Found Footage Friday: BOCK~! HEENAN~! SD MARK II~! CMLL 4 vs 3~! DUSTY~! DUSTIN~! CODY~!

Nick Bockwinkel/Bobby Heenan vs. Greg Gagne/Super Destroyer Mark II AWA 10/3/80

MD: A recent find from a Wrestling Playlists disc buy. You know the deal. Follow along with the work. This was a blast. Perfect pro wrestling. Destroyer is Slaughter of course. Heenan and Bockwinkel make a big stink out of it to start. This was supposed to be a Loser-Wears-the-Weasel Suit match and they refuse to wrestle if that's the stip. Therefore, they will be heavily fined or suspended but the local promoter says that the match will still take place for the fans. 

Heenan is great here as you would imagine, but he spends a lot of this on the apron or getting cheapshots in with one big moment of comeuppance in the middle and another at the end. It's really all on Bockwinkel who stooges all over the place. Because he doesn't have a competent partner, he's even further behind the eightball and he absolutely wrestles that way, getting knocked around the ring, keeling over after shots, getting abused by both wrestlers. They have a few moments of heat where they're able to get over either by Gagne missing a dropkick or Bockwinkel getting Destroyer in the eyes and following up with a King of the Mountain but it's never for long. Gagne has a great hot tag in as he hits his dropkicks with the second into a nice upkick right onto a charging Bock. 

Finish is Heenan loading up his broken arm and nailing Destroyer from behind so Bockwinkel can pin him. Post-match he demands the weasel suit to put on Gagne because they won but the babyfaces get the better of them and slip it on him. Nice bit here as Destroyer goes to Bockwinkel who is all tangled in the corner and  forcibly shakes his hand before they leave. Post match, Bockwinkel gets the weasel suit off of Heenan and starts beating it up. Just a great bit of emotional vulnerability to send the fans home happy by someone who is usually so buttoned up. 

ER: What a perfect vibe. I think I need to go through a real AWA phase. The vibes don't get much better than this. Heenan and Bockwinkel are a perfect team, Greg Gagne is a guy who is way underrated and undervalued as a babyface, Slaughter is legitimately one of the hardest working big men of all time. The Peg never felt hotter. Everyone did everything I loved seeing them do in this match. Heel Bockwinkel is some incredible stuff. Heel Bockwinkel feels like Billy Robinson crossed with Ric Flair. Heenan is like Buddy Roberts crossed with Tully Blanchard. Everyone throws strikes here that are perfect for who they are. Heenan's 3/4 arm slot attacks with his cast looked like Gagne should have been left bruised. Heenan looked like he should have been scared of Slaughter and fought him accordingly. Bockwinkel looked like he really wanted to snap Greg's neck over the top rope. 

Heenan's Race bump was one of the most incredible versions of that spot. Heenan had this amazing knack for "holding on". Race would tumble dangerously to the floor on his. When I think of any great over the top bump it's always accompanied by "to the floor". But Heenan had this way of hanging onto bumps that made them feel even more dangerous than if he had let go and flown to the floor. It feels like he's body is being torn in multiple directions. I wonder how many weasel suits there were. He's the only wrestler in history to get pulled into a fur suit to rabid reaction for well over a decade. It's impossible to not love Bobby when he's losing his mind in his Where the Wild Things Are fur suit. The zipper always gets stuck, but this time we get to experience the joy of Nick Bockwinkel being flustered while he's trying to get Bobby out of the suit. We have that now. 

Gigante Silva/Atlantis/Tinieblas Jr. vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Gran Markus Jr./Pierroth Jr./Violencia CMLL 09/05/00

MD: Another that Charles salvaged from old discs. I'm not sure I've ever heard of CMLL doing a 4-on-3 match like this but here we go. Pierroth and Silva were the captains and Pierroth had a ton of heat with the crowd,  especially the Arena Coliseo tecnico cheering section which was loud and rowdy and chanting for Mexico the whole way through. The rudos swarmed Atlantis to start staying on him and then Tinieblas pinballing them from one to the other. Once Tinieblas went out they did something I'm not sure I've ever seen before; they pulled Atlantis back in so that Silva couldn't come in. They were even cutting off the ring.

This all led to a huge tug of war spot, but with Atlantis' arms being what they were tugging on. All of the rudos and Atlantis went tumbling across the ring, heralding Silva's real entrance to the match. The rudos tried to swarm him but he managed to whip all of them across the ring in a 4 person Irish Whip. Then he hit a corner clothesline and let me tell you, if you told me that he had killed someone in the ring and not Khali, I would totally believe you with how brutal his shots looked. I don't know if the rudos just asked him to go full on or if he didn't know how not to but every strike was grisly.

The comedy kept coming as Atlantis and Tinieblas lured them into a bunch of rudo miscommunication (a lot of which was Markus, who had lost his mask by this point, crushing his own partners), before they built to endless Atlantis and Tinieblas big splashes on all four rudos, before Silva got to finish it off. This was about ten minutes of ringtime in one fall and definitely didn't wear out its welcome. Fun stuff.

Dusty Rhodes/Goldust/Cody Rhodes vs. Dudebusters (Trent Baretta/Curt Hawkins/Caylen Croft) FCW 7/9/10

MD: If the Vault isn't going to give us old Greensboro and Omni, something special like this, something one of a kind, is up there on what I'd want. This was Dusty's last match, teaming with his sons (one a face, one normally a heel), up against the hottest heel act FCW had to offer at the time in the Dudebusters. Baretta and Croft had their act and it was bolstered with Hawkins returning. At the time, I thought they'd all join Ryder (who had spent 2009 coming into his own on ECW) on the main roster to be his muscle and they could have gotten a good midcard (maybe IC title level) act out of all of it. It was not meant to be. 

I love the presentation here. It's one camera with a bunch of interface noise (like a 16 bit line and contrast or whatever and a little golfing guy icon). The Dudebusters come out with white Dusty Sucks Eggs t-shirts. Dusty and family come out to his WWF theme song, cowbell and all. Dustin is Goldust. Cody is Dashing (but no mustache or faceguard yet).

Cody is set to start but Dusty tags in and I absolutely love how the Dudebusters sell for the idea of him, scattering and leaping up to the top rope just because he entered the ring. Obviously the crowd is going to go nuts at the idea of Dusty driving them nuts. They're selling not a punch or a kick but an idea and an ideal and a larger than life presence. That's beautiful pro wrestling and we see so little of it in 2024. Cody felt a little looser than usual in this setting and Dustin was having a blast, including playing off a Dudebusters deal where the kept kissing his cheek by moving so they ended up kissing each other. This was the first time that Cody and Dustin teamed that we know of and they had some fun tandem stuff (like a catapult bounce back onto the knees/second rope move combo). In general, Dustin was moving great in there and looked like a million bucks.

Eventually the Dudebusters used a distraction to take over on Cody and we got the first of a double heat. They controlled the ring well. The hot tag to Dustin wasn't so hot but that's because the real one was going to be to Dusty later. They took back on him with another bit of distraction (they were good at that). It all built to the true hot tag to Dusty, the place exploding, and Dusty hitting a couple of things before picking up the win. As celebratory and reverent as it should have been but a better match than it needed to be because they let the Dudebusters take so much of it.

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WWE Royal Rumble 1/28/23 Live Blog

ER: Who's ready to read the opinions of a man who hasn't watched a current WWE match since last year's WrestleMania?? Who's ready to read the scratchings of a man who is only barely acquainted with the hierarchy of the current roster?? Who's ready to read the fumblings of a man who knows nothing of current storylines?? Well then you are in for a treat, because I have found such a man. I don't know who HARDY is but I'm going to assume it's a Kurt Sutter persona. 

Doesn't Pat McAfee work there? 

1. Men's Rumble Match

ER: So Gunther is a cool #1 right? Excited to see Keto Walter. Starting him with Sheamus is even better, but I don't think they did very much with their 90. Forearm exchanges and running into a chop, I expect more. Sheamus works more stiff with Miz than with Gunther. Nice of Kofi to come in to interrupt Gunther and Sheamus killing Miz only to hit a bunch of shitty looking offense. Too much rope running in modern Rumbles, and it's practically every damn entrance. The second the match deviates from guys walking around punching each other, it just looks like a series of 20 badly done hot tags. Luckily Xavier Woods comes in to play Bad Eliminators Offense with Kofi. The backsplash and elbowdrop at the end looked good. KARRION KROSS IS STILL HERE? Wild that the Dudley Dudley of Basham Bros. is still here. What's his thing now? Did they take Gable's first name away and then give it back, or did I just assume they were calling him Gable? Karrion Kross is Renegade. I want to root for Escobar but those were some real timing and placing issues during his entrance, does that thing I hate where he comes into a Rumble and just starts working stupid regular match offense. 

