AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends): 10/17 - 10/23

AEW Dark 10/18

MD: Eddie was our only guy this week and he was on Dark, so I figured I'd just do the whole show. It's been a little over a year now since I've been watching AEW. One interesting thing about the promotion relative to other ones over the years is that different people from different generations get very different things out of it. Punk and Danielson coming back drew me in. Kingston and Dustin and Darby, among others, kept my interest, but on a week to week basis, it was the webshows that really worked for me. If Dynamite feels like crash TV with original ROH style dream matches, and Rampage feels a bit like late 91-early 92 WCW Saturday Night with a Dangerous Alliance match and a few midcard matches, Elevation and Dark feel like WCW syndi shows. Squashes and a few midcard matches. It's one of those things people of my generational tolerated for years, maybe grumbled about, but ultimately had no idea how good we had it.

In an ecosystem like what I described above, squashes are a amazing, right? Guys like Naylor have been so good at highlighting them and why they were special over the years, but they highlight moves, characters, give the announcers room to breathe. They're not exhausting like sprints can be. They're pro-wrestling comfort food while giving wrestlers the ability to really express who they are. You can tell a story in them or not depending on what you're trying to achieve. All the talk about how wrestlers are wasted not being on TV is irritating, to say the least. The nature of AEW's roster is that people get rotated on and off to keep things fresh. Someone like Ruby Soho coming out to her theme on Elevation gets the fresh and excited crowds going. Emi Sakura is the MVP, having hard-hitting entertaining tag after entertaining tag with partners that can vibe with her act and opponents that are better off for getting reps with her. It's the perfect place for Dalton Castle and Danhausen and Brandon Cutler and the Wingmen, giving the crowd extra value for their ticket and helping to keep acts over. It lets them try out new talent or new tweaks upon a gimmick. I was excited when Deeb, for instance, finished up her title match programs and was interacting with people like Emi and Skye Blue again.

The problem, as much as fans being small-minded, is AEW not doing enough to use the shows to build to everything else going on. There was a patch back six months ago where if someone was going to have a match on Dynamite or Rampage they'd often get featured on Elevation, and they did some things, like building to the ROH PPV with Dark and Elevation, but in general, it's underutilized. I don't know a single person who watches the webshows and feels like they're not valuable or worth watching though, no matter how much griping you get from the people who don't watch (the most worthless griping of all). This was an especially star-studded episode given they were in Canada and it was taped before a live Rampage, but don't sleep on the studio Darks either. Studio wrestling is great given that with AEW we get all sorts of variety. You may not want it as your only wrestling but as part of the whole, it balances things out.

Hikaru Shida vs Vanessa Kraven

MD: I've been giving a lot of thought about 'aces' lately. I think it's due to watching a ton of Inoki over the last year. It could be because I want to watch some Big Daddy and make some calls for myself soon. Don't hold me for that. One aspect that I think is important in an ace is to leverage the cachet you have with the crowd to find ways to highlight what makes your opponent unique. Shida absolutely did that here, making full use of Kraven's size and strength. This was not at all the same sort of match that she would have had with someone smaller or with a different background. Some of that was leaping into the catch on the outside off the chair and eating that samoan drop on the apron (which then, thanks to the AEW house style, she could use later in the match to escape the Samoan drop and set up the finishing stretch). Some of it was the struggle for the falcon arrow, barely getting her over, and then letting her kick out of it. The creativity and imagination and care that went into how she laid this out was definitely appreciated however.

Dark Order (Evil Uno/John Silver/Alex Reynolds/10) vs Tyler Tirva/Shane Hawke/Zak Patterson/Jordano)

MD: Again, we get the freedom of the web shows here. They're not trying to hit any major time marks. They're not worried about picture-in-picture commercial breaks. This was in Canada. This was about showcasing Uno, as well it should have been. It's one of those things AEW does best and that we spent decades getting denied due to weird piques of spite "up north." Though some of this was diluted by Taz poking Jose the Assistant on commentary, but certainly not for the live crowd.

This was surprisingly complete, with Reynolds getting some shine to start (useful given that he plays FIP a lot), a tease of Uno early only for him to get swarmed, some heat on Silver (including eating a huge gutwrench), and everything set up to combine the big Dark Order spots and all of Uno's signature spots mixed with all of his showmanship. They could have just had Dark Order run through these guys but they gave it enough substance to make Uno's spots mean just a little more.

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs Mo Jabari/Jake O'Reilly

MD: Just a stylized mauling. Jabari and O'Reilly might get one shot in but they sure wouldn't get two in a row. Ortiz knows this is his moment to come into his own and showcase his own identity and he's been doing that with the Rick Rude or the crotch chop before the veg-o-matic or the tiger style (which, now that I think about it, may not be his own identity at all). Those crossfaces in the corner were nasty though, and Eddie's chops sounded as good as they ever did. The anger management angle for Kingston made sense in the Sammy match; I'm not sure if it's totally believable moving forward, but the Pac match it seems to be building to should be fun at least.

Best Friends (Orange Cassidy/Chuck Taylor/Trent) vs Kobe Durst/Steven Mainz/Jessie V

MD: This was a straight up crowdpleasing squash on the heels of the Cassidy/PAC main event one day earlier. Occasionally they'll run these where guys can just do whatever and they don't even give the enhancement talent a hope. It was pretty brutal with Trent not quite getting all of the flip into a spinebuster (and he save the same sort of shrug that Silver got when he tried to suplex two guys at once). The Sole Food into the Half and Half looked great though. Cassidy then came in and punched everyone. I'm not sure if it's Keith Mitchell retiring or what but they don't seem to time the hug nearly as well as they used to. Anyway, this was never going to be much but it was fine for what it was.

Ari Davari vs Brandon Cutler

MD: Like I said, people watch AEW for different reasons. There are some people who are thoroughly into the Elite, to the point of having Omega avatars and whatever else. I don't have a ton of time for any of them for reasons no one needs to hear right now, but I do think Cutler's been one of the bright spots of the company over the last month. He's a guy who throws himself entirely in the act, who's unafraid to do anything necessary. He cares so much that the fans care, and as the only bastion of the Elite remaining, they care just a little bit more. You put him up against a guy like Avalon (like we'll see this week) or Danhausen or Serpentico and you get a fun comedy match, but if you put him against an actual wrestler like Davari, and you get a kind of interesting, contrast-laden match, where he can work from underneath. Here, Davari threw a lot of simple, driving shots, credible stuff that put over his annoyance of the entire situation. Cutler would comeback with fun 80s offense but Davari would cut him off by going for the eyes or with Kiss' help or through something just as conniving that sort of defies hierarchy and highlights how offended he is that he has to lower himself to wrestle Cutler. It made for a pretty fun match. I would have rather Hook had to go through all of the Trustbusters first before getting Davari, though part of that was just beacuse I wanted to see Hook vs Slim J (who is the new 5th finger if Punk isn't coming back, by the way).

