AEW Five Fingers of Death: 9/19 - 9/25 Part 2

AEW Rampage Grand Slam 9/23

Darby Allin/Sting vs. Buddy Matthews/Brody King

MD: Unless they're in there against a team that's the top of the top, like FTR who can carry the heat in a more conventional structure no matter the opponent, Sting's tags always have a bunch of bells and whistles. That's in part because Darby Allin is bell and a whistle and his matches probably should have big set pieces anyway. It's in part to cover Sting's physical limitations. It's always amazing how well the matches go regardless and that nothing ever goes wrong. Here, things went wrong, but as with most wrestling, when things go wrong, they tend to create an even bigger dramatic effect. For the most part, these matches are tied together by Sting's presence, his star power, Darby's ability to bump and throw himself into situations, and the big stunts that everything builds to. This was no exception. There was the early ambush, the visual image of Julia going full Sherri (as she did often in this match) hanging on Sting's back, things ending up in the ring with Sting standing off and then fighting off both Matthews and King. There tends to be less of an overall narrative in matches like these. You're building from moment to moment and capitalizing on the opportunities the last moment presented. Darby hitting King with a code red and then himself out on a dive on Matthews allowed for Sting to match up with Matthews and set up his own dive. King recovering early enough meant that Sting could go flying through the tables (which included the first mishap that made everything more grisly and helped justify how out of it Sting would be for the rest of the match). That allowed for the handcuffing and Darby to fight back up the ramp during the commercial break and the 2-on-1 at the top with all of the individual story beats, ultimately leading to them revisiting the dangling choke that started this feud and both men crashing into tables and ultimately out of the match.

It's a tricky balance, having everything weighty enough, having it all make sense, having it all justified, having it remain consistent with everything that's happened in Sting's other matches and across the rest of the card. The weight of things here had to balance with the Starks/Hobbs street fight for instance. But I think they more or less nailed it, aided in part by some of the mishaps like the tables not cooperating or Julia's huge bump going wrong at the end to help get across the weight of the finish. Obviously, everything here built to the big surprise of Muta and it worked because the crowd went up for it and because Matthews portrayed shock and fear exactly when he should have. Plus he took an absolutely amazing dragon screw. That helped too. But that highlights a broader point. There wasn't a moment in this match where any of the wrestlers (including Julia, though maybe not Muta) wasn't entirely engaged and putting everything they had into it. When you've got a stunt show held together by star power and spots, that engagement is absolutely everything.

Sammy Guevara vs. Eddie Kingston

MD: I've been watching a lot of 1986 New Japan lately. Actually, let me rephrase that. I just finished watching every single NJPW match we have on tape for 1986. The throughline of that year is the NJPW vs UWF feud and there are two matches in particular: Fujinami vs Maeda and the match where Koshinaka wins the title from Takada that you can sum up like this: the NJPW guy had to wrestle an absolutely perfect match to hang in the UWF guy. In both cases, Fujinami and Koshinaka rise to the occasion and you end up with two just great matches. As this started towards the finishing stretch, I kind of had that same feeling. After all that had happened, given pent up rage in Kingston that had been simmering and simmering, given that Sammy robbed Eddie of his revenge against Jericho, given how Ruby Soho was hurt, and most especially given the way Sammy repeated his line to start the match, he would have had to wrestle an absolutely perfect match to hang with Eddie, to have any sort of chance of actually beating him. That would have meant leaning on every advantage, his speed, his agility, Tay at ringside, Eddie's own rage used against him, everything. If he had managed that, he would have had a shot, not to pin Eddie, not to make him submit, but maybe to knock him out. 

