AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 11/11/20

What Worked

-I'm not sure what it would take for a bloody bunkhouse brawl featuring Dustin Rhodes to not make the upper half of this write up, so obviously the bunkhouse brawl is here. Throw in the fact that the average age of the combatants was 42 then even MORE obviously the brawl is up here. Everyone comes out wearing white clothing (with Dustin and QT looking like the two men who most understand street fight fashion culture in cowboy boots, kneepads over old jeans, and white shirts with the sleeves cut off) and B&B wearing white jeans. Seeing all that white you knew guys were gonna juice, and juice was what we got. I don't think this was anywhere near as good as the parking lot brawl from a couple months ago, but this was bloodier and had plenty of dumb bumps of its own, so of course it ruled. 

QT Marshall is definitely the best friendship signing in AEW, a guy who was roundly laughed at for being on the roster due to nepotism, yet has delivered in every single spot he's been put in. He's the first one busted open here, he was really great at coming in at just the right time with saves, and hit a picture perfect elbowdrop off the top of a very very tall ladder onto the even bloodier Blade. Dustin wrestled like Dustin, which is what you're gonna want in a match like this. He and Butcher beat the hell out of each other, with Dustin hitting a sick twisting vertical suplex on a set up chair, hitting a big bulldog off the staging into a crash box that luckily was right next to the stage, and later Dustin takes a disgusting powerbomb kidneys first through a couple chairs. Butcher and Blade did what Dustin bunkhouse opponents needed to do. Blade hit a great, erm, blade job and really utilized the bleached blond short haircut, both took nasty bumps, their double teams looked good and I thought they set them up in smart ways. Even Bunny took a nice bump off the apron through a table (which the cameras mostly missed) and that nicely made up for her taking forever to try to handcuff Dustin to the ropes earlier in the match,. Oh, and Excalibur got a great laugh out of me by calling The Butcher "Bunkhouse Butch". 

PAS: I thought this was a lot of fun, the kind of entertaining fight which they really should run every six weeks or so with different combinations of guys. I think it would have worked a bit better if the finish had been the elbow off the ladder, that was the apex of the match and ending on a bunch of B- diamond cutters wasn't nearly as effecting. I enjoyed the Butcher as a reckless sloppy guy possibly hurting people, I wish his clotheslines were better, but this was easily the most I have enjoyed him. Blade nearly bleeding to death was a nice moment too. For Dustin Bunkhouse opponents, they aren't Windham or Buck, they really aren't even the Blacktop Bully, but were perfectly fine. I wonder if this is the only match in Dustin Rhodes career where someone has bled and he remained dry? Really odd, I kept waiting for him to open up and was just flabbergasted by his reddless forehead. 

-Maybe I'm just feeling generous because they gave me a bloody Dustin match, but I'll throw the Shawn Spears/Scorpio Sky match up here. Both do tons of little things that I hate (Scorpio Sky has this extremely annoying habit of kicking out of his pinfalls before his opponent does), but there was some cool stuff here. I loved Sky's inside out armdrag to send Spears to the floor, and his follow up pescado. Sky also bumped around for Spears, got thrown hard into the barricade, and other back work that didn't matter once it was Sky's turn to go on offense. The announcers said Spears is 15-2 in AEW this year, and it would be hypocritical of me to complain about them pushing some old nobody (an old nobody who is a month younger than I am) after praising all the old guys practicing bloodletting earlier. So yeah, fuck it, keep giving wins and pushes to dudes in their late 30s with my hairline. AEW knows how to make their fans feel seen. 

-I'd be willing to sit through a third lousy Fenix/Pentagon match just for the opportunity to hear Eddie Kingston on the mic before, during, and after the match. 

