AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/29 - 7/5

AEW Dynamite 7/1/26

MJF vs Mark Briscoe

MD: This, much like MJF's 2026 overall, is a story about vulnerability and about strength. If I've learned anything about pro wrestling over the last twenty years, it's that the greatest tool that a pro wrestler has is vulnerability. It's counter-intuitive maybe, and dozens upon dozens of wrestlers over the years have certainly felt that way, almost entirely to their own detriment, but it's the skeleton key. Pro wrestling isn't math. Sometimes it's magic. But if there's one lever that can lift up the world, it's vulnerability.

You know some of the great examples. You have Honky Tonk Man, who let himself look the coward and fool and was set up to lose each and every night only to somehow escape with the belt. It's more than just him though. It's almost every great heel champion during the territory era. They were primed for failure (and thus success; weakness and thus strength) through non-title matches, through angles, through time limit draws, to give hope to crowds, to build up expectations, to get people into the building. They'd win with a banana peel finish, with the feet on the ropes, due to interference, and thus the babyface came out stronger even in defeat. 

There's Terry Funk in Japan. Why did Terry get over unlike almost any other foreigner? It's because he let himself get beat down like no one else around him. And then, of course, once he got beat down, he never quit, he always kept fighting. There's Stan Hansen, who was a force of nature, an absolute beast, but if he smashed his arm into the corner post, if he had someone who could work him over in just the right way, it'd be a wedge that would shatter even steel. 

The wrestler that feels like he can't show ass, the heel that can't or won't stooge, the babyface that has to look overly tough, all of the wrestlers that have to get all of their stuff in, those are the wrestlers who'll always be a step behind in the end, whose matches won't hold up in the grand scheme of things. 

Vulnerability moves hearts and minds even today. It creates dissonance. People know that MJF can do so many things, yet he still goes for shortcuts, still begs off. The match started and the crowd chanted almost equally for MJF and Briscoe. So what did they do? 

MJF started with a cheapshot kick to the gut. He put on a headlock, got tossed right off, and then hefted up into a sidewalk slam. He scooted back to the corner and tried to beg off, tried to call time out just seconds into the match, and Briscoe stomped him. He tossed Max into the corner but Max lifted up and over, sold his bum leg like it was really hurt, but it was all a feint so he could step over and hit the pile driver. 

In the span of a minute or two, he showed that he was willing to start the match ignobly, to run away and beg off when things didn't go his way, to fake an injury to get an advantage. And guess what? The fans weren't chanting for him anymore. He had the advantage. He had clearly shown that he was capable and dangerous, had survived a big early move by Briscoe. Yet, he had done it in the least admirable way possible. Strength in vulnerability. Vulnerability in strength. Your lead heel. Feel free to boo him.

And of course, once he got under the crowd's skin, he doubled down, pulling Briscoe's bandage off, taking a bite of the wound, then mocking the crowd for buying into his hurt leg with a smirk on his face. He worked the wound. He hit a back body drop. He posed and preened. He worked the wound. He hit a back body drop. He posed and preened. He worked the wound. He hit a back body drop. He posed and preened. Of course, because pro wrestling is better than real life, on the third back body drop, Briscoe landed on his feet and Max turned around, frozen like a punching bag, unafraid to be vulnerable, unafraid to stooge, as he stumbled right into some redneck kung fu.

Briscoe would beat on Max for a bit, would go for the Froggy Bow. Max would fall onto the rope, crotching him. Strength of action, vulnerability of character. He'd point to his head, let it sink in, and then get knocked off the turnbuckles when he tried to follow up, eating said Froggy Bow. Vulnerability of action to go with his vulnerability of character. It's a morality play, one that feels so incredibly refreshing against the backdrop of a real world where the bad guys seem to get away with just about everything.

The match would continue along these lines. MJF would go out of his way to give the fans nothing to admire. When Briscoe tried to use a table, Max reversed things and tossed him onto the apron instead. Then he carefully put the table away and subsequently played to the crowd as if he was going to get another table before flicking them off. The table might have given him an advantage, but here his vulnerability was his hatred of them, his ego. That's the thing about Max at his best, he sets himself up to lose either way, and in doing that he wins at being a heel, especially when he still somehow gets away with it. 

And get away with it he would. This time around, the match ended with MJF surviving the Jay Driller, no foot on the ropes, no rolling out of the ring. He kicked out. Undeniable strength in the face of all that vulnerability. It's a difficult balance, strength and vulnerability. You need that title to stand for something. You need his ultimate comeuppance to matter. Honky Tonk Man was pretty vicious when he had his opportunities, but that was also a secondary belt. This is the world title. 

Briscoe is a folk hero, bulletproof to a degree (him winning the TNT title last year was very important just to keep the faith), and Max had so much vulnerability to cash in on, both in this match and in general. He had lost to Darby in a similar circumstance right after a PPV. He had never kicked out of the Jay Driller before. The way things have gone this year, people are well and truly left guessing. There's something to that if you want to draw a weekly TV rating. All of this made the stip next week where Omega (like Hangman before him) won't be able to challenge again if he loses all the more poignant, and MJF kicking out of the Jay Driller will give them some capital to cash in if Omega gets to hit the One Winged Angel. All of this matters. All too often, pro wrestling spends and spends and spends. Max has been investing well this year, and my gut says there are plenty of payoffs left to come. 

And yet none of this would be possible if he didn't have the bravery to be the most vulnerable guy going, even as yes, he hangs on to that belt for yet another week after finishing as strong as ever. That's pro wrestling for you.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 1/5 - 1/11/26 (Part 2)

AEW Collision 1/10/26

Mark Briscoe vs Hechicero

There's nothing quite like pro wrestling.

Look at what we have here, two of the greatest, most stylized and over the top characters you'll find in any medium in 2026. 

There's Mark Briscoe, bearded, teeth missing, zany practitioner of redneck kung fu who likes to dive off of chairs and thirsts for violence, a wildman chicken farmer with a bombastic vocabulary and a canny glint in his eyes that you'd find in any folk hero out of the Americana canon. But he also carries with him the weight of fatherhood, the weight of carrying his late brother's legacy, of being a staunch and loyal friend, of never giving up even in the face of injustice and hardship, and he carries it all with a sort of humble, accepting spiritual grace that, in turn, humbles us all.

And then there's Hechicero, the alchemist of the ring, a fire-bending, dynamic, larger than life luchador, looking like something out of a medieval horrorshow, a mask over his face, a hood over his mask, and contacts over his eyes so as to be unknowable, yet so capable of making his reactions known to the world as he reaches out and grasps the attention of the very last row. He's possibly the most creative wrestler of his generation, able to add twists and contortions to every hold and construct elaborate technique-driven entry points for every move, the ultimate middle ground between style and substance, and isn't that the true ideal for what pro wrestling can and should be? 

Here they are then, on a random Saturday in a Texas residency, anchoring the changeover from 8 pm to 9 pm EST on TNT, fighting over Briscoe's TNT title. 

So it is that styles make fights, and contrast makes the world go round, and characters draw the eye, pulling us away from our phones, from social media, from the responsibilities of the day. With these two, with the styles they bring to the table and the contrast between them, how could anyone possibly look away?

To begin, Hechicero, well versed in the most arcane arts of llave and lucha, raised every possible question for Briscoe, locking in holds, putting painful torque on limbs, invoking the Conjuro backbreaker. But Briscoe's wisdom is the sort that you wouldn't find in dusty old spellbooks but by living life, and he had answers, landing on his feet on a mare, on a back body drop, putting his hands up in exultation even as Hechicero recoiled in surprise and disdain. This was the wizard's world but Briscoe could walk through it, head high.

He walked all the way into a world of his own, maneuvering Hechicero out between the ropes deftly and laying in the redneck kung-fu, ridiculous but effective karate chops, on the floor. He set up the chair to leap, but Hechicero disrupted it, making sure to punctuate his clever act to the crowd (as he punctuates all things, a living, breathing exclamation point), only to turn around and eat Briscoe's flying feet.

But just as Briscoe could walk through Hechicero's world, Hechicero could slink about in Briscoe's. As Mark went for the Cactus Elbow (his punctuation an opening parenthesis of "bang, bang"), Hechicero laid in wait on the floor, capturing him in an unlikely and impressive cross armbreaker on the floor. He followed it up by grapevining the arms and charging Briscoe into the post, and the blink of an eye, the alchemist had turned led to gold once more.

Over the next many minutes, Hechicero plied his trade, locking in all manner of unique submission. Briscoe made it to the ropes, surviving again and again as the wizard seethed and scowled (with his head, his arms, his torso, using his whole body to emote and accentuate the mask). The fans, perhaps given the locale, perhaps given that Don Callis was conveniently abroad, remained split, unable to deny the skill and flair they were witnessing but never about to abandon Briscoe and his struggle.

When Briscoe did start to fight back it was with one arm (and his whole body, and especially, at a key moment, his teeth). Hechicero invited punches but made sure to turn his body so Briscoe would fire off with the bad arm. He liked to play with his food. Briscoe was able to get the better of him and get him back to the floor and this time, he did leap off the chair, even if it was an awkward, desperate leap, even if the simple act of opening the chair was a pained labor given his arm.

Perhaps Hechicero was too eager to play with his food, too confident. After Briscoe couldn't lock in the Jay Driller, as that relies on a butterflying double underhook and both arms, Hechicero lifted him into the position himself. Instead of dropping him straight onto his head, he dropped him to the side as well so as to lock in one more submission.

When that failed, he showed his frustration again and charged in wildly. Briscoe, just like brer rabbit before him, moved off to the side and dodged, causing Hechicero to crash into the ropes. That was all the opening Mark needed for a second attempt at the Jay Driller. This time, with fate and momentum on his side, he found the strength and the grit to heft Hechicero up and drop him down. 

He very much stole out this win. If Hechicero had went for the Jay Driller instead, this might have been different. If Callis had there, maybe this would have been different. If he'd locked in even one more submission, maybe even Mark Briscoe would have had to quit. 

