AEW Five Fingers of Death 3/9 - 3/15 Part 1

ROH TV 3/13/36

Athena vs Maya World [Proving Ground]

MD: Studio wrestling stemming from recent events when Maya, with Hyan and Deonna, stood up to Athena/Billie/Diamante back during the collaborative Metroplex show. Maya being an Athena protégé has not necessarily been a key part of her presentation so far in AEW/ROH up until this point, but I'd argue that she and Hyan don't necessarily have a clear, defined presentation relative to some others.

Who are they? Where do they come from? Why are they tagging? What brings them together past an opportunity taken when others did not? What do they want out of life? What are their similarities? What are their differences? Etc. So far, it hasn't been super clear.

This helped though.

In some ways, Maya feels like even more of a "minion" to Athena than even Billie, because Billie was romping up and down the indies for a couple of years before arriving to AEW and finding her away under Athena's thumb. From a story perspective, one might wonder then why Billie was on TV with her and Maya was watching from the sidelines and then, once she arrived, left to her own devices.

Maya seems pretty happy with her lot in life though and doesn't care to ask those questions. Athena, on the other hand, in wonderfully hypocritical fashion, takes offense at Maya opposing her, complains about Maya crossing a line that Athena herself never truly drew.

Which brings them to this, a chance to make an example out of Maya, to teach her a lesson as she'd taught Billie lessons before, at the end of a forearm. But to show that Maya was even more beneath her notice (even as she was obviously getting under her skin), this was instead a proving ground match.

And Athena meant to prove her point right from the get go. Left hand extended. Her usual dainty code of honor handshake. Right into the magic forearm. Athena stomped Maya in the corner and started in on the ref, the crowd, Maya, the world. She wanted it too badly, however, showing that vulnerability which makes her stand out as much as the intensity. It's a give and take with her and once Maya got just a bit of distance between them, she took, forcing Athena to run into a very clever rope-assisted spin kick.

Now it was Maya's turn to take advantage of Athena's mistake. She had caused it by getting under Athena's skin and now she pressed the issue and reaped the benefits. She hit a series of moves, including doing damage on the floor. The problem was, in the micro, time was against her. She could keep Athena on her toes, but it was too early in the match for her to keep Athena down.

Athena got up. She reversed a whip, caught a kick, snuck in a knee, and then jammed both knees right into Maya's face in the corner. She would then, of course, lean on Maya. Maya's hope spots were solid and believable and tended to come not because of any mistake Athena made (she had already made her mistake at the start of the match and wouldn't make it again), but because she had such familiarity with Athena's offense.

Eventually that let her dodge just enough moves to come back all the way and things went back and forth with bombs, blocks, and roll-ups down the stretch. Maya managed to dodge the O-Face and position around to hook in a Reinera slam just as the bell rang. We were meant to wonder if maybe she could have snuck a win there; all it takes is three and this was deep into the match. But we have seen Athena survive far more than that. No, instead, this was a moral victory, a draw in a Proving Ground match, something unheard of in all of Athena's forever reign, and an opportunity for more. Phantom pin or no, what we're actually left wondering is if Athena would learn from her mistake or if her fury would overwhelm her all the more in their next encounter.

ROH TV Special Friday Episode 3/13/26

RUSH vs BEEF

MD: Two wrestlers. All Caps. You know what you're getting. Look, I have been fairly hard on Dralistico in specific situations when he's up against a babyface and playing a heel, not even a de facto heel, an outright heel, and he tries to steal the clap up and the cheers, not in a jeering way like, let's say, Yuta does, but to really get the crowd behind him. 

And yes, to some degree, Rush does this too, he does. He eats guys up. He takes the air out of the room. But unlike Dralistico or just about anyone else, he's beyond the realm of such expectations. He draws the eye that much. He turns the head. He locks you in so that you can do nothing but hang on and go for the ride. He's Ultimate Warrior and he's Goldberg and he's Buzz Sawyer. There are so few wrestlers in 2026 that can carry that sort of energy. He is an attraction. 

He's not treated like an attraction. He's not used like one. But he is one. Sometimes, I get the sense because of how he's presented, the fans don't really have any idea what they're getting into until that bell rings and the power takes them. 

And it rang here. He kicked away the code of honor. The great thing about this is that Beef, himself, can be sort of an attraction, an everyman. Is he more Hillbilly Jim than Dusty Rhodes? I don't know. Ask me again in five years, but also don't downplay the connection a guy like Jim had with the crowd. Beef has it too. They went off the ropes to start, Beef crashing into Rush, Rush holding his ground. That's the thing about Rush. When push comes to shove (no pun intended), he does give, he does show ass, he does falter. He just makes his opponent work for it and then he takes twice as much back as wrathfully as possible. Here he won that exchange by taking Beef out on a leapfrog allowing him to land an explosive dropkick, but then he ate a bunch of BEEF's fun pokey punches, stooging around the ring for him.

That stooging was short-lived; because he is Rush, he started to fire back. Look, I am not a strike exchange sort of guy. But the strikes being exchanged aren't generally these strikes and not from these two. There was something rough and raw and wild here, something completely out of control. It wasn't pretty. It was far more about the throwing of the strikes than the withstanding of them, and as much about hyping the crowd up and getting into it as anything else. Rush would take a shot and then channel it right into the crowd as he waved his hands to try to rechannel the pain. It went from Beef's hand into his chest, into his arms, into the crowd, back through the crowd, into Rush's body, and then back at Beef. If that's not pro wrestling, I have no idea what is. And it all built to Beef just slapping hands one after the other, an out of control dynamo that wan't to lash back at what had been hurting him. 

It worked until it didn't. Rush caught him, thrashed him one last time with a forearm, sent him spiraling down to the corner. He teased the Horns, rolled back into the Tranquilo pose, and really never looked back from there. Beef had put up a good fight, a noble fight, an admirable fight, but there was a big hierarchy difference here, and all he could do was to try to catch his breath, to keep alive, to roll to the floor to recover. That's the last place you want to be against Rush though, and the end had already begun. The fans knew it too. They embraced Rush, let him lean back into a flag and bask. 

And in a different setting against a different opponent with different stakes on a different stage, maybe it would have frustrated me, but here, on an episode of ROH on YouTube in front of a crowd that just wanted to feel something, anything, no matter what, what can I do but throw up my hands and grin along. He's an attraction being an attraction. Hang on, ride the wave. He comes. He goes. He gets injured. He gets suspended. He gets grumpy. Let's enjoy him while we have him. Now and again we're allowed nice things.

Top Flight/Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs MxM/RPG Vice

MD: We talk about moments. Usually we talk about moments negatively when it comes to WWE because they fabricate unnatural ones and put them above and beyond matches, right? But moments are an important part of wrestling because they're an important part of wrestling matches, just like they're important in any other form of fiction. They should stem from the characters within the match naturally. They should be built to and they should pay off. One of the great fallacies of wrestling discussion of this decade is that it's either/or. It's not. It's all organic. That's true with promos and angles and matches and it's true with moments around and within matches.

And here, they did a great job of building to character-driven moments which had meaning within the match. Part of the joy of a match like this is to see the weird interactions. You have Top Flight interacting with Ortiz and Kingston. I was as interested in how Eddie would interact with Daniels post-match during the hand-raising as anything else in the match. That doesn't mean I don't love action. It just means that I find these characters and their history and all that they carry behind them fascinating as well. It's not either/or. It's additive. And Eddie looked as happy as I've seen him in ages post match celebrating with these guys, and I loved to see it.

There were big spots. Of course there were. Top Flight was in there. But my favorite moment in this whole thing was when MXM got Trent to pose (after trying to do so earlier in the match). He lingered too long and it ended up a transition allowing the babyfaces to take back over. That was very lucha-coded to me (though a lot of people wouldn't think of it that way because of the way lucha has been minimized in the States over the years), cocky heels doing cocky things either too many times or for too long and paying for it. What's great about it is that if the babyfaces did it, it'd be a big culminating moment, like Brody King finally doing the macarena but because it was the heels, it was them getting stooged. 

This was a lot of fun and it's always great to see Kingston in the mix with younger and contrasting talent. That's the strength of him. Yes, he can trade chops with Minoru Suzuki or whatever, but it's so much more interesting when you put him in there against a Lee Moriarty or Soberano, Jr. or, I don't know, Doink and see what happens.

AEW Dynamite 3/11/26

Dogs (David Finlay/Gabe Kidd) vs Orange Cassidy/Darby Allin

MD: This match was a cog in the storyline machine, a set up to the Roddy turn (or non-turn or whatever you'd call it) and setting up the six-man for the PPV, but it was also a way to really debut Finlay and make a statement about just who and what the Dogs were. They had that pretty amazing enhancement match on Collision, but this punctuated that real well in an actual match.

They're different than almost every team on the roster because they're dogged, just incessant energy. They have big spots for down the stretch, but for a lot of the body of the match, they just stay on their opponents. If you put Connors in there as well, then he's just throwing himself at people. With these two, it's more catching, like Finlay caught Darby on his dive with a forearm in order to really take over after the initial ambush and fire back. I liked how much they made Cassidy work for literally every inch when he was fighting from underneath. There were one or two times I thought he was about to make the hot tag but they dragged him back like their namesake and it really worked for me. 

And of course, Darby and Orange are the secret main character team of AEW, an odd couple that feed into one another in perfect, subtle ways. To make a very dated comic book reference, they're the Defenders of AEW, a non-team that absolutely work. I get there's mileage out of Roddy and Cassidy (a similar if less subtle team-up) right now, but I'd love to see Darby/Cassidy against FTR or hell even the Bucks (and for me to say that..). They're the TV workmen of the company and I'd be really interested to see a fighting champions run at some point. 

