AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 3/3/21

What Worked

-Shaq went through a table on a Wednesday night, and I cannot not enjoy that. 

-Even with a truly putrid Luchasaurus performance and a dumb finish with clunky interference from a "masked individual" (the return from a several month absence of the legendary Shawn Spears), it was impossible to not absolutely love the performance from Tully and FTR. They even got JJ Dillon (great touch) and he blasted Jungle Boy with his loafer. But Tully wrestled so much better than anyone could have reasonably expected, and I honestly have no clue how this guy hasn't been putting in a few high profile indy performances every year of the last 25. He had great body shots on Marko and some awesome knee lifts, and was great at working bullshit from the apron (like standing on Jungle Boy's hair!), and for a quick paced match there was not one moment where it looked like things had to be slowed down for him. He was integrated into things perfectly, and that's not really too shocking as his timing has always been excellent. But seeing how good he looked here just made me want to see more, and also want to desperately know how he worked off any ring rust. And that was BEFORE he hit a slingshot suplex! Seriously how has he not been cashing in on indy dates?? FTR also looked excellent, really brutal, Cash Wheeler especially. He was great cutting the ring off, threw a fantastic uppercut, really felt the most like prime Arn I've seen in ages. FTR worked quicker than the much quicker JX, and managed to look punishing the entire time. Awesome performance for all three of them, even though the Arn Horseman fingers during the post-match couldn't have come off more forced. 

-Max Caster's pre-match rap actually got me to choke a bit on my coffee when he dropped the line about Lady Gaga's dog walker. Caster's pre-match raps are easily the best thing about his act, but it's a good part of the act. Match goes below. 

-Marq Quen is great at taking high backdrop bumps and beals, and that is a genuine skill. His regular backdrops look great, but his flipping 450 "backdrop" that landed him on his face looked amazing, incredible height and a wicked landing. Everything else he does goes down below. 

-John Silver had a fun performance in the main, a guy who can chain combos together without making it look like the opponent is waiting to get hit, and a compact powerhouse who believably launched Quen around the ring. Silver beal tossing Quen across the ring looked like Bradshaw throwing around Kaientai. 

What Didn't Work

-Mixed tag worked about as well as it possibly could have, but it was quite the mess. A fun mess at times, but a mess nonetheless. The sight of Shaq in the ring was enough to make me enjoy this, loved how terrible his form was on his overhand chop and it still sounded like the hardest chop Cody has ever taken. The Shaq powerbomb looked great, and I thought it was incredibly stupid that Cody was up seconds later and actually body slammed Shaq. Bodyslamming Shaq 4 minutes into his first pro wrestling match is definitely something that HHH would have done had the WWE been able to bring him in (and seriously, how the hell did WWE never make Shaq a big enough offer to appear at Mania!?), but that doesn't make it any less stupid here. Jade Cargill is going to be a big deal if she sticks to it, but at this point she is maybe almost as good as Midnight? Almost everything she did looked rough (although I liked her spinebuster), and Red Velvet was not the seasoned pro who was going to be able to lead her to anything worthwhile. Nobody else in the match did Velvet any favors either, and having multiple people miss a catch on a moonsault to the floor is something AEW has shown to be unparalleled at. The table spot was great, Cody riding Shaq down into the ground, but a lot of this was bad, even with the lowered expectations of having essentially two non-workers in the match. 

-Fenix/PAC squash match stunk, but at least it was over quick. John Skyler waited bent at the waist for a PAC sliding kick that didn't look good, and Fenix missed a legsweep kick by more than maybe any missed kick I've ever seen. Fenix later did a cool rope walk punt on Skyler's partner on the apron, and that missed by at least a foot. Thigh slap was there though. 

-Tully, you're 67 years old. Just wrestle without a shirt, buddy. Nobody cares if you don't have abs, you don't have to dress like a bike courier.  

-Women's match was rough, so many of the spots looked downright bad. Rose had a really nice face first bump off the apron to the floor for a convincing count out tease, and almost everything else in the match looked bad. Rose seems to have no lifting power whatsoever, her slams all looked like Mizunami was doing all of the lifting herself. The superplex was so bad, and if you can't make it look like you're at least attempting to suplex someone, maybe you should not do a superplex. Mizunami didn't look much better, and her guillotine legdrop may be one of the worst in modern wrestling. The bad spots kept coming throughout, peaking when Mizunami had to stay hung over the ropes for 15 seconds waiting for Nyla's kneedrop, like this was a year 2000 indy match. And for as much as the commentary crew were blown away that that kneedrop didn't finish the match, Mizunami sure was back on her feet immediately doing her own big offense. Bad layout, bad execution, bad match. 

-Ten vs. Caster definitely felt like one of those dreadfully dull matches that would happen before a Raw main event, so it was fitting that this went on at 9:35. Ten especially looked bad, looked like a guy who was wrestling with a concussion. He moved slow, threw bad strikes, and laid around a lot, really odd performance. You'd think a guy would be more excited to get on TV. Caster is real hammy, which is fine, but he needs some offense that actually looks good. Everything looks way too light, bad arm strikes, soft stomps, uninspiring arm work, bad at tying any of the action together. Nice brainbuster, which is something. 

-On a night with a lot of bad offense, Marq Quen had the unreservedly worst offense on the entire card. Show me someone with worst stomps or worst strikes, and I'll show you someone who should consider another profession. You wouldn't expect a non-wrestler to have offense as bad as Quen's, and in fact this show had TWO non-wrestlers with better looking offense! Honestly he should just be a manager. He can take a great backdrop bump while managing, and then wouldn't have to do any offense, which he can't do anyway. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/23/21

What Worked

-Good opening squash. Moxley looked motivated and threw some hard crossfaces and a great back suplex, but he was also no doubt helped by Nemeth's ability to take punishment in cool ways. He really flung himself back hard on that suplex and took the double underhook DDT like a 90s jobber looking to sue the company.