Sammy did not wrestle that match. He got beat around the ring. He capitalized on a mistake. He drew some heat during the commercial break doing snow angels in the ring and yes, leaning on Tay. He survived a strike exchange even. But the tide was too much. It was not his perfect match. It's not within his character to do so. What he did manage to do, however, was to tap into that rage, that pent up aggression, a symbolic throbbing heart of AEW that is connected to everyone sitting at home and every missed opportunity past and present. He unleashed a monster too big for him to stop, but also too big for itself to stop. Eddie had been stretching Jericho in his own head for months. With Sammy in his grasp, he couldn't let go. So Eddie lost a victory and Sammy won a Pyrrhic one, celebrating down the ramp while Eddie's angst and frustration, the towering monster inside of him, only grew stronger and more intense. It got me thinking though, got me wondering. Maybe someday we'll see them run it back. Maybe someday we'll see what Sammy's perfect match against Eddie might be. Koshinaka spent all of 86 getting better, made stronger against the hard steel of Takada. Maybe Eddie is exactly what Sammy needs?

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2017 Honorable Mention: 1993 in 2017?

Great Kabuki/TNT/Great Muta v. Tatsumi Fujinami/Riki Choshu/Hiroshi Hase Keiji Muto Produce 7/26

ER: Without knowing who was involved in the match, someone could have said to me "Hey, a trios match just happened in Japan where the average age of the participants was literally 60 years old..." and that really all the information I would have needed to convince me. Vega is the youngster in this one, clocking in at 53 and looking like he's working a Headhunter C gimmick. Kabuki is the oldest at 69, and it honestly wouldn't shock me if he was older. Everybody in this is probably better than expected, especially Hase who to my knowledge hasn't even wrestled in a decade. He's still got a crazy muscular chest and Hitler mustache, and while he adorably couldn't quite stick a kip up, he did a freaking 17 rotation giant swing on Kabuki. After the swing he stumbles around, does his old hip swivel taunt at Muta, and then staggers right into a great TNT lariat. TNT was super chunky here but can still go, and I'd really like to see him in a match with younger guys. His spinning heel kick still looks exactly the same. Hase gets thrown into chairs, scattering poor elderly wrestling fans; we get several instances of mist, with Riki getting sprayed by Muta, Kabuki accidentally spraying TNT, Muta, Muta accidentally spraying Kabuki; We get a Riki lariat, Muta still moves fairly spry and lands a coupld Shining Wizards on Hase (including a brutal one in the corner), and Hase impressively finishes off the match with a flat out awesome uranage and an even better northern lights. He did them on freaking TNT, the biggest dude in the match, and really hoisted him up and over. This was 16 minutes of smiles and good feelings.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 11: Místico, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis, Tarzan Boy, Último Guerrero

Aired 52MX: 2006-07-01

taped 2006-06-25 @ Arena Coliseo 

Místico, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis, Tarzan Boy, Último Guerrero

So, even despite hitting some less than pertinent matches, I still missed a thing or two due to footage availability. There was a bit more of a build to Dos Caras, Jr. vs Ultimo Guerrero for his World Light Heavyweight Championship and also the title match where UG defended it. There was also a tag match between Atlantis and Rey and Mutoh and Dragon where Atlantis accidentally hit Rey to set up the turn to begin with, back from May 12 or so. I only see it clipped so I didn't do a full write up but I'll attach it at the bottom of this entry. It's fun to see Rey eat Mutoh's offense as well as some of the fun Guerreros tandem moves. I also don't have the match where Atlantis and Tarzan Boy turn on Rey. Ah well.

What I do have is this, which is either the first real Rey vs Guerreros match or close enough to it for my purposes, and it's pretty satisfying. Rey got to face off against all of his former teammates. It set up the title match to come vs UG. The crowd was hot the whole time. There wasn't a ton of depth to the structure here but sometimes basic really is the way to go. Rudos ambushed and thoroughly won the primera. Tecnicos came back to win a quick segunda and then they got to shine in the tercera to set up the matches to come. Paint by numbers but with a lot of frenetic offense and visceral hate. Who can argue about that?

The details were pretty great too. Los Guerreros' beatdown was full of flourishes. They hit the clothesline over the knees/top rope move on Rey. Usually that was Rey's corkscrew senton to finish it. This time it was Tarzan Boy's legdrop. The evolution of UG's press slam on Mistico continued. Here it was onto both Atlantis' and Tarzan Boy's knees (He'd do an awesome one handed slam in the tercera). They finished it with this insane multi man submission (including power bombing Mistico onto the other two). Skip ahead to 6:10 on the video to see it. It's nuts.