What Didn't Work

-Ah yes, my least favorite bullshit. I hate these Brian Cage matches where he outweighs a guy by 60 pounds and proceeds to have a 50/50 juniors sprint with them. I am impressed that Cage can do some of these things at his size, just as I am impressed with some of the things Keith Lee can do. But it just comes off stupid when he's working even with Sydal. Cage is just leveling Sydal with lariats in this match, so why would he decide to do a running headscissors? He knocked Sydal onto his ear or neck four different times with power moves, what would the best case scenario have been had he hit a huracanrana? Just fucking hit the guy you gassed up goof! The moves in this were hot, the logic was not. Go watch the AEW Dark Sydal/Kingston match and see a heavyweight who knows how to work an actual interesting match with Matt Sydal. 

-Outside of Darby running into Cage with his thumbtack jacket, that Cody/Jade Cargill/Brandi/Tazz segment was a muddled mess. Is Cargill someone who has just been in AEW Dark, with the other couple dozen black wrestlers on the AEW roster? 

-How is someone like Tay Conti not just watching every single Ronda match and merely doing that? She's still inexperienced and hasn't really been doing this that long, but she has the absolutely perfect blueprint to learn from, literally the best rookie of the past 20 years (or more?) is a judoka almost exactly her size. Every time Conti integrates judo into her matches it looks awesome. A lot of the non judo, timing based stuff? That looks significantly less awesome. A lot of AEW women's matches have these awkward moments where someone has to walk into position or makes a few tentative movements, and this was no different. I'm glad to see Red Velvet get a longer showing, but didn't think she did much with it. She hit a nice leg lariat and leaned into a couple hard Conti kicks, but this didn't add up to much. 

-There has to be an actual good Fenix/Pentagon singles match out there, right? And yes I know Meltzer gave 4 stars to the one from a few weeks ago that saw Pentagon treat his brother like Bernie Lomax after Fenix almost broke his neck. Penta looked extremely sluggish here, but that's kind of his thing. The layout was lazy as hell and it was filled with Penta slowly walking around catching his breath. It's mostly a long dull Penta control segment where he's clearly just filling time going through the motions, including a hilarious moment where he started ripping at Fenix's mask out of nowhere, before moments later winding up just holding a chinlock for awhile. Maybe he was doing an amusing "that's right this match is getting ugly, ah you people don't deserve it I'll just hold this chinlock" heel routine, but I think he just needed rest. Of course Fenix eventually comes back by just...not taking offense any longer, hits a great tornillo, gracefully gets into position for overly complicated Pentagon offense (my favorite being that stupid flipping DDT where Pentagon didn't even twist Fenix properly into, so Fenix just had to turn around in the hold without Pentagon moving an inch. Fenix may as well have placed Pentagon's arm around his neck first), gets dropped on his head few times with package piledrivers and a flipping piledriver, and man I wish Eddie Kingston was affiliated with someone who is not Pentagon. 

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 9/30/20

What Worked

-I really haven't seen a ton of Ricky Starks but was impressed with how he pinballed around for Darby and set up a bunch of his offense. They had cool callback stuff throughout, like Starks running a spear right into a Darby guillotine early but then hitting that spear late in the match as Darby was springing off the ropes, leading to a nice nearfall. Starks took some big offense from Darby, like a vertical suplex on the apron and stayed in to get killed by a Darby tope, but he also flipped hard onto his shoulders off the Code Red and got launched across the ring by a weird/cool monkey flip armbar thing (it was like Darby was giving him an airplane ride and then kicked him off while holding the arm). Starks paid attention to the damage his back took from that apron suplex and really put on a selfless bumping heel performance to make Allin look like the superstar he is. Great way to open up the show.

-We got what I think is easily the best FTR performance since showing up in AEW. Tons of people were excited for them to go to AEW where they could "finally work" and then they proceeded to have several matches that weren't anywhere near as good as the matches they were regularly putting out on Main Event. THIS felt like the FTR that people were excited to see. Cash hilariously got Daniels thrown out from ringside by faking a picture perfect trip from the floor, planting on his face and holding his mouth (so of course you knew Tully was going to grab someone's leg from the floor at some point and I loved it was the finish). FTR were working quick tags and cutting that damn ring off, going fast on exchanges, taking all of Scorpio Sky's pillow soft landing crossbodies and making them look impactful, taking silly cutters (Cash flew high over the ropes on Kazarian's derpy slingshot cutter) and making them look good, really building a hot match around a tag team I don't find very interesting. The nearfall stretch leading up to the finish was really strong, with Kazarian getting dropped by a gnarly dragon suplex (I like commentary pointing out that being sweaty was probably the only thing that allowed him to slip out of the pin in time) and a couple of tight Scorpio Sky roll ups. Tully grabs that leg for the finish, and this is the FTR I'd like to see more from.

