AEW (And Friends) Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/16 - 5/22

Only one AEW match this week but Eddie Kingston's been barnstorming, and since Phil has to watch them all for the Ringer, we're on top of all of it.

AEW Dynamite 5/18

Blackpool Combat Club (Moxley/Danielson) vs. Peace, Love, and Pro Wrestling (Matt Sydal/Dante Martin)

MD: I am heartened, but not hardly surprised, by Phil picking this match over the Hangman Page one for AEW's match over at the Ringer, and go over and read his review there. I'd put Woods vs Yuta up there as well for the week and even Bear Country vs Workhorsemen, but I'm happy to write about this one. This is the first time in a short while that we've seen the BCC up against babyfaces instead of heels, interesting given that they are in a program now against the JAS. The match was structured accordingly, with an immediate rudo ambush and no shine. It meant that both Sydal (paired primarily with Mox) and Dante (hitting everyone but especially paired with Danielson) got to be the recipients of hot tags and got to be houses afire. It did mean that we missed out on some early feeling out or a quick exchange with Sydal or Martin and Danielson. There's a twelve minute Danielson that's going to be very exciting some day but for now it was just a taste on the comeback and then Martin getting stomped out and surviving up until the point he didn't in the stretch. Regal and Jericho did a great job getting over the discrepancies between the two groups as the match was going and you know Jericho's going to design a "Money, Merch, and Sports Entertainment" shirt out of the exchange, whereas Regal was great at indicating that he knows everyone's weaknesses and that he was the one who had been there for Hager from the start, not Jericho. We missed out on a shine but two comebacks of Sydal and Dante doing their thing surrounded by Mox and Danielson beating people to a pulp works pretty well too. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Isaiah Broner AIW 5/21/22

MD: The match is on IWTV, and Phil wrote it up on the Ringer. It was a war. There are explicit narratives and implicit ones in wrestling. Explicit ones are more along the lines of long limbwork or big vs small or a southern tag where there's a lot of cheating with hope spots and cut offs or even shine-heat-comeback. To me, an implicit narrative is more about making everything take effort and struggle and filling in gaps, by making the match absolutely airtight. This match was airtight. Everything was worked for. Nothing was given. Eddie wasn't going to get a single throw without battering Broner first. Broner could heft Kingston up but he'd have to put him back down and smack him around a bit before tossing him too. Eddie chipped at the arm, not to actively dominate the story for five minutes, but to passively make it so Broner's killshots weren't quite enough to kill him. That's the other half of the equation. If a match is airtight and violent but nothing's registering, if nothing has impact, it's just going to be noise. Here they hit hard and then sold the impact of what happened. They recoiled. They staggered. They sold. So everything took effort, but once it hit, it was worth the effort. That was from the first chops and Broner's killer forearm all the way to the finishing stretch where he could show his toughness, where he could get up in the face of Eddie's best stuff, but once he did, he was helpless to do anything but to take the next shot. Nothing was glaring. Nothing was telegraphed. Nothing was over the top. Yet it was all violent and it all earned and it all meant something and it all mattered. When a match can pull all of that off, it's a hell of a thing.

Eddie Kingston vs. Davey Richards Glory Pro 5/22/22

MD: I haven't seen a Davey Richards match since chain suplexes in and out of the ring were involved. It's been a decade probably. That said, he's an interesting and unique Kingston opponent, not to mention older and maybe wiser. I'll say this: you watch a Davey Richards match and you're going to get commitment. This is a guy who is always on, who is always feeling it, who is always in the moment. I may not have always liked or agreed with those moments during his career but you never doubt his belief in himself and what he's trying to portray. You may end up disbelieving what he's trying to portray, but you end up believing that he believes it, and in this day and age, that is a special quality and it's worth something. That gels with the notion that with Kingston, what you see is what you get.

It meant that that the early wristlock feeling out process was full of struggle and grit. They covered a bit of the match with work on Eddie's leg, and he was the guy, out of the two, you'd want selling, so that was a good thought. Eddie, maybe inspired by his opponent, hulked up after a bunch of insulting Kawada-style kicks and you can't say it didn't fit the match, and then the finish had Richards full on motion charging in only to run into a freight train. I'm not sure I need to see them run it back, but as a thought experiment and a clash of two very different styles but similar levels of commitment, it was fun and never wore out its welcome.

