AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends): 10/17 - 10/23

AEW Dark 10/18

MD: Eddie was our only guy this week and he was on Dark, so I figured I'd just do the whole show. It's been a little over a year now since I've been watching AEW. One interesting thing about the promotion relative to other ones over the years is that different people from different generations get very different things out of it. Punk and Danielson coming back drew me in. Kingston and Dustin and Darby, among others, kept my interest, but on a week to week basis, it was the webshows that really worked for me. If Dynamite feels like crash TV with original ROH style dream matches, and Rampage feels a bit like late 91-early 92 WCW Saturday Night with a Dangerous Alliance match and a few midcard matches, Elevation and Dark feel like WCW syndi shows. Squashes and a few midcard matches. It's one of those things people of my generational tolerated for years, maybe grumbled about, but ultimately had no idea how good we had it.

In an ecosystem like what I described above, squashes are a amazing, right? Guys like Naylor have been so good at highlighting them and why they were special over the years, but they highlight moves, characters, give the announcers room to breathe. They're not exhausting like sprints can be. They're pro-wrestling comfort food while giving wrestlers the ability to really express who they are. You can tell a story in them or not depending on what you're trying to achieve. All the talk about how wrestlers are wasted not being on TV is irritating, to say the least. The nature of AEW's roster is that people get rotated on and off to keep things fresh. Someone like Ruby Soho coming out to her theme on Elevation gets the fresh and excited crowds going. Emi Sakura is the MVP, having hard-hitting entertaining tag after entertaining tag with partners that can vibe with her act and opponents that are better off for getting reps with her. It's the perfect place for Dalton Castle and Danhausen and Brandon Cutler and the Wingmen, giving the crowd extra value for their ticket and helping to keep acts over. It lets them try out new talent or new tweaks upon a gimmick. I was excited when Deeb, for instance, finished up her title match programs and was interacting with people like Emi and Skye Blue again.

The problem, as much as fans being small-minded, is AEW not doing enough to use the shows to build to everything else going on. There was a patch back six months ago where if someone was going to have a match on Dynamite or Rampage they'd often get featured on Elevation, and they did some things, like building to the ROH PPV with Dark and Elevation, but in general, it's underutilized. I don't know a single person who watches the webshows and feels like they're not valuable or worth watching though, no matter how much griping you get from the people who don't watch (the most worthless griping of all). This was an especially star-studded episode given they were in Canada and it was taped before a live Rampage, but don't sleep on the studio Darks either. Studio wrestling is great given that with AEW we get all sorts of variety. You may not want it as your only wrestling but as part of the whole, it balances things out.

Hikaru Shida vs Vanessa Kraven

MD: I've been giving a lot of thought about 'aces' lately. I think it's due to watching a ton of Inoki over the last year. It could be because I want to watch some Big Daddy and make some calls for myself soon. Don't hold me for that. One aspect that I think is important in an ace is to leverage the cachet you have with the crowd to find ways to highlight what makes your opponent unique. Shida absolutely did that here, making full use of Kraven's size and strength. This was not at all the same sort of match that she would have had with someone smaller or with a different background. Some of that was leaping into the catch on the outside off the chair and eating that samoan drop on the apron (which then, thanks to the AEW house style, she could use later in the match to escape the Samoan drop and set up the finishing stretch). Some of it was the struggle for the falcon arrow, barely getting her over, and then letting her kick out of it. The creativity and imagination and care that went into how she laid this out was definitely appreciated however.

Dark Order (Evil Uno/John Silver/Alex Reynolds/10) vs Tyler Tirva/Shane Hawke/Zak Patterson/Jordano)

MD: Again, we get the freedom of the web shows here. They're not trying to hit any major time marks. They're not worried about picture-in-picture commercial breaks. This was in Canada. This was about showcasing Uno, as well it should have been. It's one of those things AEW does best and that we spent decades getting denied due to weird piques of spite "up north." Though some of this was diluted by Taz poking Jose the Assistant on commentary, but certainly not for the live crowd.