The tecnicos really got to shine in the back half of the match. In the segunda, Rey got to make the comeback out of the corner and then hit the Guerreros' alley oop body splash. Mistico flew with his giant one hand dive even as Casas hit his seated senton dive. Rey got to fight off Atlantis and UG at once in the tercera, and then recover from a Tarzan Boy cheapshot to take him out as well. Mistico had some brief but fun exchanges with UG and Atlantis too. Casas got to tough it out with Tarzan Boy and then they all came together for a triple tecnico pin at the end.

There were a few tiny issues, though; things to worry about in the future perhaps. For one, Mistico was still way more over than Rey. He got to come out last, was the captain, and was the first one that the crowd chanted for. To be fair, later on, when faced off against Tarzan Boy in the tecera, they did chant for Casas too (it was just that sort of crowd) but even when they chanted for Rey during his comeback, they couldn't wait for Mistico to get back in there. There was an absolute cap for how far Rey could go as a tecnico, just like there had been for him in Los Guerreros after the Atlantis turn. Mistico also had picked up Wagner's terrible habit of trying to get the fans to cheer for him by holding his hand to his ear during a beatdown. Terrible stuff. And mainly, like I said, there wasn't a whole lot to the match. The tecnicos took almost the entire back half which let them have plenty of time to shine, which was what the situation called for, but also means that this won't end up on anyone's match of the year lists.

That's fine. It was a match with a purpose and it served that purpose very well, setting up the title match and showcasing tecnico Rey Bucanero vs his former teammates. For the moment at least, things had to seem pretty promising.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 6: Relevos Super-Increibles! Último Dragón, Great Muta y Último Guerrero vs. Atlantis, Hijo del Perro Aguayo y Dr. Wagner Jr.

DRAGONMANIA I
2006-05-13 @ Arena Mexico
(Toryumon Mexico)

This match wasn't very good. I have to lead with that and it hurts me to do so, far more than you know. Sometimes a match can be well worth watching, even essential to watch, but it's really, truly, absolutely not good. There can be good things about it. There can be good efforts and performances and ideas and crowd heat and a thousand other things, but the parts just don't add up. They don't here, and it's a shame, because they could, maybe, if things were just a little different. Still, watch it.

So, this was from Dragonmania which was run by Ultimo Dragon's Toryumon promotion, of which I know very little about. There was a sense of celebration at the end of the show, so this was probably a big deal to him. I would have missed it completely but I was trying to fill in gaps using cagematch, since I have very few Guerreros matches I've found online for May and June of 06. It was a Relevos Super-Increibles match, which is something I haven't looked at yet. This was one-fall, with mixed affiliation partners.

So, I've said that it's both not very good and pretty much a can't miss. The reason why, put simply, is the dedication these wrestlers have in playing to their characters. The match was Ultimo Dragon and five insane people, basically. You get the sense that he put himself right in the center of this crazy storm, and it's hugely entertaining. Just watching these wrestlers interact with each other is hugely entertaining.

Let me break it down a bit. On one side you had Ultimo Guerrero, Perro Aguayo, Jr., and Dr. Wagner, Jr., two rudos and a tecnico. Now I've been mostly avoiding Perro since the footage we have with Perros Del Mal seems a little spotty for 2006 and I've been able to look at los Guerreros without really having it bleed over, but the imperssion I get is that his stable was feuding throughout the year with both various tecnicos AND with los Guerreros. He's charismatic and intense, so I'll come back to him at some point later in my watching. Ultimo's usually sane, if a bit over the top. Wagner's usually over the top, if at least somewhat sane. On the other side there was Ultimo Dragon, of course, Atlantis, and Muta. Muta, here, was in 2006 mode, with the spikey red mask. He generally moved around the ring like some sort of alien monster who did not fully understand where he was or what he was doing there but that found all of this very strange and interesting.

