AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/12 - 8/18

Ring of Honor TV 8/15/24

Dustin Rhodes/Ross Von Erich/Marshall Von Erich vs Brian Cage/Kaun/Toa Liona

MD: Really fun studio wrestling. I have definitely loved the AEW ROH Studio tapings, both the first sets and these ones. It's a big dump of results that you know you're going to get. Here you didn't get results after the fact (less people sending them in relative to the Orlando regulars?). You got some of the match ups at least, but not even all, unless I was looking at the wrong places. So I knew this one was coming and I knew there's an 8 man next week, but I think I had the order a little confused. It's nice to be surprised now and again is what I'm saying, even if my natural inclination is to go out off my way not to be. 

This ended with a big heat mobbing beatdown angle in a way that you can only really do in a studio. First though, the match. The more I see them, the more I feel ok putting it down in writing. They're kind of sort of not the Von Erichs so much as they're the Fantastics; Marshall is Fulton, flashier, more charismatic, even if he has a bit of the size. Ross is Rogers, hitting stuff cleaner, a bit more workrate-y, a few more moves. Here that meant Marshall hit a slightly off dropkick, sure, but then worked well from underneath for a minute or two getting sympathy. He made a warm tag to Ross who hit some stuff clean (not a surprise), got the crowd fired up, and then carried the brunt of the actual heat after a smart sequence of first Cage and then Toa interfering from the outside. 

Kaun had carried most of that first bit, which made sense; he's not a small guy but his partners are bigger. After the double hip toss into a slam from the Gates, Cage and Toa leaned hard onto Ross. When Dustin finally did come in, everything broke down hard with each guy hitting a signature move. Dustin escaped a F5 from Cage (the second he went for as he had taken out a Von Erich first) and landed maybe the nicest set up destroyer you'll ever see. The physics somehow worked on it after he landed on his feet on his escape. Well, almost worked. It's a destroyer. Then as they were signaling for the triple claws (dubious if Dustin has mastered the technique), the Kingdom and Dark Order ran in, making it 7 on 3. Sammy, Angelico, Serpentico, and Fuego tried to make the save but the numbers were still against them and first the 6 of them and then security guards as well got absolutely demolished by the heels. I don't think they've run an angle like this since ROH came back and it came off like malicious chaos. You wouldn't want it every week but as a one time thing put some heat on the heels, it really worked; probably doubly so midway through a long taping where a lot of this would be paid off or paid forward throughout the day/night. Yeah, it's pro wrestling for pro wrestling's sake, but we all love pro wrestling. Pro wrestling is the point. 

Except for here, there was one extra point as well, because it led into...

AEW Collision 8/17/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Matt Taven/Mike Bennett

MD: I liked the match. There was a nice bit with Bennett dodging Dustin's drop down punch early only for him to get both members of the Kingdom a moment later and Sammy dodging Bennett's apron recoil shot only for Taven to get him a moment later to start the heat. All of that was paid off by Dustin hitting the dropdown punch on Bennett after the hot tag. I could have done without Sammy kicking out of the proton pack clean (get a foot on a rope or have Dustin break it up). Otherwise, a nice tag in and of itself. 

That's not the main thing to talk about though. After Dustin and Sammy won, you had a few malcontents complaining that the titles had been sacrificed to this new team with an main roster regular and Dustin. This is a nice rehabilitation project for Sammy that should lead to good matches until they pull the trigger on a turn (if they pull a trigger on a turn; like I mentioned, Sammy's kind of Lugered, which is not good for a 31 year old). Dustin is the best in the world at fighting from underneath and as seen through the last few weeks of matches, is so inherently and outwardly good at so many elements of pacing, structure, placement, that everyone around him will be made better just by working with him. Sure, it made sense for the Texas Residency, but it also makes sense to keep him featured for the whole year leading up to something special at All In next year. 

Dustin in Ring of Honor feels fresh and I don't see any reason to pull back on it now. We've never seen what a Dustin Rhodes Pure Title Match would look like. Let's see him against Lee Moriarty. I have no idea what Dustin would do in Arena Mexico. Let's see him against Atlantis, Jr. There isn't a better person in the world to potentially be in a King of the Road 2024 match than the current world champion. Let's see him against Mark Briscoe. There's only so much time left to do these things. He's going to enhance the acts of every other member of the roster and potentially make them permanently better wrestlers. He has name value and star power and veteran presence. Use him now in strategic ways while you still can.

At times, the ROH titles serve the broader needs of the company, as they well should. Maybe that grated a little when the Mogul Embassy lost the titles after such a long reign with so many people put up against them (there was a real sense of "Who can beat them?" and then the answer was some top stars from the main roster to serve some other story), but the Kingdom had gone through every team in ROH, some twice. I like the Infantry as much as the next guy (Dean is perfectly solid and Bravo has something special waiting for the right presentation, I think; let's see him as a cocky heel), but they don't really need the belts to serve in their current role. 

This did serve a greater purpose, but not to advance a main roster storyline. The Texas Residency was a success. You got the sense that they were wrestling in front of the same fans week in and week out. Hologram was established. The longrunning ROH feud between Aminata/Velvet and Athena/Billie was paid off. Things were built for All In. And yes, the Von Erichs went from being guests to established players. That meant a celebratory moment at the PPV but also meant a grand finale fireworks spectacular here where, following from the big heat ending of ROH TV (recapped in full for those who had missed it), the rest of the Kingdom and Cage/Gates of Agony ran out only for the babyfaces to come out in force to counter. It created another crazy scene, this time in the match itself as opposed to after it, and gave the fans one last celebratory gesture before the residency ended. These fans deserved cake. Good for Khan to give it to them. Maybe it didn't need to be Sammy, but it did need to be Dustin. I don't think the Kingdom were more or less over for the titles. They're an established act looked upon at a certain level for good or ill. I do think it mattered to those fans in attendance that they got to see something so wild and got to celebrate something that even a month ago would have seemed an impossibility with Dustin. What are the point of the ROH Tag Titles if not to allow for moments like this? What's the point of wrestling if not to create this sort of emotion?

Now bring on Moriarty, Atlantis, and Briscoe. 

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Cage

7. Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage AEW Rampage 8/11 

ER: Maybe one day I will tire of watching Darby Allin fall in ways I don't think the human body should fall, but this tunnel is black with no sign of any light at the end. Darby Allin appears to not just lean into bad landings, he seems to relish aiming the plane directly at them. I can't get past it. Darby has this Low Ki precision to his landings, but Low Ki's landings were works of athletic physics that made his body spring across the mat and ropes with a violent control. Darby seems to have the same incredible control but opts to make his landings worse. When Prince Nana clotheslines his legs out from him on the top rope, there were dozens of ways he could have take a great-but-less-painful bump; he didn't have to get swept onto the back of his head from that high up, but he constantly seeks to aim the plane beyond the runway. That's important in a match with Brian Cage. Darby is the most ideal opponent for Cage, and again I must state that it is no coincidence that the AEW roster works UP to Allin. When Brian Cage asks himself "How do I view myself as a pro wrestler?" you can bet that he views himself as the guy throwing Darby's ass around in this match. If you wrote out The Whole Basic Idea of Brian Cage it would read like this match. Darby Allin allows wrestlers to achieve their full potential. 

I used to think Cage was a doofus who did too much and not enough at the same time, but he somehow means more to me in 2024 than ever. He's a real dummy, and I need gassed to the fucking gills lunkheads wearing silver face paint in wrestling. I need a freak with a distended HGH belly that leaves him prone for an apron Coffin Drop. Of course all of Cage's offense wouldn't be possible without a willing opponent, but I've seen plenty of guys hold back with very willing opponents, and Cage does not do that. That's important. I knew I would be writing about this match the moment Cage stopped a full speed Darby tope with a shoulderblock, like he was setting a screen against a guy on a moped. Darby bounces extra hard on every landing, and Cage throws him into landings that deserve that bounce. The way Cage threw himself into his inside-out vertical suplex from the middle buckle, running through a table like he was jumping into a swimming pool while wearing a Darby Backpack, and throwing Allin so hard into the turnbuckles that Darby hit them as fast as possible, sideways, on his neck, just seemed like what would happen if you were thrown by Brian Cage at his Fullest Powers. Darby Allin makes Brian Cage look like an Essential Worker. Darby Allin is a boon to American Prosperity, making everyone's dreams possible. 

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/21 - 8/27 Part 1

AEW Collision 8/26/23

Orange Cassidy/Penta/Eddie Kingston vs. Kip Sabian/Butcher/Blade

MD: One of those random WAR like six mans that we get just a bit too rarely in AEW. It's good to have Eddie back between the injury and the excursion and the fans felt the same. Penta handled most of the shine (against Kip who reacted but didn't do anything novel like I'd expect, though at least Penelope got to take out Abrahantes on the glove catch) and Cassidy most of the FIP (after a very solid transition, with Kip goading Cassidy right into a Blade superkick, which IS what I'd expect). Penta and Abrahantes did most of the apron-working, including a freshly squeezed chant that was perfectly timed, with Eddie's only contribution being a memorable face made at Butcher. Butcher and Blade were pretty vocal in there with their 1966 Batman Goon muttering, like Butcher calling out a powerbomb that would never come and Blade shouting "Butcher and the Blade!" in a moment of beatdown on Cassidy.