-JR doesn't really have much of a place on a good commentary team anymore, but I get repeat amusement out of his glowing descriptions for picture-in-picture. This week he called it "restaurant quality" and that got a real laugh out of me.

-Old man Jericho is really great at crafting these 80/20-yet-competitive matches around guys of all skillsets. Kassidy brings little to the table for me (and here he whiffs on a tope con hilo onto several guys, barely clearing the ropes) and Jericho works a nice match around making it look like Kassidy was *this* close to putting him away. Jericho's short right hands are maybe my favorite punches in current wrestling, and he has a couple different variations on them. His mounted ones look strong but here I was especially in love with a couple of standing shots in the corner, short hooking rights to the cheek. I also really love his short kicks to the ribs, they always look like they sting. The finish was one of the very best Judas Effects ever, casually spinning through a Kassidy springboard to hit the killshot, then getting the hell out of dodge when a ringside brawl breaks out. Jericho as old gunslinger Misawa rules. And I really want the Jericho/Luther match.

-The Beach Break that Orange Cassidy polished off Ten with was nasty as hell, and I dug that tope en reversa off the top to the floor into Dark Order.

-Loved the Britt Baker return squash. That look over her shoulder into the hard cam before hitting a butterfly suplex is the stuff legends are made of, and she kept trying to pop Red Velvet's shoulders out of their socket with holds and more butterflies. Her kicking Velvet throat first into the middle and bottom ropes feels like something nasty that Greg Valentine or Ronnie Garvin would have done, and she somehow made it look as violent as I imagine they would have. Yes I am talking about Britt Baker and Greg Valentine in the same sentence and I feel minimal shame about it.

-I wasn't clamoring for a Butcher showcase main event, but him going after Moxley's knee was fun as hell. Butcher doesn't really have clean offense or stuff that looks particularly great, but he's a big guy who hurls his body weight at people. I don't need pretty moves, just leap at someone with a big mustache and wild hairline. Butcher had a big chokeslam and was tossing Mox around, dropped a knee on his head, choked him over the ropes so Kingston could talk shit, stops a Mox tope with a punch, and snaps Moxley's leg over the apron. I'm a sucker for limb-focused DDTs, so Butcher DDTing Moxley's leg put me over the top, and Butcher twisting Moxley's leg around his own to work on it ruled. This was really Moxley as Cena, but Moxley works well enough in the Cena formula. Nobody was ever thinking that Butcher was going to win, but I liked the path they took to Moxley's finish. Butcher really got stuck on that piledriver and DDT! Moxley limped his way through and never went on a big hulked up run, and his small comebacks were handled well, especially knowing he has that bulldog choke as his big silver bullet.


What Didn't Work

-Kazarian actually dropped a "You might be playing checkers, but we're playing chess!" If there was a post match promo I assume he would have talked about how tomorrow is another day, and they have to take this one match at a time, gotta move forward and forget about the past.

-Joke cutting smug heel Young Bucks are not something that interests me, but we'll see how it translates in the ring I guess? FTR just standing there like goofs after Matt superkicked Schiavone made them look so lame. "Oh, you're just gonna kick him? We're right here," they say, as they don't move and allow Matt Jackson to walk away. I don't think anyone came off well here, and Tony isn't someone who gets routinely attacked, and yet it came off like a non-event here.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 8/12/20