-I liked the highspot beating Pillman Jr. took in his tag match, tough gig to play FIP while Cage and Starks suplex you and scrape their boots on your face. Pillman hit a great baseball slide dropkick, nearly hanging himself on the ropes but it looked wild. Starks had a couple of cool pinfalls where he really laid back with all his weight, and the Garrison hot tag had some fun moments (nice jungle kick, huge no hands plancha where Cage may have saved Garrison's life by standing his ground), but the beating Pillman took was the highlight. Dropkicks to the face, a screwdriver to finish things, rough night. The whole segment was fun, loved Darby's skateboard shot and Starks' bump over the top for it. 

-Hager's finishing lariat looked great, even though he made Brandon Cutler wobble around in place forever, like he was about to take a Fatality. If you're going to make someone do that, at least he made it look like a fatality. 

What Didn't Work

-I still can't get into the Sting return. I guess I'm not the audience for it, and that's fine, but it's funny to me that Sting took a hard powerbomb from Cage last week (not an unprofessional powerbomb, but a powerbomb harder than a 61 year old man who doesn't need the money should be taking), and Sting claimed he wanted REVENGE. And that revenge? His reverse DDT. I know we're technically supposed to view all finishers as equal, but Sting taking out Cage with a reverse DDT after Cage had been doing nothing but big slams, hard clotheslines, and dangerous drops, and now I have to buy that a reverse DDT might put him down? 

-Jake Hager decided to catch Cutler's tope con giro by flopping onto his stomach look a goof. 

-Craig T. Nelson is making that Young Sheldon money, I don't know why he needed to guest on Dynamite just so Jericho could smear some Smuckers on his head. 

-WHO among us thought Hangman Page/Isiah Kassidy should have gone as long as it did? Kassidy is a guy who seems like he's regressed as a worker since joining AEW. He was far more interesting when he was working as a Red trainee who wrestled like Red. Nobody wants to see him work unconvincing arm locks, not one person thought for one second that Page was going to be slowed down by Kassidy's long arm work section (he was not, didn't hesitate one bit when he hit a rolling elbow, though he did sell the arm after), and I'm not sure there was one thing Kassidy did that looked convincing. It's hard to work convincing control segments when you can't even connect on simple stuff like stomach kicks, while also looking like you're unsure how to apply holds to the limb you're supposed to be working over. Then we had to go through a long series of Kassidy kicking out of things that I did not buy him kick out of. The world did not ask for, nor need, dominant heel control Isiah Kassidy. This was enough. HOWEVER, if Kassidy actually stuck to the limb work and got good at it, I would really love a heel Amazing Red who also did Catch Point matwork. I would even take a bad version of that. And with some more work, Kassidy could be bad at this. 

-I could not get into Britt Baker/Nylas Rose. I don't think it was bad, but it felt like they were more going through the motions of having an epic confrontation without doing the actual match that felt like an epic confrontation. Nyla Rose always looks like she is stumbling or falling over while delivering almost every piece of offense, but rarely in a way that puts her opponent in danger. She's a monster, but doesn't do a lot of offense that makes her come off as a monster. I more like Baker's avoidance, and her mocking kicks to Nyla's face, and was more impressed with Nyla's suplex bumps than with any offense she did. Her best was probably the match ending sitout powerbombs, and even those looked like she was in danger of falling over while lifting. Very basic matches that are treated like manic wars always get under my skin. 

-I love a good wrestling style clash, but I don't think that good wrestling style clash will ever involve Lance Archer. I am getting sick of seeing this guy so often on TV. He moves like he has two town quads and can't bend down, and he constantly throws timing off. Fenix is a guy who at his best can fire off precision timing, and Archer just makes a lot of that look bad. Fenix was falling all over the place in painful ways, and you see him doing it to make Archer look good and just think "for this?" Fenix does some of his unhinged things like his always great tope con giro, and another where he fell face first on the entrance ramp from the top rope after Jake Roberts held his ankles too long. But Archer made him look like an idiot several times by mistiming when to take kicks. And who out there wanted to see Archer in a ladder match more than they'd want Fenix in a ladder match? Get this doofus away from the AEW guys I like. 

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AEW Full Gear Live Blog

 PAS: Wife and kids are visiting the in-laws today, so I figure I would check this out.  I am incredibly excited about Eddie Kingston vs. Jon Moxley, Kingston is an all-time favorite of mine and I am so excited to see what he can do with the biggest opportunity of his life. I also think Darby vs. Cody should be good as usual, and there are some other matches which might be good too.

Allysin Kay vs. Sereena Deeb

PAS: Not sure the point of having two different women's titles that aren't particularly booked well and that folks don't really care about. This was a solidly executed match that never did anything to stand out past solid. I liked the stuff in the ropes with the neckbreaker by Kay and later the dragon screw in the ropes by Deeb. This never broke past OK, although that is a pretty good rating for the AEW women's division.

Hangman Adam Page vs. Kenny Omega

PAS: This was OK I guess, this isn't really the type of wrestling I like, and the parts where they just exchanged, and then exchanged finisher, I was completely out. Also Page has a shockingly bad looking shoulder block from a guy I assume was trained by Beau James. I did like the finish with Page fighting the One Winged Angel before falling, and some of the chops and knees looked really good. Page hit a really nice regular clothesline and should probably ditch the goofy flip and just throw that. This is the kind of thing that Meltzer will give 5 3/4 stars too, and I thought was closer to watchable.  