It was a bit of a consolation prize for Kip and co. for not making the Wembley card. It was a longshot but Kip is local and original and worked hard to reinvent himself and Butcher and Blade are loyal, capable soldiers who pull off whatever's asked for them. The crowd was behind Cassidy when he worked from underneath, but they really wanted to see Eddie and he delivered, coming in hot, chopping everyone, and then starting the chain reaction of spots and linked finishers that set off the stretch. This ended with a sort of WWE dark match main event multi-man feel, with everyone getting their stuff in, but with an AEW twist, as all of that stuff ended up connected together. Eddie capped it all off by debuting a sliding elbow (obviously "a move he learned from Japan," which if a more present announcer was there, might have actually been noted). Fun stuff to open up a go home show and set up the post-match in-ring interview that followed.

Sting/CM Punk/Darby Allin/HOOK vs. Swerve Strickland/Jay White/Luchasaurus/Brian Cage

MD: Challenge here was to follow a fairly similar match. Well, not follow because it was taped first but you get the idea. This had plenty of time to breathe, with heat on both Punk and then HOOK. Theoretically it was all leading to White and Sting because that was teased early in the match but it only got there with a chop block cheapshot by White, probably a combo of making sure to protect Sting before the PPV and teasing something for the future. That'd be a great interaction somewhere down the line. White is a guy who is just always on. He tries to make the most out of every second he's on the camera and he's constantly active. It makes for a good pairing with hyperactive guys like Juice and Austin Gunn. The most interesting things here were Punk interfacing with Swerve's offense (he didn't take the headscissors well but did take the rolling suplex fine; when they were just posturing it was great) and to a lesser degree White (including the Sting tease that they really milked) and then HOOK having to work from underneath, especially against Luchasaurus and Cage. In the end, the fact they didn't pay off Sting and White was fine. He had his big moment against Luchasaurus and Punk and Joe was the ultimate focus, with Punk getting to make up for the flimsy GTS last week with a pretty solid one on Cage, and then to use the Kokina Clutch to end it setting up the perfectly timed Joe (who was a total pro on commentary) run in. Fun stuff with big star moments, but maybe a little slight relative to other Collision main events.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/7 - 8/13

AEW Rampage 8/11/23

Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage

MD: There are two times when I want to see Cage, when he's up against someone ridiculously over the top like Willie Mack and the match will be so dumb that it's enjoyable and when he's up against someone small who is going to bump all over the ring for him. This was as much the latter as you could possibly get. Contrast makes the world go round. We are most easily defined by what we are not. The most straightforward stories involve two opposing forces. And no one is going to make a behemoth look better than Darby Allin. Some of the bumps in this were just gnarly. I thought he was going to helicopter to the top of the arena on the F10. He had a way of overbouncing on the outside-in suplex and a power bomb. That one topple off the top rope had him landing like an accordion. It's Darby and he has Gates of Agony, Christian, the Swerve/Fox coffin match, and Luchasaurus all ahead of him over the next few weeks, so we're probably not going to remember any specific bump here, but the overall picture is ever memorable.

I thought Cage had solid presence throughout. He was a little more methodological than usual, a little less cute, full of trash talk and posing when the time was right for it (like during the commercial break). Darby snuck in some hope here and there and got squashed for his trouble (with Nana being the deciding, disrupting factor in the stretch). While Darby made all of Cage's stuff look absolutely deadly, some of Darby's stuff seemed a bit off and weirdly labored against Cage. You'd expect a guy so big and strong to be able to hold for it better maybe? I would have liked a slightly more elaborate finish with a couple of Darby roll-ups leading to the Last Supper, but a single one causing the banana peel probably did protect Cage a little more. I'm just not sure he needs it given what Darby has a head of him. Still, what a bumping exhibition by Darby here.  

AEW Collision 8/12/23

House of Black vs. CMFTR

MD: When you write about AEW week in and week out, you end up talking a lot about the commercial breaks. When you write a lot about Collision main events that tend to go closer to 30 than 20, you end up writing a lot about multiple commercial breaks and how they structure the time. Here, they had two to deal with, which, as you can imagine with a team as monstrous and dominant as the House of Black, probably meant some sort of double heat. That's how AEW manages most commercial breaks. They end with some sort of bang and then do heat in the Picture in Picture. Here, it wasn't quite so simple. They finished the shine/initial pairings/exchanges teasing Punk vs. Malakai Black, with the crowd absolutely buzzing for it before settling into CM Punk chants that were drowned out by boos. That tease culminated with both in the cross-legged seated position and everything threatening to break down. The commercial break started with brawling on the outside (CMFTR gaining the advantage) and the challengers getting too cutesy; this time it was Cash who did the Hogan pose, to more boos than cheers even in North Carolina, and a pretty pedestrian transition moment of Black getting a reversal in on Dax in the corner. 

When they came back, we had Punk's comeback and another bit of connective tissue of CMFTR dominance that took them to the second commercial break, where Julia utilized a distraction (albeit a bit mistimed) to let Black knock Punk off the top so that Brody could crush him in the corner. That led into the commercial break and the real section of heat for the match. In truth, despite going thirty minutes, this whole thing was a tease for stories they're not going to tell right now. Joe caused the finish to set up All In, FTR are moving on to Wembley and the Bucks, who knows what's going on with House of Black yet (but some consistency with the House Rules might be nice?). But they can go back in a month or two to Black vs. Punk or FTR vs. Brody/Buddy or even Punk vs. Brody, because he was absolutely protected during the early going. That's a testament to all of these guys, that they could put together a match so long and really just leave everyone wanting more and more.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/12 - 6/18

AEW Dynamite 6/14

Sting/Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy/Keith Lee vs Mogul Embassy (Swerve Strickland/Brian Cage/Toa Liona/Bishop Kaun)

MD: You watch enough wrestling on TV and you start to think about formatting as it pertains to the structure of the match. Maybe it's because the fact they went thirty to start the show but this had a commercial break during the entrances and then another one in the middle of the match. In order to deal with that, they started hot and then took things down. Most Sting matches tend to be brawls around the arena but this turned into a standard tag getting heat on Darby. Before that though, there was a barrage of Coffin Splashes and Stinger Splashes on Swerve, followed by a Code Red and a tease of the Coffin Drop. You can get away with hitting stuff like that right at the start of a match, especially right at the start of a tag, where a wrestler is fresh and then can recover on the apron, but it's probably something to be done carefully and something done with the specific programming needs of this match in mind. 

Cage made the most of things in his 80s Sting cosplay, coming off as bombastic and larger than life. Kaun hit a spot or two but was a bit of a non-factor while Toa was there to knock people off the apron and play crowd control. I like 2023 Keith Lee as a guy who leverages his size as much as possible while still hitting one or two breathtaking spots. I like that more than when the balance leaned further towards athleticism. Everyone in AEW is athletic. Only a few people are his size. It didn't help here that the athletic spot didn't quite work though. Cassidy didn't do much in this one but break things up and set things up (like the finish for Sting); speaking of setting things up, he also shared the Stundog with Darby, who used it to create the opportunity for the hot tag. They've been teaming lately so it's a shame the announcers didn't pick up on that. It's hard to blame them though, because once things broke down, they really broke down. They probably want to move on but there's still meat on the bone here for a street fight if they needed to fill time right after Forbidden Door.

AEW Collision 6/17

CM Punk/FTR vs Jay White/Juice Robinson/Samoa Joe

MD: Very nice to have the 5th Finger back in action for the first time in ten months, and paired up against Joe for the first time in over 6000 days (at least according to Kevin Kelly). Wrestling is all about anticipation and there was plenty of anticipation here, anticipation even from the beginning of the night to the end, anticipation from the Sports Interview Punk piece from the day before, anticipation from Khan and his media partners making one announcement after the next, week after week (the existence of Collision, that Chicago would be the first venue, that Punk was back, that this was the main event), and anticipation in the match itself: the first lock up between Dax and White, first time Punk would get tagged in, the first encounter with Joe, the hot tag to Cash, the hot tag to Punk, and finally, that final encounter between Joe and Punk, the last one only increasing anticipation for a singles match to come. And of course, there was the anticipation for Punk hitting the GTS after failing to multiple times within the match.

This match, as much as any I'd seen in AEW in a while, certainly had time to breathe. There was quite a bit of back and forth to begin with, double heat, the discipline not to have things fully break down until it was time for Punk's big entrance in the back third of the match, and then an exciting finishing stretch with all the drama you'd want as Punk gasped for air in the Coquina Clutch while Dax and Cash desperately tried to get to him or at least each other in order to do something, anything to turn the tide. Punk didn't seem to have much ring rust at all, though he was buoyed by a familiar opponent in Joe and two very game ones in Juice and especially White. This was the best I've seen Dax look in months. He'd seemed off somehow during the Jarrett feud, maybe still healing up from a slew of injuries but he was sharp and absolutely on point here. Cash is always that. Joe is as comfortable in his own skin after years of portraying a very consistent character as anyone in wrestling and Juice, the absolute definition of trying too hard, somehow manages to transcend that artificiality to succeed more often than not for his efforts. Sometimes you go so far in one direction that you come back around the other way. 

