AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/1 - 5/7

MD: Going to be more words than usual this week. I can't fill any sort of void except for maybe in my own heart but I'm feeling inspired. I know to a lot of people Dean was a sort of distant memory, someone who inspired them years ago or that went to shows or wrote with them. Those stories have meant so much to so many to see. Eric's post was wonderful. To people still on the DVDVR board, however, and there is still a board, and it's a pretty damn good place to talk about wrestling in longer form with more permanence than you can get on twitter or reddit, he was still a fixture. Dean retired a few years ago and started to watch every bit of televised wrestling and drop a sprawl of text immediately after it finished. It was distilled DEAN and an essential daily part of my life even just two weeks ago. Go click on this and read some of his posts over the last few months; you'll be glad you did. 

As for AEW, I said I might shift to covering a the webshows a bit more and what they do? Kill the webshows. If it's really because their TV partners didn't want them pushing content out on YouTube and if it speaks to the strength of that relationship, great. I'm really going to miss Dark and Elevation though. Elevation especially was how I got into AEW the most in late summer and early fall of 2021. Squashes and competitive mid-card matches with no commercials or time constraints or even plot progression built up my connection to wrestlers unfamiliar to me, and there were a lot. I get that you don't want to put squashes on TV and I get that sometimes these extra matches wore out crowds, but at its best, it allowed wrestlers to experiment, to get reps, to figure out what worked and what didn't and let crowds see certain stars (the Matt Hardys of the world), pop for their entrances and themes and signature moves, even when they weren't going to be on the main show. It gave us an Emi Sakura or Nyla Rose tag week after week after week after week and they were all a blast. It let the Acclaimed figure out how to be the Acclaimed or the Gunns figure out how to be the Gunns and let Athena as hard as one could go during one night in Canada and suddenly become one of the the best things in wrestling. I'm not sure how things will shake out in the months to come, if Rampage will serve this purpose more and if we'll get that itch scratched with the ROH studio tapings or if extra matches even end up on Bleacher Report, but I'll miss goofy rookie Elevation commentary from Wight and Menard (and Eddie Kingston for a while there!) and even goofier expert Dark commentary from Excalibur and Taz. I hope we see the return of Super Strong Suplex Machine sooner than later.

AEW Dynamite 5/3

Jericho Appreciation Society (Daniel Garcia/Jake Hager/Angelo Parker/Matt Menard) vs Orange Cassidy/Bandido/Adam Cole/Roderick Strong

MD: Nice big 8 man tag with a lot of little story beats. It's nice to see Strong outside of the WWE system again where he can feel like a big deal. That's part of the joy of AEW. I don't usually have a ton to say about Cole. My main takeaway on him is that he's been woefully miscast as a heel forever. The fans want to cheer him. They want to cheer his song. He has the offense of a scrappy babyface. He has the size of a scrappy babyface. I've seen him in interviews say that it's not an issue because he gets the fans to boo him during the match, but I honestly don't think that has played out in practice, at least not in AEW. This feels fresh. They played up the relationship between Cassidy and Cole but never really did anything with it unfortunately. The only sign of anything off at all was Bandido tagging Cole by slapping him on the back.

I liked how the match turned on the caught dive on Cassidy (with Garcia coming out nowhere with a knee to the back). I like Cole getting taken out when he went for Jericho at first opportunity; in general, even with him getting to tag with Strong again, he portrayed a certain intensity from his entrance to his first big boot, to the finish and both charges up the ramp. The buried what I was looking forward to the most in the commercial break, but 2.0 feeding and stooging for Orange Cassidy was a ton of fun as you'd expect, as was the suplex spots with Bandido. Garcia was a glorious jerk during the beat down on Cassidy, walking over him repeatedly and stepping on the ankle to prevent him getting away. Everyone got to get something in down the stretch. I'm looking forward to Strong against any of these guys and certainly to Hager vs Bandido if they ever want to run that, but Garcia is a top potential AEW Cassidy opponent and they're running that next week.

Darby Allin/Jungle Boy vs MJF/Sammy Guevara

MD: I don't think anyone would say that this main event angle has been a total success, though people can definitely appreciate that they're taking this swing and trying to elevate the pillars like this. What has worked, more than anything else, has been the MJF/Sammy pairing. In fact, given that we're still weeks from the PPV, it's a shame they've gone away from it here. I wouldn't mind if they go back to it at some later point. They were full on Heavenly Bodies/Too Cool here, full of themselves, congratulating one another, constantly jawing (including with the crowd during the commercial break to get big heat), constantly posturing. I would have liked some dumb simplistic double teams but I was ultimately happy with what we got, including the assisted abdominal stretch and Hollywood Blonds' terrible towel with Max's scarf.

Darby and Jungle Boy hit everything clean and played face-in-peril well enough, though the focus was really on the heel antics instead of the come back attempts. It's a bit like seeing Jarrett again. AEW's tag scene has had such a focus on big spots and cut off near falls that bullshit like this is fresh and really stands out. I liked Jungle Boy as a hot tag. We saw him so long with Luchasaurus where he didn't get to play that role. And Sammy looked amazing taking the tiger driver and code red, almost as good as I've ever seen either taken, which was impressive in such quick succession. Max's convoluted killshot looked great too, though he'd probably be better served with something way more simplistic that is just put over as deadly due to superior execution or some such. The finish with MJF and Sammy hitting moves but the other wanting the pin contrasted Darby tagging himself in but to hit a move and then go for the pin instead, making the babyfaces look somewhat more respectable while still playing into the animosity between them and pushing the 4-way to come. I have no idea what Khan has planned between now and May 28 but hopefully it's even more entertaining than the Sammy/MJF pairing; that feels like a bit of a high bar to clear though.

AEW Rampage 5/5

Lucha Bros/Hijo del Vikingo vs QTV (Powerhouse Hobbs/QT Marshall/Aaron Solo)

MD: Figured I'd give this some time too. There are a lot of different possible structures and narratives in pro wrestling. It doesn't have to be shine/heat/comeback. As long as there's a narrative throughline and things have weight and matter, as long as they have some semblance of build and payoff, you can do a lot of different things. Some stories are easier to tell than others. Some are more natural. Some require less work on the viewer. And, it's valid to occasionally just do a your move/my move fireworks spotfest so long as it's driven by a purpose on the card and it doesn't have a negative impact on it. Even then, however, I tend to find that last option limiting. If you pull back just a little on that, if you just take a breath and think things through, you can still hit a lot of those spots but underpin them with a more compelling narrative. Doing that will only make the spots feel more impressive and compelling because there'll be something providing them with actual substance. It's almost always additive if done well and smartly. The best wrestling is when people combine working smart and working hard, when you have both "workrate" and narrative, when one is the means and the other is the end.

