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 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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Kingston's Back on These Highways Moving Cakes

Eddie Kingston/Jon Moxley vs. 2.0 (Jeff Parker/Matt Lee) AEW Dynamite 9/15/21 - FUN

ER: It's nice having an undercard tag team in 2.0 who actually understand how to work as an undercard tag team when they're facing two stars. I've seen it happen too many times in AEW, where a team who is clearly not going to win still somehow gets to do all their Trademark Offense, and here is a team who knows the matches where they can work their regular cool offense and where they don't need to. In this match? Most of that isn't needed, and so they just work on jumping Moxley and absorbing shots rather than setting up multiple chain spots. Moxley gets to just act like a swinging blind man to get cut off, and 2.0 (with Daniel Garcia running even more distraction) get to just stick and move and land dropkicks and punches to Moxley's back. They are such wonderful flunkies that they make the crowd even more excited for a Kingston hot tag (a thing everyone in the building would be very excited to see anyway) because they just act like little punks who you'd like to see walloped. Kingston palm strikes Garcia off the apron, hits Parker with the backfist, spikes Lee with a DDT, then they waste Parker with the lariat/half nelson suplex. 2.0/Ever-Rise were one of the more entertaining TV acts of 2021, and a big part of that was them knowing when to show up and when to show off. Picking your spots only shows how well you get all of this. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 1/3-1/9

AEW Dynamite 1/5

Bryan Danielson vs. Adam Page

PAS: Hell of a way to start the year in wrestling. A classic, bloody hard fought world title war.

One thing that is challenging and unique about pro-wrestling is that you can’t just tell the story alone, you have to tell the day after story as well. Page climbed the mountain, but how does he live his day by day. What is the second date like for Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves when there is no exploding bus? Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks kiss on the Empire State Building, but how do they combine their finances and decide who moves where?

Narratively Page’s story was over with his title win, and while it was playing out (and while Page was out on paternity leave) two of the biggest stars in 21st century pro-wrestling CM Punk and Bryan Danielson joined AEW, and the focus of the promotion shifted. The feud between Danielson and Page was focused on Danielson running through the Dark Order and taunting Page, Page felt like someone reacting to Danielson, rather then the protagonist of his own story. It felt like the promotion was at a crossroads, they could either shit the title to Dragon who had multiple clear directions to go as champion, or try to make Page into not just a man fighting to climb a mountain, but a guy standing on top.

AEW kicked the booking decision can down the road a bit by having the first match between the two go to a time limit draw, and they came into this match with a trio of judges at ringside in case this match went the distance as well (leaving everyone to expect a Terry Funk from someone, smart for AEW to let it lie). One of the good things about AEW’s booking so far is that they have usually gone with the narratively satisfying finish rather then trying to do a swerve for swerves sake, here however there was no obvious direction this match would go, there were sensible arguments for either guy to win, so there was real drama in every near fall.

Danielson controlled the pace early, countering a Page tope by bealing him into guardrail damaging his arm, and drop toe holding him into the ring steps opening up a cut. Danielson then worked both the damaged shoulder and the bloody head, surely putting Page behind on those hypothetical scorecards. Page however was able to block a Danielson attempt to drive his head into the ringpost, which was something Danielson successfully did in their first match (and legendarily did to Nigel McGuinnes 15 years ago during their ROH feud), Page was drive Danielson into the post insted badly open him up with the same move. AEW has distinguished themselves from WWE by bringing back the red to mainstream pro-wrestling, recently however they have been hitting the ketchup bottle heavily, the previous week they had a very gory women’s tag match, it might make sense for them to leave it dry for a bit.

From that moment the sides were leveled with both men badly lacerated, Danielson especially going the extra mile, his face and hair soaked. We had a compact and impressive sprint to the finish with multiple callbacks to the previous match between the two and to wrestling history, including a bloody Danielson failing to skin the cat, a neat way to show how much danger he was in, and Page getting a 2.99999 kickout on Danielson’s running knee, the move he used to win the WWE title from John Cena. The buckshot lariat which Page used to win was maybe the nastiest of his career, and a great way to end this rivalry. It will be interesting to see where AEW goes after this with both guys, there aren’t clear directions for either, but the match got me much more interested in a Page title run then I was before, which is something great matches can really achieve.

