AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 3/21-3/27

AEW Dynamite 3/23

CM Punk vs. Dax Harwood

MD: This was a bit of a tricky match, just for where it was positioned. This was Punk's first time back in a few weeks. He had been feuding with the Pinnacle over all including a big beatdown and the Moxley tag against the Revival so there was logical lingering heat here. Revival is in the midst of a babyface turn (presumably capitalizing on attention from the podcasts with Renee but who knows what the actual plan was). I'd say Dax wrestled this more as a de facto heel than a fully committed one, being in the position to cut Punk off and occasionally using a hairpull to escape a killer hold, aggressive but only so overtly underhanded. Even when Cash came out, it was to slap the mat and keep the fans in it. As usual with Punk matches, I loved the selling and the attention to detail, and more over, how much things were milked for value. Look at the spots in the corner that ended with the big superplex. They went around three or four times before getting there, building up the tension and the importance and then paying it off with a huge impact. Another match on the card might have done three or four moves in that period instead of building and building. Likewise, the bump to the floor off of the inside-out suplex. This was more of a Bret Hart tribute match than a Davey Richards one and both guys were laid out for a while after that, which is where Cash came out to keep the crowd in it and further that babyface turn. If wrestlers who the fans care about decide to place more value on a bump like that or on moments like that, it's something that can transfer across matches on the card and give every AEW wrestler more meaningful tools to play upon. If you can do more with less, that means that the times that you actually do more, it matters even more. Theoretically at least. It's a way of taking back a superplex or a bump to the floor for everyone and it's hugely appreciated. I hope it's capitalized on because it'll make everything in AEW better. 

ER: Phil did some of his best work writing up this match for The Ringer, and I think he's the only one approaching the best takeaway from this match. I saw a lot of talk online about the Bret influence on the match, and I didn't prioritize the match due to my own lack of interest in seeing more tribute spots to a wrestler that I love, who still has a long list of matches that I've never seen. I love Punk, but seeing people talk about spots lifted from Bret matches just makes me want to go watch several Bret matches instead. This match was not about lifting sequences from old Bret matches, it was more about the Bret influence on modern wrestling, and how you can still show your influences on your sleeve without being derivative. All of the comparisons to Bret Hart classics do matches like this a disservice. These two connect in different ways, and have different strengths, but I guess it's always more interesting compare good wrestlers to another good wrestler, than to note broadly that "these two are influenced by good wrestling matches". This was a simply constructed match that hinted at moves early and paid them off later, and some moves hit early that lead to different results later. 

There are a couple of really big moments that happened at smart parts of the match, with a big superplex as the centerpiece. I really liked every around that moment, with Punk going up top and showboating a bit with some extended Macho Man arms and then immediately realized how he fucked up when Dax swept his legs. The superplex was really good, Dax pushing hard off the top rope with his legs, and I also like how they handled the vertical suplex reversal not long after, ending with both tumbling over the top and ricocheting off the apron. All of the Sharpshooter work was great, although I wish they had done a bit more with Dax getting kicked off and hitting his head on the bottom turnbuckle. Coming not long after a superplex, another shot to the back of the head could have taken things in a more interesting direction. That said, I do like how Dax sold the kick off and how he staggered into a very close nearfall right after. When he finally gets the Sharpshooter locked on, Harwood can proudly state that in a world where almost every person who attempts it has the worst Sharpshooter ever, his is much closer to Bret or Choshu than the rest. I would have bought that Sharpshooter as the finish, but I loved the quickness and the slyness of Punk's Anaconda Vise. There was a cold methodical killer aspect to it, but also a touch of desperation. If not desperation, than still the work of a man who knew that NOW was the time to end things if possible. 

Darby Allin/Sting/Hardy Brothers vs. The Butcher and The Blade/Private Party 

MD: Too much action for the camera to follow here. Once they split into two zones, it got a little bit easier but we missed things on both counts: how Blade got opened up, a lot of the one-on-one between Kassidy and Matt. Everyone got moments either in hitting things or taking things. Darby and Sting had those opening dives. Butcher got to pinball Darby around and send him down the stairs. In general, a match like this protects Matt and he gave Kassidy some comeuppance before getting ambushed by Quen and ultimately eating the double side effect. Jeff being more concerned about hitting his crazy swanton in a 3 on 2 scenario than saving his brother follows him dancing to his music instead of making the save the other day pretty well. The finish could have gone a little better but it was easy to cover as Sting fighting for the reverse headlock and the timing still worked out. You can tell that there's nothing Kassidy would rather do in wrestling than feed for Sting. Really, this is the sort of thing that they could have run twenty years ago as a dark match main event every week for months after TV show to send the fans home happy.

ER: Man this rocked. This was the AEW debut of Jeff Hardy and I love how he debuted in this chaos. This also continues the amazing run of Sting, somehow putting in his greatest work of the century in his early 60s. Tony Schiavone has been so good on commentary during Sting matches, and I love the brotherhood in his voice when Sting flies super far with an early match plancha onto everyone. Tony is totally beside himself, talking about how he told Sting to not do crazy things like that anymore, but laughing to himself at the same time. The action splits up and goes all over the arena, and really the only bad thing about the match is we couldn't possibly see everything. Every pairing looked like it was worth seeing, at least based off what we were able to see. Everybody played into their role and did it well. Jeff had this crazy clothesline over the barricade (silly me thinking that would be the most reckless thing Jeff would do in his debut), Blade bumps all over for him, Darby falls down stairs and gets ragdolled by Butcher, and I love how the action flowed. 

Jeff Hardy did a crazy swanton off a concourse window ledge, and I love that he still has a yarder's heart. Teenage backyarders have that skateboarder mentality of looking for things to do a move off of, and here's a broken Jeff still looking for ledges that would be cool to stunt dive from. I also loved Sting holding Butcher and the Blade onto the tables during Jeff's climb and then bailing out at the last possible moment. Matt Hardy looked awesome during the finishing stretch, like he and Private Party had been feuding for years. Private Party have come a long way in the past couple years, and they're getting so much better at feeding for offense and positioning. I thought the finish was spectacular, as at this point I fully believe that Sting is as crazy as Terry Funk ever was and would be foolishly willing to take a frankensteiner into a cutter. Sting hopping off the middle buckle and blocking the cutter, dropping into a dragon sleeper and fighting up to his feet for the Scorpion Death Drop was such an awesome moment, timed expertly with a Twist of Fate. This is the most hyped I've ever been for Sting, a man still gaining new fans into his AARP membership days. 

Blackpool Combat Club (Brian Danielson/Jon Moxley) vs. Varsity Blonds

MD: This worked as contrast to Danielson's matches over the last month or two at least. It made me better appreciate what Yuta brought last week. Danielson and Moxley are going to make you more violent, more aggressive, work for it harder no matter who you are, but there was a lower floor to start from here. Griff had his moments, including some driving forearms at the end. There's a lot of upside there potentially, but I don't know if we'll see it with Mox and Dragon as there's a lot of lower hanging fruit elsewhere in the company. Pillman, on the other hand, probably needs a different presentation or a different role to see if something might click. That doesn't mean things weren't smooth at times, like how he leapt right into Mox's double-arm DDT, but smooth wasn't necessarily what I was looking for here. On the other hand, every week Ambrose and Danielson start to add more unified offense and bits of timing to their repertoire. Here it was the set up for Danielson's knee off the top and the way they synced up their finishers. It's hard not to be excited for whatever's next.

AEW Rampage 3/25 (taped 3/23)

Dustin Rhodes vs. Lance Archer

MD: Archer is a guy who I like a lot in 3-minute Dark and Elevation squashes but that I'm iffier about in the actual payoff matches against name talent. This played to his strengths though. Dustin went after Lambert early and got a shot to his ear for his trouble and Archer zoned in on the damage. This was low on spots (which isn't to say that Archer didn't hit some of his big offense down the stretch or that Dustin didn't take a crazy flip bump to nowhere off the apron, but it was more about shots to the ear and grinding Dustin down, with Dustin working the crowd hard on his comebacks. Even the powerslam got jammed by Archer. When he's in the right environment, Archer's instincts are quite good. I like how he works the crowd. I like how he teases them. He's constantly present when he gets a chance to be. He didn't get to scare any kids this time around, which is one of the best parts of his act but you work with the crowd you're given. This was very much the right match for him and Dustin, ear bleeding all over the place, fit into it perfectly. When a guy's ear is bleeding enough that it gets all over your chest, that's something to lean into, and they absolutely did here to the betterment of the match.