But he didn't, and he wasn't, and he hadn't. Maybe next time he would. Pro wrestling is a never ending story, and next week might be different. For now though, Mark Briscoe survived to defend his title another day. And we were left watching two styles that did make a fight, and two characters that made the fight into a folk tale for modern times, one full of skill and spirit and sensation, one that we were fortunate to get to bear witness to on one random Saturday in Texas. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/10 - 11/16 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 11/12/25

Death Riders (Wheeler Yuta/Daniel Garcia/Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley/PAC) vs Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy/Kyle O'Reilly/Roderick Strong/Mark Briscoe [Blood & Guts] 

MD: Everything was going Jon Moxley's way. 

It was a long road, but this was where it always had to be headed. Blood and Guts. 

Yes, October and November hadn't gone to plan. He'd quit against Darby Allin at WrestleDream. He'd been on his back foot, barely surviving without quitting (twice) against Kyle O'Reilly. Roderick Strong defeated him by countout to decide the advantage.

But it didn't matter. None of it mattered.

They were in the cage and everything was going his way. 

He'd turned on his partner, his brother-in-arms, had started a reign of terror, been champion and locked away the belt. Even though he lost the belt, it could all still be worth it. He was a mad king, an emperor that had been deposed, but he could get all of it back, and even more than that, he could rain vengeance down on all of his enemies. 

Hangman wasn't there, but the rest of them? Front and center. 

And they were bleeding out. 

The advantage might have been an issue. Yuta had been sent out first, the sacrificial workhorse. He'd stalled and drawn Darby out after him, had been tossed into the cage and used it as a weapon himself. He'd been opened up by Darby's modified skateboard (after going for it himself), had been thrashed further by Darby and Cassidy when it became two-on-one. But he just had to hold out long enough for reinforcements, and he did. Garcia came out to even the odds and two-on-two with one man just a little fresher, they fought even. Until they didn't. 

When Mark Briscoe's music hit, they were wrapped around in a chain, beaten and battered. But that's when everything turned. 

Briscoe had been left laying in the back. Maybe it was the Don Callis family, maybe it wasn't. It didn't matter. Moxley didn't care. He'd take opportunity where he found it. 

Roderick Strong came out to make it 3-on-2, but the advantage time had been cut into severely. He hit a few moves but that was all he could do before Claudio's music hit back.

The plan was always Claudio, infinitely strong, infinitely reliable, always a step behind. He tossed Strong into a chair and then swung both Darby and Cassidy at once. O'Reilly came out next, but by then it was too late. Even with a 4-on-3 advantage on paper, the damage was done. This wasn't the happy-go-lucky world of the Conglomeration. It wasn't even Darby's world, one with open skies to leap and dive and crash. It was the post-apocalyptic world of the Death Riders, and they made use of every weapon, every opportunity. Here, no matter what the numerical advantage might say, the odds were always in their favor.

So instead of sending PAC out next, Moxley himself came to survey his gloriously ruined kingdom, to inflict violence and vengeance. He came in with a fork and immediately opened up O'Reilly more (for his transgressions were the worst of them all). He jabbed it into Darby's back, scraped it up and down, offered it to his newest disciple Garcia in a morbid ritual that let him join in. The women had set the stage for this earlier in their own Blood & Guts match and Moxley casually walked behind the timekeeper desk to seize all of the weapons they had left for him. He dropped broken glass in the ring and scraped a shattered mirror across O'Reilly's bloody skull opening him up more. They dropped Darby on his skull and dragged him across the glass for good measure. 

Life was good. All that he had lost? None of it mattered because he'd craft a new gospel in blood and viscera. He'd show the world that everything he'd always said was true. He would be vindicated and validated. 

And when Darby climbed to the top of the inside of the cage and dropped down upon all of them, even that didn't matter. Because that was just one last gasp of futile hope from a man not meant to climb mountains but to fall off of them and PAC was the last man in. Chaotic order was restored. The door was locked. The key was stolen. The Death Riders had a 5-on-4 advantage and could now punish their enemies to their hearts' content.

Everything was going Jon Moxley's way. 

But fate had a way of turning, bolstered by hearts that simply wouldn't quit, hearts very different than the beleaguered, hypocritical organ beating all too quickly in Jon’s own chest.

Despite being ambushed and assaulted and left for dead, Mark Briscoe arrived, wild look in his eyes and bolt cutters in hand. 

-----

Let's stop there. You know how the story ended. Briscoe turned the tide. Yuta faced him on the top of the cage and despite multiple cheapshots ended up eating a Jay Driller onto the steel. Kidd interfered and they put Darby through a flaming table. The Death Riders were ready (with a stapler of all things) for Cassidy to put his hands in his pockets only for Orange to care more than he'd ever cared before as he ripped the staples out of his own flesh. That let him save a defiant Kyle O'Reilly who was being choked out. Kyle refused to quit and in due course, with a few more twists and turns, he made Moxley tap out once more. A poetic ending to the last month and maybe, in some ways, to the last year. Questions remain: Who attacked Briscoe (the Callis family denied it)? Will this elevate Kyle to the next level? What does this mean for an increasingly out of touch Moxley and his leadership of the Death Riders?

As War Games go, modern ones always lean more towards CZW than JCP, more weapons and theatrics than wrestlers just beating the piss out of each other to solve their issues. In some ways, I thought this was a better mix than usual though of course Mox is a Cage of Death guy, so you knew what was going to happen when he got in there. I'd like to see them try the other way just once though. There are enough opportunities especially now that they're doing two of these on one show. 

That led to its own issues too, where they had to switch things up and play around with the advantage. Between Briscoe being taken out, Strong having less time to press the advantage as a substitute, and the sheer force that is Claudio, I thought they handled it remarkably well. Before and after, the characters drove things in interesting ways. One quick example. Right before Briscoe's music hit, when it was two-on-two, Garcia and Yuta had Cassidy down and were kicking him. Garcia, full of bluster and attitude, did the mocking Cassidy kicks and threw it over to Yuta but Yuta, like an animal that had been kicked too many times itself, couldn't help but kick him full-on. The match was full of little interesting character bits like that while maintaining the overarching story. 

-----

Feedback I've gotten lately is that people really like the dramatization approach to reviewing these matches, where I dig deep into the characters and emotions at play and recount the narrative as presented on screen. It feels almost like 80s PWI or something to me and I don't want to lean too hard into it all the time as opposed to a more analytical approach. 

But here's the point: I can only do it at all because the coherency, consistency, and commitment in what's being presented. If wrestlers are just doing a bunch of stuff, even if the stuff is clever or full of workrate or stiff or whatever else, you can't necessarily draw those throughlines. It's the selling, especially the emotional selling, like what Jon Moxley has been doing as of late, which lets me even find the dots to connect. 

Not every match has this. Not every conventional five star match has this. A lot of times, maybe there's some lip service towards it but it doesn't hold up under scrutiny no matter how exciting and action-packed the match might seem in the moment. You don't have to sacrifice it for "Greatness," because if done with care, it enhances it in every way. It just takes more effort and care.

Maybe that's self-evident, but I honestly don't think you can as easily do what I did up above for the Forbidden Door 2025 cage match main event in the same way. There were too many goofy tonal shifts and funny spots that were done just to pop the wrestlers involved. Specific moments stood out and popped and were impressive but it didn't come together as a narrative in the same way. 

Pro wrestling is an amazing narrative artform that can tell amazing stories almost entirely in ring, through the work alone. This Blood and Guts was built from the Foundation of the I Quit match with Darby and then the subsequent O'Reilly/Strong vs Moxley matches. It was built upon pro wrestling matches that were full of emotion and character development and great emotive performances. That's what made all of the excess here resonate and matter. 

There's a lot to be learned from all of this and I hope the people who make decisions and the wrestlers of both today and tomorrow take the right lessons and not the wrong ones.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 9/15 - 9/21 Part 2

CMLL Aniversario 9/19/25

MJF vs Mistico [Mask vs Belt]

MD: All great apuestas matches come down to the balance between faith and doubt.

Let's start with doubt. The point of comparison to 2025 Mistico is the greatest masked wrestler of our lifetimes, El Hijo del Santo. Santito fought in countless apuestas matches and more often than not, the odds were in his favor on paper. I can't imagine people actually expected him to lose his mask against Gacela del Ring or Guerrero del Futuro, and even less so when it was Nicho or Scorpio Jr's hair on the line and not another mask. But lightning strikes, miracles happen, and anything is possible in pro wrestling. That sheer glimmer of possibility opened the doors for drama beyond belief. So much of that was due to Santito's selling (and to his fiery comebacks). But what truly drove it was possibility, plausibility, an open door to a bleak reality, something that tugged on the minds of the faithful, a feeling at the very bottom of their stomachs.

And that existed for this match. Yes, MJF's title was on the line as opposed to even his hair, let alone a mask, but it was also his pride, his status. He's a star and is treated as such. Titles are his past and his present. Movies are ahead of him. He had defeated everyone they threw at him in the lead up to this and ambushed Mistico time and again. He had the size advantage, the youth advantage. He had a loyal minion in his corner in the form of Honest Jon Cruz.

Maybe that wouldn't have been enough in and of itself. But the match took care of it and covered the distance. Mask vs Title matches are rare and MJF tossed the usual pageantry prelude to title matches out the window with an immediate ambush. He threw Mistico to the floor, slammed his skull into the post, and the blood started to flow. Perhaps not a big deal in the grand scheme of wrestling and even the grand scheme of apuestas matches over the decades, but in Arena Mexico it was as big a deal as one can imagine.

Blood has simply not been allowed to flow there. Wrestling itself had been cauterized in the last decades, a key, primal ingredient to drama cast aside for the sake of sanitized casual tourist fare. Like Hijo del Santo before him, Mistico is perfect for blood. There's no image in wrestling more powerful than a ripped white mask covered in it. As it started to flow, doubt came along with it.

The match was structured simple, straightforward, smart. MJF leaned down upon Mistico. There were three hope spots over the first few minutes of the match and each was cut off definitively by MJF. Max flaunted his skill, hitting a dive (but then not sticking the landing, because it's important to show that while he's talented and dangerous, he is an outsider; one must always see the cracks). He distracted the ref so that Cruz could get in a cheapshot to a chorus of huge boos. 

Then, after the third cutoff, after Max stretched his arrogance just a little too far, Mistico began to fire back, and they crashed into one another with clotheslines, shifting the trajectory of the match. Mistico was able to press an advantage, hitting one dive, then another. On the second, however, the cost was high. Cruz rolled MJF back into the ring. Mistico, however, leaned hard into the blood loss, into the damage already done, and even though he had been the aggressor, he stumbled not just once, but twice on his way back in. It was a distinct selling choice that you almost never see, one that might edge on the ridiculous were the setting not so sublime. In practice, it was some of the greatest selling I'd ever seen.