This was surprisingly complete, with Reynolds getting some shine to start (useful given that he plays FIP a lot), a tease of Uno early only for him to get swarmed, some heat on Silver (including eating a huge gutwrench), and everything set up to combine the big Dark Order spots and all of Uno's signature spots mixed with all of his showmanship. They could have just had Dark Order run through these guys but they gave it enough substance to make Uno's spots mean just a little more.

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs Mo Jabari/Jake O'Reilly

MD: Just a stylized mauling. Jabari and O'Reilly might get one shot in but they sure wouldn't get two in a row. Ortiz knows this is his moment to come into his own and showcase his own identity and he's been doing that with the Rick Rude or the crotch chop before the veg-o-matic or the tiger style (which, now that I think about it, may not be his own identity at all). Those crossfaces in the corner were nasty though, and Eddie's chops sounded as good as they ever did. The anger management angle for Kingston made sense in the Sammy match; I'm not sure if it's totally believable moving forward, but the Pac match it seems to be building to should be fun at least.

Best Friends (Orange Cassidy/Chuck Taylor/Trent) vs Kobe Durst/Steven Mainz/Jessie V

MD: This was a straight up crowdpleasing squash on the heels of the Cassidy/PAC main event one day earlier. Occasionally they'll run these where guys can just do whatever and they don't even give the enhancement talent a hope. It was pretty brutal with Trent not quite getting all of the flip into a spinebuster (and he save the same sort of shrug that Silver got when he tried to suplex two guys at once). The Sole Food into the Half and Half looked great though. Cassidy then came in and punched everyone. I'm not sure if it's Keith Mitchell retiring or what but they don't seem to time the hug nearly as well as they used to. Anyway, this was never going to be much but it was fine for what it was.

Ari Davari vs Brandon Cutler

MD: Like I said, people watch AEW for different reasons. There are some people who are thoroughly into the Elite, to the point of having Omega avatars and whatever else. I don't have a ton of time for any of them for reasons no one needs to hear right now, but I do think Cutler's been one of the bright spots of the company over the last month. He's a guy who throws himself entirely in the act, who's unafraid to do anything necessary. He cares so much that the fans care, and as the only bastion of the Elite remaining, they care just a little bit more. You put him up against a guy like Avalon (like we'll see this week) or Danhausen or Serpentico and you get a fun comedy match, but if you put him against an actual wrestler like Davari, and you get a kind of interesting, contrast-laden match, where he can work from underneath. Here, Davari threw a lot of simple, driving shots, credible stuff that put over his annoyance of the entire situation. Cutler would comeback with fun 80s offense but Davari would cut him off by going for the eyes or with Kiss' help or through something just as conniving that sort of defies hierarchy and highlights how offended he is that he has to lower himself to wrestle Cutler. It made for a pretty fun match. I would have rather Hook had to go through all of the Trustbusters first before getting Davari, though part of that was just beacuse I wanted to see Hook vs Slim J (who is the new 5th finger if Punk isn't coming back, by the way).

Willow Nightingale vs Seleziya Sparx

MD: In a lot of ways this was an inversion of the Shida match. Willow still wanted to give some shine to the local, even if she was working heel, but she made her work for it and chip away, not going down easily, leaning hard into her size. It's hard for a babyface with a size advantage to know just how much to give while still showing the right amount of vulnerability, especially given the hierarchical difference here, but I think she nailed it. Willow has great emotive reactions in her selling, able to switch between ebullience, exhaustion, and aggression. All of Sparx' stuff looked pretty good, even some of the overwrought things like how she vaulted over the turnbuckle to hit a running kick. That's the sort of thing that is maybe a bit much but you can't fault it if the kick looks good. Jody Threat got a lot of attention last week, but Sparx should get some as well.

QT Marshall vs Dante Martin

MD: A year ago, when I first encountered him, I thought QT should wrestle more like a manager. He's capable of a lot of things (including missing a 450) but just because he can, doesn't necessarily mean he should. That said, for a lot of this period, AEW's needed credible mid-card heels to eat losses. Having the Trustbusters now help a little bit, but that's really been the Factory and the Wingmen, and Lethal, and as such, it does make sense for QT to stretch his wings a bit more. He's good at it and especially good at engaging with his opponent and the audience. They were all over him, despite having sat through all of the previous matches and even if no one necessarily bought a ticket for him, they all had a seemingly great time getting on his case and it'll be, consciously or subconsciously, part of their enduring good feeling about the night in the months and years to come.
 