Anyway, this really got the job done and I hope that Finlay, Kidd, Connors get the freedom to keep working matches like this. So much of it was still all action but it was stifling and oppressive in the best way at the same time.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/6 - 10/12

AEW Collision 10/11/25

LFI (RUSH/Sammy Guevara/Dralistico) vs. MXM TV (Johnny TV/Mason Madden/Mansoor)

MD: Hey, it's a multifunctional TV match. In and out in under 4 minutes, not counting the set up. That gave everything the sense of chaos you want out of a Rush match. Now that Caster's no longer doing the challenge (at least temporarily), this fills that spot on the card, gives fans the surprise of not knowing who will come out, lets Mansoor stooge big (here flipping onto his face and then trying foolishly to attack Rush), lets the challengers figure out how to deal with the problem of Mason Madden (catching him mid-pose with tandem kicks and then dodging him as he crotched himself) and work fairly even with Johnny to start. They fit in a huge spot with Dralistico crashing Johnny into the guardrail on his 'rana, a bit of sizzle with Taya hitting one off the apron herself, and then, just like last week with DCF, the big bomb train on Mansoor. Put LFI over strong to set up their trios titles challenge, entertained the crowd, filled a few minutes, and set things up by having Eddie's music interrupt them for the next match. Perfectly effective pro wrestling right here.

Eddie Kingston vs. Beast Mortos

MD: Another week, another match, another step to climb. You watch Eddie and you feel his pain. When he gets knocked down, that hurts, yeah, because of course it does. But it hurts him to get up too, to turn the body, to get his feet under him, to press up against the weight of the world and find his way back to his feet. It hurts. It doesn't hurt Speedball when he gets up. It doesn't hurt Kevin Knight. It hurts Eddie. Every single time. 

It's a contradiction lately. Every time it gets harder than the last. Yet every time it gets easier too. Because he's working his way back out of his hole, working his way back up to the light, working his way back to who he was when he won the Continental Classic and held three titles at once. 

But yeah, it hurts.

He was more of himself here. Two weeks ago, if he tried a shoulder block on Mortos, he'd crumble. Now he stood firm. He forced Mortos out of the ring, forced him to ask for a time out, forced him to push the dissonance hard. He's so big and so fierce and he had to rely on an eye poke. That hurt too but it probably felt good and right, because Eddie forced him into that spot. That was a victory right there, the only sort of victory Eddie knows, the kind where he ends up with a finger in his eye for his trouble.

Yeah, he went for the uraken right off the bat, because Mortos is a threat and because Eddie's not yet Eddie yet, not really, not all the way. But when that didn't work, he didn't stop, he didn't look down, he kept on pressing. And that meant that while Mortos got the better of him for a time, that he was able to fight back, able to get under him and hit an exploder, and able to hit a uraken that didn't feel like a fluke for once, that felt instead like like a more commanding, more dominant strike. 

So yeah, it hurts, it all hurts, it'll always hurt, but with each step, Eddie gets closer and closer to finding himself once more. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/9 - 6/15

AEW Dynamite/Collision 6/11/25

Kyle Fletcher vs. Anthony Bowens

MD: We'll get to match itself down below as it was very good but elephant in the room time first. Despite having developed a slew of great heels, AEW has a young babyface problem. We'll leave HOOK aside other than noting that he's not necessarily in a different/more developed spot than he was a couple of years ago. Maybe he's in the midst of a shift after walking away from ringside a few weeks ago. Maybe it doesn't even matter if he's just an attraction. 

And we'll just talk about Daniel Garcia briefly since I wrote about it before. He won the TNT title and then instead of defending it on a weekly basis against any heel that they could throw at him, he was immediately tossed into matches with Briscoe (twice given the C2), Shibata, etc. on the way to a feud with Adam Cole. This is when he was developing his old school babyface routine and trying to connect to the crowd. You can't outbabyface Mark Briscoe easily. Completely short-circuited the connection. 

Ok, Bowens time. I could just write a snarky tweet about how he's 95 DDP and how Billy Gunn is either Maxx Muscle or the Diamond Doll, but I don't want snark. I want the guy to succeed. He has everything in the world on his side except for height and for a babyface who can work from underneath, that doesn't really matter. From the outside in, the other thing he's lacking is confidence. Because why else would he hide behind so, so many gimmicks. He's got the Jane's Addiction song, the nickname Pride of Professional Wrestling, the American Gladiators half chest gear, the Mollywop finisher name, the scissoring, the five tools bit, and the "Five Tools, one rule, Prove. Me. Wrong" catchphrase. And yes, the worst of all, Billy Gunn to steal his big moments (and whether he means to or not, he actually does) and to make him look even smaller. He's working hard, putting himself out there, doing a ton of media and highlighting on social media that he's doing it. But the screaming catch phrase laden promos aren't it. 

Maybe they would be if he was a guy who was unlikable and had to push past it, but that's not Bowens! Listen to him in an interview. Watch some of the stuff he does on his own. He's incredibly human and relatable. It's the same issue as Adam Cole, where Cole's likability doesn't transfer at all into his character. With Cole, it's because he plays things as too cool and refuses to show vulnerability, refuses to be himself. With Bowens, I do think it might be a confidence thing. If he just talked to the fans instead of shouting catch phrases at them, if he just told them how he was feeling, I think they'd go along for the ride. They want to like him. He calls out to be liked. He's sympathetic and gets how to work as a babyface well. He just needs to be himself and not sixteen gimmicks.

And to me, that's not on him. How Garcia was presented is not on Garcia. It's on the booking. It's top down. It's not enough to make good matches every week. It's not enough to put guys in positions where they can have four star TV matches. That's not good enough. AEW is where the best wrestle but the wrestling isn't enough. There has to be a strategic plan, three months, six months, nine months. It's not enough for a match to have a story behind it and a destination to a different match later on. It needs to make people feel something. Young babyfaces are investments. You have to pay into them. You have to pay them off over time. You have to build the ladder so that they can climb it. The pillars weren't built in a day. Neither was Magnum TA or Mistico. It takes extra work. It means living less in the moment and more over time creatively. Maybe it's less fun for a booker/matchmaker. It's taking your medicine. But it's necessary if any of this is going to work. I'm a firm, firm believer that things can and do matter. I believe that in the ring, wrestlers can build a match and create meaning and not just sensation. I believe that over time with booking too. Where is a Willow going to be in nine months? Where is Bandido going to be in nine months? Where will Hobbs be in nine months? Maybe you can't do it for everyone and maybe everyone can't make it through the glass ceiling, but in year six, great wrestling matches aren't going to do it alone. There are diminishing returns without strategy and purpose to underpin them.

Wrestlers can come up with their own ideas. They can be sent out there to succeed or to fail, to get over with the crowd or to lose them, but at the end of the day, it has to be a top down approach with a plan behind it. Bottom up can create a spark but top down needs to fan the flames and give kindling to the fire. Danielson is already gone. Guys like Joe and Cope can only last so much longer. There are only so many new people to bring in given the state of the indies. The heels need babyfaces that, even if they aren't bullet proof, are still resilient. 

That said, I actually thought this was a really good wrestling match. Fletcher is amazing. He has incredible instincts. But most of all, he sells everything that happens emotionally. He started this off by being a jerk to both Bowens and Gunn but the second Bowens turned it back on him he lost his cool and rushed in so that Bowens could outwrestle him and make him stooge. Then he came right back with meanness and frustration over the indignity that he faced. He is developing that Buddy Rose quality of looking like an absolute fool when he's backpedaling but then able to flip a switch and be completely brutal on offense.

And that's even when he teases things as well. There was a moment where he played on the apron power bomb from a few weeks ago, teasing it on Bowens right in front of Cole. That cruel mental distraction, that streak of viciousness towards both Bowens and Cole meant that Bowens was able to fire back. Fletcher's eyes went off the ball for a moment because he tried to do as much physical and emotional harm as possible. Incredibly rich piece of character work there serving multiple purposes at once and even playing on the real world backlash from the previous spot. Fletcher does multiple things like that almost every match, taking his time, being as present as anyone in wrestling, having it all lead to comeuppance. 

And of course Bowens, wanting to prove himself and come back after his last loss against Okada, knowing that Fletcher was someone opposed to him in so many ways,  wanting to put himself in TNT title contention with Cole at ringside, kept pushing, kept driving for his finisher. I wouldn't say that the finish protected him enough honestly. Archer got his hands on Gunn and that distracted Bowens so that he ate a clean pin loss after a move. That's a case where at least Fletcher could have gotten his feet up on the ropes maybe (that sort of finish helps both him and Bowens). But if it leads to Bowens losing Gunn, the most harmful of all of his gimmicks (because he steals those big pops/moments and towers over him), maybe that's a step in the right direction. And steps are needed because AEW can't afford to give up on such key parts of its future. 

ROH TV 6/12/25

Bandido vs. Mansoor (Proving Ground) 

MD: I was talking with a friend the other day and we were noting the move away from wrestling as a morality play, from being more about good vs evil. At some point along the way, wrestling went from being about more universal human issues and just became about itself. That's almost entirely WWE's fault and a side effect of WWE losing competition in the early 2000s. As a monopoly it was able to turn inwards. Punk's Pipe Bomb and Bryan Danielson vs the Authority were more about wrestling nerds getting more of a say against the established norms than anything more human and universal like Dusty vs Flair, Hogan vs Dibiase, or Austin vs McMahon. The snake has come to eat its own tail. AEW plays with notions of friendship a bit more but so much of it is still about wrestling as wrestling as opposed to wrestling as a lens through which (even simple) social issues and tensions can be explored and played out. (As an aside, that's why some of Hangman's journey is so powerful, because so many people in the 2020s can relate to the anxiousness ingrained in the character).

Despite this match being a bandit-themed luchador against a male model, I thought it tapped into the notion of good vs evil pretty well. Maybe it's a stretch to call Mansoor evil, but he certainly represented vanity and arrogance, quick to preen and pose at every opportunity. Moreover, he was seconded by Mason Madden, Johnny TV, AND Taya, and they interfered again and again and again throughout. Even though they may have come off as clever and talented, they made sure to portray themselves as scheming and underhanded. At no point did they try to get the crowd on their side. They knew their roles and played them exactly as they should, allowing for Bandido to shine heroically against all odds. 