Recovered enough, Mistico made it back into the ring, had MJF in position for yet another dive, but Max went into his bag of tricks and used Cruz as a human shield. From that distraction stemmed an eyepoke, and a cradle pile driver on the apron, and an even more dramatic last second rush back into the ring by Mistico.

They had reached the bottom, the very height of doubt. The ring was covered in Mistico's blood. Max had stolen the advantage through underhanded chicanery and a forbidden move. He pressed even further with another. Piledriver variations have been allowed for over ten years, be it cradle, double underhook, or destroyer. But a straight up tombstone, a martinete? Those are still exceptionally rare. And MJF hit one right in the middle of the ring. If anything could signify all being lost, it would be that.

Which brings us to faith. Mistico too is an absolute star. He carries himself in the ring as well as any of the great babyfaces who "get it" that I've ever seen, be it Dusty Rhodes of Edouard Carpentier. The sheer level of self-confidence he projects to the back row moves hearts and minds like almost nothing else in pro wrestling. Even when things seemed bleakest, he had the fans because he never stopped fighting, never stopped crawling, never stopped striving. 

And after that martinete failed to put him away, something shifted in the air. It happens in most matches that take place in CMLL, and is essential in understanding the ebbs and flows. At some point in most matches, fate takes a turn. The rudo beatdown fizzles, the tecnico comeback begins. Sometimes it's based on arrogance, a clear mistake. All too often, it's something more heavenly, something more divine, something driven by fate as much as hubris.

To some degree, Mistico made his own fate by not giving up, by refusing to stay down. But in doing so, he inspired the faithful, and they turned that inspiration into belief, and that belief into cheers. Those cheers empowered Mistico and shook MJF. Max went for his ring-loaded punch, but was caught and rolled up for a near fall. He jammed La Mistica and caught Mistico, putting it all on the line with an even more profane attempt at a martinete from the top. 

But he was no longer facing one man. He was facing a hero, a legend. He was facing an army of the faithful. He was facing god and fate itself. 

And despite all of his pride and strength, his youthful skill and his scheming resourcefulness, the weight of the world came down upon him, a twisting headscissor dervish leading to a perfectly cinched La Mistica. He squirmed and fought and rolled, but there was no escape, not from god and not from faith, not with the eyes of the faithful upon him. 

Yes, they had felt doubt, doubt driven by the existence of a true villain, doubt baptized in blood and violence. But that doubt just made them reach deeper into themselves, much as Mistico reached so deep within himself, to reinforce their faith and create a perfect circle that drove them all to the perfect manifestation of pro wrestling salvation. 

Only this. Only here. And despite all odds, even now. There's nothing in the world like it.

AEW All Out 9/20/25

MD: And less than 24 hours later, MJF would have to do it all over again.

This one's about anticipation and payoff.

You can do the most amazing, most spectacular, most brutal things but if you don't frame them correctly, it's all for nothing. The true art of pro wrestling is to create anticipation and then to pay it off. It's to create something that the audience something wants, to make them chase it and anticipate it, and then to give it to them in a way that makes it feel earned and worthwhile. It's taking them on a journey and while the destination is important, it's just part of the mission.

This was a match on a show where there was going to be excess. There was still a coffin match and a ladder match to come. It was no disqualification (allowing for low blows, sure) but the weapons at play were the focus: tables, tacks, and the buckets the tacks were in. Boundaries are often drivers for creativity. They provide form and shape and opportunity. 

Here, the opportunity was to set up and then to maximize key payoffs.

1. Max engaging in the first place. 

Yes, he'd been driven to this fight, but it wasn't one he had wanted a few months ago. Max wanted the title. The opportunity to get it was the Casino Gauntlet. He and Briscoe were the sure things, winning the #1 and #2 spots. The only thing he could count on was that he was going to start against Briscoe. Therefore, he had to get into his head. For Max, it was just business. Yes, he used personal tools, but he didn't really care. He cared about the title. He cared about Hangman (because the crowd forgave him when they never forgave Max), but he didn't care about Briscoe. In making it personal to undermine Mark, however, he created a monster he had to live with. Then once Briscoe intervened in his title match, it became personal for Max too and things escalated.

He bit off more than he could chew. He made the challenge and then couldn't get out of the match. The second Briscoe started pouring tacks in the ring, he turned tail and started to walk away. Briscoe ran out to catch him, got him up on the apron, and then, through attempting an early Jay Driller (intending to leap off the apron and through a table), drove Max to flee into the ring, signifying the real start of the match. Build. Payoff.  

2. The first usage of the tacks. 

The match was going to be over the top. By the end of it, tacks would be everywhere and blood would flow. Everyone knew that. But they didn't rush to it. They built and built and built the anticipation for it. This plays upon the same instinct in all of the best death matches, the very thing that Onita rose to success upon. Put over the gimmick. Show that the wrestlers care. Show that they're wary. Show that they want to avoid it at all cost. 

That's exactly what they did here, teetering after punches, trying and failing to slam one another, pushing each other's face closer and closer to the tacks. They could have just rushed to spots and dove in and started the carnage, but by delaying and deferring and doing everything they could to avoid the tacks, it made it seem all the more important in the eyes of the fans. If the wrestlers care, the fans will care. Then, of course, Max went dirty, using Bryce as a shield and getting in an eyepoke before finally posting up and letting Briscoe hang in the air before dropping him with a bodyslam. And the crowd went nuts for it. Build. Payoff.

3. Max going into the tacks.

This worked perfectly. MJF leaned hard on Briscoe after that slam, ripping off his shirt, using a waterwheel slam so as to put the back directly in them, bloodying his pants with his taunt, and then repeatedly hitting back body drops to maximize that visual impact of the back crashing down onto the tacks. He hit two back body drops and called for a third, setting the stage perfectly for Briscoe to land on his feet and plant Max directly onto the tacks, time freezing with the impact and the reaction. Build. Payoff.

4. The introduction of the tables.

Given the sheer amount of tables we've seen in our lives, one might think it's hard to make them matter in a match like this, especially with the more pointed narrative element of tacks, but they managed it. It came down to character motivations and reactions. Mark teased that Jay Driller from the start, and would spend much of the middle of the match wanting to hit a Froggy Bow through a table. MJF on the other had was intent on saving himself (and thus denying the fans) by actually breaking the tables down and putting them away. Ultimately, much like the start of the match, he retreated from the ring (and the tacks), only to find himself in front of a table, eating a chair-assisted dive from Briscoe. Mark would then follow up, finally hitting that Froggy Bow through the table. Build. Payoff.

5. The finish. 

It all came together for the finish. They had gone back and forth a bit with nearfalls, including Max hitting a tombstone onto the tacks, but now it was time to tie it all together and take it home. Max put more tacks on one last table in the ring. He did everything in his power to put Briscoe through it, but Mark was able to push him off the turnbuckles and hit one more Froggy Bow onto a standing MJF through that tack-laden table. From there it was one last satisfying Froggy Bow and finally, even more cathartically, the Jay Driller onto the tacks. Build. Payoff.

Instead of hitting every spot they could, instead of overwhelming the crowd with sensation, they kept a disciplined, focused approach. They did big things, huge things, undeniably real and excruciating things, full of biting, blood, and gore, but they built to each and every one of them and then ensured not only the biggest payoff, but the most meaningful consequence. In so many ways, it's the best of both words between the sort of dynamic and over the top action people expect from AEW and the character-driven storytelling that best highlights and frames all those things that makes pro wrestling so special. They made the fans want something badly, made them understand the stakes and the weight, and then paid it all off to huge effect. Build and payoff. They're beautiful things.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 5/19 - 5/25

AEW Double or Nothing 5/25/25

Ricochet vs Mark Briscoe (Stretcher Match)

MD: What a tricky line to walk. The first half of this was full of comedy, full of real shine. The back half was a bloody horrorshow. It was, from start to finish, a stretcher match, a grudge match. From the second Ricochet walked out in his cosplay robe, he had heat. From the moment Mark Briscoe walked down with his mohawk, he was lauded. There was a "This is Awesome" chant towards the end despite it all.

So many disparate things on paper. If you had read that paragraph to me a year ago, I would have told you that the match had to a discombobulated mess, something that refused to commit, that tried to be everything to everyone and ultimately was not enough of anything.

But that wasn't this match. Not at all. Everything in that first paragraph came together to form a singular vision. That actually doesn't do it justice. It gets it backwards. All of those things didn't come together to create a vision, they were created by the vision itself.

It all comes down to how thoroughly Ricochet commits as a performer. The nexus of the character is that he is so gotten to by the crowd, by his opponents, by his own place in the world, that everything becomes a slight and every slight becomes a drive towards lashing out, towards a level of violence that far exceeds the transgressions.

There's never a sense that he's in on the joke, never a sense that he's out there "entertaining" the crowd. It's always that they're getting under his skin, always that they're causing an affront, always that he wants to strike back at them and the babyfaces they love so much. He never looks down. When he's in charge, he's gloating and sticking it to him. When he's getting his comeuppance, he throws everything into it. Even though he hits "cool" offense, he makes it so it never seems as such. He makes amazing things irritating just by doing them. He went so far as to tease the table and push it back under the ring just to deny the fans even a little bit of what they wanted. That takes an amazing level of commitment and confidence. It's laudable. It's almost the exact opposite approach that one would have thought he would have taken in AEW.

And Briscoe, as a wrestler, as a character, is wise to the world. He is confident in himself and confident in the crowd. He wants to cause Ricochet as much pain as possible but he knows there's more pain to be inflicted on the inside than on the outside. He married humiliation (even the mohawk!) with physical damage here. And it went well for him (and for the crowd) right until it didn't.

He used the cleaning spray on Ricochet's head. Ricochet used it in his eyes. He meant to use the chair as a springboard. Ricochet tossed it into his face. The response was an escalation to the action, because Ricochet was well and fully gotten to, because, in his heart of hearts, he was selling the pain he felt on the inside.