Dante, in the meantime, probably through no choice of his own as he'd rather be teaming with his brother, has had a lot of ring time to improve. I thought he was already pretty far along in the singles match with Black last October, but his expressiveness and interactions with the crowd have developed since then. He's a great seller on top of his ability to seemingly freeze time as he flips around the ring and soars through the air. He's a case where the sum is greater than any specific part, as his flipping rana into the ring here would be the most spectacular thing in almost any other match in the world but felt almost subdued alongside his huge dive to the outside and stuttering splash to avoid the cutter. The finishing stretch worked to protect QT in loss but still felt like an accomplishment for Dante. Definitely the sort of match that Dusty would have been proud to call the Moo Match of the Week on WCW Prime in 1995 even if maybe it wouldn't make a comp tape for the year.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/23 - 5/29 (Part 1)

AEW Dynamite 5/25

Eddie Kingston/Jon Moxley vs. Private Party

MD: Absolute mauling with a little bit of polish for Private Party at the end before they got crushed. The polish was them throwing themselves at Mox and Kingston and a shooting star press by Quen. Amusingly, Regal, much like us, was more interested in the way Moxley turned his hips on the kickout than the beautiful top rope move and was trying to get the replay to last long enough to show it. Where Private Party shined the most was bumping all over the ring: Nasty over-rotations on power bombs and clotheslines, including when Moxley came back the other way on a poetry in motion, and Quen crashing so hard into the rail that he knocked some guy's drink out of his hand. Still, this probably would have been a little more interesting structurally a few weeks ago when they weren't doing such a hard sell for the PPV match. The act, overall, works better against young faces than young heels, as between the guest announcers sniping and the fact that no one was really rooting for Party, I don't think they got enough credit or rub for surviving the beating they took to come back at the end. 

ER: I agree that Private Party was the wrong team to take this specific beating, even if the match benefitted from the way they physically took this beating. Private Party have gotten good enough that she should be past matches like this, but will likely always be put in matches like this because it looks fucking great when Isiah Kassidy vaults off Quen's back and gets folded all the way across the ring after connecting bad with a Moxley kneelift. I can't believe this is the first time Moxley and Kingston have teamed since September. Their vibes are so good that I have been thinking about them as a team for the entire time that they have not been teaming, bonded together in my brain because of their substance abuses and open faced honesty about them, they're just a perfect natural pairing. Moxley looks as inspired as he has in years, and Kingston played all of this with the right intensity. Quen's shooting star press looked awesome, with a flat rotation that look slightly against physics, and I loved the way Kingston ran in before the finish to lay him out with a running spinning backfist. 

AEW Rampage 5/27

Bryan Danielson vs. Matt Sydal

MD: I can't say enough good things about this one. Great build. Great big moments. Great little moments. This was one of my favorite AEW Danielson matches and seemed to pay off the promise more than when he was running through the Dark Order, for instance. Right from the beginning, there was incredible gamesmanship between the two, things like Danielson sneaking in a forearm on a Greco-Roman knucklelock or just how hard Sydal had to work for that flying mare. Once they got going, Sydal may have needed to put an extra bit of effort into his transitions, but he could; that was the point, speed and athleticism in hitting a leg lariat out of nowhere or landing on his feet to counter a snap mare. Danielson had maybe three just massive moments here: the roll forward to the Romero special, the roll through on the meteora into a crab, and then when he hit the knee at the end, but Sydal had his own with the top rope sunset flip power bomb. They gave Regal and company plenty of little things to note and plenty of big ones to pop for on commentary. About as good of a Rampage opening match as you could possibly hope for.

