AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/19 - 12/25

AEW Dark Elevation 12/19

MD: Got some sickness in the house (yeah, that sort) right now, and right at XMas too. I had initially thought about doing the whole show as it had a lot of things to like (Shafir hitting people at weird angles; Athena being Athena, the best act in AEW right now; Workhorsemen vs BCC; Emi and Bunny doing their thing) but that's out. There was a Kingston/Ortiz tag, but I don't have a ton to say about it. If I was going to do a Shinno match from this week I'd do the Omega one from Dark that I didn't like one bit, but no one wants to hear me talk about that, so instead, let's go with our honorary Finger Slim...

Ethan Page/Matt Hardy/Isiah Kassidy/Top Flight/Konosuke Takeshita vs. Trustbusters (Sonny Kiss/Slim J/Jeeves Kay)/Wingmen (Peter Avalon/Cesar Bononi/Ryan Nemeth)

MD: The AEW webshows reward and punish those that watch them all. I've seen some griping about the Hardy Party/Ethan Page story popping up here and there and it's a shame as I think Page has done a great job with it. I get people being frustrated by the idea of yet another contract storyline (Khan writes what he knows), but the backstage stuff has been a lot of fun. Page is walking this obtuse line between being malicious and so egotistical (naturally) that he actually gets into the moment at times. He really leans hard into the fabricated enthusiasm that you get the sense that the character is sort of losing himself to the moment at times, but in a way that somehow makes the humiliation worse and not better for Hardy and Private Party. I'm not sure it's entirely coherent, but it's actually pretty compelling.

Here, he burst through the pair as their music hit and did the big hardy gun hang signal only to cut the music when he didn't get a big pop. He had a mic and it was a fun little gimmick but I don't think he leaned into it enough. Past one moment where he freaked out that Takeshita was ending the dive train, he only said anything when it was a plot beat. He should have been commenting on a lot more, like the Trustbusters triple combo sliced bread. That was my big gripe there. It seemed a little too in your face because of it, even if his facial reactions and faux babyface cheering on was actually pretty engaging throughout.

You watch a big twelve man match like this looking for a few things: the rapid fire spots, interesting match-ups of opponents, and interaction between guys who wouldn't normally interact. I don't think we really got that last one. It was nice to see Page pat Darius on the shoulder pre-match as an extension of the above gimmick, but in general the Trustbusters (still working out their act) and the Wingmen kept to themselves and didn't work together much. We did get some fresh match-ups though. Kassidy and Kiss come to mind, and as Darius been on the shelf for so long, even the Wingmen and Top Flight working against one another seemed pretty fresh. So in that regard, this was a hit for me. They especially used Takeshita well here, as a big clean-up hitter. I would have liked Bononi teased a bit more (or even get to lean on Kassidy a bit) before the big showdown with Takeshita though. Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing one of these on Elevation with various guys on the massive roster once a month.

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

AEW Elevation 12/6 (Taped 12/1)

Dustin Rhodes/Brock Anderson/Lee Johnson vs Cesear Bononi/Peter Avalon/J.D. Drake 

MD: Not a ton of Dustin here, but that was okay. He played his role, which was to back Nesmeth off when he was intervening on the floor and to let the kids get ring time while waiting for the hot tag. Once he got it, he cut through everyone like butter, including going astoundingly deep on the power slam on Drake. It's criminal we never got a Dustin vs post-turn Big Bubba in 95 WCW. That would have been a perfect feud if Dustin was around a few more months more. The rest of the match worked for me. Avalon fed well for Johnson at the start. Wingmen kept solid control on Brock, including the combo of Bononi's suplex, Drake's cannonball, and Avalon's splash. On the one hand, it's a little too early for Brock to be doing the punch fake DDT, but I guess you can cover it with the fact he's been naturally studying his dad. I like the Wingmen as an absolute bottom of the barrel heel enhancement team (well, right above Chaos Project). We're not in a world where people settle on getting a C house show main event with one of these guys against Koko B Ware or Hillbilly Jim or whatever, but people won't feel robbed if they get to see a middle of the card star showcase with someone like Darby getting put over by them. You need wrestlers like the Desperados and State Patrol on a roster.