Once he took over, he didn't look back, he didn't stop. Once he drew blood, he meant to keep drawing it again and again and again. But then Mark Briscoe, a folk hero, once awoken, wasn't one to stop either. He could go forever, the human representation of that memorable, symbolic image of a crutch stopping the ambulance door from closing.

In the end, it went even a step even farther, Ricochet hiding the scissors around the ring, a preemptive attack even before Briscoe did the first thing to his bald head (one that shows the hypocrisy of Ricochet's argument all the clearer). When even that wasn't enough, he was ready with a low blow, a low as could be for Ricochet has no bottom. He'll sink forever selling his emotional damage all the way. And that's why this worked when so many similar things simply never would. That's why the This Is Awesome chant was about Ricochet getting comeuppance and not about fans enjoying spectacle for the sake of spectacle. Embracing vulnerability is a hell of a thing. More wrestlers should try it.

Hurt Syndicate vs Sons of Texas

MD: When we look back at this one down the line, we'll think more about the MJF moments, accidentally distracting the ref for the Unnatural Kick, offering the ring to Shelton which let Dustin and Sammy get back into it, that ultimate moment of Lashley embracing him after teasing dissent and then crashing through the barricade and his opponent. The story will play out and we'll see the match for the things that went right and went wrong for MJF.

As it's own entity, it was probably the best Hurt Syndicate match so far. When Dustin was in there with Shelton, they were scrapping hard. When Shelton was in there with Sammy, he knew exactly what to give. That's no small thing. Shelton's a big guy but he spent a chunk of his career in the land of the giants. For him to shift to a relative super heavyweight this late into his career is impressive. And of course Lashley vs Sammy was all sorts of amazing feats of strength (and agility for Sammy taking them).

Because this followed the Ricochet match, we didn't get that bloody Dustin face-in-peril we might have gotten otherwise. The point of this match was to further the broader story while giving the Syndicate a good challenge. It wasn't abut Dustin reliving his Double or Nothing past. Here, the Syndicate had to lean a bit more unlikable. That meant we didn't get to see Shelton pinball Sammy back and forth between the apron and the barricade (which  I badly wanted). Instead he did it once so that MJF could choke him while the ref wasn't looking. It's ok. Sometimes a match has to be what it needs to be and not what I want it to be. And this was what it needed to be and a very good version of that as well. Maybe someday in the future we'll still get to see Sammy pinballed. One can always hope.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 3/31 - 4/6

AEW Dynasty 4/6/25

Daniel Garcia vs Adam Cole

MD: Let's go back to Full Gear. It was a night of misery and destruction, where babyface hope came to die in the main event as Orange Cassidy, who the company had rallied around as a leader and who had finally found the strength inside to stand tall failed to defeat Jon Moxley. The one bright spot at the bottom of Pandora's Box, however, was Daniel Garcia defeating Jack Perry and winning the TNT title. The post match was brisk moving, but we were left with the image of Garcia, draped with the AEW flag around his neck, belt in hand, walking to the back in triumph.

Immediately thereafter, we started to see something new out of Garcia. He had resigned with the company, albeit without the braggadocious fanfare of MJF and his tattoo. He was going to be a fighting champion, one that could anchor Collision. He reached to the crowd for support, sometimes literally, began using the ten-count punch like stalwart babyfaces of the past. He was a shining, glowing counterbalance to the New Heel army who were trying to get heat instead of just getting themselves over, guys like Fletcher, Ricochet, Okada, Blake Christian, Lee Johnson. 

He was the one holding up that other side of the scale; maybe with Briscoe, maybe with Hobbs, maybe with someone like Hologram, but it was mostly Garcia with a clear path forward. 

And what happened then? He did what he was asked to do. He anchored Collision. He had solid match after solid match, solid babyface performance after solid babyface performance. But look at the opponents they gave him: Mark Briscoe, Shibata, a three way with O'Reilly and Moriarty, and then on to Adam Cole. It was criminal to some degree. Yes, it was good to beat these people, but he needed heels lined up to knock down. Sometimes making a match that is going to be "good" isn't enough. "Goodness" isn't the same as vision. Garcia had the crowd behind him. Garcia was trying new things pulled out of times past, things that would have worked, that would have established themselves in the hearts of the fans, that could have worked against all of these new heels, all the way up to Mox. He could have been Misawa to Mox's Jumbo. But it needed time to grow and develop and for a crowd that hadn't seen it in years (and some of them having never seen it) to be able to latch on to and understand. 

And he was left, in the end, against Adam Cole again and again. Adam Cole might be the nicest guy in the world, but as a wrestler, as a heel, he's a cool heel, and as a face, he's a cool face. Nothing really gets to him. Nothing registers. His promo explaining why he betrayed MJF was the least apologetic, least likable promo I've heard in a very long time. He didn't take responsibility for his actions. He didn't admit even the possibility that he was wrong. He just doubled down on everything he did and their program was a disaster because of it. If he just channeled his own personal vulnerability instead of a Michaels-esque sort of self-conscious need to be above it all, he could be the top guy that people always thought he could be. He could really connect with the fans. But instead he puts on a mask, and will always ever only be (occasionally) the guy that wrestles the guy for one program.

The nicest thing I can say about this match is that it did channel all of the above, and Garcia, being as good as he is, was able to channel a lot of it in a manner which felt in character, even though you can blur the lines thinking about all of the above. You can make it so Garcia, the character, was the dragonslayer, the guy who wanted to be a new hero, to face all the cheaters and underhanded villains of the world and who was instead put up against people that the crowd backed. He was a fighting champion, so that was fine, but he wanted to carry the AEW banner against the people really doing the damage and they were keeping him away from all that. 

You can see him as someone who watched that Adam Cole promo, who had faced MJF himself and managed to fight him without losing his own standards. Yes, he escalated things with the top rope pile driver, but that was different than striking from behind and behind a mask. And now he had to stand tall against Cole, this disingenuous, untrustworthy, unrepentant (and Garcia, with his background and how he carries himself is someone who, like Eddie Kingston, seems to know a thing or two about repentance) scoundrel, who gets shot after shot on goal while the fans sing along to his catch phrase without really giving second thought to his actions. Garcia had to work for everything and Cole, even though he worked his way back from injury after injury, was never gracious about it, and instead made it seem like that was enough, like he deserved it all because of it. And the fans were split at best?

So Garcia, in the match, got more and more aggressive, strayed from the light, and in doing so, lost his way and fell. When what's happening in the ring correlates to what happens outside, it can be incredibly compelling. And I see that with Garcia now. He wanted to be something pure and good, wanted to represent a new, better AEW, one without all of the irony, one where deeds and words mattered, where actions had consequence, one with honor. And he was never truly given the chance, ultimately felled by a cool face who was the exact opposite of what he was trying to represent, and then he had to shake his hand anyway? Where does he go from there? Does he sink into villainy? Does he become just as bad as everyone around him? Does he stop caring and become jaded? Or does he redouble his efforts and find a purity of heart that help him give people hope in very, very dark times indeed. 

It's unfortunate that what he was primed to become wasn't fully capitalized on, but there's still an opportunity now for something special, because as entertaining and refreshing it has been to see heels that are willing to get heat, that are willing to serve the match and the company instead of just themselves, that are fearless and daring and push to make every action mean something instead of just hit clean and look cool, there needs to be babyfaces that can take advantage of that to help move hearts and minds. And Garcia was willing, was trying, was even starting to succeed. There's a feeling out there that still needs restoring, now more than ever, and it's not the feeling of 2019 or 2021. Where does he go from here, a good man that briefly lost sight of his true north and lost all that he had fought for because of it, trapped in a world that he didn't make? I don't know about the rest of you, but that's something I want to find out.

Kyle Fletcher vs Mark Briscoe

MD: There's nothing in wrestling I'm enjoying more right now than the first few minutes of a Kyle Fletcher match. He's bold and fearless, a wonderfully confident and selfless stooging heel. The more selfless he is, the more over the top, the more willing to look the fool, the more he comes off like a star and the more over he gets. And this match, unfortunately, likely because it wanted to hang with the rest of the PPV card and start from a more "elevated" place of action, tossed that entirely out the window. 

From a story perspective, it did make sense for Kyle to begin with a dive. He had lost two of his previous matches with Briscoe. He knew how dangerous it was. They went right on to apron spots (albeit with some fun vocalization by Fletcher) and then Briscoe going for the chair (with a great moment of Mark telling the fans to boo the ref when he stopped him). That all made sense in character. For the sake of the match, it was about getting a hot spot and feeling PPV worthy. I think that was a mistake. While the show had some fun stuff overall (like the headslapping bit with Ricochet which was one imaginative sequence out of 20 in that match), contrast makes the world goes round and five minutes of Fletcher stooging and stalling and letting things sink in at the start would have stood out far more on this card and would have stayed with people far more than the aforementioned 'hot start.'

What it did allow, perhaps, was Fletcher to really take his time on the heat. I saw people complain about Moxley's "plodding" heat segment in the main event and I honestly that was pretty good with how he moved from one hold to the next smoothly and worked the wound. But even if that isn't for everyone, Fletcher's approach is more engaging. He has big pieces of offense and then he milks them after the fact, really posing and preening and playing to the crowd and let it all sink in until his theatrics lets Briscoe come back and Fletcher cuts him off with something big again, going right back to the preening. It's less, but it lets each thing that actually hits, already impressive on its own, mean so, so much more than if he had just went from spot to spot to spot. No one in AEW is really letting everything sink in quite like he does and if they couldn't have both the early match stooging AND the time-taking in the heat, then I guess it's good that they gave us at least one of the two. 

It worked down the stretch as well, as they threw bomb after bomb and they really, truly needed the weight of Briscoe being so hurt that he couldn't capitalize after, for instance, the cutthroat driver. That became believable because the weight of what happened during Fletcher's control segment and so much of that resonated because Fletcher was so engaged and engaging throughout it. But I think this could have even been better if they did 1/3rd less down the stretch and reallocated some of that time to an opening third where Fletcher could have stalled and posed and used his new tearaway pants and gotten some early shine comeuppance from Briscoe.