This was a show full of hubris, from Punk's initial interview all the way to not having some sort of big angle at the end, with Dax trying to stand toe to toe with Joe representing it as much as anything else in the match, but to have faith in a great wrestling match to be enough to carry the load? Well, that's the kind of hubris I suppose I can get behind.

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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 1/23 - 1/29

AEW Dynamite 1/25

Darby Allin vs Buddy Matthews

MD: The AEW house style special. You had a full 1998 length match, something to disrupt (House of Black, Ortiz, Sting), and then a full match after it. The story here, as much as anything else, was struggle. There was a moment or two, especially before the disruption, seemed to be about Darby's leg, but you have to think of the whole show when putting together a match like this, and not only did Darby have a match the previous week against Juice which was all about his arm, but there was Cage going after Danielson's shoulder ahead of them. So it was an entry point to some offense some Buddy control, but it wasn't about the match, and frankly, it doesn't need to be. Darby is the guy on the roster who can make it about full body cumulative damage. And here, both guys had a lot of stuff and a lot of counters, and a way of making things that were just a bit contrived feel earned. Even when he was working from underneath, Darby didn't just give Matthews anything. He had to work at it, had to pry away a limb, had to get some extra shots in. Excalibur covered for some of that with the mid-match sleeper, but so much of it was just Darby's resilience against an opponent who was bigger, but not quite as big as we're used to, and how personally he was taking this, since he was the one who called for the match. And as such, it felt different than a lot of other Darby matches where he ends up taking and taking and taking, building sympathy and inspiring awe. That's one of the real positives of this last run of Darby's, though; the matches feel different, even when he, by the nature of who and what he is, is working from underneath more often than not.

Bryan Danielson vs Brian Cage

MD: One of my favorite things about Bryan Danielson matches are the entry points. How does a match start? What's that initial lock-up like? What's the early strategy? How does he first test himself against another wrestler? I can think of other wrestlers over the years where that's one of my favorite parts too. I'm a big Nick Bockwinkel guy and he always came in with an interesting kayfabe strategy or story beat against his opponent. He might do something underhanded immediately against Wahoo since he was so wary of him. He might try to humiliate Chavo Sr in Houston since he was a local hero who felt beneath him as AWA champ. GAEA Aja has a bunch of relatively short matches which are a lot of fun because of how her outclassed opponent tries to start out by solving the problem of her. You know what match that people stand by which I didn't like at the time? Danielson vs Lesnar. Then again, most 2010s Lesnar matches have terribly entry points. The big exception is the Joe match (which then has a rote back half). I liked this a hell of a lot more. The first few minutes of this were all about Danielson outwrestling Cage, out maneuvering him, having answers for not just his strength, but also his speed and agility. More accurately, it was Danielson forcing Cage to be unable to rely upon his speed or agility, forcing him to rely entirely upon his strength, and then having an answer for every attempt to use it. It was Bryan Danielson wrestling a perfect match. He was playing cat and mouse, but a mouse with fangs, and it was everything I would have wanted the opening to that Lesnar match to be.

When Cage caught him, he really caught him, sending him tumbling brutally upside-down into the corner. From there, it was everything that makes Cage interesting and everything that makes him kind of painful to watch. Lots and lots of stuff. Here though, it was redirected and honed through the lens of attacking Danielson's shoulder. It meant that he pulled from his almost endless repertoire of "stuff" to use a shoulder breaker or a bearhug with the arm hammerlocked, or a big arm driver. He wrestled with purpose, with focus, both offensively and defensively in cutting Bryan off, That allowed Danielson to take advantage of that focus to wrestle wounded, to sell his arm as he was throwing kicks, to utilize leverage in a way he might not normally, using an anklelock where you can utilize your own body to support the hold, turning it into a German with the ankle still hooked, and then selling the overall story by winning far less decisively as he had the previous few weeks, with a banana peel finish that let him just barely survive and left him open for the post match beating. So instead of a Danielson vs Cage match where they really went all out and gave us endless fireworks, or something somehow more restrained which was a giant vs an underdog, we got something in the middle: Cage was still himself, full of stuff and enjoyable ideas that may or may not hold up under scrutiny; Danielson was wounded, masterful, dangerous, his back against the wall. I don't think this will be the match in the series that people will remember, but I wonder if it won't be the one that will hold up the best years down the line.

Jay Briscoe Tribute and Celebration of Life 1/26

Eddie Kingston vs QT Marshall

MD: House show/amusement park Eddie is a thing of beauty. There's a world where stumbled his way into FCW in 2011 and basically became the WWF Jim Duggan for the mid-2010s. It's not all that different, not really. He's still going to kneel down and ask you to punch him in the face repeatedly. He's also going to have the crowd hold you so he can chop you. QT, is, of course, a perfect foil for this. Maybe, just maybe, he takes a little too much for a guy who is a player/coach as a character, but as mentioned before, AEW needs credible mid-level heels that can lose. That's the value of Jay Lethal, and they'd be worse off without QT in that role. He's smarmy and confident enough that he can transform every bit that he takes into value for when he ultimately shows ass. Maybe someday he can be (a relatively tall) version of the Bobby Heenan that still worked, but Heenan was 40 in 1984 and Marshall's only 37 now. This was a celebratory night and a celebratory match so the finish just having one rotation around the airport before landing instead of two or three matched the mood. If you're going to have a tribute match to Jay Briscoe, being as much of yourself as possible seems like the absolute best way to go, and they nailed that here.

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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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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/18/20

 What Worked

-I'm never excited to see Kip Sabian wrestling on TV, but I appreciate that AEW has significantly cut down on his televised ring time. There was one point earlier this year where Sabian had actually wrestled more TV matches than anyone else on the roster, and I am thankful that AEW at least realized how fucking stupid that was and now only put him on TV occasionally, rather than weekly. 

-I like the level of temper tantrum unprofessionalism that pours out of Thunder Rosa during her matches, always makes things way more interesting than the typical bad women's matches they put on. There are always a couple of things that land in meaner than normal areas and you just don't see that in other AEW women's matches. I liked her hitting a hard senton right across Serena Deeb's chest, Schiavone says "Her reputation is well earned," and I think he was talking about her match quality but that's not what I think of when I hear she has a reputation. I like her unprofessionalism the most when it actually applies to a good match, and this was a good match. There was messiness, which is baked in at this point, and the roll up counter stuff at the end felt completely unnecessary, but I liked a lot of this. Deeb's Tenryu powerbomb after Baker snuck in a swinging neckbreaker on the ramp was a great nearfall (bad move hanging in the crowd after the match, Britt), some shots to the jaw landed great, loved Deeb scraping her boot on Rosa's face and hitting a cool diving shoulder tackle off the ropes. 

What Didn't Work

-It's cool that AEW gives high profile TV time to a team like Top Flight, but I cannot imagine a new team working a style I'm any less interested in than Top Flight. It feels like every single indy I have access to has 1-2 teams exactly like Top Flight, who all do at least One Cool Athletic Thing and really wholly on taking moves to reverse moves and need opponents to be in very specific locations for the bulk of their offense to work. There were a couple cool moves, and I liked the speed Duante brought to cartwheels and the impressive height he got on leapfrogs. But I'm going to need to see more than someone hitting the same tope con hilo that literally two dozen guys on the AEW roster can also (and do!) hit. I hate that kind of offense where someone takes a move, but then that move gives them the power to reverse a move. Duante took a Finlay roll from Matt Jackson and then just turned it into a crucifix pin. I guess it looked cool, but if you can just eat offense and act like that gives you leverage to take a pin, I'm probably not going to understand it. But I'm sure many people are stoked to see more guys on TV who can go through the motions of hitting a dragon rana, and not care that neither leg actually hooked the shoulders on said rana. 

-Kip Sabian is a good opponent for Orange Cassidy to work his hands-in-pocket offense against, because Kip Sabian's strikes never look like they actually connect with anything anyway, so it makes sense that Cassidy is so easily able to avoid it. Sabian's wrestling is really confusing, because him throwing elbows, or kicks to the stomach don't look like it is connecting anyway, so when he misses a clothesline I can't always tell if it is just Cassidy avoiding him or if that was Sabian's finisher. I liked Cassidy blocking the drop toehold and stepping out of it, because it looked like a drop toehold that would not have taken anyone down. Appropriate sell. Sabian actually hits two clotheslines during picture in picture, and they actually do make the same amount of contact as the missed clothesline earlier. He also makes the decision to throw a dropkick at a turnbuckle, which I can only assume was his intention because Cassidy moved away from the turnbuckle well before Sabian threw the dropkick. Odd choice. He also made it so his head only connected 1 of 3 times while being hit into turnbuckles, so there's a strong chance that Kip Sabian is playing some weird game of wrestling telephone, where he is interpreting movements as explained to him by several different wrestlers but without ever actually seeing pro wrestling. 

-THAT was the promised contract signing!? I love a good contract signing, and a decent contract signing is something that even the worst era WWE can still make look good. But this was one dry dick of a contract signing. Moxley attacked backstage and rubbing his head while Omega gets all his Observer accomplishments listed? Fuck man just shove a table onto someone. 