Willow Nightingale vs Seleziya Sparx

MD: In a lot of ways this was an inversion of the Shida match. Willow still wanted to give some shine to the local, even if she was working heel, but she made her work for it and chip away, not going down easily, leaning hard into her size. It's hard for a babyface with a size advantage to know just how much to give while still showing the right amount of vulnerability, especially given the hierarchical difference here, but I think she nailed it. Willow has great emotive reactions in her selling, able to switch between ebullience, exhaustion, and aggression. All of Sparx' stuff looked pretty good, even some of the overwrought things like how she vaulted over the turnbuckle to hit a running kick. That's the sort of thing that is maybe a bit much but you can't fault it if the kick looks good. Jody Threat got a lot of attention last week, but Sparx should get some as well.

QT Marshall vs Dante Martin

MD: A year ago, when I first encountered him, I thought QT should wrestle more like a manager. He's capable of a lot of things (including missing a 450) but just because he can, doesn't necessarily mean he should. That said, for a lot of this period, AEW's needed credible mid-card heels to eat losses. Having the Trustbusters now help a little bit, but that's really been the Factory and the Wingmen, and Lethal, and as such, it does make sense for QT to stretch his wings a bit more. He's good at it and especially good at engaging with his opponent and the audience. They were all over him, despite having sat through all of the previous matches and even if no one necessarily bought a ticket for him, they all had a seemingly great time getting on his case and it'll be, consciously or subconsciously, part of their enduring good feeling about the night in the months and years to come.
 
Dante, in the meantime, probably through no choice of his own as he'd rather be teaming with his brother, has had a lot of ring time to improve. I thought he was already pretty far along in the singles match with Black last October, but his expressiveness and interactions with the crowd have developed since then. He's a great seller on top of his ability to seemingly freeze time as he flips around the ring and soars through the air. He's a case where the sum is greater than any specific part, as his flipping rana into the ring here would be the most spectacular thing in almost any other match in the world but felt almost subdued alongside his huge dive to the outside and stuttering splash to avoid the cutter. The finishing stretch worked to protect QT in loss but still felt like an accomplishment for Dante. Definitely the sort of match that Dusty would have been proud to call the Moo Match of the Week on WCW Prime in 1995 even if maybe it wouldn't make a comp tape for the year.

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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 11/25/20

What Worked

-I liked most of Hangman vs. Silver, good way to start off the show. Silver is a fun guy to feature, a compact power pack who was really good at cutting off Page. One of my least favorite things in Page matches is how unnecessarily complicated some of his offense is, and how it is never reversed. I liked how Silver cut off a lot of signature offense, like hitting a rana to counter the rope flip lariat. It made Page approach things differently and made for a more satisfying story. Silver has a low center of gravity and can use it in cool ways, like dropping low to the ground to do a quick go behind and snap German suplex. I wish Page had treated Silver's kicks a little more seriously, as it felt like we were building to something really cool when Silver was kicking away at Page, not letting him up, dodging right when he needed to, landing a big hooking kick to the jaw, but Page kinda just stood up and beat him anyway. Also, Silver doesn't need to do the half gainer flip bump every time he takes a clothesline. He did it three times here and you really don't need to be doing the same signature bump three times in three minutes. However, he also planted Page with a brainbuster and took a nice high backdrop bump, and there was more than enough here to make it work. 

-When Lee Johnson makes it onto Dynamite, you know you're getting a nice squad match, because he always takes the best beatings in squash matches. I need to seek out some of his Dark matches to see how he does with actual offense, because I like the way he bumps for lariats and other big offense. He doesn't take intentionally athletic feather soft bumps, his bumps look like he is being hurt. He made that lariat on the floor look brutal, and I don't think Will Hobbs has a very brutal lariat. 

-I do like that AEW is the kind of fed that makes mention about how cool it is that Jericho and Chris Daniels are meeting for the very first time. That's always cool to me when two guys who have been in wrestling for so long finally cross paths in the ring, like Buddy Rose facing Kerry von Erich in WWF. And let me tell you, if this was the year 1999 or 2000, I could not tell you just how over the moon excited I would be to see a Jericho/Daniels match. But this 2020 version is probably about as good as could reasonably expected. Jake Hager was my favorite guy here, and Hager might be THEE guy that I am absolutely never excited to see on my TV screen who can actually deliver something cool. He always gets an "oh sheesh this guy?" reaction from me, but I can't deny how much I enjoy Hager's meathead mouth breathing style. The best part of this was when Hager was driving his knee right into Danielses' back while throwing fists right into the ribs. It looked nasty as hell. 

-The gear AND choreography of the Omega Sweepers has improved every week. It's really satisfying to watch performers get better at their craft in real time. Moxley beatdown was strong. I want Moxley to wreck this guy. 

-Shida/Anna Jay was better than I expected, mainly because Jay doesn't even have 20 career matches work. Obviously there are going to be some glitches, so I'm more impressed with the things she can pull off naturally. She is really strong at making up the difference when selling strikes, like when Shida threw a dropkick that landed a little low and Jay sold her jaw convincingly. She goes to the jaw/mouth sell a bit much, did it right before that dropkick when missing a charge into the buckles, but it's a strong looking sell so hats off. I liked a lot of the ways she would counter Shida offense, like blocking the running apron knee with a downward strike, and especially her shifting weight at the last minute to land on Shida after a vertical suplex. I thought it was just a bad looking suplex at first, but I love a reversal that actually makes it look like the move wasn't pulled off quite right. Reversals in 2020 wrestling are so clean that they usually don't look like they're reversing anything. This looked like Shida tried to do a suplex and wasn't expecting Jay's weight shift. The nearfall kickout by Shida was perfectly timed, actually got me to buy into Jay sneaking away with the upset. 

-Fenix running into Blade's awesome powerslam, that works.

What Didn't Work

-Taz dropping silly shooty comments like "creative has nothing for me" or "wish me luck in my future endeavors" does nothing for me. Taz does not come off threatening to me at this point, and there are too many guys on the roster who could have locked in a better looking submission. Cody's burn about Taz's son (Hook!) training with Cody and not Taz was strong. 

-I feel bad for all the people who have strongly backed Rusev and have been gifted Miro. 

-I love Jack Evans and would rather see him on Dynamite than any number of other less interesting flippers that have been featured. But it's also really weird to give Top Flight a big Dynamite match last week ago, a match that got them buzz and made a big impression, to then bring Evans and Angelico back to Dynamite just to beat Top Flight. I don't think the match worked as a match, as all of these AEW flyer vs. flyer matches feel so same-y. I don't think Top Flight does much of anything that comes off natural, can't adjust on the fly; They can either do long semi-complicated sequences that end with something dumb like kicking Angelico in the arm, or they do weird things like adjust their several feet while rope running. It all comes off like guys just running through some spots that don't always feel like they belong to the same match. I did like the way Angelico went after Daunte's leg, thought his roll throughs to trap Daunte in leg locks and holds looked super cool and felt like old IWRG bleeding into AEW. Also, it is supremely annoying to give these guys names like Darius and Daunte, because there is no way I'm going to remember which one is fucking Daunte and which is Darius. Air Wolf I can remember, but Darius Martin? 