Has there not been any kind of roster churn whatsoever in the past year? This is the 2021 roster so far. Okay, Brock is the exact kind of energy this Rumble needed. Rumbles need more desperation and one Really Dangerous Guy in there. RIP Santos, sorry about your hip Chad, touch break on the neck Sheamus. A series of singles matches with not a single swarming dogpile. Are they going with Banger Bros? Rollins and Gargano do the dumbest series of reversals wrestling while Dominik makes his entrance. Dominik has great taste in tights. Did I hear right? Is Balor a Dominik underling? Man what has happened in the past year. A Sheamus/Drew vs. Dominik/Balor straight tag would be really good. 

Damn Booker looks in the exact same shape as he did a decade ago. Is there any old man Booker I need to see from Reality of Wrestling? What has been done to Gunther's back this match? We all love our boys who welt up good. Montez Ford looks huge compared to a year or two ago. He is larger than Dawkins. It doesn't matter how long it's been since I've seen any part of the product, Edge Returns somehow always find me. Maybe I'm an Edge guy now, I don't know. Beth Phoenix will never make the Bull Nakano Pillager haircut look good, it always just makes her look like a Psychlo from Battlefield Earth. Psychlo. I had to look that up. Stupid. I hate the pattern of close placements of current feuds in the Rumble Entrants. Everyone comes out in subsequent entrances, they do their angle, and then everything moves on in two minutes. It's all moments, none of them settle, none of them build. Introduction, Payoff. Sheamus and Drew are at least hitting guys for 45 minutes, everything else gets paid off in minutes. Hardly any elimination teases, which is missed. Braun almost going over actually felt like it had some suspense, just because hardly anyone had come close to being eliminated prior. Everything, or nothing. I love the idea of Logan Paul coming back for revenge on Roman. There are a shocking number of guys on this roster are not as good in the ring as Logan Paul. 

Looks like Cody took about the same amount of time away from WWE as I did. The Logan Paul/Ricochet springboard collision...now THAT'S a moment. That's a spot. Paul went full speed on that. They was a splat! How is Austin Theory even here? What an odd project. It's insane how much better Logan Paul understands what all of this is about. Just shows up ever few months and looks like an old pro. A real performer. Gunther/Cody worked up to a great final, with Gunther hammering on Cody's pec, welting him up good. Perhaps went on too long, but they peaked some moments nicely. The third act of this match was better than the first couple acts. End a 70 minute match strong is better than starting it strong. 

2. The Mountain Dew Pitch Black Match

ER: Boy, for Bray Wyatt is back in the ring for the first time in two years, and I'm hear to witness it? I can really choose 'em. It would be so undignified to take a choke bomb and land on your head surrounded by Spencer's gifts black light posters. Has that popcorn been out there the whole time just because it looks cool getting scattered under black light? Probably a good call. I heard Mountain Dew Pitch Black is citrus flavored which feels feels really incorrect. The market for a good grape soda is wide open. We have sugary citrus sodas. Perfect the grape. Bray looks like the worst worker in a Gringo Loco stable. This was a waste of everyone's time. Uncle Howdy lands 3' wide on the elbow to put a cherry on this shit sundae. 51,338 people all sitting in a dome watching that. 

3. Bianca Belair vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: I cannot believe Bray Wyatt has his hands in this many angles in 2023. How did anybody let this happen?? I like Alexa's kicks to the ribs, but the poorly timed combos offense doesn't play into that, and it makes the control come off cold and out of place. I couldn't believe how quiet the crowd was when Bianca was muscling Bliss around her body to suplex her. Too much of this feels like they're just getting into position for things, and the routine isn't smooth. These combos have no punch at all, no rhythm. This was bad. I don't think there was a single exchange that looked natural or didn't require one of them to hold still in a dumb position. 

4. Women's Rumble Match

ER: Is this match going to be filled with 2021 women in the same way the Men's Rumble was the exact damn same roster? They're still billing Dana Brooke as a strongwoman? She's smaller than Liv Morgan now. Man this is a sloppy mess. It's all half speed move exchanges and half of them look botched. I don't know Roxanne Perez, but she has better energy than anyone else in there right now. Although Rhea did wipe blood on her face. Dakota Kai runs and elbows Liv Morgan in the mouth in her first second in the ring. Man I get Natalya's return too? I am killing it. Natalya's new thinner nose makes her look like a Hemingway sister. I'm glad she didn't go back to the extensions. Are they getting away from extensions now? There's a lot of neon now too. Everything is really bright in that ring. 

Asuka looks incredible. The One mask, the face paint, dance fighting the camera with her body. Iyo Sky is doing a great job staying busy in the background during everyone's entrances. She's just standing over people wailing on them, which is what I want to see. I think I like Chelsea Green more than most but that's fucked. Is this one of those Good Soldier things? I don't know when Raquel went from Gonzalez to Rodriguez but I love her throwing clotheslines. 30 wrestlers who run into the ring and dodge strikes from four other wrestlers in succession. "She's wearing Uggs right now! And she's dealing European uppercuts!" Asuka working ankle locks in the corner on Niven. The Lacey Evans cobra clutch elimination was awesome, Vega just sank to elimination like a rock in a lake. Everyone is doing a lot of weird mute pantomime. Lacey Evans is the only one making sound. I thought the Nia stuff was great, can't believe she was gone for 16 months, but her attitude getting into the ring was perfect. Some of the choreographed stuff at the end, and a bunch of them were good at hanging by the ropes with swinging legs. Ripley was the best throughout, involved in a ton of sequences and showing how much they love winners coming out in the #1 spot. Match picked up down the stretch and I think would have come off stronger if it wasn't as messy in spots. 

5. Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens

ER: The time in between matches is too much, but I have appreciated my snack and drink and stretch breaks. Fat elderly cats don't play with themselves. I'm really happy how excited everyone seems for the Sami Zayn angle. I was never an El Generico guy, but around 2020 he started turning into one of my absolute favorite in-ring guys in WWE. All it took was him working more Buck Robley into his style and he became the best. It's tough working a big main event after two 70 minute matches, but these two feel up to it. Owens has nice punches for this kind of match and both are taking the bumps for it. Owens' frog splashes off the apron and off the top landed flush, the cannonball had big impact, and he sold the first Superman punch like a PEZ dispenser. Owens falling off the top rope and landing on Roman's ribs is a happy accident. This was not that, but I miss guys working blown spots into their matches. Chris Hamrick and Juvy were great at it. They should have just played up that it was another attack on Roman's ribs. I never liked Reigns as a trash talker, but I think he's great as the stoic asskicker. The gray in his beard silent looks are a great vibe, and when he's flashing the dead eyes at his own boys it can be real cold. The beatdown went long but I liked it. The pop Sami got sounded great in a big stadium, and then the real hate Roman drew after. Long, but strong ending. 

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WrestleMania 38 Night One Live Blog 4/2/22

And so, I find myself alone and with nothing at all interesting to do on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I feel my brain slowly slipping into actually thinking the writing about WrestleMania in real time is a good idea. I know it's a bad idea, and yet I feel compelled for reasons that are beyond me. I have only seen one WWE show this year (including TV and PPV) and that was Royal Rumble, which was...exactly as bad as most of the Rumbles have been over the past decade or so. I actually thought the men's rumble was fairly salvageable, while the women's rumble was one of the worst things ever put on WWE programming. And so, after watching one bad one one mediocre 60 minute battle royals, my poisoned brain thought that writing about WrestleMania would somehow be a productive use of mine or anyone else's time. I don't know what matches are on this show, I did not watch the pre-show and I have not seen any 2022 WWE TV. All I know is that people whose opinions I trust are not at all excited about this show, and that perversely must have made me more interested. We're all sickos and idiots. Simple as that. 

