AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/30 - 10/6

MD: Brief note to start. For those who came to the blog through Twitter, yes, I got DMCA'd to oblivion by TV Asahi. I had a few strikes already from when I was first figuring things out, having initially not thought that 40 year old Inoki gifs were going to be an issue, but I had straightened up and was being more careful. What ultimately did me in was a handheld (a fancam, someone's personal recording from a show that has since been disseminated through fan circles) of a 1983 match, which does not seem like something that would be at all claimable. But here we are. I've an e-mail out to them. I am not expecting much. I'll make a call by Thursday on what I'm doing next. I've seen both kindness and indignation from people and both are pushing me towards dusting off and picking back up anew by the end of the week, but we'll see. The good news is that we have a blog and they can't shut me up here. For now, if anyone wants to let people know this week's AEW reviews are up, posting a link couldn't hurt! Thanks. - Matt

(UPDATE: I am over at https://x.com/mattd_sc/ now)

AEW Dynamite 10/2/24

Bryan Danielson vs Kazuchika Okada

MD: Believe it or not, I have been accused over the years of reading too much into pro wrestling. I've heard first-hand or second-hand that "they were just listening to the crowd" and no great thought was put into sequence a or match b. The great thing about art is that those things don’t have to matter. You can read into it any number of ways no matter the author's intent. You can dig at subconscious strands and universal themes. You can connect dots that were never meant to be connected. Sometimes that gets you deep into the seas of lore, annoying everyone around you. Sometimes it means your expectations go through the roof when they really shouldn't, ultimately doing yourself and the wrestlers both a disservice.

Some wrestlers are so good and have such a track record that you can walk on air so long as you don't look down. Bryan Danielson is one of those wrestlers. And you know what? I'm going to take a nice casual stroll off a ledge here. Why? Well, look, it's possible that Danielson finds some way to triumph over Jon Moxley and they blow things off in December or even later. It's possible that he's lying to us and he doesn't need surgery. It's possible that he does but he recovers quickly and gets to make a special appearance for a match at one of the big shows early next year. Lots of things are possible. All that's for certain right now is that we have next week's tag and the match vs Moxley. That's it. Even this match was a bonus that felt like it came out of nowhere and existed outside of the Mox vs Danielson storyline. So I'm going to have a little bit of fun with it and will ask for just a bit of your patience.

Let's break down Danielson's reasons for wanting this match. He could attack Moxley at the end of a match, sure. But Moxley isn't just a serial killer or movie monster. He's not just an underhanded jerk who wants money. There's some ideology behind it all. We're only starting to see it. Part of it, however, was to take autonomy away from Danielson, to define his reign as he means to define the fate of the belt henceforth. Danielson, here, decided to push back against that in the most decadent way possible, by naming an opponent here so close to the PPV and having a rubber match against Okada.

The match ended up under Continental rules for the first twenty minutes alone, a way to protect Okada to a degree (as he would smartly retain his title) and put over the different aspect of the belt. And for much of those twenty minutes (after an initial title match feeling out process), Okada wrestled cautiously, defensively. What was interesting to me is that Danielson didn't press nearly as hard as I would have expected him to. It was only in the last minute or so that he pushed, leading to the nice fakeout of him hitting the Knee only for Okada to roll out of the ring as time expired.

Let's play with that. Why didn't he push? Maybe he didn't push because he didn't actually want the Continental Championship. He demanded the match, had his reasons for it, but likely didn't control the stipulations. He knew about the Continental Championship. He had been one of the driving forces behind the creation of the C2 last year. He knew that if he won the Championship, no matter what happened with the World Title and Moxley, he would be obliged to defend it in the grueling tournament later this year. It was never his intention to win the title. He respected the tournament, revered it even, and he wouldn't want to let the fans and the company down, but he also didn't necessarily want the weight of it hanging over him. That would take away his freedom to call his own shots and finish on his own terms. It's a little counter-intuitive and certainly nothing that the announcers picked up upon, but if you watch how he wrestled and how he didn't press, if you squint, you can kind of see it.

If he didn't want the Continental Title, what did he want? He wanted to draw Okada out. He didn't want the underhanded cheater, the coasting heel. He wanted a warrior. He wanted the person who faced him twice so far, not the version of Okada (entertaining as he might be) that we've seen in AEW so far. Okada simply wasn't giving him that for the first twenty minutes of the match; he was too focused on retaining his belt, through hook or crook. At the same time, Danielson couldn't let Okada overly goad him because Bryan DID want to keep his title, because retaining the World Title was the path to fighting Moxley. Therefore, he had to endure Okada's defensive strategy, take the damage that went along with it, and wait things out until he could have the battle he actually wanted. It was only in the last minute of the initial period that he got caught up in the moment and almost accidentally won the Continental Title.

