AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/29 - 10/5

AEW Collision 10/4/25

LFI (RUSH/Sammy Guevara vs Cha Cha Charlie/Shayne Stetson
Eddie Kingston vs Dralistico

MD: It's a bit odd to have both Eddie and Darby back to be honest. I was used to leaning hard on that "And Friends" parenthetical to make these run, and that meant getting to pick and choose as opposed to take what's thrown my way. There's a lot of value in the latter approach because wresting is innately interesting to write about, even when the angle of entry can be trickier. Of course Dustin is down, but that's still a two-to-one difference and probably with more frequent TV matches. Anyway, this was great, because it was two segments with my guys back to back one bleeding right into the next. 

The tag was a rout obviously. I do have a prevailing thought about Sammy. He's very comfortable in the moment now, very good at walking on water. By that I mean that in this pairing, he's less prone to doing one linked spot after the next. Instead he's just sort of living the experience that is teaming with Rush. I don't agree with every single creative decision he makes in these moments (like Charlie dancing here), but I am acutely aware that he's living in them far more than in any previous point of his career. His matches feel more alive. Maybe they feel a little weird as he works out the act with Rush, but it's some of the most interesting work I've ever seen him do, just finding his footing in a world that's so different from late 2010 indies. IF, and this is a big if, this has time to develop, Sammy could come out of this someone to watch.

Eddie's always worth watching but he's especially so in this run. It's very clear after this match what I suspected after the Bill match. He's working a Japanese hurt comeback. Again, I didn't agree with every single creative decision on how he chose to show it, but it was much more overt here. I just wish the announcers would pick up on it. Eddie would do a bit where he'd take a chop and fire back and then take another and just collapse as he tried to fire back the second time. Obviously Eddie would have never wrestled like that usually. So he's really trying to express that he's not well yet, that he's not ok yet, that he's still climbing.

And for the most part, the fans got it... sort of. I'm not sure they knew why Eddie was having so much trouble, but they were willing to stick behind him as he continued to fight and crawl and climb. They clapped him up in the corner, for instance. Of course, then Dralistico committed a cardinal sin and took the claps over for himself without being nearly heelish enough for it.

Still, Eddie kept going, kept mixing gnashing defiance with pained collapse, again and again. And once again he won on a fluke uraken. There's something here and I really do think it's just a matter of better cluing the fans in on it. 

AEW Dynamite 10/1/25

Darby Allin/Kris Statlander vs Wheeler Yuta/Marina Shafir

MD: Not that long ago, we had good reason to rewatch the Brisco Brothers vs Road Warriors Tornado Tag match from 83. While it felt organic and chaotic, both good things, it didn't feel nearly as compelling as we would have liked. Look, I'm the biggest proponent in the world of wrestling that feels alive and gripping in the moment, and most of the time, that means a balance between what's planned and what's natural and plays off the crowd (even if it's played off by calling spots that are memorized and honed through repetition). But in an environment like this, maybe you need a slightly different balance to maximize the potential.

There were a lot of moving parts here. Statlander had just had her big DDP moment, refusing the Death Riders and escaping through the crowd. Frankly, she's in a weird place overall and I can't tell you exactly what they're trying to do with her. That felt like a huge moment and they followed it up here. She obviously has the title, but instead of continuing to brush up against the Death Riders, she's moving towards Toni for the PPV. Kris vs Toni is a huge singles match for the division, but it feels a little like DDP turning down the NWO and immediately feuding with Sting instead of them. 

If that's the case, then it means this was the only chance to blow off the Yuta stuff, and I have to admit, he felt like a big deal here. There was a moment relatively early on after the immediate ambush-driven shine (where Statlander did a great job basing for Shafir climbing all over her by the way) where Darby shifted the tides of fate by crashing into a chair. More on that later, but here it let Yuta really dominate him through the break. We've seen Yuta's skin the cat (slip the cat?) sneak back in after getting tossed with the immediate go-behind into a German but here was the fist time I remember it being used by him as a heel (it's usually a babyface spot!) so effectively as a cutoff for a hope spot. 

