Found Footage Friday: PUNK~! RED~! NUNZIO~! JUVI~! MARTINEZ~! HERMANN~!

Luis Martinez vs. Hans Hermann NWA Chicago 1960

MD: Another one that Charles posted a while ago that we're just getting to now. This one went through Lee first as the length would have probably had me deprioritize it. It's only five minutes but it's five very fun minutes with a few comedy spots that I've never seen before. Hermann had a foot on Martinez and was an evil German with a chin to match. He ground Martinez down early with nerve ("muscle") holds and the sort.

When Martinez took over, he never really looked back. He went for a waistlock and Hermann crashed his fists down to break it, but Martinez was gone and he punched himself. Legitimately funny spot. There were a few more like that, like Martinez darting out of the way as Hermann tried to club him in the ropes. That set up Hermann tied up in said ropes and the charging headbutts to the gut. The physics of Hermann going over for Martinez on things like a flying headlock takeover felt weighty to say the least (and Martinez accentuated it with a loud "Arriba!"). He put him down in short order after this flurry with a Thesz press.

Post match, there was a special spotlight segment with John Paul Henning (sic). This is third hand, as in I found it on the internet, but apparently Henning had to stop wrestling because during a riot, he slammed the door and locked it, leaving Sonny Myers out with the rioting crowd to get stabbed. 

Nunzio vs. Juventud Guerrera WWE 11/15/05

MD: The vault released this one fairly quietly a few weeks ago and we're just getting to it now. It was in Rome. Nunzio was wildly over. Juvi was more than happy to get heat in front of a crowd like that. This ended up being incredibly minimalist, way more than I would have expected, but they were eating up everything that happened so it worked.

Juvi was doing a thing where he'd go for a pin at almost every opportunity and it meant that every kickout got a pop and felt almost like a hope spot. He'd cut Nunzio off with kicks to the guts, nothing fancy, but they could do no wrong (and in my mind, they did no wrong). Eventually, Nunzio got the slice rocker dropper off the top and it felt like a finish but Juvi got a foot on the rope, which, in itself, felt like a signal to the crowd that Nunzio wasn't winning in the old WWE style. The Juvi driver that followed would have really signified that but Juvi picked him up at one and demanded another. That allowed Nunzio to slip up and over, get a backslide and listen as the place became unglued. Fun stuff with just an amazing crowd and two guys willing to just bask in the glory of it all.

ER: I'm not sure when it started, but at some point I started writing "Juvi" as "Juvy" and now there's no turning back. I think Matt's right on this one. He also goes Eddy to my Eddie so it's clear my Mexican nickname spelling is nowhere near as good as my taste in wrestling. But one thing I know is that people with real taste in wrestling think Juventud Guerrera is one of the greats. Now, 1997 Juvy is different than 2001 Juvy is different than 2005 Juvy and beyond, but they are all phases of Juventud and that attitude and insanity is lurking inside every iteration. In 1997 he was one of the most insanely athletic ring guys in history, an improviser with nutty ideas and offense that nobody else was thinking about, a guy outshining Rey Misterio on the weekend shows with a degree of danger. 

This was Juvy in 2005, in Rome, against an Italian man who reveals after the match that he can barely pretend to speak Italian phonetically. "Italia Numero Uno" is the kind of thing someone guessing at Italian would say, but for this match Nunzio is a regional hero fighting for a championship in front of 10,000 Italians. Except in no part of this match does Nunzio come off like the star, only the de facto star, because this is expert heel Juventud working a match in Italy in 2005 like he's heel Terry Taylor. Juvy is great at working as heel Terry Taylor. Don't go into this waiting for the springboard improv of 1997, this is Juvy being a smug prick and drawing real damn heat. There is absolutely no highflying in this (well, aside from Juvy taking a mighty high backdrop during Nunzio's fiery comeback) because Juventud is Terry Taylor. Nunzio is the only one who goes up top, and it leads to the greatest part of the match: while up top, Juvy sweeps his leg and Nunzio flies off the top onto his tailbone (a bump I don't really remember him taking) and then Juvy does the fucking funniest little strut that ends with a slow motion shoulder shimmy. Juvy's strut is everything and all I need to tell me how damn good this match is. Juvy could have worked all of this without a highspot - he does the Juvy Driver and picks it up at 1 - because he really didn't need them. He takes the Sicilian Slice perfectly and gets his foot on the bottom rope with expert timing and nonchalance, and you could hear the crowd realizing they wouldn't be seeing this ox-eyed prick defeated. Until he is, by his own smugness, and the roar is deafening. Juvy fully understood what could be accomplished within a stripped down "safe" WWE style, a totally different kind of star than he was a decade prior. 

CM Punk vs. Amazing Red WWE 5/14/05 

MD: Not a ton to say here. I didn't think they were totally on the same page during the comeback and down the stretch and that felt a little more on Red, but he worked well from underneath before that and got to show off a bit in general. Punk stood out though, adapting to what he thought they were looking for like he always did in these situations. Just canny stuff. Lots of being vocal, wrestling for the last row, trying to get the crowd engaged. Yes, he had a couple of flashy things like the curb stomp and his grapevined DDT finisher, but in general, he was working this like it was fifteen years earlier as a way to show his mettle and that he wasn't some spot-laden indy guy. A worker working.

ER: I feel for Amazing Red here. I had no idea he ever even got a WWE tryout, let alone after he had already been done with his first several year run in TNA. It was clearly a case of them making him work a restrained version of whatever his match would have been in 2005. By the early 2000s they weren't really letting tryout dark match guys go out there specifically to Wow the audience, they wanted them to work a basic face/heel match with Young Boy restrictions. Hey Amazing Red, go out there and show every one your armdrags and dropkicks and your inside cradle. Maaaaybe a sunset flip. Red is a guy capable of Amazing things timed very nicely, and he was basically not allowed to be Amazing or use his timing. 

But - and I can't say "lucky for Red" as this tryout clearly went nowhere for him - CM Punk went out there and had a superstar performance that made this crowd fully get behind a generic Young Boy. Punk kept the crowd engaged the entire time and worked like an asshole from the second he appeared through the entrance. It's a super vocal performance that made me want to go back and rewatch all of that 2004-05 Punk that I haven't watched since 2004-05, just to see how much of this kind of heel wrestling he carried over from the indies. He sold loudly but not theatrically, yelling not to be funny but in a way that stood out as unique. Not like "Barry Darsow Unique", not hammy noise, but noise like nobody else was making on 2005 WWE cards. Seeing how vocal Punk was made me wonder if everyone else on the roster is given directives to be as quiet as possible. Rob Conway, Sylvan Grenier, the Bashams, I don't remember any of these guys making noise in a 2005 WWE ring. Punk kept people invested with great selling - vocals being a big part of it - and small movements. He came off like an asshole but kept them there with details, like that punch to the jaw after a rope break or the way he absentmindedly shook out his arm long enough after Red had driven his knee into it that it would have been understandable if he never referenced it again. 

Red wasn't allowed to be Amazing, and it didn't matter because people wanted him to shut CM Punk up. This crowd bit so hard on Red's swinging DDT, 100% convinced that Punk was going down, and I think it was all because he made himself out to be a guy who people wanted to see get beaten. 

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Found Footage Friday: PUNK~! LOD~! DANDY~! SILVER KING~! SHU~! PANTHER~! SUPER PARKA~!