So do I think that was the intent. Nope. Could you read it from the text as presented and the characters as we know them in their current storylines? Absolutely. Is it primarily due to the richness of Bryan Danielson's work that we can do so? Yes. Yes (Yes), it is. Am I going to leave this write up at that? Mostly, I'm around 900 words already, not that anyone's counting, and unlike the service you get from other writers/critics, I don't rate or rank anything. No stars. I'm not even ranking this vs the other two Danielson vs Okada matches. I get to leave it as is... except, I guess I have one more (Columbo-esque) question that I unfortunately can’t leave unasked.

Is what we were actually presented as good as the story that I laid out in the paragraphs above through gluing together some unlikely (but plausible!) and disparate (but existing) dots? Is the match still as good if what I just said wasn't true and if the more likely, more straightforward possibilities/intentions were instead the truth? No. Sorry. That urgency just wasn't there. Danielson didn't get goaded into mistakes made because he was urgent. Okada was wrestling one match. Danielson was wrestling another. It didn't come together in the way it should have.

Unless you squint. If you squint, well then it was a hell of a thing. If we have only two more full-time Danielson matches after this, well, just this once, I'm going to squint and it's okay if you do too.

ROH TV 10/3/24

Dustin Rhodes/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs Tony Nese/Ariya Daivari/Mark Sterling

MD: I wrote a few days ago (and then reposted it here) about how some of the old ways need to come back, and I meant it, and this match was reminiscent of Heenan teaming with his family in 83 AWA for very entertaining matches. And this, I think, was an entertaining match that was worked well. The problem is that Sterling just isn't credible. It's not his fault. He works hard, tries a number of different things, is sufficiently irritating and punchable. He even goes the extra mile with some very well crafted, clever social media videos. But those are only for people that seek them out, basically. 

The bigger issue is that his guys don't win, not even on ROH. On Dark, they won. Nese didn't get big wins over big wrestlers, but he came off as dangerous enough with the shot in the corner and the pumphandle pile driver. He's absolutely selfless in the ring, willing to be one of the rawest, truest heels in the company. Completely unlikable. Theoretically valuable because there's only a handful of people who are willing to stooge. (That's why I'm ok with Saraya sticking around - super solid stooging, even if maybe they should stop using her husband's theme song and think of the optics of everything a bit more. AEW doesn't have as many comparative advantages vs 2024 WWE as it did vs 2019 WWE as the latter was a trash fire, but one that remains is to be more moral and progressive). As noted, Sterling did just about everything right here, but it wasn't getting the reactions it should. The fans only woke up when Dustin worked the corner with big slaps on the turnbuckles. They use the Premier Athletes almost every week. There should really be some way to fix this, even if it's just making Woods seem like more of a protected threat within each match and the other guys be the ones who lose the offense. Like Gordy with the Freebirds maybe? I'm glad they gave Sterling an opportunity in his homestate but for a guy doing everything right in there, this all should have been more heated.

AEW Collision 10/5/24

Darby Allin vs Johnny TV

MD: This was one of Johnny's best matches in his run. I do get the sense that he probably needs the right dance partner. Having seen him in Lucha Underground and given the lack of heels on top, I was confused when WWE brought him back in as Miz's second banana, but I guess neither of us were entirely right there. His issue is more the dissolution of QTV than anything else. They spun it a bit on the idea that he and Taya are "TV-Ready" and maybe they could lean into that a bit more with the new TV deal. Taya's off with her burgeoning faction here and without the stable and without Taya, I'm not entirely sure what Johnny even is right now. 

The backstage Darby/Evil Uno interaction really set up their match and I didn't quite get that here. There were some mitigating factors. Darby was potentially just a little more cautious after being goaded into losing his title opportunity. That explained the early feeling out process and them starting with a test of strength maybe. Darby usually throws himself right at his opponent to start in the best of times. As the match went on, however, they starting showing some of the aggression (or maybe we should call it counter-aggression) that he should be inspiring in everyone he faces right now in the arms war against Moxley and his ideology. 