-I didn't think Fenix and PAC looked good as a team. They're two guys who, from their styles, seem like they would complement each other nicely, but their set ups felt long and things missed the mark. But I thought Butcher and the Blade looked good as heel opposition, thought Butcher looked great as a fist swinging bully, thought Blade worked some nice sequences with Fenix and especially loved Fenix aborting a flying attack off the top, jumping past Blade, and running hard into a great snap powerslam. But the match overall felt scattered and like it would have been a real mess without Butcher and Blade. 

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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. 

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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 9/23/20

What Worked

-Evil Uno/Hangman eeks onto the top side here just because I still like what Uno brings to AEW. Page has several cool bits of offense and then other things he should drop entirely. Things like his moonsault off the apron that rarely connects, offense like that just looks silly with his character. It's that Silas Young thing where he looks like James Gammon and is a real man, then goes out and wrestles like a bad Chris Sabin clone. Page needs to drop the flips and just focus on cool fallaway slams and big lariats, because those things work well within his character AND are moves that look good. I really liked the fallaway slam where he held a bridge, not an easy thing to do. Uno is someone in AEW who makes little things look good, but here he also gets to splat Page with a huge cannonball off the top. The match wasn't perfect, but Uno made Page's offense look good (Page makes stuff look good, but Uno helped with some things), so this landed up top.

-Uno was selling his head and neck around ringside during the Lee/Cassidy match and that rules.

-Cassidy/Brodie was a good use of bullshit that leaves the door open for Cassidy to get some kind of cage match revenge. I dug Lee knocking Cassidy's block off after the hands went in the pockets, but I am a fan of the hands in pockets spots. His dive that was caught by the Dark Order was a cool trick, and they managed to all impressively scatter at the right time to make it look like Cassidy actually got the worst of Lee's dive. Lee has a few too many goofy twists and turns to his offense still, but he's great at barreling into Cassidy with falling lariats and big boots, and I loved that grounded side headlock he worked during the commercial break (also hit a great elbowdrop during the break, shame some of his coolest stuff was during the break). Cassidy's comeback was good and I liked the way they worked in him dealing with the Dark Order (lots of fun work with him dodging interference in between hitting dives), dealing with them leading to him getting blown up. Run this back, throw them in a cage, give me a Cassidy pockets dive off the top of the cage.

-I like a good "look we WANT to fight you guys, but that wouldn't be fair to YOU because of how beat up you are" and FTR pulled off that attitude well.

-You know? Just keep matching up Thunder Rosa and Ivelisse every week. There have been plenty of AEW women's matches that are just actually bad, so it's way way way more interesting to just have two women in there who look and act like they genuinely hate each other. Having unprofessional looking exchanges is an upgrade over having bad looking rehearsed exchanges. There was plenty of stuff here that was out of sync (including a hilarious moment where Tony and JR are talking about how perfectly in sync Shida and Ivelisse were, as Ivelisse's timing was clearly off on two things in a row), but I'll take a couple out of sync moments if you give me some stiff punches and kicks. Every time Ivelisse and Rosa were in there together was noteworthy and the hate bled through the screen. Ivelisse mounted her and looked like she would have punched her right in the nose if Rosa didn't know how to cover up and buck her off, and it added a sick "what will happen next?" element to things. I dug Shida suplexing Ivelisse boots first into Diamante's face (with Rosa hitting slingshot knees after), and later Shida running across the ring to stop a hot tag by hitting a flying knee to Diamante on the apron. It didn't totally matter much as the finishing stretch fell apart a bit, but the falling apart was some of the best stuff here. Pure hate and actual emotion are things we don't get enough of in wrestling, so I celebrate this unprofessionalism and welcome it to my television.

22. Eddie Kingston vs. Jon Moxley

ER: It's cruel of AEW to make us wait two months for another Kings(ton) Road match in prime time, because of course King is going to deliver. I could watch Kingston sell chops all day, love watching him take a hit and see his muscle memory go to respond with a hit, only for the pain to hit mid throw. Gimme more of Kingston duck walking away holding his chest. You never get rote exchanges with King, the strikes are always mixed up and broken up with unexpected kicks. Kingston hits a lariat and  takes it to the floor, goes after Moxley's ear, yanks his waistband into an elbow to the back, dumps him into the timekeeper's table, and we get a nice tour of the AEW floor. King eats a vertical suplex and they both whip each other into the barricades. I love Kingston faces after he takes a suplex. We get too many idiotic facial reactions in wrestling, Kingston's reactions are the only ones that feel honest. These two kept it close and always punished lag, like Kingston headbutting Moxley off the top after Moxley left space between an elbow, or Moxley powering through a lariat after Kingston gloated a wee bit. We get some big moves, like Mox hitting a piledriver, or Kingston taking a big German suplex before dropping Mox with a backdrop, but there's never the feeling of moving from spot to spot. Kingston matches always feel like a strike battle broken up by occasional bigger moves, but everything is glued together with chops and headbutts and elbows. The sudden finish was awesome, with Moxley blocking a backfist and just pouncing on Kingston, dropping him to his knees with his weight while applying a sleeper that turns into a sick side headlock. Kingston is a man who knows how to make a side headlock look like a finish, turning purple and spitting, and Mox did his part by really hooking that chin. It's almost like Kingston needs to be wrestling on TV more.

PAS: All Japan Eddie Kingston isn't my favorite version of Eddie Kingston, although I love all versions. We are far enough removed from that era, that matches paying tribute to it don't seem as trite, and Kingston does that tribute stuff better than anyone. He understands that what made those matches great were timing and reaction and not just moves, and his reactions to getting hit were even cooler then the nastiness of the shots. Moxley had some cool little moments too, this wasn't just a Kingston showcase. I loved how he sold the downward elbows like he got a muscle cramp, and I really felt like he was excited to be working this kind of match and that excitement was contagious. I wish such a big chunk of this match wasn't in picture in picture, it's better then not getting it all, but they should time things better so your main event doesn't get chopped up. I thought the finish was really cool, no need for a bunch of near falls, that quick bulldog choke felt like an ending. Too bad it took COVID to slot Kingston in the main event where he belongs, but hopefully they realize he belongs there now, and a title rematch between these too - with a big build up - is the most exciting thing AEW could do right now.


What Didn't Work

-Opening tag was a real slog, not at all the kind of debut that made Miro looked like an asset. Miro looked fine in the match (although I couldn't stop laughing at JR fawning over his quads the whole time), but it went way too long, and it was easily the slowest paced match that Janela or Kiss have been involved with in AEW. Some nice individual moments (Kiss took a nice bump to the floor after Janela got shoved into him), but this whole thing felt sleepy.

-Jericho has made some pretty uninteresting on paper matches into interesting or even really good matches, but getting something good out of Private Party might be his greatest task. The promo didn't hit me, but I'll hold out hope.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 7/29/20

What Worked

-The visual of Stu Grayson's huge tope con hilo past the turnbuckle, hitting the cameraman on the way down (and running right at the cameraman) was awesome.