AEW Collision 4/5/25

Athena/Julia Hart vs Mercedes Mone/Harley Cameron (Parejas Increibles)

MD: This wasn't actually a parejas increibles match, but at the same time, it really, truly was. Athena and Julia Hart, despite celebrating together after the match was over, were absolutely strange bedfellows. This wasn't Julia and Sky hanging in the ropes together pre-match. It wasn't Athena and Billie (or Diamante currently) with meanstreak MIT appeal up against Ronda Rousey and Marina Shafir (what a fever dream that was). Harley and Mercedes did get it and were allowed it in the build to this, but the circle wasn't squared and all the pieces didn't quite fit together. 

That's not to say both Athena and Julia didn't get individual moments. There was a palpable buzz even from a very exhausted double taping crowd whenever Athena and Mercedes shared a ring. Julia's comeback against Mercedes when she lifted up out of the tree of woe was memorable, especially for Mercedes' bump. Very on point for Julia. It's just that they never quite came together and interacted the way you would have wanted to. A parejas increibles match is all about those interactions, the weird mix of alchemy of putting these robust, dynamic, larger than life characters in situations they wouldn't normally be in.

And it's important to make the most of that, because there are some natural shortcomings. In lucha, you often see partners refuse to cooperate to the point of a match breaking down or one rudo helping his opponents instead of his partner, and while that can be chaotic, it doesn't exactly lend to compelling narratives over time (like over the entire CMLL Parejas Increibles Tournament for instance).  Here, the problem was one of sympathy. Julia and Athena are tweeners at best with Athena being positioned as an outright heel on ROH TV. The Hounds of Hell have been babyfaces this year but Julia is maybe less of one depending on who she's facing. Harley is clearly a babyface; not only is she a babyface but she's one of the most sympathetic ones in the company, up there with Orange Cassidy and Mark Briscoe, beloved. 

Here she was expected to help Mercedes work over Julia, and the fans, on one level, would be glad for her when Mercedes accepted her and praised her, but on the other, it all made it tough for the Julia/Athena team to get sympathy. I think this situation would have been hard for anyone on the roster let alone two wrestlers (in Julia and Harley) that had around 150 matches under their belt between them. In a company that's so good at coming up with clever spots and set pieces, I do wish sometimes they'd pause and think about what the most interesting squeezing out of characters and interactions would be in any situation, that could put more emphasis on character motivations and how they feel about what's before them and the broader world. That would have helped Julia here and it probably would have helped Harley too. This was a good effort and an entertaining match (with a great, if muddled, comeback moment with the puppet), but I think in a situation like this, there's still so much more that could be mined with just a little more thought behind it all.

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoe vs. Bad Apple

 

13. Mark Briscoe vs. Bryan Keith AEW Rampage 9/20/24

ER: I can't imagine what it's like being Mark Briscoe. I haven't gone through the pain that he's gone through. I've never had a brother, never lost a brother. Not just a brother, but a tag team partner. Most of you with brothers never would have spent anywhere near as much time on the road trapped in a car with your brother. How many other people have ever lived a life like that with your brother, for over 20 years? I hate that right now I don't get to see Jay Briscoe unleashed as the Jon Moxley style maniac that Jon Moxley could never be. We don't get to see Jay Briscoe as the top guy - which would have happened - but Mark Briscoe doesn't get to see it either. I hate it, but I love that he's wrestling. This match felt important, because it really felt like a guy refining himself as Singles Match Mark Briscoe. I'm sure in the last couple years he's had plenty of Meltzer 4 star + singles matches, and I've seen enough of those, but the ones I did all felt like AEW Style Great 14 Minute Match Formula. This match might not have been his most ambitious singles match over this 2 year stretch, but it felt focused and impactful and tight in a way that I associated more with Jay singles matches. This wasn't him going on Crazy Mark Briscoe autopilot in a six man, this was a guy who looked like a singles champ. 

His Redneck Kung Fu is used as comedy in those six mans tags, here it's the perfect mix of goofball delivery and stiff finish. His baseball slide was thrown with joshi speed and heavyweight impact, and his Cactus Jack elbow off the apron was one of the best elbowdrops of the year. He landed with impact on everything; on his bumps, on his follow through, on his chops that got more intense the longer we went. His clotheslines hit like a champion's. The J-Driller should be the most protected finish in AEW. I can't wait to watch the rest of his 2024 singles match run, because this suddenly feels very different. 

I've said that I don't fully buy into the Hangman Page character, but Bounty Hunter was a character I didn't buy into even a little. I don't buy Bryan Keith as a Bad News Brown. I think he looked so good in his spaghetti western Entrance Pancho that a lot of people bought in on sight. But he wrestles like a 2024 Scoot Andrews update and wears his pants at 75 year old luchador height. He makes a lot more sense as Already in the Ring Bad Apple Bryan Keith, so he worked great as Singles Star Mark Briscoe's opponent he was 100% going to beat. I don't like matches he works as a back and forth, and think he benefits from a match where he has a few minutes of control in the middle and a couple spots down the stretch. It tightens his 3-4 minutes and it all looks better when stacked. He has a great kneedrop and I am always going to rate a guy who uses a kneedrop in 2024, and not one of those safe ones to the chest, an honestly worked kneedrop to the temple that would have played in a Nick Bockwinkel match. He leaned into chops and clotheslines and he doesn't just have a good kneedrop, he has a good kneelift.  

There's a real sweet spot in hitting a nicely built 12 minute match. AEW should pepper way more 8-12 TV classics into their cards than ringing the 20 minute Great Match bell so often. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/15 - 4/21

AEW Dynasty 4/21/24

Bryan Danielson vs. Will Ospreay

MD: I've had RVD on my mind lately. They used him on the 4/20 Rampage. I haven't gotten to that yet. There's been a lot of wrestling to watch and I only caught the back half of Rampage so far because it more directly led into the PPV. I'll go back for it and for Yuka vs Emi because it sounds like an amazing Emi performance in difficult circumstances. When I think about RVD, though, I think about his PPV match with Benoit. I haven't rewatched it in decades and I have no desire to now, so bear with my memories. You have to understand what it was like to be a fan on the internet in the late 90s and early 00s. Benoit wasn't just a wrestler. He was a representation of a counterculture, of a certain sort of identity. He was put up on a pedestal. We put him there. He represented everything we thought we wanted wrestling to be; if wrestling was just that, we would feel good about ourselves for being fans of it. The match, as I remember it, was a disaster. Benoit did what he generally was supposed to, worked over a body part for the entirety of the heat. RVD no sold it on his comeback. Of course he did. We were furious. At the time, we blamed RVD. Twenty years later, it's obvious that the blame should go to Benoit for structuring a match that not only RVD wouldn't play along with, but that, if he had, would have actively blunted what made him special.

To some degree, that was Danielson's challenge here. The "dream match" portion of Danielson vs Ospreay was always going to be the high octane back-third: the counters, the finishing stretch, and harnessing Ospreay's physicality and athleticism in ways that only Danielson's mind could devise that would play into the weight of the crowd's expectations and the importance of Bryan Danielson in history and in people's hearts. While it might make sense strategically in character to target Ospreay's leg, it would have kneecapped the match and frustrated people one way or the other; either he would have dropped the selling (believably or not, probably not) or he would have sold and worked the finishing stretch at half speed leaving people who wanted the full Ospreay experience disappointed. So they built it by targeting the side instead. The announcers mentioned ribs or the liver, but to me, it was purely a wind issue. Danielson caught him as he was coming off the top with a kick. It took the wind out of Ospreay. Danielson was therefore able to control and contain and focus the middle section of the match, using gut shots to open up Ospreay's face, prying at the legs or twisting the fingers, but doing overall damage instead of limiting Ospreay's motion. When he recovered, it was a matter of timing and opportunity, of recovering his wind because of a lucky, skillful shot or two or some amazing feat of agility like landing on his feet out of the top rope 'rana. Then, later on, Danielson honed in on the arm, in part to set up the LeBell lock. It's easier for Ospreay to limit his upper body motion than his lower body motion and he adapted accordingly. He dropped it for a bit when it did no harm to the narrative and brought it back in a key moment when it could help it. I saw early criticism of the match attack his selling, but I didn't see it. It worked for me, but it worked primarily because it was set up to go with the flow and to not limit him in the ways that mattered for the expectations of the match while still allowing Danielson to be in control and the match to have shape and form. Danielson worked to Ospreay's strengths and minimized his weaknesses. 

What was far, far harder to work with was this crowd. When you see even the most excited crowd, a crowd that is buzzing and chanting away, they usually react to the actual action in the ring. That's true even in the early stages of matches. A clean break will garner applause. A slap instead will give you either boos or oohs. A wrenching hold will draw one reaction when it's put on and another when it's escaped, and then back to the chanting and buzzing they'll go. The "This is Awesome" or "AEW" or "Both These Guys" chants will come at the end of a sequence during the standoff. That wasn't at all the case here. These two were feeling one another out in front of the loudest vacuum I'd ever seen. They would chant whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, even and especially over meaningful emotional beats. This crowd was drunk on the idea of a dream match regardless of what was occurring. They were celebrating the finishing third before the match had even begun. It didn't get better even once they got going. Danielson took a nasty bump off an apron exchange and they were setting up Ospreay hitting a hidden blade from the apron to the floor while Bryce was trying to steady him. It was hugely important to the overall story of the match given the eventual finish. Meanwhile, the fans were chanting "We're Not Worthy!" For the first two-thirds of the match, the crowd was unquestionably excited, but the wrestlers didn't have the crowd. Whatever they were doing, no matter how good it was, no matter how smartly it was put together to be the best of the both of them combined, to be better than the sum of their parts, it wasn't compelling enough to guide and control a crowd that was there so that it could have bragging rights about seeing one of the best matches ever. It wasn't a case of looking to the back for the entire match waiting for a run-in; instead it was looking to the future, to that last third, and taking for granted what was actually happening.

And, of course, that last third was absolutely excellent. If the first two-thirds were, in part, to minimize Ospreay's weakness, that last third completely highlighted his strengths. Danielson was able to push himself up to new heights for specific spots by pressing off against Ospreay's athleticism. Things like the Mistica LeBell lock or the top rope Tiger Suplex or the Busaiku Knee counter to the Oscutter were out of this world and stand up to any spot in any Danielson match ever. By that point, the fans were completely tuned in. I'm not sure we've ever quite heard the "Yes-No" chants as they manifested here and they were just the soundtrack the last third of the match called for. Then there was the finish, which to me was absolutely perfect. At the end of the day, that's how the match had been presented: Danielson was a legend but Ospreay was younger, faster, hungrier. So at high noon, after a war that neither man had been able to win, they had an old fashioned standoff. Ospreay, with his Assassin's Creed trappings, is perfect for this sort of over-the-top theatricality. We get endless strike exchanges and fighting spirit bits in wrestling, but this wasn't even a samurai showdown where both fighters would pass and one would fall after the fact; no, it was right out of a western with the younger upstart having the quicker draw. Given what the match meant to accomplish, the passing of a torch, it was the perfect ending. Maybe, just maybe, it was even the perfect match too. It was, unfortunately, just one that couldn't overcome the frothing anticipation that the fans in the arena had for it. It was their loss and ultimately it was ours too. 