John Silver vs. Orange Cassidy

PAS: I dug this a bunch. I am someone who found Cassidy's indy stuff relatively insufferable, but he tweaked it a bit in AEW and it is more of a way to frustrate and taunt his opponent then something that breaks the rules of wrestling. Silver was great as a steaming hothead, and I thought the ripping of the pockets was fun frustrated response spot. I haven't seen much of Silver before, but I dug all of his short man power spots, the one armed gorilla hold was really cool as was his spinning backbreaker, and his wild strike combos were stiff and cool Cassidy does have great body control and his escapes and counters looked great, just a compact exciting little match. A real surprise. 

Cody Rhodes vs. Darby Allin

PAS: I thought this was well on it's way to being a classic until a bit of a flat ending. Cody has had some undeniably great matches in his AEW time, but he has always felt like the canvas other artists were painting on, here he added some color and texture of his own. Here he actually had some killer offense and brought plenty of great offense of his own. All of the arm work of Rhodes was super nasty, the hammerlock throw to the stage looked like one of those crazy bumps Allin would take against Ethan Page. I also loved him shifting his weight on the Darby armdrag and dropping him on the bad arm. The top rope Cross Rhodes was brutal, as was the top rope counter to the sleeper. It was building to an amazing finish, but the series of rollups just didn't look great and the finish fell flat.  Darby has so much great looking roll up offense, having him win on some lame reversal was weak. Still overall this was killer and this PPV is super delivering with the main event still to come. 

Nyla Rose vs. Hikaru Shida

PAS: This PPV is delivering even on the things I wasn't looking forward too. The only other Shida match I have liked was against Aja Kong, so she must be best against big ladies she can hit really hard. I liked all the knee work by Rose, and she really knows how to use her size to make it hurt. Shida kept it pretty simple and just smashed Rose over and over again with nasty knee strikes until Rose was done, no problem with that finish at all. 

Young Bucks vs. FTR

PAS: I liked big portions of this, but think it eventually bloated past the point of great match. I really enjoyed the insane bumps Cash Wheeler was taking, just flying to floor like a luchadore losing his mask. I also thought the stuff with Harwood's busted hand was cool, not sure if that was an improv, but they did interesting things with it. The Face in Peril section was great, lots of interesting cut offs and a fun escape to a hot tag. The finish run just went on and on though, running through too many tribute spots and too many near falls, there was stuff I liked and would have liked as finishes, but they just ran too many finishes. At 20 minutes this would have been great, at damn near 30 it just was too much. 

Final Deletion

PAS: Not sure what the hell that was. Why it was so incredibly long, and I am not sure why they ended a comedy match with a horrifically violent murder. The last couple of minutes were some sick stuff, not sure how much of that was camera tricks, but it sure looked horrid. The bump from the apron was nasty, that chair shot to the forehead was gross as was the last chair shot on the concrete. Then they go back to weird call backs to other Hardy cinematic matches. I am not sure it was bad, but I am not sure it was good either.

Chris Jericho vs. MJF

PAS: This was pretty good stuff too, I thought the Jericho miss of the Judas Effect into the post was nasty stuff, and MJF's arm work was pretty good, although hurt by the Cody and Darby match being worked the same way. MJF still needs to work on the little stuff, although the big stuff normally looks OK. Goofy finish, although appropriate for what they are trying to do. Everything on this PPV hasn't hit it out of the park, but everything has at least been good stuff and you can argue that everything has over delivered. Very excited for this main event!

35. Eddie Kingston vs. Jon Moxley - GREAT

PAS: My expectations for this were sky high, Kingston has had so many stone cold classics, two matches on our All Time MOTY list, and this was him shooting his biggest shot ever on a PPV main event. This is a match I am going to want to watch again, but on first impression it didn't reach the heights of his best stuff. I thought the first brawling exchange looked great, the Frye vs. Takayama exchange almost always looks bad, but they were winging punches at each other with real force and violence. The tough guy chop exchange is also something I don't normally love, but worked for what they were trying to do here. I thought when this delved into death match stuff is where it fell a bit short. The barbed wire baseball bat is pretty tired at this point. I did like how Eddie sold the internal damage with the bloody mouth, and the craziness of wrapping his fist in barbed wire for the backfist was pretty great. Didn't think we needed either the thumbtacks or the alcohol, and a lot of the match was built around those as the big spots. The Eddie kicks to the nuts were great, as were all of his little quick jab slaps and crossfaces. I think we needed one more big Eddie near fall, and while the bulldog choke with the wire is a sick finish, I wanted it milked a bit more. The big dramatics in WWE matches are tiresome shit, but Eddie Kingston can do big dramatics better then almost anyone ever, and I needed this to be a bit more high key. I still thought this was a heck of a PPV main event, and one of the better matches of the year, but it won't end up in a Kingston top 5 or maybe even a Kingston top 10, and I wanted this to be his masterpiece. 

JR: It’s pretty rare that I feel way off base after a match compared to our little bubble, but I seem way higher on this than everyone else. I suppose I’ll try and articulate why? I think after a show on which everything felt bloated and over booked, this moved a clip that I was comfortable with. Eddie Kingston has strengths that have been touched upon here many, many times, but one I think that stands out in this performance is his ability to mine emotion and narrative without the WWE style negative space that every big main event has come to rely upon. I didn’t want an I quit match with two guys laying around after big moves and then grimacing and then doing something again. I wanted what I got here; a match which someone trying their hardest, pulling out every stop, and then when they ran out of ideas, coming to terms with their own limitations. Moxley was good here as well, working with enough pace to not indulge in some of his bad habits and very clearly wanting to give the brunt of the match to Kingston. It really felt as though this match played to both of their strengths in a way that doesn’t often happen anymore. We see workrate epics up and down the card, especially in AEW. I trusted Eddie to give me something that felt like a Kingston title challenge rather than an AEW main event and he delivered. While I’d listen to an argument that he has had a bunch of better stuff this year, I thought this stood out as a worthwhile entry, at least as an exercise as a single person building an internal narrative. 