The comeback was another one of those twist of fate moments, where Statlander first reversed a suplex out on the announcer table and then a similar one with Yuta, avoiding the thumbtacks he laid out and laying him out onto the sea of chairs they'd tossed into the ring. Look, Darby was here so this was chaotic with a bunch of huge bumps, but it was very controlled chaos, almost ritualistic. As a Tornado Tag they couldn't avoid men and women getting at it like they're usually fairly careful about but even in the sea of violence, it was kept in pocket as an escalation to set up a big moment in the finishing stretch. In that regard, I thought they got the balance just right between discipline and wildness. 

My only regret is that they're not staying with this a bit longer. Marina vs Kris would have been a sufficiently big match for WrestleDream (though with Joe vs Hangman, which will be great but maybe isn't a huge selling point), Toni vs Kris could actually main even the thing. If they needed that, fine, they can always go back to this. But as is, I'm not at all sure that Kris truly finished her redemption story and there's probably still some meat on that bone. 

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AEW All Out 9/5/21 Pt. 2

Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs. Kris Statlander

PAS: Baker has to be one of the most improved wrestlers I can remember. I would watch AIW shows where she looked like the worst wrestler on the roster, and she looked way over her skis in the early part of AEW. Now she has turned into someone who is as over as anyone in wrestling and who can be a part of a really compelling match. There were parts of this with some warts on it, but they hit the big moments cleanly and Statlander had some nifty power spots. Her missed moonsault off the apron was a big bump and I liked how they just had Baker clean her out, rather than do a bunch of 2.9 counts. 

ER: I was excited for this one, and while it had a couple of sketchy moments I thought they moved past them so easily that it made the messiness work. Baker is a star and she really has blossomed over the past year plus. She was so strong at getting into position for Statlander's fun offense, and both have such good body chemistry that some of their exchanges kind of just willed themselves to work. Baker is great at ragdolling on Statlander's slams, and Statlander is also great at falling, good at smacking into things. Baker keeps working more stiff the deeper the match gets, and she was really wailing on Statlander's right jaw and orbital bone after breaking a submission with hard kicks. Statlander's missed moonsault to the floor was sick, but she also tried to scorpion herself on a spike DDT. Baker's curb stomps kept landing more viciously, and I loved the use of the Pittsburgh Sunrise (hit stunningly better than I've ever seen Cole hit his) to set up another stomp and then the Lockjaw. They fought to have a good match and that fight came through. 

Lucha Brothers vs. Young Bucks

PAS: This was the most "not for Phil" match on the card, and while it definitely lost me at points, it did have some stuff to recommend. Hell of a Fenix performance as he was flying all over the cage, kick flipping off it, doing a big dive, taking big bumps, reminded me of a Elimination Chamber Rey Jr. performance. I actually liked the stuff with the tack shoe a bunch as it caused them to slow down and actually build towards a comeback instead of just doing a million spots. I mean you had two different spots where teams violently collided with missed superkicks, the announcers mentioned how that could have caused a broken ankle and both times the wrestlers just went right back into flipping and spinning. Take a moment and let something sink in. Still it did feel like a real moment when the Lucha Brothers won, and it worked for the crowd even if it did not really work for me.

Casino Battle Royal

PAS: It's a Battle Royal so you know what you are going to get, and I don't think the AEW Women's division is deep enough to support a Battle Royal's worth of wrestlers. The Ruby Soho debut was pretty perfect. She felt like as big a deal as Danielson, Cole, and Suzuki, and the stuff with Thunder Rosa was some of the cooler AEW women's wrestling I've seen. 

