, and the white gear, turn red.

Yet Bandido does not give up, for Bandido does not give up. He bounds back at Moxley with superior athleticism. Despite the size difference, he presses him over his head with superior strength. He survives the Death Rider and then manages an astounding feat, taking Moxley over in a fall away slam from the top.

But while Bandido stands for something, Moxley knows the price of his own potential fall. If Bandido fully fathomed the filthy rancor delving underneath in the wretched heart of Jon Moxley, maybe he'd have risen to the occasion, maybe he would found a strength greater even than his own, but on this night, Moxley's eyes were the ones that were open, and he simply needed it more.

He caught Bandido on a 21-Plex attempt and pulled him back into a choke. Bandido's courage drove him to lift Moxley up and drive him down, but Moxley's fear meant that he hung on for dear life and won the day.

And post-match? Bolstered by the fans (and Bandido listened to the fans) and entirely despite the depths he dragged himself, the match, and the title, Moxley dared to hold his hand out as a sign of respect. He was wrestling through it again. And Bandido, with his good, forgiving heart, a heart better than any that we possess, expressed admiration and respect.

The King with No Clothes pulled the wool over everyone's eyes once again. Evil triumphed over good once more because evil believes in nothing and good cares far, far too much. 

So is there a payoff coming? Is there comeuppance? Is he just going to get away with this again and again and again and we are just to accept it as the new face of valor? 

I don't know. It's all sure convenient and easy isn't it? Maybe in 2026, that's all that matters.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 1/12 - 1/18 (Part 1)

AEW Dynamite 1/14/26

MJF vs Bandido

Way I see it, Max only has one thing left to prove.

Look, he was a very young world champion, main evented one of the biggest shows of all time, has drawn houses and ratings and sold merch, has the Punk feud, has the Danielson match, the Darby match, the Ospreay match, the Omega match. The Mistico match, with the Briscoe match the next night. He's probably a top 10 success story in the wrestler-to-movie pipeline already (but then it's not like he has a lot of competition; Hunter didn't blow the world away with Blade III). He got over incredible babyface bullshit with the Double Clothesline/Kangaroo Kick deal. He's done two musical numbers. I could go on and mention more matches or esoteric things. You can argue any one of these things, but you can't argue all of them. 

So what's left? Going to WWE and main eventing a Mania? That's all politics. It's all playing a game. It's being part of a machine. We know he can play politics. There's nothing real there anymore, if there ever was. Natural heel that he is, he's not going to break Make-A-Wish records or be the best darn spokesman for the Saudi regime you could hope for. 

Is it getting star ratings? We don't care much about that here but he's got the highest WON star rating ever for a US TV match, or something like that. Does quantity really matter all that much? Maybe it does to some people, but wrestling isn't math. 

Wrestling is, however, broken.  

More than just about any fictional medium out there, it has an antagonistic fanbase. It's not about real vs fake. It's not about working people and kayfabe. But it was for a long time, and as wrestling fans trended older, as the product became more niche, more about itself than real life human issues, it became all the more essential for those remaining fans to feel like they were smart, to be above it all, to not compare themselves to the people screaming and shouting and letting themselves get caught up in the moment. 

The social contract between performer and audience broke. 

I'm not saying that wrestling is the only medium with a spoiler culture or people obsessing over box office or fans nitpicking every thing. It's 2026 and we're in an age of social media and that's a lot of things now. Wrestling’s more interactive than most others, however, and it asks more of the live audience. And that live audience today are the heirs of the 80s sheet writers and readers, the ones that looked down upon people who cheered for Hogan or Dusty, who were self-conscious about their hobby, the hobby that they put so much time and effort into. The rise of the internet let that mentality spread like a disease. The end of WCW and rise of MMA peeled off a lot of the more casual fanbase. And then social media brought people closer to the wrestlers allowing the Elite to use irony to get over by tossing the suspension of disbelief to the wayside and creating a relationship with the fanbase, showing everyone the strings all the time so they could feel nice and comfortable and superior. 

All this led to a shift in how matches were worked and a shift in the reward structure. The super indy style became more prevalent as was mimicking bloated Japanese style epics. Getting star ratings or high cagematch scores became more important in getting over. Hitting viral spots might get you over the top. Yes, we're seeing it in all forms of entertainment and hearing stories about how people can't get cast unless they have a certain amount of Instagram followers because movies can't be greenlit unless some total number is reached. But because of the interactive nature of wrestling, the end product shows it all the more. It’s become an endless race to a sensational bottom, nothing allowed to breathe, nothing allowed to sink in, nothing allowed to resonate. Everything has to be so awesome and overwhelming that nothing can actually move people and force them to feel.

Which brings us back to Max and what he has left to prove.