MD: I thought Danielson was, once again, excellent here. This had a few extra story beats, most specifically the judges; he worked well towards them and towards potentially winning on points early but still did things like look at Lynn after the "Gotch-style" cradle pile driver late. Talk about maximizing narrative opportunities. Danielson has definitely reached that point of combining physical intensity with trying to squeeze out every bit of oft-literal blood from the storytelling stone. In a lot of ways Page held his own. I thought his reactions were good, his selling was good. Where he struggles, and this is about the style he came up in and lords over now as much as anything else, is mid-level offense. Fall away slams, German Suplexes, and death valley drivers especially are pretty big bombs to be used as hope spots here. A slam, a belly to back, a samoan drop all would have served him better in the places in the match he used them. That's not entirely his fault. The actual transition/comeback was all about Danielson getting absolutely opened up and once that happened, every second had him bleed out more and more energy towards an eventual defeat. The other story beat towards the end was them paying off all of the different finishers he used to defeat the Dark Order (and others before that) with Page surviving them all only to win off of one buckshot. It was as solid a blowoff to the last couple of months as I could imagine, even if I ultimately enjoyed it and the pacing less than the draw.

ER: Jim Ross's "Who's ready for some Cowboy Shiznit?" is truly one of the worst ways anyone has ever kicked off what would turn out to be one of the best matches. Also, this is literally the most I've ever seen Phil write about one match on Segunda Caida, so guarantee this review is a special sneak preview of Way of the Blade 2. It feels almost pointless for me to talk about a Danielson match and say "this is one of the greatest Danielson performances we've seen". He's the kind of guy you say that about and then run the numbers in your head and know that he has a hundred performances you can say that about, but it also doesn't make the statement any less true. It feels ridiculous to make statements about a guy for 20 years, but he just keeps having matches like these that make it undeniable. This was also probably the most I've ever enjoyed Hangman Page. This could have easily been a total Danielson show, and while Danielson gave a huge performance, I don't think Page wasn't overshadowed as champion at all. I liked the immediate story of Page trying to put the match away one minute in. I would have loved to see the reactions live and online if Danielson hadn't rolled to the floor away from that Buckshot lariat, losing without getting any offense. 

But it quickly goes into Page really getting punished, when he gets matador'd into the guardrail on a big tope. Page had some great crashes after that missed dive, getting thrown painfully into the railing, into the ringpost, and getting busted open on the ring steps. Page throwing his body into out of the ring bumps like Matthew Justice is a great version of Page. But his offense was also really strong once he started making his way back into the match with an awesome vertical (yet safe) Death Valley Driver, and a harder corner lariat than I'm used to seeing from him. What I wasn't expecting was Danielson getting even bloodier than Page over halfway into the match, after Page pulls him hard by the arms several times into the ringpost like it was 2006 ROH, when Champions tried to see if their heads were harder than ring posts. I thought this was going to be a savage Danielson bloodying but ultimately losing to the champ, not the champ rising up and making his foe lose even more blood. Once both men were fully masked there were some incredible bits of character. Page getting lightheaded and dropping to his butt with a Kawada sell after doing Danielson's jumping jacks taunt back to him was fantastic, and a bloody Danielson collapsing just before he would have gotten leveled by the buckshot lariat was the kind of wrestling idea that would have secured Danielson the #1 spot on both of the 2001 DVDVR 500s. Danielson's busaiku knee decapitated Page like that that log sliding through the trucker's cab in Red Asphalt, and he gets destroyed by a backdrop driver and buckshot lariat. Nothing like starting the year off with a match that we'll still be talking about in a year.