So often with the Lucha Bros, I see a heck of a lot of means and not a lot of end. That's most especially true when they're up against similar opponents with similar mindsets. They try to go over the top and in doing so end up completely untethered. It pops the crowd in the moment but you end up remembering spots and moments, not the match as a whole.

One of the great things about AEW is the WAR-like nature of the potential pairings. You'll see Lucha Bros and Vikingo against the most logical guys in the world (let's say Rush and Dralistico) but you'll also see them here against QT, Hobbs, and Solo, three guys with wildly different skillsets. After a bit of posturing, QT took all of Vikingo's flashy stuff. I'll admit I had mixed feelings about his basing. In general, we applaud wrestlers for getting into positions on dives and saving the spot and their opponent. That's outside of the ring; when it happens in the ring however, it always feels a little dodgier. That was the case with the implosion 'rana. QT rushing to position made it feel more impactful but also poked at the suspension of disbelief just a tad. Still, it felt novel for him to be taking all the offense instead of someone like Kommander or Gringo Loco. There's value in that sort of dissonance too. Then Hobbs came in and just shut everything down. Solo is a 14 year vet 34 year old still trying to find his way but he can hit stuff clean and is pretty punchable, so it's not like he's a bad hand to have in there and to follow up Hobbs' stuff with a bunch of annoying offense to get under the crowd's skin. The built through the commercial break to the comeback and went into a finishing stretch. That's where we got the dives and the real bombs and because of the anticipation everything felt bigger than it would have if they were just escalating and escalating through spot after spot after spot. Speaking of escalating, I'm glad we didn't get the 630 through the table here. That shouldn't be an every match move, even if it's teased every match. It's one of the biggest spots in the promotion and they should only use it when it really matters, not against QT on a Rampage with a weird time spot. It was ok to do it a couple of times early to establish it but now keep it in the pocket so that when it happens, it means as much as humanly possible and that it also doesn't devalue other big dives and spots people do across the promotion. The finish felt a little abrupt to me but ultimately worked; Hobbs was distracted. Why was Hobbs distracted? Because he was choking Abrahantes and that's the best reason to lose a match I can think of.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 8/29 - 9/4 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 8/31

Bryan Danielson vs. Jake Hager

MD: There were a couple of things I really liked about this one. First, after Danielson's early advantage, it was all Hager, and despite there being some things we'd rightfully call "big spots," like a slam throuh a table and hard shots into the guardrail, there was nothing elaborate or complicated about any of it. It wasn't three counters in a row. It was just a big monster leaning on his smaller opponent and giving him no space to breathe. It was Hager, competent, confident, picking up Danielson and putting him back down again and again with some bells but no whistles. That would contrast both the upcoming main event which was all bells and whistles but also the finishing stretch.

As for that stretch, after Danielson's comeback, I liked the clear rules and boundaries put down. Danielson and Hager were each other's match on the mat. Hager had a power advantage. Danielson maybe had a bit of an advantage when it came to finesse. These things cancelled each other out. They portrayed a sense that the two could grapple for an hour and neither would be able to score a true advantage except for on a fluke. So they tried escalating holds and counters, fairly seamlessly shifting from one to the next until Danielson, realizing that it would be an endless battle of attrition, shifted gears, gained space, and hit the knee to pick up the win. It didn't wear out its welcome and it had its moments of drama, just enough to establish the reality of the situation and provide Danielson with the realization needed to put grappling ego aside and overcome. Overall, I might have liked the Kingston/Hager match from earlier in the year better, but this one had a lot going for it.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 6/27 - 7/3

AEW Dynamite 6/29

Blackpool Combat Club+ (Moxley/Kingston/Castagnoli/Yuta/Santana/Ortiz) vs. Jericho Appreciation Society (Jericho/Hager/Guevara/Menard/Parker/Garcia) - Blood & Guts

MD: A lot of times I'll catch the show in the moment (or the next morning) and then double back later in the week to write it up, but it's beyond my current ability to break down every story beat of this. That would probably be doing the match a disservice anyway. There were clever bits of layout at times, clever spots, clever timings. Obviously thought was put into this. It's a match for your heart and your gut and your bloodlust, though, not for your eyes and your head and your mind. More than that, I'd say it was three matches in one.

The first half was more produced, was the place where a lot of those clever spots factored in. It was more of a War Games of the last thirty, thirty-five years. It was the sort of a match that could build to the crowd going nuts for a Jake Hager staredown in 2022, where Claudio could establish himself as a force by wrestling Sammy and Garcia for the first time, where Angelo Parker could do an all time great stooge job trying to run away from everyone, where Moxley, Yuta, and Claudio could triple team a guy. The third that followed was visceral and gory. Mox was the guy driving it. Mox was the deathmatch wrestler come home. He may have written a book. He may have the belt. He may be a world-renown superstar, but if you read that book, you read about the guy who was elated about getting a chance to be in Cage of Death. And that was the spirit that he brought here. Yes, the pile driver on to the glass was something, but everything shifted for me when he just jabbed glass into Hager's head in the corner. Somehow the match had gone from Claudio and Hager standing in opposite rings as the crowd hyped up their encounter to Mox jabbing glass into Hager's head. Everyone stood out here in their own way but it'd be crazy not to highlight Menard and Parker for the bloody messes they became.

Then you had the last ten to fifteen minutes, a scaffold match on top of the cage. The call of how the tacks were in Jericho's shoes and how that absolutely destroyed any hope of footing was spot on. We've seen guys on top of cages before, but it never felt quite so perilous. Jericho and Kingston on their knees throwing hands felt gripping. Maybe it was the shoes. Maybe it was just Kingston's homicidal portrayal, the ill intention he had for Jericho to start, the grin on his face after tossing Sammy, the way he went through all the stages of grief on the finish when he realized that Claudio had gotten the submission before he did (all the way to a begrudging acceptance that won't possibly last). I know Wrestlemania had a moment or two of the old spectacle, whether it was Sami's match or Owens/Austin, but just imagine being Claudio getting the pop and the spotlight he did Sunday night and then rolling into the big moments he had here. Given what we know, nothing was more insane than the giant swing atop the cage and then post match he was able to run to all four sides like he was Hogan in 1986. Except for 86 Hogan was never in a match like this.