-You put Eddie Kingston on commentary and then cut right to a commercial? I had to listen to Miro mumble his way through a brutally bad Kip Sabian match with a far shorter commercial break. That's just the lousiest time management. 

-PAC/Blade was not the comeback match I assume the wanted for PAC. They did that dumb kind of shit where they chase each other back and forth to opposing turnbuckles and kick each other in the head, lotta boots to the head that didn't actually look good. PAC hits a missile dropkick that Blade doesn't quite get into position for so it just looked like PAC took the hardest possible back bump off the top. Blade's powerslam looked good, the superplex looked good, but a lot of this match stunk. 

-Sadly, I got into a very long and very pointless argument during the main event, so missed a chunk of the middle. That stretch I missed could have been very awesome. The parts that I saw were not good, primarily due to Brian Cage working like a really terrible joshi wrestler. Gimme them shitty enziguiris and keep working like a 140 lb. woman, yeah! I thought several moments looked off and I still do not understand all of the praise I see for Ricky Starks. Is this the same kind of praise that people gave to MJF when he first became a thing a year or two ago? Or the way a bunch of people thought Damien Sandow was the fucking future 7 years ago? 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/11/20

What Worked

-I'm not sure what it would take for a bloody bunkhouse brawl featuring Dustin Rhodes to not make the upper half of this write up, so obviously the bunkhouse brawl is here. Throw in the fact that the average age of the combatants was 42 then even MORE obviously the brawl is up here. Everyone comes out wearing white clothing (with Dustin and QT looking like the two men who most understand street fight fashion culture in cowboy boots, kneepads over old jeans, and white shirts with the sleeves cut off) and B&B wearing white jeans. Seeing all that white you knew guys were gonna juice, and juice was what we got. I don't think this was anywhere near as good as the parking lot brawl from a couple months ago, but this was bloodier and had plenty of dumb bumps of its own, so of course it ruled. 

QT Marshall is definitely the best friendship signing in AEW, a guy who was roundly laughed at for being on the roster due to nepotism, yet has delivered in every single spot he's been put in. He's the first one busted open here, he was really great at coming in at just the right time with saves, and hit a picture perfect elbowdrop off the top of a very very tall ladder onto the even bloodier Blade. Dustin wrestled like Dustin, which is what you're gonna want in a match like this. He and Butcher beat the hell out of each other, with Dustin hitting a sick twisting vertical suplex on a set up chair, hitting a big bulldog off the staging into a crash box that luckily was right next to the stage, and later Dustin takes a disgusting powerbomb kidneys first through a couple chairs. Butcher and Blade did what Dustin bunkhouse opponents needed to do. Blade hit a great, erm, blade job and really utilized the bleached blond short haircut, both took nasty bumps, their double teams looked good and I thought they set them up in smart ways. Even Bunny took a nice bump off the apron through a table (which the cameras mostly missed) and that nicely made up for her taking forever to try to handcuff Dustin to the ropes earlier in the match,. Oh, and Excalibur got a great laugh out of me by calling The Butcher "Bunkhouse Butch". 

PAS: I thought this was a lot of fun, the kind of entertaining fight which they really should run every six weeks or so with different combinations of guys. I think it would have worked a bit better if the finish had been the elbow off the ladder, that was the apex of the match and ending on a bunch of B- diamond cutters wasn't nearly as effecting. I enjoyed the Butcher as a reckless sloppy guy possibly hurting people, I wish his clotheslines were better, but this was easily the most I have enjoyed him. Blade nearly bleeding to death was a nice moment too. For Dustin Bunkhouse opponents, they aren't Windham or Buck, they really aren't even the Blacktop Bully, but were perfectly fine. I wonder if this is the only match in Dustin Rhodes career where someone has bled and he remained dry? Really odd, I kept waiting for him to open up and was just flabbergasted by his reddless forehead. 

-Maybe I'm just feeling generous because they gave me a bloody Dustin match, but I'll throw the Shawn Spears/Scorpio Sky match up here. Both do tons of little things that I hate (Scorpio Sky has this extremely annoying habit of kicking out of his pinfalls before his opponent does), but there was some cool stuff here. I loved Sky's inside out armdrag to send Spears to the floor, and his follow up pescado. Sky also bumped around for Spears, got thrown hard into the barricade, and other back work that didn't matter once it was Sky's turn to go on offense. The announcers said Spears is 15-2 in AEW this year, and it would be hypocritical of me to complain about them pushing some old nobody (an old nobody who is a month younger than I am) after praising all the old guys practicing bloodletting earlier. So yeah, fuck it, keep giving wins and pushes to dudes in their late 30s with my hairline. AEW knows how to make their fans feel seen. 

-I'd be willing to sit through a third lousy Fenix/Pentagon match just for the opportunity to hear Eddie Kingston on the mic before, during, and after the match. 

What Didn't Work

-Ah yes, my least favorite bullshit. I hate these Brian Cage matches where he outweighs a guy by 60 pounds and proceeds to have a 50/50 juniors sprint with them. I am impressed that Cage can do some of these things at his size, just as I am impressed with some of the things Keith Lee can do. But it just comes off stupid when he's working even with Sydal. Cage is just leveling Sydal with lariats in this match, so why would he decide to do a running headscissors? He knocked Sydal onto his ear or neck four different times with power moves, what would the best case scenario have been had he hit a huracanrana? Just fucking hit the guy you gassed up goof! The moves in this were hot, the logic was not. Go watch the AEW Dark Sydal/Kingston match and see a heavyweight who knows how to work an actual interesting match with Matt Sydal. 

-Outside of Darby running into Cage with his thumbtack jacket, that Cody/Jade Cargill/Brandi/Tazz segment was a muddled mess. Is Cargill someone who has just been in AEW Dark, with the other couple dozen black wrestlers on the AEW roster? 

-How is someone like Tay Conti not just watching every single Ronda match and merely doing that? She's still inexperienced and hasn't really been doing this that long, but she has the absolutely perfect blueprint to learn from, literally the best rookie of the past 20 years (or more?) is a judoka almost exactly her size. Every time Conti integrates judo into her matches it looks awesome. A lot of the non judo, timing based stuff? That looks significantly less awesome. A lot of AEW women's matches have these awkward moments where someone has to walk into position or makes a few tentative movements, and this was no different. I'm glad to see Red Velvet get a longer showing, but didn't think she did much with it. She hit a nice leg lariat and leaned into a couple hard Conti kicks, but this didn't add up to much. 

-There has to be an actual good Fenix/Pentagon singles match out there, right? And yes I know Meltzer gave 4 stars to the one from a few weeks ago that saw Pentagon treat his brother like Bernie Lomax after Fenix almost broke his neck. Penta looked extremely sluggish here, but that's kind of his thing. The layout was lazy as hell and it was filled with Penta slowly walking around catching his breath. It's mostly a long dull Penta control segment where he's clearly just filling time going through the motions, including a hilarious moment where he started ripping at Fenix's mask out of nowhere, before moments later winding up just holding a chinlock for awhile. Maybe he was doing an amusing "that's right this match is getting ugly, ah you people don't deserve it I'll just hold this chinlock" heel routine, but I think he just needed rest. Of course Fenix eventually comes back by just...not taking offense any longer, hits a great tornillo, gracefully gets into position for overly complicated Pentagon offense (my favorite being that stupid flipping DDT where Pentagon didn't even twist Fenix properly into, so Fenix just had to turn around in the hold without Pentagon moving an inch. Fenix may as well have placed Pentagon's arm around his neck first), gets dropped on his head few times with package piledrivers and a flipping piledriver, and man I wish Eddie Kingston was affiliated with someone who is not Pentagon. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/7/20

 What Worked

-Both Young Bucks standing and watching TV while peering back over their shoulders, set apart so that both were visible for the shot, was such a hilarious artistic decision. I suppose they could have been watching the TV from between their legs, but then we wouldn't have had them posed side by side, watching TV over their shoulders like they were stand-ins on a Nelson album cover. 

-Ringside doctor being announced before a dog collar match is a nice touch, and having Greg Valentine there is even better. Even better than that, is Valentine's graphic that refers to him as a "Dog Collar Match Survivor". 

-I LOVE that Dr. Luther was in the main for Jericho's 30th anniversary celebration, although I wish they had some balls and made it a Jericho/Luther singles match. I had that opinion before the match, and I think it stands after, because Serpentico and Hager were the weak parts of the match. The Luther/Hager sections were clunky (which kind of made the stand and trade look cool and uneven, but other parts less so) and Serpentico is just...not a guy I need to see in a main event. But the Luther/Jericho sections were fun as hell. People laughed when Luther was signed, because obviously it was just a friend getting his buddy a gig. But fuck it, we should get gigs for our friends if we're in a position to do so. Why wouldn't we do that? Luther is in his early 50s and has barely been active as a wrestler for the past 20 years (sheesh I saw him live on an APW show 20 years ago) and he can still clearly go. His cannonball was awesome, dug his big boots, and I liked the way he and Jericho interacted. I've seen nastier Judas Effect elbows, but I dug how Luther dropped to his knees after taking it instead of flat back bumps like everyone else. Fun match, and possibly the only match of the evening that knew what it was supposed to be. 