PAS: The ear bleed here was cool, but I didn't think this worked particularly well. I kept wanting it to be better so that I could justify writing about Dustin on The Ringer. Archer always feels like a guy pulling his shots, and this is the second violent Dustin match I thought underwhelmed. For some reason they just seemed on different pages. Nick Comoroto hasn't been around nearly as long or had the heights that Archer has had in wrestling, but I though he matched up way better with Dustin in a similar type match. Finish was clearly setting up a third match so maybe they can deliver something special there. 

Read more!

AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 9/22/21

21. Bryan Danielson vs. Kenny Omega

PAS: This match started as a Bryan Danielson match in the first section, and moved into a Kenny Omega match in the finish. I am always going to prefer the Danielson match, but can't deny the effectiveness of the near fall heavy final. It is fun to watch wrestling with such a wild crowd, going crazy for the lock up, so much of wrestling over the last year has been in front of video screens or tiny crowds, and it really works only as a live event. Super physical match, Danielson especially had a bruised up chest and a gross purple bruise on his forehead, I don't love Omega's style, but I appreciate him laying it in. My favorite part of the match was Omega viciously working the bad neck, the full sprint V-Trigger was gross, and Danielson really looked loopy. It got really into near fall 2 count wrestling by the end, and I thought we probably two many kick outs and shifts of momentum. I did love Danielson breaking out the Cattle Mutilation and head stomps though. I understand the reasons for the draw, but I think they probably just should have had a finish. A loss doesn't hurt either guy, and sets up the rematch better then the draw.

ER: This might not have 100% been the match I wanted to see from these two, but full credit that AEW clearly knows exactly what its fans want to see and does their best to deliver that, and I think that's awesome. Dream Match Wrestling got really out of hand 15 years ago and before long every single indy main event (and a few on the card below the main event) was worked like a Dream Match Epic. But there are truly only so many dream matches to go around, and Danielson vs. Omega is undeniably a dream match for most modern pro wrestling fans. Dream matches are a funny thing, as when you look at your personal dream matches it really speaks to your specific pro wrestling interests at that specific moment in time. My current dream match would probably be something stupid like Eddie Kingston vs. Ron Bass Jr. or Omos vs. Otis, but I remember how excited I was the first (and second, and third) time I saw Mike Modest vs. Christopher Daniels live. It was the exact match I was dying to see in 1999/2000 and my energy couldn't have been higher when it finally happened. I love that energy and it was exciting seeing a huge crowd simultaneously having that reaction. 

I would have liked to see their 20 minute debut match, but fighting forever is what the fans wanted, and they did a really great job of fighting forever (forever being their allotted 30 minute time limit). They were smart about not telegraphing a 30 minute draw as every fan in there would have started groaning had they suddenly started doing 5 minute announcements. Omega and Danielson weren't working like they were trying to finish within 30, they didn't do any cute "2 count right as the bell rang", it was just two guys beating the hell out of each other until they were told to stop, and that's a cool first match for them. They played off the live atmosphere really well, and they really laced into each other so every person in every back row could feel it. Danielson had a purple chest minutes in and eventually wound up with a nice wound on his forehead that looked like the beginnings of a gnarly hematoma, and meanwhile he was kicking away at every part of Omega. They did a lot of back and forth and move trading without it ever really feeling egregious until the 3rd or 4th V-Trigger, and it's hard to work a stiff 30 minutes without things getting too egregious. 

Things really jumped up for me with that Snapdragon on the ramp, with Danielson skidding his way down the ramp on his neck. The ramp run V-Trigger that followed was finish worthy, and really my only problems with the match were that there were several finish worthy moments that obviously did not finish anything. I honestly would have loved that ramp run V-Trigger leading to a stoppage, as they could have gotten a lot of mileage out of Danielson's injured neck and it could have lead to a huge return match. I loved the buckle bomb that sent Danielson bouncing over the ropes to the apron, and I loved how Danielson fought to neutralize Omega. Watching Danielson holding the turnbuckle with one hand and ring post with another to block a top rope Snapdragon was the kind of detail that you expect from Danielson, and it's the kind of detail that most guys forget about during an Epic. I'm a big fan of only getting one OWA attempt, as it's a completely preposterous move, so seeing Danielson immediately get the poison rana to shut the door on further attempts was nice. I didn't love the stretch, where they did devolve a bit into Omega selling a head kick by being the first to go back on offense, and I wish the final V-Trigger was closer to the ropes so Danielson didn't need to kick out. But we still got great stuff like Danielson taking advantage of Omega's sillier offense and doing cool reversals, like grabbing the LeBell Lock out of Omega unrolling his arm. This was always going to be an intensely scrutinized match and I don't think they could have done much better first time out. 

CM Punk Interview

PAS: I think these happy Punk pep talks have a shelf life. They aren't there yet, but eventually they are going to need to switch something up. This worked fine, and the "tuck you into bed" line was nice.

MJF vs. Brian Pillman Jr. 

PAS: This was OK, it probably didn't need as long as it was and I thought the first part wasn't great, but it picked up with the arm work after the commercial break. I thought using Julia Hart as a shield was a nice bit of heel business, and the Fujiwara counter of the Air Pillman was a cool idea. Still not an MJF guy, but he has improved a lot in the ring.

Cody Rhodes vs. Malakai Black

PAS: I thought Black had some cool individual moves here, like his scissors kick into the ankle lock, and he really wasted Cody with his wheel kick. Still they seemed to be on different pages for much of this match. The spot where Cody ran into Arn was mistimed and I don't think Cody's entire act is working right now. Not sure what I would try with him, he clearly is a big part of the promotion, but they need to try something.

16. Darby Allin/Sting vs. FTR

PAS: This was delightful. FTR have the gimmick of an old school tag team, but their AEW stuff has been mostly modern workrate tags. This was an classic Southern tag with FTR really working over both Sting and Darby, with two great hot tags and two good long heel beat down sections. Sting was really impressive, he moved really well, and still has great timing on his big spots. Even his simple stuff like the big right hands and kicks looked good, and FTR was clearly having a blast bumping for him. Darby's explosiveness is so much fun to watch, and the Coffin Drop on the apron to clean out Cash for the Scorpion was the kind of big memorable moment which Darby excels at. 

ER: Excellent tag match, I believe FTR's best match of their AEW run. This felt like the FTR they've been promising us (and a thing the confusingly named Dirty Dawgs have been doing all year) and extended the Sting mileage to a point I wasn't expecting. I didn't have the nostalgia for Sting's return, and yet here he is as a very important part of a very great match. FTR looked like they were having the time of their lives getting into position for everything. You could practically see the glee in Dax Harwood's face every time he slid into position to cut off hot tags. FTR was incredibly in sync, got perfectly into position for two guys with very different ring styles, and knew just when to come flying in to cut everything off. Sting looked like he was hitting hard for an old man, all his strikes really landing with explosive speed. His punch/backhand combo was really effective, he knows how to cut guys off with a strong stomach kick, and they worked a couple of strong Scorpion Splash spots really well into the match. 

Sting missed one splash chest first into the turnbuckles, and then later when Dax was trying to sucker him into missing another one and hitting a chair, they did a great twist where Sting stopped himself and then threw Dax threw the chair, past the turnbuckles. The nearfalls were all really effective, and Darby/FTR were awesome at milking hot tags. There was an awesome moment where Wheeler and Harwood came together at the perfect time to catch a midair Darby hot tag, holding him on their shoulders inches away from Sting's hand. Sting had powerful lariats and shoulderblocks, loved him sending Wheeler to the floor with a clothesline, and the finish of Darby stopping Cash by hitting a Coffin Drop to the apron was insane. This might have been my favorite tag match of the year, and it happened on a show featuring one of the most highly anticipated matches of the decade happening (and delivering). 

Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs. Ruby Soho

PAS: This was a good match with some very big moves which was hurt a bit by Danielson and Omega doing a blown out version of the same kind of match as the opener. It is tough to do two big near fall matches on one show, and that opener burned me out a bit for dramatic two counts off of huge top rope moves. Really liked Ruby's offense here, and the BS ending worked for me. I think Ruby is over and talented enough for her to branch off into a second women's angle on the show. Let Britt feud with other women for the title, let Ruby get into a big feud with someone else and keep them apart for a bit.

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

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. 

Read more!

AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 1/27/21

What Worked

Eddie Kingston vs. Lance Archer - GREAT

ER: Opening a show with Eddie Kingston is always going to give you a good shot at landing up top, and the bonus here was getting one of the best Lance Archer singles matches. Favorite Archer Match is basically like saying Favorite Car Insurance Payment, but this was more Archer working Kingston's match before blowing Kingston up, and that's going to land well with me. Kingston makes Archer's offense look better than a lot of his offense against juniors. He has modern big man syndrome, meaning he too often tries to work down to his opponents when they're juniors, and seeing his offense take down a bigger guy like Kingston is more effective. Kingston takes offense really well; not athletically, but in terms of making offense seem effective. He lands in ways that you can feel. I loved him picking Archer apart with punches. He threw a straight punch right into Archer's kidney, followed that up with a couple body shots on the other side, kicked at the back of Archer's knee, bit and clawed at Archer's face, King shit. JR on commentary nicely pointed out that "Kingston knows all the right spots to hit someone" and they talk about him being a street fighter from childhood. 

Kingston takes an insane bump to the floor, looking like they were trying to recreate the Vic Grimes XPW bump from half the distance. King lands hip first on the apron, gets upended to the floor, could have easily landed on his head. Nuts. And King continues to get beaten around the ring (there's a great moment where Kingston gets run face first into a camera, which feels like the kind of shot that winds up in TV show intros), takes a bunch of hard slams, Archer hits a cool standing splash out of the corner, all building up to what looks like a Kingston dying on his sword performance. The finish could have been more interesting (Archer gets distracted by Butcher and Blade attacking Jake, Kingston hits the backfist) and would have played better if Kingston just won with a loaded backfist. You want to protect Archer, have him decimate King but then eat a roll of quarters to the jaw, don't make him stare away at his opponent for a long time and then lose. 

PAS: Great Kingston performance, which he really could have had against anyone. Eddie isn't really a stunt bumper, so that chokeslam hip first on the ring apron was really shocking. He also really laid out for some of Archer's slams, and did a tremendous job selling a back injury. Archer was pretty shitty in this though, constantly making "I'm Evil" faces in the camera, what a cornball. He stopped after every move to do a bug eyed glare, and mouth things like "you are in my playground" "death has come to take his reward". Just the worst home movie horror film shit. There are so many 6'6 guys who have washed out of WWE in the last decade, can't they dig up Mike Knox and give him Jake Roberts? Vladamir Koslov? Hell even Snitsky would be better then this. Archer also really has trouble moving, he executes his moves OK, but he can't really run the ropes or even walk well. Kingston is incredible and this is a virtuosos one man show, I just want a better dance partner. 

-Jericho ending his match with a great Lionsault and smug look to the camera is an awesome way to end a match a week after bouncing his head off the mat on a Lionsault. It's petty, but it was the right move. I liked the tag, liked that MJF is getting better at being a stooge heel, better at stooge heel bumping. Pillman and Garrison had good fire even though a bunch of their offense didn't look great (Pillman has weirdly been throwing a lot of his dropkicks over the shoulder just past his opponent, often enough that it has to be intentional), but I liked it. 

-Segment went way too long, but I liked Arn's promo, understanding that Cody's head wasn't all in the ring, focusing on the importance of his baby. It will probably end up feeling like a dumb thing to construct an angle around, don't think most within the feud have the acting chops to pull off that kind of family drama, but Arn is one of them. Arn's promo up here, segment as a whole down there. 

-Baker/Shanna is another match that felt too long, but it's the best I've seen Shanna look. She was on Dynamite in a couple longish matches a year ago and looked completely out of place. She whipped herself over on suplexes really well, missed a gnarly low dropkick that landed her hard on the bottom rope, and really I liked how she took all of Baker's offense. I even liked her jumping stunner! Baker had an awesome crossface chickenwing that looked like she was trying to misalign Shanna's jaw, and I think that viciousness throughout the match was more important than showing the ways Shanna has improved on Dark. Baker has a big match with Thunder Rosa coming up. She shouldn't be taking close 2 counts against Shanna. 

-Truthfully, I didn't pay a ton of attention to the main event. But John Silver really stood out above all the rest, a guy who has really been justifying his increased TV time and has been working like he's having the time of his life. That kind of thing is infectious. 

What Didn't Work

-I hate how Adam Page works his showcase "squash" matches. I mean it's kind of cool that a guy who washed out of WWF developmental could get a chance to show off his 2013 WWF offense for an extended TV look, but it's also kind of weird. Another thing I don't understand is him keeping his rope flip clothesline as his finisher. In this match alone he hit two clotheslines BETTER than his finisher, including one where he just brick walls Ryan Nemeth. If Page dropped the rest of his frilly shit, he's not far from being a guy I'm interested in seeing. 

-Feels rude to put Harwood/Jungle Boy down here but this went twice as long as it should have. I think things would have been just as effective as a normal match, and I thought the extended finishing run did them no favors. Jungle Boy worked a long fast home stretch segment without really missing a beat, but my problem with it was that it felt like a guy focusing on not missing a beat. He didn't look like a guy who had taken a pretty body tenderizing beating from Harwood, he looked like a guy keeping his steps straight. I really really liked everything up past Harwood's awesome slingshot sitout powerbomb, but once things went into overdrive I was ready for it to end at any point for several minutes. JB showed me some neat things in the first half, like I noticed how he was really sliding for Harwood's ankles on a dropdown, attention to basics showing how he's improving. Harwood ran into him hard a few times, and this felt like a really good Bret/Waltman tribute match. But then things shifted pace and it just felt like the exact same kind of match we get a couple times a week on AEW. The thousand yard stare on Jungle Boy's face, not thinking a lick of the beating he took, and practically mouthing the beats as he thinks about how to properly roll out of the kickout to the next spot, is the stuff I hate. 

Read more!

AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 12/9/20

What Worked

-I wasn't really feeling the Bucks/Hybrid2 match, but the more ridiculous shit got kicked out of, the more I got into it. If you're gonna get crazy with it, get crazy with it. If you're going to indulge, indulge. This blew several minutes past where I assumed it was going to end, and that somehow wound up working in favor of the match. I don't love Nick Jackson's superkick as a finisher, but I love it as a cut off spot, and there were some great cut off kicks here. My favorite spot of the match was Evans missing the Angelico-assisted 450, and basically landing face first into a superkick. When the timing is that tight, it's such a great looking spot. The whole match felt like it was Jack Evans kicking out of one Bucks finisher after the other, then getting up two seconds later to hit another crazy flip, and that's the kind of BS I can get into. If you're going to have a bunch of kickouts, just go for it and through everything else out the window. That's what they did, that's why it worked. 

-The match itself was a little messy, but how could I not get behind FTR beating the hell out of Brian Pillman Jr.? Dax especially seemed to really be going after him, and it looked awesome. I loved Cash baiting Griff Garrison around the ring and back into being stopped by the ref, allowing them to hit a great Demolition Decapitation on Pillman. Dax's chops and elbows really sang off Pillman's body, and I like the way the tag was worked as a real hierarchy tag. Varsity Blondes have won a few matches on Dark, get their shot on Dynamite, get mostly run over by FTR. Having that kind of slow progress is a really satisfying way to present wrestling for me, feels similar to working Kings Road guys up the card. Pillman got to land a really great punch on Dax on the floor, and I love how Dax sold it like his orbital bone just got hit with a wrench. 

-Dustin took a big bump off the apron and hit a nice bulldog finish on Ten, though any time Dustin is on TV I think he should get at least 4 minutes. Dustin is a smart enough worker to have a special 4 minute match, anything shorter than that feels like a waste of bullets. They also managed to make a couple jokes about his Seven gimmick while avoiding a "we know what THAT means" wink, with Tony hitting the right tone with his "well he doesn't want to go by THAT number".

-Abadon looked like a real savage murdering Tesha Price with elbows in the corner and an awesome stranglehold STO. I don't know what she'll look like in a full match, but her squash work has been compelling. 

What Didn't Work

-I still don't know what to expect from Sting in AEW, and I'm not really excited for whatever it might be. I've never been a big Sting guy (nothing personal, just didn't have cable growing up so child me had no idea who Sting even was), and I can't imagine becoming a Sting guy now that he is in his 60s. 

-I kind of want someone new to throw a glass of water into Shaq's face every couple weeks, never actually leading to any kind of match, only used as a way to get a bunch of different comical dripping Shaq reaction faces. That, or I want a Shaq/Brandi street fight. 