Things got pretty wild. The Russian Legsweep off the apron was not something you see every day. Likewise Johnny's spinning Splash Mountain Full Nelson Slam or whatever the heck that thing was. Just by his nature Darby opens up opportunities. And the Coffin Drop at the end was to a standing opponent (a Coffin Drop Press) which you never see end a match like this. So it got there, and you can argue away why it didn't start there. This was clearly put together for the challenge at the end though. And while that's ok, story after the fact isn't as good as story before, during, AND after the fact. 

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/3 - 6/9

AEW Collision 6/8/24

Dustin Rhodes vs Johnny TV

MD: As I get older and as the world becomes more jaded and ironic around me, I find myself more and more as a true believer of pro wrestling. The core tenets work. The core tenets always work. They are primal. They play upon certain facets of our brains in the best of ways. There can be holes, flaws, chinks in the armor, dodgy bits of execution, some coldness when it comes to one of the competitors, but so long as you trust in the time-tested theories, it is going to work. And no one makes it work, no one plays upon those theories, better than Dustin Rhodes. 

So there are bits here I wasn't sure about. Some of the execution seemed a little odd, like that Johnny leapfrog that Dustin slid out on, or even some of the strikes. And I can't tell you, because of the quick camera cuts. I get the purpose of quick camera cuts in an HD world, I really do, but if you're not going to trust in Dustin Rhodes to make his strikes look good, then what are you even doing, right? I can't weigh in one way or another except for in saying that the quick cuts took me out of the match far more than actually seeing Dustin's strikes, good or ill, would have. AEW's early success came in pulling back on some of the more "Sports Entertainment" tropes and production elements and now that we're this post-Dunn moment of WWE leaning away from them, AEW only exposes itself with things like that. Trust wrestling. Trust Dustin. I did love the swooping camera shot during the giant swing in the FTR tag though. Experiment but push things forward, not sideways into the land of Dunn cuts. That's my hope at least.

Anyway, the things that worked absolutely worked. Most especially here was the use of Taya. Dustin won the early mind games by sweeping out, taking Johnny's attention to let him hit the flip off the apron. Taya asserted herself almost immediately thereafter and Johnny took over on the steps. Then, during the commercial break they did the old rule of three build to a comeback, except for this time instead of running the same offensive spot over and over until it got reversed, they did the insult to injury kiss leading to the catapult by Dustin. I would have liked that to be the transition instead of the last hope spot building to the double clothesline, but that's a nitpick, and I was all for Johnny going for the dropdown Goldust punch and failing immediately thereafter. Tom and I were going back and forth on Aminata last week, as I think the way she hits makes her a natural heel and he thinks her charisma and story makes her a natural face. My problem there is that as the sort of face she would be she needs a bunch of 80s chickshit heels to run through and I was thinking only Saraya could (or would, or should, as Athena could but should not) really nail that on the roster. Taya's someone else that could probably pull it off though. 

Collision has morphed from whatever it had initially been to a really powerful way to heat up people that need to be heated up for a storyline purpose. On this show, that was the Premier Athletes for instance. They're going to get fed to Joe, Shibata, and Hook, so they needed some credibility. When I heard Dustin had to cancel an appearance at a con to come into Collision, I knew that it wasn't going to be to immediately heat someone else up. The roster is big and broad enough to have people to do that on a weekly basis. It was to set himself up for something bigger. And I think he'll be a great opponent for Perry to really get to flex his heel muscles. I'll be honest though. The Texas residency is coming and I hope there are certain elements of those shows that are constant week after week, because there’s a real opportunity for that in front of a probable repeat audience. There should be some routine and comfort and consistency and I'd hope some things that build from week to week. Maybe that's someone winning a Brass Knucks trophy in week one and defending it each week until the end (with a cash prize for whoever has it at the end). Or maybe, and here's what I was hoping and still am, it could be a multi-week celebration of Dustin's career. I'm not saying you have to do a King of the Road match or anything (though they should), but leaning on Dustin heavily throughout that run in some way meant to be special and to tug on heartstrings would be a blessing both for the booking and for me getting to write up a bunch of Dustin matches.