In this case, driven by the interference and on top of it, that meant overcoming Mansoor's targeting of his back. Bandido had to power through a double arm stretch, had to overcome his own pain when he couldn't suplex Mansoor, had to survive a late match backstabber. The villains, fueled not by Bandido's inner strength but by their own weakness of character, cheated too much and too brazenly and overstretched, being caught by Ref Aubrey and sent to the back (Mansoor acted as if their removal physically hurt him which was a great bit of emotional selling). Left in a fair fight, even if he was damaged, Bandido pushed on and persevered, good triumphing over bad. Not every match has to work along those lines but it's primal stuff and it's sure nice to see it play out now and again. 

 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/12 - 5/18

ROH TV 5/15/25

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs Mason Madden/Mansoor/Ariya Daivari/Tony Nese

MD: There are a couple of different ways to do an 8-man tag. You can lean hard into the tag gimmick by creating a sense of danger and difficulty just from the sheer numbers at play. Any time someone gets too close to not just the wrong corner but even the center of the ring ropes, there's a chance that a knee or arm may reach out. That evokes the sense of those 80s New Japan elimination tag for instance, creating a mood where all of these wrestlers are trapped with one another, the babyface getting dragged down as face-in-peril most of all. Or you can just toss the tag rules out the window and run rapid fire spots with people running in and out, making use of those sheer numbers to keep the action going and going with no logical reason for it to ever stop or for anything to sink in. 

Anyone who knows me is going to know what I prefer. And this did a pretty good job at it for the first two thirds. In that case, you'd maybe run through individual pairings until you got into the heat but they avoided that for a specific reason, Dustin's more or less cracked a code, or at least I think he thinks he has. When he's with the Von Erichs, he drops back and delays getting in the ring until after the hot tag. They find some way to contrive it, whether he's attacked before the match or just slips back into the scenery of the numbers like here. 

In 2025, it's tougher than ever to figure out what the fans actually want. In 1985, they wanted to see the heel vanquished and the babyface triumphant and a clear win or at least a clear beating, or ideally both. While there are increasingly heels on the AEW/ROH working to get under the skin of the fans and get actual heat, and while maybe in time, that will restore some of those old incentives, fans today seem to want their candy. Candy can come in a number of forms, but it's generally something they can brag about seeing or experiencing, whether that's a five star match, a debut, a crazy spot, or just getting to sing along to a theme song or as part of a chant. 

Getting to see Dustin Rhodes is a form of candy. He's a legend, an attraction, someone who knows how to work a crowd from underneath as well as anyone else alive. For 80% of the viewing audience, he was part of their childhood, whether they started watching in 1990, 2000, 2010, or 2020. Who knows how many more times anyone will get to see him wrestle live. He's candy. And by holding himself back, he makes the fans earn it and makes his arrival into the ring mean all the more. That also lets him put the Von Erichs front and center for both the shine and the heat, giving them reps and getting the fans used to them in both roles. 

The other aspect of an 8-man is all the characters at play, and given the heel side, that was bound to go well. MxM interacted with the Athletes with the cheer at the start, by pushing them out of the way of danger. They were able to switch things up with the spot where Madden drapes an opponent over the ropes and Mansoor hits an apron senton. Last time Madden caught someone trying to hit a tope. This time, it was due to Mark Sterling getting involved as a distraction. It's a great spot but it'll only feel organic if they keep thinking it through in creative ways. Here it was the transition to heel control which made it all the better. 

Things did build to Dustin and even more so to Sterling getting hit by the Golden Globes/Shattered Dreams/Unnatural Kick and then the claws. They always have the ref dramatically look away when that happens. Maybe they didn't need to when it was the manager getting kicked? Anyway, it was a crowd pleasing finale and a good presentation overall. I would have liked another minute or two of heat but they were probably working against the clock, but other than that, I had a good time with it.

AEW Collision 5/16/25

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Lio Rush/Action Andretti

MD: This was a #1 contender's match for the shot at Double or Nothing. I can't say it really felt like one, especially when Dustin was doing his fake dive bit in the middle and given a relatively anti-climactic finish where Sammy jammed Andretti's torture rack neckbreaker finisher to hit his own. In general, I like matches ending like that now and again, without a clear exclamation point, but maybe not a match with stakes? 

Of note, we got much more of Dustin in this one, including him working face-in-peril because the alchemy is different in a straight up tag than a six or eight-man and there's less of a need to showcase Sammy. That said, Dustin was excellent at slapping the mat at various points and selling the leg and really doing his half to explain why he wasn't making it to the corner despite making it look like he was fighting as hard as possible.

We know that about Dustin though. More importantly, this was the first time that I really got CRU as a team. The Top Flight breakup/feud did no one any favors but seeing them up against some contrast, they really came off like a swarming menace, in the way they took over, in cutting the ring off with Dustin, in that late match flurry against Sammy. Real Kaientai DX actually, in a way that I'm not sure anyone else is matching right now. There's maybe something there and I hadn't felt that before. They need something else. There would be worse fates for them than to become Ricochet's guys, for instance, especially if he ever lands a singles title and has to be protected more (he's pretty bulletproof right now). So this was pretty good for what it was, but I didn't quite feel the weight. I do think the PPV match could be good if Dustin can hook the crowd.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/14 - 4/20

AEW Dynamite 4/16/25

Athena vs Mercedes Mone

MD: There was a post that went viral a month or two ago where people were besmirching the good name of Manami Toyota because she didn't hit some of her stuff clean. I've some issues with Toyota structurally (because of course I do) but that's the last thing I'm going to criticize her on.

You want wrestling a little rough around the edges. You don't want everything to hit clean. You don't want things to look collaborative, even when you know they have to be. You want that grit, because with grit comes determination, and through determination, you get emotion that you can latch onto as a fan. Go back and watch Jumbo from the 70s, watch Fujinami from the 80s. Watch the sweat come down grimacing faces and veins all but popping out of necks. That draws you in, immerses you. It doesn't make for as good a gif but it makes for a far better match.

Almost nothing in this match looked like it hit clean but almost every single thing looked like it hit nonetheless, and it hit messy, and it hit dirty, and it hit after deep struggle, not just a struggle between the wrestlers and one another, but a struggle between the wrestlers and themselves as they worked to heft up their opponent. One might think that would pull people out of the match (feel "botchy"), but it did exactly the opposite. It drew them in all the more because it gave a viewer something to push off against, something real to underpin the fantastical world of pro wrestling, something worth believing in.

What, then, bridged the gap between two people struggling to hit moves and a match so gripping that it's still hanging on to me almost a week later? Some of it was the stakes. This was a big, first time match, champion vs champion, hot act vs hot act. The outcome was up in the air.

And that crowd wanted it so badly. The crowd reminded me of the crowd for Ospreay vs Danielson, a crowd that was reverent, almost too reverent, that was just happy to be there, that knew they were seeing something special. That it was in Boston meant that Mercedes wasn't even a de facto heel, and no one really got cheered or booed. It reminded me too much of that Ospreay vs Danielson crowd, where they weren't necessarily reacting to specific moments but instead just were glad to be there, glad for anything that happened. It's the sort of crowd that you can do anything for and that you can do nothing for. That Fletcher, Callis, the Death Riders were so over as heels later on (and Nick Wayne for the ROH taping) was such a testament to them and their performances both on that night and over time. So it was a special crowd, but that too was a double edged sword. I would have liked to see this somewhere other than Boston. I'd like to see it again somewhere other than Boston.

What really put it over the top for me though was the reactions of Mercedes and most especially of Athena. You watch her face throughout the match, watch her eyes, and you see someone reacting in the moment to everything that's happening, every success, every failure, every advantage, every mistake. Even if she might make the same sort of shocked face you'd get out of other wrestlers (let's say the Adam Coles of the world) on a two-count kickout, there's something that her eyes do a moment later as she shifts gears that almost no one else in wrestling is managing.

And here, it was contagious. I'm not sure I fully bought into the lock up that took them up the ramp and back but once things crashed out on the ring with the fight on the apron and the dive later, everything clicked for me, including Mercedes' own reaction. I haven't seen her this alive in years, and it lasted through the second battle on the apron, through the tombstone sequence, all the way to the finish. I don't know if this is the destination for All In or not. I don't know if Athena's just headed back to ROH where she can continue to anchor it. I'm not sure if she's made for live TV since she's so used to freedom and excess, but as an attraction, she makes everything (and I mean everything) more special around her whenever she's around. Even if there's maybe a potential cost to that, it's one worth paying now and again.

ROH TV 4/18/25

Dustin Rhodes/Ross Von Erich/Marshall Von Erich vs MxM Collection/Johnny TV

MD: There was a moment at right around the halfway point on this one where I was wondering exactly what they were going for. MxM and Johnny took out the champs on the way to the ring and Dustin was on the floor for almost the entirety of the match, but there was a modified shine here. Ross and Marshall fought off everything Mansoor and Johnny threw at them.

And then it hit me, I'm watching Von Erichs. That's exactly what Kerry and Kevin would have done in this situation, and it would have gone just like this for them right until Mason came in, because in this situation, Mason was Gordy and even if the Von Erichs could stand tall and fight off Buddy and Michael, they weren't going to be able to handle Gordy too. Von Erichs are a force of nature but then so's Mason Madden, and I'm not sure I've ever felt that quite so much as I did here.

Everything built to a great hot tag sequence where they made sure to nail Dustin again on the floor so it could go around and around a few times until he finally got in there. By holding back Dustin (as beloved a star in the hearts of the fans as AEW has) so long in these six-men, not only does it really give Ross and Marshall a chance to shine, but it also ramps up the pressure for Dustin to come in and hit his stuff.