-Couldn't be much less interested in Zack Ryder as a new AEW recruit, but at least Ryder showed up ON THE GAS. I am more excited for hulked up juice god Ryder than Woo Woo Woo Ryder.

-This show needed Darby in the main event, because this was a real 2 hour drag if you were looking for good wrestling. This was a quick, under 10 minute sprint with a hot pace, totally unnecessary (but fun) weapons, and some classic Darby crash tests. The whole thing starts with Darby doing the Coffin Drop off the entrance tron, so this rules from go. Any match based around Darby dying is going to be cool, so crashing with a Coffin Drop, eating a powerbomb, a German, a nasty spill to the apron, it's all great. Starks and Cage had decent chemistry as a team, but I like Cage a ton more as "guy throwing two men around at once" than "guy going up easily for everyone's suplexes", and luckily we got a bit more of the former. Darby's late match comeback to save Moxley was great, there were a couple good nearfalls, and the finish was fantastic. You give me Darby smashing tacks into Ricky Starks' back by dropping in off the top rope and planting that deck on his back, and that's a finish I'll be into. Starks' sell was awesome, left leg stuck out straight and lifted off the ground while being pinned, shaking like he had spinal damage or like a man who just got his back tacked for the first time. Thank god for Darby tonight. That's a guy you get the ball to with seconds on the clock.


What Didn't Work

-Dang, that opening 10 men sucked, and it had zero excuse to suck. A 10 man given enough time should be the highest hit rate match out there. Any match with 6+ people where at least four of the participants are capable, should be a guaranteed good match. But this was just a sloppy, unfunny, poorly timed mess. People stood around awkwardly, waiting to take offense, missing offense, or just not doing anything. The dive train started well with a cool tope con hilo from Chuck Taylor (who appears to have lost some of his added quarantine weight), but then a long stint with Marko Stunt getting tossed back and forth between Hager and Luchasaurus while everyone just watched. There was a lot of "just watched" in this and it blew. Any time they tried to string a moves chain together it fell apart by the second move, everyone moving at a completely different pace than everyone else.

-I really love the idea of Cody vs. Top Indy Guys, and I have to accept that most of them are not going to touch Cody/Kingston...but I'd like to think that most of them will be better than Cody/Warhorse. I've never been much of a Warhorse guy, the whole thing comes off forced an unnatural, and let me tell you: if something comes off forced and unnatural on small scale indy shows, it is going to look downright bush on a big league presentation. Warhorse looked like a guy who won a sweepstakes, not a guy who earned his shot at the champ. Cody really busted his ass to make him look good, but it's a two way street. Warhorse throws a nice clothesline, and that's about it. Cody is good at taking lariats, and Warhorse had a big running one and a nice flat foot standing one that looked really impactful. Amusingly, JR called him "offensively minded" in a match where up to that point he had only thrown clotheslines and some stomps. Cody did a good job setting Warhorse to shine, Warhorse just didn't shine. His timing was a step earlier than Cody's, and it pulled back the curtain too much on a lot of his rehearsed pins or missed strikes. There were several times where he was already reversing the move he was set to reverse, while Cody had barely started the move. Grabbing a small package off a figure 4 attempt is a smart nearfall, but it looks bad when you're showing your reversal hand before Cody is even in position. Later, he committed to a missed double stomp off the top after seeing that Cody was 8 feet away from where he was stomping. It wasn't a blind leap, he watched Cody move, then leaped into a double stomp to the mat as if a person was there. There's debuting on national TV the way Eddie Kingston debuted, and there's debuting on national TV the way Warhorse did. This was Dancin' Homer debuting in Capital City. We've set each end of our Cody vs. The Indies bar.

-Man has Omega's stock fallen. The tag match was not a long match, but it felt like a long match. That's never good. Omega looks more and more like a broken man in tags like this, but this thing was mildly cursed beyond Omega. There were unfortunate hiccups that you can't really blame on anyone, yet take a match down anyway. Little things like the ref getting in the way of a Page clothesline, requiring Page to completely stop his momentum before continuing the spot as planned. Grayson doesn't always hit with his stuff, but I appreciate a lot of the stuff he goes for. The slingshot senton to the apron didn't fully connect, but it's something that is crazy enough that I want him to keep trying to make it look better. I like Uno's AEW work and dug him here, thought he took the snap dragon like a beast, loved Page wrecking Grayson with a lariat, but this never quite came together as a match.

-I was curious to see some more Diamante after her match last week, even though I was not into her match last week, but now I think I'm good for awhile. She did not look good throughout much of this. Every Shida singles match always has to have these really bad strike exchange sections, always looking like the most brutal slap play. For all I know those shots sting like hell, but I have yet to see a Shida vs. Opponent strike exchange that actually looked ready for prime time. Several of Diamante's chops hit hard, a couple things looked good, but I'm still waiting on an AEW singles match where the participants actually have chemistry.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 7/1/20

What Worked

-Cody/Hager was a real good mildly overbooked big match, where all of Cody's comebacks felt natural to the match even while Hager took probably 70% of it. Hager works like a punishing lummox, and while some his stuff looks slow he makes up for it with some inspired moments. I loved Hager breaking the figure 4 by just slamming the side of Cody's head into the mat, and Arn taking a bullet was worth it to see Hager drop Cody with a German on the floor. I dig when a bully heel just throws people to the floor, and I thought they did a cool job of Hager tossing Cody to the floor multiple times and making Cody find new ways to get in without getting smashed. Cody's comebacks were strong and fit well within what they were working, dug his nice powerslam after stopping short, and I fully bought into Hager actually pulling out a convincing win. You can tell Cody is a guy who likes coming up with finishes, and while some of them get a little cute, this one definitely worked. I thought for sure Hager was muscling him over into a guillotine, and Cody standing with a wide bridge for the pin worked real well for me. Strong.

-Main event tag worked well enough, and I appreciate that it was mostly subdued and not treated in any way like a Big Omega Epic. Parts of this were messy but I like the direction they built things and felt they kept within the match they were actually working. Taylor always dips out of a match structure to go ham, and that wasn't a problem here. I'm still laughing about JR calling him a beanpole last week. He's clearly the largest guy in this match. He always overshoots his tope con hilo, but his short piledriver looked really good. Trent had a nice aggression here, and I liked the pace he kept throughout, and the way he leaned into a few nasty shots. The ugliest (in a great way) was Omega's missile dropkick to the back of Trent's neck. Omega looked like he was trying to sever Trent's spinal column and that is something that will snap me to attention in a main event. We had a couple good nearfalls down the stretch, and Trent really died to make Page look good, so this lands up here.