Chris Jericho vs. MJF

PAS: I think the layout of this was pretty good, but it was hurt by relatively subpar execution. Lots of punches and elbows which looked kind of crappy, lots of OTT mannerisms by MJF, etc. The big strokes were good, the powerbomb on the apron by Jericho setting up MJF's bad back, the powerbomb off the top rope which MJF hit jarring his back, the well executed Dusty finish leading into a cool nearfall section by MJF (using the Fujiwara arm bar and getting reversed into the Walls). It does feel a little like both guys are relics of an earlier era of AEW, and I am not sure where either guy fits in the current scene.  

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 6/10/20

What Worked

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

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

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

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

What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 5/20/20

What Worked

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

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

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

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

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

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


What Didn't Work

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 5/13/20

What Worked

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

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


What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 3/18/20

What Worked

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

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

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

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

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


What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/19/20

What Worked

PAS: I think overall the tag battle royal worked although there was almost as much I didn't like as I liked. Jack Evans may be the most underused wrestler around. At least Drew Gulak got the Cruiserweight run and Ohno gets to have matches on NXT UK that no one but me and Eric watch. I can't believe we got a super long Chuck Taylor run and Evans was the first guy out. The lack of heavyweights was really exposed too, the Lucharesu vs. Butcher showdown was the worst big guy face off in battle royal history, weak strikes and whatever the hell that clothesline thing was. I am not a Bucks guy, but I dug the finish run, and our boy Sammy gets the spot of the match (even though he wasn't in the match) absolutely dying flying right into a superkick.

PAS: Got to love Raven buying a ticket and trying to carney his way into a payday. Hustlers hustle.

PAS: I liked Nyla Rose's promo a bunch, had a very Mark Henry feel. "I cut her strings"

PAS: I thought Cobb and Moxley was a bit too New Japanish for me to truly love it, but Cobb is a great addition and will always throw out some amazing stuff, and Mox is a pretty big guy to get chucked the way Cobb will chuck you. I liked the escape finish by Moxley and the post match brawl was great, and I absolutely love how over Darby Allin is now. They turned Darby into Sting which is pretty great.

ER: Man that tag title match was maybe the best version so far of "AEW: The Match". After watching that exhausting and not very satisfying NXT TakeOver this past weekend, I was pretty burned. And these guys - many of whom I don't really like - went out there and felt like they actually purposely started things out slow, until things kept ramping up, famous video game finishers got kicked out of, and they felt like they earned their chants and really had the crowd eating out of their palms. NXT was tiring, 2.5 hours of Mauro screaming at me while the matches sprinted like the derby scene in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I would have loved to hear Gig Young call this match. I wasn't expecting restraint to start and it really got me onboard early. It was somehow the same thing as NXT, but different and done better. Not everything worked. Pentagon has a habit of leaning out of some things, and some Page offense is still silly and insulting to cowboy gimmicks, but those two also contributed. Page hit a really great moonsault to the floor to cap off a crazy sequence, and Pentagon really can die on things and has a great sense of timing. This really stepped up when Omega and Pentagon had their apron sequence, throwing big chops and playing to the fans, Pentagon hitting a great enziguiri to the face, Omega hitting a V-cutter to cut off Pentagon's catch phrase comedy (I will always cheer someone who does that), and ending with Fenix speedwalking the ropes and booting Omega right in the teeth. Fenix was on something else here, already usually one of the more breathtaking flyers, and here on a good night. His missile dropkicks hit like missiles, that ropewalk kick was spectacular, and he breaks out a tornillo so effortlessly that it makes no sense. We get a couple of too big kickouts, but we didn't get any silly pop up no sells or anything, just unlikely kickouts that still lead to the finish. It was definitely an AEW match, which has been a style that I have spent many weeks now not always enjoying, but I thought this was a standout within the style. Their connection to the crowd really felt like they were taking the match on all of the exact turns the crowd wanted them to take. Yowza Yowza Yowza.