This had lots of clever bits down the stretch including the set up for Shattered Dreams off a missed Mason shot and a claw-assisted triple nut shot that was sort of like a pro wrestling Rube Goldberg machine in the best way. There was a lot of wrestling to watch over the last few days but I'm glad I caught this one.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/17 - 2/23

ROH Global Wars 2/17/25

Sons of Texas (Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara) vs MxM Collection

MD: When people wonder why they should sign up for Honor Club and why ROH exists in the first place in 2025, this is a very easy answer. This sort of match doesn't exist anywhere else in the world right now, especially with so few house shows actually happening. It had that perfect combination of shtick and athleticism, all structured with a double heat and a big celebratory start and finish, getting exactly the time it needed with no commercial breaks or interruptions in front of a very game crowd, with everyone in the arena (ref, wrestlers, crowd) playing their parts perfectly. Maybe it's not the most marketable or lucrative sort of match or the most exciting overall but it's clever, engaging, and in a lot of ways a comfort when we need one the most.

I got a real kick out of the early comedy especially as they managed a good two minutes on the Rougeaus Kip Up act. Allan had posted a clip of that the other day. Not saying that's where they got it but if they did, more power to them. They had Mansoor do one, then teased Dustin doing it hard, building up anticipation, making it seem like Sammy would do it instead, and finally setting the stage for Dustin to go for it, only for Mansoor to try for an elbow drop. Dustin has a way of not showing ass on these little antics which on the one hand, may limit heat a little, but on the other, makes total sense given he's such a vet that in kayfabe would have seen it all and done it all. It ended with Sammy kipping up after all. Then they did the same sort of thing with dives, with Dustin doing the spineroonie and Sammy doing a ridiculous 450 to the floor. Some of his stuff in here looked astoundingly good and while it wouldn't be my thing normally, it works well as part of the contrast with Dustin.

They cycled through heat on Dustin and then Sammy, with MxM having enough interesting and varied stuff and playing to the crowd with their act to make all of this compelling, especially given how good Dustin is at selling and how much of a force Mason is in general. Yes, the MxM act, as is, probably has a ceiling. They commit admirably nonetheless, and within that ceiling they are entertaining and absolutely belong on the card weekly. Wrestling is broad and varied and there's room for all sorts of acts so long as the talent and commitment is there. And speaking of entertaining, the whole finishing stretch was just that, shattered dreams and all. This event felt like a Clash of the Champions overall (compared to Grand Slam's Insurrextion feel) so this would have been fine for a blowoff. Unless they end up doing something crazy like a blindfold match, I'm not quite sure where this feud now goes, but this hit the balance extremely well overall.

Athena vs Alex Windsor

MD: I talked about how MJF worked a traveling champ type match last week against Dustin in Austin and in some ways this was even more so than that. What was striking, as much as anything else was how Athena really made Windsor come off as a threat. That's not to say Windsor didn't bring anything to the table. She did, a nice mix of strength and speed and technique, and loads of confidence, especially on a stage like this, but it was how Athena reacted to it and how serious she, notoriously known for taking opponents lightly due to her own dominance, took Windsor almost from bell to bell.

It was probably most evident early as Athena came off as almost wary, quick to retreat, even to the floor. Yes, she'd celebrate and milk it once she was there, but she's one to charge in forearm first, not to let her opponent define the pace. Moreover, she had to really rely upon her athleticism with a couple of very fancy bits of acrobatics that we don't usually see out of her. It all added to the idea that Windsor was a real threat, which, of course, made every advantage that she was able to get on her and the ultimately win mean all the more. This was more World Champion 70s Terry Funk than completely unpredictable 80s Terry Funk, still a little unhinged but more savvy than destructive. I liked seeing that slightly different side of her here and it bodes well as she continues to keep the act rolling that she's able to call upon that extra degree of versatility.

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Drew Gulak Was Raised on a Promise

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 11/25/21 - GREAT 

ER: This was the  6th (!) and final match Gulak and Mansoor had in 2021, and perhaps the final match they will ever have. I liked all six of their matches, but we didn't quite get one that was a head above the rest. All of them were good, none of them were quite enough to make a list (unless you were compiling a list of Gulak/Mansoor matches, to which I would say that all six of their matches belong on that list). This was a cool match, just like most of their matches, with Gulak starting things off with wrist and ankle control, and I've always been impressed by how well Mansoor stays in sequences with Gulak. It never looks like Gulak leading someone through matwork. Mansoor is always doing something like grabbing at Gulak's ankle, and he's really squirmy, constantly moving forward, so just holding onto his wrist always feels difficult. This broke open nicely with a real sick inverted atomic drop from Mansoor. He stopped Gulak running the ropes by grabbing him like he was going for an exploder, and instead just brought the hammer up into Gulak's balls. Gulak always has nice counters to throw out against Mansoor, and the best was when he threw him off mid-tornado DDT and then hit a fantastic running lariat while Mansoor was still getting his footing. 

I liked Gulak working over the ankle and back, love his little leg whip takedown. It's not a dragon screw he just has a hold on Mansoor's ankle and flings it while dropping his body weight down. There was an interesting fight over a vertical suplex, which isn't something that you really see in WWE. Both kept blocking each other's weight and kept backing the other up, until Mansoor wisely dropped back with his weight, rolling backward and came up to his feet powering Gulak into the suplex. Mansoor really looked like he was fighting to get him over, and the crowd responded much more to that fought-for suplex than they would have to either just hitting a snap suplex (source: they actually responded to that deadlift suplex and had been mostly quiet before that). My big complaint with the Gulak/Mansoor series is that they never really adequately build to a finish, and the finishes can be a bit sudden. It happened five times, so there was no reason to believe it would change for the sixth, and it didn't. Still, this was a real good way to cap off a series that a lot of people did not watch, two fun dance partners who would go on to be even more grossly underused in 2022. Unrestricted 5 minute matches on Main Event every month will always be better than random 2 minute Smackdown matches every few months.

#1 Contender Black Friday Battle Royal WWE Smackdown 11/26/21 - FUN

ER: There aren't many 2022 Drew Gulak matches, so one of his last TV matches is going to wind up being him getting eliminated 90 seconds into a battle royal. Somewhat cruelly, they teased two Gulak interactions that we've never got to see in actual matches: Gulak vs. Sheamus and Gulak vs. Sami Zayn. Gulak mixed it up with both and tried to eliminate Zayn before getting booted spectacularly to the floor by him, sprawling out onto his stomach when he hit. He wasn't the first eliminated (sorry Jinder) so he'll always have that at least. The rest of the battle royal, as battle royals go, was fine. It had Shanky without Veer, and Mace without T-Bar. Sami Zayn won, and he was far and away the best battle royal worker in the match, working constant character moments that added to the whole match, never making the match stand still the same way Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss made it stand still for their character work. Zayn knew how to cheapshot and get almost eliminated, and knew how to always be working while not always being the focus. Angel and Humberto should have stayed in the match longer, as they're better at integrating singles match spots into a battle royal setting, but both took great elimination bumps (Garza going fast to the floor, Carrillo getting body slammed into him). A lot of this felt like it was focusing on the wrong guys. Asskickers like Sheamus and Holland and Cesaro felt underutilized, and Sheamus wasn't working this like it was for a title shot. Fast guys like Mansoor were out of there before the ring was cleared out enough to do anything, but it got saved by Zayn running and stumbling through, Ricochet working a hot finishing stretch, and a false finish Jeff Hardy win before Zayn shoved him painfully to the floor. Needed more Gulak, but Zayn's 2021 was so great. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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But a Dream Like Gulak Gets Wasted, Without You

Drew Gulak/Jack Gallagher/Brian Kendrick vs. Gran Metalik/Kalisto/Lince Dorado 205 Live 6/12/18 - GREAT

ER: WWE was just giving these guys 15 minutes with no kind of feud, to just go out there and fill that time. It's incredible. We get the most Segunda Caida rudo trios team possible, and they are a great group of rudo bases for our Lucha House trio. Sending six cruiserweights out to work an unannounced 15 minute match in front of a WWE crowd feels like a bit of a prank, but they build nicely with their time and the biggest reactions come from the finishing stretch. The match is cool, with them working this as a lucha trios that veered into the rudos cutting off Kalisto from the rest of his Party, before Kalisto finally gets a fun hot tag to Metalik. It's fun seeing all of the rudos act as bases for flying, and it's a natural fit as Gulak and Dorado go way back. Dorado gets a long run of offense peaking in an assisted rope walk flip dive, but my favorite parts of the match was watching all the rudos finally halt Kalisto and make quick tags, knocking Dorado and Metalik off the apron with hard elbows, just working their "non flyer" beatdown. Kendrick comes in with a big kick, Gulak works a kneeling torture rack and shifts that into a half crab/arm lock, all cool stuff. But Kalisto hits a great jawbreaker on Gulak, Kendrick takes a tornado DDT right on his face, all building to Metalik's big missile dropkick heavy tag in. Kalisto gets a nice rana roll up on Gulak, and Gulak pays him back for almost beating him by blasting him with a lariat, the kind that gets a crowd into a match regardless of the particpants' size. Kendrick almost murders Kalisto getting him into the Captain's Hook, not sure who twisted too early, but it only makes his headlock takeover look even more dangerous. This match did not need 15 minutes, but if you're going to give some guys 15 minutes of time to fill during an already long TV taping, I can't think of three better guys than Gulak/Kendrick/Gallagher. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 6/3/21 - GREAT

ER: Before I watched this, I had already seen four Gulak/Mansoor matches this year, and it's kind of crazy to look at the people who were cut or allowed to leave and then still see Gulak working as essentially the man who is working as Mansoor's personal in-ring trainer just doing his thing. The proof is in the pudding as the results have been great. Mansoor has improved as much or more than anyone on the roster in 2021. It's a testament to Gulak's powers that they can keep having matches against each other that feel completely different from their other matches, all worked around some unsaid obstacle. This was mostly grounded and over the year you can really see how good Mansoor is getting at selling holds and moving honestly into and out of holds. Working with Gulak has already elevated him above the level of performative mat guys who roll through a quick sequence that ends in a tandem kip-up. This is more about Gulak constantly catching Mansoor in a headlock and Mansoor trying to find his way out of it to a win. When Mansoor is in control you can see Gulak doing little things to direct traffic, things that Mansoor responds naturally to. 