IWRG Retro 7/27/00

El Dandy/Silver King/Black Dragon vs. Shu el Guerrero/Mosco de la Merced/Hijo del Diablo

MD: VQ is tough with a lot of freezing but you can tell what's going on and the talent is so much here that you want to see it through. No real signature pairings here. I'd say that this was driven by the talent, energy, and star power on the tecnico side and structured accordingly. That meant in the primera, each tecnico got a chance to lean into rudo miscommunication and entertainingly fight them all off at once. There are things you'd note, like Silver King sliding across the ring or Dandy's punch or Black Dragon's crave dive at the end of the caida, but it was all good.

Rudos took over in the segunda after they teased pairings and they did the bit where they flip their opponents over and toss them into a kick in the corner. This could have probably used a couple more minutes, for once they hit the tecera, it was a quick reset and into in and out submissions and break-ups and really overall chaos with things breaking down. Finish had Dragon roll forward into a tapitia which you don't see often and Dandy hitting a jumping DDT for the win. Rudos did their job but this really was the tecnicos show, and even with the freezing, it was a good show.

ER: It's a shame this has so many freezes and bits of missing action because everything we get is really great. Everybody got their own moments to cook and I love a trios like this where everyone tries to take over the show the longer it goes. Mosco de la Merced and Hijo del Diablo were the real standouts to me but every brought something big. Silver King is so good at pushing pace and guys like Mosco and Diablo rise to that pace and it makes their bumps even crazier. The Segunda opening with King and Diablo really cooked, Diablo early on looking like the one guy in the match who was going to hang back and let everyone else handle things, building to him stooging and bumping as big as anyone. Mosco took at least four big bumps and worked comedy into half of them, including a great bit where he kept removing pieces of clothing while ramping up for a one on one confrontation, whipping his shirt and bandana into the crowd and firing up by almost removing his pants. Black Dragon is a guy who I literally only remember because of his incredible tope over/past the ringpost into the corner, which he hits beautifully here after pulling off a super smooth rana. His tope is one of the great lucha topes in history, one of those spots like Super Calo's slingshot senton that makes a luchador's career seem bigger than it really was. Shu el Guerrero is a total tank of a luchador, or dream build Valiente, but Mosco and Diablo handle all the toughest basing and catches. Shu's best bit of basing is sliding across the entire ring for a frankly breathtaking Dandy headscissors, Dandy getting full glorious extension and not tucking early, really making it look like he flung Shu 10 feet with his ankles and leverage. It would have been great to have the full uncut action (and crowd noise, and the actual screen presentation instead of the annoying TV screen aesthetic) but there's no denying the action we did see. 

Blue Panther vs. Super Parka

MD: WWA Title match. Parka's the champ. It's worked like a title match with just a bit of the dancing/histrionics from Parka, which he tends to pay for whenever he does. I liked the primera a lot. Nothing too tricked out but they kept close body contact for a lot of it in a way you don't always see in lucha matwork. It was all up tight and combative. Parka had advantage for a lot of it working over the arm. When they got moving towards the end of the caida, you had no idea who would get the ultimate advantage but Parka took it with a snap 'rana. 

Segunda was super short, but Panther won it with the old French Catch standard waistlock into a leg nelson (no roll). Not something you see every day, even from him. Then the tercera had all the bells and whistles and drama. Parka took out Panther's leg early and worked it over. Panther sold big on his comeback attempts. There was another 'rana for a nearfall and a long Cavernaria. Parka hit this amazing tope sending both of them over the barricade. Then Panther went for a submission and then pinned themselves. Only a couple of spotty moments VQ wise with the freezing, thankfully, as this was a very good title match to be unearthed. 

CM Punk/Doug Delicious vs. Legion of Doom WWE 5/13/03

MD: As WWE Vault stuff goes, this is better than something we already had, worse than if they had given it to us in full, and especially worse than giving us Omni shows or something. But it has its novelty and we should cover it, clipped as it is. Punk explaining that he had been on the banned list for doing a hammerlock DDT the night before gives his performance here color. Obviously, just in general facing the Road Warriors in this setting, he's going to do everything he could to stand out and bump and feed and stooge for them.

Since he was in hot water, however, he really went above and beyond, on from the get go. The fans absolutely loved seeing the LOD as a surprise and popped huge for them as Punk covered his head in shock in the ring. They cut out a lot of the stuff with Delicious and only give us Punk but I don't really mind that too much. He screamed as he went over for Animal's power slam and went sailing for the belly-to-belly throw. Hawk was totally on too, hitting his shoulder first post-bump to the floor. He even ate a Punk snap suplex. This isn't the first or hundredth thing I would have wanted, especially not clipped, but I was still smiling despite myself as I watched it, so I'll certainly take this sort of thing over nothing. 

ER: I was not actually expecting this to be really good but I have a feeling the full uncut match was actually quite good. I'm a big fan of 1998 LOD even though history says they were totally washed. Well, they were pretty washed, but Washed Legends is one of my favorite kinds of wrestler. 1998 Hawk was a particular favorite of mine. He wasn't lifting much anymore so he wasn't working as a power wrestler, so he just leaned into being a puncher with a couple of surprising big bumps. Hawk was a great puncher and a guy with great bumps, so it really felt like a super vulnerable version of the Road Warrior Hawk, boiled down to his most basics; still dangerous, now beatable. I loved it. It's a shame they were stuck feuding with DOA for most of the year during their final real run. I have a feeling that some good Hawk stuff was cut from this tag in cutting the Doug Delicious work, and that's a shame. I don't know much about Doug Delicious so maybe they were right to cut most of his work out of this, but I sure stood at attention when he lit Hawk the hell up with chops on the floor. I cannot imagine someone chopping either Road Warrior the way Doug was chopping Hawk in 1986 but this is 2003. That's the kind of things that makes vulnerable legends so compelling. They're on the way down and now fucking Doug Delicious is doing things that would have gotten greater men killed. 

Punk was great in this, reminded me again of why I liked him so much during this era. He bumped huge for everything the LOD did and even sold their entrance music. He fed really well for them both and I was pretty shocked at the amount of offense he got. The snap suplex on Hawk was a real surprise, but I liked how he worked the match as a guy who really belonged in the ring with the Road Warriors and not just a stooge who just lied on the mat in between moves. He set up Hawk's ringpost bump perfectly, moving out of the way at the last second so it made it look like an actual miss and not a set up bump, and Hawk spills past the apron to the floor as well as any of those times a missed western lariat sent Stan Hansen tumbling to the floor. I thought Animal looked good here too, taking on the bulk of the match (well, at least the way the match was edited) and I thought his movement looked strong. That leaping elbowdrop was fire and they each seemed real pumped at the crowd's loud reaction and chanting for them. WWE always hated the idea of bringing back older legends to work undercards but I wish we had years of All Japan old men matches on the undercards of house shows, it would have been incredible. They only viewed people on what they could potentially add to the top of the card but any time they brought back an older name and just plopped them in the third match it worked perfectly. I needed more runs like the Tatanka or, well, Road Warrior Animal mid-2000s Smackdown run. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/21 - 8/27 Part 2

All In 8/26

CM Punk vs Samoa Joe

MD: Even almost a week later, we don't know what we don't know. The Observer hit this morning, etc. Look, we tend to look at the text itself here at Segunda Caida, at least with modern matches, but you can't separate this match from what led up to it in the minutes prior. I won't focus much on what we don't, won't, or can't know, but this match goes down differently on a rewatch when you have some sense of what came before. Punk's Punk, a shit-eating grin on his face as he goes through the curtain, absolute satisfaction with his little shitheel chop and dodge away from Joe to start the match, mirthful elation as he hangs on to a headlock through a suplex. You'll almost never see a man quite so alive as Punk as he shifts from Cena to Hogan and basks in the boos and he carried his weight for the other half of this, bleeding, stooging, and outright begging off for Joe's Hulk Up. 