What Worked

-Opening tag was fine, although it drifted too far it overly cute move combos, but I think Evil Uno's performance was strong and he kept this thing together. Dark Order beat the bandanas off of Young Bucks, and some of their double teams were nice and sly. The best was Uno doing a blind tag without Matt Jackson noticing, and when Matt went to leapfrog over Stu Grayson, Uno caught him in midair from behind and dumped him with a German. That spot could have come off real manufactured but all parts of it looked smooth. Nick took a nice bump through the ropes to the floor, Matt did a big flip dive off the stage (past literally every member of DO, oh well), Grayson walked over Uno's head to hit a rana, and the winning pin by the Bucks was handled really well, with Grayson believably diving in just a split second too late with the save. Match could have used less cuteness and more direct tag formula, but Uno is really good, good enough to hold something like this together.

-Parts of the in ring segment with FTR, Young Bucks, Arn, Tully, and the Rock n Rolls felt like one of those HHH segments where he would have Flair out to tearfully yell about how HHH doesn't everything Flair did, but better. But it was also a chance to hear Arn talk, Tully talk, get a glimpse at Ricky's awesome outfit (he looked like an old Navajo woman wearing ice blue Converse and a sequined jacket), and see Ricky take a freaking stuff piledriver. That stuff is a win.

-Every person they have used to bump around locker rooms for Lance Archer has been golden. This is the best use of Archer, just throwing guys into walls and ceilings while Jake the Snake talks to the camera.

-Jericho/Cassidy worked, but I don't think it ever came close to capturing the lightning of their first match. The expectations were higher for this one obviously, as this one has come with 5 weeks of build, a debate, promos, a destroyed jacket, and a big 10 man tag. This match was good, but that match was unexpected and kept building into one of Dynamite's strongest main events. This one had a stipulation attached and should have felt bigger than it was. Their first match felt like a big stip match, and even though this stip was kind of silly it would have worked great had they treated it like a big deal. I liked the build of their first match, the way it started with a little comedy and kept ramping up. This maintained a similar pace throughout, and that just meant that it felt like three other matches on this same episode. Darby doing a hands in pockets Coffin Drop looked good, but it feels like we already have Darby doing the same kind of wild trust fall, there's some value in letting guys have their thing. I liked Cassidy's diving forearms and how Jericho caught him in the lion tamer off a top rope rana. But other stuff landed soft or clunky (I wish Jericho would just drop the lionsault). The distraction brawl on stage didn't look great, and Hager's big powerslam did look great even though I was disappointed with where it lead. Overall I enjoyed the match, but it just made me like their first singles more.


What Didn't Work

-I think MJF has really improved a lot in ring over the past year, and he has a lot of poise on the mic. But the material isn't already there, no matter how confidently it's delivered. It's the kind of thing that works a lot better without a weekly segment, but I have a feeling we will continue getting weekly segments, at least until the PPV in a month.

-When the Scorpio Sky/Cody Rhodes match was brought up early in the night, Jim Ross stated "Scorpio Sky and Cody could have the match of the year", which, look....it's good to have an optimistic outlook in life. Virgil or Max Moon could have won the Royal Rumble, and Scorpio Sky and Cody could have the match of the year. Blue Demon Jr. was in the best match of 2019, a thought that would have sounded completely absurd even just 5 years ago. And this was not a bad match, but at the end of the night it won't even be match of the night, let alone a match that anyone will remember at the end of the year. It was better than the Warhorse match, never for a second approached being as good as the Kingston match. Scorpio Sky's offense is too floaty to ever come off very threatening. Cody was good at making his cutter variations not only look good, but he was good at occupying himself to account for the lag in delivery. Scorpio Sky is one of those guys who always looks like he's taking a bigger bump than the person taking his move, and I typically can't stand those guys. You need to be an expert crash and burn artist like Darby to pull something like that off. Scorpio Sky hitting a big hangtime flatliner just looks like a guy taking a big uranage. It also feels weird to let Sky kick out of a Cross Rhodes. Not every dude in the fed needs to be a split second away from the title.