ER: I am definitely the low voter on this one. This was probably the best promo build to a match we've had in who knows how long, with Kingston giving the kind of promos that come across the timelines of people who aren't on wrestling Twitter. Everyone I know who watches wrestling regularly was excited for this match. Universally anticipated. And it earned that anticipation. It just didn't deliver for me to the level I thought it could. They had ideas, and I think they went for maybe more of those ideas than they needed to. I think that the build felt so real, and the payoff felt so fake. I didn't like the use of weapons, and didn't think the match needed them. I don't love baseball bat shots in wrestling, especially when they're coming around the halfway point of the match. Maybe I associate them too much with Russo, but it's a bad connection either way. But I didn't buy into the barbed wire usage, even though both men's acting throughout was good. If you're going to have several spots where wire is scraped on someone's head or face or neck, somebody needs to blade if that wire is from Party City. Barbed wire wrapped fist is cool, but someone has to bleed because of barbed wire wrapped fist. The alcohol poured onto thumbtack holes is a cool bit that they did well, but I also don't think the payoff was good enough to necessitate tacks even being in the match. 

I don't think they needed that, and I think it would have better for the real match build for them to have more of a straight brawl. I think their work with chairs was good, and if they just did 2-3 extra things with a chair they wouldn't have needed any of the stuff with the bat, wire, or tacks. Fill in the time with more brawling. Kingston was also weirdly quiet throughout. He's used his mouth to legendary heights during this feud, the kind of promos that would have been memorable coming from a strong promo era, so it just felt really weird to me when he didn't utter a peep in this match. Kingston is one of the more amusing wrestlers of my life at working a couple of good verbal reactions into a match. A regretful yell after throwing a punch with a hurt hand, and angry insult after taking one leg kick too many, but here he was silent. It made things feel less dramatic to me, and I didn't feel as connected to it as a result. I thought the early parts of the match were great, and felt like they were building to something as strong as expected. Both of them were good at throwing chairs at each other, and Kingston brings such wrestling value to walking brawls. He's good at selling honestly and filling time, doing things like blocking a thrown chair with his hands, but not pretending to sell his head. Kingston shakes and rubs out his wrist after getting his hands up, and ol' JR doesn't pick up on it and first says it hit his head and then covers and says it was blocked mostly. Excalibur saves it and actually puts over Kingston's more nuanced selling by saying you could tell it affected his hand and wrist. 

That kind of attention to detail will keep the floor of a match high. So this was not a bad match, not at all. This was a match worked with a high floor, by two guys who can and have done well with matches like these. Their acting and selling was strong without, even if it did feel like it needed more passion. I grade Kingston matches tougher than anyone else's matches these days, because he's wrestling at a higher level than anyone else right now, I think he's been the best wrestler in the world for at least the past two years, and he's been a great wrestler forever 15 years now. He has consistently impressed me as much as any wrestler the past few years especially, so he's just going to be on a tougher curve. There are plenty of wrestlers who could have likely had this same match, and I would have come away impressed. This one just didn't move me like the best upper Kingston matches do. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/4/20

 What Worked

-The strong AEW tag opener is becoming a decent staple for them and has a higher than average success rate. This was worked around an extended Sammy Guevara hot tag and some really cool understated arm work on Ortiz, with MJF continuing to show that he's way more interesting working the little things into his matches than when he's just working "big reaction wrestling". He had a lot of subtle ways he would work Ortiz's arm, no big hammy arm attacks, just cool things like bending and trapping his wrist in painful ways while tagging in Wardlow. I didn't even know it would turn into an arm work match because he wasn't acting like it was a specific attack, and instead was just using it as a smart way to neutralize an opponent. Wardlow had nice little moments too, like the way he leaned into Sammy's big leaping hot tag knees or the way he delivered a nasty forearm to the back of Sammy's head to break up a pin. MJF and Wardlow are still bad at catching dives, both missing Sammy on consecutive flip dives (although Sammy was running through things so fast that it was genuinely difficult to tell where his landing spot would be, so plenty of people could have missed these), and Sammy figures out how to work around MJF's weak catching skills by later hitting a huge 450 lariat to the floor, and the lariat landing looked great. 

-I still don't understand any step of the Young Bucks/FTR build, but I liked the Bucks/Private Party tag. Private Party should be used as a team that has a couple nice spots before getting run the hell over, and that's what happened here. I enjoyed the way Matt worked in his tweaked knee (you know except they are heels and a heel working an injury in a match literally ALWAYS leads to crowd confusion), loved how Nick Jackson hit a superkick that stayed glued to the side of Marq Quen's face, and the BTE knee comes off - to me - like a way better finisher than the stupid years long setup Meltzer Driver. Confusion about the tag title build below. 

-Eddie Kingston. Live mic. Building the title match that he is in. Is there a safer bet in pro wrestling history? Incredibly, I thought Moxley brought just as much to this as Moxley. Eddie was going to bring the color, the emotion, and the emotional body language, but Moxley got under his skin without resorting to cheapness. Moxley bringing up King's mother was a great move, as it wasn't Moxley taking a cheap shot to trap Kingston into touching him, it was Moxley using a cruel weapon: a mother's disappointment. I've heard more than enough about Eddie Kingston's mother (how many times has Kingston sworn on "his beautiful mother's eyes"?) to know how big a deal it was for Mox to bring her up, and I loved this segment. Cannot wait for this match. 