-It feels like a crime to put an Eddie Kingston match down below, but that trios match had too much awkward miscommunication. Fenix looked bad, and honestly he hasn't looked very good ever since that awful match against his brother where he got dropped on his head. The camera caught him missing an early kick on Blade by nearly two feet, and his performance didn't get better. Butcher and Blade (mainly Butcher) were not going to be the ones to help him get back on the page, and Fenix/Butcher got hung up on a time stand still loop, trapped in a Rainmaker set up for way too long, neither sure who was supposed to turn around. At one point it looked like Kingston was trying to set up a blind tag to Butcher and Blade, but both of them just stood on the apron while Kingston yelled at them repeatedly to get in the ring, before he just went back to beating on Fenix himself. The only good from this match came from Kingston himself, since Butcher and Blade didn't seem to understand that they were supposed to be cutting off the ring. Kingston's beatdown on Fenix looked good, and I dug the way he took a beating from Lance Archer, while also doing stuff like holding onto Archer's leg from the mat, to keep him close. He took a clunky headscissors from Fenix, and sadly couldn't do much to catch a Fenix tope con hilo as Fenix landed short. The match finishing powerbomb/neckbreaker on Fenix looked intentionally gentle, possibly because his short tope con hilo landed him harder on the back of his neck than this finish would have. Maybe it would be a good idea for Fenix to not wrestle for awhile? 

-I am in the MJF in ring > MJF mic (but I mean that as a compliment, not the I suppose obvious take that it is), but this MJF/Orange Cassidy match was not good. There was a lot of work based around Cassidy's hand, which gets instantly forgotten once it's time for Cassidy's comeback, but - this will surprise you - comes back for one spot and one spot only and this hand that injured hand that was not even acknowledged for several minutes was now suddenly sold more than it had been sold in any other part of the match. Cassidy was good at taking MJF's offense, and MJF was especially good at feeding Cassidy's comeback, really leaning into everything and planting himself on all things that required it. Sadly, the best part of the match was probably the locker room babyfaces emptying out to cheer Orange on, but it all happened during the commercial break. That kind of noise would have been cool to hear. 

Read more!

Eddie Kingston's Rude Ass Carries Three Weapons, He'll Give Your Face a C-Section and Keep Stepping

Eddie Kingston just main evented a PPV that got a lot of buzz, and it felt like a good time to find any Kingston AEW matches we hadn't yet watched and review them, for the purpose of science. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Lee Johnson AEW Dark 9/8/20 - FUN

PAS: This was Eddie's first singles match post being signed, and he methodically worked over Johnson, gave him his one run of offense and then finished him with a running knee and backfist. Johnson's had the least impressive offense run of all the guys Kingston squashed, but he did seem to move well, and took a solid beating from the King. 

ER: Kingston is a guy who fights from underneath so often in his matches that it's cool to see how he works shorter squash matches. He's really punishing with hard chops and a cool delayed high crotch lift suplex, but then runs temple first into a back elbow and jaw first into a boot, and it's cool that even in a one sided match he plausibly worked in Johnson hitting a blue thunder bomb. I dig how much of a comeback he's given to the kitchen sink. He's been using that low running knee to set up the backfist. In a promotion where Omega does 6+ running knees to the face in every one of his matches, Kingston has shown the value of one expertly timed knee to the breadbasket. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Brian Pillman Jr. AEW Dark 9/22/20 - GREAT

PAS: This ruled, unlike the other AEW Dark matches, this was back and forth and competitive, and Kingston is a master at the Tenryu style beat a rookie into looking great matches. Pillman gets in all of his spots and has a bunch of moments, but Kingston is fully kicking his ass throughout. I loved Pillman firing with a bunch of huge overhand and traditional chops and Kingston responding with line crossing slaps to the ear and face. At one point Pillman lights him up, turns his back to celebrate and Eddie half clotheslines and half punches him in the back of the head.  Kingston used the running knee to the stomach as a set up for the backfist in all of these matches and this was the nastiest, I thought Pillman might puke blood.  BPJ looks so much like his dad in his movements, this at times felt like a time machine match. Man, a Brian Pillman Sr. versus Kingston feud would have been incredible. 

ER: Damn have we seen Kingston in the sleeveless Mad King duster and rosary beads before? He's like a character in a Robert Rodriguez movie. I thought this was great. This felt like if WCW had given us Dick Murdoch vs. Brian Pillman in 1991. Kingston gave Pillman such a hard beating that at one point Tazz broke and just started laughing, saying that Pillman must owe Kingston money. Any time you get an announcer to genuinely break character to marvel at the violence it's always memorable violence. Pillman really does take a beating in this match, a real sit up and take notice Kingston beating. He kicks Pillman in the back, lands heavy chops, and then really steps it up with a thunking downward strike clubbing arm to the back. He throws a few of those clubbing downward shots and every one of them looks and sounds painful. 

Kingston also has the kind of excellent, honest selling that keeps brawls interesting and avoids ever feeling same-y. He doesn't react the same to every shot, he really tailors his reaction to a specific strike. Pillman hits him with a weak overhand chop at one point and within a split second of it landing light he was already shaking his head and asking him to re-do it. Most strike exchanges are sold by selling each shot by guessing ahead of time how hard it will be. Kingston's candid selling gives this really one sided brawl a great energy, and makes Pillman's comeback feel like a big deal. Pillman gets a great nearfall off a nasty inverted driver, and Kingston had this dirt off shoulder way of dealing with Pillman. He hits this intentionally sloppy bodyslam, just scooping and dropping Pillman, drops him fast and low with a hotshot on the guardrail, and late in the match hits an all time great uranage. The kitchen sink used at the end of this match is one of the best running knees I've seen. It was a straight running shot right below the bellybutton, not a running blow with the leg held out to the side. He just runs knee first into Pillman's stomach, like a knee to the balls that went high. Is AEW Dark harboring a bunch of under the radar beatings like this one? 

Eddie Kingston vs. M'Badu AEW Dark 10/6/20 - FUN

PAS: Short squash, but nifty stuff. M'Badu is a big jacked guy listed from Nigeria, he had a good look and nice height on his Stinger splash. Mostly Kingston taking it to him though, and ending the match with a backfist and a kimura. Kingston gets on the mic and calls out Moxley, and says he will make him say I Quit with the Kimura like his buddy Josh Barnett. Certainly served it purpose, although a squash is a squash.

ER: This accomplished as much as a squash match could accomplish, and AEW is smart using some larger guys in squash matches and not just making it established guys running over juniors. I wouldn't mind seeing more M'Badu, and squash match Kingston is really good at giving guys one big spot (here an awesome rotating M'Badu powerslam). This finished with King's tried and true kitchen sink > spinning backfist, but I loved the wrinkle of him lifting M'Badu for before 3 and locking in a nasty kimura for the tap, looking into the camera while doing it. Heels need to make crazed faces while locking in a finishing sub, bring that Backlund chicken wing energy. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Baron Black AWE Dark 10/13/20 - FUN

PAS: Another squash match, which sees Kington end it with a really great looking backfist and front chancery choke. Black gets one Exploder and a spinning clothesline which looked OK, although I wasn't a fan of his chops. This was a 3 minute match which got it's point across. They must have a deal with Mr. Hughes' school or something, because they have a ton of black job guys but hardly any black people on the actual roster. I mean Eddie beat as many different black wrestlers on AEW Dark than are on the whole main roster. 

ER: Going through all of the AEW Dark Kingston matches is the first time I've watched any AEW Dark, and I didn't realize the show got its name because all of the job guys are black. I liked Black's spinning lariat/Exploder combo (the guy has a really strong Exploder), and while his strap takedown could use some work it's a good sign that he at least incorporates a strap takedown. This match continues the cool trend of a King kitchen sink/backfist combo (this was one of his best backfists too), then locking in a sub for the actual finish. Establishing Kingston as a guy with several ways to finish a match, not just a guy who needs to focus on the backfist. His standing front chancery choke looked sick, great finishing sub. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Matt Sydal AEW Dynamite 10/28/20 - GREAT

ER: I really liked this. I loved the looks of it on paper and thought it delivered in a bunch of cool ways. I wasn't sure if they had a singles match before (apparently they had one in 2005, anyone know if it's cool?) but they matched up great. Kingston starts us off with an effortless promo, calling out wrestlers at ringside, making inside jokes with sly grins at the camera, really the only guy who can do that kind of stuff and not have it come off like some dumb shooty shoot comments. Kingston is so great at being flustered by Sydal's speed, throwing clotheslines over his head, leaning cheek first into a great solebutt, staggering excellently into position for a hard dropkick; that Chikara background has always made him a compelling worker against speed guys (but really, is there anyone he is not compelling against?). I really loved Sydal's cradle and backslide variations. Sydal really moved around Kingston's body with grace, especially love when he slipped around out of a headlock and swung into a grounded crucifix. Kingston basically had only chops and elbows to work with, and the way he worked made it feel like something could end quickly if he just got Sydal's timing down. Sydal stayed ahead of him, got him on wobbly legs, flipped him off the top with a headscissors, almost took him out with knees. Kingston could not keep up, until I saw it in his face right when he was going to turn things. He missed a clothesline that almost seemed intentional and then knows right when to catch Sydal with a low knee and then locks on that bully choke for the tap. The bully choke is a great finish, really does feel like something that would leverage an immediate tap. Kingston is so good at fighting from underneath against any type of opponent, that even though it felt like Sydal took a ton of this it always felt like Kingston just had to catch that timing. 