What Didn't Work

-I wanted a LOT more out of the Cage/Hobbs opener but it fell short. The standing exchanges looked bad, the elbows thrown just looked weak and lacking, the shoulderblocks looked like two guys trying to not hit each other (although I liked Hobbs' late match torpedo shoulderblock), and a lot of this came off like a Lance Storm super heavyweight match. The missed strikes or clotheslines to set up planned offense all came off phony and leading, even if some of the moves they lead to looked good (Hobbs hit a nice powerslam and spinebuster, Cage hit a couple of big drivers that could have landed Hobbs on his head). But the moves didn't mean much to me because of the laziness in setting up literally every move. Almost every piece of offense was set up by a guy missing a slow strike, or a guy slightly overrunning the other and then turning around into a move. Both of these guys are big, but both seem less interested in running into each other and more interested in slightly missing each other to then do a big spot. The big spots looked good. Every single thing gluing those spots together looked bad. 

-We're really on a big moves/no substance roll tonight, and the FTR vs. Evans/Angelico match underwhelmed. Last week was FTR's best AEW performance so far, but they came off like SCU Best Friends or any of the other lesser AEW teams who have their set movesets they're going to work through, and selling is only based on whose turn it is next. Evans and Angelico have been underutilized in AEW, in that I cannot believe some of the flippy goofballs we've seen a ton on TV when they have two of the better flippy goofballs hanging out on Dark. That said, Evans whiffed bad on a flipping legdrop, so bad that there was absolutely no way to cover for it. Dax did his best by immediately grabbing his face, and Excalibur picked up on it and said that Evans' boot hit Harwood in the face, but it is never going to look good when you miss your opponent entirely and then just keep your opponent in position and climb to the top to do another move. That's ugly backyard stuff. A lot of FTR's chain offense looked good, but both teams turned off who was on offense with a switch, so you'd have weird close nearfalls that would lead immediately to the person being pinned going on offense. It was laid out messily, even when it was executed well. 

-Every week they build FTR vs. Young Bucks is a week where the feud seems less interesting. The Bucks are not playing this right, FTR are coming off very miscast as babyfaces (tweeners? men with no alliances?) and Best Friends making hack jokes while winking that they're hack jokes doesn't make the jokes any less hack. 

-Liked the blood, liked Arn's old man spinebuster, liked a couple of the inadvertent falls onto the chain, but did not like the Dog Collar match. They went out and worked a mostly normal match while just so happening to have a chain tied around their necks. There was a lot of time spent on moving the chain out of the way, or adjusting the chain, or making sure they don't hit the chain, and that time needed to just be spent punching each other with the chain. Brodie Lee is also someone who is not great at taking offense anymore. I'm not sure how long that has been going on, but it's something I don't remember being a problem 2-3 years ago. In AEW he takes offense awkwardly and gets into position for offense even more awkwardly. Look how he takes that front suplex (a move he has taken several times in AEW and always takes badly) on his knees, face coming nowhere near the chain it was supposed to be near, and the announcers having to sell it anyway. Moves where he has to bend at the waist are even worse, as he doesn't know to do anything other than make his body a 90 degree angle and freeze. The table piledriver was unfortunate as Brodie's weight went the wrong way, flattening Cody, who then had to go back on offense despite it looking like he had taken the worst of his own move. I liked Cody's dive (doing dives while attached to a chain and another person will always be impressive), but did not like this match. It didn't come off like a violent chain match to me, it came off like a poor Cody/Lee match with them trying to work around the chain as an obstacle. 

-Women's match probably would have made the top side had the finish been a little cleaner. But I don't like those kind of runs where each person knocks the other into the ropes with a strike, which gives them momentum for their own strike, which so on and so on. It looks even worse when the strike gave you momentum to fire back with your own strike, but also you can still stop at will or change directions on rope running. Is the strike moving you, or is it all just terrible. The finish stretch was ugly, with lots of bad thigh slaps, but I liked a lot of the early stuff, liked Serena's leg drags and how she would trap Swole's arm in her leg before rolling over her, but I hate that move begets move nonsense.  

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 7/29/20

What Worked

-The visual of Stu Grayson's huge tope con hilo past the turnbuckle, hitting the cameraman on the way down (and running right at the cameraman) was awesome.

-Couldn't be much less interested in Zack Ryder as a new AEW recruit, but at least Ryder showed up ON THE GAS. I am more excited for hulked up juice god Ryder than Woo Woo Woo Ryder.

-This show needed Darby in the main event, because this was a real 2 hour drag if you were looking for good wrestling. This was a quick, under 10 minute sprint with a hot pace, totally unnecessary (but fun) weapons, and some classic Darby crash tests. The whole thing starts with Darby doing the Coffin Drop off the entrance tron, so this rules from go. Any match based around Darby dying is going to be cool, so crashing with a Coffin Drop, eating a powerbomb, a German, a nasty spill to the apron, it's all great. Starks and Cage had decent chemistry as a team, but I like Cage a ton more as "guy throwing two men around at once" than "guy going up easily for everyone's suplexes", and luckily we got a bit more of the former. Darby's late match comeback to save Moxley was great, there were a couple good nearfalls, and the finish was fantastic. You give me Darby smashing tacks into Ricky Starks' back by dropping in off the top rope and planting that deck on his back, and that's a finish I'll be into. Starks' sell was awesome, left leg stuck out straight and lifted off the ground while being pinned, shaking like he had spinal damage or like a man who just got his back tacked for the first time. Thank god for Darby tonight. That's a guy you get the ball to with seconds on the clock.


What Didn't Work

-Dang, that opening 10 men sucked, and it had zero excuse to suck. A 10 man given enough time should be the highest hit rate match out there. Any match with 6+ people where at least four of the participants are capable, should be a guaranteed good match. But this was just a sloppy, unfunny, poorly timed mess. People stood around awkwardly, waiting to take offense, missing offense, or just not doing anything. The dive train started well with a cool tope con hilo from Chuck Taylor (who appears to have lost some of his added quarantine weight), but then a long stint with Marko Stunt getting tossed back and forth between Hager and Luchasaurus while everyone just watched. There was a lot of "just watched" in this and it blew. Any time they tried to string a moves chain together it fell apart by the second move, everyone moving at a completely different pace than everyone else.

-I really love the idea of Cody vs. Top Indy Guys, and I have to accept that most of them are not going to touch Cody/Kingston...but I'd like to think that most of them will be better than Cody/Warhorse. I've never been much of a Warhorse guy, the whole thing comes off forced an unnatural, and let me tell you: if something comes off forced and unnatural on small scale indy shows, it is going to look downright bush on a big league presentation. Warhorse looked like a guy who won a sweepstakes, not a guy who earned his shot at the champ. Cody really busted his ass to make him look good, but it's a two way street. Warhorse throws a nice clothesline, and that's about it. Cody is good at taking lariats, and Warhorse had a big running one and a nice flat foot standing one that looked really impactful. Amusingly, JR called him "offensively minded" in a match where up to that point he had only thrown clotheslines and some stomps. Cody did a good job setting Warhorse to shine, Warhorse just didn't shine. His timing was a step earlier than Cody's, and it pulled back the curtain too much on a lot of his rehearsed pins or missed strikes. There were several times where he was already reversing the move he was set to reverse, while Cody had barely started the move. Grabbing a small package off a figure 4 attempt is a smart nearfall, but it looks bad when you're showing your reversal hand before Cody is even in position. Later, he committed to a missed double stomp off the top after seeing that Cody was 8 feet away from where he was stomping. It wasn't a blind leap, he watched Cody move, then leaped into a double stomp to the mat as if a person was there. There's debuting on national TV the way Eddie Kingston debuted, and there's debuting on national TV the way Warhorse did. This was Dancin' Homer debuting in Capital City. We've set each end of our Cody vs. The Indies bar.

-Man has Omega's stock fallen. The tag match was not a long match, but it felt like a long match. That's never good. Omega looks more and more like a broken man in tags like this, but this thing was mildly cursed beyond Omega. There were unfortunate hiccups that you can't really blame on anyone, yet take a match down anyway. Little things like the ref getting in the way of a Page clothesline, requiring Page to completely stop his momentum before continuing the spot as planned. Grayson doesn't always hit with his stuff, but I appreciate a lot of the stuff he goes for. The slingshot senton to the apron didn't fully connect, but it's something that is crazy enough that I want him to keep trying to make it look better. I like Uno's AEW work and dug him here, thought he took the snap dragon like a beast, loved Page wrecking Grayson with a lariat, but this never quite came together as a match.