AEW Rampage 1/7 (Taped 1/5)

Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz vs. 2.0 (Jeff Parker/Matt Lee)/Danny Garcia

PAS: You put some New Yoricans in a street fight and I am going to be into it. This had a JAPW arena brawl vibe to it, lots of moving pieces, big shots and great little moments of character work. Eddie Kingston is the best wrestler in the world, and is the highlight of every match he is in. I loved the ground and pound on the floor, with Kingston trying to clear Garcia's guard, and all of the leg selling was killer. King hopping across the ring to hit the Exploder ruled and was a heck of babyface hot tag spot. 2.0 are just great filler guys, can pretty much play any role up and down the card and make it work. Garcia is obviously headed for bigger things and I am excited for them to revisit the Kingston feud down the road, I could easily see it as a main event match for a big title.  

MD: I don't want to be mean about this, because the effort and layout were both very good for the TayJay vs Ford/Bunny match, but a brawl like this exposes what happened with them as a lot of bells and whistles. Again, not anything necessarily wrong about that, but this is striking, as it didn't need any of that and it was still gripping. I'm generally the low SC vote on Santana/Ortiz, but here their double teams (which usually feel more like ends unto themselves than means to achieve a greater purpose) worked as a tool for them to assert dominance whenever the action actually did make it back into the ring. Kingston's selling and overall sense of defiance was spot on as always as was Garcia's dickish targeting of the leg on the outside. 2.0 got to show some extra versatility here proving that they could take a lot of stuff and fill the space properly in a garbage brawl. From a structural standpoint, it felt a bit off to me how after Garcia/2.0 eliminated Kingston and therefore had a theoretical numerical advantage for the stretch, they still lost. Maybe you could play it up that they paid some sort of greater cost by being so focused on Kingston, but it raised a flag. I probably would have liked this more if it ended after the bell shot.

ER: I have been loving this feud, and this was the best match of the feud so far. It really did capture that classic 2000s indy brawl feel, the kind of match where you can have 6 favorite guys. Jeff Parker was a huge standout for me. I was an Ever-Rise fan, and like that he's one of the few guys left who throws a strong fistdrop, but here he looked like a heel indy legend. He's out there in perfect street fight gear, sporting a mustache and haircut that makes him look like Eric Roberts in Star 69, which is a fucking great way for a wrestler to look. Santana and Ortiz had some fire double teams in this, some great timing on a cutter where Santana slid into the ring to toss Ortiz back into Parker, and no matter what the Inner Circle did Parker had the timing and ring placement down precise. Parker also threw the best punches in a match that has several good-to-great punchers and really fueled the big babyface comeback. Matt Lee is a great unhinged idiot and also kept gluing himself into things, working in and out with everyone and running into constant chaos on the floor. The Kingston/Garcia was some awesome story advancement, with Garcia taking advantage of a Kingston slip on the floor and immediately going after his knee like an asshole. Kingston was his perfect self, egging on his own beating, never able to help himself from making his beating worse. They worked a hot finishing stretch into a brawl that was more about stiffness and strikes (like an old JAPW or IWA-MS brawl) than about modern AEW garbage stunt brawling. There were some big spots, but they managed to convey a ton of violence without using blood, and it takes a great brawl to stand out like this without the AEW crimson. 

AEW Battle of the Belts 1/8

Dustin Rhodes vs. Sammy Guevara

MD: Combination of good smart work from Dustin plus a few big set pieces that made full use of Sammy's athleticism. It stands out so much watching Dustin as basically the only guy (save a few exceptions) in the roster that draws claps up or does the ten count punch in the corner. Then he'll turn around and do the Canadian Destroyer through the table. That said, he probably was the wrong opponent for Sammy. Either you need a heel that'll base for him and try to tear him apart or a younger face who can really go to highlight Sammy's offense. Dustin started and ended with a handshake and while he played savvy vet at times, he was just too over as a face to make the most of things. I hadn't seen their previous matches so I'm not sure how those were worked, but this never quite gelled the way I would have liked. I did think the finish, where Dustin tried to repeat Cody's success, was very good. All that said, what people will probably remember in the end are Sammy's bump for the first CrossRhodes, the big dive, and the Destroyer through the table.