-Butcher and the Blade backstage beatdown on Dustin/QT looked great, not many ways to build much more excitement for a match in 10 seconds than they did here. Butcher handled that cane like a samurai sword. 

What Didn't Work

-Not buying Miro as a singles guy at this point but I can't really blame them for trying. He had something at one point, and the jury is still out on whether he still has that something. The parts of this that worked felt like they worked because of Trent crashing when he was supposed to crash. I can't actually say that Miro looked good, although I would have thought he looked good if this was his second year. But he still comes off like a green monster who needs big bumpers. The finish looked great, as I loved a blown spot (intentional or no) leading to a finish, and Trent made his rope slip look really good, right before eating a big kick. I have zero insight into the popularity of gamer streams, so for all I know Miro the Twitch Streamer might be the biggest wrestling star by 2021. I'm not seeing it though. 

-So can someone explain FTR/Young Bucks to me? Young Bucks have been heels for over a month, but now FTR attacks them with their backs turned and Matt Jackson is going into the title match with a knee injury? I think the match has potential to be pretty great, and I think it can work great with either face Bucks/heel FTR OR heel Bucks/face FTR. But both teams as heels? Both teams as babyfaces who get cheered by acting like heels? Workrate faces who are just playing heels? None of that shit works and will tank a potentially good match. 

-I should be into Nyla Rosa squashes, but I am not. Something is missing. I always end up liking her opponent more in her squash matches, as it always feels like they are more responsible for whether her segments are a success or not. Red Velvet had a cool leg splits corner choke, and got driven super hard into the mat on a delayed sitout powerbomb. Again, Nyla's matches always just make me want to see more of the person being squashes. Also, Nyla's strikes over the guardrail on Shida post match, the final shots that are to lead into their big title match, looked incredibly bad so...

-I wasn't feeling Billy Gunn's kid so I opted to stop watching Dynamite tonight and watch 1993 Raw instead, which happened to feature Billy Gunn. Then I wondered how many guys in 1993 WWF are still wrestling as frequently as Billy Gunn in 2020 and...I guess PCO? Probably just PCO? 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 9/9/20

What Worked

-Eddie Kingston used a microphone, obviously it winds up here. I giggled every time he yelled at the Lucha Bros. to separate.

-I like Joey Janela when he is a Jericho punching bag.

-ALL ELITE HEELS IS REAL!!!!! I saw something about it on Twitter weeks ago and thought someone made a hilarious meme.

-Dustin match goes up here, but it was close. Brodie Lee looked really bad here, looking like someone who had no idea where he needed to be and couldn't think of interesting ways to get there. Dustin made this as salvageable as it was, so basically Dustin turning in a typical Dustin performance gets this up here. If I wasn't lazy I would write the Dustin part here and the Lee part down below, but let's call it at 55% good. Lee stumbled his way through things and looked lame enough through parts of this that it made me think there's a chance he is pulling double duty as Luchasaurus. Lee had a bunch of moments where he was just waiting to take moves, with no artistry whatsoever. He telegraphs all of Dustin's offense by just standing perfectly still and waiting for it, just horrible at occupying himself. When he took Dustin's drop down uppercut he literally just bent at the waist with his head up, watching Dustin the entire time while standing still. What a fucking idiot. He was at his best when he was Godzilla, throwing tables and barricades into Dustin while Dustin scrambled to safety, Dustin throwing punches while working to avoid him. But Lee has been bit by that really contagious Dijakovic bug, that makes him chain together a bunch of offense that looks like total rehearsed shit. He make Dustin's bulldog look like shit, and the finish was especially risible. The finishing lariat looked good, but making Dustin bounce back and forth between the ropes and his boot might have sounded like a good idea on paper, but it was hilarious in execution. Dustin keeps this here - barely - and Brodie Lee's stock has fallen every single week he's been in AEW.


What Didn't Work

-You know who stinks in AEW? Luchasaurus. That's a guy who stinks up a match. I really thought he had made strides in Lucha Underground, but he is pro wrestling poison in AEW. He always throws off the timing of a match, as everyone slows down to work in his spots and he does bad slow versions of cruiserweight spots. It wouldn't be SO bad if any of his spots looked good, but the thing is, none of his spots look good. Fenix looked great doing Fenix things, loved his rope work and his big dive into Luchasaurus down the finishing stretch (that Luchasaurus caught by falling over), but the finish of this was as putrid as anything Luchasaurus did. This was one of the more idiotically laid out finishes I've seen in AEW. Lucha Bros. hit a package piledriver on Jungle Boy, the Fenix hits the dive, gets back in the ring, but Jungle Boy is apparently Actually Fine from taking a tandem package piledriver just seconds before, and tricks Pentagon into giving Fenix a flipping piledriver. Incredibly, impossibly stupid.

-I guess I should be glad that they didn't work a physical angle with Hardy, but once I saw Reby there with their child I thought "Oh man Matt Hardy is gonna get fucked up". And I'm a monster because I am left disappointed by a man who clearly got a very bad concussion did not get nuked on TV a few days later.

-Jack Evans has just been on the roster, not being on TV? And he's not even wrestling tonight, just appearing at ringside? There are plenty of chuds on TV every week that should be replaced with Evans. Cassidy/Angelico (oh yeah, they still have Angelico too. I have not watched any episodes of Dark) was ehhhh. I liked Angelico's Jerry bump, but th Navarro sub looked like it was the first time he was trying it, and all of Cassidy's offense landed feather light. Then we end the segment with some Best Friends and this is firmly in the bottom half of the page.