I said almost no one was more alive though, and the reason I said almost is because for as much as Punk was living in this moment and channeling every internal and external bit of stimuli to feed into his performance, Joe was simply more. From all accounts, Joe manifested this moment through sheer determination, presence (physical and otherwise), and force of will. You can read this as the culmination of a redemption story for Joe. We've all seen the pictures of him in the poncho during the Mania pre-show in Tampa, and while some of those have him smiling, it wasn't a proper last chapter for him. Neither was the bizarre start and stop of his final NXT moments. This though? Standing in Wembley with tens of thousands of people chanting his name, with them oohing and ahhing every move he chained together, with enough of them singing for him or going up for his pointed response to Punk's heatseeking channeling of Hogan... he basked in each and every second of it. The energy of the crowd radiated off of his body and fueled his every movement. He wrestled this match like someone who knew how far he had once been from the possibility of it and how close he had been to losing it at the last second. I could write about how they cleverly leaned into their own familiarity with one another, how they leveraged that early to build anticipation for certain spots later in the match, how balanced letting things breathe with keeping things moving. I could even give JR some flowers; over the last few years he has a mortifying tendency of calling the worst possible thing at the worst possible time. Here though, even as the match didn't feel like it was quite ready to be over, he noted how both wrestlers were going for that one big move, the perfect set up for Punk hitting the plunge. In a hundred other matches, he'd have mistimed that sort of a call completely. Here, it covered up the lack of a more developed finishing stretch perfectly.

Past those last 100 words to smooth past the finish, I think I'd rather just let the above sit as the review though. This one wasn't about structure or tricks. It was one old pro, as strung out as someone straightedge could possibly be, channeling a moment despite it all, and one old lion with legendary strength, clenching his fist hard enough to prevent the sands of time and opportunity from slipping out of his grasp. Maybe someone has the words to do that justice, but it's sure not me. The match stands on its own. The match speaks for itself.

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

AEW Collision 8/26/23

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

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

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

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

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

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

AEW Rampage 8/11/23

Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage

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

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

AEW Collision 8/12/23

House of Black vs. CMFTR

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/31 - 8/6

AEW Collision 8/5/23

CM Punk (c?) vs Ricky Starks

MD: This had a ton of time to breathe and it's probably the best I've ever seen Starks look. Just the right combination of energy, attitude, and a chip on his shoulder; he looked like a star. They built off of the last match with bits like holding the ropes open, and played right into a very split crowd reacting to two tweeners. The entire feeling out process (worked like a title match opening) was buoyed by the loud and consistent dueling chants, highlighted by both guys getting to do each other's taunts. The first commercial break had Punk in control doing the Hogan shtick and playing with the crowd. The second commercial break had Starks in control and Punk working from underneath with hope spots and comebacks and a crowd that was more inclined to just chant for Punk.

Steamboat added tiny bits of specialness without overshadowing what was going on. That included coming out to his WCW theme, reacting to Starks' armdrags, calling Starks out when he held the ropes on a sunset flip, and then playing into the finish, which maybe could have had Steamboat roll in just a little quicker, but ultimately he was moving swiftly and it worked for me. And then the post-match segment, paralleling what happened fifteen years ago, cemented the Starks heel turn in the most memorable way.

At his best, Starks carries himself like an Attitude Era star, like someone who could hold his own in a TV main event in 1999 right in the thick of it. There's no one else on AEW TV that works like that and what he needs to pull it off is to be able to turn the volume up as high as possible and wrestle with endless confidence. If he believes, the crowd believes and it feels like a big deal. He felt like he belonged in there with Punk on this night and because of that, the crowd bought into stakes that are dubious at best.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/17 - 7/23

AEW Collision 7/22/23

CM Punk/Darby Allin vs Ricky Starks/Christian

MD: This was very down to earth and very conventional, albeit with some unique partners and a certainly unique crowd. I came in to the first Collision thinking they needed to run some big angle from the start, and maybe, if they wanted to keep every single eye that fell upon the show, they did, but that's not what they went with and it's obviously not what they're doing. They're looking a slow, steady, consistent pro wrestling television and that means long, disciplined, measured TV matches of high quality like this. You can draw a throughline from the booking overall to the layout of this match. 

For one, all four wrestlers were completely engaged, completely committed, selling every emotional beat 100%. That might be the early bits with neither Starks nor Christian wanting to get it. It might be Starks on the apron watching Christian go for the diving headbutt and deciding to do the "look out to the crowd" visor pose of Christian's. It might be Punk making mental mistakes by chasing Starks after he committed slight transgressions at various points, or even Christian looking at Starks across the ring to get him to commit one of those transgressions. That meant for clever and elaborate transitions. It allowed for a strong double heat after a long and entertaining shine. Starks wrestled big. Darby made everything look better and more impactful. Christian's every movement was absolutely precise. Punk was a star, drawing heat and adulation and getting the fans all the more behind Darby.

This was comfort food at a high level. I try to watch things with an open mind, but if you've seen enough tag matches, especially ones that play within the line to try to make the most of the modality's conventions and norms, certain timings just feel right. They nailed it at almost every point here. Exactly when I felt some sort of inner need for Punk to loop in a hope spot, he did. Darby's offense is set up for big comebacks but that also makes him a great hot tag. He got in a few of his bombs and then immediately transitioned things back to heat by bouncing off of Luchasaurus. 

Everything was built up. Everything was paid off. Everything mattered. It was the complete opposite of the sort of matches we often get on Dynamite where babyfaces will break the rules of the match in the name of spots (where the spots are the ends and not the means) or where things break down a third the way through the match and then never come back. This was far more grounded, takes a different sort of patience and investment, but has a greater payoff. So long as you have crowds reacting to Punk and Punk reacting to crowds (and to a degree the emotional beats that FTR are good at setting up and laying down), there's a real chance that fans can be conditioned to expect something more than pure candy, imaginative visuals and set pieces, and emotional payoffs that are welcomed but not really earned from tag matches once again.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/3 - 7/16

AEW Collision 7/8/23

CM Punk vs Samoa Joe

MD: Summer vacation with the family has me behind here, so I'm going to hold off on Darby and Dustin matches, but let's try to quickly move through this one before moving on. I haven't rewatched the Punk/Joe series for years. They left more in the tank on this one. This was less Punk/Joe IV than a Punk/Joe oddity that'd slip through the cracks as a handheld a decade after the fact. When you think about the setting, you can't fault them: this was the semi-finals of an Owen Hart tournament, as something to help define a new TV show, one of the initial feuds to set the tone. Punk had gone out earlier in the show telling the fans to chant for Owen and in a key moment down the stretch, that's exactly what they did.

So what did we get if not the epic next chapter of a legendary feud? A very good TV tournament match with a tight, tight layout. There weren't any inversions (save for maybe the finish). This one was laser focused to fit the needs of the moment and because I'm sure now, a week plus later, everyone's written about the feel and the legacy and everything else, I want to briefly touch upon that layout.