PAS: We really haven't seen Dustin work a highflyer before. It's too bad we never had a Dustin WCW run in 1997 or so, I imagine he would have had some awesome Worldwide matches against Juvi or Billy Kidman. I liked the early sections where he tried to match speed with Sammy only to get winded, and I liked him working the leg to slow him down. Lots of big spots here, including the Sammy TAKA style double jump dive and the Canadian destroyer through the table, which is something you expect to be sloppily done by an indy scrub in a deathmatch, not perfectly executed by Dustin Rhodes of all people. Fun stuff, and every Dustin match we get these days is a mitzvah. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 12/27-1/2

AEW Dynamite 12/29

Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz vs. Daniel Garcia/Jeff Parker/Matt Lee - GREAT

ER: I love what these teams do together, and this was another fun TV gem from them. This was great because we turned the format around a bit and had 2.0 dominating a lot of the match, cutting the ring off far more effectively than I've seen FTR do in an AEW ring so far. Kingston is relegated to the apron pretty early, with him brawling briefly with 2.0 (including him fish-hooking Parker). He's great on the apron, and 2.0 get a real showcase against the Inner Circle. Parker especially looked great, like a peak WWE TV match Christian. He's one of the only punchers in AEW, and he has a variety of good ones here, while also bumping explosively for all of Inner Circle's bursts of offense. Garcia gets involved in ways that are more than cheapshots, carrying himself like an MMA bully and vulturing in on Ortiz. 2.0 were given a bit of bad luck when AEW chose to take their longest commercial break of the night during their big beatdown control segment, relegating their most vicious stuff to the tiny picture in picture screen. I would have loved to see full screen shots of Parker's great elbowdrop and low snap suplex, or Lee's hard backbreaker and his elbow smash that knocked Ortiz back into the corner. Kingston's hot tag was King at his fired up best, smashing a avalanche as hard as John Tenta, throwing corner chops to Garcia as blistering as any Kobashi ever threw, throwing a couple crushing suplexes. The finish plays better as angle than Great Match finish, with Matt Lee getting a surprise schoolboy. It could have built to something more dynamic, but Lee plays such a punchable shitheel that I want to see yet another rematch just to see him get smashed, so the finish must be good. 

MD: Kingston started this match with the strap down, literally and figuratively. The match started with him jamming everything Matt Lee tried and dropping him at a nasty angle on a vertical suplex and he really didn't let up for the rest of the match, even though he spent most of it stuck on the apron as the heels beat on Ortiz. He wanted Garcia and they delayed it, but it didn't really feel like MJF's chickenshit performance from the week before. It was more about goading Kingston while Garcia still imposed himself in the match. I have less time for Santana and Ortiz' tandem stuff than most people, but it works best during a shine. 2.0, on the other hand, I really like. They come off like the world's best Disco Inferno: they understand the style's incredibly complex spots, they can take them beautifully, they can't necessarily hit them. The combo of that makes them stand out because they're relegated to older style offense that doesn't take as much suspension of disbelief but looks entirely credible while they still never seem out of place in a modern match. Garcia is always on to the point where his chinlock looks better than a lot of people's best stuff. Point being, the FIP on Ortiz was very good. I didn't think the set up for the hot tag was that interesting but that could have been the curse of having 3 multi-man tags on the show. Kingston running through everyone was great though. Santana stopping the whole world for some long seconds at the end while he waited for Ortiz to get in position for their tandem spot was rough though.

PAS: I really enjoyed this. Kingston is a super expressive performer, and he has that Negro Casas thing where you want to see him on the apron more than the guys in the ring. I am starting to get into the 2.0 and Garcia team, they are just such swarming shitheels, utterly disinterested in doing cool shit, just pure heels. Eddie on the hot tag was awesome, and I like 2.0 continuously stealing pins. I was really bummed we didn't get more Eddie vs. Punk, but this feud has been a nice holding pattern for him, the blowoff street fight should be great, and I do think King can do something with Jericho if that is the next direction for him. 