-Nearly every time I'm done watching an Omega/Page tag, my initial thought is always "well that was too long". I'm pretty sure every single one of them goes to 15 minutes, which isn't a lot, but it almost *always* feels too long. It's not always Omega's fault, but he's the one in there choosing to make these matches feel long. Luchasaurus is the A1 reason this thing felt too long. Every sequence he was apart of looked terrible. This guy has the worst hot tags in AEW, all ugly kick combos and people rushing to get into position for bad looking offense. His kick combos are so trash. There were fun moments, like Jungle Boy eating a snap dragon on the floor, or getting powerbombed from the ring onto Luchasaurus. But overall this wasn't good.

-Hikaru Shida isn't good. She never gets her kicks up to where they are supposed to land, she requires opponents to do all the positioning work while hanging them out to dry, and it's not getting better. She has charisma, she is pretty, but her in ring is lousy. I have seen Heather Monroe live before and thought she had great live charisma, but she really wasn't here to show any of that. She sold well for Shida, and they kept it quick.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 3/4/20

What Worked

-AEW should utilize the 8 man format more, because the opening match was a very fun use of several guys I don't really love. Colt Cabana was given the spotlight in his debut, getting the opening run, playing hammy apron guy, and then getting the finish run hot tag. But everyone else really held this together and made good use of the 10 minute runtime. Evil Uno is a goof but his plays to his role well, and Dark Order feel appropriately represented with him directing traffic. Their group beatdowns and orchestrated attacks are good enough, and they all bump well. Cabana at least had a nice pair of back elbows and nice headscissors, but SCU had a really polished performance. Kazarian was the standout with a great fiery hot tag (probably my favorite section of the match) with him running in hard on everything, hitting an especially impressive straight arm lariat and a great flying forearm. There was a cool stacked attack with Daniels hitting a slingshot elbow, Kazarian hitting a slingshot legdrop, and Scorpio hitting a slingshot splash, cool old man Kaientai stuff. There was weirdness, like SCU's Lambda Lambda Lambda rap entrance, or John Silver/Alex Reynolds being under masks for some reason but still referred to as John Silver and Alex Reynolds. But who cares because Stu Grayson looked like he crushed his shoulder taking a Cassandro bump straight into the ringpost. Well timed, nicely paced multiman.

-Big Swole squash was what it should have been, and the wind up punch finish should be played in every single hype package and commercial.

-Great Hager squash, started easy with a couple nice slams from Hager, but jumped up a level with a nice QT comeback before getting put down. QT is a fun job match babyface in the same vein as Bob Cook, where he'll throw a couple nice worked punches in before getting absolutely worked over. That's a good guy to have on a roster. Post match big brawl was good too, and while Hangman's drinking gimmick is as dumb, and his clothes scream "Guy who hangs around rodeos but can't ride a horse", he at least hit Hager with a big clothesline and Hager bumped it on the leg of a chair.

-Main event was a great segment, and another superstar performance from Darby Allin. Moxley got taken out and strangled in the concession area, so Darby was left to defend himself in a handicap match against Jericho and Guevara. The latter are great at stalling and delaying a beating, allowing openings for comebacks by cockiness, and Darby is obviously someone who is going to be great at quick comebacks. Guevara bumps all over for the cause, Darby hits the Coffin Drop onto all of the Inner Circle, really flattens Guevara with a senton, and topes right into a Judas Effect. You knew he'd be great at being outnumbered, and he didn't disappoint.


What Didn't Work

-Opening segment felt like an absolute eternity to me. The scars looks like cool Jack Pierce monster makeup, but this felt way more like a dragged out Raw opening segment than the typically more efficient AEW promo segments.