ER: My brain thinks of these two as "frequent competitors" and that's probably because I had burned DVDs of their one ROH singles match and their one FIP singles match from 15 years ago but can't actually comprehend that happened over 15 years ago. Sydal managed to have 400 matches in WWE and was rarely in the same ring as Danielson. So my brain just thinks of them as natural opponents from the same indy wrestling boom era, and yet they've mostly avoided each other in-ring. I feel like an idiot repeatedly saying things like "This may be my favorite Danielson performance in AEW" but I guess I'm just going to say dumb things like that. Probably the only thing I didn't care about here was Danielson hanging Sydal over the top rope like an evolved piece of Scoot Andrews offense. That might be the weirdest piece of offense to survive from year 2000 indy wrestling. It's almost shocking that there isn't You Can't Powerbomb Kidman throwback offense. 

That move felt weird to me only because every other piece of offense in the match felt *worked for*, and that was the one thing that felt *waited for*. The match starting knucklelock was an absolute struggle, both with shaking arms that allowed Danielson to sneak in an elbow across the jaw. Danielson threw European uppercuts with his entire body, making contact not only on the uppercut but throwing his full shoulder and hip into Sydal. I don't think Fit Finlay would have elbowed and uppercut Sydal as hard as Danielson did. Both broke out more spectacular versions of things they've been doing for years. Danielson's kicks looked more like Kawada stiffing up Kikuchi, Sydal's meteora looked like a guided missile and the Danielson reversal was finisher worthy. However, Danielson rolling through the Romero Special and then elbowing Sydal in the neck until the forced break felt like such a spectacular spot that it should have been saved for the finish of a huge match. That's also a part of Danielson's AEW charm, though, the fact that it instead came 4 minutes into a Friday night match with Matt Sydal. Sydal's sunset flip powerbomb reversal of a top rope back suplex was incredible, impactful enough to believably get a win and pulled off so well that it looked like an organic reversal. I swear Danielson is hitting harder every week on those downward elbows, and they always look like they earn the stoppage finish. This really made me want to look through some spindles and binders for those ROH and FIP matches. I'm not certain they'll be able to top their future selves. 

PAS: This was really great, one of the top minor key Danielson performances, not at the level of Kingston or Dustin or Moxley, but a throwback to us getting cool Danielson singles matches every week. It is fun we have gotten to see this mini Sydal vs. BCC feud for a couple of weeks now. This felt very FIPish which is ironic considering their previous match, just two wrestlers going out there and performing. We all know how perfect Danielson's execution is, but Sydal looked great too. That deep stack on the powerbomb reversal was a thing of beauty, and the Meteora looked super forceful. Love that Danielson has so many ways to take people out, and a weekly Rampage match seems like a great way to keep him relevant for his next big moment.

AEW Special Dark 5/28

Darby Allin vs. Brandon Cutler

MD: Very short match to set up the PPV here, but I liked Cutler running around the ring only to eat Darby's explosive dive anyway. The timing on that and the staggering catch by Cutler were both excellent. I could have lived with Cutler stooging a little more and then having a comedy spot or two, but better to have the match the promotion needs than the match you just happen to want.

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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Kingston is Hell in Harlem and Poppin' in Queens

 Eddie Kingston vs. Necro Butcher CZW 10/14/06 - EPIC

PAS: This was Eddie's first defense of the CZW title and he was full heel with Robbie Mireno and Larry Legend running interference. Necro opens the match bumping Kingston all over ring side. Kingston takes a big time beating on the floor, getting chairs chucked reckless at him, landing awkwardly on folding chairs and guardrails, you rarely see Necro out bumped, but in this match he took a backset. Eddie is able to take back over by punching Necro right in his bare feet which is a tremendous transition, and he unloads a pretty big beating of his own. There is a great section where Kingston backs Necro into the corner with a Tenryu chop/jab combo and Necro fires out with a multiple potato punch head and body combo. They had maybe my favorite bar fight spot ever. Kingston is slumped on some stairs, Necro grabbing a chair to sit down, clocking Eddie in the face, and Eddie just throwing a missed concussed air punch, only to get smashed again.  Finish has Kingston getting powerbombed on set up wooden stairs, but having the pin broken up by Mireno pulling out the ref. While Necro is savaging Mireno, Kingston hits a backdrop driver on the stairs, with Necro's neck bending at a sick angle, and a clothesline for the win. This had a little bit of a pacing issue when Eddie was setting up the steps for the end, but a hellacious fight like this is always going to be special. 

Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. The Briscoe Brothers PWR 8/4/12 - GREAT

PAS: The show was in Delaware, and really worked like a returning hero, please the crowd tag. Briscoe's bump around Cide and Kingston early, they move into a shortish face in peril section, a crowd brawl, table spot and a near fall finish. This is a very 2000s formula tag, but there were a couple of fun tweaks. You can count on Kingston to add some spice, and I liked his convulsion selling after getting smushed on an unbreakable plastic table. I thought the structure of the match wasted Cide and Kingston, they didn't really get to demonstrate what makes them special, but a hot tag with an over hometown team is always going to work for me. 

Eddie Kingston/PAC/Pentagon El Zero Miedo vs. Brandon Cutler/Young Bucks AEW Dynamite 6/11/21 - FUN

ER: I kept liking and then disliking this match, but it ended on a high note and that always makes me like a match more. If there's going to be stuff I dislike, the worst spot for that stuff to happen is the home stretch. This had a good home stretch, and good moments, but also some guys I don't like doing things I don't like. I'm about as over Penta El Zero Miedo as I am any wrestler this side of Seth Rollins. He is now one of those guys that makes me wrinkle my nose when I find out he is in a match, especially if it's with guys I like. The important difference between Penta and Seth Rollins, however, is that Penta was one of my absolute favorite guys in wrestling to watch, during season 1 Lucha Underground. I never got that excited for Rollins, but Penta had me hooked for a year. But now I've disliked him for far longer than I ever liked him. If we were doing DVDVR 500s, Pentagon Jr. would be a guy in the Top 25 that one year, then down to the 270s the next, then down to the 490s one place below Shane McMahon. His offense is obnoxiously selfish, always requiring every person in the ring to stop what they're doing just to stand and feed his overcomplicated offense, that always requires way too many moving parts all moving at his expense. Guys kill themselves to take sluggishly executed Penta moves and maybe it just has to loop back around to being cool again in my head. 

Brandon Cutler also felt really out of place in this match. Kingston and PAC were bringing asskicker energy to things, the Young Bucks and their actually great gear (with matching silken tasseled hairline secret keepers) were working a good smug match controlling PAC, clearly building to a big Kingston and Penta hot tag...and Cutler was there working the match like he was Screech substituting for Slater against Valley. It wasn't an unentertaining presence, but he was bringing this indy wrestling Jim Cornette forced to be in a match vibes, and it all felt a little too distracting from some of the actual cool stuff that could have happened. I liked the finish with him missing a big springboard elbow and standing up into a Kingston backfist, but we could have used a couple less moments of him hamming his way through two other guy' moment. Kingston's involvement was the highlight and just kept getting better than longer he was in. He had a couple of great cut off spots to interrupt someone's highspot, and the build to him and PAC hitting stereo dives was fantastic. PAC is an unexpectedly fun Kingston ally, a guy I wouldn't have ever thought of as a Kingston tag guy, but I liked their rhythm here a lot and wouldn't mind seeing more of them together. Kingston pummeling someone into a PAC flying move is a cool way to set things up, and we can see they know how to build to a good finish. 

PAS: I actually liked Cutler in this match, that kind of Downtown Bruno forced into a match added a different flavor to something which would otherwise be another workrate trios. I thought it added to the cool stuff rather then distracting from it. It also gives Eddie a foil to work off of, and one of the great Eddie's is Eddie beating on a young guy, he doesn't Shane Storm him, but it is in that world. The high spots were fun, and I liked the hot tag. Good TV match for sure.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/23/21

What Worked

-Good opening squash. Moxley looked motivated and threw some hard crossfaces and a great back suplex, but he was also no doubt helped by Nemeth's ability to take punishment in cool ways. He really flung himself back hard on that suplex and took the double underhook DDT like a 90s jobber looking to sue the company.