He says he’s a generational talent, says that he wants a legacy, to be remembered as one of the best ever. We’re in a quantitative checkbox world. How many spots? How many counters? How many kickouts? How many likes, retweets, views? And he can be one of the best at that. We’ve seen it. He’s proven it. He’s proven it too many times, actually, because it never seems to take with the fanbase and that just drives him to prove it again, just so it won’t take again. He can be another number in a world of numbers.

Or he can leverage his push, his track record, his spot, his skill, his success outside wrestling, and prove that one last thing.

He can save pro wrestling. He can reset the balance. He can make people WANT to feel again, to value it.

What an uphill battle he faces. Look at this match. He’s in there against Bandido, one of the best babyfaces in the world, with a real, true connection to the crowd, who lets himself be earnest and heartfelt, but look at what he had against him? The crowd he’s in front of. Not only have they been watching years of this stuff, following it online, living and breathing it, but on this very show they’d already seen a Darby Allin car crash trainwreck match with some bumps that should be highlights for the entire decade AND a crazy multi-team tag full of coordinated, collaborative, over the top spots. Moreover, he has Bandido himself to face, because for as wonderful Bandido is, his finisher, the 21-plex, is one of the most disruptive moves in pro wrestling, forcing his opponent to move into a spot that he’d never be in for any other match. Feeling is about immersion, and nothing breaks immersion quite like that. 

Max would have to wrestle basically a perfect match, a perfect performance in order to make this work, to save the crowd from itself, to save wrestling from itself, and quite frankly, to save him from himself and his own need to prove once again everything that’s already been proven and not the one thing that he still needs to prove the most. 

—-------------------

Every detail mattered. That’s half the battle here. The other half is selflessness, confidence, channeling the spirit of Terry Funk to throw yourself fully into every moment, to make every moment seem to matter, not necessarily to the story or to history, but to the wrestler in the ring. Everything has consequence, physical but especially emotional. If the wrestlers care, the fans will care. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but over time. 

The fans were split to start, behind Bandido but willing to chant for MJF. They sang along to his theme song. So he immediately disengaged and told them to shut up. That turned them immediately.They weren’t going to get rewarded by MJF, no pat on the head, no playing along, nothing to latch on to. That would continue. 

The early feeling out process hits the right marks. MJF underestimates Bandido early, stepping over a dropdown and playing around with Eddy Guerrero’s mannerisms, with Ric Flair’s. That builds up the pressure for him to get outwrestled by Bandido. Bandido punctuates it with the finger gun. MJF responds with an eyerake. The fans boo. This is Act I. The characters are being established. The stage is being set.

MJF runs into a press slam and stumbles into 21-plex position, hands on the second rope, crouching. It’s the gun in Bandido’s holster, Chekhov’s Gun, and by going to that position early and often, by setting it up as a possibility at multiple points, it becomes more believable, more strategic even. Was MJF trying to lure Bandido in? Had he actually stumbled there? Other matches, other sequences couldn’t be controlled, but this match could be. Regardless, here MJF rolls to the outside, just a tease, and walks away from Bandido’s first dive attempt, tapping his head, showing his superiority, making it impossible, only to walk right into a second dive attempt. MJF gives the fans nothing. Bandido gives them everything. MJF shows himself to be despicable, arrogant, cowardly and gets instant retribution. And the fans? They don’t chant this is awesome. They chant for Bandido instead.

Bandido is giving the crowd everything. MJF tries to stall on the apron and Bandido doesn’t give him an inch. There’s a cost to that though. It lets MJF take over on the arm, to introduce the wedge that will help drive the narrative of the first half of the match. MJF hits a pumphandle facebuster. But then he lets it breath, walking it off, interacting with the crowd. He chokes in the corner. The fans boo and he leans into that booing, amplifying it. More than that, he sets up a logical hope spot. There’s an ebb and flow. Bandido tries to fight out of the corner. MJF uses the arm to cut him off. MJF taunts Bandido and the crowd by teasing the Macarena. That lets Bandido fight back again. MJF cuts him off, hits a shoulder breaker, basks more, gets a reaction. All emotional responses. All character driven. All structurally sound. Wrestling isn’t math. Sometimes it’s physics, and here pressure is building and letting off only to build all the more. This has time to live and breathe and worm its way into the hearts and souls of the crowd.

They make the most of the commercial break. MJF throws Bandido arm first into the corner, hammerlocked. He goes for it again. Bandido turns it around and starts the ten punches in the corner. Interactive. MJF cuts him off at nine as he was hyping up ten, stealing the candy from the fans. He hits an inverted atomic drop and jams the arm. The fans chant for Bandido. Back from break, he goes for the Three Amigos. It’s always a borderline face spot when Mercedes does it, but there’s no joy in MJF’s heart. It’s a sheer insult. Bandido blocks the third and starts firing back. MJF tries to cut him off, can’t. The crowd expects Bandido to reverse it clean, but MJF bites him. The crowd boos, thinking they weren’t going to get their reward once again, but Bandido, leaning into his strength powers through.