AEW Rampage 12/31 (Taped 12/29)

Darby Allin vs. Anthony Bowens

ER: 10 minutes of non-stop fun and great Darby exchanges, perfect way to lead off an episode of TV. Bowens is like a modern Xavier, exact same kind of athleticism and snap on nearly everything he does. He's solidly built and throws his body into offense and bumps, so he's like a spark plug version of Darby working the high wired version of Darby. This is another great Darby TV performance, working multiple people into the match without missing a beat, and finding new ways to crash and burn in the most inventive ways. He has found so many all time great ways to get run into a ringpost, but Bowens running him length of the apron and Darby triple salchowing off the post might take the cake. There's a bunch of cool stuff obviously, like Darby's nutbar tope that that sends Darby at Bowens and Caster sideways, or how he is somehow able to make the Code Red still feel like a fresh surprising spot, or the way he took that big Bowens DDT. The Sting involvement continues to wildly succeed as he launches Max Caster into the guardrail, and the Coffin Drop is my favorite finish in wrestling. 

MD: I liked the pacing of this a lot: early feeling out with Darby getting advantage, the really nice transition spot where Darby gave Caster the middle finger instead of playing into his antics but still got nailed by Bowens after a few extra wrinkles, hope spots that were primarily roll ups, and then the build to the stretch with dives, Sting involvement, and everything being earned. Bowens has solid timing, that one strike exchange that looks great and that he can work into different points of his matches, and a nice trash talking presence. I think he'll ultimately shine as a sympathetic babyface but we're a ways away from that. This is probably the best he's looked over the last many months though, and even though he's frequently looked good, you still have to give Darby his share of credit for that. I usually save commentary discussion to message board recaps of Dark and Elevation, but since most people missed it, during the PIP break Starks was a lot of fun ribbing Tony about Tennis elbow and never playing tennis. Maybe my favorite Starks commentary moment so far.

PAS: This was really fun. I want to third the love for Bowens in this match. Darby can basically have a great match with anyone at this point, but Bowens has really good looking snap on all of his offense and I loved his Tenryu-ish forearm chop strike. I am even into his DDT, which could be like Nova in the wrong hands. I'm not sure if Darby should be taking bumps like that ringpost bump on a 10 minute TV match opener, but I do love how nasty it was.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 12/13-12/19

AEW Dynamite 12/15

Bryan Danielson vs. Adam Page 

MD: This is one of the rare ones where I kind of want to crib off of Eric or Phil's notes, but I tend to get in first on some of these, and with this one, the only record we have of Phil was "I liked the Kingston match more." Thanks, Phil. Anyway, I caught this twice, or at least one and a half times. 8 pm is tough for me live as I have kids to put to bed, but I caught a good amount before the TNT app froze on me and wouldn't come back. Then I followed back the next day with the international feed. That was a preferable experience since you didn't lose any of the match or crowd noise to picture-in-picture but seeing a chunk the other way makes me want to raise a point right at the start. There are a few interesting elements at play with this one: Danielson's approach to it relative to his long 00s matches; Danielson's heel role and how he worked the crowd; how well or not well Page was able to hang in probably the most challenging match of his career (probably as I don't think I've ever actually seen him before except for in clips); but maybe the most interesting to me is how they managed the commercial breaks.

I guess more accurately, the interesting factor is that they had to deal with them in the first place. I haven't gone back and watched the long WWE TV matches of the last twenty years, but here it obviously shaped the match. On paper, you'd think that would have an impact when it came to suspension of disbelief. Why is Danielson working this hold for so long? Why is Page bleeding out on the floor so long while Danielson works the crowd in the ring? Because it's a commercial break. We know it, the wrestlers know it, the production team knows it, the crowd knows it. A necessary evil, right? (Except for that one break right after Page missed the second moonsault to the floor where Danielson pulled back the mat and hit the DDT; except for in 2021, that's not that big a spot, I guess, and the call sheet could just have been "Danielson does damage to Page on the floor.") Yet, here was the striking bit. When the sound left for commercials during that first break that started with Danielson working an abdominal stretch, the crowd was up and excited. When the sound came back at the end of it with Page reversing a surfboard, the crowd was up and excited. Listening to the TNT feed, I wasn't expecting it, and it hit like a sudden wave. They'd changed gears, slowed things down for the commercial break, and they still had the crowd. Likewise for the break where Page was bleeding out: yes, towards the very, very end the crowd started to turn on the doctors at least and a small bullshit chant started, but for two or three minutes before that, Danielson had their full attention, doing jumping jacks in the ring, giving them the finger, completely indifferent to Page's plight and drowning happily in boos while literally nothing was happening but some doctor pouring water into Page's mouth as commercials sludged past for the US audience. If the crowd didn't care, if it really didn't impact viewing on the international feed, if it maybe even helped the overall pace of the match by letting things breathe when modern inclinations are to go, go, and then go some more, then it was a potential problem solved.