What Didn't Work

-Opening tag just was not it. Tons of bumps felt disconnected from the actual moves people were taking (Jungle Boy sold getting thrown into the ringpost like Rock taking a Stunner) and the Luchasaurus hot tag was ug-lee. All of his stupid off timing stutter step kicks look bad, they never land clean, they look slow, and the extra spins and flourishes just look silly. Wardlow cannot catch a dive and Excalibur at least did a great job saving that by saying Wardlow was trying to get out of the way. MJF on the other hand made Jungle Boy's topes look really good, throwing himself back into the guardrail a couple times before getting flattened by a tope con hilo. Every spot revolving around Luchasaurus either lands too light or requires guys to do things they wouldn't normally be doing (he has three different pieces off offense that require MJF just running at him and jumping). The commentary made this match sound a lot better than it really was, so hats off to Jericho and Excalibur for shining this shit.

-Shida/Ford had some ideas and some good energy, but a lot of this was ROUGH. Ford has made noticeable improvements but still has some major weaknesses clash with Shida's weaknesses. Shida is bad at standing and throwing (yet always does it) and Ford is bad at selling on her feet. So you have Shida making ugly non-contact on strikes, and Ford standing there taking strikes she doesn't quite know how to sell, and it derails a lot of this. The small surprises were nice, like Ford's big pump kick, there was smart camera work to cover up certain spots (it's important to know your workers' weaknesses, and there were at least three moments where cameras cut to a super favorable angle in anticipation of a spot), and there were a couple of strong nearfalls. This threatened a couple of times to make it onto the top side of this review, but Kip Sabian cemented it down here for good. Sabian was involved in one spot, and it managed to be the worst spot of the match. Shida caught him sneaking in with a kendo stick, threw a bad strike at him, Sabian paused.....then just threw the kendo stick straight up into the air. There were so many different ways you could have sold a strike and still allowed Shida to get the stick. But this clown just throws a stick in the air in a way no other person would. Is there anything at all this guy does right?

-Private Party took me way out of that tag match. Opponents always feel a little dragged down by them. They don't take offense interestingly because they sell every move as if it has the exact same effect. Doesn't matter how nasty or how simple a move looks, they sell it the same, especially Quen. Their offense is athletic but sloppy, dives always going off kilter, and I hate how everyone has to specifically have a Private Party match. It's a bad structure, and this would have benefitted way more from Santana and Ortiz working like Arn and Bobby, instead of working like a different Private Party.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 6/24/20

What Worked

-AEW realized that nobody in the fed knows how to catch a dive, so I appreciate they made a match into a lumberjack just so 18 guys would be standing close together to catch someone. The set up was clumsy as hell, but it's smart to recognize your weaknesses.

-Super smart usage of Shida, just a quick running high knee and nice falcon arrow and then leaping aggressively into the crowd to smack Penelope around. Shida is someone who fucks up everyone's timing in every AEW match I've seen her in, so quick squashes to build to bigger matches is brilliant.

-Lee/Cabana vs. Janela/Kiss was certainly a pleasant surprise. They kept a hot pace for 8 minutes, and I cannot believe that this is the first actual non-battle royal that Kiss has been in over the entire Dynamite run. He came off like a real star in this one, if not a main eventer than someone who should clearly be a featured attraction every couple of weeks. He and Janela had a lot of chemistry as a team and I liked their quick tandem flying and the way they would run into big Brodie boots or screens. There was really only one hinky spot (where Cabana held up on a roaring elbow and Kiss bumped a little early for it), but most of this was fun fun fun.

-FTR/SCU was a hot tag that started falling apart a bit down the stretch, but I think they mostly did a good job at going home when things started slipping. I think this got good during the picture in picture break right after they did the tandem suplexes over the top to the floor, and thought Hardwood was especially strong with his cutoff punches. I think SCU's double team work was surprisingly more  solid, but I don't really care about FTR as a "double team" kind of tag team, I prefer them more as a cutoff tag team. So it was a complementary pairing with a strong progression. I dug SCU coming back with Daniels' slingshot elbow and Kazarian's big legdrop, and how it lead to FTR taking over later when Kazarian missed with an even bigger legdrop. Even a couple things that missed (like a Daniels flying knee that missed the mark) looked good after Wheeler took a nasty bump ricocheting off the ropes. Don't love FTR cutting gassed post-match in ring promos, but it's at least unique to them and so for now I'll appreciate it as a feature.

-Nice Cage squash. Jon Cruz is the right kind of ragdoll bumper that makes someone like Cage shine, getting insane height on a flapjack and crumpling nicely on everything. I dig Cage's bicep curl spot, feels like something an awesome juiced bodybuilder should be doing. Press slams and bicep curls, fuck yeah. There just needs to be a bodybuilder wrestler who bases every piece of offense on his regular gym set.

-Hardy/Santana was a good pairing and I liked seeing all the cool ways Santana would bump wildly for Hardy. In the opening couple minutes alone he was flying to the floor, all around ringside, and into the barricade. His cutoff work was simple and I liked how he would mix quick reversals in with just choking and stomping away at Hardy in the corner. The flip reversal out of the Side Effect was something I hadn't seen, and I like that it didn't come off fluidly; it came off like Hardy was going through with the move as planned and was genuinely surprised at Santana's reversal. After seeing the abomination that was Wardlow/Luchasaurus and how they kept anticipating every single move a split second (or more) too early, this kind of surprise struggle was awesome to see. I'm into 45 year old Hardy busting ass and keeping up with quick guys like Santana, and dig that he's pulling it off.

-Fine segment to close out the show, really loved how they kept building to the moment where it looked like Jericho was going to pop Cassidy. The through the crowd brawl was real good (also why the fuck are there so many people there in the crowd?? Who are they??), loved the hotshot Jericho took on a railing and especially loved how cool Orange Cassidy looks while bleeding all over himself out of the ear. It's almost like blood automatically makes nearly every wrestling situation better? Jericho's bump was cool, still no clue why so many people were there, but this was a good way to close out the show.


What Didn't Work

-Wardlow/Luchasaurus was a shitty version of a shitty Keith Lee/Dijakovic match, the kind of match that could have been good had they just done shoulderblocks and clotheslines, and instead derailed in hilarious fashion once they decided to pepper in a ton of slo mo dancing. The strike exchanges were all terrible, with Wardlow throwing slow punches from a mile away and both doing pillow soft slo mo Frye/Takayama strikes. Luchasaurus kept showing too much of his hand on bumps, clearly prepping for bumps that never quite matched up to the move Wardlow was delivering. And by the time the match devolved into Luchasaurus doing his embarrassing DDR exchanges it become one of the saddest matches I've seen on Dynamite. Literally every one of Luchasaurus dance exchanges looked like he was throwing them for the first time, without practicing, and without making sure that he could make any of it look good. And none of it looked good. It arguably peaked with him hitting the slowest legsweep I've ever seen, with Wardlow then taking a flat back bump after getting slowly legswept in the shins. Incredible. Luchasaurus whiffed on every strike that was supposed to be caught, thigh slapped when kicks didn't connect, and made sure every single kick he threw looked like a giant pile of triceratops shit. The flying off the stage was a minor bright spot, full props for Marko getting launched like that, but the set up for all of the big spots was so clunky and unnatural  and not a good enough reason to work an entire lumberjack match just to use them as a base. This was a real sad way to start a show.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 6/10/20

What Worked

-Good debut for FTR, which my reptile brain just realized probably stands for Formerly the Revival. They could gain some notoriety if they cut a promo saying it stood for Fuck the Racists. I would like it to be Friendship to Remember, and in WWE it probably would have stood for Foreign to Raw. Also, I genuinely had no idea that their WWE names were like Fire Pro versions of their actual names. And really, their actual names sound like the Fire Pro versions. But this was a good tag that didn't go above and beyond, played as a decent showcase without being any kind of walk in the park. This was the Just a Taste and that's fine for a debut, although after complaining about not being able to let loose in tags it was a little odd seeing them have a tag that wouldn't have been in the top half of their WWE syndicated matches. I liked Blade's extra kickout on the Cash elbowdrop, liked that we got a little late match twist.  