There were blips and blemishes, but they more or less added to things. It was a shame Santana went down almost immediately, especially when he's been out of the picture relatively in the last couple of months, but it ramped up the tension by making the man advantage more or less permanent. The bit with the bottle was unexpected, but it ended well enough with Mox feeling its effect. So many guys laying out for the scaffold match portion feels problematic to some degree but it's not like they hadn't been through a war and the announcers covered well by talking about how the blood loss and the potassium loss had everyone cramping up. So, overall, these things added to the feeling of unpredictability as much as as distracted from anything. It doesn't always work out that way but in a total package like this, it did. No one's going to remember the image of Conti trying to push a water bottle through the cage in five years. They're going to remember the glass and the swing atop the cage and the grief on Eddie Kingston's face when he came so close to getting everything he wanted and had it taken away by the guy who went to greener pastures instead of fighting him over a decade ago and that, on this night, saved him from the Walls before stealing his glory. 

AEW Rampage 7/1

Royal Rampage

MD: This has Dustin and Darby, so it's getting covered. Writing about two AEW battle royales in so short a time period is a little tricky though. On the one hand, this had so much of what I want out of one of these. The combination of the old Houston two-ring style and the Royal Rumble layout gave people their moments and led to some narrative possibilities better than the casino battle royales. I'd say that there wasn't that same sense of anticipation for the next entrant that the Royal Rumble tends to have, but that's because we knew everyone coming in, and I think, because the numbers came so quickly that people watching were still engaged with what was happening in the rings and not quite ready for the next entrant yet. So that's the one hand. The other is that the pacing of eliminations in the last few minutes was probably a little off and they should have found a way to make that more measured and commentary should have played up King being fresh while Darby and Page had started it off.

That's not the point though. A year ago to this month, I hadn't watched more than five minutes of AEW. I probably caught a little bit of the first Elevation because I was curious about Tony and Wight on commentary. That was it. Now, I pretty much watch all of it every week and that means I have investment in just about everyone on the roster. Sometimes it's positive. Sometimes it's negative. Sometimes it's both. For a guy like Swerve, it's both. His off-center, contrived, flowing, cooperative offense bugs me and takes me out of every match, but I'm still curious how the beef between him and Keith Lee is going to play out. The moment where they faced each other one in each ring had me thinking that might be how things ended. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to tease that when it wasn't going to be how things would end, but it probably was, because it shows the richness of the characters and of the inherent possibilities. Then, he went on and eliminated Cassidy, so there's reason for a match there (even if it's probably the Cassidy match I would want to see least) and was eliminated by Starks and Hobbs, furthering that program.

Again, all of this goes back to me, when I was 10, reading the yearly WWF Superstars magazines which had bios of every wrestler and wanting to see how each one would feel about the other if they were to interact, especially if they weren't in some program with one another. AEW will put on offbeat matches; they do it all the time. But the roster is so big that you don't get to see Starks and Hobbs interact with Adam Page all that often, or at least not in a year or two. You haven't had the chance to see Silver and Page interact lately, or Silver and Hobbs interact. Takeshita and Swerve or Darby probably won't have a match anytime soon. So you get the things you have seen lately, like Matt Hardy helping Darby up and facing off against Butcher and Blade or Rush and Penta going at it, but you also see Brody King go right after Dustin or Butcher and Max Caster having a brief alliance. The wrestling is never going to be great in one of these, so the character interaction and the sheer amount of stuff that they pack in becomes the appeal, and I thought it worked well on that level on this night. There's always going to be missed opportunities in something like this (how did they not have Dante do some sort of quadruple jump with the rings?) but they hit enough of the possibilities at play, all the way to the image of King dropping Darby to the floor, that I was happy with it.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 6/6 - 6/12

AEW Dynamite 6/8

Casino Battle Royale

MD: I went and looked back at some of Eric's AJPW Battle Royal write ups to see how he's handled them in the past, because who has the first idea how to write about battle royals? I'm not even sure if I want to call them battle royals or battle royales here (the promo material AEW put out all has the "e" so we're going with that). For the record, Eric has traditionally run through the narrative of them in a way that I'm actually more apt to do with a regular match than he is. 

Instead, let me go with this. As a kid, the joy of things like the Royal Rumble and Survivor Series, as well as just your random Coliseum Video battle royals was seeing guys that don't usually interact get a chance to interact. In 1991 WWF, that's because how stultified the roster pairings were. Barbarian and Bret would be married for six months on house shows. Warlord and Davey Boy would feud for the entire summer (and a bit of spring and a bit of fall). Did you want Davey Boy to interact with Flair? Or Dibiase? Tough luck. And probably not with Bossman or Duggan either. Battle royals broke down those silos.

On the other hand, AEW gives us weird match-ups all the time. Maybe it's not as much as some people might want, but you never know what you're going to get Wednesday afternoon as that last match or two added to the card. But the roster is still huge and face vs face and heel vs heel matches are at least a little bit rare, though less so due to rankings and tournaments.

So then, what did this give us? Fenix and Dante jousting, Takeshita going after everyone on the roster since he has no programs. Darby and Kingston having a moment of swiping at each other. The fun Archer/Nese moment that reminded me of Larry Z teaming with El Gigante in Battlebowl. Lee and archer having a faceoff. Then there were the established plot beats: Team Taz up against Dante; Garcia and Kingston fighting and then Garcia waving Hager down with Yuta, when he came in, charging right right into that mix; Darby and O'Reilly continuing their fighting from the PPV. And some of the new plot beats: Andrade and O'Reilly working together ("Amigo!"); Swerve swerving both Lee and Darby. They maybe had a few too many people in the ring a bit too long and when they started eliminating guys sometimes the marks came too quick on top of one another (missing Kingston and Garcia going out together and Hager going out immediately thereafter was a problem). Andrade felt like a deflation of a surprise, especially as he wasn't winning the thing. If he had won, it might have been different. To be fair, the crowd didn't seem bothered by it. If you go back a few months, it's impressive that O'Reilly and Yuta worked for the crowd as the last two, with O'Reilly definitely boosted on paper due to his Owen tournament performance and beating Darby clean on PPV. Yuta drew chants down the stretch, the second most over guy past Kingston (who drew chants AGAINST Darby, which is saying something). There are some inherent issues with the structure of the Casino format when it comes to timing things like new wrestlers getting their shines and eliminations but this primarily gave me what I wanted, Ricky Starks interacting with a lot of wrestlers I don't usually get to see Ricky Starks interact with.