1. Shinsuke Nakamura/Rick Boogs vs. The Usos

ER: It is unfathomable that they did not have a single pre-show match while hosting a TWO HOUR pre-show. Injuries and a half dozen DUI have prevented the Usos from teaming up at the past few Manias. The Usos cut Nakamura off from Boogs with some simple kicks and holds (only worthwhile one was Jey's low boot on the apron), then Jimmy and Nakamura are both exhausted 3 minutes in and must build to a hot tag. Boog's axe handle offense should look better, and I think it used to look better. Having Boogs' knee buckle while lifting both Usos is a smart way to take him out of things, and a knee blowing out from lifting too much is far easier to fake than a prolapsed asshole. I'll give the fans huge credit, because they are loud as hell for this match, which would be immediately forgotten minutes after it took place on Smackdown. The Jey superkick while Jimmy was holding Nakamura's hair looked great, and wow this is not a great start to the Grandaddy of Them All. Honestly fucked that the Harder Farmer didn't take Boogs' place once Boogs hurt his knee. 

2. Drew McIntyre vs. Happy Corbin

ER: It's weird being the one guy into Baron Corbin, but I am. Are more people into Corbin now? Do they not like him because he looks like a tall athletic Colin Robinson? I like the way Corbin and Drew move around each other. They're similar size and have a couple similar movements, except one is dressed like Waylon Mercy had Waylon Mercy worked at a Fire Island gift shop. I like Corbin's overhand rights, but liked a little underhand punch he threw a couple times even more. I don't know if I've seen him throw that punch really, but obviously I'm going to support guys adding new punches to their matches. They're the same size, but the match is clearly being worked with Corbin as the heavyweight and McIntyre as the 2000s Edge-style cruiserweight who people don't seem to realize is 6'4. Drew is out here taking the Mysterio bump into the guardrail and hitting a running swanton into Corbin and Moss, missing his running dropkick when Corbin ducks out of the way. Corbin is the one throwing big punches and going for big slams, Drew is the one constantly leaving his feet. Asskicker Drew is better than 260 lb. Finn Balor Offense Drew, but I thought Corbin did a great job pushing the pace of this and setting up Drew's big misses and leaning into his hits. This was good, but underwhelming for WrestleMania. 

3. Rey & Dominik Mysterio vs. Logan Paul/The Miz

PAS: Dominik Mysterio wearing the Gringo Locos gear as a tribute to his real dad.

ER: Dominik's gear is incredible, the first actual good ring gear of his career...and Logan Paul goes and one-ups him by wearing the million dollar Pikachu around his neck. Can't help but dig a guy who clearly gets it. I liked Paul's big leapfrogs and dropdown splits, but Bad Bunny didn't flinch on strikes in his match and you can't lean out of a Rey kick. Rey's not going to be the one who stiffs you man, you gotta stay in to the end. I love Rey's little ashy gray goatee poking out of his mask, and I love Paul committing to the running powerslam even more. Brother held on for dear life and followed it through. I wish someone had clued Paul into Kawada kicks, because Paul in the black and yellow doing trolling little kicks to the forehead would be a perfect bit of offense for him. I liked Paul's Blockbuster and his bump off the apron, and after I was ready to tease him after he flinched, he's tightened everything up since that flinch. There will be a handful of wrestlers on this show whose work doesn't look as good as Paul's (with Boogs already arguably one of them). Miz put a bunch of extra flash into Mysterio's great swinging DDT, and then showed he is the bigger man by doing the Three Amigos as tribute to Dominik's real dad. I'm fully on Team Paul when he does the Three Amigos and then does the shoulder shimmy up top before hitting a very good frog splash, but then he sets up Rey's 619 as well as anyone since mid 2000s Chavo with a great missed clothesline stumble. I thought this was pretty great. Everyone was on and the layout let everyone shine. Everyone knew when to hang back and when to take the moment, and it just coming together and building. Constant smile on my face during this one. 

4. Biance Belair vs. Becky Lynch

ER: Texas Southern marching band doing Belair's entrance is so damn cool, and I loved the big brass touches they added as accompaniment to her theme. Once they started enhancing the existing them and not just playing a marching band version, it was next level. I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but Becky's chopped mullet looks so much better than that shitty Mad Max pompadour that has covered wrestling like a foul stench. I am a mark because I fully bit on the 10 second finish. They did it before, it wouldn't be shocking for them to do it again! The longer the match goes the more I love Becky's look. She looks like she'd be at a club in Liquid Sky. Her suplexes look fine, but the rope drape legdrop needs some work. I appreciate that this thing isn't 50-50 reversals of reversals, but I think Becky was in control for way too long and Bianca is far more impressive on offense than when she's selling. It's really weird that they are not letting Bianca do anything powerful. Becky not only gets to do all of the offense, but she also gets to slip out of every piece of Belair offense. When I finally think Becky is going to be planted with a powerbomb, it gets reversed. Belair's 450 looks so much cooler with the braid, but Becky Lynch coming up way short on the Molly Go Round and axe kicking Bianca in the face looked even better. Once the Manhandle Slam (ugh) happening on the steps I again bought into that false finish, thinking they could plausibly do a count out finish and even getting me to think that they would have put this as the main event if they were actually doing a title change. So, they got me to fully bite on two different false finishes, and that has to mean it's a good match. It shows they fully understand the story they're selling and know how to play off of fan expectations, and that's awesome. I still think there were ways to give Bianca more during the match as I don't think Lynch needed 15+ minutes of control just because she was losing the belt, but I cannot argue that the match was a success. 

5. Seth Rollins vs. Cody Rhodes

I can't say I'm very excited for this match, but I'm sincerely happy for the people who wanted Cody. I was a big fan of In the Weeds AEW era Cody, a guy who was no longer really had a role in the company he helped found, an interesting take on the played out shades of gray character as he actually felt like a real shades of gray person. But Cody Rhodes in the WWE doesn't sound interesting in any way to me, it takes all of the edge away from that weird character he was leaning into. But I will give all the credit in the world to Cody, because I don't think that anyone could have predicted that he would ever be getting this kind of Stadium show WrestleMania reaction even 5 years ago. I don't know the program that pairs these two up, and I don't understand Rollins' Epic Bacon Dalton Castle gimmick but we'll give it a shot. The vertical suplex to the floor was a great sprawling Cody bump, and it feels like they're making their small scale stuff a bit more upscaled for the stadium, and that's cool. I don't know if the match itself is grabbing me, but Rollins had bigger chops and a harder back elbow than normal and Cody's armlocks looked good, Rollins flies 20 feet over a table off an okay Cody tope, etc. The pinfall trading and strike reversals mostly looked bad, but at its core this was a Seth Rollins vs. Seth Rollins match and I couldn't vibe with it even with the crowd so loudly behind Cody. The move trading doesn't work for me, the bad Rollins Kings Road Tribute strikes don't work for me, but I do like that Cody understands internal WWE match logic of Invoking Legend Offense To Set Up Finisher is a surefire victory. I never would have guessed Cody would be getting among the loudest reactions at a WrestleMania, and I don't see how he can maintain this level of intrigue while in WWE, but for now people got what they wanted. 

6. Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte

ER: I'm not sure why I'm not more excited for comeback Ronda. She was one of my favorite things in pro wrestling during her initial run so maybe she just has some of the stink from that brutal Royal Rumble on her. Charlotte needs to throws a tighter back elbow. It's Ronda Rousey Charlotte, you can work like an asshole. The grappling was good and I like how Ronda rag dolled Charlotte on a couple of takedowns and tied her up in the ropes, but also took a cool flipping back bump to the floor when Charlotte reversed her. Charlotte responds to my note about her back elbow by walloping the entire side of Ronda's head with head arm and elbow, then runs face first into a Ronda kneelift. Weirdly, Rousey feels more like a rookie wrestler now than she did in 2018, and this whole thing is becoming a weird piece of theater. I don't know which page they are supposed to be on, I don't know who is messing up what, but it's kind of making the match more compelling? Charlotte's moonsault looks bad enough on its own, she doesn't need someone fucking up her timing. This is super disjointed and would be better if Charlotte got unprofessional, but it's staying a bit too genial. I said that it was too genial right as they stated kicking each other in the mouth on the mat. The end stretch was fine, the figure 8 and breaking of the figure 8 looked cool, but this match never threatened to be anywhere near as good as their Survivor Series 2018 match. Rousey was having great singles matches with every woman on the roster in 2018, and based on her big match performances in 2022 I just don't think that's a thing that's going to be happening this time around. 

7. Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Kevin Owens

ER: I can't believe they're actually giving us a wrestling match. I can't believe Stone Cold Steve Austin is coming back after like 20 years away and he's going to have a t-shirt and shorts match against Kevin Owens of all people. I will stop waiting for Austin to rip the shirt off, or tear the jorts off to reveal the black trunks underneath, but my only real base level hope for this is that it isn't anywhere near as depressing as the Bret/Vince match. The throwback Austin stuff in the ring certainly looked like a guy in his 50s who hadn't wrestled in a couple decades working through some of his classic mannerisms at a convention show. What I was not expecting, was this match suddenly getting great when they move it to the floor. Owens is game for taking big bumps around ringside, but I was actually shocked when Austin took a massive bump into the ringpost. I mean I was not expecting Steve Austin to wrestle, let alone take actual peak era Austin bumps, so this is insane. The crowd brawl was really good and Owens was so good at stumbling and tumbling his way down aisles at the perfect pace for Austin to follow along punching him. Good rhythm. Austin is one of my favorite wrestlers of all time, and no part of me would have predicted a few hours ago that I'd be seeing him take a vertical suplex onto concrete tonight. What a madman. This guy had a cool thing going by being the guy who never came back to give Hogan - or anyone - their dream match, and who knows maybe he sees Sting doing an insane balcony dive and goes "Hell Stone Cold Steve Austin can take a stupid bump on concrete". Owens is good a bumping down the long entrance ramp and Austin looks like he's having a great time out there, and I'm happy they're delivering much more than they needed to. I bet plenty of people would be happy just seeing a Stunner, so I imagine they are ecstatic seeing an actual Stone Cold brawl. Owens re-signs and main events WrestleMania with the biggest white whale retired wrestler in history, and my hat is off to WWE for actually giving a stadium of people a show filled with actual moments that they wanted, not ones that WWE wanted them to want. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 9/22/21

21. Bryan Danielson vs. Kenny Omega

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

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

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

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

CM Punk Interview

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

MJF vs. Brian Pillman Jr. 

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

Cody Rhodes vs. Malakai Black

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

16. Darby Allin/Sting vs. FTR

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

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

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

Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs. Ruby Soho

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

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 3/3/21

What Worked

-Shaq went through a table on a Wednesday night, and I cannot not enjoy that. 

-Even with a truly putrid Luchasaurus performance and a dumb finish with clunky interference from a "masked individual" (the return from a several month absence of the legendary Shawn Spears), it was impossible to not absolutely love the performance from Tully and FTR. They even got JJ Dillon (great touch) and he blasted Jungle Boy with his loafer. But Tully wrestled so much better than anyone could have reasonably expected, and I honestly have no clue how this guy hasn't been putting in a few high profile indy performances every year of the last 25. He had great body shots on Marko and some awesome knee lifts, and was great at working bullshit from the apron (like standing on Jungle Boy's hair!), and for a quick paced match there was not one moment where it looked like things had to be slowed down for him. He was integrated into things perfectly, and that's not really too shocking as his timing has always been excellent. But seeing how good he looked here just made me want to see more, and also want to desperately know how he worked off any ring rust. And that was BEFORE he hit a slingshot suplex! Seriously how has he not been cashing in on indy dates?? FTR also looked excellent, really brutal, Cash Wheeler especially. He was great cutting the ring off, threw a fantastic uppercut, really felt the most like prime Arn I've seen in ages. FTR worked quicker than the much quicker JX, and managed to look punishing the entire time. Awesome performance for all three of them, even though the Arn Horseman fingers during the post-match couldn't have come off more forced. 

-Max Caster's pre-match rap actually got me to choke a bit on my coffee when he dropped the line about Lady Gaga's dog walker. Caster's pre-match raps are easily the best thing about his act, but it's a good part of the act. Match goes below. 

-Marq Quen is great at taking high backdrop bumps and beals, and that is a genuine skill. His regular backdrops look great, but his flipping 450 "backdrop" that landed him on his face looked amazing, incredible height and a wicked landing. Everything else he does goes down below. 

-John Silver had a fun performance in the main, a guy who can chain combos together without making it look like the opponent is waiting to get hit, and a compact powerhouse who believably launched Quen around the ring. Silver beal tossing Quen across the ring looked like Bradshaw throwing around Kaientai. 

What Didn't Work

-Mixed tag worked about as well as it possibly could have, but it was quite the mess. A fun mess at times, but a mess nonetheless. The sight of Shaq in the ring was enough to make me enjoy this, loved how terrible his form was on his overhand chop and it still sounded like the hardest chop Cody has ever taken. The Shaq powerbomb looked great, and I thought it was incredibly stupid that Cody was up seconds later and actually body slammed Shaq. Bodyslamming Shaq 4 minutes into his first pro wrestling match is definitely something that HHH would have done had the WWE been able to bring him in (and seriously, how the hell did WWE never make Shaq a big enough offer to appear at Mania!?), but that doesn't make it any less stupid here. Jade Cargill is going to be a big deal if she sticks to it, but at this point she is maybe almost as good as Midnight? Almost everything she did looked rough (although I liked her spinebuster), and Red Velvet was not the seasoned pro who was going to be able to lead her to anything worthwhile. Nobody else in the match did Velvet any favors either, and having multiple people miss a catch on a moonsault to the floor is something AEW has shown to be unparalleled at. The table spot was great, Cody riding Shaq down into the ground, but a lot of this was bad, even with the lowered expectations of having essentially two non-workers in the match. 

-Fenix/PAC squash match stunk, but at least it was over quick. John Skyler waited bent at the waist for a PAC sliding kick that didn't look good, and Fenix missed a legsweep kick by more than maybe any missed kick I've ever seen. Fenix later did a cool rope walk punt on Skyler's partner on the apron, and that missed by at least a foot. Thigh slap was there though. 

-Tully, you're 67 years old. Just wrestle without a shirt, buddy. Nobody cares if you don't have abs, you don't have to dress like a bike courier.  

-Women's match was rough, so many of the spots looked downright bad. Rose had a really nice face first bump off the apron to the floor for a convincing count out tease, and almost everything else in the match looked bad. Rose seems to have no lifting power whatsoever, her slams all looked like Mizunami was doing all of the lifting herself. The superplex was so bad, and if you can't make it look like you're at least attempting to suplex someone, maybe you should not do a superplex. Mizunami didn't look much better, and her guillotine legdrop may be one of the worst in modern wrestling. The bad spots kept coming throughout, peaking when Mizunami had to stay hung over the ropes for 15 seconds waiting for Nyla's kneedrop, like this was a year 2000 indy match. And for as much as the commentary crew were blown away that that kneedrop didn't finish the match, Mizunami sure was back on her feet immediately doing her own big offense. Bad layout, bad execution, bad match. 

-Ten vs. Caster definitely felt like one of those dreadfully dull matches that would happen before a Raw main event, so it was fitting that this went on at 9:35. Ten especially looked bad, looked like a guy who was wrestling with a concussion. He moved slow, threw bad strikes, and laid around a lot, really odd performance. You'd think a guy would be more excited to get on TV. Caster is real hammy, which is fine, but he needs some offense that actually looks good. Everything looks way too light, bad arm strikes, soft stomps, uninspiring arm work, bad at tying any of the action together. Nice brainbuster, which is something. 

-On a night with a lot of bad offense, Marq Quen had the unreservedly worst offense on the entire card. Show me someone with worst stomps or worst strikes, and I'll show you someone who should consider another profession. You wouldn't expect a non-wrestler to have offense as bad as Quen's, and in fact this show had TWO non-wrestlers with better looking offense! Honestly he should just be a manager. He can take a great backdrop bump while managing, and then wouldn't have to do any offense, which he can't do anyway. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 1/6/21

What Worked

-I was initially down on the opening 8 man tag, finding at odd how much of a backseat The Acclaimed took the entire match. I thought they showed a lot of presence in their Dynamite debut and had kind of assumed they'd be treating them big. So it felt odd when they were such afterthoughts here, at the expense of talking about how Frankie Kazarian hadn't lost a step the entire match. But I admittedly got into the story after the match, with Kazarian's promo. I like a retirement or team breaks up storyline, and while it's true I haven't been excited for a Daniels/Kazarian match since 2001, I think the role of old gunslingers can be suitable to a lot of late career wrestlers. I have a soft spot for wrestlers playing that role, and I like the addition of them breaking up after their next loss. It's something that could supplement the in-ring. The match itself was fun enough, if way too one-sided for SCU/Bucks. I kind of talk out both sides of my mouth, as I have complained about AEW matches worked too competitively, but I think this would have been better if it was more even. I think SCU winning but having to work hard to beat Acclaim/Hybrid2 would have felt like even more stakes going into a much bigger match against the Bucks. It would be more like Rocky taking too much of a beating in a tune-up fight. Bucks had some nice dives, Kazarian worked hard in the match to give the angle some weight, and it kept a good pace. 