This is where they start twisting and inverting things. MJF avoids the 21-plex again, but Bandido reverses the Salt of the Earth. It all builds to a huge moment where MJF thinks himself safe by retreating back over the barricade but Bandido dives from the top all the way over it, defying MJF’s cowardice, defying that sense that he could prevent the fans from getting what they wanted. Bandido is brave, courageous, a man of the people, a folk hero, and he goes above and beyond to ensure justice is done.

From here they continue to invert, continue to escalate. Everything that had happened so far in Act I (defining the characters and the tone) and Act II (MJF controlling with the arm and the hope spots and cutoffs) set the stage for things boiling over here into a hot extended finishing stretch. There’s one moment after MJF turns Bandido jamming the Heatseeker pile driver into a pulling cutter that the fans chant Fight Forever, but it’s not many and it soon fades. Why? Because MJF went back to the well and tried it again only for Bandido to get the best of him. He selflessly stooged and showed vulnerability to disrupt the fans even thinking of treating this like a 50-50 scenario.

They move into big spots and roll-ups and nearfalls, keeping things exciting, cashing in all of the emotional capital they invested in the first two acts of the match. After so many teases and lures, Bandido finally hits the 21-plex, but can’t hold the bridge given his arm. MJF goes for the Salt of the Earth but turns the reversal into a LeBell Lock (which Danielson on commentary lets slip, emotionally, as a Yes Lock in a great accidental call; he was just as engaged as the crowd, a testament to him and the match). Bandido passes out. MJF wins, but still manages to sell, seeing Bandido as a threat too dang the emotional weight post-match, seeing Bandido as too dangerous to let live and attacking after the bell, only for Brody King to make the save.

—---

One slip from one part of the crowd, but in general, it worked. Max and Bandido controlled for the 21-plex, survived the carcrash and spotfest before them, kept the crowd, gave everyone a memorable moment, and made people feel. They can go back to this again later, build it not bigger but deeper. Bandido came out better than he came in. Max came out better than he came in. Wrestling, I think, came out better than it came in. But it’s one step on a road and there’s so far left to go.

Why do I think that this on Max? Why not Fletcher? Why not Ricochet? Why not FTR? They can and should be part of it. They need to be part of it. But to me, it’s needs to be him. Because he’s on top and has the freedom. Because he’s a student of the game and as such understands what has been lost. Because he had that taste of Arena Mexico. Because he clearly feels alive when the fans are booing him. Because this is what he has left to prove. He can’t do it alone, but he can help change the incentives. He can help convince wrestlers that this is something they want to be a part of, that it won’t be career sabotage, even if maybe, just maybe, there’s one three quarters of a star less in it for them. 

He can help convince crowds that this is something they want to experience. They don’t have to be fooled into believing that it’s real. They can be convinced that it’s worthwhile to come and be part of the experience, to boo the heels and cheer for faces and embrace the text for its own sake once again without trying to force themselves above it or feel self conscious about it. Like if they went to a movie. Like if they watched a TV show. Like if they read a book.

I’ve felt that way in the past, that need to be a part of something. I get the notion. I wanted to see Black and Gold NXT live, to be part of that. I went to the 2015 Royal Rumble mainly so I could do the Yes! Chants at least once. I think fans can be convinced that it’s not just about seeing a big spot or athleticism or witnessing a 5.25 star match (or sing along to the songs and pavlovianly respond to catch phrases like in the other place), but instead being part of this unique emotionally gripping live experience that they can’t get anywhere else. 

They can do it with open eyes and leave their troubles at the door and Max can help show them that it’s worth it, that even in 2026, it’s worth being genuine and not ironic, that not everything’s a meme or a gif.

Unlike one house and one buyrate and one match, it’s the work of a lifetime, the work of a generation. But there’s no greater legacy he could possibly have.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/10 - 11/16 Part 2

AEW Collision 11/15/25

FTR/RUSH/Sammy Guevara vs Kevin Knight/Mike Bailey/Juice Robinson/Bandido

MD: An eight man tag can be an opportunity or an excuse.

It can be an opportunity. 

You have eight wrestlers. How do they interact? Both the partners and opponents. I want the camera to linger on what happens when FTR gets into the ring with LFI for the first time (Cash was quick to go slap hands and greet). These are disparate characters, disparate styles, disparate personalities. It's interesting. It makes the world seem more robust. Hiptosses are great. It's not always about hiptosses. I want to see who these people are and what they think about each other. What the hell does Dax think about Rush? That's interesting. Likewise, Juice hanging back and waiting for Bandido to show up so he could do Guns Up with him and then Bandido realizing what he wanted and getting excited and into it. That's interesting. That's compelling. It's vivid and real and immersive. It draws you in.