AEW Rampage 6/10

Eddie Kingston vs. Jake Hager

MD: At times this felt a bit like Kingston was wrestling John Studd, not in what Hager did necessarily, but in how desperate Kingston was to get that exploder. He went for it three times, paying for it each time, including right at the start, before finally hitting it, which turned the tide of the match and opened Hager up, ultimately, for the backfists. I haven't seen Hager in any focused performance in a very long time. He just doesn't get singles matches often. Here, he worked well as a big, bullying goon, with the match being as much about cutoffs on Kingston as anything else. He was quick to get a driving knee up, but also to lean on Kingston with one so that he could paintbrush him in a way you don't really see. Or he'd just shut Eddie down and toss him halfway across the ring. The other half of the equation was Kingston's openings: grabbing a crotch during one of those knee grinds, drawing Hager in by giving him his face to punch so he could poke the eye. And of course Eddie's selling to give everything Hager did weight and meaning. I swear he sold getting tossed to the floor between the ropes more than probably anyone else in wrestling sold anything this week. As that's not something people usually sell, the grimace of pain all over his face really stood out. Maybe Hager being used so sparingly helped here, but he does seem like someone who brings a lot of raw potential for the table in any match so long as someone can make use of it. Kingston absolutely could.

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

Double or Nothing 5/29

Darby Allin vs. Kyle O'Reilly

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

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

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

CM Punk vs.  Adam Page

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

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

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

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

So, yeah, I liked it.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 4/11-4/17

AEW Dynamite 4/13

CM Punk vs. Penta Obscura

MD: Writing about 2022 Punk almost every week, what stands out to me the most is probably his connection to the crowd. There was a moment early on where he somehow managed a step up armdrag off the ropes. It seems like the sort of thing he only did because he was wrestling a "lucha guy" but hey, Penta based for him and it worked even if it wasn't the prettiest thing in the world. Point being, afterwards he had a big shit-eating grin on his face and made enough of a connection with the crowd that they cut the camera to this random guy giving him that big grin back and Fonzie-pointing to him like he was telling a friend of his "'ey, good one, pal!" It's no small thing.

It wasn't just that moment either. I was wondering how he was going to deal with the Penta taunt at the start and he played into the fact that the C and the M were his name and got the crowd chanting back and forth. When the taunt (and shove) came, they went right into a strike exchange, and if you're going to do a no-sell strike exchange, best to do it right at the start. Punk didn't exactly no sell though; instead he let Penta's chops turn his body so that he was wound up for his own shot back. Regardless, the thing, simple as it was, drew an AEW chant in the first two minutes of the match.

It's good they had the crowd too, as the match sort of went off the rails the longer it went. They were already moving sluggishly for what they were trying to do even before Punk fell off the ropes and started to sell the knee heavily (which could have been intentional or him covering, but it doesn't really matter). After that it became even more overwrought. There were a couple of nice teases of spots afterwards (like the pile drivers on the apron) and it looked like Penta even had a shot, which spoke well for the layout of the finishing stretch. But there was also Punk being a little too selective with the knee selling and maybe getting out of the arm snap a little too easily (twice) instead of protecting it well enough. They ultimately probably tried to do just a little too much when they should have been leaning more into who they were and not what they could do.

Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz vs. Chris Jericho/Jake Hager/Daniel Garcia

MD: This was the first actual match in this chapter of the feud and they ended up giving it more than I expected them to, while also keeping it very conventional and conservative, though with some definite high spots at the end. The opening bit with Santana and Jericho was perfect, with Jericho mouthing off and getting punched in the face for it and then giving for Santana, ending with the double leg and everything breaking down. They used Hager as a brick wall to cut off Ortiz with the heat lasting through the break like usual. It was solid though: good hope spots, good cut offs, Kingston and Santana working the apron. They mostly kept Garcia out of it so that he could provide that last burst of energy and motion and speed to set up the hot tag and then take everyone's offense after Kingston came in. His double-underhook suplex out of the ropes looked great. It felt like there were some timing miscues on the end, more like three or four than just one, but overall this was disciplined and a good prelude to the street fights to come.

ER: Man this was really good. It's smack dab in the middle of a Dynamite that had several Meltzer 4 star plus matches, except this 4 star match actually had a good layout and didn't have several blown spots like those other classics that people definitely remembered a day later. I loved how this built, love how these guys spend 10 minutes. Everyone had something to do and knew exactly how they could add to the match. Santana looks bigger and more aggressive, Jericho played weak to Santana but tough to Ortiz, Kingston is frothing on the apron and targeting Garcia, Garcia plays a great punk, Ortiz is a great FIP, Hager is the muscle. They all blend it so well. I loved Santana battering Jericho, with Jericho even running from him! It made it that much better when Jericho was beating up Ortiz, throwing tighter punches and harder chops than he was throwing at Santana, his entire body posture changed. 

Kingston isn't a rabid dog on the apron, he's a dog being held just outside the gates of the dog park, waiting for every little burst where he's finally allowed to play. He doesn't just pounce on Garcia on the floor, he grapevines his leg while punching him, yanking him off the apron to get more; when Jericho is starting to pick apart Ortiz and posing for the cameras, King runs in and shoves him out of his shot. JAS are really good in their corner, especially Garcia. He had a truly great choke from the apron, hooking that arm and leaning back with his weight, and I love how they handled the hot tag: Garcia ran in and came down hard on Ortiz, in his first real attempt at a hot tag. Ortiz managed to make the tag anyway and it left him wide open for King and Santana to tee off on him. Santana's three amigos and big splash were strong, and it all kept building to a bigger and crazier stretch: Kingston hits a heavy tope suicide, Santana flies out with a plancha, Ortiz takes out 2.0 with a tope con giro, loved all of it. I'm not sure I noticed any of the miscommunications that Matt saw. I thought all of this was tight. Then again, on a show with another classic 4.5 star Luchasaurus match, anything would seem tight. 