PAS: This was a really solid TV match, I thought it was a step below the Pillman match, but not a giant step. I agree with Eric about how smooth Sydal is, he spins around Kingston's body like a breakdancer. I loved Kingston's wobbly leg sell of the high knee, and he has really developed that running knee to the gut/backfist as a television wrestler finishing combo. It is a nice adjustment to the change in his circumstances, he can use it to finish off the Baron Black's and Sydal's of the world, and it will make a great near fall in a bigger match. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

Read more!

AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 8/27/20

What Worked

-Gauntlet matches are always kind of hard to write about, just because sometimes I love individual matches within a gauntlet, but you really have to talk about them as an entire segment. Overall, I think this match worked. It feels light to have only 4 teams in a gauntlet, and I have no idea how the order of entrants was chosen. Dustin/QT vs. the Bucks was solid, and any show that opens with Dustin (and, honestly, QT) is a good one. They work well together as a team, and I like QT as the Clear Weak Link in any match he's in. Dustin bumps generously for the Bucks (Dustin taking a huge hiptoss bump looked like me taking a hip toss from a 5 year old) and gets to show off as the fastest guy in the match, but also the strongest guy in the match (love that whipping powerslam). The double superkick after QT missed his silly handspring to nothing was timed really great. Bucks vs. Best Friends was better than anticipated, and it played as an extended run of Bucks offense (which is better than an extended run of Chuck Taylor offense). Trent eating a nice superkick and German suplex 1-2 on the apron looked good. The Hangman Page interference finish was weird and I don't want to have to follow these guys on social media or watch their different web shows to see why good buddies might be cranky with each other, but it came off stupid. FTR have underdelivered in AEW so far, and JR's commentary during their matches is unbearable. He always acts like he's saying something profound when he says "you know these guys remind me of an old school tag team" as if that hasn't been their one gimmick for the past 5 years. "You know, Kenny Omega always reminds me of some weeb geek who tugs it to anime." Yeah, no shit. But Cash hits a great snap vertical suplex on the floor to take out Trent, and Dax takes out Chuck's knee, so I am totally fine with this.

-Lance Archer would still be WAY more interesting if he was just limited to backstage assaults on nameless ring boys, but Sean Maluta really made the most of his squash debut and got big height on his bumps. Loved how Maluta flew on suplexes, and the height he got on the chokeslam put this up here.

-I don't know who did it, but I loved the GASP on commentary when MJF brought up Jon Moxley's hairline.

-8 man tag was fine, with the negatives talked about down below. Sonny Kiss looked really good, and as I pointed out after his less than stellar performance against Cody (which JR naturally deems AMAZING), he is a guy who really excels in frantic multiman tags. His stuff with Fenix was really electric (Fenix's rope work that lead to him getting knocked off, hanging his knee over the rope, looked real close to an injury), and I love the way Kiss darted around Butcher and Blade. The scouted  Matrix feint into a powerslam was a cool spot from Blade. Janela had a nice performance too, another guy who is improved just be being in a trios or 8 man. I liked the comedy gag he worked during picture in picture, taking leg kicks from Pentagon, no selling them, before collapsing in pain. He took a couple gnarly bumps, and his big bumps feel like a bigger part of the whole in a match like this (compared to his singles matches which have too many big bumps). Good match, would have rather seen Kingston wrestle than any of them.

-The Hardy/Sammy tables match ruled, and it's a real shame that it was somehow cut into by commercials. It's incredible how week after week they always manage to cut to commercials during actual big moments. I would have liked some more time in this match, felt like they ramped up to the kills pretty quickly. But at the same time I appreciated how they actually acknowledged within a match that going through a table is the only way to win, so they might as well go for that right away. It's a common stupid thing in wrestling to have a stipulation match where the participants work the first 5-10 minutes as if it were a normal match. Guys working armdrags in a first blood match, things immediately not breaking down in a no DQ match, it happens constantly. These men knew they had to put the other threw a damn table, and it was great. Sammy gets busted open, and they smartly take a couple of sick bumps through tables in ways that don't count. Sammy gets busted open (still nothing like that juice he got out of Hardy a couple weeks ago), flies through a table with a missed tope con hilo, Hardy misses an elbow through the table in painful fashion, Sammy gets stuck with a side effect on the apron, Hardy did a disgusting twist of fate while Sammy was wearing a chair around his neck, all of it looked great. This was a quick, violent, satisfyingly economical match.


What Didn't Work

-The commentary - JR in particular - always goes way over the top with comparisons, here comparing Lance Archer to Stan Hansen. JR is always the kid who cheats his way to an A+, not just staying out of sight with a B-. He always has to compare someone to the absolute best in wrestling history, and then you look up and see Archer hitting a so-so back elbow with his goober ass Burning Man braids flapping in the wind and it only makes me want to see Stan Hansen beat the shit out of him. Jericho fantasy books a 2020 Archer vs. 1976 Hansen match, and I wonder if Jericho has even seen 5 matches of 1976 Stan Hansen. What an odd year to pick for the guy.

-The balance is all off with MJF's promos. He's too smug to be stupid, but too stupid to know the right notes to hit. There's way too much school play villain and not enough believable villainy. He doesn't sound like he can think on his feet, as he never has a follow up when his opponent responds to one of his planned lines. I am genuinely curious what MJF has learned from watching Ernie Ladd tapes though, because that's not an inspiration that would have crossed my mind.

-Is Eddie Kingston the FIFTH MAN in a stable of Lucha Bros. and Butcher/Blade?? Seriously? Why sign Eddie Kingston so he can sit on the bench with a towel? He's not Jud Buechler. Plus, it's additionally stupid to have Kingston as the ringside mouthpiece, and then throw most of the match to picture in picture so we can't even hear Eddie Kingston. They constantly have wrestlers sit in on commentary, and Kingston would CRUSH commentary during these matches. It's like they signed him based on reasons that they immediately forgot. The wrestling in the 8 man was good enough, but you know what would have made it better? Eddie Kingston replacing literally anybody in the match.

-What happened here? Is Rebel/Reba supposed to be working a "not an actual wrestler, completely untrained to be in the ring" gimmick? Because she certainly convinced me. I can't remember the last time I've seen someone stumble around the ring that much, just getting in the way of absolutely everything. I can't blame Ford for much of this, even when she didn't look great, because it was always due to Rebal bumbling in where she didn't belong. Britt is a bright spot in AEW, and she could not save this.

Read more!

MLW Worth Watching: MJF! Pillman! Anoa'i! Reed!

One year ago, I was fully caught up on MLW TV, and then attended an MLW TV Taping that sucked such a life force out of me that I have not watched any MLW TV episodes since. I have nothing against them, I just got my one night fill and it kept me satiated for an entire year. But I'm going to pick up right where I left off and continue cherry picking and linking to my favorite stuff.


MJF vs. Brian Pillman Jr. MLW Fusion #53 4/4/19 (Aired 4/13/19)

ER: This was taped at the show Phil, TomK, and myself attended, but this was the match happening when we arrived so we missed almost all of it. Jim Cornette on commentary talks about how much he hates this city (NY) because it takes an hour and a half just to get across the street. Ain't that the truth, and us making the mistake of journeying into Brooklyn that night instead of just staying put in Jersey was a real hindsight regret. But I'm glad I watched this match eventually, because it's one of my favorites from both, and maybe my very favorite MJF performance. Early on Pillman misses a corner charge and rams his kinesio taped shoulder into the turnbuckles, leading to some fantastic bits of MJF attacking that arm. I'm not sure I've seen MJF go after anything as hard as he went after Pillman's arm here. He really bent it around, and Pillman's selling was good enough that even if MJF had only been doing cursory attacks it still would have come off well. But MJF took his time extending the arm, stomping it, standing on Pillman's wrist to open his hand and then stomp on his hand, and it kept getting meaner. He escalated to dropping knees on the arm, and my favorite thing in the match, MJF doing a freaking SENTON on the arm! Honestly MJF's senton was so good that he really should be using that in his actual offense, not limb specific offense that I haven't otherwise seen him use. But having unique offense depending on what kind of match you're working or what specific limb you're working is a trait that I LOVE when I see it, so MJF gets full credit from me. I used to not that about Mark Henry, how by 2006 (at least) he had different offense depending on the match he was working. Pillman's comebacks were good, and I like how he still sold his left arm while chopping with his right, smart enough to know that the momentum of throwing with your good side will still send shock waves through your bad side. The close roll-ups were done real well, and with a slightly better finish (one that didn't seem like a banana peel) this would have landed on our MOTY List.