It's about the narrative opportunities of having more wrestlers and their attributes to work into the match. It opens the door for creative possibilities. You have Rush's intensity, Dax's hard hitting, Bandido's strength, Bailey's agility, Sammy's attitude, Knight's explosiveness, Juice's charisma, and Cash's wild abandon. And that's just one attribute from each of them. The wrestlers can mix and match all of that. Everything can be bigger. The stooge spots can involve more people. You can go for a double heat instead of a single. There are choices for who gets the hot tag, how to do the cut offs. It's more options, more room for creativity. Maybe most of all, it's also a way to further multiple stories at once and seed future interactions and matches.

It can be an excuse.

Eight people. Eight sets of signature spots. Eight guys who can take bumps. The action can flow and flow and flow and never stop. Someone can bump and the next person can be right there, fresh and on his feet, ready to jump right in and get revenge. You can drown the fans with an endless waterfall. Everyone gets their stuff in. Everyone gets to shine. Everyone gets to show off. The spots escalate endlessly. There's no ceiling. There's no bottom. There's no reason to ever stop. 

Except of course there is, because without stopping nothing can have meaning. Without leaning into tag rules, nothing can truly resonate. But it can be an excuse not to do those things, because you can just keep cycling people in and out forever. 

Cleverness for the sake of cleverness, spots for the sake of spots. It seems to be some wrestlers' fondest wish. Endlessly entertaining, almost certainly ephemeral. 

Usually, depending on who's in the match, an eight-man tag in AEW can be one or the other. 

This one, given who was in it, sort of straddled the middle. There was just enough connective tissue. They let things get chaotic, but then they brought it back to the center. There were foundational moments: Knight mocked the heel corner with the tranquilo pose and when he got thrashed by LFI they did it back to him. Sammy teased a swanton early only to leap down and screw with the fans. When he tried the same thing later, it cost him and helped lead towards the hot tag. Speedball hit his moonsault kneedrop in the ring to finally get that hot tag but then wiped out on the apron, clearing him out of the way for the finish. 

There were excessive moments, most especially early chaos which built to FTR eating Juice's stylized punches, Rush trucking him out of nowhere, and simultaneous JetSpeed dives. 

Ultimately, everything came down to Rush and Bandido, then opened back up as everyone got involved for one last bit of excess, only to cycle back around to Rush and Bandido once more for the finish. Moreover, it came back to the characters at play, their familiarity with one another and lack of familiarity with one another, as Rush got shoved into FTR to position himself for a slightly askew 21-Plex. 

If I had my way, I'd prefer something a little more grounded with chaos even more controlled than this, but it's a big tent promotion and sometimes an excuse is what's needed. Thankfully, here, that excuse didn't leave the opportunities on the table like it so often does.

ROH TV 11/13/25

Athena/Billie Starkz vs Hyan/Maya World

MD: Here's what makes pro wrestling great. 

Athena demanded to start the match. She held out her hand to Maya World for her usual insulting left-handed, draping code of honor shake. She immediately clocked her with the magic forearm, absolutely floored her.

And all that? That was Athena selling.

That was her selling the frustration of eating a rare pinfall from Harley Cameron (of all people) during the tag tournament, of having to defend against Harley now, of being eliminated from the tag tournament when she and Mercedes were the favorites, of Kris Statlander getting into her business, of Billie letting her down, of Mercedes not doing her part (and being able to claim that Athena didn't do hers), of not being part of the first Blood & Guts. 

Grievance after grievance all going into that one seething, agitated, impatient shot. 

This was an enhancement match. Hyan and Maya are on the rise but this was to continue Athena's story. She'd sell for their offense, but she'd sell more for the ghosts in her own mind, a burgeoning obsession over Harley. She'd call Harley out within the match, even as she punished Maya or Hyan. She'd take it out on Billie, so distracted and distraught that she'd all but chop her instead of tagging her, would get in a senseless argument which would allow her to get dropkicked from behind.

The secret truth in pro wrestling is that true strength lies in vulnerability, that it's selling which draws the fans in to get behind a babyface and that showing weakness, be it physical, emotional, or moral is how a heel gets heat. So even as Athena ate up Hyan and Maya, she was being eaten up on the inside, and her performance made that clearly evident to the world. 

Meanwhile, it was on Billie, Hyan, and Maya to react. For Billie that was trying to soothe Athena's wounds through inflicting collaborative violence, of showing the emotional impact of Athena's abuse upon her, of being distracted herself. For Hyan and Maya, it was being on their back feet due to the brutality and coming in hot when opportunities arose. 

The end result was an entertaining match which was laser-focused on promoting the title bout to come. And it all hinged on Athena selling something bigger and more complex than a punch or a kick from the second she walked through the curtain to the second the camera faded on her post-match. 

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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 5/22 - 5/28 (Part 1?)

MD: I'm only two hours through ROH, but it was a good show so far, with nothing that I felt an absolute need to write about. There was also a Fletcher vs Cassidy match from Dynamite. I like Fletcher as the guy who contrasts HOOK for the next decade. There's a lot of upside there. He's still at a stage where he's just giving up the struggle to set up the next spot at times, but his reactions are good. I would have liked a bit more character-driven rationale (immaturity from Fletcher) for the kickouts towards the end. Too many bombs. I get that they're getting over Cassidy's resilience under impossible circumstance, but it was a bit much. I'll start the PPV here and maybe do the pillars match on Wednesday if I get around to it.