AEW Rampage 4/15

Blackpool Combat Club vs. Gunn Club

MD: If the BCC is going to stay a three-man unit for a while, this was our first look at what their matches might look like. Obviously, you came into this looking for a change in Yuta, for him to be wrestling somewhat different, for some new fire and viciousness within him, and I think they got that more right than wrong. There were hints of finger manipulation early and that, I think, is something he should really be leaning into. Steve Grey is one of his favorite wrestlers, but he needs to be looking to Breaks and Rudge and instead of the world's greatest blue-eye. That's not his path right now. The crowd was very behind him though, and they built to a big moment in the end where he stood up to Billy Gunn. Gunn's a great visual element in small doses and was so here. Maybe Yuta doesn't have to be killing people left and right if the crowd gets behind him primarily for his resilience, sort of like an Ogawa teaming with a Misawa. I still think he can be more though, so long as the work continues.

Danielson, who worked the middle and took the heat, had a great little bit where he forearmed the side of the head while holding Colton (I think) in the Romero Special, but the best stuff was when he faced off against Billy. I like how they kept Mox out of it for the most part, mainly having him working the apron and trying to get in. It meant when he did come in, it was all this built up potential energy waiting to be unleashed. I know it's ridiculous and over the top but there's no way Austin Gunn is going to stand out in this roster otherwise, so he should keep doing what he's doing. It gets a reaction, it's memorable. It works. I think it's important that the BCC continues to wrestle both faces and heels but this was a nice first showing for them as a unit.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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Wednesday WarGames: Inner Circle vs. Pinnacle

Cash Wheeler/Dax Harwood/Wardlow/MJF/Shawn Spears vs. Sammy Guevara/Santana/Ortiz/Chris Jericho/Jake Hager AEW Dynamite 5/5/21

ER: I have not liked a single one of the NXT WarGames, and not only have I not liked them, I would rank them among my least favorite WarGames I have ever seen. This match was much better than any NXT WarGames, even if it shared some of my least favorite elements of those tedious Games. The high points of this match far exceeded the high points of any NXT Games, and that feels like the most important note. The bleeders bled, even if the blade jobs all seemed very obvious. I loved how Wheeler and MJF's color looked, great thickness, great trails, gummed up in their hair nicely, good blood. Dax and Sammy were cool guys to start a match with. If you looked at the 10 guys on paper, Sammy would have been my choice to start, because he would clearly be best at taking everyone's offense. No surprise, he was. Sammy's own offense looks great, even 30 minutes into the thing he's doing a coast to coast dropkick, scraping his boot across MJF's bloody face, and still getting crazy height on backdrops and flapjacks. 

Chairs get involved early, FTR work in spine busters and a great assisted brainbuster, Hager and Wardlow work some fun meathead spots, everyone mostly fills their role nicely. I didn't need the big West Side Story showdown that is one of the stupider staples of NXT, but it lead to a chaotic final run that outshone the stupid set up. Inner Circle looked like killers separating each member of Pinnacle, and I like how each Pinnacle guy handled it differently. Spears tries to escape up top and Jericho acts like he's going to hang him from a support strut. Wardlow fights off several men and Inner Circle just keeps leaping onto him, doesn't matter if he can toss Sammy 12 feet into the air when Hager and LAX are all jumping him at once. The ring gets ripped apart, FTR drop a spike piledriver, and I always love when a turnbuckle spike gets used. I wanted to see it hooked into someone's mouth or jammed into someone's eye, but I always love it as a weapon. It always looked solid as hell and the aftermath visual of the undone ropes always looks cool.  And I actually liked the finish, with MJF trying to escape Jericho and then pummeling his balls, getting Sammy to surrender by threatening to throw his boy off the top of the cage. I like a good threat to get someone to give in, and while they could have found cool violent ways to end this, it felt like it worked with the characters involved. Now, I wish the camera crew had shot Jericho's bump differently, as none of us needed to see the "corrugated steel" cardboard topper to the crash pad, really could have benefitted from a lower shooting angle. And, of course, the match went far too long, yet it felt like it went by far quicker than the most recent NXT debacle. Still, those classic WarGames matches were like 20 minutes, there's no need for a match with Jake Hager to get 35. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/23/21

What Worked

-Good opening squash. Moxley looked motivated and threw some hard crossfaces and a great back suplex, but he was also no doubt helped by Nemeth's ability to take punishment in cool ways. He really flung himself back hard on that suplex and took the double underhook DDT like a 90s jobber looking to sue the company.

-I liked the highspot beating Pillman Jr. took in his tag match, tough gig to play FIP while Cage and Starks suplex you and scrape their boots on your face. Pillman hit a great baseball slide dropkick, nearly hanging himself on the ropes but it looked wild. Starks had a couple of cool pinfalls where he really laid back with all his weight, and the Garrison hot tag had some fun moments (nice jungle kick, huge no hands plancha where Cage may have saved Garrison's life by standing his ground), but the beating Pillman took was the highlight. Dropkicks to the face, a screwdriver to finish things, rough night. The whole segment was fun, loved Darby's skateboard shot and Starks' bump over the top for it. 

-Hager's finishing lariat looked great, even though he made Brandon Cutler wobble around in place forever, like he was about to take a Fatality. If you're going to make someone do that, at least he made it look like a fatality. 

What Didn't Work

-I still can't get into the Sting return. I guess I'm not the audience for it, and that's fine, but it's funny to me that Sting took a hard powerbomb from Cage last week (not an unprofessional powerbomb, but a powerbomb harder than a 61 year old man who doesn't need the money should be taking), and Sting claimed he wanted REVENGE. And that revenge? His reverse DDT. I know we're technically supposed to view all finishers as equal, but Sting taking out Cage with a reverse DDT after Cage had been doing nothing but big slams, hard clotheslines, and dangerous drops, and now I have to buy that a reverse DDT might put him down? 

-Jake Hager decided to catch Cutler's tope con giro by flopping onto his stomach look a goof. 

-Craig T. Nelson is making that Young Sheldon money, I don't know why he needed to guest on Dynamite just so Jericho could smear some Smuckers on his head. 