AEW Dynamite 6/5/24

Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Wheeler Yuta/Claudio Castagnoli vs Magnus/Rudigo/Volador Jr./Esfinge

MD: I'm glad this happened. The CMLL engagement just hits differently. It's closer to my vision of what I'd like lucha to be and while these CMLL in AEW matches only go about 45% of the way stylistically and structurally, tending to be beatdowns that are confined within AEW's rules even if they have some of that old Infernales spirit, it's still somewhat familiar and nostalgic to me. This, and the four-way to start the show, were great ways to follow up from the critical success of the Casino Gauntlet from the following week and to stress the excitement (felt more this year than previous years) of Forbidden Door season. All action, all interesting action, all the sort of action that you can't get week to week anywhere else in the world. 

I don't have a lot to say about the specifics. These may not exactly be the CMLL guys I'd like to see the most, but the Depredadores worked well together and Magnus was a perfectly fine face in peril. I liked the extended BCC beatdown and especially how any of the BCC spots (at least those connected to Claudio) can work with anyone. Danielson did the Hart Attack here. Mox did the dropkick on the swing. Yuta did both on Collision. This needed to be a bit of a Yuta showcase and he shined at the end at least. I would have liked to see Volador get hit in the face a bit more, but that's just a personal thing. We've probably got more Hechicero on the way, at least, but I'm all for the Forbidden Door staying open for many months to come. 

Read more!

Got the Feeling Gulak Can't Move Without Sliding

Drew Gulak/Brian Kendrick/Tony Nese vs. Cedric Alexander/Rich Swann/TJ Perkins WWE Raw 10/17/16 - FUN

ER: Fun stuff, a real Gulak/Kendrick showcase. Cedric looked good too, but he had Kendrick and Gulak flopping and flying around for him soooo. Kendrick is a real fun ringleader of goons in this, with Nese as his musclehead goon and Gulak as his snake pit goon, letting them do the dirty work while he makes blind tags to capitalize, and every time he's in just sees him getting bumped in big ways. Gulak's fast sequences with Cedric were good, and I loved him eating that slingshot kick from TJ on the floor. Kendrick was an awesome focused Teddy Hart here, bumping early to the floor and selling a knee, cutting the ring off on Cedric only to take a big backdrop, and vulturing that Nese 450 with his choke. The match was put on in the ultimate dead zone, after a 1 minute tag match but before the big Goldberg appearance, and they somehow manage to get some good crowd reactions. Crowd popped for Swann's nice headscissors and reacted to some characters they really haven't been given tons of reasons to react to. That feels like a win.

Drew Gulak vs. John Morrison WWE Main Event 9/30/21 - FUN

ER: Here's a cool match that's never happened before and I don't think I've ever thought about before. Morrison always gets put into matches with fliers, and not nearly enough against technicians who shut down fliers. Morrison is by definition a heavyweight, but Gulak hits harder, so it's a heavyweight using cruiserweight movements to evade the heavyweight work of a cruiser. I love it. Gulak works snug wrist and armlocks while Morrison cartwheels out of the tight arm work, rolling into pins using leverage without even using his arms. Now, some of Morrison's kicks and headstands and spinning come off too slow and awkward to sustainably work in this match, but I thought Gulak did a great job staying in proper position for all of it. Morrison's slow break dancing offense doesn't always reveal where it is going to wind up, so catching it naturally while looking like you're biting at feints isn't easy, but Gulak spent years training with small fliers with grand ideas and hitchy execution of those ideas so the man has an uncanny knack of being in the right place. 

Gulak is just as great at catching the big stuff, and Morrison's big stuff is more interesting than his array of headstand kicks that barely touch his opponent. Morrison  nails a high speed tornillo tope that annihilates Gulak, and that's the kind of Morrison I love. Morrison should lean into taking freaky Low Ki bumps that most people don't have the body control to pull off, like when Gulak knocks him off the top rope and he rolls and bounces off the ropes to the mat in cool ways, or the way he willingly gets bodyslammed crazily into the ropes. Gulak capitalizing on Morrison's slow rolling is the best, turning a cradle into a nice armbar. This had the bones of a match that should have been better, and part of that is because sometimes Morrison's parkour is on, sometimes the set-up is lacking. You let he and Gulak work this match a couple more times, we'd get a great one. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

Read more!

WrestleMania 37 Night One 4/10/21

I couldn't watch the promos guys, couldn't do it. Not with the frequent audio glitches. This is going to be too much wrestling over a couple of days, and I gotta preserve myself as much as humanly possible, gotta save my wind a little. It's bad enough that I came back into it during a dreadful Hogan/Titus segment that nobody trustworthy could have possibly wanted. 