AEW Double or Nothing 2023

Blackjack Battle Royal for the International Championship

MD: You can tell a lot about someone's love of wrestling when it comes to how they feel about battle royals. There's nothing wrong with a person not liking them, complaining about it being too hard to see the action or too much hugging in the corner, etc., not enough "action," the notion that if you've seen one, you've seen them all. I wouldn't necessarily hold that against someone, but I'm always glad when someone appreciates the possibilities inherent. 

Before my time watching, a Battle Royal, like the big San Francisco one, but others as well, was a chance to see wrestlers you wouldn't normally see interacting with the local stars. They built it up as the most dangerous sort of match possible (despite that lack of action) where a punch could come from any direction and a freak injury could occur at any moment. That made a lot of sense during in age where kayfabe was protected and strikes and holds, not spots, were the glue that held wrestling together. 

When I started watching, towards the late 80s or early 90s, WWF Battle Royals were a way to break up the stultifying structure of the WWF feud system. The British Bulldog would feud for eight months with the Warlord and you'd rarely see him up against else during that time. A battle royal would let him interact with the Barbarian or Haku or Ted Dibiase and also brush shoulders with some of the other babyfaces, a brief save, a little nod, a quick team-up. That stuff was magic for a kid who wanted a more coherent universe in his wrestling and not just a series of isolated feuds. So maybe there's some level of comfort food for me in battle royals.

In AEW, it's not that guys don't cross streams and interact. Khan books random matches all the time. It's more a case that we can never have enough of it. There's only so much time and there are hierarchical needs that keep certain wrestlers away from one another. That was true a few weeks ago in the Darby vs Swerve match. It was true in Ricky Starks vs Jay White. For us to get matches like that every week, it makes continuous elevation of certain wrestlers tricky. In a Battle Royal, though? There's very little harm in getting knocked over the top. Moreover, here the wrestlers are encouraged to interact with one another and, more often than not, the spots are frequent and clever. 

I have no idea who agented this one, but they absolutely earned their keep. While there was brawling and guys hanging from the ropes and certain guys disappeared from the action (Butcher didn't get much shine for a change), it was one signature spot after the next, one interesting interaction after the next. The Lucha Bros, working with Bandido and Komander, interacting with Jay White, for instance, were standouts. The most memorable moment of the match might have been Bandido hefting up Nese for a delayed vertical suplex as Fenix and Penta fought off all comers. Brian Cage and especially Big Bill got plenty of shine. Bill's a guy who has been delivering and entertaining week in and week out and this felt like the first step in moving him to whatever might be next. I know people were high on the Swerve vs Cassidy finishing stretch but I find Swerve best as a heel and against someone with a little contrast, a few less twists and rolls, someone a bit more conventional. I worry that a straight up match between the two would frustrate me. Here though, as just a taste at the end of a very well put together Battle Royal, just a taste of it was more than enough. Cassidy was especially good at selling the cumulative damage of weeks on his back and hand, in the midst of a match where that wasn't the narrative centerpiece. It was just another detail in a twenty minute stretch of AEW that had a ton of excellent ones.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 4/24 - 4/30

AEW Dynamite 4/26

Orange Cassidy vs Bandido

MD: Cassidy's had an amazing run since he came back from injury last year. We've covered very few of those matches but I think it's about time that changed. In fact, I think for the near future, I'm going to sub him in for Danielson. Don't get me wrong, Bryan's had some incredible highs in AEW, but when you look at their week to week output, I think Cassidy has him beat. Danielson's made the most out of bigger opportunities, but that's not the same of making the most out of every opportunity, and that's where Cassidy shines. There was one point where the idea of Danielson being TNT champion, back when the TNT title was all about open matches against interesting opponents. If he couldn't go to Korakuen Hall or Arena Mexico, maybe they could come to him. We got a taste of that earlier this year with his run on the road to facing MJF, and you know what? As fun as those matches were, I think Cassidy's better at it.

Maybe it's because he's a few years younger, maybe it's because he's less banged up. Maybe, however, it's just an issue of mentality and at being better at adapting to his opponent and forcing his opponent to adapt to him in 2023. You could argue that Danielson is such a big star and such a looming presence and that the crowd demands certain things out of him (like the Yes Kicks for instance), but a lot of that is true with Cassidy too. In fact, while in theory, it's easy to compare the two of them, in practice, Cassidy reminds me more of Moxley than Danielson. I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating: Moxley is going to take the air out of the room and force you to show your inner heart in the face of his relentless onslaught. In character, through character, Cassidy does the same thing, but it's pushing your mind instead of your body. At the end of the match, so long as you lean into it and embrace the potential of it, your character will be revealed just as thoroughly as if Moxley bled all over you.