-WHO among us thought Hangman Page/Isiah Kassidy should have gone as long as it did? Kassidy is a guy who seems like he's regressed as a worker since joining AEW. He was far more interesting when he was working as a Red trainee who wrestled like Red. Nobody wants to see him work unconvincing arm locks, not one person thought for one second that Page was going to be slowed down by Kassidy's long arm work section (he was not, didn't hesitate one bit when he hit a rolling elbow, though he did sell the arm after), and I'm not sure there was one thing Kassidy did that looked convincing. It's hard to work convincing control segments when you can't even connect on simple stuff like stomach kicks, while also looking like you're unsure how to apply holds to the limb you're supposed to be working over. Then we had to go through a long series of Kassidy kicking out of things that I did not buy him kick out of. The world did not ask for, nor need, dominant heel control Isiah Kassidy. This was enough. HOWEVER, if Kassidy actually stuck to the limb work and got good at it, I would really love a heel Amazing Red who also did Catch Point matwork. I would even take a bad version of that. And with some more work, Kassidy could be bad at this. 

-I could not get into Britt Baker/Nylas Rose. I don't think it was bad, but it felt like they were more going through the motions of having an epic confrontation without doing the actual match that felt like an epic confrontation. Nyla Rose always looks like she is stumbling or falling over while delivering almost every piece of offense, but rarely in a way that puts her opponent in danger. She's a monster, but doesn't do a lot of offense that makes her come off as a monster. I more like Baker's avoidance, and her mocking kicks to Nyla's face, and was more impressed with Nyla's suplex bumps than with any offense she did. Her best was probably the match ending sitout powerbombs, and even those looked like she was in danger of falling over while lifting. Very basic matches that are treated like manic wars always get under my skin. 

-I love a good wrestling style clash, but I don't think that good wrestling style clash will ever involve Lance Archer. I am getting sick of seeing this guy so often on TV. He moves like he has two town quads and can't bend down, and he constantly throws timing off. Fenix is a guy who at his best can fire off precision timing, and Archer just makes a lot of that look bad. Fenix was falling all over the place in painful ways, and you see him doing it to make Archer look good and just think "for this?" Fenix does some of his unhinged things like his always great tope con giro, and another where he fell face first on the entrance ramp from the top rope after Jake Roberts held his ankles too long. But Archer made him look like an idiot several times by mistiming when to take kicks. And who out there wanted to see Archer in a ladder match more than they'd want Fenix in a ladder match? Get this doofus away from the AEW guys I like. 

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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 Dynamite Workrate Report 10/7/20

 What Worked

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

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

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

What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 9/16/20

What Worked

-FTR get the tag match up here, but Luchasaurus kept trying to drag it down. Luchasaurus is at his best when he's working as first year Test, and he is near unbearable when he is Test working as a Young Buck. Luckily, he worked more Test than Buck (the one stretch with him as an Cretaceous Buck was as bad as ever), and weirdly enough Jungle Boy is way better when he doesn't do as many moves. Jungle Boy is someone who actually does some small things well (I am a big fan of his dropdown) but I don't really love his highspots. Well, here he worked down as well and I think the match benefitted from that. It also benefitted from Cash Wheeler bumping hard (the Psicosis bump was awesome) and that sneaky pinfall win was legitimately the most they felt like the Brain Busters since joining AEW.

-What a great little Frankie Kazarian performance. That has to be the best Frankie Kazarian match since....well, I can't remember the last time I talked about a great Frankie Kazarian performance. The match went longer than it needed, but Kazarian working his age is a good thing, as Page was the one here who was working much more silly offense. Kazarian not only made some of Page's more suspect offense look great (Page usually has a weak pescado, here Kazarian made it look lung deflating), leaned all the way into clotheslines, always in the right place at the right time. What I liked most about Kazarian, and what felt most age appropriate about his offense was all of the right hands he threw. Kazarian isn't a guy I think of as a "puncher", and I'm not sure I've seen a match where he threw more. I like his right hand. He's got good form and it's a genuinely nice worked punch, and I liked the way he used it to cut off Page throughout the match. He tightened up elbow strikes too, and used that to nicely cut off Page as well. I hate the stuff like "run down the length of the apron just to get clotheslined without even trying to do offense, just running down the apron" or "I hit you and run but you run after me and hit me but then I run after you and hit you" and the match did have that bullshit. But it also had Kazarian blocking a bulldog by snapping off a Russian legsweep variation, and the Kazarian performance elevated this to a level I wasn't expecting. Good match.

-Kingston on the mic, gonna be up here. "Check the rules."

-I really liked Hager in that tag. Not sure what's happening tonight, but I didn't have Kazarian or Hager on my list of guys I was looking forward to seeing. Hager bumped super generously for Private Party without making it look ridiculous, and all his close range work looked great. I dug Kassidy ragdolling for the Judas Effect, and Jericho punching Quen across the temples, but Hager was the real standout for me here. He had an actual cool reckless shooter vibe that I think he's tried before but never quite nailed. The dives looked good, they got out of there at the right time, fun quick match.

-Thunder Rosa/Ivelisse was pretty messy, but I liked the layout and the messiness looked like it lead to more stiff strikes than we might have otherwise gotten. Hitting sloppy ranas and mirror sequences where someone is one beat off? That kind of thing sucks, but I laughed when Ivelisse cracked Rosa with a slap, and laughed again when Rosa stopped Ivelisse dead in her tracks by burying a hard dropkick in her stomach. Ivelisse worked a nice sleeper choke (sadly marginalized into picture in picture) and if the execution where stronger throughout this would have been quite good. I bet they could run back this same match and some sequences would come out tighter. Even with the flaws, it stood above most other AEW women's matches so far.

-I did not care about the Best Friends/LAX build, hate Chuck Taylor feuds, wouldn't have ever guessed it could go somewhere interesting. And then they go out and have an insanely violent Zona 23 style parking lot brawl. What? This had some spills in it (a LOT, really) that were as nasty or nastier than anything in the Finlay/Regal parking lot brawl. Am I stupid for saying a match with Chuck Taylor had tons of comparably violent moments to two a famously violent match featuring two of my 20 favorite wrestlers of all time? Possibly, but I loved the damage these four took. This match had some of the most gruesome vehicle-based spots I've seen. By the end of this everyone was bleeding out of places that don't typically bleed in a wrestling match. Ortiz got jammed under the hood of a car and crushed in painful ways by Taylor and Trent, Trent hitting a senton while Ortiz's leg was still hanging out. Trent got powerbombed into the windshield of a truck, and while the announcers were focusing on his cut up back from the glass I couldn't stop seeing the back of his head getting whipped into the top frame. Sure, that bloody back is gonna mess up the upholstery of his mom's minivan, but that check to the back of the head is gonna mess up his cognitive functions in his 60s. Trent also got slingshotted straight into a down truck tailgate, so he was really trying to be an equal opportunity brainpan destroyer. The board shots all looked nasty (especially Ortiz cracking Trent in the back and then blasting him in the ribs). Powerbombs on truck tops, backdrops on cars, spears into a car grill, and a piledriver off a truck tool box? Yeah, shoot that in my veins.