I loved how Gulak worked like an old sensei, reversing everything Mansoor threw (grabbing a headlock off a single leg, gaining arm and wrist control after a Mansoor slap) while also keeping Mansoor's work snug (loved how when Mansoor had arm control Gulak went to cover up his face which was a sly reminder for Mansoor to plant his knee on Gulak's face). Gulak has a couple of cool takedowns off an armdrag reversal and later one where he just takes Mansoor down, traps his legs, and ties him up in a dragon sleeper. I'm going to love a match where guys refuse to break headlocks off the ropes or get tied up in messy holds that don't look as "clean" as other WWE holds. The spot of the match is Gulak blocking an armdrag and turning it into a kind of Gory special as Mansoor fights it, only for Gulak to just drop straight down into a side headlock. The pinfall trading at the end is just about as interesting as you can make that spot now, worked very seamlessly but with Gulak actually looking like someone who is trying to pin Mansoor, not just positioning himself for the next reversal. I'm not sure how long Gulak is going to be able to get away with weird subversive matwork matches on these undercards, but I am going to be in love with it as long as it happens. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Yeah, It's Where We Are, Gulak

Drew Gulak vs. Danny Garcia 205 Live 7/17/18 - FUN

ER: Garcia has been the talk of the town lately, had a big week of matches that peaked with him working his way into the main event of AEW Dynamite. He's only 22, and yet he somehow had a televised WWE match when he was just 19. There aren't many teenagers who can say they've wrestled a match for WWE, though I can think of at least a few offhand (the Hardys, Paige, Ken Doane, maybe Waltman?). This puts Garcia into some rare company. The Hardys started as regular TV jobbers and 3 years later they were superstars. Well, it's 3 years later and Garcia's star has never been brighter, and I'm positive he's never done a quicker or more vicious job than the one he did here. You see, the match is 30 seconds long, and an absolute massacre. This beating felt like it was one bad inch away from being a new Marty Jannetty/Chuck Austin incident. It's a match made up of three moves. First, Gulak flew into Garcia with one of the hardest clotheslines I've ever seen Gulak hit. Second, Gulak threw Garcia with a backdrop driver that felt like something Masa Saito would have thrown to "toughen up/accidentally murder" Dojo trainees. Third, Gulak dragged Garcia by the back of the head and sunk in a deadly looking Gulock. Garcia got a 30 second tryout with WWE, got nuked like few jobbers have ever been nuked, and it only made him want this more. Hard not to like that. 

PAS: I kind of expected this to be what Garcia vs. Moxley was going to be, and while Garcia got a ton more offense in that match, Moxley did hit versions of all three of these moves in his Garcia match. Gulak wins all three: his clothesline was up there with the nastiest clotheslines in WWE history, that backdrop driver was spine compressing, and the choke was sick, with Garcia's knees bent all weird. Garcia has so much offense these days, I never really think of him as a crazy bumper, but he was Pablo Marquez level here. 

Drew Gulak vs. Angel Garza WWE Raw 5/17/21 - FUN

ER: Well this probably puts the nail in the coffin of Gulak's time on Raw for now, as they have established that Garza is clearly his better. This is the third Raw match they've had, and each one went about 2 minutes, and ended with a decisive Garza victory. Drew Gulak is great at working guys like Garza, so I get why they'd want him opposite, making Garza's offense look as good as it can. Gulak begins things by jumping Garza and gets an early advantage, strongly enough that I just sort of assumed that surely Gulak wasn't going to lose 3 straight Raw matches to the same guy! Well, before long it became the Garza show, and it's a fun show to watch right now. Gulak leans into his kicks and has a fun bump off a reverse slingshot suplex, opting to land on his feet and whip back instead of take it on his stomach. It left him in perfect position for a seated dropkick from Garza, and it's one of those things that Gulak does sometimes that don't look like anyone else. I've said it twice before, but it's silly giving these two only 2 minutes, as they could do something really cool with just 4, but here we are. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Raw 6/7/21 - FUN

ER: I'm starting to think that Gulak might not be the guy to put a stop to Mansoor's incredible winning ways. Gulak does, however, continue his trend of unique and cruelly short Raw matches. I don't know what kind of accomplishment it is to be known as the guy having the coolest 2 minute Raw matches, as I'd rather see him be the guy having the coolest 8-10 minute matches on whatever smaller show, but we take what we get. Gulak loses 90% of his matches and I'm the guy who still manages to get hooked into possible Gulak wins, and I don't think it's because I'm 90% doofus, but because of Gulak actually making each little moment of his 150 seconds matter. There is an art to the Short Match, of making your precious few moments matter, and Gulak starts by working a cool half crab, bending at Mansoor's leg while driving his bootheel into Mansoor's back. There's a cool battle over a roll up, and I loved Gulak grabbing a big handful of tights. That handful of tights was what convinced me Gulak was taking it. Sure, it helped that the tights grab happened around the 2 minute mark, and I knew from experience that Gulak is allowed no more than 3 minutes in a Raw ring or else suddenly we wind up with dozens of Gulaks everywhere, and half of them turn out to be child molesters. Alas, Mansoor reverses a reversal of a roll up reversal and I will see Gulak on Main Event next week, where he may win. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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How Can Gulak Surround Himself in Time and Time Again?

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 4/8/21 - GREAT

ER: Another great 5 minutes with these two, a feud I've been really enjoying. They have worked several TV matches already this year (the closest we'll get to an A-Train/Funaki or Kanyon/Orlando Jordan syndicated feud in 2021) and they've managed to work a different match every single time while doing not too obvious things to play off prior match experiences. Gulak is the guy always coming VERY close to stopping Mansoor's 40+ match winning streak and yet always finds his own shoulders on the mat for a split second longer than Mansoor's. Gulak doesn't so much find ways to lose, as Mansoor finds ways to win, and that's important to their dynamic. They know how to work a lot of interesting moments around quick armdrags, blocked armdrags (Gulak blocking an armdrag by dropping his weight or holding the ropes will always be a match highlight), shoulder holds and single leg takedowns. 

Gulak breaking a wristlock by doing a tumbling routine was a great way to keep a Regal/Danielson vibe on our syndicated programming, and I love how they essentially worked 5 minutes of just grabbing at body parts. Gulak stands on Mansoor's face, Mansoor gets a nice sunset flip with Gulak later catching Mansoor in one of his own after timing a Mansoor leapfrog, and the final exchanges were hot. They managed to work through the match with no actual striking taking place, going straight into a series of holds reversed into snug pinfalls, ending with Mansoor rolling a hiptoss through into a kind of backslide. Gulak's frustration is palpable, as they've done a good job having Mansoor go lossless in their series while making it seem like Gulak is always one step away from figuring out the puzzle, each time.  

Drew Gulak vs. Angel Garza WWE Main Event 4/15/21 - FUN

ER: Here's one for the Unexpected Miss category. Gulak and Garza had a series of short Raw matches around this time, all of which hinted at the potential of a great longer match. I didn't actually realize they HAD that longer match until I started catching up on Main Event, and...well the match completely fell apart in the second half and wasn't actually very good, it turns out. Couldn't have seen that one coming. And a major part of the problem WAS the length, as this felt like a match with several extra minutes. The first half was the best half, showing off Gulak's ability to base for fliers while neutralizing with his own monkey flip and forearm offense. He grinds into Garza and hits a huge running corner dropkick, then misses one later that hangs him by the knees in the corner (one leg over the top, one over the middle) until Garza drops him with a cool backcracker. I was into all of this. 

But there was always going to be an odd heel/heel thorn to get around, and since neither man attempted to get around that the match outright fell apart. I'm not sure who the technical "babyface" would have been here, but I suppose it would have been Gulak. Except Gulak approached this as a heel waiting to catch Garza's flash and turn it into a grounded submission, while Garza approached this as the cocky heel who was going to out flash Gulak, and neither man budged. The whole thing built into Garza going on a chain ending with a big nearfall superkick, and it all felt laid out like tecnico Gran Metalik outquicking the mat worker, and it felt like they were finally settling into sides. But the moment things fell apart was the moment Gulak caught a second Garza superkick and dropped into a brutal heel lock. Angel Garza took SO LONG to get to the ropes, and the spot just went on for a silent eternity. We had this never-ending moment of Gulak trapping a rudo in a very sick looking Gulock, right in the middle of the ring, and Garza inching his way for the ropes. Inch by inch by inch. It was brutally paced, and by the time it was broken everyone's timing was out the window. The quick nearfalls after were sloppy, Gulak missed a clothesline (that was supposed to miss) by 4 feet as Garza was somewhere else entirely, and we had two guys winding up on different pages after a terribly laid out submission. I didn't realize how much I liked their 2-3 minute matches until I saw what they did with 9 minutes. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Drew Gulak is Lost on His Sea Again

 Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 2/25/21 - GREAT

ER: It hit me during this match that Gulak is probably the closest thing we have to a Barry Houston in WWF, and it's cool to see a mature Barry Houston style worker on WWE TV in 2021. He is great with any kind of opponent, hits honestly on shoulderblocks and elbows, throws his whole arm into lariats and clotheslines, and locks in convincing headlocks and holds. It's the kind of style that does work with any other style, but Gulak is also smart about changing little things and integrating any kind of size or opponent. Mansoor is coming along well, quietly improving faster than others in WWE working his same kind of style. It's perhaps notable that I think Mansoor has been better at his kind of matches this year than guys like Humberto Carrillo or Gran Metalik have been at their similar matches. Gulak really takes some stiff strikes to Mansoor, you get that Finlay sense of "I have 5 minutes on this Thunder episode, I'm going to grab someone by their jaw, and hit the hardest safe lariat I possibly can." Mansoor's sequences looked smooth, he's maybe the only guy in the fed who actually lands atomic drops, and I thought while Gulak bumped well for Mansoor's flash and set it up nicely, that Mansoor delivered his end. He was where he needed to be, and outside of maybe the slingshot neckbreaker at the finish, I don't think Gulak ever looked like he was waiting on him. Gulak has a great way of getting from one thing to the next, someone who knows how to fill time well. He can expertly turn an O'Connor roll into a match finish worthy rear naked choke, or convincingly sock you across the ring. He doesn't really win much, but I like him in his current role. I just like that him, and his role, are on TV. 