-Not only do we get a segment showcasing Kip Sabian's comedy chops (and an unexpected Puf appearance), but Rusev/Miro is here and lemme tell you people, he's got something things to say about SOME PEOPLE UP NORTH. We know who HE'S talking about!! Get outta here. Bring someone in and do something other than that, ANYTHING other than that. Also, Miro is absolute wedding poison. Nobody should want him anywhere near an official role in their wedding. You'd think he wouldn't even want to be involved. THOSE PEOPLE UP NORTH had me do some stupid
wedding cuck angle. I'm going DOWN SOUTH to also then do a wedding angle.

-Boy, Hager/Sonny Kiss is an ugly style clash. Kiss has been great in trios matches, awkward in tags and singles, and Hager is not going to help him look good. I liked Janela's big bumps to the floor, liked Jericho getting run into a chair, but there was a lot of clunk in this tag.

-I did not anticipate FTR being this toothless in AEW. I'd rather see them Old School Tag Wrasslin on Main Event rather than these weekly talk segments and disappointing matches.

-You know what the women's division was missing? Someone with another awkward style that requires matches to come to a halt just so bad looking spots can be done. Well, they checked that box with Tay Conti! Capoeira almost always translates poorly to pro wrestling (I have been a fan of some Arturo Ruas matches, others I found his capoeira getting completely in the way). He submissions looked slow, her kicks looked bad. She hit one nice knee on the floor. And she's going to be a babyface? She feels like a natural heel to me, but hey, they seem to know what they're doing with this division.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 6/10/20

What Worked

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

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

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

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

What Didn't Work

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

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

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 6/3/20

What Worked

-Taz is a good choice as Cage's manager, as there's a constant cool visual reminder that they might have disjoined at some point. They're the only two guys left with structured and groomed Year 2000 sideburns (Jungle Boy gets a pass, his sideburns are grandfathered in), and Cage's HGH belly rivals Taz's pasta belly. It's too unlikely that they found each other, far more likely that one disjoined from the other.

-I really liked Jericho/Cabana as a 6 minute 2nd hour of Nitro match. Cabana hits a nice Asai moonsault (and then does an even crazier thing by slapping hi fives with several people and then immediately touching his mouth), and I loved his big bump over the ringpost after getting shoved by Hager. The layout was smart and kept things brisk, obvious that Jericho is so much better than Omega at pacing a match like this. Cabana got a couple decent nearfalls even though the finish wasn't in doubt, and the finish was perfect: Jericho crumpling Cabana with the Judas Effect as Cabana is bunny hopping off the middle buckle. And I'm not sure why, but I laughed hard at the specific way Jericho called Mike Tyson a piece of shit after the match. Man's delivery is still strong.

-Britt Baker with the segment of the week again, every second of it was so good. Locking the wheelchair in place to work the ropes, dragging that 2 lb. weight, the slo mo looks at the camera while being pushed across the field, all of it so great. Did I really sleep on Baker, or has she gotten really great in the past couple months?

-I liked Cody/Jungle Boy but something bigger was missing. I can't put my finger on it, so I'll just say that I much prefer Cody's style of working opponents into a match to any of the other AEW figureheads. Cody doesn't just step out of the way and allow someone to have a run in the middle, he makes space for convincing comebacks that works to an opponents' style. I liked how Jungle Boy's strikes got harder as the match went on, and how he went after Cody's cut. I was impressed with their fighting on the top rope, a moment that is hard to pull off without looking like two guys trying to cooperate to maintain balance, but I think Jungle Boy's best strike of the match was when he smacked Cody in the ribs up top, and I loved how Cody popped him right after. The table spot looked good, although I wish it was used as more than just a match reset. It didn't really play into the match and it's weird to use the most violent spot of the match as essentially a rest period. Still, strong match and I'll be totally fine with Proud Defending Champ Cody bleeding on TV in 10 minute matches every week.


What Didn't Work

-I'm happy that AEW sees black people as equal, at least enough to put a written statement at the beginning of Dynamite and making the brave decision to ban Linda Hogan from live events but how many cool black wrestlers could be on TV instead of these brutal weekly Kip Sabian matches. If AEW announced they were giving Kip Sabian's contract to literally any black wrestler anywhere, I would believe them. Making that statement at the top of your show and then cutting right to Kip Sabian and Jimmy Havoc in the first match fells like talking about how you support black artists while buying Nickelback tickets. I mean Omega/Page vs. Sabian/Havoc is literally the whitest possible match they could have booked. And yet, for all the deserved grief I give Sabian and Havoc, Omega was clearly the worst guy in this specific match. He hung both guys out to dry with improbably long wait times. Poor Sabian was sitting on the turnbuckles, plopped there like someone sitting backwards on a toilet, just waiting ages to take a backcracker. Omega's selling was laughably bad, with the biggest laugh coming when he took a Sabian springboard dropkick and did this amazing Little Tramp walk into the ropes while waiting for his cue to waddled backwards into a poison rana. And that rana magically allowed him to hit suplexes seconds later! Omega managed to look like more of a clown than Sabian and Havoc, and that's an impressive dedication to putting over your opponents.

-So Fyter Fest is an indisputably bad name, right?