-Feels good putting the women's tag up here, and it's crazy to think that it lands up here because of Penelope Ford. This was easily her best AEW performance, and the best performance I've seen from her period. I thought the layout was a little wonky, and Shida is still a problem, but a good Ford performance really elevated some of Shida's offense. It also helped that they didn't throw out another 4 way. Tag matches are just going to be more satisfying that a messy 4 way. Ford really started opening my eyes when she pinballed off a Shida missile dropkick (with Ford stumbling around decently before the bump, as Shida naturally made her wait way too long before hitting the dropkick), but she made every piece of offense look good here, and played a late match nearfall for max effectiveness. Statlander probably also had her best AEW showing, with only weak elbows to break a Nyla fireman's carry the only thing that looked off. The timing on her late match tope to Kip Sabian was strong. I thought the set up on Nyla's double knee was preposterous, and as much as I think Shida stinks, I'm not sure a wrestler in history could have stood on the bottom rope waiting to be hit as long as she did and still make it work. Nyla hung her on those ropes for an eternity and I think only Terry Funk would have had a chance of not looking like a complete idiot standing on that rope for so long. Terry's rope flopping game is strong, he has the best chance. Curious how Finlay would have handled it. However, the payoff looked great, Shida and Statlander flipping and crashing in unison off the big kneedrop. Of course, Shida is up and running around moments after selling this devastating move, so guess it wasn't that painful after all and definitely not worth the wait. But overall? A strong Penelope Ford performance got us up top.

-Ortiz and Santana go up here, most of the rest of the trios is down below. Santana and Ortiz had a real nice standout tag team match in the middle of several middling or non-existent performances. Ortiz stomping the hell out of Taylor in the corner really made this feel more violent than it had up to that point, they really played into Cassidy's big run, their beatdowns looked really good, and Ortiz's cannonball down the stretch looked super high impact. These two looked like the best team in AEW here, and just give me 15 minutes of them vs. Free the Raccoons.

-Guevara/Colt goes up here, even though it wasn't really bad or good. It had more things that I liked than disliked. I mostly liked Guevara's cool as hell wild dive, and the fact that he saves all of his bullshit for the picture in picture. Doing a bunch of rope running and Fargo strutting and chinlocks while most of my screen is showing cat food commercials? That's great. Plenty of this didn't really move the needle, but Sammy entertains me. 

What Didn't Work

-The second AEW started, a smoke detector started beeping in my house. You know, that kind of beeping that you can't actually locate and sounds the exact same volume no matter where you're standing in the house. I'm not saying that is the fault of AEW Dynamite, but I know for a fact that it didn't beep this entire week *until* AEW Dynamite. It's a small sample, but it's a sample that doesn't favor Dynamite. 

-Young Bucks came off like real dweebs after the FTR match, and a feud started over a "you didn't introduce yourself" angle plays real lame in 2020. If they want YB to be the heels of the feud, couldn't they have just come out and kicked their ass or something?

-Several guys held back that trios match. Trent looked real bad, his timing off the entire match. Hager looked like a stumbly dork, even though I liked a couple of his slams. Cassidy looked fine but I have a feeling he would have looked much less so without Santana and Ortiz bumping and getting perfectly into position with everything he did. Still, his dive was good and his part of the match was exactly what it should have been. Plus, he got beat with a sack of oranges and that should be enough to put his performance topside.

-Could not get into the long Marq Quen singles match. Private Party don't really do it for me in general, and Cody main events against guys who shouldn't be having 8+ minute singles matches are just going to need Cody blood. I liked how Cody paid off the knee work well enough, but this could have been snipped in half.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 5/20/20

What Worked

-Ten makes his Dynamite debut and his offense looked better than Moxley's. I liked his spinebuster, I liked his shot to the back of Moxley's head while Moxley was weirdly touching Aubrey Edwards' face, and the post match arm breaking angle looked good.

-I wouldn't have had money on MJF being the best squash match worker in the company, but here we are. AEW is filled with big guys who worked slow paced squashes while making dumb faces at the camera, or top stars who work way too competitive with bad structure. Here, Blackface MJF (MJG?) knows how to leave Marko openings by being cocky, and his established goofy selling works really well when used to mock Stunt's ineffectiveness (like when he sold a sunset flip by hammily waving his arms and bugging his eyes - the way he typically sells a sunset flip - only to reveal he was in no danger of going down). The shoulderbreaker looked great, him catching Marko in the ring skirt and missing a hard axe handle to the apron looked great, and he took a fantastic bump into the ring steps. I look forward to MJF matches now, which was not a thing I used to do.

-Arn has a sweater vest with Cody's bad logo on it!! Not a surprise that a talking segment with Arn and Jake is going to work. They aren't quite as quick as they used to be, but there are still going to be some great pull quotes when you let these two talk for a few minutes. I particularly liked Jake - boiler stretching buttons - accusing Arn of "looking a little thick".

-Wow, I really loved Fenix/Cassidy. This was one of the greatest Fenix performances of the past year, and I did not expect him to work so great as Cassidy's foil. He played into early match comedy (that was limited nicely to just the first minute or so), and him kicking and headbutting turnbuckles felt like a well done vintage Super Porky opponent spot. The rest of the match he worked really vicious, loved his big springboard legdrop, loved him doing little things like kicking Cassidy in the temple whenever he was on the mat too long, his nasty baseball slide dropkick, and thought his timing was super tight. Perhaps most importantly, he made Cassidy's offense look really dangerous, and the way he took a tornado DDT and a diving DDT was worth the cost of admission, and that was before he got dropped hard with a air raid crash. He really knows how to spike himself and make it look like a guy getting spiked. The Kip Sabian stuff at the end was dumb, but the match itself was incredibly fun.