So much of that was down to Danielson being fully invested in every moment of the match. He was completely on from bell to bell, bringing logic, purpose, attitude, and meaning to everything he did. When I was on Phil's pod the other week talking about Bock vs Hennig, one key factor to me was that you could draw a line from any spot in the match to any other spot and explain easily, logically, and with satisfaction how they got from point A to point B or back. I wouldn't be quite so quick to stake that claim here, but after a bit of hesitation, I probably would agree to it anyway. Moreover, nothing felt like time-killing other than the obvious commercial time killing, and like I said, even that was over and effective and interesting as a thought experiment, even if you don't always want thought experiments in your big title matches. Danielson moved from body part to body part, but he did so based on the current opening and the current opportunity. It almost always built on what came before in the match and it led to what came next. It opened possibilities minutes down the line and was informed by eventualities from minutes previous. It was less on Page to have a gameplan and more on him to just hit his big offense when the chance arose, but he never seemed out of place or lost or like he wasn't carrying his weight in the match.

I came in thinking there were no good booking choices, that they had just gone with this too quickly if they wanted to maximize Danielson and protect Page's reign and all the time spent to build it up, and in the end, they made him look strong to outsiders without hurting Danielson too much, but that was only because they punted the ultimate decision down the field a few weeks or a month. They'll still have to cross that road later, but this draw is going to make things at least a little bit easier for them when that time comes.

PAS: This was a match I liked a lot, without absolutely loving it. It is difficult to keep me engaged in a match this long at all, and I was definitely engaged. I really thought Danielson kept the match together with his heel work, the taunting, the ripping at the wound, the mix of cocky and vicious which he has really mastered. Page was pretty good too, especially for a guy I am not invested in. This wasn't Danielson against a broomstick, he brought plenty, from the huge bump to the floor, the bleeding, the big clothesline. He also kept cardio pace, it is clear that the wrestlers today have the wind to work a 60 minute match at a faster pace then most wrestlers from the 70s and 80s, but they had the sense to do plenty of selling as well. I did think the match got a bit your turn my turn at the end, I think it would have been more satisfying narratively if you had just one guy trying to survive at the buzzer rather then both guys having a chance too, and I also didn't love the long break on the outside with the doctor, feels like there is a count for a reason and if it took that long for Page to get back into the ring, then he should have been counted out. I had a Ringer piece I was pitching on the booking dilemma AEW found itself in, and the draw kind of skunked the piece, but I am interested to see where they go from here, Danielson seems to have way more juice in him for a title run then Page, but I get why Page is important to the promotion and their fans.

AEW Rampage 12/17 (Taped 12/15)

Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz/Pentagon Jr./Fenix vs. 2.0 (Jeff Parker/Matt Lee)/The Acclaimed (Max Caster/Anthony Bowens)/Daniel Garcia - GREAT

PAS: I think it is really smart of AEW to run these six, eight and ten man tags. It's a great way to get a bunch of people involved without burning singles matches. High energy stuff which was really highlighted by the Kingston vs. Garcia feud, loved the high energy finish and the roll up upset. Also was really impressed with Bowens, who was hitting hard, and Santana and Ortiz who carried the workload. Enjoyed how this kept breaking down and coming together and it had fun action throughout. This is what you want to deliver for a TV main event. 