AEW Collision 4/20/24

BUNKHOUSE BRAWL

Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli vs. Kyle Fletcher/Konosuke Takeshita

MD: On a nexus with Connelly vs. Demus on one end and the Jarrett vs. Briscoe in the Concession Stand Brawl on the other, this would be in the middle but definitely closer to the former than the latter. I write a lot about my own personal preference for wrestling that feels organic and where you can't see the strings and that's much more of what we had here. There were numerous moments in this one where someone (more often a member of the BCC or Takeshita) would spot something in the corner of their eye and work it into the match. That's not to say that Fletcher didn't put up a good effort; he did, it's just that this probably was a lot less natural to him both from what he had seen and what he had done. You had Claudio picking up action figures or spotting a hammer (used previously) on the ground and making use of it. I do think that Fletcher has some good natural instincts in working the crowd but this wasn't the sort of match to do that in the way one usually did it. Takeshita, on the other hand, is someone who drives me absolutely nuts with his match layout: too much, too soon, all at once. But the reason why he drives me nuts is because he's so physically impressive and visually effective, dynamic and explosive. If he could just get out of his own way, he could be absolutely amazing. Here, he understood the mission, a constant violent push forward. 

I also talk a lot about the duel-edged sword that are the commercial breaks. In most matches, I actually think they help more than they hurt because they force things to slow down and the heels to lean into their characters and the heat they're trying to get. It prevents the matches from devolving into constant noise from bell to bell. Here, you kind of wanted that though, but what we did get during the break was pretty great, with Takeshita working over Danielson's would for minutes straight. I see people complaining that Fletcher didn't rub the blood into his hair, but to be fair, Danielson came out of that commercial break with a much more interesting crimson mask than he came in, all thanks to Takeshita. Unfortunately, the timing of the break ending meant that the camera couldn't linger on Takeshita about to brainbuster Danielson on the ramp again. That was the key emotional moment of the entire match, the reversal and subsequent DDT, but the folks at home needed at least a second to understand why Claudio wasn't there to make the save. While the quick cuts between the two scenarios were a plus for most of the match to add to the chaotic feel, it did hurt a little there.

Moreover, if Fletcher needed a bit of education, the crowd did as well. They were pavlovianly shouting for tables; sometimes giving them what they want isn't the same as giving them what they need, and Danielson did that at each point, diverting them away either through yes chants or other bursts of engaging violence. If they run something like this again, on the second or third time, people will be excited for the possibility of the powder or the chain or the wire to choke with. In some ways, all that wrestling is at its very core is the conditioning of an audience over time and then the utilization of that conditioning for the sake of manipulation. Again, that's almost the opposite of some of the maximalist, pandering performances that get over so big today, but it's that carny tugging at heartstrings where the greatest artistry can be found. On this night, through violent creativity and adaptability in the moment and a commitment to the chaos at play, these four (and yes, I mean all four of them and Moxley and Hobbs for good measure), did their part in retaking just a bit of the old ways so that they might be used once again, not to pull pro wrestling back into moldering darkness but to help push it forward back towards the light.

Adam Copeland/Eddie Kingston/Mark Briscoe vs. Top Flight/Action Andretti

MD: I really like it when they run a warm-up/showcase match for a one-time trios before a PPV. It's very likely that we never see Copeland/Kingston/Briscoe again after this and this match gave us a chance to see them highlighted against a very different sort of team than the House of Black in a babyface vs. babyface match. Top Flight/Andretti are a set unit and had the superior teamwork and the speed, but they had both a size and a presence disadvantage. We've seen Ace Kingston pushing around younger guys. Mark Briscoe, here, came off as a total beast, like the Briscoes of old, just running through Dante when he had the chance. This was maybe the first time, even through a series of Cope Opens, where Copeland got to be a giant in the land of the new normal height-wise. I probably need to go back to see his work against Rey at some point, but here he was working big. There was no ultimate opportunist here. There was a running power slam instead. 

There are a lot of things that can and should make AEW Copeland different than WWE Copeland, and he's been doing an admirable job of embracing more and more of them every week, but I don't think I've seen him look quite this imposing as of yet and it was great to see. I want more of it. No one even played de facto heel here; yes, the bigger makeshift trio sort of bullied, and Top Flight double-and-tripled teamed but it wasn't personal. There was a little bit of control on Copeland and a lot on Dante, but it was back and forth and never wore out its welcome; plus, Andretti has that Tom Zenk thing about being particularly punchable. When things broke down in the end, the fireworks were exciting but also well-placed. Even the triple double clothesline felt a little novel relative to some of the spots you see in this scenario. I'm sure that anyone who didn't blink and miss it loved Dante jamming his leg on the backflip to let Copeland hit the Impaler. It was a little detail, probably unnecessary, that still added to the match. And of course the finish of the Uraken into the Spear, with Copeland sneaking Andretti into the center of the ring for the Froggy Bow, was just a perfect highlight reel combination. If we'll never get Copeland/Kingston/Briscoe again after the PPV, at least we'll have gotten two very different looks at them.

 

AEW Dynasty 4/21/24

Adam Copeland/Eddie Kingston/Mark Briscoe vs. House of Black

MD: I dug the layout for this one. After an initial tease of Copeland vs Black before the match got going, we led into initial pairings like a lucha trios. Matthews was paired with Briscoe and King was paired with Kingston. I'm not entirely sure that the build properly set up these pairings, but both the announcers and the wrestlers leaned into them. And, of course, it was all underpinned by the delayed gratification of Copeland getting his hands on Black, which is one of my all time favorite things in wrestling. I love it in Mexico (one of the best trios setups). I love it in Japan (all those Eigen/Rusher matches I've been watching lately). I love it here and they worked it wonderfully towards the finish. The pairings, generally equal, built to a real shine where Mark Briscoe took out everyone and did the amazing, terrifying chair-assisted dive over the post on the apron, which, in and of itself, led to the heat on Briscoe. He finally fought his way out of the corner to make the hot tag and everything broke down. I could have maybe went without the tower of doom spot, but I did like how they twisted it by bringing it back to Copeland and King and the Superplex. Otherwise, it was all sequenced well, centered around the subconscious notion that if only Copeland could hit the Impaler on King, he'd be able to get his hands on Black. It took three tries and an Eddie Uraken but he eventually got it, only for Mark Briscoe to come in and get his hands on Black first in yet another little inversion. That just ramped the pressure up all the more for the the spear cutoff to Cerberus' Bite (which is what we're calling the House of Black's triple corner dropkick now if you didn't get the memo) and the ultimate inversion, the misting out of nowhere just when the fans were going to get the satisfaction of Black vs Copeland. The entire match built to that rug-swept-out moment and that's just great aggravating pro wrestling to set up another show. You have to appreciate it. This maybe needed just a bit more Eddie but other than that, I enjoyed it.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/1 - 4/7 Part 2

ROH Supercard of Honor 4/5/24

Eddie Kingston vs Mark Briscoe

MD: What happens when a man bolstered by a dream comes across another man with a dream bigger than his own? Eddie Kingston has done everything right, has done his best, has done anyone's best, despite all of the odds and the weight of the world shifted against him. He met his heroes and fought their scion, the last remnant of an age of kings. He overcame the personification of every argument against him, a Swiss nightmare that had haunted him for a decade. He slipped, stuttered, stammered, but regain his footing and climbed, one impossible victory after the next, to create an American Triple Crown, defeating his brother in blood to do so. And then he defended it against his the representation of everything he was not to gain respect and to drink from an empty well. 

And yet.

Here, across the ring from him, was another brother, one in blood and spirit, a man who had lost a brother of his own but and only saw his faith redoubled in the process. This was a man who had come up short in his challenges, who had lost his opportunities. And eleven years to the day of his brother's triumph, he had obtained yet one more, the opportunity of a lifetime, maybe the opportunity of two lifetimes. 

And Eddie, for all that he had learned, for all that he had gained, for all that he had become, resented it. It wasn't fair. He had fought so hard, had pushed so far, had proven his own worth against absolute paragons, and yet there was a man more worthy in the ring, a man whose story was more valid. 

Eddie fought like a man possessed. Briscoe had an early advantage by taking big risks, but risks have consequences. In this case, it was a chair left in the ring. It had taken him to great heights and by means of a chokeslam, it brought him low as well. Blood followed and Eddie pressed his advantage. Briscoe's comebacks were big, huge, meaningful, dramatic. These were not hope spots, they were plunges of faith. But Eddie's cutoffs were monstrous. 

On some primal, bestial level, Eddie understood. For Briscoe's story to worthy of subsuming his own, it would have to be tested. It was tested in blood and pain and violence. For the triumph to be worthy of the moment, it would have to be earned. If Briscoe was to fall short, then that was proof that his story was not as meaningful as Eddie's. This was nature. This was life and death. This was pro wrestling.

So Eddie kept firing on, through Briscoe's hulk up, through Briscoe surviving the Uraken, through an exploder to the floor and Mark barely beating the count. But Briscoe kept coming, kept charging forward, refused to stay down. On this night, his story was simply better, something real, something genuine, something that came from the heart, something that no factory could ever produce. That was the only sort of story that could subsume Eddie's own. 

What could Eddie do when fate was no longer on his side? If he couldn't be the hero glorified in victory, then at least he could be the dragon that made the victory worthwhile. And he was. And it was. And even in defeat, his legend will only grow for it. 

AEW Dynamite 4/3/24

Bryan Danielson vs Lance Archer

MD: This is beneath the Kingston vs Briscoe match which is the draw this week and everyone's exhausted from Mania weekend anyway so I can sneak all sorts of stuff in here without repercussion. I rewatched both Ospreay vs Hobbs and Danielson vs Archer because there's no real way to cover the latter without factoring in the former. The two matches are a paired set with the meeting on the ramp bridging the two. Both Dynasty opponents were facing giants. Hobbs and Archer are very different giants with different skillsets, but giants nonetheless.