They started with Punk ducking and moving, trying to get shots in when he could. He couldn't get too far with that strategy alone. Punk's character may be that of a striker, but Joe's a tank who just needs to get his hands on you to compact you like an accordion. Punk had a logical need to escalate and once he softened Joe up a bit he went for it. A bit doesn't cut it with Joe who walked away and then took over. From here, it was Joe asserting himself through the commercial break and Punk with escalating babyface comebacks. The crowd was split but that seemed more because they liked Joe than because they hated Punk, and this worked. A few strikes and a cutoff, a dodge on the floor leading to the clothesline off the apron and then a cutoff (that we miss) as Joe makes it into the ring first. All of it builds to Joe's first attempt at the Clutch and Punk hitting his biggest move of the match with a belly to back to shift things into an extended finishing stretch. The match opened up from there, with Punk repeatedly going for the GTS, setting up an expectation after three tries that he'd either hit it despite the weight difference or fall to the Clutch for his desperate stubbornness. Instead, he baited Joe in on the third attempt and rolled him forward for a banana peel win. Post-match, Joe got his heat back and reminded people that there's still an actual classic ahead of them. This, however, had to do its work while not overshadowing the tournament or the closing image of Ricky Starks to set up the final to come.

AEW Collision 7/15/23

CM Punk vs Ricky Starks

MD: I first caught this on the Sunday after and I had seen some negative or at least middling opinions on it first. That had lowered my expectations just a little coming in and with that in mind, this overachieved for me. This Punk run differs from the 2021-2022 one in how he's living in the moment. In this, I thought Starks was an almost perfect opponent. Something like Ospreay vs Omega is so carefully directed. Every shot, every angle, every spot, every move, every reaction feels drafted and redrafted and molded in plaster and colored in blood and sweat. This lived in the moment. It wasn't the spots you were watching for but the reactions on Punk and Starks' faces and how that shaped what they did or didn't do next.

When Punk did A, how did that impact Starks emotionally? When Starks did B, did Punk smile or frown or grimace? With Punk in 2023, it's impossible to predict exactly what the crowd will do at any moment so he's constantly adapting to the situation at hand. Some of that was in the struggle, like Punk's reaction to both of Starks' attempts at the rope walk. Some of it was in very muddy emotional beats. It was left to the viewer to decide whether Punk refused the favor of the ropes being held open because he was frustrated Starks got one up on him or because Starks had chosen to pose before doing it or as some broader mind game. It's left up to the viewer to wonder if that slight drove Starks' brutal forearms later or him crossing the line on the finish.

So much of this was based on the two wrestlers feeling each other out and just trying to figure out what their reality happened to be. Where did they fall on a spectrum? Who are they? Who do they want to be? What do they want this match to stand for, especially in the face of a torn crowd and the specter of the Hart family over them? And they came up with very different answers in the end. Despite part of the crowd being against him, despite all of his the insecurities that drive the man behind the wrestler, Punk the character is fully secure in who he is. He wanted to pay tribute to the Hart family that meant so much to him as a fan and a professional, to wrestle smart and provocative but clean. At times, after hitting a move or escaping one from Starks, you could see absolute elation come over his face. It was clear who he was, except for in those few moments where it wasn't clear at all. And Ricky? Well, we don't know, do we? 

That's the intrigue coming out of this match, and I think, how this match will ultimately be judged. That's the problem with star ratings. You wouldn't judge a chapter in a book, especially not before reading the rest. We have no idea where this is headed. Is it just the end of a tournament or is it the start of a story? Or a crossroads where two ships pass in the midst of very different journeys?

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/19 - 6/25 Part 2

AEW Forbidden Door 6/25/23

Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada

MD: If you've been following the site for any length of time, you know that this isn't a dream match for us. But hey, it's been nice to have Final Countdown stuck in my head for half a week, right? That said, we certainly value Danielson. He's one of five, right? I've personally got nothing against Okada. Heck, if I was actually watching his "grumpy" phase, I might not mind him one bit, and in a world of wrestling that has a tendency to get smaller and smaller as time goes on, the ability to project one's self as a star is no small thing.

Still, this match was a bit snakebit, wasn't it? The crowd was still in shambles from the 40-minute epic that preceded it. Danielson got an injury with ten minutes to go. Some of the choices he made in dealing with that injury had a chilling effect upon the crowd. That said, I probably personally ended up liking what we did get here more than what we would have gotten if all went well. Moreover, I think the Danielson performance that was distilled through adversity was much unique and far more interesting than the channeled perfection we might have gotten otherwise. We're never going to judge "greatest wrestler ever" just from who can go hardest (hit hardest maybe, but not go hardest). You learn so much about a wrestler not when things go right in a perfectly planned match against an ideal opponent, but when things go askew and the wrestler has to adapt, or in moments where things are inherently less than perfect. That's when real wrestling genius shines through and in my mind, at least, that's what we got here.

Here's what made this match fascinating: upon first watch, there was every impression of Danielson selling the damage to the neck by favoring his arm, and committing so thoroughly to the act that he leaned instead on the Knee, that he channeled the Yes chants for the first time in AEW to fire up but only used one arm for them, that he powered through a submission using every limb but the one that was damaged. In this scenario, he was so vulnerable, so off center, that he feigned a seizure-ridden neck injury in order to draw Okada in (which didn't work by the way; Okada went right in for the kill after a few seconds of deliberation). That in and of itself would make the match mirrors within mirrors.

Except for it turned out to be mirrors within mirrors within mirrors, for Danielson's arm really was hurt. Whatever match they did or did not plan became something else in response. I read into it that Okada targeted the neck because Danielson's aggression got him up on points early, but would that have happened otherwise? Would there have been the Yes Chants? Would he have gone to the knee twice? Would he have worked the seizure spot? Would the struggle and uniqueness of the submissions at the end felt so offputting and gnarly and desperate? Probably not. Instead, it was a master whose body was failing him, who was in a match that should never have been possible, one that was denied to him the year prior, pasting together what was meant to be a dream match in front of a dream crowd using old tricks and new and making people feel. The crowd felt things that they wanted to feel, things that they dreaded feeling. Every movement carried with it layers. The calling out for the Yes chant wasn't just a Yes chant. It was one of the first ones in AEW (if not the absolute first; he's consciously not done them). It was half of one with a damaged arm. It was one by a desperate wounded Danielson. It was a ploy by the real man behind the American Dragon mask to engage the crowd despite the match going off the rails. So I don't know about this being a dream match but as a dream performance by a dream performer, it contained multitudes. It's the sort of dream that will linger, the sort that will stay with us in the months and years to come. 

CM Punk vs. Satoshi Kojima

MD: I liked MJF vs Tanahashi a lot, much more than the Swerve match from Collision, but that was MJF doing his best 1990 Flair vs JYD match. Tanahashi was limited but charismatic and MJF used that to the fullest. This was not dissimilar in some ways, as Punk leaned hard into the crowd reaction and wrestled big, but Kojima came off like an old vet leaping from the bench with fire still in his heart wanting one more swing for glory. Both wrestlers realized that they had a special crowd and a special opportunity and even though it likely came as a surprise to Kojima, he made the most of it. If Tanahashi is a star that has been treated like a star even as he became more limited, Kojima met this moment with a great reawakening, and Punk was right there to join him. The dueling pec popping might be what I remember from this show as much as anything else, really, but what I probably enjoyed the most in this match in specific was the way Punk chose to work it. He was as disrespectful as possible as a character, playing to his own ego by making callouts to Gabe and shouting along in Japanese to the ten count and doing the Hogan legdrop but at the same time being as respectful as possible as a human being working with the guy by throwing his whole body back for every Kojima strike and being incredibly wary of his lariat almost to the level of Buddy Rose stooging for Stan Stasiak's iron claw.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/19 - 6/25 Part 1

AEW Collision 6/24

CM Punk/FTR/Ricky Starks vs Jay White/Juice Robinson/Gunns

MD: This is a pretty fascinating match and I, much like the crowd, am just going to focus on one thing primarily, Punk. The crowd was chanting for him and at him when he wasn't in there. I'm a big proponent that you wrestle to serve the match and that wrestlers that don't do that, who wrestle for themselves, guys like Michaels and Brody, are to be punished with a critcal eye for it. I'm also a believe that you lead the crowd instead of follow it.