Drew McIntyre vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: I'm into the idea of a big heavyweight title match starting off the show, especially two heavyweights who actually work like heavyweights. And I thought this was a banger. They lost the crowd a little bit after Drew's kimura, but this felt like a big scale heavyweight match. They worked tentatively for the first bit (possibly working around a damp ringside area), but it picked up when Drew started throwing suplexes. McIntyre's throws all looked strong, didn't look like Lashley was leaping into them. Several belly to bellys, and a a great northern lights, and a big Saito suplex from Lashley. But the best part of the suplexes was that in between them they just hit each other with fists and elbows, there was never any laying around for suplexes. The three straight future shock DDTs Lashley took were real nasty, tucked head and not rolling through them. I thought both submissions came off well, with Drew really looking like he could have gotten the tap with his kimura. Again, they lost the crowd a bit after the kimura, and the MVP interference could have come off more smooth. I actually really like that they didn't do a Big Moment Title Change to lead off the show, because you know they love that. 

Women's Tag Gauntlet

ER: I am personally ecstatic that they got Lana out of the way fairly quick, as I thought there was a non-zero chance we'd get a "Could Lana DO THIS!?" story throughout this whole thing and I didn't want it. Billie Kay is still not there in ring, but I have gotten a real kick out of her the last few months so I'm just happy she's on the show. I really want this big win for the Riott Squad though. This would be a great time to get Riott back up ladder and finally give Liv something substantial. They've been waiting long enough for some elevation, and deserve it. My girl Mandy Rose slipped on her butt and is such a collected badass that she knew she had to get right in the ring and knee Riott in the side of the head to move past it. Rose works stiff during every part of her match, and they isolate Liv Morgan which leads to some nice stuff (Liv really stuffed Mandy running into her boot in the corner). Riott's hot tag felt a bit off, wasn't quite as hot as I wanted, and the blown win call didn't help and otherwise good Morgan small package. Now, the thing I didn't ever expect, is me actually happy that Tamina is motivated and getting instantly rewarded. I would rather watch practically anyone other than Natalya get a more featured role (we've had to get through so many Natalya's Dream moments), but Tamina finally has actually proper gear and and actual proper pro wrestler look a decade in, and she looks motivated. Her Nia Jax match on Smackdown was a great fight, and her superkick in this match was an awesome cut off spot. That Superfly Splash hit with real heft, so I'm all in on seeing her and Nia go at it again so soon after their singles match. Natalya is about the worst baggage a person can bring into a situation, and I wanted this to be Riott Squad's moment, but I'm unexpectedly rooting for Tamina right now and that's cool. 

Seth Rollins vs. Cesaro

ER: The Cesaro hit piece is really funny, the best thing Rollins has been involved with since who knows when, and I'm excited for Cesaro's first WrestleMania singles match. I still think Rollins can work like a real putz in ring, and you know you're going to get some floaty looking sling blades and dumb serious indy era spots like a superplex > falcon arrow. That stuff sucks, but he's a fun guy to hit hard. Cesaro hits so many uppercuts that it leads to an arm injury (hitting the turnbuckle when Rollins moves), and so you get Cesaro working stiff uppercuts with a hurt arm, and they build a huge portion of the match around Rollins not wanting to take the giant swing. I always love a match that's built around one guy not wanting the humiliation of being hit with a specific move, almost more than he's trying to avoid being beat, so that gives this whole thing a high floor. The fans clearly want a big Cesaro win, and it is great to gear a crowd react excitedly to these guys who have been working in a vacuum for over a year. A few of them will probably die, but this would be a pretty cool Cesaro win to see in your final months. Again, you build a match in 2021 around somebody trying to avoid a bearhug or giant swing or a stomach claw, and Cesaro hitting this triumphant no hands airplane spin looked like Superman throwing General Zod into a skyscraper. I don't think we could have expected a better Big WrestleMania Match from Cesaro, and I'm happy for the guy. 