-Hardy/Guevara was good, even though I think it went a little too long. I especially liked the first part of the match with Sammy eating a beating on the outside. Sammy is really good at flying into objects. He can make a spot like getting pulled into the ringpost a couple times look really nasty, and he flies into guardrails more enthusiastically than anyone else in AEW. Matt Hardy has been moving quicker since debuting in AEW, not sure if his body healed up from not being used often over the past year or he's just really going full effort in AEW, but the energy is good. Sammy's comeback segments were fun, loved his payback by smashing Hardy's face into the ringpost. Things did feel a bit too back and forth and I would have preferred a match without so much "stuff", but they worked like a main event and it came off mostly well.

-The endzone brawl was a cool visual and nice change of scenery, and it may have been the most interesting work from Hangman Page in a couple months. I love guys running in from long distances, and him doing a 100 yard dash to run the length of the football field - but not in a funny joke payoff spot - is something I can get behind. They've gone for laughs so many times in their big brawls that the whole thing worked because things that could have been silly - Page being on the other side of the stadium for some reason and needing to run at full speed to save his friends - was played straight. Page throwing hard right hands when he finally arrived didn't hurt.


What Didn't Work

-Not sure the last time I saw three straight dives end with three straight bodies flying directly into the ground, but somehow six men managed to whiff on catching Fenix, Cabana, and Cassidy, all in under a minute. After Fenix tope con hilo'd to the floor, I took stock of Jimmy Havoc, Kip Sabian, and you just know having all the worst guys on your roster out there was going to result in them all botching the one job they had.

-Had high hopes for this one, as I think a tag format is a much smarter way to use the women, rather than the messy 4 ways they always throw out there. And I think this was not far from being on the top side of the page, but fell a little short. I thought the long Nyla control segment was really good, with her straight leveling Statlander with a big pounce to start her control. Stomping her head, kicking her to the floor in the neck, dropping a nice legdrop, nice slow heel control. It also played to Britt Baker's strong apron work, as Britt is really good at making shirt collar tugging faces and not rushing to tag in. The match dipped when Shida and Statlander made their comebacks. Stuff looked sloppy, Shida stuff comes up light, but it's not bad. Shida makes up for weak offense with energy and charisma, and it does close up some of the gap. I liked when Baker finally had to tag in, thought her stumbling control and stooging with Statlander was good. Match had some miscommunication, but I could see this tag being run back next week and being actively good. And I couldn't see that happening if this was just a 4 way.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 5/13/20

What Worked

-I laughed when Fenix ran out and hit a leaping Bruce Lee kick to the back of Orange Cassidy's head.

-MJF squash was a bright spot, loved how Lee Johnson bumped around for MJF (including really hitting his back on the apron while bumping to the floor) and loved things like MJF's stiff arm clothesline and his killer shoulder breaker finisher. MJF bringing a shoulder breaker back to prominence will go a long way towards making me a fan of MJF.


What Didn't Work

-The opening tag was at least brisk, even if a lot of things looked off. Luchasaurus needs to drop all strike combos (even though I get it, he basically has a similar size and skillset to Lance Archer so he has to come up with some different stuff to set him apart) but they always look dorky. Jungle Boy had a couple cool moments and Taylor's awful waffle is a nice finisher, and this was a perfectly fine short tag involving people I don't much care for.

-At this point I just feel bad when I see that a women's 4 way is happening, because I'm never excited to just dump all over the women's division and say shitty things about their sequences that ALWAYS get sloppier and sloppier as every minute passes. It's always the same, every time, where I start out thinking "Okay this isn't bad this is kinda working okay I liked that..." and then every minute goes by, and things start getting messed up, and then I say "why do they keep running these same 4 women in matches against each other where they have no chemistry, no in ring communication, no rapport of any kind." I'm starting to think Shida is the MAJOR problem here, as she really just derails every one of these matches. Not only does a lot of her offense look terrible, but her sequences are almost always designed to result in awkward wait times and awkward collisions. She waits awkwardly for offense, then she's like a scared rabbit who runs headlong into traffic and just panics. Statlander was already bumping to the floor, and here's Shida throwing Baker right out on top of Statlander - literally any other part of the ring would have been fine - and Baker has to completely alter her bump just because Shida had to rush the sequence. Why did Shida have to rush? Why, to get into position several seconds early to take a missile dropkick. Every spot Shida is involved in requires the other participants to slow down and stand still, it's unbearable. Statlander has a lot to like about her, and she really tries to put over some of this bad offense (like her almost going full scorpion off a DDT) but there is always at minimum one strength spot that winds up looking completely compromised, and at this point maybe she should just accept she is not great at strength spots. The interactions between her and Baker were fun, Ford at least tries and always seems to get hung out to dry in these matches. Baker is a great personality who needs to drop some of the shittier parts of her offense (that slingblade is brutally bad) and stick to clawing at mouths and noses. Just STAHHHHP leaving them out there to work through a commercial break, literally every one of these things has fallen apart after just a few minutes. Either the ability isn't there, or they're biting off more than they can chew.

-I know we can't push every team all the time, but I was hoping for more of a showing against Omega/Hardy than Santana and Ortiz got. This felt structured as an Omega/Hardy showcase, and I cannot think of many guys who need less of a showcase than those two.

-I'm an inconsistent motherfucker, as I get so sick of seeing Omega work these long competitive matches with people who shouldn't be so competitive, and yet I actually wanted to see at least 5 minutes out of Jericho/Pineapple Pete. I've been hearing Jericho amusingly call this guy out in the crowd for a couple months, I wanted a little bit of a payoff. I didn't need to see Pete beat Jericho, or even come close to beating Jericho, but for whatever reason I wanted an actual WCW Saturday Night, Winner Never in Doubt, 5 minute match. 90 seconds of Pineapple Pete isn't going to cut it. WCW knew how to do fun matches where the winner was never in doubt for a second, and AEW can't get that same tone.

-Daniels looked really slow in the main event, and why shouldn't he? He's still wrestling the exact same style with the exact same moves as 20 years ago. But this was the first time I've actually been alarmed at how slow he was running the ropes. Daniels would have stood out as slow if he was opening an All Japan show teaming with Haruka Eigen against Momota and Rusher. Lee still has the worst gear in the biz, non-Tamina division. Can anyone actually explain what his gear is supposed to mean? It looks like a day camp crafts project where all the kids learned how to draw scars.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 4/8/20

What Worked

-I have never cared for Lance Archer, always felt like he came off like a real goof and a guy playing at being a hoss without being one, but his AEW usage has been great so far. This match wasn't as Deeply Uncomfortable as last week's, but he killed southern indie guy Alan Angels, and I laughed as Jericho managed to (intentionally) call Angels a different name every time he had to say it. Alan Eagleson was my favorite, and the best was that he was integrating them casually into the commentary (not making jokes and then elbowing ribs after).

-Very smart to do Baker's 2nd hour promo without her washing any blood off her face. Dried face blood promos are universally great. But can she really fix her own teeth if they get messed up, even if she IS a dentist?

-Don't believe I've seen Lee Johnson before but that is exactly how you bump for a big squash match. I love how he took the half nelson suplex on his side, made it look more dangerous than taking a stomach bump.

