AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 4/18-4/25

AEW Dynamite 4/20

CM Punk vs. Dustin Rhodes

MD: Hey, it's two of our guys wrestling each other. Phil, unsurprisingly, covered this over at the Ringer, but here's my take. I love how organic this felt. Some of that is Punk adapting, both in the obvious ways, like when the bow and arrow didn't work, but also how he responded to the crowd. The match had spots but it wasn't about them. Punk knew that the crowd was going to get behind Dustin when he was in holds, but he couldn't know what the split would be or how best to capitalize on it before the fact. It gave a pretty good preview overall to what Punk vs. Page might look like and how Punk might adapt with the crowd.

The other half of it was how both Dustin and Punk responded to the moment. They sold everything, both physical and emotional. At one point a CM Punk chant broke out, even when he was on top, and he gave Dustin a sly grin. Likewise, when he taunted Dustin later with the Goldust bit, the crowd turned on him and he again reacted accordingly. The turning point of the match was after Dustin went flying through the ropes and hurt his knee. There was a chance Punk wasn't going to capitalize on it, but Dustin kicked up at him and it visibly pissed Punk (the character) off and he started on it. Later on Dustin had control and hit the ten punches in the corner only to sell the leg huge as he landed back on it again. Everything had weight and consequence, not just the spots but every incidental movement, every interaction between the two wrestlers, every reaction from the crowd. The wrestlers cared about everything and then the wrestlers care the fans care and when the fans care you can get real emotion and something like the hug and the handshake at the end resonates and stays with you. That's what the masters do, they take something fabricated and artificial and they give it substance and make it real. It may not be spectacular or conventionally breathtaking in a 2022 sense, but it still can manage to take your breath away in how it engages your heart and mind and gut.

Blackpool Combat Club vs. Dante Martin/Lee Moriarty/Brock Anderson

MD: This had a great beginning and a great finishing moment and some good ring time for Brock Anderson (past maybe landing on his head with Moxley's Half and Half) in the middle. Yuta's turned a corner in his ring-work which is exactly what needed to happen. One of the first things he did in this one was to pull Martin back to his corner by the ear. The early Martin vs Danielson stuff was really good too. I know we're not getting those long single epics from Danielson right now but there's still a lot of value in seeing him with little exchanges like that in tags. Everything built to Moriarty coming in to get the hometown pop and he made the most of it. Danielson turning the Border City Stretch into a capture suplex was fairly magical too. Things felt a little bit out of control and unhinged towards the end until the Blackpool Combat Club got control with the stomps and hammer and anvil elbows and Dante went way up for the Paradigm Shift. Overall, this was a functional piece of business with a couple of unique, fun exchanges that furthered along Yuta's development and everyone else some ringtime or shine.

Darby Allin vs. Andrade el Idolo

MD: A lot of the spectacle of this one was in the first half leading to the Sting dive. The back half had a little too much set up or getting things into position, but the payoffs were all good so it only matters so much. Because it was structured to have all of the nonsense up front and end with Andrade vs. Darby, I could have used another minute or two in that section, maybe a little more back and forth, even if a totally believable aspect of Darby's MO is to survive everything and win with a big one-two shot where he sacrifices his own body, as happened here. If this is the feud blowoff, it feels a little past due, but they have a lot of masters to serve. I'm curious where both wrestlers go next.

AEW Rampage 4/22

Eddie Kingston vs. Daniel Garcia

MD: Apparently about half of this was cut. I rewatched it with that in mind and the biggest takeaway was that the gaps weren't too easy to pick up on, except for that the damage done to Garcia was not equal to what we actually got to see. Kingston's so good at sneaking shots in from every angle when he's working from underneath but still, Garcia's chest would just be lit up or his lip would be opened and you weren't quite sure when that happened. So this explained that. There were a few things going on here, the hierarchical beating and finishing stretch where Garcia kicked out of the exploder and it took both the Saito Suplex and the backfist to put him down; the great equalizer in Kingston taking his stomach/chest/ribs out on the stairs and Garcia using that in his offensive focus and the cut offs. I liked the Big Josh log roll in the corner but it really hammered home how while Yuta is changing up his act, Sports Entertainment Garcia is just Garcia with a new hat. He really needs to work in Road Dogg's shaky legs knee drop or the Worm or a bunch of catchphrases or something. It's not enough to just troll people with the gimmick. He needs to figure out what being a sports entertainer actually means in ring and then work that into his matches. Otherwise, what we actually did get of this was unsurprisingly very good, clipped and all. 