Kofi Kingston/Xavier Woods vs. AJ Styles/Omos

ER: I have been so excited for the debut of Omos. There are few things I love more in wrestling than a debuting giant who hardly any people have seen wrestle. His gear isn't as cool as it should have been. I think him wrestling as 7' tall Mr. Hughes would be my favorite wrestling look of the year. His black sleeveless button down looks to Giant Chippendale. World's Tallest Stripper having to duck under hanging lights isn't as cool as 7' tall Mr. Hughes. Gear disappointment aside, I seriously loved this debut for Omos. Woods and Kingston have been having a good year, adding to shows more often than not, and they played a tough role here really well. It's a tough role to be a super popular babyface tag team, while also keeping a crowd excited to see them get tossed around by a giant debuting heel. They have to be a babyface team who is more focused on making a huge heel have a memorable in screen debut, than getting sympathy for themselves. Everybody had a tough role in this match, and everyone crushed it. AJ had to bump around getting his ass kicked so New Day can get at least some big offense before getting their limbs torn off by Omos. Styles built really well to the big Omos entrance, and Woods showed the right amount of fear and awe. Omos worked like a great classic giant, and nothing would make me happier than a 7'3" giant who has never seen any wrestling past 1991. Omos had big overhand chops, a powerful running hip attack, and his high slam backbreakers looked like a proper 1985 finisher. He added a brutal full face claw to Woods while holding a backbreaker, and this made me even more excited about Omos' potential. Styles got this awesome kamikaze flying elbow, vaulting off Omos' shoulders, and I love that they didn't have New Day get anything on him. I want a dominant giant pushed to the top and this is now my favorite wrestling. This kind of debut is the kind of thing that needs to happen in front of a live crowd, potential superstar debut. I am An Omos Guy. 

PAS: Considering how badly the WWE has fucked up giants since Andre, it was pretty cool to see them hit every beat here damn near perfectly. Kind of strange to work the match around heel in peril, but it really worked. AJ is great at being a pinball, and has really developed a scumbag youth pastor vibe which makes you want to see him beaten up. I loved the smirk on his face when he realized he had gotten enough distance to tag in Omos, and Omos came in and wrecked shop. He didn't show off his ability to do a cartwheel or some shit, he just ran through the New Day, killing them with backbreakers and a killer spinebuster throw. I really think if they keep doing this, it will be a huge deal the first time he takes a bump, and totally make a star if someone is able to beat him.

Shane McMahon vs. Braun Strowman

ER: This is my least anticipated match of Night One, but it still has a chance at being a real spectacle. Both guys get purple real easily and that adds to the freakshow element of wrestling that WWE needs to bring back. This show has some real quality vibes. The real danger to a match like is the length, and they hit the runtime mark well. This could have been way overblown, but it was exactly what it should have been. Shane looks a step away from a heart attack immediately, takes several bumps he shouldn't be taking including getting launched into a swan dive off the top of the very tall cage. Elias and Jaxson Ryker have been a really underrated duo. I don't think Ryker sounds like the kind of human I'd want to hang out with, but he is a very good worker with some of the strongest basics on the roster. They added to the match with a couple of big bumps off the cage side. Braun ripping a cage panel off it's clasps was the kind of spot that would play as an all time great moment on a show closing video set to the WrestleMania theme, so that means it's a great spot. This could have been a 20 minute drag, and instead they kept it tight, with the right amount of bullshit. 

Damien Priest/Bad Bunny vs. The Miz/John Morrison 

ER: This show has a debuting giant and a debuting pop star. This is really a night of wrestling booked directly at me. I get excited every time any celebrity actually wrestles. It's great. I love seeing the ones that really get it, love seeing pro wrestlers show off their chops by integrating a non-wrestler into a match, and Bad Bunny is a genuinely big modern star. I don't get how anyone couldn't be excited seeing a big star show how well he can wrestle at the biggest wrestling show of the year. That's exciting!! How great would it be to see Taylor Swift against Carmella and see Swift hit a decent la magistral? Miz is a good opponent for Bad Bunny, and I loved seeing Bunny pull off semi-complicated armdrags that he couldn't quite pull off, and the way his bumps looked slightly more dangerous than they should have been. I love slightly untrained bumps. They feel way more like me missing a step and falling on my butt. Bunny's offense keeps getting better the longer he's in the ring, and his multi-rotation headscissors is better than 80% of that same spot I've ever seen in Chikara. He throws a great goddamn headbutt and sells it with an eyes-crossed wobble, his sunset flip is very good, and he throws genuinely good punches from a far enough distance that's harder to make look good. He went with an ambitious worked punch style and he does it shockingly well. Bunny's selling is strong, watch how well he sells a great Miz low left hand to the spleen. By the time Bunny was hitting a falcon arrow, I was convinced this man has to have a backyarder video from 2007 on YouTube. Priest's hot tag plays a decent enough 2nd fiddle to Bad Bunny, and Bad Bunny hitting a Puerto Rican Destroyer on the floor and two fantastic crossbodies (one his now trademark plancha) is fucking GREAT pro wrestling. Miz was excellent and fed into every single Bunny spot perfectly. This was his best in ring performance since his match with Shane at WrestleMania 35. I love celebrity pro wrestling matches, and this belongs with the good ones. 