PAS: Gulak is buried as deep as you get in the WWE (is this deeper than NXT UK?) and it really doesn't matter as he is having these very cool "if a tree falls in the forest" matches. Gulak is a perfect person to pair with a green guy who is basically learning to wrestle on TV. He trained guys for so long, that he is a master of not only making all of his stuff look really good, but making sure his opponent looks great too. Not sure if Mansoor has a great atomic drop, or Gulak is amazing at taking atomic drops, but that might have been the best atomic drop in decades. Gulak gets a moment or two to shine on his own, the corner lariat was teeth rattling, but he was there to put over Mansoor and make him look good and he did both excellently.

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 3/4/21 - FUN

ER: I love how Main Event gives these guys the opportunity to have minor feuds that carry over week to week. They don't necessarily get storylines (in the way that there are actual storylines and promos on 205 Live), but they get a chance to build off results and actions from prior Main Event matches and that gives it more of a Worldwide or WCW Pro feel. In other words, they freely acknowledge a wrestler's history with their opponent, without adding any additional story to why they are wrestling. Gulak is going to be someone who is good at having in-ring feuds with, and Mansoor is benefitting heavily from working with him, showing a lot of improvement over the past year. This was evenly paced and had a few moments where it looked like Gulak could get his win back. 

I'm really getting into watching Gulak lose, as - unlike every time they've ever done a losing streak gimmick - I am actually really getting excited to see a Gulak win these days. They're always way too obvious about their losing streak gimmicks, there's never any nuance and it's always screamed at you that the guy is losing a lot. I don't think they're working that angle with Gulak, he just happens to be a guy who loses a lot. He's 5-40 over the last two years, which would make him the worst baseball team in history. But wins do happen, and I love watching for them. I like how he takes Mansoor's offense, like a neat upside down springboard armdrag that took a twist I wasn't expecting, and he makes Mansoor's already painful atomic drop/spinebuster even more painful. Gulak really crunches Mansoor with a German suplex, and they have a cool battle over a Gulak O'Connor roll that turns into a Mansoor rear naked choke. All of it is great, and I still think Gulak might get him if they pair up 7 or 8 more times. 

PAS: I liked how Gulak came out more aggressive in this match, two really nasty German suplexes and then going for a top rope reverse suplex, he seemed like a guy who wanted his win back. I didn't think Mansoor looked as good in this match, there was a performative aspect to his offense which I didn't notice as much the previous week, and he made some really silly faces. The reversal of the O'Connor roll into a choke is a cool spot, but both Mansoor's choke and his body scissors were pretty loose. Gulak was great though, loved how he ate the top rope body press, leaping into and taking it as a big bump on the back, but still I thought this showed the seams a bit more.

Drew Gulak/Akira Tozawa vs. Ricochet/Mansoor WWE Main Event 3/11/21 - GREAT

ER: This Gulak/Mansoor feud has been one of the low key best things going in TV wrestling this year. This is just another awesome example of Gulak working as a WCW Saturday Night Finlay, and brother that's my favorite wrestling to watch. Gulak kicks the door in when he tags in, laying Mansoor out with full arm clothesline, then picks him up and bodyslams him legs first into the ropes. It's clear he's been watching his Finlay Orlando Studios tapes. Mansoor has a good moveset, filled with smooth spots he pulls off well (like his ropes feint armdrag) plus strong nearfall stuff like his excellent atomic drop/spinebuster combo. Gulak is always the best at taking offense, so I love when he chooses to shine by doing "small" things like work a half crab or stomp Ricochet's back. Gulak is a pro wrestler like Chris Hero, someone who understands the nuances and can deliver joy with elite execution on "simple" moves. Seeing him work a cutoff spot with a timed headbutt to the chest is a cool thing to still see in wrestling. 

It's good for Tozawa to work with someone like Gulak. He's been mired in the comedy ninja gimmick for quite awhile now and it's easy to forget what a great worker he was during some of those 205 Live years everyone has memory-holed. Working with Gulak allows him to up his game and show why he's remained employed for an improbable near 5 years. He's been a unique presence on Main Event for 2 years now, weirdly existing in this vacuum. He's a guy who will really benefit from the return of crowds, and it will be fascinating to see which guys blossom when that happens. The finish tricked me into thinking Gulak was going to get the win again, with his nice pinning powerbomb followed up with Tozawa's big senton. But Mansoor is unbeatable. Loved this tag, some inspired work on a C-show. 

PAS: This was a nifty little TV bout, showing some real chemistry between old Chikara guys Gulak and Ricochet (I wonder if there is a Helios vs. Solider Ant match out there worth watching). Ricochet puts some pop in his moves, and Gulak works pretty stiff. Best thing in this match was probably his back elbow to break out of a fireman's carry. I still feel like Mansoor is the odd man out. Gulak, Ricochet and Tozawa are such polished pros that Mansoor almost feels like a celebrity wrestler, like this is how Bad Bunny would work if he decided to go wrestle on Main Event. Still these are guys who can work around a celebrity wrestler in a tag match, and it was good stuff.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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NXT UK Worth Watching: WALTER! Mansoor! Devlin! Banks!

Mansoor vs. Travis Banks NXT UK 4/6 (Aired 5/1/19) (Ep. #40)

ER: This is fairly low end among the recommended NXT UK matches, but a surprising Mansoor performance really elevated it for me. Where has this Mansoor been? Mansoor has been in several matches I've enjoyed, but never like this. Normally he is the same generic highflyer babyface that WWE turns all of their highflyers into, with their only personality being their ethnicity. Here, Mansoor is heel, and he works the match as if he's heel Alex Wright working as the Sheik. It's an awesome combination and Mansoor shows more personality here than in even his best babyface performances. I liked his cocky kip-ups and cartwheels to break wrist locks, and how he yelled at Banks to get off him on a rope break. 

And instead of doing flippy babyface offense, Mansoor changes up his offense to work heel, with my favorite bit of offense a running throat thrust, looked great. He shoves Banks off the top to the floor in a violent way, and stooges nicely to set up Banks' offense. Not only did Mansoor change his offense to work as a heel, but he bumps like a heel too, and that impresses me even more. He takes a couple comical trampoline bumps for Banks, bouncing and recoiling off ropes (like good versions of Rock taking a stunner), and leans into Banks' best stuff. Banks pastes him with a punt from the apron, and the tope he hits after completely smashes Mansoor. Mansoor caught this dive like a champ, just standing right in the path and getting leveled by it. Fired up Banks is fun, but he's even more fun with heel Mansoor playing into and off of it all. This only goes 6 minutes, and wraps up far too neatly, with Banks hitting the Kiwi Crusher without any struggle, and if they added a wrinkle or two I would recommend it even more. As it is, it surprised me, and I like being surprised.   

WALTER vs. Jordan Devlin NXT UK 4/6 (Aired 5/1/19) (Ep. #40)

ER: I was expecting this to be a bit bigger than it was, but enjoyed what we got. As someone who watched very little NXT UK (before starting going through all the episodes from the beginning), I was embracing my unfamiliarity with the product and letting the show lay out who was important, who was a threat. And through the first 30 or so episodes nobody seemed like as much of a threat as Jordan Devlin. And I don't think anyone on the roster has been hurt by the arrival of WALTER as much as Jordan Devlin has. Devlin's spot on the ladder became noticeably lower the moment WALTER showed up, and seeing how this match was worked - knowing how dominant Devlin was presented over the first several months of the program - is fairly definitive proof of that. All that aside, the match is really fun and any bitterness over it may just be me wishing I didn't have to see so much Pete Dunne in the title picture, as Devlin brings far more interesting match layouts than Dunne. This was worked with Devlin desperately trying to evade WALTER, outright running from him for the first couple minutes, and of course getting caught and getting brutalized. WALTER crunches him with chops and suplexes, WALTER matches him impressively with speed, knocks him around, and it leads to a cool turning point where WALTER tries to press Devlin back into the ring, falls short, and Devlin gets tied up in the ropes. 

But Devlin gets a shot in at WALTER's leg, and begins to exploit it. WALTER is really great at selling a knee, because he doesn't do any awful melodramatics, and instead sells more like someone walking down stairs after a day of too many squats. He's really good at selling leg tightness, and Devlin has hard enough kicks that they are believably damaging to the big man. WALTER also starts bleeding out of the mouth, which gives us the great visual of blood streaming down WALTER's cheek. They work a nice balance of Devlin wearing down WALTER, but having to get too close to do so, so still getting rocked by loud chops or tossed with a highlight reel Saito suplex. The only thing really holding the match back, was that no matter how effective Devlin's leg attacks were, it never felt possible that Devlin could beat WALTER. I think it was a mistake pairing the two so early, as I think this was a match that actually could have been built to if they didn't have their WALTER/Dunne blinders on. So it never felt like WALTER could lose, and that's a shame because Devlin is someone that had been built up strongly enough to plausibly beat him. Still, the match rocked, and we'll see where it all goes from here. 

PAS: I haven't seen much of Devlin before and he kind of strikes me as just a white guy with pace and nice abs. Still WALTER is an evocative enough worker, that he can do something cool with a white guy with pace and nice abs. I really liked the work on the leg, Devlin really chopped up the quad and knee and it actually made WALTER a bit vulnerable,  that and the bloody mouth actually had me buying the near falls, when I figured it would be more of a steamrolling, that Saito suplex did look awesome too. WALTER did feel a bit inevitable, and although I hate to say this, I feel Devlin could have used one more kickout. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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Check Out What Brian Kendrick Did on 205 Live in October

39. Brian Kendrick vs. Ashante "Thee" Adonis 205 Live 10/9

ER: This has been a 205 Live story the past couple months, with Kendrick reaching out to Adonis when he was still Tehuti Miles, before the hipster bike messenger shorts. They've had a couple other matches which Kendrick won, with the angle going that Kendrick was trying to motivate Miles/Adonis throughout the matches. It's a bit quick and short attention span for a really good master/student blowoff, but this third match is basically the student putting down his (in this case not wanted) master. It doesn't really work to that level of drama, and the only weak parts of this are when too much drama interjected itself. Adonis doing even somewhat convincing resolve sounded instead like "You're not my real dad!" high school acting, and I've seen enough Shawn Michaels agenting with long pauses before match ending superkicks to not need guys doing that voluntarily. But the match outshone the unearned drama, and Kendrick is perhaps the best person in the company (and in wrestling) to put on these gatekeeper veteran matches. 