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

AEW Elevation 12/6 (Taped 12/1)

Dustin Rhodes/Brock Anderson/Lee Johnson vs Cesear Bononi/Peter Avalon/J.D. Drake 

MD: Not a ton of Dustin here, but that was okay. He played his role, which was to back Nesmeth off when he was intervening on the floor and to let the kids get ring time while waiting for the hot tag. Once he got it, he cut through everyone like butter, including going astoundingly deep on the power slam on Drake. It's criminal we never got a Dustin vs post-turn Big Bubba in 95 WCW. That would have been a perfect feud if Dustin was around a few more months more. The rest of the match worked for me. Avalon fed well for Johnson at the start. Wingmen kept solid control on Brock, including the combo of Bononi's suplex, Drake's cannonball, and Avalon's splash. On the one hand, it's a little too early for Brock to be doing the punch fake DDT, but I guess you can cover it with the fact he's been naturally studying his dad. I like the Wingmen as an absolute bottom of the barrel heel enhancement team (well, right above Chaos Project). We're not in a world where people settle on getting a C house show main event with one of these guys against Koko B Ware or Hillbilly Jim or whatever, but people won't feel robbed if they get to see a middle of the card star showcase with someone like Darby getting put over by them. You need wrestlers like the Desperados and State Patrol on a roster.

PAS: This was a perfectly executed version of what it was. I haven't watched a ton of Elevation and Dark but the Wingmen are a hell of an enhancement team, solid workers, a lot of personality, can compete but not win. Brock being in the match a lot makes sense for his development, although he was clearly the greenest guy in this match, still you cant go wrong building to a Dustin hot tag, man he is great at getting in there and firing off offense. Drake is a guy I have liked in bigger roles, and he feels like someone who could work at a Garcia, Moriarity level as well. 

AEW Dynamite 12/8

Bryan Danielson vs. John Silver

ER: I was excited for them to get to this match, as Silver is clearly a Danielson acolyte (which really could be said about a 15 year swath of guys who got into wrestling) and at times works like a Little Buff Boy Danielson. The match delivered what I was hoping for, although I wish Danielson had treated Silver a little more seriously. It's not that he didn't respect him as an opponent, it just felt like nothing Silver did to Danielson actually got sold by Danielson (sometimes just not for very long, other times not really at all) even though Silver was throwing some of the best strikes I've seen from him. I don't need Danielson to give Silver 80% of the match the way Punk bizarrely let Lee NRFPT Moriarty do, but Danielson at times looked like he was just in a rush to get back to his part of the match. Both threw super hard kicks, and Danielson looked like he was going to go full Finlay when he yanked Silver over the apron and blasted him with an uppercut. I would have liked to hear what kind of heat Danielson was drawing, but the heat segment was (as usual) during the picture in picture break. We got some nice visuals of Danielson's infectious smile as he milked the (I assume) boos from the crowd, cranking a cravat and throwing a pointed knee at Silver's head, then throwing some sick grounded knees to the back of Silver's head and neck while holding him in place with a Chauvin kneel. Danielson kept going for missile dropkicks, making nice contact and sending Silver pinballing, before Silver absolutely plants him with a sitout powerbomb while catching a third dropkick. Silver's comeback looked good and it felt like he was working up to Danielson's speed and stiffness, making his 1-2-3 kick combo to a kneeling Danielson look tops. I don't think the match thread was as strong as other AEW Danielson matches have been, instead making this play like a match with great pacing where everything looked great. Great pacing and flawless execution gives a match a very very high floor, but I was left thinking Silver's big moments should have had more lasting consequences. 

MD: I'm going to start with the transition to comeback. As someone who rarely watches matches with the Elite, my least favorite spot in AEW is Silver's powerbomb counter. He uses it in almost every single match to start his comeback/enter into the finishing stretch and it's almost always done off the ropes where he catches a heel who doesn't ever do a Frankensteiner jumping up to do one. We're talking guys like JD Drake. It's the old "don't power bomb Kidman" thing, but even worse because at least Kidman was a small guy who was eminently power bombable. You were doing something to him, as opposed to doing something that's more on you that's totally out of character just to set another guy's move. Here, though, it was perfect since it came out of Danielson casually hitting second rope missile dropkicks around the ring on Silver. I'm going to have to give the credit to Danielson there (which is funny since he is a guy who could well hit a Frankensteiner anyway). Rest of the match was good. I liked the opening showcase of strength spots with Danielson doing well then showing ass. All of the strikes were great, both the back and forth and when each guy had an advantage. I had a lot of time for Danielson's take over on offense which was that thing we see a ton in French Catch from guys like Guy Robin or Pierre Bernaert where they're taking shots and just stay down so they can get a leg pick out of nowhere. The counters were fun and I liked the way they got into Silver's kick in the ropes/German combo which is probably my favorite spot of his when some thought is put into it. Most of all, I liked how Danielson interacted with Silver and the crowd. During the break, Taz said that he was feeling disrespected by them, but his disdain was more that his idea of wrestling, or at least the idea that he claims to have, is inherently disrespected by Silver (and the Dark Order in general) having all of this talent but wanting to have fun and goof around instead of being the best. That disdain came through so clearly in his wrestling and it made the match.

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