I am going to make an analogy. It is just an analogy. It is not any sort of direct judgment. It's just a way to try to get at something I was feeling and that I have felt for a long time. It's because sometimes entirely unrelated gets invented and becomes prevalent and it allows you for a good point of comparison to help understand or describe something else. That's all. So you know when you read an article that is either partially or completely written by AI? You see the hallmarks whether it's specific language or structure, whether it's too much background information or a sort of soulless generalization. By now, after the year we just had, we can recognize it almost immediately. It takes you out of whatever you're reading, casts doubt on the entire publication, makes you want to just skip down to whatever new piece of information the article purported to offer. 

That's the feeling I get sometimes out of a lot of this stuff. It's not necessarily the same (because this is an analogy) but I recognize it and it takes me out of the moment. I'd argue that there are maybe three big changes to wrestling over the last forty years. One is about what the audience wanted, going from caring most about the destination to caring most about the journey. They went from wanting to see the babyface vanquish the heel (admittedly with their cheers potentially powering the babyface) to wanting to see a great match and get the rep to say they were there live to see it. Wrestling went from mostly called in the ring to thoroughly planned. As a side effect of the first two, most TV wrestling now is a series of spots, one after the other, with very little connective tissue as opposed to a lot of connective tissue and steady progression leading to spots. It went from a 70/30 shift one way to a 30/70 shift the other (if not 20/80 or more). Pro wrestling isn't match, but maybe, just maybe, it is balance.

Ospreay vs Hobbs was a carefully connected series of spots. The transitions were understated and usually implicit, based on Hobbs missing a move or Ospreay taking advantage of a little bit of space. Occasionally you'd get Hobbs playing to the crowd or arguing with the ref. Mostly though, it was spot after spot, artfully orchestrated and executed sequence after sequence. Archer vs Danielson was much closer to 60/40. Archer ambushed him from the start, leaned on him. Danielson would try to fire back, would get kicks in, would create some motion. Archer would shut him down. The hope spots were just that. Some of Archer's big offense was clearly set up and thought through. But it all flowed with a general sense of organic meanness and violence and perseverance driving it, up front and center, pushing things forward, not an afterthought to fit into the margins but the central impetus of the match. It all built towards a real comeback, until Danielson finally chipped away at Archer through skill and persistence until he brought him down to a size where knees could fly into faces. 

Wrestling is being pushed more and more into rewarding one outcome over the other, but then you stop and see that the one of the only people getting actual heat through his ringwork is Christian, that the fans get behind Dustin in a way slightly different from how they get behind anyone else, that there's so much more to analyze and examine in Danielson's matches even without ever seeing the strings that are hanging and visible all over the place with so many others. Progress is possible, perhaps even necessary, but there's a way to walk a line so that immersion isn't lost. Maybe, in 2024, that's only true if you're one of the greatest of all time, however.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/30 - 11/5

AEW Collision 11/4/23

Darby Allin vs Lance Archer

MD: As monsters in AEW go, Archer's up there. When I was first getting into the promotion in late 2021, his act on Elevation (dragging his opponent out as part of the entrance, mocking the fans by teasing chops or a dive, scaring kids) worked for me. He's capable of a couple of more agile spots without doing ridiculous or terrible looking things for the sake of getting a pop. He's experienced enough to take his time and let the beating resonate. He might have gotten the best, most productive singles match out of Hangman Page by short circuiting all of his poor match layout judgment. Plus he never wears out his welcome. You're always left wanting more. 

Darby is, of course, a natural opponent, and someone that never takes a single moment of a match for granted. He came in with a gameplan to chip away at Archer, only to get ragdolled about as you'd expect. He'd try to sneak in comebacks only to have Archer escalate the violence (most memorably the chokeslam over the top rope to the apron) in response. Having it be so one-sided protected Archer and made it more momentous when Darby beat him, and not just with a fluke roll up either, but with a high impact reversal to avert an almost assured flattening. The Jake stuff was a bit odd. He obviously got tossed so he'd have time to walk to the back (which takes time) to bring the Righteous out post-match. The announcers covered for it in fairly unsatisfying and contradictory ways. Part of me wonders if this isn't to set up a Copeland/Sting/Darby trios in advance of the PPV and with Danielson's injury they feel like they have to rely more on Copeland for Collision for a bit, but that's me laying down too many words on a booking decision we'll know about in a week. I will say that Copeland vs Archer is a weirder and more interesting idea than Copeland vs Luchasaurus was.  (EDIT: They just announced it, actually. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing I'm vibing so heavily with TK's booing).

Mark Briscoe/Keith Lee/Dustin Rhodes vs Kip Sabian/Workhorsemen

MD:  This was structured for the time it had. The early bit where a proper Briscoe shine was replaced by him out-maneuvering a series of the Workhorsemen's best attempts at clever double-teaming worked for me because it highlighted just how good of a tag wrestler Briscoe is in a kayfabe sense. Also, while they were stretching the count as far as it could go on the inside, the actual moment of transition happened once JD had made it to the floor. Once Mark got the hot tag, that was pretty much it for the match, as he hit his dive and Dustin and Lee did their thing. The heat is the emotional core of a tag like this. It's the substance. It's the story. It's the second act. It's the drama. There's a little bit of intrigue over the heels getting outwrestled or outsmarted early and the question of how they're going to get ahead, but what carries the weight is the babyface eating a beatdown, having hope spots, getting cutoff, with the built-in pressure ratcheting up and up and up until things come to a head with the hot tag. The shine was practically nonexistent here. The comeback was lightning quick. The match still worked overall because it leaned in hard on the part that matters the most.

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Kingston is Hell in Harlem and Poppin' in Queens

 Eddie Kingston vs. Necro Butcher CZW 10/14/06 - EPIC

PAS: This was Eddie's first defense of the CZW title and he was full heel with Robbie Mireno and Larry Legend running interference. Necro opens the match bumping Kingston all over ring side. Kingston takes a big time beating on the floor, getting chairs chucked reckless at him, landing awkwardly on folding chairs and guardrails, you rarely see Necro out bumped, but in this match he took a backset. Eddie is able to take back over by punching Necro right in his bare feet which is a tremendous transition, and he unloads a pretty big beating of his own. There is a great section where Kingston backs Necro into the corner with a Tenryu chop/jab combo and Necro fires out with a multiple potato punch head and body combo. They had maybe my favorite bar fight spot ever. Kingston is slumped on some stairs, Necro grabbing a chair to sit down, clocking Eddie in the face, and Eddie just throwing a missed concussed air punch, only to get smashed again.  Finish has Kingston getting powerbombed on set up wooden stairs, but having the pin broken up by Mireno pulling out the ref. While Necro is savaging Mireno, Kingston hits a backdrop driver on the stairs, with Necro's neck bending at a sick angle, and a clothesline for the win. This had a little bit of a pacing issue when Eddie was setting up the steps for the end, but a hellacious fight like this is always going to be special. 

Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. The Briscoe Brothers PWR 8/4/12 - GREAT

PAS: The show was in Delaware, and really worked like a returning hero, please the crowd tag. Briscoe's bump around Cide and Kingston early, they move into a shortish face in peril section, a crowd brawl, table spot and a near fall finish. This is a very 2000s formula tag, but there were a couple of fun tweaks. You can count on Kingston to add some spice, and I liked his convulsion selling after getting smushed on an unbreakable plastic table. I thought the structure of the match wasted Cide and Kingston, they didn't really get to demonstrate what makes them special, but a hot tag with an over hometown team is always going to work for me. 

Eddie Kingston/PAC/Pentagon El Zero Miedo vs. Brandon Cutler/Young Bucks AEW Dynamite 6/11/21 - FUN

ER: I kept liking and then disliking this match, but it ended on a high note and that always makes me like a match more. If there's going to be stuff I dislike, the worst spot for that stuff to happen is the home stretch. This had a good home stretch, and good moments, but also some guys I don't like doing things I don't like. I'm about as over Penta El Zero Miedo as I am any wrestler this side of Seth Rollins. He is now one of those guys that makes me wrinkle my nose when I find out he is in a match, especially if it's with guys I like. The important difference between Penta and Seth Rollins, however, is that Penta was one of my absolute favorite guys in wrestling to watch, during season 1 Lucha Underground. I never got that excited for Rollins, but Penta had me hooked for a year. But now I've disliked him for far longer than I ever liked him. If we were doing DVDVR 500s, Pentagon Jr. would be a guy in the Top 25 that one year, then down to the 270s the next, then down to the 490s one place below Shane McMahon. His offense is obnoxiously selfish, always requiring every person in the ring to stop what they're doing just to stand and feed his overcomplicated offense, that always requires way too many moving parts all moving at his expense. Guys kill themselves to take sluggishly executed Penta moves and maybe it just has to loop back around to being cool again in my head. 

Brandon Cutler also felt really out of place in this match. Kingston and PAC were bringing asskicker energy to things, the Young Bucks and their actually great gear (with matching silken tasseled hairline secret keepers) were working a good smug match controlling PAC, clearly building to a big Kingston and Penta hot tag...and Cutler was there working the match like he was Screech substituting for Slater against Valley. It wasn't an unentertaining presence, but he was bringing this indy wrestling Jim Cornette forced to be in a match vibes, and it all felt a little too distracting from some of the actual cool stuff that could have happened. I liked the finish with him missing a big springboard elbow and standing up into a Kingston backfist, but we could have used a couple less moments of him hamming his way through two other guy' moment. Kingston's involvement was the highlight and just kept getting better than longer he was in. He had a couple of great cut off spots to interrupt someone's highspot, and the build to him and PAC hitting stereo dives was fantastic. PAC is an unexpectedly fun Kingston ally, a guy I wouldn't have ever thought of as a Kingston tag guy, but I liked their rhythm here a lot and wouldn't mind seeing more of them together. Kingston pummeling someone into a PAC flying move is a cool way to set things up, and we can see they know how to build to a good finish. 