-I was curious to see some more Diamante after her match last week, even though I was not into her match last week, but now I think I'm good for awhile. She did not look good throughout much of this. Every Shida singles match always has to have these really bad strike exchange sections, always looking like the most brutal slap play. For all I know those shots sting like hell, but I have yet to see a Shida vs. Opponent strike exchange that actually looked ready for prime time. Several of Diamante's chops hit hard, a couple things looked good, but I'm still waiting on an AEW singles match where the participants actually have chemistry.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 7/15/20

What Worked

-While I was disappointed in the match itself, I thought Cody did a fantastic job against Kiss. There was a LOT of stuff that wouldn't have worked nearly as well without Cody setting it up and finding plausible ways to get where he needed to get. The set up on the axe kick in the corner was masterful, the way he hung up in the ropes until Kiss hit that axe kick to the stomach. Cody set up the Matrix headscissors really well, caught the rana, naturally took any combo Kiss did, had awesome timing to catch the handspring slap in a full nelson, and never looked like a goof taking overly complicated things. The vertebreaker was perfectly executed, the superplex looked good, the slam on the stage looked good, etc. Cody turned in a great performance in an okay match.

-Angel Ortiz hilariously flopping in orange juice for 20 seconds felt like something Chris Candido would have done, and I laughed at Jericho unexpectedly calling Cassidy a "piece of shit". I was a big fan of their match last week, not sure what they could do in a rematch that would top it, but they have my interest for sure.

-Didn't love the trios match, but Jungle Boy had a strong standout performance. I thought his headscissors and flying looked better than normal, and I thought it was cool that the Young Bucks basically took a backseat and let him run wild the whole match.

-The Nightmare Sisters tag was kept short and Kenzie Paige bumped nicely for them.


What Didn't Work

-I was really excited on paper for Cody/Kiss, but it had plenty of rough patches. Kiss seemed off in several spots, didn't get up for a suplex (that Cody wisely bailed on), didn't get his leg up high enough on a few kicks, bumped way early on the disaster kick, and really just came off like a guy who would be much better in tags. There was plenty of stuff he did well in the match (I love his axe kicks and stomps), but the match also went too long, didn't really need several close kickouts with Kiss, and really should have ended after the awesome vertebreaker.

-Can't think of many on paper matches I wanted to see more than FTR/Lucha Bros, but it just didn't deliver. The face/heel dynamics were all wack, there was a lot of sloppiness at the beginning and end, and a lot of dumb little choices that made no sense within the match. The dumbest thing was Dax going for a superplex on Pentagon, with Fenix literally *touching them* in their corner, and Fenix opting to just tag in instead of, you know, STOPPING THE SUPERPLEX. He was just as close to Harwood as he was to his brother, but he chose to just tag, instead of decking Harwood and then tagging in. Plus, the whole tag spot was completely forgotten the moment the superplex hit anyway, as Fenix flew in and caught knees, then just rolled to the floor. FTR were the de facto faces, building to a hot tag that was well executed by Harwood, but couldn't even get a decent reaction from the people who are literally there to just react. Fenix had some great looking spots, loved that dropkick off the apron and a couple of his spinkicks, but they were clearly working babyface while also setting up FTR to be the babyfaces, and it made things feel messy and lead to quiet reactions. There was a lone, sad, This Is Awesome chant that didn't pick up steam, and that's always a bummer. Cash hit a great powerslam to set up a near tag, the DDT tope is a crazy spot that mostly worked, but the structure of the match didn't hold up to the match they kept weirdly switching into and out of.

-Kenny wearing that XXXL t-shirt on the apron like a fat kid at the community pool was a harbinger of doom for that trios match. It dipped in and out of being good or being not good, and I liked how Jurassic Express basically took 80% of the match, but there were too many things that fell short (no Marko joke intended). Marko and Jungle Boy had nice follow through snap on their ranas and headscissors, but I am getting genuinely tired of Luchasaurus. He works like Lance Archer working like Jungle Boy, with a slow and shoehorned stand and trade and thigh slap spot jammed into every single match. Most of his offense (especially his kicks) looks bad and Stunt/Boy's timing always gets bogged down by it. The snap dragons for everyone spot was cool, and I love the different ways Marko folded on both of his, and the alley oop rana by Marko from the floor to the ring looked great (well, the rana itself, the timing of getting him up to the rana stuttered a bit). But Marko needs to hit everything real flush for it to make any kind of sense, you can't just whiff entirely on a 450 and then go for the pin anyway. At least when Kidman would botch the shooting star it would end with him kneedropping a guy in the balls. 

-Well Cage/Moxley certainly stunk. Moxley worked the match like he was shot full of tranquilizers, and Cage came off like another large AEW guy who works shitty combo sequences instead of JUST BEING BIG. Moxley looked so bored taking every piece of Cage offense, that even stuff that should have looked punishing just came off bleh. Moxley took two hard bumps on a guardrail and a suplex through a chair, but he sold all of Cage's offense as if he was annoyed that he got called into work. Cage always has impressive spots, but he strings them together so quickly that he forces Moxley to undersell a lot of it, which just makes Cage look like a goof. It's the Kurt Angle curae of laying out a match so that your signature offense never actually looks like it is damaging your opponent. Nothing in this match had any kind of consequences, no kind of move was treated as if it had any effect on either of them. It was a smart strategy for Moxley to work an armbar, since Cage always looks one movement away from a triceps tear, but this match stunk. Cage worked hard, if misguided, but Moxley was not interested and it made both look bad. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 6/24/20

What Worked

-AEW realized that nobody in the fed knows how to catch a dive, so I appreciate they made a match into a lumberjack just so 18 guys would be standing close together to catch someone. The set up was clumsy as hell, but it's smart to recognize your weaknesses.

-Super smart usage of Shida, just a quick running high knee and nice falcon arrow and then leaping aggressively into the crowd to smack Penelope around. Shida is someone who fucks up everyone's timing in every AEW match I've seen her in, so quick squashes to build to bigger matches is brilliant.

-Lee/Cabana vs. Janela/Kiss was certainly a pleasant surprise. They kept a hot pace for 8 minutes, and I cannot believe that this is the first actual non-battle royal that Kiss has been in over the entire Dynamite run. He came off like a real star in this one, if not a main eventer than someone who should clearly be a featured attraction every couple of weeks. He and Janela had a lot of chemistry as a team and I liked their quick tandem flying and the way they would run into big Brodie boots or screens. There was really only one hinky spot (where Cabana held up on a roaring elbow and Kiss bumped a little early for it), but most of this was fun fun fun.

-FTR/SCU was a hot tag that started falling apart a bit down the stretch, but I think they mostly did a good job at going home when things started slipping. I think this got good during the picture in picture break right after they did the tandem suplexes over the top to the floor, and thought Hardwood was especially strong with his cutoff punches. I think SCU's double team work was surprisingly more  solid, but I don't really care about FTR as a "double team" kind of tag team, I prefer them more as a cutoff tag team. So it was a complementary pairing with a strong progression. I dug SCU coming back with Daniels' slingshot elbow and Kazarian's big legdrop, and how it lead to FTR taking over later when Kazarian missed with an even bigger legdrop. Even a couple things that missed (like a Daniels flying knee that missed the mark) looked good after Wheeler took a nasty bump ricocheting off the ropes. Don't love FTR cutting gassed post-match in ring promos, but it's at least unique to them and so for now I'll appreciate it as a feature.

-Nice Cage squash. Jon Cruz is the right kind of ragdoll bumper that makes someone like Cage shine, getting insane height on a flapjack and crumpling nicely on everything. I dig Cage's bicep curl spot, feels like something an awesome juiced bodybuilder should be doing. Press slams and bicep curls, fuck yeah. There just needs to be a bodybuilder wrestler who bases every piece of offense on his regular gym set.

-Hardy/Santana was a good pairing and I liked seeing all the cool ways Santana would bump wildly for Hardy. In the opening couple minutes alone he was flying to the floor, all around ringside, and into the barricade. His cutoff work was simple and I liked how he would mix quick reversals in with just choking and stomping away at Hardy in the corner. The flip reversal out of the Side Effect was something I hadn't seen, and I like that it didn't come off fluidly; it came off like Hardy was going through with the move as planned and was genuinely surprised at Santana's reversal. After seeing the abomination that was Wardlow/Luchasaurus and how they kept anticipating every single move a split second (or more) too early, this kind of surprise struggle was awesome to see. I'm into 45 year old Hardy busting ass and keeping up with quick guys like Santana, and dig that he's pulling it off.

-Fine segment to close out the show, really loved how they kept building to the moment where it looked like Jericho was going to pop Cassidy. The through the crowd brawl was real good (also why the fuck are there so many people there in the crowd?? Who are they??), loved the hotshot Jericho took on a railing and especially loved how cool Orange Cassidy looks while bleeding all over himself out of the ear. It's almost like blood automatically makes nearly every wrestling situation better? Jericho's bump was cool, still no clue why so many people were there, but this was a good way to close out the show.