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Glory Pro 4-Way Tag

57. Boys From Jollyville vs. Besties In The World (Davey Vega/Mat Fitchett) vs. The Pride (Aaron Dzinic/Matt Kenway) vs. Zero Gravity (Brett Gakiya/CJ Esparza) Glory Pro 5/7/17 - GREAT

PAS: Jollyville 4-Ways are always highlights of AIW cards so I was eager to see how the match style traveled, and the answer is: pretty well. I am not sure who The Pride have pride in; Aaron Dzinic's last name suggests maybe they're working a Serbian militia gimmick. They were clearly the greenest of these four teams, but I thought they bumped big and had some nice timing on cut offs. Zero Gravity had some fun highspots, although I want a team with that name to have crazier dives. Besties in the World have a cutesy ring entrance and infuriating name but looked really good here. Fitchett especially was really athletic and explosive, got crazy height on his pele kicks and really flew into all of the opposing teams' offense. He took the T-Money pounce about as well as I have seen it taken. Jollyville played the hits, but they are great hits, love the Russ cannonball and the airplane spin by Money, punch in the head by Russ. I never get tired of watching T-Money barrel through people, and his big dive looked great, especially in comparison to some of the other dives which felt constrained by a close crowd. The match kept it moving and outside of one kind of dumb multiple man DDT spot kept it plausible. I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to digging into more Glory Pro Jollyville.

ER: The Fuck-Its are a perfect team to throw into a match like this, because it actually breaks up all the dancey body slap fighting and grounds it into something heavier. But a big multiman tag is also the best place to hide dancey wrestlers, because when the pace is fast enough everyone only has time for one or two sequences at a time. We don't ever get too bogged down with extended rehearsed sequences and instead we get guys getting their sequences interrupted with a nice strike or get tossed into a nasty bump. That's way better than watching Besties vs. Zero Gravity as it keeps things feeling more spontaneous and less locked in, less instances of "I miss you and you missed me back and then we spun into another miss before both hitting!" This was kept to a smart length so that nobody got too exposed, but the quality picked up noticeably whenever Russ or T-Money were involved. Both looked great in every single sequence they were involved in, and this is one of the all time monster T-Money performances. Russ stood out as a guy throwing the nastiest worked strikes in a match with leg slappers, getting in the ring during a flippy sequence and immediately throwing right hands to everyone. Money hit one of the greatest Pounces mine eyes have seen, with Kenway taking a huge bump bouncing into and off of the ropes. Money has such explosive power, always yoinks guys so quick off the mat and launches them into the air, just the perfect Rampage monster in a match like this. The dive train was big and wisely capped off my Money's crowd surf dive, there were several hot double teams (I really loved Esparza hitting a chestbreaker and holding it so Gakiya can hit a wicked double kneedrop off the top), and I'm going to love any match that features a big falling meteor from Russ. This easily could have been a long mess, but they kept it tight and crushed it.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JOLLYVILLE

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IWTV Worth Watching: BIG BOY SEASON! BEEF! MANDERS! KLD!

Big Beef Garvin vs. Mikey! St. Louis Anarchy 1/11/19

ER: This ruled, and kept getting better the longer it went. I wasn't sure what kind of match we were going to get, if it was going to be Mikey being silly but occasionally getting caught, or just Beef mauling him, and what we got was the best version of what I was hoping for. Beef works a nice side headlock to start things boiling, and I honestly would have been cool with a match based around a snug side headlock. But I liked the way Mikey both worked up to Beef, and the ways he avoided him. Beef is good at missing things, and Mikey has some simple offense that I dig, like his splash off the bottom rope. He doesn't play the splash for comedy, and it doesn't look silly. It comes off like a smart way of using the ring to your advantage, boosting off the bottom rope while getting back into the ring. They work a fun sequence where Mikey keeps firing up to chase after Beef when beef is trying to run the opposite direction to hit the ropes: Beef starts to run, Mikey runs right after and gets popped with a back elbow; Beef goes to run the ropes again, Mikey runs after him again, gets caught with a boot to the face. It was a great play on the beyond tired sequence that would have had Mikey run after and hit an elbow, then himself run to the opposite ropes only to get met with an elbow from Beef. We see so many of the same sequences in matches, and it really makes me take notice when a couple guys flip those sequences to something better, something fresh. They really ramp this up nicely: Beef hitting bigger and bigger slams, Mikey hitting countering with a big running knee to the face, just a super satisfying match. I didn't even realize these two were on this show when I started it, and this is one benefit of skimming through a show and not just skipping to something I want to see.