-Snoop Dogg at nearly 50 looks so cool in the Doggystyle hoodie. This guy is going to look cool forever and then cool as a corpse. He looked terrible up on that top rope, but who cares, Snoop went off the top rope. We can't all be Federline. 

-Shida/Abadon was nicely laid out, even if it wasn't quite good? Shida has charisma for sure, but her wrestling can be a real mess. She comes off uncoordinated during a lot of spots, and has timing issues, but she has the kind charisma that plays well off of a horror movie Kamala. Abadon bites at Shida's thigh and neck, and works like an ugly bruiser character from the 50s. Shida's incoordination comes out when she is doing more complicated roll ups and timing things with multiple people, and that really didn't come up until the very end here. She mostly sold a beating, brick walled for a couple Abadon clotheslines, and her fighting through things is where her charisma works. So the match played to their strengths without actually being great in-ring. 

-I didn't love the main event - too much Omega goofiness and it could have used an editor - but it was the first time since Fenix got dropped on his head that he looked like he knew which direction he was going in the ring. It was a good main event performance (could have used less melodrama) and had a nice mix of him hitting his great flying offense (dug his double springboard dropkick into wild tope con giro that almost went over the guardrail), and he's great at taking Omega's offense. Fenix will get tossed hard on Germans and lean into v triggers, and he did that all match. Omega takes a reverse rana in a way that looks devastating, but I couldn't tell you the last time a rana that looks like someone is getting spiked on their head was anything more than a "shocking" kickout. We'll see where the pinfall controversy goes, but I don't know if I need another Omega main event epic with Fenix. Fenix is doing well at working big match drama into his bigger singles, but I don't like Omega's specific brand of drama. Maybe I would like a Fenix/Omega sprint more? 

What Didn't Work

-Wardlow/Hager felt like they should have accomplished more with the time they got, felt like the middle was a little time killing. I liked Hager's takedowns and some of the early matwork, and I think would have preferred things stay that way. It feels like a fresher way for bigger guys to work a match these days. But eventually Hager took a nice bump off the apron into the guardrail, and I liked Wardlow's three suplex and slams and a couple other throws. But this didn't quite get to the level that I think it could have. 

-I thought Sydal/Rhodes went WAY too long and felt like they were throwing out way too much. Cody was really flavorless here and he was responsible for a lot of the drag. There was early clumsiness, and Cody felt so...in the way through much of this. Sydal hit a nice meteora to the ramp and a nice dive, but Cody kept taking this thing in such uninteresting directions. The Sydal crossbody with a clumsy Cody roll through into leg work just seemed like somebody throwing dumb sequences at the wall. I hate that thing Cody does where he bumps the same direction his opponent is already bumping, so has to do this stupid jog like when a car is waiting for you to finish crossing the street, just to be able to bump somewhere there isn't a body. He did that kind of thing a lot here. This had bad energy despite not being dull, it just went too long and never hit the level it thought it was at. 

-I do not like Jericho on commentary. It is way too much, and he sounds like a drunk guy rambling over everyone half the time. It's like having two JR's out there, which is two too many. During Inner Circle matches? Fine. During entire broadcasts? Please, no. No more. 

-A Bullet Club revival, famous hand sign included, is not going to be the thing to excite me. I am sure that it excites many other people, and that's fine by me. Is this something people are excited about? Jericho was acting excited. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 12/16/20

What Worked

-My WCW muscle memory kicked in when the snow started falling after Cody's win, and I actually said "Glacier" aloud, to myself. 

-I actually really liked The Acclaim's rap AND Kazarian's rap before their match. Honestly, the raps probably made me enjoy the match more than I should have. I don't think the match was very good, but the wrestling on this show has been dreadful so...I thought Christopher Daniels's jabs looked really good?

-Diamante decided to have her whole butt hanging out of her trunks so that seems like it works? 

-Omega/Janela was about as dumb as it gets, nothing but stunt spots segueing into stunt spots with no flow to them. BUT the stunt spots look good so fuck it, need to populate the top side of this write up a bit. Janela's tope looked good and Omega plastered himself into the guardrail a couple times, Janela took a bulldog face first on a chair, got hilariously into place for an Omega top con hilo, etc. Every spot was a restart, but the landings looked sick enough and Don Callis on house mic commentary was great. This is the best Omega's V Trigger knees have looked in lord knows when, really looked like he was going to cave in Janela's face with them. After seeing those 1/2 speed knees he through past Moxley's head last week I was thinking Omega had lost his speed, but I really loved the aggression he used to wreck Janela. 

What Didn't Work

-Opening trios was pretty disjointed and didn't have any kind of flow to it. It slowed down at weird times and never felt like it had any kind of consistent (or good) pace to it. NOAH knew how to throw six random guys into a trios and have a nice high floor, but this had very little going for it. It's great that Alex Reynolds is confirmed Alive after definitely not being knocked out cold, and Hangman had a couple nice lariats (including one that Kassidy bumped onto the side of his head). But a lot of this had bumps that felt a little too disconnected from the offense they were supposed to be taking, and it never came together in a meaningful way. 

-I think there is a potentially good Cody/Angelico match, but this was not that match. I'm not into match layouts where one guy does his stuff, and then the other guy decides to stop taking offense and start doing all of his own offense. I liked the Angelico wrist control do-si-do arm drags but didn't love much else. Neither was great at taking the other's offense, and that's going to hurt a match that's nothing but guys taking turns on offense. Angelico is good at taking headstand plants on cutters or DDTs, but the way he just stands there waiting to take something never looks good. Cody had kind of a similar thing where he would just stand there waiting for Angelico to run into his offense, and it all sucked brother. 

-Lance Archer interrupting Eddie Kingston's Airing of Grievances like 30 seconds in while wearing the shittiest ripped and distressed jeans I have ever seen is a big damn heel move

-I like when Butcher wears his butcher's apron, but why is Blade out there in one? Wearing his dirty jeans, t shirt, and apron he just looks like a Whole Foods burrito bar employee at the end of his shift. 

-12 man had the same problems the other matches have had so far, real weird energy and a lot of people on a different page. Jericho/Pillman stuff was decent, and I loved Jericho's straight right hands more than anything else in the match (other than Sammy Guevara's awesome folded over his knees sell of a Trent kick), and that's because most of the match didn't work. When you have a match like this and a bunch of guys who have never been in a match with 11 other people, you're going to have a bunch of people getting in each other's way. There were several guys who didn't look ready for prime time (not sure I've ever seen a sloppier slingshot legdrop than whatever it was Griff Garrison did), but I did laugh a bunch when Jake Hager - on the apron for most of the match - finally got in the ring. Not only did he trip over the ropes, but then he hit one of the ugliest, sloppy "F10" finishers I've seen, just a lazy spin that basically resulted in Garrison being dropped in a weak body slam. That's what gets a pin? Total mess. 

-You give me Ivelisse in a tag match and I'm going to want to see that trademark unprofessional Ivelisse work. But this was mostly just Diamante and Swole going through some rehearsed sequences, some of which looked good, some of which looked like a couple people standing around counting out their steps. It's hard to get any kind of heat or maintain much interest when it feels like the in ring is just going through the motions. This whole damn show has felt like it's going through the motions. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 12/2/20

What Worked

-Jericho/Kazarian was a decent enough old guy fight, though I think a lot of the best stuff happened during picture in picture, sadly. Jericho is good at keeping a nice thread of hard short right hands and stiff right elbows running through matches like these, and I liked him peppering in stiff strikes while mostly just letting Kazarian either bump or do his 2006 offense. Kazarian takes a nice big bump into the guardrail, and he lands right on Jericho while doing a Spanish Fly and while I don't think that was intentional, I dug it even more as a nearfall. I liked the bit with MJF threatening to throw in the towel, strong asshole move from the guy infiltrating the stable. The match itself wasn't clean, some things didn't quite land like they were supposed to, but that typically adds to a match like this. 

-I am not excited for 60+ year old Sting in AEW ("long term contract"!?!), but I cannot put into words the joy I felt listening to Schiavone scream his head off in excitement. It's Stiiiiiiiiing!! 