Adonis had some nice uppercuts early and was able to overpower Kendrick a bit, but Kendrick is crafty and one of my favorite things about his matches is the ways he makes clever use of opportunities and makes match situations seem organic. He gains control after Adonis gets his foot snagged on the ring skirt, which feels like the exact kind of way Kendrick and his opponents work this kind of bad luck into a match. Kendrick makes cruiser offense hit harder than others, flinging his body with more last second impact. His Captain's Hook looked awesome, still my favorite submission in wrestling, and it always plays like such a convincing match ender. Adonis smartly rolls it into a pin to force a break (and, it looked for a moment, risk Kendrick being able to sink the choke deeper into his arm crook), and he chains offense together effectively and smartly. His high crossbody landed hard, and it was cool how he immediately picked Kendrick up to his a nice short arm DDT instead of going for a pinball and doing a shocked face upon kickout. I didn't love how Kendrick got polished off with a pair of superkicks, felt a little too I'm Sorry, I Love You and I think it could have been stronger. That said, this is a Kendrick match I'm always going to enjoy. 

PAS: This 205 Live stuff is buried so deep underground at this point that I had no idea who Ashante Adonis even was. This was from the 200th Episode of 205 Live, for context M*A*S*H had 255 episodes, this dumb show has nearly as many episodes as fucking M*A*S*H. WWE is like late 90s WCW at this point, it is hard to watch much of their main product, but they have so much of it that you have matches like this which just completely escape notice. This is Dandy vs. Dean Malenko on WCW Pro like stuff, and I am glad Eric is looking for and finding it. Kendrick is such a pro here, really the spiritual son of Fit Finlay. I loved how he pounced on the rookie getting his foot caught in the skirt and hit that vicious Russian leg sweep into the barricade. He uses his environment so well, nothing is contrived, he just sees the angles. The Captain's hook section was the highlight, Kendrick just constantly adjusts to get purchase, and it makes sense he lost soon after that. You see that in MMA sometimes when a fighter does everything he can to lock a choke and just gasses out. Adonis wasn't a huge standout, but his big stuff looked big, and he did get crazy height on the cross body. Didn't love the ACTING in the finish, but it was mostly kept to the last minute or so. 

35. Brian Kendrick vs. Isaiah Scott 205 Live 10/16 

ER: This is the first time these two have crossed paths (there was a bad Elimination match earlier this year, but Kendrick was out of that one without hardly any time spent in the ring), and it's a shame for Scott because Kendrick is the perfect opponent for him. I'm not a big Scott fan, as I get sick of the fruity embellishments he puts on so much of his offense. Some things just don't look better with a little rolling hopping tumble before them, and Kendrick brings that Finlay mindset into the match and puts an immediate stop to any of the flowery bullshit, and makes Scott's offense look more plausible than anyone else on the brand has been able to do. It's no shock that Scott's best WWE match so far was opposite Drew Gulak, but I think Kendrick makes for an even better opponent. Kendrick brings so much interesting detail to this, doing things that are completely absent from other Scott matches. 

Scott targets Kendrick's left arm a couple times early (including hopping through the ropes to tangle him up in an armbar), and Kendrick is great at calling attention to his weakened arm without making it into a hammy school play performance. His arm keeps him from doing a couple things, affects his timing by making him hesitant on certain offense, and the ways he acknowledges it are interesting without needing any bad wrestler acting. I like the way he shakes it out, and the best instance of that is when Scott hits his top rope uppercut to a seated Kendrick, and Kendrick's immediate focus is not on the uppercut to the back but the shockwaves it sends down his arm. Donovan Morgan once told me about how his arms went briefly numb after getting kicked in the back by Takayama, and Kendrick's selling reflects actual real body damage in an impressive way. Kendrick evades Scott in interesting ways, always managing to slip in yakuza kicks right under the chin, locking in engaging headscissors, and blocking Scott's offense in cool ways. I loved how Kendrick handled that rolling armbar attempt, as he immediately clasped his hands together and not just maneuvering his body to a rope break, but thinking beyond that and getting his body to the floor, then yanking Scott violently out of the ring. The storm cradle driver finish worked really well, as Kendrick made it look like he was actually trying to reverse Scott into a victory roll type pin, before Scott just dropped down on it to finish him. Kendrick has been putting in excellent work since returning, and that statement applies to his 2020 return and his return to WWE in general. 

PAS: I agree that this really minimized the more irritating parts of Scott's game. I loved the yanking of Scott to the floor, just another example of how Kendrick is viewing the entire chess board. I enjoyed all of the early mat attacks by Scott, he had a very Minoru Tanaka vibe to him, and while I don't like Minoru Tanaka against other Minoru Tanakaish dudes, Kendrick is as close to we get in US wrestling to Fujiwara or Ishikawa. I loved how Scott went for the hammerlock bodyslam but didn't fully grasp the arm. Most wrestlers would keep the arm there even if it wasn't cleanly hooked, but Kendrick rips it out, still takes the bodyslam and sells the impact of the bodyslam jamming his bad arm, so smart and so rare.

Brian Kendrick vs. Mansoor WWE 205 Live 10/23

ER: Since returning in August, Brian Kendrick has been on this great streak working as a self-imposed gatekeeper of 205 Live. He had a fun three match series with Ashante Adonis that had a great finale, then had Isaiah Scott's arguable best match of his WWE run, and now gives us this gem as a scumbag playing heel off a modern Ricky Morton. Mansoor has existed at the fringes of WWE for the past few years, putting in a genuinely memorable performance against Cesaro at Crown Jewel, then kinda kicking around NXT and 205 Live until the next Saudi show rolls around. This was probably the most standout performance of his since that Crown Jewel match. Kendrick is such a timeless bumping and relentless heel, so good that he really elevates anyone across from him. I'm not saying Mansoor hasn't had good showings before, but I don't think I've ever seen him in such a strong babyface role, and it felt like Kendrick was constantly putting him in position to succeed. 

All of the early headlock control was cool, and Mansoor had some neat armdrags around that, and Mansoor working what honestly came off like modernized Ricky Morton got me really into this. Prime Morton vs. 2020 Kendrick would be an awesome match, and Mansoor's armdrags, dropkicks, big floatover suplex, all of it felt like Ricky offense sometimes spun with a modern twist (like rolling through a couple verticals and then powering up into a falcon arrow in an awesome spot). Kendrick is so cool in this role because - while he doesn't win often - he comes off like someone not committed to finishing any one specific way. He's not a heel only trying to win with his finisher, he's someone always switching up his strategy as if he's trying more to keep opponents thinking in the ring, keep them on their toes. Brian Kendrick: Intentionally Sacrificial Gatekeeper. He's not out here looking only for Sliced Bread, he's someone who will take you down and work an arm while tying up your legs, or hitting a big butterfly suplex, or diving in with a Captains Hook choke attempt. They worked struggle into the match in cool ways, so that it never came off like a series of juniors nearfalls. Mansoor really fighting to lift Kendrick into a falcon arrow, or really fighting to block his rana into a sitout powerbomb, things like that make the moves mean something and makes them look like they aren't just part of a sequence. Kendrick is unstoppable right now, essentially filling the same role that Kassius Ohno was filling, in his own trusted way. 

PAS: I liked this a bit less then Eric did. Kendrick is unassailable at this point, he is lost in the woods a bit, but he is putting on bangers weekly on a WWE show while getting much less acclaim than say Cabana Man Dan. He found a bunch of interesting ways to work around Mansoor, who is clearly pretty green, I am not sure those cool armdrags weren't Kendrick armdragging himself.  I also loved his counters, slipping the knee in to catch Mansoor coming, slipping quickly into the Captain's Hook. Still I thought Mansoor worked this a bit too much like a guy with all the answers, cutting off Kendrick at every turn. If he tried for something he would get countered into some almost Nova like chained offense. In some ways this felt like a money mark bringing in a veteran hand to put himself over. Kendrick is a hell of veteran hand to put in that role, but I am not coming out of this wanting to buy a Mansoor 8x10.