Bianca Belair vs. Sasha Banks

ER: This show has been excellent so far, and this is the match I am most excited to see. It has some pretty big shoes to fill, as this show really has been a top to bottom fun watch. This knocking it out could put this into easy Show of the Year status. Not sure how to feel about Sasha's look, but my instinct is she's going Strange Days club scene so I want to say I'm for it? The build for this match has felt really off, but the early parts of this really felt like the popular slugger who slumps the last month of the season but then rakes in the playoffs. I was always going to be excited for the in ring of this match, but the build left a lot to be desired. But they work this great and Sasha more than almost anyone feels like someone who knows how to turn it up on the big important shows. She deserves the Jeter rep. Bianca's chicken wing slams looked appropriately nasty, and she has a couple of big powerbombs too. Sasha kept getting her knees into Bianca's rib, grabbing Bianca by the braid and kicking her a bunch in the ribs and shoulder, getting her knees up on a great 450, Sasha really just excels in big main event singles matches. She really comes off like a great modern take on the reckless 90s AJW babyface. I love the way she throws her self hardest into her own misses, like jamming her knees into the barricade or into the bottom buckle. The home stretch to this was really good, with Sasha finding several ways to use Bianca's braid against her in the match finally paying off with the return of Belair's hair whip offense. For some reason the wrestler with the among the top 5 hairdos in wrestling history came in with her hair as her gimmick, and now they've spent the last couple years pretending she doesn't have this amazing head turning hair. So we finally go back to a great heel who keeps yanking on it while kicking Bianca in the face, and it pays off with one a hair whip to Sasha's stomach that is louder than anything on the show. Banks had a huge welt from it, legendary spot. This was an perfect way to close out a great night of wrestling. 

PAS: Really excellent match, in the top tier of Wrestlemania main events and something which felt legitimately meaningful and emotional. So much of WWE emotion feels forced and spoon fed, but the moment at the beginning of the match where Sasha and Bianca took a moment to absorb that they were two black women main eventing Wrestlemania actually got me in my feelings a bit. It is a lot of pressure to trailblaze, and they both delivered. I am a huge fan of strength based highspots, and Bianca had some corkers here. The roll through of the plancha into a press slam, where she walks her up the steps was a spot of the year contender, and I liked her repeater powerbombs a bunch too. That is a spot which can feel cooperative, but Bianca hoisted her with ease. I dug how down and dirty Sasha got, basically turning this match into a impromptu bullrope or chain match with Bianca's braid, super creative and nasty. I bet Bianca's scalp was burning after this match. All of that cheapshot work was paid off with that huge hair whip shot near the end. I don't watch the WWE regularly at all, but if they downplayed Bianca's hair whip on the main roster, it was worth it for the impact of that one shot. My one complaint was the overuse of WWE face near the end of the match, but I guess that is just the style now. Otherwise this hit every beat. Tremendous achievement by both wrestlers. 

This show was a total knockout, nothing worth skipping on this show. It had some real high points with the great debut of Omos, the great debut of Bad Bunny, and a tremendous main event, and the low points were non-existent. Great show top to bottom, with everybody wanting to bring it in the ring. The Omos debut is going on our Ongoing 2021 MOTY List, and Sasha/Bianca is our new #1. A great night of wrestling. 

Read more!

WWECW 10/30/07

Elijah Burke vs. Jimmy Wang Yang

ER: I don't remember the Yang ECW run, but he's a fun big bumping ECW archetype, and here he dies with a great spill from the apron to the post onto the stairs and into the barricade, and a later shoulder first bump into the ringpost that sets up Burke's great double knees finish. His offense was mostly defensive, like when he hit a hooking spin kick to knock Burke out of the air (replays show Burke jumping face first into boot). But I dig the way Burke moves, like a kind of proto Velveteen Dream, a lot of flair to even the simplest things. Burke works chinlocks and other grounded holds with nice energy, bends Yang's elbow, drops a knee on his triceps, does some nice glancing stomps to Yang's face, and bigger things like a cool shoulderbreaker and an even cooler diving elbow to Yang's back. This was fun, if inconsequential.