What Didn't Work

-The further we get away from a time in wrestling where battle royals were either a) an important part of a card, or b) a common match on a card, the more we get into the territory of modern battle royals filled with people who don't know how to work a compelling battle royal. Two minutes into this battle royal and I counted 9 people lying on the mat, apron, or ringside, selling exhaustion. Nobody knows how to work interesting mini stories within a battle royal, they now only know how to do actual sequences they just work in normal matches. Dustin is the best battle royal worker in AEW, and he was not in this one, and you really need at least one battle royal engineer in there to make one work. Tully Blanchard was shown smiling on from the crowd, and you'd think a super compelling battle royal worker like Tully could have at least passed along some advice. Tully was the kind of guy who you'd see constantly stooging his way through, cheapshotting people, begging off when caught about to cheapshot someone. Here, one of the few people I saw trying something like that was Kip Sabian, who was comically blocking people off so Miro could beat them down. The rest just looked like guys lying around until it was their turn to bump. Sure, there were some nice elimination bumps (I liked Quen getting thrown back over on the silly string attempt), but there just wasn't any color or battle royal artistry happening here. Everyone needs to just go watch an All Japan battle royal (any one). There will be at least 3 or 4 easy things to steal. 

-Well, Baker/Hirsch was a bit of a mess, several little time standing still moments. Hirsch is billed as 4'11 but I'm not sure she's even 4'8. She makes Baker look like a giant, but that just made it worse when none of Baker's kneelifts came close to making contact with Hirsch's head. Baker has long legs, and I don't honestly know how kneelifts can miss by 6" when she barely had to lift her knee over her waist to make contact. And that was kind of the story of the match. I liked Leyla's chops on the apron, thought her suplex was cool (but think the set up of Baker needing to sell in the ropes while Hirsch slowly runs back and forth hitting offense is silly), but that submission trading was slow and ugly. Baker is a great personality and has improved in the ring, but that was not visible here. 

-I think I would have liked the Cody/Darby tag a lot more if it was just a Darby/Hobbs singles match. Darby selling and getting ragdolled by someone like Hobbs will always be entertaining, even though Hobbs doesn't quite land with the follow through that they act like he has on commentary. All of Darby's offense looked great, my favorite being the springboard back elbow on Starks before the commercial break, and that nasty coffin drop on Starks to end things. Actually, any time Darby and Starks interacted looked good. The problem was mostly Cody. Cody tagged in with a bad run of hot tag offense, whiffing on stomach kicks, barely making contact on a springboard dropkick, landing way light on a pescado; all of his offense looked like he was just running through a rehearsal with Starks and Hobbs, saving the full contact for the actual live show.  

-WHYYYYYY did that main even need to be 30 minutes? You ever watch one of those Jon Moxley matches where it looks like he's working at about 2/3 the speed he usually works, and throws most of his strikes so that they don't make contact? It's a thing, and that's how he spent most of this 30 minute match. Anything interesting about the match (namely Moxley getting his leg worked over after a dragon screw in the ropes and getting tossed knee first into the guardrail) get abandoned by the first commercial break, never to be mentioned again. Moxley worked this match the way a depressed man in a bathrobe makes breakfast, just dragging his feet throughout the entire thing. Kenny felt like he noticed how draggy Moxley was and decided to dump himself on his head a bunch to make up for it. It helped, honestly, but Moxley kept dragging things back down. At one point, selling exhaustion, they had one of the worst looking "on our knees throwing strikes" exchanges I've seen, the kind of thing that would stand out as bad on any local indy. Omega was making awful faces, all of the shots looked terrible, completely embarrassing stretch of match. It went so well, that not long after they decided to have an even stupider strike exchange by sitting in folding chairs and taking turns seeing who could throw a more mediocre punch. 2x speed only mildly saved things, but they couldn't save how awful Moxley's elbow strikes looked while escaping Omega's first 1WA attempt. You look at those downward elbow strikes and you tell me what they were supposed to look like. I have no idea how Moxley thought those looked, but nobody can tell me those even looked like someone miming a strike. Omega's knees down the stretch may have looked bad and landed somewhere around Moxley's tricep, but at least it looked like someone throwing a limb at their opponent. What an awful match. 

-I have no actual clue how to feel about the new relationship with Impact. Impact has gone on for so long and is so off my personal radar that it's not even an amusing punchline anymore. I used to love making fun of TNA, have fond memories of that night where they went head to head with Raw and had an impossible amount of things go wrong (the Homicide mousetrap cage, Jeff Hardy being mobbed by two teenage girls in the parking garage, Hogan driving to the building for an hour). I watched it with friends and we laughed about it for years. But at this point TNA has been around since before I could legally drink, and it's just this thing that somehow never goes away. It's managed to exist for 18 years and it may be around in 18 more, but I'm not sure how old I will have to be to want to revisit a bunch of old TNA. I will watch so many other eras of wrestling several times over before I get nostalgic for TNA. And yet here they still are, somehow getting another life preserver by being attached to a stronger product. Maybe I'll root for a partnership between two competitors to actually work! Maybe this will turn into something interesting. I'm not very interested in it at the moment, but because of the angle I found out that Impact was actually on AXS TV, and before this I just assumed they had existed on Twitch or Quibi or European Netflix for the past couple years. If my Tuesday evening is otherwise unfilled, maybe I will watch AEW invade Impact Wrestling. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/18/20

 What Worked

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

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

What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Full Gear Live Blog

 PAS: Wife and kids are visiting the in-laws today, so I figure I would check this out.  I am incredibly excited about Eddie Kingston vs. Jon Moxley, Kingston is an all-time favorite of mine and I am so excited to see what he can do with the biggest opportunity of his life. I also think Darby vs. Cody should be good as usual, and there are some other matches which might be good too.

Allysin Kay vs. Sereena Deeb

PAS: Not sure the point of having two different women's titles that aren't particularly booked well and that folks don't really care about. This was a solidly executed match that never did anything to stand out past solid. I liked the stuff in the ropes with the neckbreaker by Kay and later the dragon screw in the ropes by Deeb. This never broke past OK, although that is a pretty good rating for the AEW women's division.

Hangman Adam Page vs. Kenny Omega

PAS: This was OK I guess, this isn't really the type of wrestling I like, and the parts where they just exchanged, and then exchanged finisher, I was completely out. Also Page has a shockingly bad looking shoulder block from a guy I assume was trained by Beau James. I did like the finish with Page fighting the One Winged Angel before falling, and some of the chops and knees looked really good. Page hit a really nice regular clothesline and should probably ditch the goofy flip and just throw that. This is the kind of thing that Meltzer will give 5 3/4 stars too, and I thought was closer to watchable.  

John Silver vs. Orange Cassidy

PAS: I dug this a bunch. I am someone who found Cassidy's indy stuff relatively insufferable, but he tweaked it a bit in AEW and it is more of a way to frustrate and taunt his opponent then something that breaks the rules of wrestling. Silver was great as a steaming hothead, and I thought the ripping of the pockets was fun frustrated response spot. I haven't seen much of Silver before, but I dug all of his short man power spots, the one armed gorilla hold was really cool as was his spinning backbreaker, and his wild strike combos were stiff and cool Cassidy does have great body control and his escapes and counters looked great, just a compact exciting little match. A real surprise. 

Cody Rhodes vs. Darby Allin

PAS: I thought this was well on it's way to being a classic until a bit of a flat ending. Cody has had some undeniably great matches in his AEW time, but he has always felt like the canvas other artists were painting on, here he added some color and texture of his own. Here he actually had some killer offense and brought plenty of great offense of his own. All of the arm work of Rhodes was super nasty, the hammerlock throw to the stage looked like one of those crazy bumps Allin would take against Ethan Page. I also loved him shifting his weight on the Darby armdrag and dropping him on the bad arm. The top rope Cross Rhodes was brutal, as was the top rope counter to the sleeper. It was building to an amazing finish, but the series of rollups just didn't look great and the finish fell flat.  Darby has so much great looking roll up offense, having him win on some lame reversal was weak. Still overall this was killer and this PPV is super delivering with the main event still to come. 

Nyla Rose vs. Hikaru Shida

PAS: This PPV is delivering even on the things I wasn't looking forward too. The only other Shida match I have liked was against Aja Kong, so she must be best against big ladies she can hit really hard. I liked all the knee work by Rose, and she really knows how to use her size to make it hurt. Shida kept it pretty simple and just smashed Rose over and over again with nasty knee strikes until Rose was done, no problem with that finish at all. 

Young Bucks vs. FTR

PAS: I liked big portions of this, but think it eventually bloated past the point of great match. I really enjoyed the insane bumps Cash Wheeler was taking, just flying to floor like a luchadore losing his mask. I also thought the stuff with Harwood's busted hand was cool, not sure if that was an improv, but they did interesting things with it. The Face in Peril section was great, lots of interesting cut offs and a fun escape to a hot tag. The finish run just went on and on though, running through too many tribute spots and too many near falls, there was stuff I liked and would have liked as finishes, but they just ran too many finishes. At 20 minutes this would have been great, at damn near 30 it just was too much. 