That said, there are exceptions. Not every match is built equal, not every moment. Moreover, there are matches down the line. Stan Hansen's a guy who doesn't always have the most interesting match possible with every opponent, but he'll churn through three matches that aren't so interesting in order to keep himself protected to a certain level for the match where the payoff is necessary. While you couldn't look away from it, this match became structurally confusing and structurally confused because the face/heel balance switched to a good degree every time Punk tagged in or out. The finish required the crowd being up for Ricky Starks plowing through the nominal heels with spears before White finally got the best of him, but it also needed the crowd to go up for White catching Punk off the top... right before he caught Starks with the same move to set up the finish. Thankfully, it was a crowd that was going to be hot for everything, but just thinking that through from a narrative level is kind of maddening.

Here's where it absolutely worked, however. Jay White seemed important. Last week, it was all about the build to Punk vs Joe. This week, it was all about the build to Punk vs White. It automatically put him on the same level that Joe was presented at last week. They did a good job of keeping them apart, or only teasing it before paying it off during the long heat during the commercial (which, I guess wasn't heat, but heel-in-peril? Except for it was heat because half the crowd was for Punk... you get why this is tricky, huh?).

As for leading the crowd, Punk rode the wave. He started the match, all the way at the top of the ramp, thinking he'd have to go full heel, even as his partners would lead face and just be like a sports team who have the one controversial player that they have to support and put up with, but it was obvious that half the crowd was with him. He gave them something to celebrate and the detractors something to hate during the first commercial break with the Hogan Legdrop (placing it very carefully during the break). By the end of the match though, he'd cracked the code. At the end of the second commercial break, as he was making a comeback to a White bearhug, he put his arm out to fight when the fans were chanting CM Punk and then dropped it when they chanted Let's Go Switchblade. It was the logical evolution of 97 Bret and more overt than Cena's reactions to the Let's Go Cena/Cena Sucks chants. It also felt like something he was workshopping in the moment. There are probably other things that deserve mention here, like how well Juice and Austin Gunn mesh together as annoying loudmouths or Cash's dive, or how you can't unsee the fact that Dax absolutely refuses to interact with the legal man on the other side when everything breaks down, but this was rightfully all about Punk and partially about White and I'm just going to leave it at that. As for serving something bigger than the match, though? Yes, the moment, but even more than that would be if the finals of the Owen tournament are Punk vs Starks. We may look back at this one differently if that's the case.

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

AEW Dynamite 6/14

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

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

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

AEW Collision 6/17

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

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

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 8/29 - 9/4 Part 2

All Out 9/4

Sting/Darby Allin/Miro vs. House of Black (Malakai Black/Brody King/Buddy Matthews)

MD: While this broke down at the end, it also felt very different from the last couple of far more chaotic Sting PPV matches. I loved the roles in the first half, with Miro taking the shine, Darby eating the heat, and Sting in there for the comeback. That was a different layout to the opening pairings in the FTR trios for instance. There was a sense throughout of real unity for the House of Black, something that, when combined with their size and presence, means even after their loss in the trios tournament and here, they'll be viable challengers for the trios belts or the tag titles without much effort. Miro sort of dropped out as the match went on as much more of the focus was on Sting or Darby but I liked his interactions in general, first refusing to tag in Darby and then telling Darby (who was trapped in a neutral corner) that he had to listen to him and make it over to make the tag. The bit at the end with Sting refusing to break the Scorpion even as he was getting battered and then with the mist (learned it from Muta) were both iconic. This probably could have played just as well on TV as PPV but it was still a lot of fun.

Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Jericho

MD: Full disclosure. Due to things like parental responsibility, I didn't get a chance to catch most of the PPV until Monday morning and then I jumped around a lot. This was probably the third match on the show I saw. That meant I wasn't experiencing it like the live crowd or a lot of you. I know there were criticisms of this maybe being placed wrong on the card or that it went too long, and while I agree with the latter to a degree and in a specific way I'll get into in a moment, I can't really speak for the former. Therefore, overall, this was a hit to me, not a miss. This might well be Jericho's career year and I thought the overarching story of the match was excellent, really. He had dusted off the Lionheart persona and style and had great success against Jon Moxley with it, as it played against very specific weaknesses of Mox. Now, with pride on the line, he came in expecting to repeat his success against Danielson, only to find he was brushing up against Danielson's strengths. You could see it early through his facial expressions. He came out posing and grinning through an immediate successful exchange or two, got immediately knocked on his ass, threw a chair, and came back finding the grin again. He had a couple of tricked out moves that had worked wonders against Moxley but when they failed him against Danielson, he had no recourse other than to go right back to them and fail again. That, as much as anything else was the story. He may have been able to escape a lot of what Danielson was putting him in, barely, but Danielson was easily escaping his holds and shifting back to being the aggressor. 

Whatever the Lionheart was, it was less of one thing than the whole of Bryan Danielson. Lionheart was a mask that Jericho put back on, an artificial guise, but as much as it freshened him up and gave him novel angles to attack from, he found himself too married to it and it limited him and forced him into stubborn mistakes (like the plancha to the outside which cost him). Danielson on the other hand, was the sum of everything he'd ever been, something that culminates with the seated zen position he's been using to absorb damage and throw his opponents off as of late. Where Jericho hid in his own past (and as the match went on, hid poorly, constantly adjusting pants that no longer fit correctly), Danielson wrestles like a man fully actualized. The story was so clear and clean that I wouldn't have cut any of the matwork from the beginning or middle of the match. It wasn't gratuitous. It was the point. That said, I do think the finishing stretch (everything from the first, countered Lionsault) probably went too long. There was escalation desperation in Jericho but they could have cut a few minutes and still gotten that across. In the end, they got to where they needed to be, delusion and cowardice and rationalization and a low blow to prop up a false, flimsy pride, as Daniel Garcia watched on shaking his head. Jericho, like all the greatest heels, came in expecting to win on his own merit and only succeeded to lie to himself once again.

Jon Moxley vs. CM Punk

MD: Going to stick straight to the match here. A couple of days ago, Phil wrote an explainer on the Ringer on where the backstage stuff stood and by the time this gets posted, Dynamite will have aired and things that are moving quickly will reach some other destination. I won't make this a retrospective or wax poetic on the last year. I did think this was very good though. It inverted the match from Cleveland, where Punk came in looking for a title match and Moxley rushed forward, unrelenting from the bell. There, that forced Punk off his balance and caused him to blow up his own leg. Here, he was ready both for Moxley's Hansenian onslaught, which he met head on and for his own kick, which hit picture perfect. That meant instead of early Death Riders, we got the early GTS. Things went to the outside after that, Moxley's domain, and maybe Punk hurt his arm on the dive or maybe he was selling that he did, but Mox was able to take over and open him up. The crowd, despite being in Chicago, couldn't deny Moxley at times and despite his attitude, despite (or because of?) his barbarism and dominance, they gravitated back towards him. For a while, he'd get heat by taking it so over the top. After Punk was opened up and after he made sure that the opening became a gusher, he licked the blood. Shortly thereafter, he jammed his own head against Punk's so that it'd be all over his face. When Punk started to come back from the woundwork, he went straight to the leg to cut him off. With Moxley, the malice is personal, but you shouldn't take it personally. It's universal. He carries disdain for each and every person he faces. He's a storm and it's up to his opponent to endure it and to cobble out a meaningful match from it. If you cut him (scrape him even), he will bleed. If you punch him, his head will rock. If you stretch him, he will know pain. But it's up to you to channel and redirect the forward motion, the potential energy of him, into something coherent. 