ER: Main event cage match was really well done too. Cody is becoming pretty undeniable in the ring at this point. He's a real main event bleeder, and that's going to stand out in a big way since that's not a thing happening on America's main wrestling stage. Cody really made that cage match feel big. Wardlow has been built up to a degree by AEW having him not wrestle for his entire time there, so debuting as more than muscle in a main event cage came off big. Cody ragdolled well and made all of the big moments feel big. I thought the Arn cage door moment would come off cheesy with MJF making faces in the background, but Arn's timing is still strong and his swing into MJF's face was perfect. They really filmed the cage to make it look 20 feet tall, Made the festivities come off crazier, and Cody's match ending moonsault off the top looked wild shot from below. This capped off probably the strongest hour of AEW TV yet. Awesome showing.


What Didn't Work

PAS: I have no idea why Shanna is always in these really long TV matches that should be squashes. I was amused at Britt Baker fucking with Tony Schiavone and Ross being disgusted with Statlander's Alien bullshit. Statlander is tall and athletic I guess, but I very much don't see it.

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IWTV Worth Watching: IWTV All Stars vs. Team Beyond! Dickinson vs. Homicide!

Chris Dickinson vs. Homicide Squared Circle Project 9/21/19

ER: This got plenty of time but never really jumped up to that next gear. The parts I enjoyed the most were the opening minutes, where we got to see them trading holds, doing some grappling and doing some tiring submission work. That wasn't what I was expecting and I found myself pleasantly surprised. And so by the time they worked up to the brawling portions of the match I was less interested, and the brawling also felt sluggish in spots. All of the brawling felt very 70%, like they were going through the motions of a Homicide/Dickinson match, including throwing in stuff like a ringpost chop and multiple chairshots that felt half-done and immediately forgotten. There was some inspired stuff like Homicide tying up Dickinson in the ringside barrier tape, and these are two guys who can still throw some nice strikes. They had a couple punch exchanges that looked really good - including Homicide punching Dickinson right in the throat - or Homicide going back to the mat and Dickinson biting him in the head to get him to break a kneebar. There was also a bit of weirdness, like Homicide maybe sandbagging a powerbomb leading to Dickinson just kind of sitting back into a piledriver, or a stand and trade section towards the end where Homicide keeps doing weird stuff like rubbing his hands through Dickinson's chest hair, yanking chest hair out (which Dickinson does not react to), or rubbing Dickinson's bald head mockingly (which is a weird flex for a bald dude to pull on a bald dude). This just felt a bit too meandering without much payoff.

IWTV All Stars (Manders/Dominic Garrini/Kevin Ku/Matthew Justice/Warhorse) vs. Team Beyond (Nick Gage/Kris Statlander/Thomas Santell/Bear Bronson/Bear Boulder) Beyond Wrestling 11/28/19

ER: I love team challenge matches, and this was even more on paper exciting to me because it's elimination. On paper this had the chance to capture the vibe of a good NOAH Captain's Fall match from the mid 2000s. It has a good collection of sizes and styles, and it wouldn't have shocked me if this wound up being something special. I do think it underdelivered, had a couple minor messy moments, but far more big spots and to it's credit, felt like a big main event. There was a wild dive sequence where Ku hit a fast tope while Warhorse hit a big tope con giro, Garrini hit a freaking Asai moonsault into everyone which just upped the energy level (is there anything Garrini won't try?), and then Matt Justice reminds everyone that he's Matt Justice and leaps off a 20+ foot ladder. Boulder is a huge guy and a nice presence to have in a match like this, especially when he's hitting double cannonballs and double powerslams like he's in an arcade beat 'em up. We get a lot of stiff strikes, Ku and a Bear really going at it, Statlander hits a totally nuts 450 splash while Ku and Garrini are stacked, and Manders kept showing why he's a cool guy to have on a show. Manders squaring off against Boulder was what I wanted, and we got a great taste. Those two slammed into each other as hard as I was hoping for, and Boulder leveled him with a lariat. This was a nicely assembled group of talent, and it kept a nice pace for the duration; a long match that stayed fresh is a solid rec.

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