It was all about the interactions, though. Perro and Wagner had a reluctant alliance, one that was tested by two miscommunication spots, the second being a missed kick on the ramp that sent Perro into the seats as part of an amazing sell job. Atlantis and UG started out with a sportsmanlike demonstration of chain wrestling, applauding each other at every point, until their partners rebelled against them. Later on, they would outright work together to maul Dragon. Dragon spent part of the match acting as Muta's handler, trying to keep him from terrorizing poor women and children in the crowd. Wagner, on the other hand, seemed to find Muta fascinating and postured and posed around him in some attempt to communicate, especially after his attempts to hurt him seemed to fail completely.

There was entertaining stuff. Wagner eating Muta's offense was tons of fun, especially how he sold the leg on the dragon screw. He even did a dragon screw of his own late in the match. Atlantis oscillating between cheering on UG and Dragon (who was his actual partner) was a lot of fun. Really, all of his reactions were just far less dignified than you'd expect. He seemed like he was having a blast. Wagner got to do his big sommersault dive off the stage. All of the luchadors got to have some well-worked exchanges with each other, and hey, it was engaging just watching the other five try to make sense of Muta's lumbering around the ring and blowing of mist.

The thing just never comes together. All of the character work is there without purpose. It's just these absurd characters tossed into a hotel with the power cut and the roads blocked by snow and you have to watch them interact with each other while there's a murderer (in this case Muta) in the house. There's no Poirot to come in at the end and make sense of it all. The Perro/Wagner alliance never breaks down into dissention even though they more than teased it. By the end, they just get everyone out of the ring with dives so Muta can mist Wagner off the top rope and pick up the win with the shining wizard. It doesn't work at all, but it's still compelling. If some indy tried to pull this off, it wouldn't be. Instead, however, you had these iconic characters in the ring playing against each other and that's what makes it worth watching. I'm glad I found it.

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We Can Go For A Walk Where It's Quiet and Dry and Talk About Regal

Lord Steven Regal v. Arn Anderson WCW 10/9/93 - EPIC

This is the battle of the two greatest Television champions in a classic 15 minute TV Title main event. Arn works the arm Anderson style, cranking a nasty hammerlock, while Regal breaks out some slick WOS reversals. Including the Saint full nelson counter which is one of my all time favorite British wrestling moves. Regal takes over when he chucks Arn to the floor and Sir William pops him in the ribs with the umbrella. Regal then goes after the midsection including a sweet flipping senton, and a neck crank with a knee on the stomach which looked really nasty. This builds to a classic TV title time limit run, with Arn going full bore to get the pin and Regal trying to run out the time. That is a finish which can be hard to pull off, I have seen plenty of bad versions where the guys are stalling or timing their moves and pins badly. Here we have the two masters of the TV Title match, so the final desperate face run is timed great, and we get the spinebuster at the perfect moment, with the clock running down right as the ref counts two. Excellent match, great use of the gimmick and it really got me amped to check out more of the Regal TV title stuff.

Lord Steven Regal v. Great Muta NJ 8/3/97 - FUN

Regal is clearly inspired and working hard, but Muta was fully in wander around and make faces mode, making this basically a one man show. When Muta is dogging it there is going to be a limit on how good a match is going to be, but Regal does a nice job working with a broomstick with cool facepaint. The first part of this match is all Regal working nasty arm submissions and takedowns while Muta lays around. Finish is pretty great, as Regal pins Muta's arms and pounds away with palm strikes, only to get a face full of poison mist. Half assed backbreaker, and a moonsault and Muta gets the duke. This definitely makes me want to see more New Japan Regal, although preferable against an opponent who gives a fuck.

William Regal/Finlay v. Bobby Lashley/Batista WWE 8/11/06 - GREAT

This is during the awesome King Booker period on Smackdown with Regal and Finlay working as members of the King's Court. Finlay and Regal are a really fun bruiser tag team, almost all of the match is based around them beating on Bobby Lashley. They had married Lashley to Finlay at this point to turn him into a wrestler, and he was fine as a guy taking really nasty uppercuts and forearms. I forgot how much I enjoyed heel Hornswoggle, as the tiny monster living under the ring was a cool Cornette tennis racket. Team Strikeforce negotiations was a perfectly acceptable Road Warriors team and it was a testament to Regal and Finlay that they looked so credible going toe to toe with such giant roid monsters. Another cool WWF Regal discovery which is one of the big goals of this project.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE REGAL

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