Here, against Bandido, he met him half way with quick, tight, flowing exchanges. Danielson may have worked in a lucha submission or two, but this felt more tapped into the vein of that particular style of chain wrestling. The excusing bridged the gap making it seem less gimmicky and more organic. All the while, Cassidy pulled Bandido into his world, teasing the hands in the pockets, holstering the finger guns, seamlessly meshing impeccable high spots and high concept character work. And when it came time to fully highlight Bandido's strength, Cassidy went out of his way to do so, yet in a manner that was always earned and always had consequence. He'd go up for the extended counting suplex but would get the knee down eventually and make Bandido earn the eventual impact. He got to show off his strength on the outside, but only after catching a Cassidy dive. They played into the idea that Bandido had been training specifically for Cassidy and he even reversed the mousetrap, but Cassidy is the modern incarnation of a tecnico trickster god and he always has another gambit up his sleeve (or in his pocket as it is). Danielson can't help but force people into Danielson matches, and Danielson matches are great, but this, to me, was more compelling, a tighter, character driven, smoothly executed fusion of two worlds.

Darby Allin vs Sammy Guevara

MD: I don't have a lot to say here relative to the last match, but I did want to point out how much I loved the opening bit, with Darby working a tight NWA Heavyweight Title style in order to prove he was worthy of the belt, just going back to the side headlock again and again even as Sammy tried more and more elaborate and showy escapes. It took Sammy outright cheating (first the spitting, then the low blow, then Tay interfering) for him to take or recover advantage, but once he was on top, he made the absolute most of it. This is a guy who knows that Kommander and Vikingo have arrived, and that they've arrived right as he's getting the biggest push of his life, and he's trying to top it with things like that 630 through a table or even just the perfectly timed cutter counter to a tope. You don't usually think of Darby as a base, but here he was, providing contrast and things like the amazing bump off the posting or Sammy's moonsault. The finish half worked; you could see Hager or Parker or Garcia setting that sort of faux DQ up just as easily as MJF. Maybe it would have been better if he asked all of them to stay in the back on camera? But even then, you had Tay out there too. That's something of a nitpick though.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 1/16 - 1/22

AEW Dynamite 1/18

Bryan Danielson vs Bandido

MD: Danielson's tour of guys with a ton of raw physical talent continues (and will continue to continue with Brian Cage ahead of him). This was the most complete Danielson match we've had in a couple of months, probably since the Dax match, and he worked de facto heel here considering how into Bandido the crowd was, which made it all the better. It was a taste of a world that never was, the one where Danielson got to visit Arena Mexico and work Hechicero fourth from the top since CMLL didn't have any idea who he was, and maybe even the one where he got to work Blue Panther or Negro Navarro for the FLLM title in front of a few hundred people. While there was a feeling out process and while the finishing stretch was pretty even, with a lot of payoff and counters, there was a bit after that feeling out and before the commercial break and the quasi-heat where Danielson let Bandido shine with technique followed by power followed by speed and he looked like a mindblowing star. For that minute or so, it was hard to even process the way he was shifting gears.

After that things calmed down and Danielson was able to really stretch. There are pros and cons to the AEW commercial breaks but with a guy like Danielson in there who can hit hard, who can make every impact matter, who can engage the crowd, who just breathes pro wrestling, it works more often than not. It certainly worked here and even allowed for some time for the leg to recover after the nudo. Bandido has so many tools in the belt to come back with (here it was power), and the stretch had some bits I liked, especially Bandido getting lost in the moment and not capitalizing and Danielson seemingly wanting to win with a lucha-styled move like the Casita instead of playing fully to his strength that let Bandido get a nearfall or two n him. I'm not going to say everything was smooth, but the instincts were there, the constant struggle, the constant reaching for a limb, that even when something didn't hit smooth, the roughness only helped the visceral attempt at what they were trying to accomplish. The actual finish, to me, felt like a superior batter having to see a pitcher a few times to learn how to hit him. Danielson came in having never wrestled Bandido and having not wrestled someone of his style for a while and as the match went on, he adapted to him more and more, until he was able to catch him with the knee perfectly. Maybe that was just in my head, but it's something I like having in my head, so we're going to go with it.

Darby Allin vs KUSHIDA

MD: This was very good and I'm finding myself with very little to say about it. It's great right now that they are maximizing the roster/openness and having both Darby and Danielson up against different and varied opponents each week. And now that Negro Casas is over to AAA I want both match-ups yesterday. We all want Danielson vs Casas but Darby vs Casas with Darby creating all the motion would maybe even be better. This was all about the armwork, of course. KUSHIDA was excellent in creating opportunities for himself to open that up. Darby, more so than almost any wrestler I can think of, earns his victories through sheer endurance alone. He had to survive long enough for an opening to appear. That was basically it. In the meantime, they were able to manage spots like the flip off the top which were cooperative but still believable, as KUSHIDA made Darby go over and basically bump himself off the top huge so as not to dislocate his arm further.