Lance Anoa'i/Jimmy Yuta vs. Myron Reed/Rich Swann MLW Fusion #54 4/4/19 (Aired 4/13/19)

ER: I liked this one live last year, especially getting standing in the perfect spot to see the best angle on Myron Reed's great flying cutting from the rampway, but this held up better on second viewing than I would have remembered. Lance Anoa'i had a total superstar wrecking ball performance here that I don't remember being so explosive. I don't like Jimmy Yuta, so it was funny and kind of sad to hear Cornette kind of brutally trash his physique and conditioning on commentary. The opening Yuta/Reed pairing was a little dull, but the second it was Swann/Anoa'i the match got super fun. Anoa'i has a bunch of nice agile heavy landing spots, like his big moonsault or heavy dropkicks, but he took it over the top by doing a Samoan drop while doing a running dropkick. Cornette rightly flipped out for that. At the time the three of us wished we could have seen him as a heel tag team with Jacob Fatu. But here I really appreciated him as a heavyweight fiery babyface. He's already a really great hot tag, and his missed 450 splash was insane for a guy his size. I don't know why we weren't all more into it then. Swann was hitting hard with chops and Reed was taking high bumps with an especially nice backdrop. The Swann 450 kneedrop/Reed 450 1-2 is a great finisher for two guys who make them look good, and that Reed cutter from the ramp looked just as good today.

Read more!

Long Road Report to Hell 4/4/19, Show #3: MLW Rise of the Renegades

TKG: Bloodsport ends and we head into town for MLW. Originally this was scheduled to be LA Park v Rush and the thing I was most excited for. That wasn't happening. This was a long TV taping and had the real rhythm of a TV taping (angle followed by long showcase match, angle followed by long showcase match, angle followed by long showcase match ) and that rhythm eventually kills you. 

PAS: Hindsight is 20/20, but we probably should have just gotten a good dinner somewhere, rather then two long, expensive Uber rides into the city for this show. When we got these tickets we thought we were out of luck for Bloodsport and didn't want to fly to NYC for two shows, once we got Bloodsport tickets this became a mistake

ER: This show sounded like an excellent idea at the time. We had a gigantic gap in our schedule due to Bloodsport selling out sooner than we anticipated, and wanted to fill it with wrestling. WWN tickets at the same time were like $80, MLW tickets were $20. Easy choice was easy. In hindsight though we should have just had dinner and then rolled the dice on whatever was playing at White Eagle. Getting to Queens and back was a nightmare, and MLW didn't really book any interesting on paper match-ups. MLW has a several guys I really like, and they were all matched up against guys I don't care about. So we drive into the city and it's weird because in California the uber drivers never shut up. You go to the airport and you know you're going to be talking about the new elimination diet your food-allergic driver is starting for the duration of the fare. In NY they're nearly completely silent, so this driver had to listen to us talk about the tremendous hit our music collection will take if we were to cancel 60s rockers the way we easily cancel guys like Ryan Adams today when we find out what scummy dudes they are. Wrestling too. Tom talks about how many different musicians beat up Tammi Terrell. And soon, the talk turned to Ferriday, Louisiana and Jerry Lee Lewis. Phil talks about how Jerry Lee essentially killed two wives, with a "Ferriday's Most Famous Son" police report saying the women died from falling down and hitting their head too many times. Then Tom tells an incredible story about early 90s Jerry Lee tax troubles, and how he had a 900 number grift that Tom actually called, and to milk the time of the call Jerry Lee had *known stutterer* Mel Tillis doing the call intros!! Our driver sat in silence as Tom went into an extended "Now if-a you'd like to he-he-he-hea-hear Jerry Lee tell a story about E-e-e-el-ell-elvis then press 1, and uh if-a you'd..." I was in stitches. Phil tipped the driver handsomely.

Brian Pillman Jr. vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman

TKG: Maxwell Jacob Friedman? Not Maxwell Jacob Goldstein? It was MJF and not MJG? We must have watched 30 matches of his and no one corrected me all the times I yelled “Don’t want drama, don’t want none” and “Hey 8ball says your mouth says no but your body says stick me”?

PAS: We came in during this match and headed to the bathroom and got situated, so weren't fully settled and focused on this. Both guys are fine, but this was mostly a set up for the six man later in the show. Pillman does look exactly like his father and I am happy to have a Pillman back in my life.

ER: We got there a little late and missed an Ariel Dominguez match which is a drag. He's a fun tiny babyface underdog in a gi. And like Dominguez, Pillman is a guy I like, who I haven't actually seen in a match I really like. This seemed to have a nice pace but as Phil said, we showed up as it was starting, used the restroom, found a place to stand (and I went over and pet Mr. Velvet in between peeing and finding a spot), so I only caught glances until the finish.

Jacob Fatu vs. Barrington Hughes

TKG: Fatu, Samuel, and Simon Grimm are working some kind of paper bag passing international brown solidarity heel team gimmick. MLW likes to use vintage managers and semi disappointed that Armand Hussein isn’t out explaining this. Is Armand Hussein still alive? 2019 Arman Hussein would be awesome ridiculous move. Fatu squashes the huge Barrington Hughes and the heel team bury him under either a balaclava or their team flag. Hughes is super obese guy from Florida so him getting knocked down is always scary.

PAS: Fatu is really explosive and fun to watch. No idea why they would fly in Hughes from Florida just to get squashed a couple of times, that guy is two airplane seats minimum, you might need to buy him a whole row. They are really burning through that venture capital cash in dumb ways.

ER: I got excited for Fatu's music as he's a Bay Area guy who had big early impact and clearly looked like a guy who would get national opportunities. He also had a great match against Boyce Legrande which was arguably my favorite match for Phoenix Pro Wrestling, the local group Tim Livingston and I do commentary for. And then the Caramel Colossus comes out and I'm stoked for a BIG big boy battle. But since it's a Hughes match, it only goes 1 minute. Hughes has really only worked 1 minute matches for MLW (other than their bad WarGames match) so I knew it would be too flukey that I would be there live for his first actual match. Jesus, give me 4 minutes of this dude working a tubby match and I'll get it on our list. Little did I know that we'd be seeing like 7 segments of Hughes getting jumped by Fatu's stable throughout the night. Phil and I were dying the next day talking about MLW buying 3 airplane tickets to fly Hughes up to just get jumped by Fatu's gang. I mean Hughes is gigantic, gigantic enough that you not only have to buy him 3 tickets, but they have to be tickets in an extra leg room seat, which can cost considerably more than other tickets. Just a wild use of $$ there. We saw so many obese dudes get jumped by Fatu's gang by the end of our time at MLW. It got absurd. I would have cried laughing if Hughes had shown up at the late night AIW show just to get jumped and rolled over slowly with kicks. Would have made me even more of a fan.

Rey Horus vs. Ace Austin

TKG: This was a long long showcase match. I think Ace Austin is working a “close up magic” gimmick and does lots of stuff built out of headstands. First juniors exchanges were fine and felt like they could have had a fun lightning match but then they try to a strike exchange section, and a throws section and a mask removal section and a finisher exchange section. This felt like had way more sections than needed and no one had any idea of how to move from one to the next.

PAS: This was a long singles match from two guys who clearly can't put together a long singles match. Maybe if either guy was with a veteran who could control the match and work around their spots it might have been OK, but we didn't have that guy and it suffered.

ER: This match felt so long. Starting from the time we walked to breakfast, we'd already been up and about for 9+ hours, and this thing was long enough that I assumed they were going to Mordor. Horus is good with a base like Steve Pain or flying in for trios spots, but god I did not need to see 20 minutes of him working on material. Austin is a guy I haven't seen much of, and then oddly saw the next day on the subway taking up a seat while women were standing, and he had some fun material and some unique body movement, but his shtick didn't work in an epic singles. The match already felt long when Phil managed to have enough time to get in four different and spaced out "How long IS this match?" riffs. The best was "How is Rey Horus vs. Ace Austin going to be the longest match we see this weekend!?"

Low Ki/Ricky Martinez vs. Mr Grim/Hollywood ?