-I liked the highspot beating Pillman Jr. took in his tag match, tough gig to play FIP while Cage and Starks suplex you and scrape their boots on your face. Pillman hit a great baseball slide dropkick, nearly hanging himself on the ropes but it looked wild. Starks had a couple of cool pinfalls where he really laid back with all his weight, and the Garrison hot tag had some fun moments (nice jungle kick, huge no hands plancha where Cage may have saved Garrison's life by standing his ground), but the beating Pillman took was the highlight. Dropkicks to the face, a screwdriver to finish things, rough night. The whole segment was fun, loved Darby's skateboard shot and Starks' bump over the top for it. 

-Hager's finishing lariat looked great, even though he made Brandon Cutler wobble around in place forever, like he was about to take a Fatality. If you're going to make someone do that, at least he made it look like a fatality. 

What Didn't Work

-I still can't get into the Sting return. I guess I'm not the audience for it, and that's fine, but it's funny to me that Sting took a hard powerbomb from Cage last week (not an unprofessional powerbomb, but a powerbomb harder than a 61 year old man who doesn't need the money should be taking), and Sting claimed he wanted REVENGE. And that revenge? His reverse DDT. I know we're technically supposed to view all finishers as equal, but Sting taking out Cage with a reverse DDT after Cage had been doing nothing but big slams, hard clotheslines, and dangerous drops, and now I have to buy that a reverse DDT might put him down? 

-Jake Hager decided to catch Cutler's tope con giro by flopping onto his stomach look a goof. 

-Craig T. Nelson is making that Young Sheldon money, I don't know why he needed to guest on Dynamite just so Jericho could smear some Smuckers on his head. 

-WHO among us thought Hangman Page/Isiah Kassidy should have gone as long as it did? Kassidy is a guy who seems like he's regressed as a worker since joining AEW. He was far more interesting when he was working as a Red trainee who wrestled like Red. Nobody wants to see him work unconvincing arm locks, not one person thought for one second that Page was going to be slowed down by Kassidy's long arm work section (he was not, didn't hesitate one bit when he hit a rolling elbow, though he did sell the arm after), and I'm not sure there was one thing Kassidy did that looked convincing. It's hard to work convincing control segments when you can't even connect on simple stuff like stomach kicks, while also looking like you're unsure how to apply holds to the limb you're supposed to be working over. Then we had to go through a long series of Kassidy kicking out of things that I did not buy him kick out of. The world did not ask for, nor need, dominant heel control Isiah Kassidy. This was enough. HOWEVER, if Kassidy actually stuck to the limb work and got good at it, I would really love a heel Amazing Red who also did Catch Point matwork. I would even take a bad version of that. And with some more work, Kassidy could be bad at this. 

-I could not get into Britt Baker/Nylas Rose. I don't think it was bad, but it felt like they were more going through the motions of having an epic confrontation without doing the actual match that felt like an epic confrontation. Nyla Rose always looks like she is stumbling or falling over while delivering almost every piece of offense, but rarely in a way that puts her opponent in danger. She's a monster, but doesn't do a lot of offense that makes her come off as a monster. I more like Baker's avoidance, and her mocking kicks to Nyla's face, and was more impressed with Nyla's suplex bumps than with any offense she did. Her best was probably the match ending sitout powerbombs, and even those looked like she was in danger of falling over while lifting. Very basic matches that are treated like manic wars always get under my skin. 

-I love a good wrestling style clash, but I don't think that good wrestling style clash will ever involve Lance Archer. I am getting sick of seeing this guy so often on TV. He moves like he has two town quads and can't bend down, and he constantly throws timing off. Fenix is a guy who at his best can fire off precision timing, and Archer just makes a lot of that look bad. Fenix was falling all over the place in painful ways, and you see him doing it to make Archer look good and just think "for this?" Fenix does some of his unhinged things like his always great tope con giro, and another where he fell face first on the entrance ramp from the top rope after Jake Roberts held his ankles too long. But Archer made him look like an idiot several times by mistiming when to take kicks. And who out there wanted to see Archer in a ladder match more than they'd want Fenix in a ladder match? Get this doofus away from the AEW guys I like. 

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