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Santo vs. Bandido

81. El Hijo Del Santo vs. Bandido York Hall, London 6/24/17

ER: This was one confusing middle section away from easily landing on our 2017 list, and it needs to be said how cool it is that Santo is the guy using his lucha fame to work matches around Europe this past decade. "I'm a famous masked wrestler, I'm going to showcase that in famous museums and boxing gymnasiums" is a weird line to follow, but it's great. This plays like a Santito greatest hits, done as well as you remember them being played, but the best thing about Santo's greatest hits is that they never feel like he's just running through spots. He always puts something behind them, and their still shockingly beautiful. A lot of this is Bandido stooging for Santo, stooging for headscissor variations (I'll never not get excited for the crossed ankle headstand, never showing any light on his grip around Bandido's neck), fighting out of camel clutches, taking nice arm drags, and fighting back with lariats. Bandido eats a great boot in the corner, flying in with a dropkick and getting knocked out of the sky by a Santo foot, and Santo dropkicks him off the top to the floor before hitting a fantastic dive past the ringpost to the front row. This match could be from 2001 the way Santo is moving, and I'd have no idea. Bandido lands a couple corner dropkicks, and Santo (in tree of woe) sits up on the third and Bandido takes a great sliding bump crotch first around the ringpost. Santo hits an incredible crossbody from the top to the floor, landing high on Bandido's chest and making you come to terms with how disappointing the landings are on most flying offense to the floor. With Santo energized we go into the awesome Santo brawling segments, with him kicking Bandido's legs out, hitting high knees, and going for more clutches.

Things get confusing when Santo gets slammed into a turnbuckle while holding a choke and the match just stops for a couple minutes. Both guys are squaring off but nobody is touching each other, and I have no idea what was supposed to be happening. I didn't love the 2 count tradeoff section, felt too modern lucha and while Santo's sunset flip slams always look great I thought an earlier one was worked into the match in a more interesting way (with Santo being pulled out of a grounded headscissors into one) and I just get restless in lucha now when the guys start trading nearfalls for a few minutes. There's impressive stuff within, as both take nice vertical suplexes on a hard mat, we get rana pinfalls and a victory roll, and Santo's rolling sunset flip bomb is truly one of the great marvels of lucha; the way he rolls into and up and over his opponent's body is something that a 53 year old shouldn't be able to do, and Bandido is a great dance partner as he SUWA's himself into the thing. Finish run is fun with Bandido hitting a rolling senton and them committing big to a missed splash off the top, allowing Santo to finally sink the clutch. This match really wasn't missing much; you had that weird couple minutes of standing and squaring off, and the nearfall section could have been ordered a bit more logically, but if this match had somehow been the only match we got from return Santo it would have been proof positive that he hadn't lost any semblance of a step.

PAS: Honestly this could have been Santo in 2007, 1997 or 1987 and you really couldn't tell. He was taking bumps, throwing big shots, hit his awesome tope, and his classic plancha, both of which were beautiful looking and actually looked like they hurt. He looked 100% there, and if he can still deliver at this level, there is no reason he can't have one more big run in him. CMLL is setting up Atlantis vs. Villano IV and Santo looked way less washed then current Atlantis. No one wants to run a Santo match Wrestlemania weekend? NOVA Pro is flying in Session Moth Martina from fucking England, and there isn't one money mark willing to fly in one of the greatest ticket sellers of the 21st century? There were a couple of moments where Bandido looked off on offense, I don't know how much he has worked rudo in his career, and he seems to have lost the thread a bit. Still he is a really athletic guy, and sold most of Santo's stuff really well.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Wrestlemania Weekend Thursday Wrestlecon Supershow and Axcess Cherry Picking

Wrestlecon Supershow

Joey Janela vs. Penta el 0M

ER: I was curious what Janela could do here, since Penta is just beyond dullsville at this point. Penta is just about the most boring and uninspired guy these days when it comes to getting his shit in, completely disregarding any offense he has taken and just running through his sequences. I really liked him in the first season of LU and I can’t think of anyone whose stock has fallen farther in that time, while still maintaining a rabid fanbase. Janela looked good, hitting a bunch of nice full extension superkicks at well timed parts of the match, hitting a big superplex, a great dive down the stretch, and making Penta’s sometimes dodgy offense look good. Penta has terrible slingblades, but Janela made them work, really got good bounce off the backtracker, and the Penelope interference was used really well. I liked her yanking Penta’s foot to set up a superplex, and the finish with Janela leaping off the ropes into a superkick, and then Penelope doing the same, dodging one, and getting leveled by another was some fun BS. Penta is super predictable the whole match, but Janela mixed a couple things up and paced out a nice performance

ER: So Jerry Lawler threw a fireball that hit Joey Ryan in the tip of the dick, which is just fantastic. The execution was fantastic, the build up was great, and Ryan sold it for ages, as he should have. This was a comedy spot that paid off.