PAS: I actually liked Cutler in this match, that kind of Downtown Bruno forced into a match added a different flavor to something which would otherwise be another workrate trios. I thought it added to the cool stuff rather then distracting from it. It also gives Eddie a foil to work off of, and one of the great Eddie's is Eddie beating on a young guy, he doesn't Shane Storm him, but it is in that world. The high spots were fun, and I liked the hot tag. Good TV match for sure.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON 

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes vs. Dinastia Munoz

36. Rush/Dragon Lee vs. The Briscoes ROH 6/29

PAS: I watch the Briscoes like once every couple of years, and always wonder why I don't watch more Briscoes. I remember them as clean cut kids killing each other at CZW Best of the Best and am always a little taken back at their current Fentanyl dealer on work release look. This was a 2019 tag match, with lots of big spots and near falls, and not much traditional face in peril. These are four guys who can do a fun 2019 tag match, and we also got Mark Briscoe spewing blood. Rush may not work with blood in CMLL, but he is still a luchadore, and is great using Mark's plasma as body paint and doing a Pirata blood spray. Rush really comes off like a big star in ROH and I need to check out some of his singles stuff.  We got fun dives, big throws and a surprisingly conclusive finish.

ER: Our treatment of the Briscoes is kind of odd. We write up a LOT of guys but there are certain guys we love who also don't get a lot of print from us (like when I noticed recently that we had only written up our second James Mason match, even though both of us have been into that guy since first seeing him practically 20 years ago), and Briscoes clearly fit that bill. I think they easily rank as a top 5 tag team this decade, but they've also been stuck in a promotion that hasn't been interesting since Necro Butcher left a decade ago, shown on a TV channel with rightly zero affiliates anywhere near my state. They're undeniably great, just not on any streaming services or feeds that will cross my eyes, out of sight out of mind.

And this match was great. The Briscoes are a combination of The Moondogs and The Usos, except they're easily the best versions of both The Moondogs and The Usos. Briscoes are trucker's crank cut with bleach. And my god Rush. Rush looked like as much of a damn boss as he did a few years ago in CMLL, when he was first becoming a "do you know who I am" guy in his ring attitude and in real life. This thing was totally breathless, made my heart beat a little faster just sitting in a recliner watching it. Everything in it was done quickly, and with force, like a high speed prime Rock n Roll Express vs. a high speed prime Rock n Roll Express. Everybody in this match was throwing hard dropkicks to chests, with Rush laying them in like his family owned the fucking fed. Briscoes always do everything dialed to 10, yet they have a chawlip Fuck It vibe about it with a crazy eyed intensity that you avoid at a bar. Mark gets busted open, Rush body paints with his blood, Dragon Lee hits a wild rana to the floor, Mark hits a great lariat, both teams pop off quick as hell double teams, several of them fly into the guardrails harder than you'd want to hit a guardrail (Lee hits the hardest and sending them wedging into the front rows. It was great bell to bell. This 12 minute tag match (the first and only ROH match I've watched this year) was so good that just knowing it happened in this promotion made me more interested in seeking out recommended current ROH stuff. They employ the Briscoes and Dinastia Munoz, how bad could they be?


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes vs. EYFBO

76. Briscoes vs. EYFBO wXw 10/7

ER: Tons of fun, just go go go go with no stopping for breath, great way to start off night 2 of this tournament. Even though the Briscoes aren't too much bigger than EYFBO, they are able to convey a super overpowering aura in their matches, always coming off faster, stronger, crazier, and I thought EYFBO was good at finding their moments and bumping big for the Briscoes. We start with a kind of lucha style opening, arm drags and rope running and ranas, but once they kick into the next gear and start chaining together big moves and double teams they never look back. Match really got great once Jay got the hot tag and started throwing savage lariats, really throwing from the shoulder with huge follow through. Both teams keep one upping the other, everyone is throwing huge dropkicks in the corner, Draztik hits this crazy swanton into Mark slumped in the corner (vaulting off Ortiz), they set up some loony cutter in the corner with Mark stretched from the turnbuckle to the shoulder of Ortiz, and Draztik runs the length of Mark and flies off with a heavy crossbody on Jay. Mark takes out Ortiz with a cannonball off the ring apron, and Jay crushes Draztik with his best lariat of the match (which is saying something), and they really knock Draztik's block off with the Doomsday Device. This match couldn't have been more than 12 minutes but was a fantastic spotfest, not a second of slow down. I would have been burnt out already had I been there.

PAS: This was the best EYFBO match I have seen, as they have always felt like a team I should love but always fell short for me. This was total go-go stuff, reminded me of the great Garden State Gods JAPW matches in the mid-2000s. I have been watching the Briscoes since their earliest matches, and man have they fully gone in on their scraggly militia look. They look like they should hijacking Federal land for grazing rights. All of their stuff looked great, they have gotten so good at making little things look impactful, big highspots, but also great looking elbows and clotheslines. I haven't watched ROH in years, but I need to check out some more recent Briscoes.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose

15. Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose ROH 3/12

ER: It's hard to beat a good 6 man tag. You can get guys with loose allegiances, different styles, and different skillsets, but as long as things keep a certain pace you can hide a lot of weaknesses and have an insane amount of fun. Whether you credit the format or the wrestler, this is the best I've seen Moose look, the best I've seen Cheeseburger used, and the most fired up I've seen Jay Briscoe in over a year. Cheeseburger got to hit some shoteis, some splashes that were never seen as threatening, he got to do some Mikey Whipwreck avoidance spots where the larger guys would just hurt themselves (including a nice run where Moose flies into the ringpost and Hanson bronco busts the turnbuckles), and most importantly he gets used as a weapon. We get several great spots with him getting thrown into other guys, the craziest being him getting caught on a dive and then thrown back into the ring by War Machine, only to get caught by Jay which leads directly to Mark hitting a wild tope and then Jay taking out War Machine with an even meaner, faster, low tope. Jay was awesome in this, and his brawling segments with Rowe and Moose were the highlights. Rowe is clearly the worker in War Machine even though Hanson is featured more, and he and Jay kick the shit out of each other. Later on when Moose and Jay are taking turns kicking each other it's like Moose finally turned the corner into becoming a good worker. I mean it helps when Mark Brisoce flies insanely into your spinning lariat, but still Moose looked good. Cheeseburger gets a nice triple shotei spot, only to see everybody recover and all kick him at the same time from different angles. He gets tossed around a lot here, as he should be, but usually the tosses aren't so mean. Moose planting him with a low angle german after catching the alley oop from Hanson is worth the price of admission. 6 man tags are just the perfect structure for 6 guys of varying ability to go in and have a great 15 minutes of action, and this all held to that philosophy.

PAS: This was a nice example of the strength of a six man tag, because outside of the Briscoes I am not sure if any of these guys are good wrestlers and I really enjoyed this. I had never seen Cheeseburger before, and he is Haiti Kid level skinny, he might weight less then 100 pounds and has no muscle development at all, I mean most tiny indy guys at least have some bulk to them. He does take a brutal beating and I liked how he avoided guys and made them hurt themselves, I am not sure I ever buy any offensive move as anything but a comedy spot though. War Machine look awesome, but there stuff should really be more violent, I want Ray Rowe to kill folks, and he just never does it for me. This did make me remember how much I love the Briscoes and I should make a wrestling resolution to watch more of them.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 11/11/15 Review

1. Cedric Alexander vs. ACH

Kevin Kelly puts over the unique concept of the wrestlers in Ring of Honor shaking hands before and after matches. God is that something they're still trying to promote? This match didn't do a whole lot for me, honor or no. It felt like a back handspring contest. I'm not sure who won, but there were a lot of handsprings. Also a lot of hiptosses with guys landing on the apron on their feet, a lot of "well-scouted signature offense". It all kinda runs together when there's no breathing room in a match. Veda Scott was really good in this, using herself as a human shield to block ACH's punt, allowing Cedric to hit a nice STO on the apron. She also held her ground when Cedric almost flip dove into her, with him having to hold the ropes to avoid hitting her "by mistake". I woulda got out of dodge and she stuck right in for the spot. There were a couple things I liked, ACH hit his cool rope run flip dive, Cedric throws a real nice running dropkick, and Cedric's blown springboard leading to the finish was really cool. I don't know if it was supposed to be blown, but he blew it spectacularly, catching a foot on the top and then bouncing chest first on the other side. It reminded me of all the great planned Hamrick blown spots. But the bulk of the match wasn't even move exchanging, it was reversal exchanging. At times it felt so far up its own ass, like actual moves weren't even being done because they were just focusing on reversing reversals of other reversals.

2. Will Ferrara vs. Caprice Coleman

This is maybe the quietest I've ever heard a ROH crowd. My were they silent during this. Coleman was real slow on offense. His standing leg drop and sliding leg drop to a seated Ferrara looked nice, but the set-up for all his stuff was slow, sluggish. Ferrara is blandish but Coleman didn't give him much to work with. For his part Will took two real nice "shoulder to the post" bumps in the corner, one on a missed charge and the other with Coleman tossing him. He's also good at putting over submissions. Last week against Strong he made me believe Strong was stretching him, and this week he made something Coleman did look deadly, so clearly this is just a great skill of his. Ooooooooo and after the match Nana gives him an envelope! It could possibly be coupons and newspaper clippings, like Rachel's mom cuts out and sends to her.

3. All Night Express vs. Briscoes

Hey, this was an All Night Express match that I liked! That isn't a thing that happens. But it happened right here! And it wasn't even all because I love the Briscoes, ANX also did some things I enjoyed! Titus hair flips a bunch but this might have been the best I've seen him. His share of the double team offense looked good, took Briscoes' stuff violently, flipped his hair some more, did some Martin Starr cosplay, hit a nice standing splash, more hair flips. I dug Mark starting things with some grappling. I want to see a character shift where he masters his redneck kung fu so moves on to a new challenge, and becomes a redneck RINGS worker. Mark's dives get crazier every week, dude really plays lunatic better than anybody else right now. I really liked the structure of this as ANX control Mark for awhile, Jay tags in and he and Mark go on a tear, King gets a run of kicks and suplexes, finishers get blocked, and then Jay hits a wicked Jay Driller and Mark hits a lung collapsing Froggy Bow. It's an easy way to fill 12 and both teams have the formula down. King took a weird bump off the apron and did a strange phantom knee injury for like 3 seconds. But yeah this was good. More stuff like this.

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