Final Deletion

PAS: Not sure what the hell that was. Why it was so incredibly long, and I am not sure why they ended a comedy match with a horrifically violent murder. The last couple of minutes were some sick stuff, not sure how much of that was camera tricks, but it sure looked horrid. The bump from the apron was nasty, that chair shot to the forehead was gross as was the last chair shot on the concrete. Then they go back to weird call backs to other Hardy cinematic matches. I am not sure it was bad, but I am not sure it was good either.

Chris Jericho vs. MJF

PAS: This was pretty good stuff too, I thought the Jericho miss of the Judas Effect into the post was nasty stuff, and MJF's arm work was pretty good, although hurt by the Cody and Darby match being worked the same way. MJF still needs to work on the little stuff, although the big stuff normally looks OK. Goofy finish, although appropriate for what they are trying to do. Everything on this PPV hasn't hit it out of the park, but everything has at least been good stuff and you can argue that everything has over delivered. Very excited for this main event!

35. Eddie Kingston vs. Jon Moxley - GREAT

PAS: My expectations for this were sky high, Kingston has had so many stone cold classics, two matches on our All Time MOTY list, and this was him shooting his biggest shot ever on a PPV main event. This is a match I am going to want to watch again, but on first impression it didn't reach the heights of his best stuff. I thought the first brawling exchange looked great, the Frye vs. Takayama exchange almost always looks bad, but they were winging punches at each other with real force and violence. The tough guy chop exchange is also something I don't normally love, but worked for what they were trying to do here. I thought when this delved into death match stuff is where it fell a bit short. The barbed wire baseball bat is pretty tired at this point. I did like how Eddie sold the internal damage with the bloody mouth, and the craziness of wrapping his fist in barbed wire for the backfist was pretty great. Didn't think we needed either the thumbtacks or the alcohol, and a lot of the match was built around those as the big spots. The Eddie kicks to the nuts were great, as were all of his little quick jab slaps and crossfaces. I think we needed one more big Eddie near fall, and while the bulldog choke with the wire is a sick finish, I wanted it milked a bit more. The big dramatics in WWE matches are tiresome shit, but Eddie Kingston can do big dramatics better then almost anyone ever, and I needed this to be a bit more high key. I still thought this was a heck of a PPV main event, and one of the better matches of the year, but it won't end up in a Kingston top 5 or maybe even a Kingston top 10, and I wanted this to be his masterpiece. 

JR: It’s pretty rare that I feel way off base after a match compared to our little bubble, but I seem way higher on this than everyone else. I suppose I’ll try and articulate why? I think after a show on which everything felt bloated and over booked, this moved a clip that I was comfortable with. Eddie Kingston has strengths that have been touched upon here many, many times, but one I think that stands out in this performance is his ability to mine emotion and narrative without the WWE style negative space that every big main event has come to rely upon. I didn’t want an I quit match with two guys laying around after big moves and then grimacing and then doing something again. I wanted what I got here; a match which someone trying their hardest, pulling out every stop, and then when they ran out of ideas, coming to terms with their own limitations. Moxley was good here as well, working with enough pace to not indulge in some of his bad habits and very clearly wanting to give the brunt of the match to Kingston. It really felt as though this match played to both of their strengths in a way that doesn’t often happen anymore. We see workrate epics up and down the card, especially in AEW. I trusted Eddie to give me something that felt like a Kingston title challenge rather than an AEW main event and he delivered. While I’d listen to an argument that he has had a bunch of better stuff this year, I thought this stood out as a worthwhile entry, at least as an exercise as a single person building an internal narrative. 

ER: I am definitely the low voter on this one. This was probably the best promo build to a match we've had in who knows how long, with Kingston giving the kind of promos that come across the timelines of people who aren't on wrestling Twitter. Everyone I know who watches wrestling regularly was excited for this match. Universally anticipated. And it earned that anticipation. It just didn't deliver for me to the level I thought it could. They had ideas, and I think they went for maybe more of those ideas than they needed to. I think that the build felt so real, and the payoff felt so fake. I didn't like the use of weapons, and didn't think the match needed them. I don't love baseball bat shots in wrestling, especially when they're coming around the halfway point of the match. Maybe I associate them too much with Russo, but it's a bad connection either way. But I didn't buy into the barbed wire usage, even though both men's acting throughout was good. If you're going to have several spots where wire is scraped on someone's head or face or neck, somebody needs to blade if that wire is from Party City. Barbed wire wrapped fist is cool, but someone has to bleed because of barbed wire wrapped fist. The alcohol poured onto thumbtack holes is a cool bit that they did well, but I also don't think the payoff was good enough to necessitate tacks even being in the match. 

I don't think they needed that, and I think it would have better for the real match build for them to have more of a straight brawl. I think their work with chairs was good, and if they just did 2-3 extra things with a chair they wouldn't have needed any of the stuff with the bat, wire, or tacks. Fill in the time with more brawling. Kingston was also weirdly quiet throughout. He's used his mouth to legendary heights during this feud, the kind of promos that would have been memorable coming from a strong promo era, so it just felt really weird to me when he didn't utter a peep in this match. Kingston is one of the more amusing wrestlers of my life at working a couple of good verbal reactions into a match. A regretful yell after throwing a punch with a hurt hand, and angry insult after taking one leg kick too many, but here he was silent. It made things feel less dramatic to me, and I didn't feel as connected to it as a result. I thought the early parts of the match were great, and felt like they were building to something as strong as expected. Both of them were good at throwing chairs at each other, and Kingston brings such wrestling value to walking brawls. He's good at selling honestly and filling time, doing things like blocking a thrown chair with his hands, but not pretending to sell his head. Kingston shakes and rubs out his wrist after getting his hands up, and ol' JR doesn't pick up on it and first says it hit his head and then covers and says it was blocked mostly. Excalibur saves it and actually puts over Kingston's more nuanced selling by saying you could tell it affected his hand and wrist. 

That kind of attention to detail will keep the floor of a match high. So this was not a bad match, not at all. This was a match worked with a high floor, by two guys who can and have done well with matches like these. Their acting and selling was strong without, even if it did feel like it needed more passion. I grade Kingston matches tougher than anyone else's matches these days, because he's wrestling at a higher level than anyone else right now, I think he's been the best wrestler in the world for at least the past two years, and he's been a great wrestler forever 15 years now. He has consistently impressed me as much as any wrestler the past few years especially, so he's just going to be on a tougher curve. There are plenty of wrestlers who could have likely had this same match, and I would have come away impressed. This one just didn't move me like the best upper Kingston matches do. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/14/20

 What Worked

-Opening tag had a strong first half and then started to drag once they involved Kip Sabian and their ringside game cabinet and around then it started feeling like they were just filling time. Probably didn't need to go 15+ with this one. But I liked it a lot through Taylor's hot tag. Trent is good at taking a beating, eating suplexes (loved Wheeler's high backdrop and Harwood's faster lower angle Saito suplex) and I liked the way they tangled him up when making quick tags. Wheeler was working hard at this one, keeping pace with Trent while administering the beating, and my man then carries Trent's corpse all the way back to the ring from the gaming cabinet crash, blowing himself up worse than that cabinet got blown up. Taylor's hot tag was good, with big lariats sending both to the floor (both FTR had some nice bumps to the floor in this one) and then a wild tope con hilo that wipes out both of FTR. FTR were good at feeding into Trent and Taylor's offense, even stuff that can look bad like the sole food/50-50 combo, Harwood flew right into. 

-It is extremely fitting that Kip Sabian's nickname is "Super Bad". 

-Loved my man Sean Maluta getting his ass absolutely TOSSED around ringside, just throwing that body into guardrails. I dug him in Evolve teaming with Colby Corino and Eddie Kingston, and now that he's made Lance Archer and Miro look strong on Dynamite, hopefully they can find something more for him to do. 

-That Expos Vlad throwback Kingston was rocking was so sick. Expos gear is doubtlessly the coolest MLB gear. Gimme Kingston on commentary (and in the ring) more often, and gimme Kingston pointing out that he never tapped to the bully choke. 

What Didn't Work

-Miro yelling GAME OVER!! and then whiffing on Maluta's jaw for his camel clutch made me laugh, but I don't think he was going for yuks. 