TKG: I think this was Ki and Martinez v Grim and maybe Hollywood Shuffle. Guy had Hollywood on his pants and he was beaten into realizing that there is always work at the post office. I was pretty sure his name was Hollywood Shuffle but also thought MJF was MJG. Of the squashes on the show this was best as Ki squashes are always going to be nasty. They do a post match angle with the Fatu, Samuel Simon team burying Ki under cloth.

PAS: I think this might have been Ki turning face, as he was arguing with Salena De La Renta coming down the aisle and it looked like Ricky Martinez abandoned him before the Contra beatdown. Hard to turn someone face after this brutal of a beatdown. Ki ko's Grim with the first blow and ends up opening up Hollywood's jaw so he could break it with a punch. It seems like Ki's MLW run is based around his unprofessional rep, and he KO's Grim like he was Mace Mendoza or Elax. This was fun, but man what a waste of Ki, I kept hoping they would announce a cool Ki match, and when they didn't I was hoping for a surprise Ki match, and instead we just got a fun squash.

ER: Love Tom going for a "There's always work at the post office" joke. He didn't do that while we were watching the show. He sat on that one so as not to risk either of us stealing his Hollywood Shuffle joke even though Phil and I are going to be the two people who would have laughed at a Hollywood Shuffle joke. And I knew they were going to screw us like this. Segunda Caida might be the collective biggest Low-Ki fans in the world. We've probably brought more attention to the Low-Ki/Rey Mysterio match than JAPW brought to the Low-Ki/Rey Mysterio match. But the whole time leading up to the event, matches with everyone else kept being announced, and Low-Ki kept being announced as merely "appearing". We all knew that meant we'd get a 3 minute Low-Ki squash and not a Low-Ki match for our list. We can't have nice things from MLW. Luckily Low-Ki is a great guy to beat up a couple no names in a squash, you know he's not going to finish the match without at least a couple noteworthy moments. Here his double stomp landed so hard my stomach hurt (although my stomach also had two IPAs and a heavy mac and cheese still hanging out in it so...). Bummed we only got like 2 minutes of Salina De La Renta, too. She's my favorite manager in wrestling today, and I was excited to see how she works the crowd live when the cameras aren't on her. Sadly I saw barely any of her.

Myron Reed/Rich Swann vs. Jimmy Yuta/Lance Anoa'i

TKG: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Reed before but really liked him as cocky guy who wants to hit his stuff on opponents and runs away from getting hit.

PAS: This was pretty good. Reed and Swann seem to be work a heel Black Lives Matter gimmick which is problematic, but they were a fun heel team, cutting off both faces and feeding their comebacks well. Anoa'i seems kind of superfluous in a fed pushing Jacob Fatu so hard if they aren't going to be teaming or feuding.

ER: I've really liked all of the Reed matches that have been on MLW. He brings a lot to job work, getting the best matches in MLW out of guys like DJZ and Kotto Brazil. Swann kind of has a natural smugness to him, can't really put my finger on it, but always felt he would work much better as a heel (and he does), so this is a heel team with a ton of potential. Here he's an overlooked heel who now uses what had been used as flashy babyface comeback offense (like all of his awesome cutter variations that he would hit as a dramatic "3 point tying shot") as awesome sneak attack cheap shot flashy offense. He literally ran in at one point with a match turning cutter from the entrance ramp, and it looked even more spectacular as we were standing in the corner to the side of the ramp, so we couldn't see his starting point. We just saw Reed suddenly bursting into frame with a great cutter. I agree with Phil that it's weird having Anoa'i as a semi featured role while Fatu is getting a major heel role. It's like they purposely wanted to avoid teaming up the Samoan guys but really Anoa'i would be more effective as a monster Samoan in that angle than teaming with a dud like Yuta.

Minoru Tanaka vs. Daga

TKG: This was my favorite match on the show. These are two guys who know how to put together a complete singles lucharesu match, know how to put the lucha in the puroresu, know how to put the puroresu in the lucha, understood lucha in a real traditional sense, and understood the puroresu style before all of the Choshu and ”shoot” Inokiism was stripped from it. Really felt like a complete match where transitions between the mat work, strikes, and dives and back all made sense, didn’t feel like they were just done to check off boxes. And everything done on high, high level. Felt like it needed some type of stakes instead of just being two guys thrown together to give it some sort of added meaning. Like a championship, or if this was part of the MSG G1 show (people would have praised this highly if it were on MSG show). Best match on show but still thought it was weird match to throw money at….I don’t know. Also possibility that overrating it as response to Rey v Austin match.

PAS: I thought this was good, although I think I liked it less then Tom. Daga is a guy who is inspired by people inspired by Minoru Tanaka so there was nice synergy in the match up. Tanaka is pretty low on the list of BattlArts alumni I would be excited to see live, but he still can throw out some tricked out counters and submission attempts. This was also pretty stiff, although with added leg slaps. I agree it felt a little exhibition-y, but its shining competence was really needed at this point of the show. 

ER: Tom's enthusiasm helped me get into this one more. I think he was so insulted by the Avengers length Austin/Horus match, really Daga is a not as good Minoru Tanaka, and on the car ride back to White Eagle we talked about BattlArts alumni we'd want to see live less than Tanaka. Came up with junji.com, probably Mohammed Yone, consider Viktor Krueger but decide it would be cool to say you saw Viktor Krueger live, and maybe Tsubo Genjin. But Tanaka was a major part of my 2000-2001 wrestling fandom, a guy I actively sought out and remember being super excited for his first CMLL tour as Heat (which was disappointing and in retrospect the beginning of me drifting away from him as a worker), and that still means something to me. He was a real pro here and it was cool to see how hard even the lesser BattlArts guys hit in a live setting. You see guys like Rey Horus or MJF and then you see Tanaka throw a sidekick to Daga's chest and you're like "oh right, the BattlArts." This was a really fun match and felt like it was at a good spot on the taping, which I can't say for a lot of other things. Daga hit a great dive at one point and Tanaka really hurled himself into the railing off it, probably the best dive we saw at this show. Some of this really isn't my style of choice anymore, but it was a nicely done version of that match.

Dynasty (Alexander Hammerstone/Maxwell Jacob Friedman/Richard Holliday) vs. The Hart Foundation (Brian Pillman Jr./Davey Boy Smith Jr./Teddy Hart)

TKG: Is this the first time I’ve seen Teddy Hart live? This can’t be the first time I’ve seen Teddy Hart live? He comes across as a giant fucking bigger than life character in person wearing insane sparkles carrying his Persian aloft. A star from a different universe than our world cotidiano. Pre-match me and Phil bet on how many moonsaults he will do and when in match he would fake a knee injury. He only did two moonsaults but both done in the thrown out way only he does them, and he tweaks his arm near the end and angrily works at restoring feeling in hand, popping arm back into place. Anyways, superstar. Pillman had an injury angle early in the show and so match started 2 on 3 with Pillman eventually running in to make injured guy comeback save. This was at its best when Hart Foundation were kind of working as walking tall babyfaces in a tables match. Hammerstone I thought was amusing as heel powerhouse who just isn't as strong as face powerhouse. Him being challenged into dueling delayed vertical suplexes with Davey Boy Smith really got that whole thing over.

PAS: This was my favorite match of the show. Hart and Davey Boy work the first part of the match like Teddy Hart vs. Homicide with Teddy in the role of Homicide. They bumped all three heels around the ring with super stiff shots and for a while it looked like a fun squash match. The Dynasty got some big comebacks and Teddy took some big bumps. The spot where Hart hit a Doomsday Destroyer while leaping off the back of Hammerstone was maybe the craziest spot we saw all day, and we saw some crazy shit. Enjoyed this thoroughly, and Teddy is pretty much a must see guy at this point, really wish he worked Bloodsport.

ER: This was definitely my favorite match of the show. We were all pretty much in awe of Teddy Hart. The guy is a total megastar. He looks like if Colin Farrell had a hip hop producer role in Spring Breakers, coming out in a spectacular turquoise and purple glittery sequined jogging suit with matching tank, leaving him and the ring covered in glitter (which has been a theme of our day that Bloodsport sadly didn't honor). He was carrying Mr. Velvet - which is weird to see live and comes off borderline cruel - but we did get to see him placed on the turnbuckle and I'm sorry but that's cute. This was a really action packed garbage brawl with Teddy throwing the best punches in wrestling today, fans making fun of Hammerstone for looking like Jericho (although at least looking better than current Jericho), Davey Boy looked like a great powerhouse opposite him, we got a cool Pillman triumphant run-in, MJF did an actual funny spot when Holliday called for a tandem suplex and MJF had a great facial reaction that said "Man I'd rather not, my neck is still dead from an earlier bump" and the delay caused him to get suplexed. The ringside brawling was really intense, and Teddy did a bunch of great "popping my arm back into the socket" material right in front of us, into the barricade. The match was a tables match that didn't waste a bunch of time on table set up and didn't waste time teasing a bunch of table spots. They set up one table, and had a cool finish through it. Excited to see how this plays on TV.