What Didn't Work

-Wardlow/Luchasaurus was a shitty version of a shitty Keith Lee/Dijakovic match, the kind of match that could have been good had they just done shoulderblocks and clotheslines, and instead derailed in hilarious fashion once they decided to pepper in a ton of slo mo dancing. The strike exchanges were all terrible, with Wardlow throwing slow punches from a mile away and both doing pillow soft slo mo Frye/Takayama strikes. Luchasaurus kept showing too much of his hand on bumps, clearly prepping for bumps that never quite matched up to the move Wardlow was delivering. And by the time the match devolved into Luchasaurus doing his embarrassing DDR exchanges it become one of the saddest matches I've seen on Dynamite. Literally every one of Luchasaurus dance exchanges looked like he was throwing them for the first time, without practicing, and without making sure that he could make any of it look good. And none of it looked good. It arguably peaked with him hitting the slowest legsweep I've ever seen, with Wardlow then taking a flat back bump after getting slowly legswept in the shins. Incredible. Luchasaurus whiffed on every strike that was supposed to be caught, thigh slapped when kicks didn't connect, and made sure every single kick he threw looked like a giant pile of triceratops shit. The flying off the stage was a minor bright spot, full props for Marko getting launched like that, but the set up for all of the big spots was so clunky and unnatural  and not a good enough reason to work an entire lumberjack match just to use them as a base. This was a real sad way to start a show.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 6/3/20

What Worked

-Taz is a good choice as Cage's manager, as there's a constant cool visual reminder that they might have disjoined at some point. They're the only two guys left with structured and groomed Year 2000 sideburns (Jungle Boy gets a pass, his sideburns are grandfathered in), and Cage's HGH belly rivals Taz's pasta belly. It's too unlikely that they found each other, far more likely that one disjoined from the other.

-I really liked Jericho/Cabana as a 6 minute 2nd hour of Nitro match. Cabana hits a nice Asai moonsault (and then does an even crazier thing by slapping hi fives with several people and then immediately touching his mouth), and I loved his big bump over the ringpost after getting shoved by Hager. The layout was smart and kept things brisk, obvious that Jericho is so much better than Omega at pacing a match like this. Cabana got a couple decent nearfalls even though the finish wasn't in doubt, and the finish was perfect: Jericho crumpling Cabana with the Judas Effect as Cabana is bunny hopping off the middle buckle. And I'm not sure why, but I laughed hard at the specific way Jericho called Mike Tyson a piece of shit after the match. Man's delivery is still strong.

-Britt Baker with the segment of the week again, every second of it was so good. Locking the wheelchair in place to work the ropes, dragging that 2 lb. weight, the slo mo looks at the camera while being pushed across the field, all of it so great. Did I really sleep on Baker, or has she gotten really great in the past couple months?

-I liked Cody/Jungle Boy but something bigger was missing. I can't put my finger on it, so I'll just say that I much prefer Cody's style of working opponents into a match to any of the other AEW figureheads. Cody doesn't just step out of the way and allow someone to have a run in the middle, he makes space for convincing comebacks that works to an opponents' style. I liked how Jungle Boy's strikes got harder as the match went on, and how he went after Cody's cut. I was impressed with their fighting on the top rope, a moment that is hard to pull off without looking like two guys trying to cooperate to maintain balance, but I think Jungle Boy's best strike of the match was when he smacked Cody in the ribs up top, and I loved how Cody popped him right after. The table spot looked good, although I wish it was used as more than just a match reset. It didn't really play into the match and it's weird to use the most violent spot of the match as essentially a rest period. Still, strong match and I'll be totally fine with Proud Defending Champ Cody bleeding on TV in 10 minute matches every week.


What Didn't Work

-I'm happy that AEW sees black people as equal, at least enough to put a written statement at the beginning of Dynamite and making the brave decision to ban Linda Hogan from live events but how many cool black wrestlers could be on TV instead of these brutal weekly Kip Sabian matches. If AEW announced they were giving Kip Sabian's contract to literally any black wrestler anywhere, I would believe them. Making that statement at the top of your show and then cutting right to Kip Sabian and Jimmy Havoc in the first match fells like talking about how you support black artists while buying Nickelback tickets. I mean Omega/Page vs. Sabian/Havoc is literally the whitest possible match they could have booked. And yet, for all the deserved grief I give Sabian and Havoc, Omega was clearly the worst guy in this specific match. He hung both guys out to dry with improbably long wait times. Poor Sabian was sitting on the turnbuckles, plopped there like someone sitting backwards on a toilet, just waiting ages to take a backcracker. Omega's selling was laughably bad, with the biggest laugh coming when he took a Sabian springboard dropkick and did this amazing Little Tramp walk into the ropes while waiting for his cue to waddled backwards into a poison rana. And that rana magically allowed him to hit suplexes seconds later! Omega managed to look like more of a clown than Sabian and Havoc, and that's an impressive dedication to putting over your opponents.

-So Fyter Fest is an indisputably bad name, right?

-Nyla Rose took a nice big bump over the top and off the apron, and had a couple of really nice kickouts (well timed in accordance with the move she had taken), but I couldn't quite figure out if the layout of this was really dumb, or lazy, or just bad. It was a worse version of the mid 90s babyface Randy Savage formula where Swole took the entire match and then Rose just hit a rydeen bomb and called it a night. Swole gets hung up sometimes on timing and her strikes always look better when they aren't part of a combo (loved her backhand slaps here), but she came off weaker to me with how quickly she was dispatched, no matter that she got half a dozen nearfalls before that. Also, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and assume JR's use of the word "manhandling" during Nyla's matches is just because he only knows so many words.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 5/27/20

I didn't watch one cool second of the PPV, and I'm late to the broadcast tonight because it was my mom's birthday. How old is my mom? 69. How many 69 jokes did I make while visiting my parents? Not a single one.

What Worked

-Dead Stock Stadium Stampede Champions shirts is a funny joke concept, liked Jericho's delivery throughout the bit.

-I also laughed when Schiavone said "Yeah well a lot of us are fans of Wilbur Snyder" because JR brings up Wilbur Snyder the same way my grandpa would tell me the same story every few minutes toward the end of his run.

-Matt Hardy moves like he can't really bend his knees, but I can't deny that he is busting butt in AEW. He looks a little slimmed down, he cracked Kassidy with his big punch, he's quicker, and I loved his moonsault that landed perfectly across Private Party and Janela. I would like it if Matt kept up this Barry Darsow gimmick of cycling through his different eras. We need some plaid tights.

-Lee Johnson is the Job King of AEW, and I now want to see him get more ring time than the majority of AEW guys I see. This guy did not have to take a German suplex on the top of his shoulders, and yet he did. This man is wrecking his spine on buckle bombs and then decided he would also take a powerbomb on his neck. Respect this man.

-Britt "Roll Model" Baker is wonderful. I wasn't sure if something was actually wrong or if she was just playing her role in last week's tag really well, but this is making me an even bigger fan of hers. Although she started her rules for being a role model at #3. Feels like I missed a couple of important ones.

-If they have to put Kip Sabian, Jimmy Havoc, Scorpio Sky, and Frankie Kazarian on TV this much, at least they all end up in the same match. Wait, WHY do they have to put these guys on TV this much?

-Good battle royal with several noteworthy performances. Dr. Luther is a signing that people made fun of, but I've always liked him. Here he threw some nice right hands to send Marko across the ring, then threw him hard and bumped bumped huge for a chokeslam to the apron. Sonny Kiss had some nice stuff opposite MJF and also bumped big to the floor. Really this match was filled with guys taking big elimination bumps. Daniels generously bumped a Stunt rana to the floor, Cabana got tossed, several people did decent "hanging by a thread" dangles, Luchasaurus really went after MJF's throat on a chokeslam, and I liked Luchasaurus' punches and high kick during his showdown with Wardlow (the sequence itself was dumb, with both immediately going through a slow delay stand and trade, but the shots looked good). This was a good battle royal.

-Dug the Inner Circle segment as AEW bringing in a bunch of fighters is a completely awesome thing. Turn this shit into Zero-1 and bring in modern equivalents to Sean McCully. Vitor Belfort needs to come back and just kick the shit out of Kip Sabian and Jimmy Havoc in a handicap match. Give me a bunch of MMA guys with under 5 pro fights and let them shoot punch the Best Friends in the face. Dr. Luther is nuts, let's see Tyson speed bag his big head. This should be awesome.


What Didn't Work

-Hikaru Shida is a master at making her opponents awkwardly get into position for her offense. She cannot go two moves without her opponent needing to scoot several feet into the correct spot. Look at all that stuff on the top part of this show! Everything made it to the top! Look at how tenderhearted I am, praising nearly an entire episode of Dynamite! But Hikaru Shida is very much not good.

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Lucha Underground Season 4 Episode 11: Last Man or Machine Standing

ER: I kinda liked the sappy tenderness of the Melissa/Azteca opening, with Melissa getting one half of an Aztec Medallion. She needs to win one more challenge to get a full one, which she can then give to a Temple Guard for passage into the Shrine of the Silver Monkey.

TL: Eric normally gets to write his reviews first and then I get to add my thoughts in (normally blind, but if the point is good enough, I’ll amend it to respond). He goes right for the Legends of the Hidden Temple joke with the half medallion. This is why we’re friends. Ya’ll think I’m joking about trying to turn SC into a Game Show Blog. We’re gonna get the Buzzr sponsorship and everything. Next level stuff.