-Nyla Rose took a nice big bump over the top and off the apron, and had a couple of really nice kickouts (well timed in accordance with the move she had taken), but I couldn't quite figure out if the layout of this was really dumb, or lazy, or just bad. It was a worse version of the mid 90s babyface Randy Savage formula where Swole took the entire match and then Rose just hit a rydeen bomb and called it a night. Swole gets hung up sometimes on timing and her strikes always look better when they aren't part of a combo (loved her backhand slaps here), but she came off weaker to me with how quickly she was dispatched, no matter that she got half a dozen nearfalls before that. Also, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and assume JR's use of the word "manhandling" during Nyla's matches is just because he only knows so many words.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 5/20/20

What Worked

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

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

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

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

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

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


What Didn't Work

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

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

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 5/6/20

What Worked

-I liked Nyla Rose's cannonball off the top, and her powerbomb delivered a nice flat landing. But somewhere, some man is crying about it.

-I overall liked Moxley/Kazarian, though I liked more what they were going for in the first half than the second half. After Janela's goofy brand of dancing, I was getting into these two just basing a match around heavy chops and headlock takeovers. And I thought the layout was much stronger, even if there was some shady execution on some of it. This should have been Moxley beating Kazarian down while Kazarian does his best to keep up and fight back, and that's mostly what we got. I liked Kazarian utilizing "holding my leg out" two different times, letting Moxley run himself into a boot off the top to the floor and in the ring. And Kazarian took a couple of tough bumps, including getting backdropped out of the ring onto the ramp and landing on sprawled knees. Finish was simple and easy, no need to have someone kicking out of your best stuff, and I appreciated that.

-QT Marshall did his best to make Archer look good, and I think QT has some of the best strikes in AEW. He's exactly where he should be within the AEW hierarchy, but he's become a guy I really like seeing when he shows up.

-Loved Britt kicking Brandi in the stomach and hitting a nice DDT on the floor. But for all of JR and Excalibur showing concern for Brandi when Jake's snake was crawling on her, nobody ever asked how awful it must have felt for the snake to see Brandi wearing snakeskin shorts.

-The peaks of the main event made it work, even though it still had that weird combination of "pretty dangerous bumps but also yuks" that they always go for. Can you picture Buzz Sawyer getting punched in the head and thrown hard into a guardrail, and then hit with an inflatable pool float? No, because that would be pretty stupid. There's always this weird vibe when they do a match like this where they have to do some crazy stuff so that they're taken seriously, but this weird shame where they don't want to be the guys taking something like pro wrestling seriously. I don't understand it myself, but it's clearly the house style. Sammy Guevara took a lot of big bumps and is the best guy to be teaming with Jericho in something like this, to take all of the big bumps while acting as his hype man. Sammy takes a gnarly powerbomb into a roll up door, and leans way into a golf cart bump (much better than Jericho, who JR immediately had to give a "well luckily I think Jericho got out of the way of that cart..."). Omega was much better doing wild stupid stuff like that awesome moonsault off the cherry picker, than he was at simple brawling (I'm not sure why he was throwing punches a foot past people's heads in a brawl, but there they were). Even Swagger takes a big bump through a stack of guardrails. Those type of things kept the match up here.


What Didn't Work

-I really liked the opening of Janela/Rhodes, loved the fast scramble small package nearfalls especially, but disliked it the longer it went and thought it was pretty lousy by the end. The longer Janela matches go, the more he shows that he has no idea how to transition back to offense other than "take someone's move fully, and just get up and go on offense". That kept happening throughout the match, and it looked worse each time. There were moments that were good on paper, like a chop exchange ending with Cody goading Janela into throwing one more, only to have Cody kick his arm as he chopped. But with Janela it's really obvious when a spot is going to miss or hit, as he telegraphs things from a mile away making it clear when something is going to whiff. He started that chop while standing 7 feet away from Cody, made a cool on paper spot look silly. Beyond that it was awkward positioning (like Cody's moonsault off the entrance way that Janela had to casually walk 10 feet to take), or awkward movements Janela's silly little run to miss a ramp charge, or that sad little flub where he couldn't hop up onto the apron to finish a spot). By the end of this I was already tired of Cody hitting something big, Janela kicking out with a dramatic nearfall, and then that nearfall meaning nothing when he just stood up to do his own move. Moves trading sucks when someone just stands up after a reverse superplex. The strike exchange in the home cement was shit dressing on a turd salad.

-Why does Lance Archer pick his weakest looking offense to finish matches? His twisting splash off the middle rope looked better than anything he used down the stretch of the match.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/12/20

This had a really rough start, but it ended up being a pretty dang good television wrestling show.

What Didn't Work

-Opening a show with a twenty minute tag featuring Frankie Kazarian and Hangman Page made me feel like Eric was pranking me by asking me to review this show. They are two of the worst guys on this show, and watching them try to do gogo AEW tag style (a style I don't like when it is done by athletic guys) is painful. Kazarian spends a lot of this match obviously placing himself in position for SCU's moves and the crowd chanting "Cowboy Shit" for Page's gentle corner clotheslines and kip ups is painful. What fucking Cowboy is that? Sam Houston or Scott Casey would be ashamed to land stuff with such tenderness, much less Barry Windham or Stan Hansen. Omega is a goof but at least he throws really nasty knees. Post match tag brawl was pretty lame too, there was a side of the screen Page and Angelico punch out which was as embarrassing as the Dark Order gif that got passed around.

- Most of the women's match was pretty good, but Rhio effortlessly throwing snap dragon suplexes on a 200 pound plus woman is pretty ridiculous. She looks like an indoor kid 11 year old, and should remove all throws from her offense, much less force Nyla Rose to leap into suplexes like she is Taz. I liked the match though, and Rose does have some big time offense, that leaping knee was devastating.