Manders vs. Matt Kenway Glory Pro 10/5/19

ER: This was a really fun 13 minute match that could have been an absolutely scorching 10 minute match. I don't think stand and trade or kneel and trade are automatically evil (well maybe kneel and trade) but every time they went to that well here it felt way out of place. The rest of this was a nice war with a cool story of Manders overwhelming Kenway before eating a Russian legsweep into the ringpost and a DDT on the floor and then getting his neck worked over. I liked the attention Manders would pay to his neck, and some parts of the match it actually looked like he was giving Kenway a cue to go back to the neck. Kenway didn't explicitly work the neck, but Manders would take a move and start holding his head and back of neck, and Kenway would at minimum throw a clubbing shot to it. Manders did the kind of Manders things I want, like catching a big powerslam, breaking out the Vader running bear attack, bringing the 3 point stance charge back to wrestling by using it with a running chop. Manders will barrel into guys, and he reads heavy enough that it always came off impressive when Kenway would toss him. Manders is already so good at little things, that I don't think he needs cheap pop stand and trade to prop his work up. My favorite thing he did - outside of that careful attention to his neck - was late in the match when he whiffed on a hellish clothesline. He didn't throw it any differently than he would have if it were supposed to land square on Kenway's Adam's apple, a shot that would have murdered Kenway had he not ducked. And, it made the lariat he hit moments later feel that much greater, as he threw that direct hit exactly the same as he threw the miss. When guys have basics like that down, their ceiling is vaulted.

Kevin Lee Davidson/Danny Adams vs. Matt Knicks/Nick Brubaker Glory Pro 10/5/19

ER: This was KLD's big return after missing most of the year, and he comes out to a huge match long reaction looking like he's ready to squish some dudes in a street fight. KLD is Midwest Akebono and he stomps and chops his way through this in a mighty return. He beats Brubaker around the ring and they set up a spot for KLD to chop the ringpost, except he sees it coming a mile away and chops Brubaker right in the back. KLD gets the chance to show off a bit, show that he's back and healthy, hits a fast dropdown and leapfrog into a nice spinning heel kick, and he even gets monkeyflipped by Adams as a giant cannonball. Adams hits a dive, KLD hits a monster flip dive, and The Heroes finally get rid of KLD when Brubaker gives him a sunset flip bomb through a table on the floor. Now, there's not a ton of room ringside and the ring was set up close to the ground, so it turns into Brubaker basically getting too far under KLD, meaning he basically pulled KLD on top of him and then both went through the table. But this at least disposes of KLD, allowing them to double up on Adams, with Brubaker always attentive to kick at Davidson when he gets close to making it back in. And we get a few twists along the way, with Davidson pulling Adams out of the way after Knicks had set him up on a couple of chairs, Brubaker hits one of the better nut shots I've seen on Davidson with KLD letting out a perfect "OOOF" and looking like a guy who got hit in the nuts, and later on Brubaker himself goes through a couple of set up chairs. This was a fun, quick moving street fight, they did plenty of painful things without getting stupid, and we got a good return from Davidson. That's worth watching.