-Cody/Spears I think went a bit long and don't think Cody should have given up so much to the 10 guy, but overall thought it delivered. Spears is really bad about standing still waiting for offense, but he's quite good at taking offense. I don't think the match would work as well without making Cody's okay tope look good by bouncing across the stage, and I loved how he took the two rolling CrossRhodes near the finish. His pop up butterfly suplex was nice and I actually dug the match ending with a pinned figure 4. It did feel a little cute (especially with Jericho and Schiavone immediately saying they'd never seen that happen, felt a bit produced), but I liked it. The title tournament has potential to produce a few good matches, this was a decent start.

-I don't think I'd want Jericho on commentary every week, but I mostly liked his work here. He and Tony were in the tough spot of having to think the comedy tag was funny, but he managed to do heel commentary without just burying everything in sight and actually putting over action. Plus he made fun of Cody's tattoo which is fair and necessary.


What Didn't Work

-What a sometimes good and oftentimes incredibly bad Baker vs. Shida match that was. There was hardway blood! There were a couple of genuinely stiff shots! There was also an abundance of extremely embarrassing exchanges that looked like they belonged nowhere near televised pro wrestling show. I challenge anyone to find me a worse wrestling sequence from 2020 wrestling TV than that limp first few minutes of this match. They went through this shoving sequence that looked like neither of them would be able to break through the finish line of a marathon. Neither of them looked like they could run ropes, and it peaked when Shida whipped Baker into the ropes and was supposed to miss a dropkick, and threw that dropkick literally the second she let go of Baker. Had Baker not held onto the ropes, Shida would have still missed that kick by 8 feet. These two are both really great at doing sequences of moves without having any idea what the sequences are supposed to look like or what they're supposed to be replicating. They spend several minutes seemingly trying to make as little contact with each other as possible, and then Britt Baker throws two potato shots from the mount and I just had no idea what this match was. I'm not positive Shida can throw an enziguiri that gets above someone's shoulder, because every time she throws one it lands waist to shoulder. And every time I think "maybe she was trying to throw it to that spot?" but then it's always clear by her opponent's time stand still selling that it was just a botch. The gutbuster on the turnbuckle looked good, Shida's running knee looked good, Britt's nose got busted open nicely and that made for some good visuals, but there were stretches of this that were U-G-L-Y.

-My least favorite thing about AEW comedy matches is that they always go main event distance, and that they're always an unintelligible mess of head drops and yucks. Who is dumb enough to go out there and take a couple of dangerous moves when someone else is going to sell it the same as a jockstrap rubbed in the face? The dynamics are so weird. I liked the gag of Nakazawa applying baby oil to make Trent's chops slip off his body, liked Trent's jumping piledriver, and wish we could have had this match go half as long as it did.

-Brodie Lee has had nothing but bad ill-fitting gear since the awkward Bludgeon Brothers port wine gear. I'm not sure what his gear is supposed to be but it looks like it came from Hot Topic's Corpse Bride Collection deadstock.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 3/18/20

What Worked

-Rey Fenix definitely worked, that's for sure. That opening tag was a one man show and Fenix didn't seem affected in the least by the lack of crowd, and was working as fast and hard as ever. All of his kicks and his knife edge chops sang in that empty arena, and I loved how he was using eyepokes or other cheap shots to set up actual hard kicks. Fenix was in twice as much of this match as Pentagon, which is a good balance for their tags, and they really made this work. Fenix is a guy who bumps so explosively that he actually makes Chuck Taylor shoulderblocks look good. I even liked Orange Cassidy's pocket hands coffin drop off the stage, but perhaps they should leave the coffin drop as Darby's things. You don't need a second guy doing stupid trust falls off of high landings.

-Brodie Lee is good at talking and this felt like the first time I heard Brodie Lee talk in maybe 5 years. I think I dig this Dark Order nonsense more than most, though.

-Lance Archer feature was the coolest possible package for a wrestler I don't care about. Archer just leaving a pile of yarders laying in the woods while Jake the Snake sits in a busted wicker chair with his weird hair, watching Archer chop and kick guys like it was his fetish. That's a good idea for a feature.

-Sammy Guevara continues to rule, as I'm not sure how many other guys could have made me laugh just by singing Jericho's theme song.

-Really liked Ortiz's performance in the main event, really felt like he was the guy bumping for everything, falling off the apron, taking Cody's dive, doing all the pratfalls needed in a match like this. It felt like he was in the Sammy Guevara role since Guevara was at ringside. Page and Cody looked like they were working this about 3/4 speed, and he made all of their attacks look they had actual snap. I also liked Hager as the team wrecking ball, and I really got into it as Inner Circle was cutting off Cody. The energy was good, and I can imagine it isn't the easiest thing to keep energy up without a crowd.


What Didn't Work

-The over serious delivery of the Elite sure sounds a lot sillier without an arena of fans fawning all over them no matter what they say. If they're going out there to show off their stage drama chops at least give me their take on a performance of Our Town.

-JR pointed out before the tag match that Trent had the tightest bandana ever, as he'd never seen it budged. And that just made me obsessively watch how often that goofball adjusts that stupid bandana immediately following any bit of offense he took. Watching him get KO'd by a double superkick, but then lie there on the mat carefully adjusting his hair and bandana, is now something I'm going to be watching for every time. JR just outed his game.

-Has there been an AEW women's match without a major blown spot yet? As in, a spot blown so badly that commentary just has to go "Nope, she didn't get that, not a bit". I can't think of one. But I did like enough moments in the women's match, and they kept the pace moving. Statlander hits the best elbow strike of the match on the interfering Kip Sabian. I'm not actually sure what Ford's elbow strikes are supposed to be, as it looks more like she's wiping something off her opponent's chest, left shoulder to right shoulder. Statlander took Ford's reverse rana really well, and I liked the spot early in the match where she had Shida suplex her into Riho. Riho's offense doesn't look great, but she throws her whole body into dropkicks and body attacks, so those at least look as good as possible. Throwing this many moving parts into a women's division match is inviting problems, but I liked a lot of what they did here. I also think that constantly lumping them into 4 ways or tags isn't really allowing any of them to stand out.

-I was really getting into the Butcher and Blade vs. Jurassic Express tag, when it was just Butcher and Blade cutting off Jungle Boy in their corner. That was the bulk of the match, but it felt like they really lost things the second Luchasaurus finally got tagged in. The guy is a giant compared to Stunt (not there tonight) and Jungle Boy, but he comes in the ring and starts doing bad big man version of Jungle Boy offense: A bad flat foot moonsault off the apron that awkwardly crashes into Butcher, a bunch of thigh slap kicks that all hit weird landing points, a clunky headscissors on Blade, just bad juniors wrestling done by a very large man. Of course, when he wrestles like a very large man, that is also ugly, as it leads to a dry fart of a standing exchange with Butcher. Jungle Boy almost accidentally takes what could have been an insane bump to the floor, although I couldn't tell you how the spot was supposed to go. And moments later the match ends with one of those finishes where commentary goes "Oh that was it! I guess that was the finish!"

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