What Worked

- That was a really good promo by Santana, kind of makes me wish they would just sign Eddie Kingston, but if you are going to borrow, borrow from the best.

-Britt Baker has been a total miss so far, but I enjoyed her heel promo. Condescending to Schiavone, talking about how she extracted the tooth for free and was never thanked, calling the fans fat Whataburge faces. If they keep her out of the ring and keep doing this it will work

-Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevera are two of my favorite guys in this fed, and while they haven't had the classic they have in them, I really enjoyed this match. Dustin does all the small things perfectly and Sammy is a super entertaining big bumper. Did Dustin ever do a house show tour with green Jack Swagger? I have some real high expectations for their PPV match.

- Jungle Boy vs. MJF was good too. They have good chemistry with each other and I could easily see this being a feud they run back over the years. I am an MJF low voter, but I thought he was good here, and really gave Perry moments to shine, before a classy shit heel finish.

-I liked Santana vs. Moxley OK, although it could have used more eye gouging and less athletic workrate exchanges. You blinded me with a car key, and I shall frog splash and enzigiri you. The eye gouging parts were cool though, and since Moxley dumped the rebound part he is killing people with lariats.

-Jeff Cobb is a great addition, but bringing in every heavyweight as muscle for a small guy is a weird AEW trope. We already have Wardlow and Jake Hager, didn't need another guy filling the same roll.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 1/29/20

What Worked

-Really enjoyed Young Bucks vs. Butcher and the Blade, especially when we got to the B&B(&B) control. Butcher is also really good at taking offense from both Bucks and making it credible, loved the way he honestly sold their stomach kicks and transition strikes depending on how hard it looked. His big crossbody is a nice spot, he had a couple of really good saves (including a perfectly timed one after a great Nick somersault senton). I'm not sure why Butcher and Blade grew out their hair for the AEW run, but I like the hairline positive attitude. Look how confident they look while stomping out Nick, while Nick shamefully hides behind Brett Michaels Rock of Love accessories.

-Swole should probably drop most of her kick offense (feels like we have a 1 in 3 success rate on those), but there was a lot to like about her match with Nyla Rose. Nyla had a couple nice bumps, Swole's thrust headbutt and her sell afterwards looked great, and the guillotine choke spot is the moment to beat tonight. Strong visual of Swole locking it in while Nyla wound up in a deep squat, powering up a couple of times but not quite, before finally getting fully extended and tossing Swole. Nyla's strength really came through there, awesome moment.

-When you go down to the Honda dealership this weekend, you're gonna want to talk to my guy Arn. He's the top guy there in charge of Fleet sales, total pro. You need a top notch Sales & Leasing Consultant? You talk to Arn.

-Cody did the best he possibly could opposite Sabian, really looked like he was working for two men. He flew hard into the turnbuckles even though Sabian can't even pretend to be doing an Irish whip with any strength behind it, and the impressive thing was Cody's bumps didn't seem disconnected from Sabian's awful offense. The timing was on point and it actually looked like Sabian's nothing strikes were damaging. Has to be tough to make Sabian look formidable, but he did his best.

-I'd actually like it if Britt Baker did more dental related putdowns and insults. My father is a dentist and all through my childhood he had a habit of pointing out dental shortcomings of TV actors. He had strong suspicions that Gillian Anderson did not regularly floss, due to her slightly irritated gumline. I need more Britt Baker calling out the dangers of periodontal disease, and less Britt Baker in a wrestling ring.

-Jack Evans hasn't been on TNT in 3 months, and that needs to change. There have been so many bad Jack Evans on Dynamite, and the actual still great Jack Evans has been slumming it on Dark. You need someone to bump a suplex on the side of their face? You have Jack Evans on your roster. AEW priorities are so bizarre.

-I probably would have rather just seen Darby work the entire main event, but sitting through a match long Private Party crapfest just made Darby's hot tag look even more amazing. His sudden tope on Jericho was so damn good, and in 90 seconds he outclassed Private Party in every single way, hitting all of his spots harder and twice as fast. They really picked the wrong team to sometimes occasionally get behind.


What Didn't Work

-Opening promo came off a little weak to me, neither guy's snaps were really landing, no real update on Moxley's eye (after having it worked on over an entire match a week ago), Ortiz Howard Dean'd the introduction of 5 local Puerto Rican goons, but I thought the pull apart looked good enough and laughed at Moxley mouthing "TEN!?" to the cameras while holding up his fingers.

- I'd say that Kip Sabian should stick to strikes that he can actually pull off, but after this match I think it might be best if he just not use his legs or arms for anything approximating a strike. He threw half a dozen kicks to the stomach that looked almost on par with mid 2000s Torrie Wilson (Edit: 2000s *babyface* Torrie Wilson. Heel Torrie Wilson had better stomach kicks), threw a couple missed clotheslines slowly enough (possible he was parodying the weekly Britt Baker matches, but probably not), just nothing but bad strikes. He took the Cross Rhodes like a champ, and maaaaaaybe Sabian should just be one of those guys who exclusively takes offense. The knee injury was a fun way to spend the commercial break, but we cut fully away to a commercial before we found out if he was faking it or not, and when we came back from break it wasn't referenced again. Odd.

-Can't be a coincidence that the weakest LAX performance in AEW is against Private Party. Private Party are the Young Bucks without the timing, forcing every team to stand around and wait while they hit some convoluted flip that ends with Quen almost touching someone with his feet. LAX looked like goobers having to wait around for stuff to land, looked like it threw off all four of them.

-Jon Moxley should have practiced swinging a bat before going on live TV. Swinging at bat is harder than it looks. Moxley looked like Pedro Cerrano if Cerrano faced nothing but curves.

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