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Matches from Glory Pro Thunderstruck 9/22/19

Myron Reed vs. Jody Fleisch

ER: Reed is one of my favorite young flyers, Fleisch is a guy who was a fun highlight on the first M-Pro tape I bought 20 (!) years ago, and it's really not a stretch to view Fleisch as someone who paved the way for the wrestlers who paved the way for wrestlers like Reed. Flyer vs. Flyer isn't really a match I love, but I was curious to see Reed against a doppelgänger and see some guys springing around, and was not disappointed. They kept it to a quick 10, and we certainly got some springing. Fleisch is a jacked old man now (he is the same age as I) but still seems as flexible and bouncy as ever, hitting several different flipping kicks and a super impressive no hands poison rana. He took a couple of comically large bumps, perfectly acceptable here, my favorite being him hopping up and bouncing over the top rope to the apron after taking a chestbreaker. Shades of Macho Man jumping over the top rope after a Yokozuna kickout in the '93 Rumble. Reed has my favorite current cutter in the biz, and after Fleisch spills to the apron, Reed hits a fantastic running cutter over the top rope, taking both to the floor. I love how Reed sticks the landing on his cutters, dropping jaws right over his shoulder and holding it. A couple things didn't go off as clean: Fleisch runs up a wall and kinda grazes Reed with something that I think was supposed to hit harder, and a one man Spanish Fly kinda mucks up the finish, but this was still a fun old Spider-man pointing at young Spider-man match, delivered what I wanted.


Rock N Roll Express vs. Mat Fitchett/Davey Vega

ER: I am into this very recent RNRX respect surge, suddenly feels like a few prominent current names dig them enough to champion them on shows and I'm way down for a couple guys in their 60s getting some new exposure and sell some polaroids. Fitchett and Vega are mostly in their to set up stuff for RNR, with most of Fitchett's offense being running at Robert several times to get hiptossed. What I was not expecting was 63 year old Ricky to look as good in ring as he did. Robert was a little wooden (though still does things like grab a sleeper off the ropes or even throw a simple stomach kick with the kind of professional snap that is lacking in many modern wrestlers), but here's Ricky looking like someone I actively want to seek out in 2019. he takes a leaping knee to the back and takes a nice bump through the ropes to the floor, throws hard kicks and punches, hard shoulderblocks (including a great spot where he collides with Vega, Vega goes down and Ricky crumbles to the mat grabbing his nose), Ricky is a guy out there looking motivated! I love to see that kind of thing. Match ends in a double DQ, but seeing Ricky still bring something to the table in 2019 left me with a smile on my face for days.


Manders vs. Myron Reed

ER: I was into this, liked what they did, liked how everything looked, but didn't like the layout at all. Reed had already worked a match against Fleisch, so not only was Manders the fresh man, but he's bigger and hits harder. Manders wound up taking basically the first 80% of the match, before Reed just came back and won quickly and without much trouble. That was a let down. But getting to the let down was fun! Because that meant we got Manders hitting a couple press slams, used well (one he hits early and really holds it, the next one he holds long enough that Reed slips out), big chops, big elbows, nice powerbomb, diving shoulder tackles, the stuff you want to see Manders hitting. They were careful about doing silly 50/50 strike exchanges, with Reed playing cocky and trying to go toe to toe but getting leveled each time. And I dug how Reed slipped in some sly kicks instead of coming straight at Manders, dug the cutter (and really liked Manders' surprised, hunched sell of the cutter), and we build to Reed hitting a great tope con giro that Manders catches perfectly, spilling them into chairs. Things as a whole just wrapped up a little too neatly, with Reed going onto offense a little easily and showing no effects. Manders being so dominant early made it hard to escape the feeling that he was getting a visual showcase before calmly losing, which is what happened. Still, Reed's winning springboard 450 was nice, and I liked everything they did within the match, just wish they had gotten to some things differently.