As Mox continued to dismantle and batter his opponent, Punk was able to endure however he could, was able to tough it out, was able to survive, even if sometimes that meant going for an eye. Moxley returned favor by biting the wound, by stubbornly, and unfairly (because fairness has nothing to do with pro wrestling) cutting him off by going after the leg. But eventually, Punk lasted long enough to get under Moxley, literally, and to drop him down into a GTS. In another world, that's the image that would stick with us of this night, the remnants of the match's second GTS and all the damage that had been inflicted on Punk since the first, a hobbled Moxley draped over a bloodied and exhausted Punk, and Punk's eyes opening as he saw what he needed to do. A talking point in our circle about Survivor Series 97 was that the main event between Bret and Shawn was actually shaping up to be their best match together. I might not go so far with this one, but it had a lot of merits on its own, and I can't help but wonder if in years to come, all of those will simply be a similar afterthought to everything that transpired after.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 8/22 - 8/28

AEW Dynamite 8/24/22

CM Punk vs. Jon Moxley

MD: I caught this Thursday morning, after being spoiled and came in expecting Brock vs Kofi and figured there'd be nothing to talk about. This wasn't that, so it's worth a few words at least. At this point, we still don't know the endgame here, but this did have some real substance to it, based on the characters of Punk and Moxley and the year they've been having. Punk's AEW run has been about reclamation, about reclaiming his own role and legacy in wrestling and, if you look at his ring-work, about reclaiming certain aspects that have been lost when it comes to the meaning and struggle of every exchange and every moment. It's about bringing back the ten-punch in the corner or the bodyslam and showing that if treated as something with impact, they can matter as much as a 450 splash or a falcon arrow (and theoretically, if done properly and consistently, can actually make those things mean even more when they're escalated to). Mox, on the other hand, is the successor of Hansen, a whetstone that you crash up against and that pulls back the skin and bones and polish and shine (and moves) and reveals whatever you truly as underneath, that bares your soul to the world as you survive and survive, right up until the point you don't.

And that's how they worked this. Punk came into that first, hard and harsh lock-up expecting a clean break. This was a title match. They'd just started. Moxley just went at him in the corner. Punk fired back, because even though he wants to represent something, there's a darkness within him too and he wasn't about to back down, but once they made it back to the corner, the ref interceded. Punk started to draw back only for Moxley to capitalize with a headbutt over the ref. And that's when Punk, pissed off, off-balance, still dangerous but now prone to an early mistake, pushed forward with the kick that would reinjure the leg. Mox showed no mercy, immediately pouncing, and after the clothesline, the hammer-and-anvil shots, the ankle wrench, and two death riders, the match was over. Storywise, if Punk was healthy, maybe Mox might have pushed him off balance, but maybe he could have ridden it out and taken over later on and made Moxley play his game instead. Punk's a pro; he's a champ; he knows all the tricks. But he was hurt and that meant there weren't extra chances, not without Mox giving them, and 2022 Mox doesn't give anyone anything but grief and violence. It was striking and daring and completely true to everything that had happened this year. Now we see what's next as Chicago looms.

AEW Rampage 8/26/22

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Dustin Rhodes

MD: Let's start with the finish. This is basically the Clash XXI finish, where Dustin and Barry Windham were up against Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas, a similar mishap occurs with a crotching on rope running, Dustin doesn't take advantage, and after they subsequently lose the belts, Windham turns heel on him. Who knows where, if anywhere, this is going. We do know from interviews (Maybe even the Way of the Blade interview) that Khan often goes to Dustin and asks him to do spot A from match B from 1994 or whatever, and then Dustin has to figure out what the heck it is he did in that match. What I'm trying to say is that this wasn't some sort of botched or off or misdone finish. It was intentional. Arn's reaction was intentional. With Dustin in AEW, though, you never know if it's going somewhere or just some sort of easter egg. Given that it was happening at the end of Rampage, when Excalibur was doing everything he could to get over the next week of shows, they couldn't exactly stop and note that Dustin had a tendency to do this in big matches, leaning towards sportsmanship and that's part of why he's never been world champion and that he'd even lost friendships over it, as he might with Arn here. They could have even contrasted it with how Moxley won the title on Dynamite, but that's kind of a big ask for a four man booth at the end of a show when they have to hype four upcoming matches. But that's the finish and the mindset behind it. Either it worked for you or it didn't. Maybe it'll work better if you know the history. Maybe it'll work better if they do something coming out of this.

The match itself, however, was very good. A few things about how Claudio is working. One, I think he's utilizing a lot of the small/close up/mean stuff in a way he wasn't in his WWE run. Granted, I haven't seen him much in the last few years, but I really don't remember it. I don't think the BCC is teaching him to rub his arms against people's faces or anything but I do think it's a part of their training sessions so it's on the front of his mind. I really liked how he'd go from a pin to immediately looking for the next hold too. It's all an interesting dissonance to his personality which is light and fun; when he gets in the ring, he's really grinding down and punishing people. Two, there's a certain moveset limitation in WWE. I noticed it the other day with Danielson having the freedom just to do a brainbuster because he wanted to even though it wasn't one of his "set" moves and even though other people may do it. I think it's less likely that Claudio would have just been able to do a shoulder-breaker even though it made sense at the point of the match, so that freedom is nice to see. He can express himself so freely now just in general and he's making the best of that and seems to be enjoying it. 

The early chain-wrestling/oneupsmanship was a lot of fun, the twos in the face and then Claudio having enough of it. Dustin is a very unique character (let alone wrestler, given his size and experience) for guys to push up against and it's good to see someone really lean into it. As the match went on the focus on the shoulder, mixed with Claudio's recent tendency to really bear down on something, made for a pretty compelling story. Dustin had to fight from underneath, because everyone has to fight from underneath against Claudio, but Claudio respected him enough to target a weakness instead of just having a lark with it. Like the Mox/Punk match, the finish will now depend on what happens next, but as wrestling for the sake of wrestling, it was very good and sort of made me want to see Dustin against all of the other ROH champs (Where is Joe anyway?).

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2022 Ongoing MOTY List: Dustin vs. Punk

5. Dustin Rhodes vs. CM Punk AEW Dynamite 4/20

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 - in the obvious ways, like when the bow and arrow didn't work - but also in how he responded to the crowd. The match had spots but it wasn't about the spots. 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 to that 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.

ER: I really like how Matt got into the differences between Dustin/Punk the workers and Dustin/Punk the characters. He's one of the best guys to write about Punk and Dustin because he's good at picking up on learned career history of guys like that, good at picking up on how the crowd is treating the ring work itself, and the guys responsible for the ring work. This was a great match regardless of the two guys involved, and would have gotten a good reaction regardless of who was in the ring. But the crowd has a specific connection to Dustin and Punk, and both are great at making the most of that connection, and having the confidence to know what specifically will connect. I thought this was a tremendous physical Dustin performance, while Punk's best asset was how well he can manipulate a crowd reaction. They worked a match this crowd wanted to see, and one that was perfectly suited to their strengths. Dustin is so good at selling a body part and Punk is good at walking an opportunistic line between face and heel. Dustin's missed crossbody was a cool way to set up the focal point of the match, Dustin's knee. I love the Dustin missed crossbody bump, and this was one of his best, flying out the ropes and landing hard on the floor. 