What Didn't Work

-MJF should get that mark on his neck checked out. I have an irregular shaped mark on my chest and getting it checked out was a real weight off my mind. Someone needs to be monitoring that mark and make sure it's not growing. Can we get some 2018 MJF photos where he's facing to his right?

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 9/9/20

What Worked

-Eddie Kingston used a microphone, obviously it winds up here. I giggled every time he yelled at the Lucha Bros. to separate.

-I like Joey Janela when he is a Jericho punching bag.

-ALL ELITE HEELS IS REAL!!!!! I saw something about it on Twitter weeks ago and thought someone made a hilarious meme.

-Dustin match goes up here, but it was close. Brodie Lee looked really bad here, looking like someone who had no idea where he needed to be and couldn't think of interesting ways to get there. Dustin made this as salvageable as it was, so basically Dustin turning in a typical Dustin performance gets this up here. If I wasn't lazy I would write the Dustin part here and the Lee part down below, but let's call it at 55% good. Lee stumbled his way through things and looked lame enough through parts of this that it made me think there's a chance he is pulling double duty as Luchasaurus. Lee had a bunch of moments where he was just waiting to take moves, with no artistry whatsoever. He telegraphs all of Dustin's offense by just standing perfectly still and waiting for it, just horrible at occupying himself. When he took Dustin's drop down uppercut he literally just bent at the waist with his head up, watching Dustin the entire time while standing still. What a fucking idiot. He was at his best when he was Godzilla, throwing tables and barricades into Dustin while Dustin scrambled to safety, Dustin throwing punches while working to avoid him. But Lee has been bit by that really contagious Dijakovic bug, that makes him chain together a bunch of offense that looks like total rehearsed shit. He make Dustin's bulldog look like shit, and the finish was especially risible. The finishing lariat looked good, but making Dustin bounce back and forth between the ropes and his boot might have sounded like a good idea on paper, but it was hilarious in execution. Dustin keeps this here - barely - and Brodie Lee's stock has fallen every single week he's been in AEW.


What Didn't Work

-You know who stinks in AEW? Luchasaurus. That's a guy who stinks up a match. I really thought he had made strides in Lucha Underground, but he is pro wrestling poison in AEW. He always throws off the timing of a match, as everyone slows down to work in his spots and he does bad slow versions of cruiserweight spots. It wouldn't be SO bad if any of his spots looked good, but the thing is, none of his spots look good. Fenix looked great doing Fenix things, loved his rope work and his big dive into Luchasaurus down the finishing stretch (that Luchasaurus caught by falling over), but the finish of this was as putrid as anything Luchasaurus did. This was one of the more idiotically laid out finishes I've seen in AEW. Lucha Bros. hit a package piledriver on Jungle Boy, the Fenix hits the dive, gets back in the ring, but Jungle Boy is apparently Actually Fine from taking a tandem package piledriver just seconds before, and tricks Pentagon into giving Fenix a flipping piledriver. Incredibly, impossibly stupid.

-I guess I should be glad that they didn't work a physical angle with Hardy, but once I saw Reby there with their child I thought "Oh man Matt Hardy is gonna get fucked up". And I'm a monster because I am left disappointed by a man who clearly got a very bad concussion did not get nuked on TV a few days later.

-Jack Evans has just been on the roster, not being on TV? And he's not even wrestling tonight, just appearing at ringside? There are plenty of chuds on TV every week that should be replaced with Evans. Cassidy/Angelico (oh yeah, they still have Angelico too. I have not watched any episodes of Dark) was ehhhh. I liked Angelico's Jerry bump, but th Navarro sub looked like it was the first time he was trying it, and all of Cassidy's offense landed feather light. Then we end the segment with some Best Friends and this is firmly in the bottom half of the page.

-Not only do we get a segment showcasing Kip Sabian's comedy chops (and an unexpected Puf appearance), but Rusev/Miro is here and lemme tell you people, he's got something things to say about SOME PEOPLE UP NORTH. We know who HE'S talking about!! Get outta here. Bring someone in and do something other than that, ANYTHING other than that. Also, Miro is absolute wedding poison. Nobody should want him anywhere near an official role in their wedding. You'd think he wouldn't even want to be involved. THOSE PEOPLE UP NORTH had me do some stupid
wedding cuck angle. I'm going DOWN SOUTH to also then do a wedding angle.

-Boy, Hager/Sonny Kiss is an ugly style clash. Kiss has been great in trios matches, awkward in tags and singles, and Hager is not going to help him look good. I liked Janela's big bumps to the floor, liked Jericho getting run into a chair, but there was a lot of clunk in this tag.

-I did not anticipate FTR being this toothless in AEW. I'd rather see them Old School Tag Wrasslin on Main Event rather than these weekly talk segments and disappointing matches.

-You know what the women's division was missing? Someone with another awkward style that requires matches to come to a halt just so bad looking spots can be done. Well, they checked that box with Tay Conti! Capoeira almost always translates poorly to pro wrestling (I have been a fan of some Arturo Ruas matches, others I found his capoeira getting completely in the way). He submissions looked slow, her kicks looked bad. She hit one nice knee on the floor. And she's going to be a babyface? She feels like a natural heel to me, but hey, they seem to know what they're doing with this division.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 7/22/20

What Worked

Eddie Kingston vs. Cody Rhodes

ER: I wasn't sure who to expect when it was announced a "top independent star" would be challenging Cody. My first thought was Hero, my second thought was Kingston, my third thought was "someone I don't care about nearly as much as Hero or Kingston". I think we've been just about the loudest Eddie Kingston drum beaters on the internet this past decade, and not only was he our favorite wrestler of 2019, but both Phil and I agreed that he was the #1 wrestler in the world. This is a great get for AEW, and you can bet the beautiful eyes of Eddie Kingston's mother that I am excited. This is Eddie Kingston, in his debut, getting to do every single thing that makes him great against the top guy in the company, and I can't imagine a better debut. Kingston talks a bunch of trash to Arn (actually surprised it didn't lead to any kind of moment where Arn throws a left at him, especially once it became No DQ), incredibly threatening to gouge his eye out if he keeps "throwing Murder Ones his way", and clowns Cody into accepting a No DQ stip.