PAS: This was a perfectly executed version of what it was. I haven't watched a ton of Elevation and Dark but the Wingmen are a hell of an enhancement team, solid workers, a lot of personality, can compete but not win. Brock being in the match a lot makes sense for his development, although he was clearly the greenest guy in this match, still you cant go wrong building to a Dustin hot tag, man he is great at getting in there and firing off offense. Drake is a guy I have liked in bigger roles, and he feels like someone who could work at a Garcia, Moriarity level as well. 

AEW Dynamite 12/8

Bryan Danielson vs. John Silver

ER: I was excited for them to get to this match, as Silver is clearly a Danielson acolyte (which really could be said about a 15 year swath of guys who got into wrestling) and at times works like a Little Buff Boy Danielson. The match delivered what I was hoping for, although I wish Danielson had treated Silver a little more seriously. It's not that he didn't respect him as an opponent, it just felt like nothing Silver did to Danielson actually got sold by Danielson (sometimes just not for very long, other times not really at all) even though Silver was throwing some of the best strikes I've seen from him. I don't need Danielson to give Silver 80% of the match the way Punk bizarrely let Lee NRFPT Moriarty do, but Danielson at times looked like he was just in a rush to get back to his part of the match. Both threw super hard kicks, and Danielson looked like he was going to go full Finlay when he yanked Silver over the apron and blasted him with an uppercut. I would have liked to hear what kind of heat Danielson was drawing, but the heat segment was (as usual) during the picture in picture break. We got some nice visuals of Danielson's infectious smile as he milked the (I assume) boos from the crowd, cranking a cravat and throwing a pointed knee at Silver's head, then throwing some sick grounded knees to the back of Silver's head and neck while holding him in place with a Chauvin kneel. Danielson kept going for missile dropkicks, making nice contact and sending Silver pinballing, before Silver absolutely plants him with a sitout powerbomb while catching a third dropkick. Silver's comeback looked good and it felt like he was working up to Danielson's speed and stiffness, making his 1-2-3 kick combo to a kneeling Danielson look tops. I don't think the match thread was as strong as other AEW Danielson matches have been, instead making this play like a match with great pacing where everything looked great. Great pacing and flawless execution gives a match a very very high floor, but I was left thinking Silver's big moments should have had more lasting consequences. 

MD: I'm going to start with the transition to comeback. As someone who rarely watches matches with the Elite, my least favorite spot in AEW is Silver's powerbomb counter. He uses it in almost every single match to start his comeback/enter into the finishing stretch and it's almost always done off the ropes where he catches a heel who doesn't ever do a Frankensteiner jumping up to do one. We're talking guys like JD Drake. It's the old "don't power bomb Kidman" thing, but even worse because at least Kidman was a small guy who was eminently power bombable. You were doing something to him, as opposed to doing something that's more on you that's totally out of character just to set another guy's move. Here, though, it was perfect since it came out of Danielson casually hitting second rope missile dropkicks around the ring on Silver. I'm going to have to give the credit to Danielson there (which is funny since he is a guy who could well hit a Frankensteiner anyway). Rest of the match was good. I liked the opening showcase of strength spots with Danielson doing well then showing ass. All of the strikes were great, both the back and forth and when each guy had an advantage. I had a lot of time for Danielson's take over on offense which was that thing we see a ton in French Catch from guys like Guy Robin or Pierre Bernaert where they're taking shots and just stay down so they can get a leg pick out of nowhere. The counters were fun and I liked the way they got into Silver's kick in the ropes/German combo which is probably my favorite spot of his when some thought is put into it. Most of all, I liked how Danielson interacted with Silver and the crowd. During the break, Taz said that he was feeling disrespected by them, but his disdain was more that his idea of wrestling, or at least the idea that he claims to have, is inherently disrespected by Silver (and the Dark Order in general) having all of this talent but wanting to have fun and goof around instead of being the best. That disdain came through so clearly in his wrestling and it made the match.

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