Jeff Cobb vs. Tomohiro Ishii

PAS: I am not the biggest fan of your Ishii slugfests, he always kind of comes off as third rate Takeshi Ishikawa, with out the selling or diversity to really take it to the next level. Still big dudes pounding on each other is a genre of match I am going to dig, and Cobb's power stuff is really fun. Wasn't a huge fan of the early endless elbow exchange, but this got pretty great by the end. Loved when Ishii got pissed off and started countering the elbow smashes by leaning in and headbutting Cobb's arm, nasty stuff and a cool variation of a fighting spirit spot. Cobb also had some out of control throws, he has such explosion with his hips and he chucks Ishii like a longshoreman throwing a bag of coffee. Couple of great headbutts too, with both guys reckless throwing their head at their opponent.

ER: That elbow exchange was interminable, but happily they got it out of the way really early in the match, instead of doing that thing where a match is peaking and we have to stop thing for some standing exchange. But we got that out of the way and then the match was able to do what it was supposed to do, which is to be a human recreation of BattleBots. Cobb brought maybe his meanest match ever, and dropped stuff like the standing shooting star, and instead focused on all of the big throws. It was appropriate to bring out the triple Germans on the weekend that Kurt Angle returns to the WWE big stage, and I don't know if Angle's ever looked as great as Cobb's here. The bridge was an impressive touch, and he mixes them up by even suplexing Ishii into the buckles. This was a long match with a lot of heavy lifting, and I was really impressed with Cobb's gas tank. He does a cool captured arm and leg suplex into a bridge, and at one point I actually yelled ROLLING OLYMPIC HELL when he grabbed Ishii in a head and arm choke. Cobb becoming a proxy Tamon Honda would be great for us. Ishii is just a total masochist, not leaving a match satisfied until his vertebrae are properly compressed. He lands a bunch of stiff arm lariats into Cobb's lungs, and I was really losing it when he pushed Cobb back across the ring by headbutting Cobb's strikes, just backing him up with his cinder block head, and Cobb had a bunch of great "Who the hell is this guy!?" faces. Cobb hits my favorite spot of the match by leaping head first into Ishii with a spectacular torpedo headbutt, and this match was one of the greatest versions of two large beer kegs becoming sentient and hurling themselves into each other that I've seen. This could have been bogged down by no selling suplexes and throw trading, but I loved how they ramped everything up, and loved how Ishii outlasted Cobb and won with a vertical suplex (you know, followed by a couple of brutal headbutts).

Rey Horus/Rey Fenix vs. Flamita/Bandido

PAS: I could imagine this was a blast to watch live, but it felt a little like a car with a gas pedal stuck on mash. Everything was worked at the same pace, it never felt like it had a chance to breath for me. Fenix was super impressive, in a match filled with freaky athletes, everything he did had an extra burst of speed and an extra pop of height. There was some crazy flipping on the ropes where he got knocked down bounced up and still hit a springboard, the balance was bonkers. I also really loved Horus's out of control surprise tope con hilo through the ropes, dives are so much cooler when they are out of nowhere like that. I hadn't seen much Bandido and he didn't do a ton for me, seems like he was setting up his signature counters too much, felt like a Dragon's Gate guy to me which is not a compliment.


WWE Axcess

Kassius Ohno vs. Keith Lee

PAS: Cool idea to run these short indy style matches at Axcess, hopefully more fancams show up. Hero is a guy I kind of forgot about, I don't watch a ton of NXT and he got memory holed a bit, but his is still fucking great. He may be the best leg slap striker in wrestling history, I know it is a lot of smoke and mirrors, but he really looks like he is murdering people with those shots. Lee seemed a bit cowed by a WWE stage, as his charisma was a bit muted, although he is still an impressive athletic marvel. I loved Hero taunting him only to get smashed with a pounce and firemans carry powerslam.

ER: Rachel and I saw a great show in SF last night, Soccer Mommy headlining with Oakland's extraordinary Madeline Kenney opening for her (and debuting some wildly great new stuff, check them both out on bandcamp), and between sets we watched this match on YouTube. I think Phil is totally on the money calling Hero the best thigh slap striker in wrestling. People make fun of that skill mostly because it's something we see done so much so badly, but Hero throws so many great strikes with well hidden slaps that it feels like a cool old theatrical art. Tajiri would be the other candidate, and I think it's a cool skill to learn so well. Lee was a bit more restrained than I was expecting, but Ohno sure helped Lee look great. It was crazy how high Ohno got on a slam and how far he flew off the Pounce. Lee leans into a bunch of high kicks and comes up with some cool surprises of his own, really liked a couple tornado back elbows he caught Ohno with. Shout out to whomever captured this and didn't get caught recording front row, super fun little match. 

2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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