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Oney Lorcan is Still Here

Oney Lorcan vs. Santos Escobar 205 Live 7/2 (Aired 7/10/20)

ER: I had skimmed through Night 2 of NXT's Great American Bash before watching this, and was able to briskly get through the show because all of the big matches (Cole/Lee, Gargano/Scott) were just the worst kind of 50/50 move trading and anticipated missed offense so I didn't have to actually spend time watching them. It was brutal and I'm happy I decided not to gut it out. And right HERE is a cool match outside of the now cookie cutter brand match structure, happening the same week as that show, where Escobar takes a huge portion of the match without Lorcan looking down and out defeated. Lorcan had his arm wrapped because of his match with Thatcher, which Escobar goes right after, and even though Lorcan is still able to pepper in hard strikes he is clearly hesitant to throw those strikes due to his bad arm. It's an easy story and one they both work effectively. Lorcan tries to end things quick out of desperation but it quickly put on the defense because of his arm. The match benefits huge from not just dancing from spot to spot, but with both guys fighting back in between spots. The first half of this especially has hard little shots thrown in as spots are about to happen, making the whole match feel more like a fight. Escobar worked some mean stuff on Lorcan's arm, including a snap suplex trapping his arm, and a crossface sub while working a cravat. He runs Lorcan's arm into the ring post and hits a cruel splash on Oney's arm on the apron. Lorcan realizes he's going down so he might as well do his best to fight out of it, so goes for broke with big chops and a heavy uppercut and a nice whipping blockbuster. It ain't enough, and I like how Escobar caught him with a cool armbreaker when Lorcan was slowed due to using his arm, and loved how Lorcan died on that sword.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Mansoor vs. Chase Parker/Matt Martel/Tehuti Miles 205 Live 7/21 (Aired 7/24/20)

ER: This is the kind of quick paced 8 minute trios match they should have on TV every week, the kind of match where all six guys are given something cool to do. Ever-Rise have become favorites of mine, a total WCW Worldwide C team getting regular WWE TV time, but they're really smart about being in the right place, cheering each other loudly from the apron, getting shown up on armdrags, and stooging for babyface comebacks. They have a couple nice double teams, like Chase Parker's elbow after a Matt Martel drop toehold, or their Samoan drop/neckbreaker combo they do to Burch before Lorcan flattens them both with a dual blockbuster. This is the kind of team that never would have made a WWE roster even 10 years ago, and I'm really happy there's a place for them now. Tehuti is a great heel foil for all of the babyfaces, and I'm always a sucker for heels who don't really have offense. He knows right where to be to violently take Mansoor's slingshot DDT, has a perfect catch on Mansoor's excellent tornillo, gets folded over by a Burch German suplex, and then takes over with learned behavior after holding the ropes on a second Mansoor slingshot attempt. I love a heel who takes over a match by letting a babyface crash and burn on something that he scouted, then tries to win with a backslide. Lorcan's energy is always going to be something that stands out in an energetic match like this, and his double blockbuster came at the perfect moment. But this was a six person performance in the most fun way.


Oney Lorcan vs. Ridge Holland vs. Damian Priest NXT 7/29 (Aired 8/5/20)

ER: This is a weird match for Lorcan to be in, arguably the weirdest on paper match in his entire WWE run. Lorcan used to be used (and was great) in matches as the underdog against a larger bully. It was a good formula for him, but he hasn't been in that formula for a couple years now, instead being paired with workers more his size. He also feels out of place in the match from a storyline standpoint. He is a guy who loses singles matches to anyone larger than him. He wins tag matches half the time, and loses singles matches to larger opponents all of the time. It is established that he is never an easy win, so perhaps that is enough to justify having him in this match - I like seeing him as much as I can, so I don't totally care - and that feels like they're continuing to slowly work him up the card. If you view his WWE career as a whole it does look like a nice slow burn.

And the match is as cool and fun as those Lorcan/monster matches, although it would have played better as a Holland/Lorcan singles match. The weak parts of the match were all because of Priest. He is 2020 Edge. Edge mainlined late 90s flowery indy offense, and Priest wrestles like Edge reappropriating UWFI striking into a stupider overacting Edge style of UWFI. It's shitty as hell when he gets too into that mode, but it's undeniable that he is goofy strike combo terrible in-ring acting Edge. Luckily, that only affected the weak parts of the match, and most of the match was very strong. Three ways have been passé for far more years than they were relevant and novel, but there is still potential for excitement in layout, big cutoffs, and close nearfall saves. Lorcan is the one that gets disposed of, but he gets as many licks as anyone here. He crashes into both with a great tope con hilo, times he blockbuster excellently, throws hard uppercuts, builds to throwing some of his all time best flying uppercuts. He was sending his whole body crashing into Holland, and Holland was a really great brick wall to crash into. His strikes and shoulderblocks looked good, he had no problem leaning into things, and he annihilates Lorcan on a clothesline to kill a Lorcan run. Priest also has a mix of Edge offense in addition to his "If Edge Had Seen a Takada Comp Tape in 1997" strikes, but he actually does a lot of that better than Edge did his offense. I really liked his big sitout chokeslam here. If your offense has to be a dumb twist of an established move, at least actually looking like you can lift someone impressively helps things immensely. He does that. And even with Priest's chest punch kick combos awkwardly shoehorned in, this match smoked.

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Matches from WWE Crown Jewel 10/31/19

What an uncomfortable Halloween treat we were gifted by WWE! I'm going to go through and try to cherry pick a few matches before Monday's inevitable RAW Tribute to Mohammad bin Salman episode, featuring between match pre-tapes of guys like AJ Styles saying "You can tell how much the people over there really love him, and respect how much he does for them."

Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez

ER: This was like 2 minutes of a great Bloodsport match when it should have pretty easily been at least 8 minutes of a great Bloodsport match. There was a lot of crowd anticipation during all of the early grappling, Brock backing Cain into the corner and Cain trying to sneak in shots, people excited for the first blow that would actually cause one of them to pause. And when Cain landed a hard knee to the body and followed up with a perfect head kick, Brock sold it perfectly (as Brock almost always does, even in his frustrating matches) and the fans sounded like they were about to see Brock lose in a punishing upset. But, a quick kimura happens and that's that. Obviously this was a disappointment, as this was a singles I was excited for the moment it was announced, and I'm not sure what it would have taken for me to be satisfied with a 2 minute match. Is this it for Cain in WWE?

Cesaro vs. Mansoor

ER: This was my first time seeing Mansoor. He was a Bay Area indy guy who worked mostly for a fed that I don't attend, but I am a total sucker for a big regional babyface. This is WWE forcing a connection the same way they've always done, except the fans in Saudi Arabia are not as jaded towards pro wrestling and they respond to the whole thing as if Mansoor really is the superhero representing them all. Mansoor was the local being propped up for cheap pops, again, but the fans treated him like the Riyadh God and it ruled. Cesaro threw and bashed Mansoor in pretty spectacular fashion, and Mansoor takes some pretty gross bumps. This match might have the best possible version of someone getting their dive interrupted with a strike, as Cesaro completely shifts Mansoor's momentum with an uppercut during his tope, but Mansoor legit just toped into Cesaro's uppercut and dropped, looked insane. Later Cesaro swept Mansoor's legs while Mansoor was up top, and he took a tough back bump on the buckle before whipping face first down to the mat. It looked fantastic. Cesaro got to show off a bit, basing for Mansoor's headscissors and tornado DDTs, but best of all was him hopping to the middle buckle and deadlifting Mansoor from the apron, launching him with a tremendous Karelin throw. And it lead to a huge moment at the finish where Cesaro went to do a similar throw and Mansoor reversed it to an impactful sunset flip bomb. This whole thing was really good anyway, two complementary dance partners - Cesaro is clearly the perfect type of opponent for a wrestler like Mansoor - but seeing all of the kids in the building absolutely living and dying with Mansoor put this way over the top for me.

Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury

ER: So let me say that before he got brought in to feud with Braun, I had no idea who Tyson Fury was. I still don't. I don't follow boxing, I'm unsure what his significance is to Saudi Arabia (wouldn't it have made more sense to use him on a big UK show?), BUT - and this is a big but - I LOVE when non-wrestlers do wrestling. It's always interesting to me seeing their athletic skills kick in within a pro wrestling structure, and I think it provides a helpful barometer on the actual wrestler doing the heavy lifting. I think it's cool when wrestlers get to show what they can do opposite a limited opponent, see how good they are at highlighting any ability. But Tyson Fury did not do a whole lot for me. He seemed scared to bump, and scared to get backed too hard into anything. Braun seems to work a little more snug in the opening parts of this, and by the end he was backing way off shoulderblocks, so we would up with light shoulderblocks followed by Fury bumps that looked like me getting on the floor to do sit ups. Crowd was into Fury, and Braun did a nice job running around and making his offense look like more of a spectacle, building to a big moment where he ran all the way around the ring into a Fury drive-by kick (and Braun threw a great worked punch on the floor that Fury sold like he had an itchy beard), but Fury projected as very uninteresting for a larger guy. I would take any guy with the last name McCully over Fury.

Lacey Evans vs. Natalya

ER: This is pretty exciting, more so than other "first ever" occurrences, although Natalya's overdone "this is a big moment and I'm almost overwhelmed by it" facials almost ruined it. They're wearing full body suits, yoga pants, boots, and big baggy t-shirts, essentially dressed as "girl looking through Trader Joe's tea selection". The crowd responds well throughout, even though this ended up being pretty easily the weakest of their several match series. It didn't have the snap or violence that their best matches have had, the matwork didn't have the same uncooperative feel, but it did have a couple nice moments. Lacey had a nice slingshot dropkick that look like it took Natalya's head off, but there may have been some nerves at play from both, which is understandable. Things felt kind of trepidatious, different tone than their other matches.

Chad Gable/Ali/Roman Reigns/Rusev/Ricochet vs. Baron Corbin/Drew McIntyre/Randy Orton/Bobby Lashley/Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: This wasn't much by WWE multi man match standards, though it played well as a big house show main event. I think this could have been special but they played it too down the middle: Not letting it unspool as a big chained spotfest until the end, but also not really isolating anyone to build to anything big. It just kind of kept churning until it stopped, though we got some pretty nice build toward the finish itself. The presence of Hogan and Flair was awkward and pointless. Hogan looked like he could barely walk as he shuffled to the ring, and the two of them just stood around at ringside barely even showing emotion. I also have zero clue what the Saudi Arabia fans think of the Rusev/Lashley angle, but the moments where Rusev was going after Lashley at least felt big, felt like a babyface really gunning for a heel (even though his big moment was basically interrupted by a Reigns superman punch). Fans were way into Reigns, and his big dive onto everyone was cool. I can't decide if I like or dislike Ali's RKO "block", because he blocks the move exactly like he takes the move. Yes, I saw that his head missed the mat and so I saw that it didn't connect, but his head never connects with the mat even when it lands. So visually it came off like him eating the RKO and then springing back to his feet. The "everybody chains together finishers" part of the match felt too rushed and came kind of suddenly, the layout on all WWE multi mans used to be much better and more satisfying. Also, and this is VERY important, Hogan looked like he was wearing his sunglasses as if he didn't have ears; his bandana appeared to be holding his sunglasses in place. And it annoyed me.

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