-A couple of the gags worked well in the Jericho/MJF segment, but I'm not really a fan of building main event stories with this kind of overly planned comedic back and forth. It's funny when Britt Baker tosses Tony Schiavone a hand towel to cover up his balls during her promo at the spa, but Jericho and MJF working "So I'm saying that you're saying that if I'm saying""No what I'm saying is that you're saying what I'm saying" kinda stuff just goes nowhere with me. Honestly Jericho should have absolutely sicced his goons on MJF the second he brought up his hair (also Jericho is 50, it's not really "premature balding" if a dude is 50. The guy I went to high school with who had a horseshoe at age 18, THAT'S premature balding), or at least recommend he gets that neck freckle checked out right quick. MJF's Boy Meets World bully shtick just does not work for me in main event programs. 

-Cody/Cassidy came off as the weakest of the Cassidy prestige matches, and was one of Cody's weakest AEW singles matches (by memory only the Warhorse match came off weaker to me). It was really slow paced but never earned that pace, coming off flat instead of as "intense drama". Orange looked really small against Cody and a lot of his offense didn't look like it would crack an egg. The standing strike exchange was not good and I have no idea what those Cassidy chest palm strikes were supposed to accomplish. The slow pace really worked against the match and putting a beach break on the apron and in the ring so close together made Cassidy look even worse that they didn't finish Cody. The tornado DDT spot was nice, and Cassidy's dive was fine, but that time limit draw coming at the 2 count came off way too prepared and I don't think the match earned any of the solemnity they wanted to push at the finish. This whole thing came off like two guys working through injuries while trying to cover their injuries. 

-They kept calling Shida/Swole hard fought, and it kind of was, but the hardest fight was the timing of all the exchanges. Shida matches always have wonky timing moments, where either she gets off time or she throws her opponent off, and those happened throughout. You watch a match like this and see all of the ways it could have been improved and tidied up just by keeping things simple. Whenever they went into a more complicated strike exchange that required someone to be in a specific spot, that's when you got knee strikes that missed or a rolling elbow that had to be stopped mid roll. When they were just working headlock exchanges off Irish whips or knocking each other off the turnbuckle it played much better. Shida has undeniable charisma but the in ring has a long way to go. The same could be said about Swole, but she was the one getting more of her sequences thrown off tonight. There was a good match here somewhere, but too many little blunders. 

-I cannot believe they're still trying to make Tye Dillinger a thing. 

-Moxley/Archer felt the exact same level of sluggish as the Cassidy/Cody match earlier, and it had a similar layout with surprise kickouts of finishers that get immediately shrugged off because the next spot had to happen. Archer is such a goof. When he's wrecking jobbers in ring or in locker room he's nothing but screaming and flexing and at least comes off destructive. Here he works this methodical match that I think is supposed to make it seem like he's a monster with gravitas, but the match just comes off draggy and lame. I liked Moxley hitting dirty deeds to start the match, and the match would have been way more interesting had that just been the entire match. I thought this was a real dry match with the announce team trying to convince us it was a big time main event. Just like Cassidy hit the beach break on the apron and in the ring earlier, here Moxley hits dirty deeds off the apron through a table, and not long after hits it in the ring only for Archer to kick out. Moxley locks in the bully choke and Archer merely stands up and goes to the corner for the next spot. Whenever a match is laid out where a finisher is kicked out of to supposedly dramatic effect, only for the guy who took the finisher to be up and active literal seconds later, you know you're trapped in some bullshit. Kingston confronting Moxley after the match was infinitely better than anything in the match proper. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/7/20

 What Worked

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

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

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

What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 8/12/20

What Worked

-Opening tag was fine, although it drifted too far it overly cute move combos, but I think Evil Uno's performance was strong and he kept this thing together. Dark Order beat the bandanas off of Young Bucks, and some of their double teams were nice and sly. The best was Uno doing a blind tag without Matt Jackson noticing, and when Matt went to leapfrog over Stu Grayson, Uno caught him in midair from behind and dumped him with a German. That spot could have come off real manufactured but all parts of it looked smooth. Nick took a nice bump through the ropes to the floor, Matt did a big flip dive off the stage (past literally every member of DO, oh well), Grayson walked over Uno's head to hit a rana, and the winning pin by the Bucks was handled really well, with Grayson believably diving in just a split second too late with the save. Match could have used less cuteness and more direct tag formula, but Uno is really good, good enough to hold something like this together.

-Parts of the in ring segment with FTR, Young Bucks, Arn, Tully, and the Rock n Rolls felt like one of those HHH segments where he would have Flair out to tearfully yell about how HHH doesn't everything Flair did, but better. But it was also a chance to hear Arn talk, Tully talk, get a glimpse at Ricky's awesome outfit (he looked like an old Navajo woman wearing ice blue Converse and a sequined jacket), and see Ricky take a freaking stuff piledriver. That stuff is a win.

-Every person they have used to bump around locker rooms for Lance Archer has been golden. This is the best use of Archer, just throwing guys into walls and ceilings while Jake the Snake talks to the camera.

-Jericho/Cassidy worked, but I don't think it ever came close to capturing the lightning of their first match. The expectations were higher for this one obviously, as this one has come with 5 weeks of build, a debate, promos, a destroyed jacket, and a big 10 man tag. This match was good, but that match was unexpected and kept building into one of Dynamite's strongest main events. This one had a stipulation attached and should have felt bigger than it was. Their first match felt like a big stip match, and even though this stip was kind of silly it would have worked great had they treated it like a big deal. I liked the build of their first match, the way it started with a little comedy and kept ramping up. This maintained a similar pace throughout, and that just meant that it felt like three other matches on this same episode. Darby doing a hands in pockets Coffin Drop looked good, but it feels like we already have Darby doing the same kind of wild trust fall, there's some value in letting guys have their thing. I liked Cassidy's diving forearms and how Jericho caught him in the lion tamer off a top rope rana. But other stuff landed soft or clunky (I wish Jericho would just drop the lionsault). The distraction brawl on stage didn't look great, and Hager's big powerslam did look great even though I was disappointed with where it lead. Overall I enjoyed the match, but it just made me like their first singles more.


What Didn't Work

-I think MJF has really improved a lot in ring over the past year, and he has a lot of poise on the mic. But the material isn't already there, no matter how confidently it's delivered. It's the kind of thing that works a lot better without a weekly segment, but I have a feeling we will continue getting weekly segments, at least until the PPV in a month.

-When the Scorpio Sky/Cody Rhodes match was brought up early in the night, Jim Ross stated "Scorpio Sky and Cody could have the match of the year", which, look....it's good to have an optimistic outlook in life. Virgil or Max Moon could have won the Royal Rumble, and Scorpio Sky and Cody could have the match of the year. Blue Demon Jr. was in the best match of 2019, a thought that would have sounded completely absurd even just 5 years ago. And this was not a bad match, but at the end of the night it won't even be match of the night, let alone a match that anyone will remember at the end of the year. It was better than the Warhorse match, never for a second approached being as good as the Kingston match. Scorpio Sky's offense is too floaty to ever come off very threatening. Cody was good at making his cutter variations not only look good, but he was good at occupying himself to account for the lag in delivery. Scorpio Sky is one of those guys who always looks like he's taking a bigger bump than the person taking his move, and I typically can't stand those guys. You need to be an expert crash and burn artist like Darby to pull something like that off. Scorpio Sky hitting a big hangtime flatliner just looks like a guy taking a big uranage. It also feels weird to let Sky kick out of a Cross Rhodes. Not every dude in the fed needs to be a split second away from the title.

-Nearly every time I'm done watching an Omega/Page tag, my initial thought is always "well that was too long". I'm pretty sure every single one of them goes to 15 minutes, which isn't a lot, but it almost *always* feels too long. It's not always Omega's fault, but he's the one in there choosing to make these matches feel long. Luchasaurus is the A1 reason this thing felt too long. Every sequence he was apart of looked terrible. This guy has the worst hot tags in AEW, all ugly kick combos and people rushing to get into position for bad looking offense. His kick combos are so trash. There were fun moments, like Jungle Boy eating a snap dragon on the floor, or getting powerbombed from the ring onto Luchasaurus. But overall this wasn't good.

-Hikaru Shida isn't good. She never gets her kicks up to where they are supposed to land, she requires opponents to do all the positioning work while hanging them out to dry, and it's not getting better. She has charisma, she is pretty, but her in ring is lousy. I have seen Heather Monroe live before and thought she had great live charisma, but she really wasn't here to show any of that. She sold well for Shida, and they kept it quick.

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