This match, again, is everything that any Kingston fan could - and any pro wrestling fan - could want out of a match. Kingston is a great foil for Cody, and Cody wasn't afraid to lean right into having an Eddie Kingston match. Cody goes right in on Kingston's head with hard punches, a straight overhand right to the jaw, and some of the best headlock punches I've seen in a year. Kingston lands heavy chops and the best desperation bar fight offense in the game, grabbing at Cody's face, ear, hair, just digging nails in to break holds. Kingston is my favorite injury salesman in the game, bringing that cumulative damage finer than anyone since Kikuchi. It's not in your face, it doesn't guarantee the match will lead to a "work the limb" match, it's just a 38 year old banged up man not sure what part might give out. Kingston and I were born the same year. I went out jogging after work today and sometimes when I jog for too long I get a twinge on the inside of my right shoulder blade. Don't know why it's there, don't know what caused it, but I'm pushing 40 and I have weird aches. Kingston plays those aches better than anyone. His knee injury wasn't always the focus, but it was used to set up cheapshots and smart attacks. Kingston crumpling on an Irish whip is a spot that I love, but a spot that I've seen played way too melodramatically, and Kingston is a guy who knows how to hit just the right notes. I like how he blurs the lines between doing something like that just to land a cheap low blow on Cody, or doing the low blow as a last resort. It's the sign of a smart, confident wrestler that he doesn't need to show his hand, just leaves us speculating.

I cannot believe thumbtacks got involved, and I can't believe Cody was crazy enough to get powerbombed into those tacks. Eddie Kingston debuted on national television, and powerbombed the face of the company into thumbtacks. What?! I would have liked one more beat before Kingston tapped to the figure 4, something like King grabbing a handful of tacks and grinding them into Cody to force a break, but King played such strong attention to the knee that you can't argue with the quick tap. What an incredible segment, the kind of thing that should put Kingston on everyone's radar.

PAS: Pretty much the platonic ideal of What Worked. Eddie is one of all time favorite wrestlers, and while the EVOLVE show on the Network didn't let him do his thing, AEW gave us every bit of peak King. We got a great promo to start it off, establishing him immediately as a long time veteran tough guy who was going to make the most of his last chance. Then he actually integrated that story into the match, constantly ripping at the eyes, tearing at the face, throwing low blows, even breaking out a bag of thumbtacks. We have written a William Vollmann novel amount of text on Kingston's masterful body part selling. It is the thing he does as good as any wrestler ever, and his knee selling in this match was perfect. Him tweaking it early, attempting to walk it off, stomp it out, and how it slowly minute by minute betrayed him, leading to his downfall. Kingston has always been the guy who has fallen a bit short, that has been the story arc of his career. I am not sure if Eddie gets another AEW shot (if they have any sense they bring him back, #SignEddieKingston was even trending on Twitter), but if this is the only chance he gets I can't imagine a more perfect one match story.


-MJF has been one of the best squash match workers in AEW, always bringing the right amount of stiffness and intensity while showing just enough ass to give his opponent a little dignity. MJF showing that Garrison got under his skin with a "you got beat" comment is a strong aspect of his character, just enough of a peak that he's not quite as confident as he plays.

-Ricky Starks blindsiding Darby looked great, really flying down the ramp and smacking him. Cage hitting that big powerbomb into the ring looked great too.

-Bucks/Butcher and Blade brawl wasn't perfect, but it's a cool thing to have on the show as a change of pace. Blade was good at bumping around a kitchen (shame we didn't get a Sudden Death kitchen fight though), loved Matt Jackson's big flip dive out of the semi trailer, dug Nick getting lawn darted right into his own large face on the truck door. The big stunt spots played well, the fun stuff like Blade eating a superkick and falling into an up escalator played well, it was all fun. You don't need a match like this every show, but it's good to have something like this for flavor.

-Who was that ginger who got his head thrown up through a ceiling tile, landed hard, and then got dumped even harder by Archer into a trash can? Because that guy is awesome.

-Main event tag was good, felt like a cool ramped up house show main event, and Jericho is someone who has decades of experience working crowd pleasing house show main events. Jericho uses slightly different versions of his act depending on which Inner Circle member he's teaming with. I can't decide if I like Jericho/Sammy or Jericho/Hager more as a team, they both bring different elements. Sometimes I'm more into a stooging match and sometimes I'm more into a bully match, and  tonight I was into Jericho teaming with and being inspired by a bully. Hager has the dumbest face imaginable, a guy who always has his mouth open, but when he closes it you wish he would open it, but then he hangs it open again and you know he's unbearable when chewing food. But he's been real good in AEW as nothing but a Mongo Smash type dumb jock. He's not clean and not smooth about it, but I like him just taking guys down and lurching after them. Fun tag match to round out a very good night of wrestling.


What Didn't Work

-I've been really impressed with MJF's AEW work, but that's a tough call to have MJF come out to do a "Get in your opponent's face in the ring" promo in the segment directly following an Eddie Kingston segment doing just that. That's sending Kajagoogoo out on the stage after Napalm Death.

-Cool to see Ivelisse back on TV, but the match as a whole didn't work for me. They went out to have one of those compact "We're in a WAR" epics and it would have been more interesting for them to work a match more suited for the time they were given. I just can't get into a short match that needs to include a slow motion Godspell curtain call heavy breathing stand and trade. Both of their "big" high kicks looks like they were thrown at half speed. This had moments, and I'd like to see them both turn up in the Dynamite women's division, but this fell short.

-Page/Angels wasn't helped by mostly taking place during a commercial break (which is an immediate mute from me), but the timed step sequences didn't look great, Angels threw bad mounted punches (Dark Order need to do a Team Building weekend and work on their mounted punches), and a lot of stuff looked like they were focusing too hard on steps instead of where strikes landed. Page's lariat looked good, but a lot of this didn't.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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 6/10/20

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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