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Matches from Glory Pro 2/24/19

Tom Lawlor vs. Sharkbait

ER: Sharkbait is Anthony Gutierrez, a former MMA guy who was on a season of Ultimate Fighter, and Lawlor against other MMA guys has always delivered. Sharkbait is pretty raw, this was apparently his 30th match, but it's probably easier to thrive against someone who can work your own style. There are a ton of cool moments with he and Lawlor doing some inspired stand and trade, much more interesting than typical stand and trade as there is no timed rhythm to it, just awkward hard shots interrupting other awkward hard shots. I loved Sharkbait's hard kicks to the front of Lawlor's thighs and his snapped off inner leg kicks, and Lawlor would fire back with slaps, a hard chop to the neck, a couple of big heel kicks right to the upper ribs, all nasty looking stuff. There was a killer moment where Sharkbait jumped onto Lawlor to grab a guillotine choke and try to drag him to the mat, and Lawlor starts throwing hard as hell shots right into the ribcage until the grip is loosened, allowing Lawlor to muscle him up into a vicious vertical suplex. There are some moments where Sharkbait bites off more than he can chew (har har) almost murdering Lawlor with a standing Spanish Fly, but sometimes his overreach benefits the match, like when he goes for a standing shooting star and Lawlor shifts his weight so Sharkbait lands face to knee. This was a real nice, brisk 10 minutes, totally delivered what I was hoping for.

Eddie Kingston vs. PACO

PAS: This was the rubber match of a series between these two and my first look at Paco, who is kind of a white meat babyface highflyer. Fun opening fall with Paco getting a flash Code Red pin seconds in. Kingston then beats on Paco for most of the second fall and wins with a deep roll up. Paco jumps Eddie during the rest break and chop blocks his knee, and we get what we always want from an Eddie Kingston match, an injury sell. Paco basically turns heel in the third fall, working over Eddie's knee, refusing to break on rope breaks, etc. His offense wasn't anything special, but Kingston is magic at working a bum wheel, I loved how he threw his clotheslines, all arm because he couldn't plant on the knee. Paco gets a couple of near falls on nice looking short superkicks, but Kingston gets the win with a big flurry of backfist, backdrop, backfist. We get a nice post match with Kingston offering a hand to the youngster earning his respect, a meaningful hug, and then a Paco cheapshot. Kingston is so good at facially selling both the respect at the beginning and the hurt and fury over the cheapshot. Paco was fine in this, but this was Kingston doing his thing, and he does it better then anyone.

ER: As a 2/3 fall match, I loved how this was laid out and loved how Kingston handled everything in the match. I didn't think PACO looked great, certainly not a guy I'm going out of my way to watch, but I love seeing what Kingston can do with anybody. I'm not sure who would be an uninteresting Kingston opponent for me, he's a guy like Necro Butcher who even if I strongly dislike his opponent, I'd still be interested in that guy I hate getting worked over. I dug PACO getting a flash code red to immediately take a fall, then love Kingston effortlessly working him over in the segunda. PACO has pretty lousy offense in the segunda (ugly rana, spinkicks that are light as air), so it was great seeing Kingston shrug off some questionable strikes with an eyepoke here and a few palm strikes there, holding a vertical suplex for a long while, king of the body language and showing PACO that. Now PACO actually gets interesting in the third fall, as he chop blocks Kingston immediately after getting pinned, and as Phil says we finally get what we paid for out of a Kingston match: Kingston selling a limb.

PACO's offense appeared to actually get better as he got meaner, as all his stuff in the third fall looked far better than his stuff in the second fall. But, I'd much rather see someone bouncing their shins off Kingston's head than making him do all the work on a half-assed rana. Kingston selling his knee is great, not showy, just not forgotten, with cool touches like not being able to complete moves with full power, and not even able to lean in for a good pinfall due to also holding onto his bad leg. Lesser wrestlers would have made a big production out of those moments - if they acknowledged them at all - but Kingston always hits the right notes. I liked some of PACO's targeted attack, working the half crab and kicking Kingston's knee out at the perfect time when Kingston was going for a backfist. It did irk me how much damage PACO was able to take. I'm wholly unfamiliar with his prior work, but nothing he showed me in this match made me think he should have been able to stay in a sustained war with Kingston. I was especially annoyed at a moment where he hit knees on a frog splash attempt (where I thought the match should have ended) and just hopped up after almost getting pinned to hit a superkick. But Kingston must have felt my irritation through the screen (two weeks later) and immediately decides to ice this punk, throwing backfists and a major back suplex to end him. Wrestling isn't going to be as good without Eddie Kingston around.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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