Josef Samael vs. Ace Romero

TKG: I looked it up and sadly Armand Hussein has passed. I kind of liked Allen Martin as a manager. Is Allen Martin still alive? 2019 Allen Martin managed Contra would be an awesome ridiculous move. Samuel has heel Persian boots with exaggerated hooks on toe making him kicking an obese man low seem like he might get under the pannus to do some real damage.

PAS: Barrington ambled out to make the save and got beaten down for a second time, and this Contra war on the obese continued, really felt like they should have booked Simon Grimm vs. Fallah Bah or Big Slam Vader for continuities sake.

ER: We were trying to come up with more obese guys they can bring in, which highlighted the dearth of big fat guys on the indies right now. I like Romero a lot but this was more fat guys getting rolled over slowly with group kicks. I did enjoy my conversation with Tom about how a kick to Romero's groin would have no effect due to how his belly hung low enough to cover his genitals. Tom - without missing a beat - explained the physics of Samael's effective hooked boots ball kicking.

Gringo Loco vs. Puma King

TKG: This was true lucha and I will always take lucha over lucharesu. But this was lightning match lucha…and I could’ve watched it go on for another ten minutes happily. Gringo Loco’s hair was the most spectacular hair on a weekend of spectacular hair.

PAS: This had a couple of moments of real transcendence,  Loco is a elite level Lucha base, and they had some really great fast exchanges. When it got away from that into more extended runs of offense for either guy it got less special, still it had those moments. Loco is a long time favorite of mine and I was excited to see him live.

ER: Glad I finally got to see Gringo live. He's a favorite of the blog and a real artist, reminds me of watching Skayde matches for the first time. He'll throw in some World of Sport style handsprings but break out one of a few different headscissor variations, a cool cross ring cutter, can do great dives and catch dives great, and yes Tom is correct that his Mania week hair was spectacular. Crowd was a little tired so Puma's shtick didn't work as well as it typically does, but I thought this match was a nice pace and should also play well on TV.

Mance Warner vs. Sami Callihan 

TKG: These two work a two disgusting guys brawling indifferent to ref who DQs them early. Lots of spitting and snot rockets early. Kind of like imagine a Joel Goodhart booked Henry O Godwin v. Bastion Booger brawl. Holy fuck how awesome would Mark Cantebury v. Mike Shaw for Goodhart have been? Aww fuck. Back to actual match in front of us. Warner and Callihan beat each other around ring. Pretty early in the match they do the wearing chairs like necklace spots that I thought dragged down the Jay v Parnell match. After bitching about those spots earlier, those spots worked surprisingly well for me here, some of that is when in match they were used and some of it is these guys are playing such cartoonish caricatures that them obliviously not taking chairs off their necks works. Would Bastion Booger or Henry O Godwin prioritize taking a chair off their neck? No, of course not. Why would they? Two guys who wanted to beat each other up.

PAS: This was a day in which we watched a lot of brawling, this was solid violent stuff, but was overshadowed in my mind by the violence proceeding it, and the horrific stuff still to come. Callihan and Warner both bring a bunch of energy to what they do, and the execution was fun. Finish with the Hijo de La Park and Martinez run in, and crazy guy team up, served its purpose, but the whole match felt a little like they were working towards a run in.

ER: This was the kind of match that played great live and up close. They guys spent most of the match on the floor and when these two are on the floor somebody is going to get hit hard. They brawled over near us a bunch and the shots look so much meaner 7 feet away that through a TV screen. Seeing hard chops to the throat live is just cooler, and we got the added bonus of them trying to wrap beer cans around each other's head. The spitting stuff is gross, but damn hitting a guy in the side of the head with the EDGE of a beer can looks like it would instantly bust someone open. These guys really hit heard and Mancer is a cool MLW addition. The stuff around a chair was really nasty, and we get a ridiculous moment of a tombstone piledriver through a chair that had been set up. It got a 2 count, and this marks the first - but not last - time of the day we would see a piledriver through a chair get only a 2 count. Still, match was a fine asskicking.

TKG: Airwolf v Rey Fenix starts and we decide that we don't want to miss the AIW opener, so we pour one out for Jan Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine and leave.

ER: I make a "manager as Alex Cord with an eyepatch" joke but it gets minimal reaction. I silently assure myself that nobody heard it and that's why it got no reaction.

PAS: This show ran really long which was kind of a bummer, we came to see LA Park, and didn't get that chance, but I didn't want to miss any of the AIW show and we really made the right choice.

Read more!

MLW Worth Watching: Yehi! Holliday! Hart Foundation! Stud Stable! PCO! King!

Fred Yehi vs. Richard Holliday  MLW Fusion #21 7/19 (Aired 9/7/18)

ER: This works as both a cool showcase for Yehi, and a nice introduction to Holliday, of whom I know nothing about. Yehi doesn't squash him but never feels in trouble, and Holliday has a nice undeserved smugness to him, like a guy who would make sense teaming with MJF but taking all the pinfalls; a good entitled stooge. Yehi blocks a lot of his shots in fun ways, hits a hard shoulderblock, stomps his hand, does a couple leg sweeps that nobody else does, the kind of stuff you want to see Yehi doing. Holliday bumped around and acted perplexed by all of it, but still nicely worked in a couple pieces of offense; I really liked Yehi grabbing him with the trapped arm kicks to the chest and pushing him off, put Holliday blazing back off the ropes with an elbow. Holliday showed his egotistical charisma while clearly on the losing end, and I love a big mouthed jobber. Yehi grabs that Koji Clutch and Holliday starts tapping the second Yehi starts throwing shots. Nice touch.

The New Hart Foundation vs. The Stud Stable  MLW Fusion #23 9/6 (Aired 9/21/18)

ER: I would have liked to see this twice as long, but what we got was as good as I hoped it would be. Teddy Hart has been so great everywhere he's turned up this year, that right hand is just lighting everyone up. Pillman is green as hell but a good lackey for Davey Boy and Teddy, and I dug them basically using him as a way to distract Parrow, basically throwing him to the wolves so they can get in their licks. Parrow took a nice Nestea plunge bump off the apron into the Blondes and Hart hit a huge moonsault off the top onto all of them on the floor. Both Blondes take big suplexes well for big dudes (and Patrick takes a brutal Saito suplex from Davey) and they both throw out some nice offense. I'll pretty much be completely in the boat (is that a phrase? I don't know what the fuck I'm doing) for any tag team that does a tandem elbow drop, that kind where both guys are dropping elbows one after the other. It always looks great, and it looks ever greater when it's two guys (like the Blondes) with great elbow drops. We get a kind of goofus finish with Parrow wanting the pinfall all for himself, but Pillman breaks it up and Parrow gets pinned like right after. Blondes were each up on the top rope when Parrow opted to go for the pin, and I really wanted to see what the heck they were going to do. But afterwards they give Parrow a beatdown, and I kinda just want them to start getting actual tag matches. We've already wasted time feuding them with the already broken up Team TBD, now they're starting up something with Parrow, but they still don't feel established. Just give these guys a run already.

PCO vs. Brody King  MLW Fusion #23 9/6 (Aired 9/21/18)

ER: Phil pointed out that one of the keys to successful PCO matches is to keep the pace fast, and the more we see of him we realize another key is keeping things short. There's a set amount of material, and that material is fantastic at 10 minutes or under. Brody King is kind of similar, so you give these two 5 minutes to lace into each other and pull out some crazy nonsense? Then that's absolutely going to be something worth taking time out of your day to see. These are two big dudes who have no problem sending shivers to the jaw, and taking man size spills that aren't typical of guys their size. The whole match was filled with hard elbows, big clotheslines, headbutts, and hard knees. That alone would have been enough to make this good, but PCO breaks out a huge and impressive dive early, King drops him with a brainbuster, launches him into the buckles with a backdrop, misses a rolling senton that lands him on his head, PCO hits a big powerbomb and running knee; the match is just packed with cool stuff and hard shots. King pie faces the ref when he gets in the way of two adults beating each other's ass, and we get an awesome postmatch melee with other officials running out to separate, and PCO hits a flat out GREAT moonsault off the top to the floor, crashing through everybody. This is exactly what this match should have been.

Read more!