Dustin winds up working a lot of this match on his back because of it, which is awesome, as one of Dustin's superpowers is getting any crowd to immediately get involved in any match by slamming both of his arms into the mat. I've seen it happen live several times, Dustin just knows how to involve a crowd in his underdog struggle, no matter how much larger he is than his opponent. That upkick to Punk's shoulder (which he had previously - and perhaps unnecessarily - dug the point of his elbow into) and Punk's ensuing smirk were excellent, Punk facially showing that leg was now sentenced to several minutes of punishment. Dustin fighting from his back is so compelling, as I'm not sure there are any wrestlers better at throwing strikes from their back. It felt like every Dustin comeback started with him punching from his back or capitalizing any way he could from that position, like his inside cradle. I loved him punching Punk from his back to knock Punk back into the ropes, then scrambling to his feet in time to catch the rebounding Punk with a powerslam. I loved Dustin's leg selling after hopping down from the middle buckle 10 count punches, that jubilant reaction from the crowd sending a fired up Dustin hopping off the buckles and landing right back on that bad knee, a fantastic Thrill of Victory/Agony of Defeat moment. I also loved how the Go 2 Sleep wasn't the finish, but all of Punk's attempts at it lead to more important ways of advancing the match, Punk's inability to lift the deadweight of the larger man allowing Dustin an inroad, but the knee slowing down Dustin so much that Punk's mistakes weren't so costly. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/30 - 6/5

AEW Dynamite 6/1

CM Punk/FTR vs. Max Caster/Gunn Club

MD: Obviously, it's hard to watch this one back and not be on the lookout for how Punk is hurt. They really build to him coming in the first time and he's there for the hot tag at the end, so there's not a ton of it but it was a little striking how often he went up to the top in that short time he was in there, a double axehandle to start, the body block back off the ropes, the elbow drop on Caster, the springboard attempt that goes wrong on his way in. The Gunns, Austin especially, with his manic energy, have a lot of potential, but they're not there yet. I've come around on Austin's chop block to take out the legs. The first times I saw it, it felt inadvertent, a move of opportunity that shouldn't come up every match, but now he seems to look for it more, as part of his overarching strategy. He's great at reacting when he knows something is coming, when it's a planned spots, but you never know when the crowd is going to start an ass boys chant and he's not always so great at organically working that in. Punk, on the other hand, old pro that he is, can switch a facial expression or little appeal to the crowd mid-sequence depending on how they're reacting. Most of the match was the heat on Dax, and it was good, with a great cut off to lead into the commercial as Dax knocked two of his opponents out of the ring only to have them rush around to take out Punk and Cash off the apron. The fact he put them in position to do so made it even better. Having Billy to sneak in a punch and Bowens to use the crutch only helped matters. Any issues with the match down the stretch were due to Punk's foot, and the internal feeling in your gut that we'll be missing out on what this pairing might have been the start of.

Matt Hardy/Christian Cage/Darby Allin/Jurassic Express vs. Hikuleo/Young Bucks/ReDragon

MD: This was the homecoming match for the Bucks and was going to showcase them while also theoretically giving a little attention to Hikuleo in advance of Forbidden Door, given that Cole is apparently banged up. It wasn't going to be for me but I thought the structure was generally effective for what they were trying to do. Here, there the sort of shine where everyone got to get their stuff in before the dives were all to set up the transition, by clearing the ring so that you were left with Christian and the Bucks. The most interesting moment in there was Christian interacting with Matt Hardy for a moment. Anyway, it meant that Christian worked as face-in-peril during the commercial which is always where they stick the heat, and even though it was a fairly pro-Bucks crowd, by the end of it, there was a chant for him because he's one of the best traditional babyfaces in the company. I know people are itching for the Express to lose the titles and Christian to turn on Jungle Boy but I've always much preferred Christian as a face and there's about another thirty match-ups I'd like to see him have in the company before such a turn. After the hot tag to Luchasaurus it all broke down like you'd expect, an extended, chaotic finishing stretch leading to the Bucks ascendant. Hikuleo got to show a few things here defensively, jamming the chokeslam attempt, catching a dive, no selling Hardy's slams into the corner, but he didn't do much of anything on offense which seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity. This wasn't anything I was particularly looking forward to but it gave the crowd things that they wanted and had enough good things that it did me no lasting harm.

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2022 Ongoing MOTY List: Punk vs. Dax

8. CM Punk vs. Dax Harwood AEW Dynamite 3/23

ER: Phil did some of his best work writing up this match for The Ringer, and Matt did a nice job covering this same match on this very site, and now I'm adding it to our 2022 MOTY List. I really liked Phil's take. I think he's the only one I read who approached 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. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/23 - 5/29 (Part 2)

Double or Nothing 5/29

Darby Allin vs. Kyle O'Reilly

MD: I had to run this one back a second time to get a better feel for it. First time through, it felt sort of disjointed, with Darby getting opened up immediately and that botched first dive not helping things, plus the finishing stretch coming off as a deflation instead of impactful (more on that in a bit). Second time through worked better. The skeleton key here, which Ross missed completely and Excalibur came to too late, was that this wasn't just a match for the sake of a match. The whole point was Darby going for revenge while it was just business for O'Reilly. O'Reilly had lured him out and he was prepared to capitalize on not just mistakes but on basic emotion. O'Reilly was ready right from the get go, countering the initial single leg and opening Darby up. Darby was able to hit his counter-based offense (like the flipping stunner) but his dives and drops were themselves countered. Then, towards the end, O'Reilly used Darby's chain necklace against him to set up the choke, the kicks, and the knee drop off the top. I fully admit I haven't seen a ton of O'Reilly's AEW run so if they've built up the PKs as a deadly finish for the crowd, I missed it. They didn't look all that great and the kneedrop was to the side and not the skull, and it's Darby whose whole deal is resilience so I'm not sure I bought the finish. Overall, though, the underlying story worked for me, even if the announcers could have told their side of it better, with the choppiness chalked up to Darby being out for revenge.

Anarchy in the Arena: Danielson/Kingston/Moxley/Ortiz/Santana vs. Jericho Appreciation Society (Jericho/Menard/Parker/Hager/Garcia)

MD: Sort of hard to write about this. Obviously the finish absolutely worked. Danielson had Jericho beat. Kingston marched back to the ring covered in blood, murder in his eyes. He was ready to set not just Jericho on fire but Danielson as well. Danielson ends up the one who pays the most for it setting up whatever's to come next. What might have been most impressive here was the production, from the looping music (with the fans popping big once they realized it was looped) and Jericho shutting it down to the fact that they were able to capture so much of the action overall while never making us feel like we were truly missing out. We were missing out, absolutely. We missed transitions. We'd come in and one guy would be winning the fight, cut to something else, and come back to have the situations reversed. It didn't really matter though because it all felt like a welcome part of the chaos. We didn't really see how people got opened up. We didn't need to. The blood on their faces and their chests were enough. We have no idea what happened in the freight elevator with Kingston and Garcia. That's fine. We saw the aftermath. I did feel Regal's absence here but I'm not sure how you would have best utilized him in the match. Overall, Jericho actually carried the emotional brunt of this, first with the brawling with Moxley, which was entertaining and had history behind it, and then by being front and center for everything that happened at the end, but everyone had their moments and Parker and Menard bleeding, stooging, and clowning really deserve recognition too. One of my lowkey favorite moments was Garcia hitting a shining wizard in the middle of the concessions area on Kingston obviously as tribute to his new mentor. He should start using that to set up the 1990s style Liontamer instead of the lean-back Sharpshooter. Anyhow, the match lived up to its name, but that almost goes without saying.