Nunzio vs. Tommy Dreamer

ER: This is billed as a Trick or Treat match, with Nunzio dressed as Count Dracula and Dreamer doing a spot on Paul E. Dangerously impression. At least there wasn't a situation where Dreamer has no said in interview that he was going to bumrush a WWE event to murder Paul Heyman and then blow his own brains out live at a PPV. I'm sure Dreamer's accurate and public Paul Heyman costume has nothing whatsoever to do with Dreamer wanting to share Paul Heyman's skin. A Trick or Treat match is apparently two men dressed in good Halloween costumes, hitting each other with items that you would find at a Peanuts Halloween party. There is a table with pies (nothing but pumpkin, it would seem) and an apple bobbing station. There isn't a ton to it once you get past the costumes, but Nunzio bumps around way more than he should have in a stips match designed to be immediately forgotten. He takes a great running banana peel slip bump on the floor, slipping in reddi-wip that Dreamer had already sprayed, then getting the apple bobbing bucket kicked into his face before spiking himself for Dreamer's DDT.

The Miz vs. John Morrison

ER: This is like the last match up I'm interested in seeing from this old WWECW, so the fact this is a #1 contender's match means they're both lingering around the title picture. This is not the kind of wrestling I am nostalgic for. This is the worst elements of 2007 Edge offense combined with the worst elements of 2020 Athleticism Wrestling. They nearly win me over at least two times: Once, when Miz throws three hooking left hands - the first an excellent worked punch - in a better way than he throws that similar punch now. Here he was making it look like a punch; now, he makes sure to make it look like he's throwing a fake punch. That weird bloated theatricality is a thing that keeps me from buying into any Miz hype today. These punches were a good thing, that he should still be doing. The second way they almost got me was a cool sequence with the two fighting in and around the ropes and the apron, stuff they gave a little struggle to, ending with Miz kicking Morrison into the barricade with both legs. But their tendencies always butt their way in and take me back out of things. Mix bunny hops into a hotshot like a goober, there's silly Edge offense where one guy grabs an arm and the other guy falls onto his face, and a general "we learned wrestling from Matt Sydal trainees" vibe.

CM Punk vs. James Curtis

ER: James Curtis is the last name used by KC James, one of those 2000s Smackdown workers I liked, the kind that would show up for 6 months and then never be heard from again. There were a lot of those guys during the 2000s who either worked like or were Cornette fed trainees, and they always stood out as "not quite WWE style" just enough to make me like them and also make sure none of them went anywhere. He's the kind of guy who can throw a nice corner clothesline and a good shoulderblock, who wrestles like a cross between Tim Horner and Kendall Windham. This was a quick Punk showcase, just 90 seconds, and Curtis is a good guy to have a showcase opposite. Punk during his WWECW run was such a pastiche of the worst parts of indy wrestling: Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 puro move aping with sloppy movement. It's weird seeing a guy do Kawada forehead kicks somewhat well on WWE TV, but it's a thing that I sure hated as it continued spreading over the indies. Punk at least keeps his floor high by keeping things like the running headlock bulldog as a presence on TV, when most had switched to the awful hand on back of head method. The match is good for 90 seconds, and Morrison (winner of the earlier #1 contender match) lays Punk right on out with a diving forearm to the back of the head while Punk was still pinning Curtis. It was the coolest offense Morrison threw on this episode, and if there was going to be just one well he picked a good time for it.

Monster Mash Battle Royal: Great Khali vs. Mark Henry vs. Big Daddy V vs. Kane - FUN

ER: What a concept! Throw your 4 biggest goons into the ring at the same time on your Halloween episode, one giant Monster Squad all turning on each other. It's great. It's a great visual to get 4 mammoth guys in there all at the same time, total no brainer booking move. V and Henry crash into each other, Kane throws a potato shot to V's cheek, V misses a big charge into the corner and then takes a big bump to the floor. Khali takes his own impressive bump over the top, and we get a quick violent Mark Henry/Kane interaction: Henry lifts Kane up and flings him over the top! Kane getting manhandled usually isn't a thing that happens in a match, so Henry definitively chucking him to the floor was a great finish. There was a little messiness, V drops Kane on his big spinning slam, and the whole match barely goes 4 minutes. These 4 together is such an impossibly rare treat that I needed twice as much time with them crashing into each other, but what we get is giants gold.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWECW


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

Read more!