Haunted House Match: The Mack vs. Mil Muertes

ER: These are two of my absolute favorites in the fed, so I figured it would not have much chance of living up to my internal hype, and they spent too much time with goofiness for it to ever get close to the level of violence in the best Muertes LU brawls. I don't know why they felt like airing this "Haunted House" in August, or why these two just couldn't have a cage match. Instead we got some nasty bumps, but also weapons that were too extreme to actually use them properly. So you had Mack getting smashed shoulders first on a powerslam, but then you have Muertes using a crowbar as a weapon in the least effective way you could use a crowbar as a weapon; or Muertes making a massive dent in the cage by spearing Mack into it, but then getting a fucking KNIFE while Vampiro and Striker start panicking and flipping out with "Oh my god he's got a KNIFE!" screaming...and then Muertes hits Mack with...the handle of the knife. What? Mack comes up with no cut but a big old blood packet face. "Blood is everywhere, it's all over Muertes!" as this weird paint colored blood is strictly on Mack's face. There were cool big moments like Muertes hitting a great spinebuster through a table, and the absolutely bonkers finish with Muertes hitting a brutal DDT off the top through a table...but then you also had Muertes struggling and taking too long to get his leg over the top of the cage for a crossbody while Vampiro talks about how he's never seen someone climb a cage faster. And as much as I love Mack, him coming back for deadly revenge and hitting a few Stunners is just not going to seem cool in a "bloody" brawl. There was too many cheesy props (and I'm not even complaining about the pumpkin, because it probably would hurt to get hit with a pumpkin), and I think if they went more serious and actually treated it like a blood feud it could have been damn good and maybe our first List match from LU this season.

TL: It’s refreshing to see a wrestling organization go after a holiday-themed episode a little differently. WWE does Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas episodes in such a kitschy manner that it’s rarely entertaining, but having this style of cage match, with all the weapons and the kooky decorations, gives it a setting that comes off as 100% authentic for a show on a network run by Robert Rodriguez. There’s even a SICKLE on the damn cage. Also, considering the participants, this is basically an LU dream match for me, so hopefully this lives up to the hype.

The Melissa/Katrina stuff before the match started was I guess necessary? If It means we get another Fenix/Muertes match down the line, count me in. This match starts in an interesting way: Mack doesn’t go after the weapons at all, trying to work the match straight, whereas Muertes, LU Deathmatch king, is out here using all the weapons he can. He also throws his fantastic spinning chokeslam so I’m loving this early, probably a bit more than Eric did. I’m guessing the cage was actually supposed to give way more than it did on the spear spot, But then we get back in and, well, Mil Muertes starts actually using a goddamn knife in a match. He actually stabbed and sliced a guy on the side of his head. I watched Mance Warner imply he’d use a knife in a match at the August SUP show, but the environment was such that it came off as more whimsical than threatening; a comedy spot from a madman. This, though, wow. An actual knife being used in a match in 2018. And yeah, it looked weird; the blood was lighter than the juice from my Stark’s Steakhouse ribeye from the other night. The finish was suitably nasty, but I agree with Eric: This didn’t seem like the match it should have been in this environment. I did like a good chunk of it, but this could have been better had Mack worked this more like a brawl instead of working his usual Mack stuff into the match. Also, you know, had Muertes used the sickle instead of the knife. Go the full Mr. Pogo, man.

Jake Strong vs. Aerostar

ER: I had just watched the really good Jake Hager/Tom Lawlor match from MLW before this, and Aerostar is just a bad match for Jake. Aerostar opted to stand and strike instead of try a bunch of crazy flying body attacks or something, and none of his strikes looked very good, throwing some so so punches at Strong's torso and hitting unconvincing leg kicks. Strong didn't look as impressive as he's been looking, because Aerostar didn't really look impressive. It was too much of a squash, and Aerostar can be in cooler stuff than getting run over by this guy. We don't need this to be a 1998 WCW throwback with Hugh Morrus squashing Villano V.

TL: Jack Swagger worked Rey Mysterio and the matches were fun, but that was against perhaps the greatest babyface of all time. If we’re going WCW in 1998, Aerostar is basically Lizmark, Jr. here, and Swagger can’t even be bothered to be Perry Saturn. Nunchuks scaring off a dude who’s about to do a Bellator fight? I guess?

ER: Well another character died. That's the...third death this season? This is starting to feel like it's going to ramp up to the last season of Oz levels where they just started murdering a couple of guys per episode.

TL: The killing of Not Paul Heyman isn’t even a Top 10 death in the show’s history and is of so little consequence that it matters even less in the grand scheme of things. In a show where Lorenzo Lamas gets his eyeball ripped out of his head and a mini gets sacrificed by bludgeoning, a knockoff Chucky doll making a madman kill folks comes off as incredibly tryhard. Also, folks are literally getting sacrificed in the middle of the ring this season; feels like something that needs to happen in Orlando with some folks who have been down there a few years too many.

Last Man Standing Match: Cage vs. Pentagon Dark

ER: I have made so many terrible choices this year that I keep watching and writing about companies who use Pentagon. I've written up like 60 Pentagon matches and watched more, and I definitely have nothing new to say about them at this point. And I'm already thinking that *before* Striker starts telling Bible stories. This is the further HHHing of Pentagon, and it's getting fairly insufferable, though probably not yet to Sexy Star levels (now why the hell did we all waste time watching *that*?). Cage gets to show off early, and things peak with Cage hitting a monstrous suplex from the middle rope through a table at ringside. But moments later, after taking what looked on film to be an insane bump, Pentagon just goes on his death tear, hitting Cage with chairshots and a hard trash can and trash can lid. We hit peak "is it worth it?" stupidity when Cage for reasons no rational person could accept, opts to take a Mexican Destroyer off the top rope through a set up table. WHY?? This naturally does not end the match. Pentagon immediately rolls out of the ring after hitting that huge move, and starts loading the ring with chairs. Yes, we were supposed to think that he was getting the next killshot ready in case the monster wasn't really dead, but Pentagon is so sluggish he makes it so the biggest move of the season doesn't have any drama, telegraphing that it wasn't really the finish. Also, to do such a wild table breaking move off the top rope is just incredibly dumb to do on the same episode where you have the OTHER biggest top rope move through a table spot of the season. Who opted to air those matches 20 minutes apart? They also chose to have Melissa Santos get roughed up and smashed into the cage by Catrina the same episode as hapless Jewish lawyer gets stabbed in the neck and gurgles his life away while we get more creepy doll murder talk. Who's going to be thinking about Melissa eating a beating at this point? Pentagon even gets to break Cage's arm, and it really is ridiculous the level they are sacrificing everyone to the altar of Pentagon. He does get fantastic reactions, and does take risks, but man he's more dominant than early Matanza at this point. Where do you go from here?

TL: The range for LMS matches I’ve watched in 2018 means this will land between Charlotte/Becky Lynch (Very good) and Gargano/Ciampa (Not at all good not even for a minute). The issue with this match, as Eric alluded to, is Triple P, and if this is one of those 20/80 matches where Cage dominates but Pentagon pulls it out, well, I’m prepared for it. I won’t like it at all, but at least I know not to be surprised. Hilariously, on the same show where an actual knife gets used, the broken bottle slicing open Pentagon was at least a marked improvement. We don’t need unprotected chair shots in 2018. Or garbage can shots. Both guys take moves through tables off the apron and get up and don’t sell a goddamn thing. Then Cage hits the Drill Claw, probably the most protected finish in LU, and not only does Penta survive it, he’s the first on offense. Even more egregious than doing the Mexican Destroyer off the top in the first place is Pentagon GOING TO GET STUFF DURING THE COUNT. Doesn’t even pretend that was good enough to finish. Kill the destroyer dead. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s essentially a superkick. The finishing sequence is maddening to me. Can't break Cage's arm at all? Then break BOTH his arms. Yes, the cinder block is something Cage dealt with before and was the Only Way To Put Him Down For Good. C’mon now.

Okay: The psychological argument for everything here is that Cage, by taking all that punishment and having been portrayed as essentially a cyborg, needed to have all that done to him to put him down for good. It’s the same idea behind the Joey Lynch/PCO finish from SCI Night 2 this year. Excess of violence in the face of insurmountable odds. PCO took a Destroyer off the top and then Lynch needed four superkicks and seven moonsaults to put him down. Seeing it live, it was easy to get caught up in the moment, and PCO in 2018 essentially is Frankenstein. The problem is that later that night, Lynch didn’t need nearly as much to win in the final. It felt truncated in a way, like the PCO match existed in a completely different universe, and it took away from the impact of what was supposed to be the Most Important Moment Of The Night. While that didn’t happen in this particular match, what DID happen is exactly what Eric said: You’ve gone to a point so far ahead of the natural progression of a title reign that now, Triple P is gonna look like a dumbass when he does lose the belt in some haphazard way. This is “protecting” the character at the expense of literally the entire universe the match takes place in; mutually assured destruction via suicide. It doesn't matter that Pentagon went through all this to keep the belt, or that Cage needed to take that much punishment to stay down for a 10 count. It's gonna be happenstance as soon as Pentagon slips on that banana peel.

We’re halfway through the season but somehow, someway, for a 22-episode run, the first 11 eps have felt much, much longer than that. And now we have a wedding to look forward to next week and both the two people getting married and the person most likely to intervene and cause shenanigans have killed people this season. If there isn’t a death during the wedding, I’d call it the upset of the season.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

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