CM Punk vs.  Adam Page

MD: I am relatively new to Adam Page. I hadn't seen any AEW until Punk and Danielson showed up and it's not like the blog has gone out of its way to cover 2010s NJPW. In fact, given the prevalence of that style in the overall community, one could argue that we went out of our way not to cover it. I like the interviews I hear from Page. I appreciate his social media presence. I admire that the guy has persevered through his issues and has been open with them. I think there are certain things he does very well in the ring. He emotes well. His stuff hits hard and clean. He brings a lot of energy and aggression and dynamism. We all liked the Archer match from earlier this year. In general, though, his matches kind of drive me nuts. He goes straight from punching and chopping to the fallaway slam/kip up/springboard clothesline spot, usually followed by a dive, and he never looks back after that. I don't know if it's taken from an all-bombs NJPW style I'm not familiar or just Brock-ism, and I get that I'm an outlier on both fronts, but the lack of mid-level offense that lets a match build before escalation really gets to me. There absolutely isn't one way to do things and there shouldn't be, but his matches somehow both seem to miss a chunk of something integral while still being overflowing with stuff. 

Meanwhile, CM Punk has been all over the promotion, and he's brought with him this sort of Neo-Bret-ism: slowing things down, fighting hard over the value and payoff of single spot, bringing the bodyslam back into wrestling, heavy focus on limb selling that reoccurs throughout a match and drives narratives, interesting match layouts that work around the commercial breaks. Danielson, on the other hand, has brought a sort of hard-nosed, forward pressing aggression that interfaces with whoever he's in the ring with. It meant that Page's matches with him ended up less of a clash of styles but instead a merging of them. 

In the ring, this match embodied the underlying stories of the program far better than the lead-up or promos or announcers had been able to present them. It felt like a battle between at least what I imagine the AEW of 2019 and 2020 to be and what the AEW of 2022, with a broader roster and more diverse inspirations, seems to be. Page had overcome his demons, overcome the challenges that plagued him in 2019 and 2020 and finally conquered the AEW that he helped create. In the meantime, however, he had taken months off for the birth of his child and the AEW he returned had grown and changed, in ways that were not at all aligned with his norms and values. Despite that, he had overcome Danielson, only to see that CM Punk was in the center of every promotional image, only to watch Punk lay down those bodyslams and start to pull things back to a world that he felt that the Elite had transcended, building back up old idols that they had successfully torn down, just as the successful NJPW of the 2010s didn't resemble the NJPW of the 80s or 90s and as the Young Bucks continuously have immense success tearing down the norms of traditional tag team wrestling. He finally won, finally reached the top of the mountain, only to realize that it wasn't everything he had hoped and dreamed for. He faced down the challenge of Danielson, a physical challenge, one based on hard work and toughness, only to realize that there was a more invasive, more perfidious challenge before him and his kingdom, in the preachings of Punk. And Punk, who was working with all of the younger talent, who was putting the time and effort in, who was trying to be a decent human being no matter how much of a strain it was when he's just naturally a grumpy bastard, didn't see why Page was so upset over a little thing like his heresy. But a king has to defend his kingdom, from ideas most of all, and Punk, more secure in his own skin after all he'd been through, realized he had the higher moral ground for once. And he acted upon it.

So the match, a match still between two crowd-favorites, between two babyfaces, became less about who would win and more about who was right? In the end, that mattered far more to Page than to Punk. Page had his doubts. Punk had arrogant assurance. Punk wanted to win more, but he had his ego and he believed in his values, and he was going to return Page's affronts within the match with ones of his own. As the match went on, it got both of them in trouble. It took both of their eyes off the ball and the fans, otherwise equal, united in expressing their frustration at either when that occurred. You rarely see that in a match where the fans were not booing the wrestlers, but instead passing judgment upon their actions. You'd see it more in older Japanese matches when someone took a liberty. Here it was when they stopped and taunted, when they refused to follow up but basked in the moment instead, when they tried to prove something instead of trying to win. Maybe, just maybe, Page could beat Punk in a wrestling match all things equal. There's no way in the world that Page could win a pissy bitching content with Punk, though. No one could. That's what he chose to fight, and in the end, after he tossed Punk over the table, after he watched Punk stumble about failing to hit Buckshots, after he hit a GTS of his own, he stood there in the center of the ring, belt in hand, living a Wrestlemania 8 Bret vs Piper moment, and completely lost and adrift. How had he gotten there? Who was he anymore? What had he fought so hard for? It certainly wasn't this. He tried to change course, tried to get back onto the path, but it was too late. 

So, yeah, I liked it.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/9 - 5/15

AEW Dynamite 5/11

CM Punk vs. John Silver

MD: Interesting match due to the crowd not quite being as anti-Punk as was likely expected. While there were clearly some planned callback spots, namely Silver hitting the backslide early and then rolling through when Punk tried it later and the tornado DDT spots (two attempts tossed off, the second with Silver landing on his feet and then a back twisting one that Silver fudged a little but not hugely to the detriment of the match), a good chunk felt called too. Punk made sure to give everything impressive and impactful in the match to Silver. When he had Silver beat him to a pulp in the corner, the fans stopped being so split and got behind Silver. Later on, during the break, when it was Punk's time to be in charge, it was with slow and methodological offense and he drew chants about Chicago pizza being terrible and PG Punk, which he reacted to, garnering more heat. Still, the crowd wanted to cheer for him and by the time he'd fought back in the end and was hanging out on the apron, things were split again, which makes it all the more impressive the boos he got for using the Buckshot. It was never about Punk being an over the top heel, just the little things that shifted the hearts of the crowd.

ER: I really got into this when Silver started beating Punk down in the corner with elbows, but also how quickly Punk took back control after. It's a real important moment in this fun TV match. Every time Silver threw at him, it rocked Punk, but Punk controlled long stretches with his statesman Bret Hart offense. I don't think of Punk as a guy with a great Russian legsweep or inverted atomic drop, but damn did they look great here. Silver's fired up comeback was awesome, loved the kick combo that looked like it came from three directions, and the brainbuster was good enough that it made me think about how nobody really does a great brainbuster these days. The ugly ass buckshot lariat with Hangman looking on commentary looking like a Wyatt Russell character was great antagonizing king shit. I hate Jim Ross saying "Johnny Hungie" more than I hate almost anything. 

Jeff Hardy vs. Darby Allin 

Phil covered this over at the Ringer.

MD: Even with that in mind, I'm not entirely sure what to say about a match like this in 2022. It was weirdly minimalist in as there were not that many spots, not that many interactions, but every single one had a huge impact. It went maybe twelve minutes but it felt somehow infinite and instant at the same time. My favorite part of the Fish vs Hardy qualifying match was Matt working the apron as a corner man and keeping the crowd focused and on point. There was none of that here. It was all climbing and set up and then payoff. 90% of the harm done in the match was self-inflicted. That said, even in a promotion full of big stunts, and big Sting stunts at that, the leap off the ladder stood out and should be memorable for at least months to come if not years. The first replay angle was remarkable. Jeff didn't catch as well as you'd hope but it was like losing a fly ball in the lights. That was Jeff's body language. That was the height differential between them. Jeff's physical charisma and his full body selling has been developed and honed over decades and Darby's one of the best today in emoting the impact of damage done; that combination meant that everything resonated and meant something even if it never coalesced into an overall story. You believed that they would try to one-up each other until the end of the world or until their joints and bones turned to dust, and you sort of believe the finish, that Jeff realized that nothing was going to stop Darby and the only way to save both of them was to break the code of daredevils and sneak in a pin, pressing Darby against the ladder after the coffin drop. I don't know. The match was a pretty good trick but I never need to see them do it again.

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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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