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Throw a Punch and Eddie Kingston Counters it Quick

Eddie Kingston vs. Orange Cassidy SLA 1/11/19 - SKIPPABLE

ER: I really hated a lot of this. Orange Cassidy is someone I like watching in AEW, but this version a year before AEW could be downright interminable. Kingston is probably the only guy who has the high end facial reactions to salvage these bad jokes that fall flat. This match had the cursed vibe of Kingston working default heel by getting really upset with a ringside fan who was recording the entire match. Kingston smacks the guy's phone out of his hand and swipes at it a second time, while also yelling several times for the guy to stop. The crowd doesn't quite know how to handle it and the reaction for Kingston gets colder (they were chanting for a title change during the ring announcements). But at the exact same time that is happening, the crowd simultaneously decides that Orange Cassidy's comedy has gone on for too long and Cassidy begins getting heel reactions. And, they're right. Cassidy's comedy went on way too long and worse, wasn't funny. He belly crawls through Kingston's legs, rolls out the other side of the ring SEVERAL times after getting rolled in, and the crowd finally turns when he starts doing his stupid "I can barely lift my limbs to strike you" chops and kicks. This might be the only time I've heard people in the crowd audibly groan when Cassidy's comedy keeps going. 

Kingston's beating is satisfying, and he treated the comedy with more dignity than anyone else outside of maybe William Regal would have been able to handle. It's tough to be the guy who keeps being made to look stupid by fake offense, and any part of it that was entertaining was because of him. Things were way better when Kingston was fully on offense wasting Cassidy, but Cassidy didn't even take that great of a beating. It's pretty amazing how much tighter his work has gotten in AEW. Had I watched this match when it happened I would have been even more shocked by the first Jericho match. His offense didn't look like anything that could put down Kingston, but King did a great job at leaving himself vulnerable after a shoulder injury slowed him. Really, the best part of the match was Kingston's honest and open-faced post-loss promo, where he apologizes to the fan and explains the wrestling economy, and says he was in a bad mood because he might have dislocated his shoulder, and also because he got blown up chasing after Orange Cassidy and all his bullshit. The promo is good enough that it might have made the journey through that unfortunate match worth it. But this era of Cassidy was fully Not For Me. 

Eddie Kingston/Darby Allin/Jon Moxley vs. Daniel Garcia/Matt Lee/Jeff Parker AEW Dynamite 8/4/21 - GREAT

ER: I was excited to see Ever-Rise immediately show up on TV challenging my favorite AEW wrestler, that's the kind of thing that just endears them to me even more. They've felt like the weirdest duo of wrestlers signed to WWE for a couple years now, and this match felt like when the Horsemen battle a team of Men at Work/Joey Maggs on the Pro and the latter team gets more offense than you expect. I loved Lee getting in there against Kingston and hyping himself up to hit the King, doing a full circle all the way around Kingston while King just stands in the middle, before delivering a chop that Kingston immediately laughs off. 2.0 and Garcia get a full control segment on Kingston, and it's really good. It happens entirely during the picture in picture, but I suppose I can't argue with that production choice. Parker does little things I like, little pieces of offense that are rarer and rarer with every passing wrestling year. Here he does something like that whenever he's tagged in, like sliding in with a fist to Kingston's face (Parker was also the only guy in WWE doing fistdrops over the past year, this was similar to those) and scraping his boot eyelets across King's eyes. 

Lee gets completely obliterated by a blindside Darby tope, Darby crashing into and through Lee while Lee was standing in awe of Sting, Garcia takes a big backdrop bump over the top to the entrance ramp, Moxley murks Parker with the Paradigm Shift and Darby flattens him with the Coffin Drop. The Darby tope was especially insane, as Matt Lee didn't appear to cheat at ALL and sneak a peek. He was turned completely to the side and HAD to know a tope was coming, but he somehow resisted the temptation to take a peek, not even gauge where Darby was at. You rarely see that kind of commitment to a spot, making it look 100% like a tope that only Allin knew about. Incredible. This match was what it should have been, it obviously could have been even better if Garcia/2.0 had been treated like actual threats but....that wouldn't have really made sense within context.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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