-That was too much of a Chuck Taylor match and somehow not much of a PAC match. PAC just went 32 minutes with Omega, he did not need to give a big rub to Chuck Taylor the next week with several close nearfalls.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 1/22/20

What Worked

-Is it possible to like a tag match without liking any of the guys involved? Because this felt like it had a really good structure and ramped up much better than a lot of AEW matches (which seem to have no rhyme or reason to their build because it's ALL finishing stretch). This built really nicely, just with guys mostly doing things I didn't care for. But build is important and also yes, JR did compare Frankie Kazarian's headlock to Danny Hodge and Ed Strangler Lewis. Kenny twisted Scorpio's wrist for a long time and contorted his body like he was holding in painful gas, Page throws punches so that his inner wrist is smacking against his opponent's head, and there are plenty of do-si-dos that look dumb. Fans also chant Cowboy Shit at Page after he does a kip up, and I foolishly think they are saying he's a shitty cowboy before realizing they are into it. Gross. Page's lariats actually looked good, Omega's chops and shoulderblocks landed big, Page took a gnarly Kazarian German suplex on his head, and I thought the big suplexes and top rope danger came at a good time in the match. We got a real good save and the pacing actually felt right. This was a very good bad tag match.

-She eats up a ton of TV time, but Britt Baker is in the Bahamas and she got the vacation braids to prove it. Needed some beads to seal the deal, but that is a white woman on a cruise. UPDATE: Janela did it better. THAT is a man committing to being a white woman on a cruise. Goddamn Britt, do SOMEthing right.

-Jericho's body is getting midway between Ishii and Park, and I dig it. Beefier the better. Weight belt to hold in that tummy overhang and love handles? Hell yeah, great damn idea. Jericho and LAX are a fun team, liked them all in their trios. Didn't really love the match itself, that's below, but Santana and Ortiz bring professionalism to a tag like this, and Jericho needs to just start working like mid 2000s Pierroth.

-MJF's grade school play heel shtick is unbearably bad, but I like that he held a tight body vice during the small screen commercial break, really posted up on his arms to sell that he was tightening that vice. That's a nice touch.

-Moxley/Pac was a good main event worked around a silly premise: Moxley had his right eye bandaged, and PAC kept going after it because it's his weakness. Elbows to the eye, great kneedrop to the eye, would always go back to that eye whenever he was in a jam, and the commentary crew (Jericho included) all talked about how smart PAC was by going after Moxley's weak eye. But...IT'S AN EYE!! It is literally ALWAYS a weakness!! If you target somebody's eye throughout a fight, it doesn't matter if the guy's eyeball started at 100%, you're TARGETTING A FUCKING EYEBALL. How many weaker parts of the human body are just sitting out in the wide open to target? "Well, Moxley had a sore throat earlier, so it's really smart for PAC to be stomping right on his larynx like that"..."You know I saw Moxley riding his bike around shore earlier today, and maybe too much. Word is he has a tender groin, and PAC dropping several knees right into Moxley's balls is only weakening his scrotum"...If they all think it's a smart strategy for PAC to be targetting Moxley's dumb eye, and PAC is fine just targetting someone's eye, how is this not his strategy for every single person he faces? Moxley had a bandage on his eye, thus making it a target, thus making me think I made a mistake putting this match up top here. "I think my 'Please Don't Stomp On My Tender Foot Bones" shirt is already making very clear my stance on stomping on my foot bones, sir."


What Didn't Work

-Britt Baker is really really terrible at running the ropes, and a ton of her offense is based around running the ropes. Why do so many of the AEW women look like they're moving in slow mo when running the ropes? They do some misdirection rope running here that was so bad, so slow, and so ugly, Kelly missing a super slow clothesline while Baker power walks right by her, changes direction, slowly passes her again, just awful. She needs to do the Santino power walk spot and figure out a way to get heat from that. Kelly has a great look for TV, but they keep bringing these girls in to debut against Baker, and Baker clodhops all over them without giving them a ton. It's rough.

-You think Hager has a dedicated polo drawer, or hangs them all neatly in a closet?

-Jericho trios was kind of a mess, almost entirely due to the babyface team. Stunt is a charisma machine, but I am getting very very tired of him playing to the crowd for several seconds before any single move he hits. It's the worst of RVD, just making people stand around while you mug to the crowd, then make them stand some more when your move requires other people to lift and swing you into opponents. The babyface team doesn't have enough super impressive spectacular spots (though Stunt's 450 did look great) and none of them are good at gluing any of it together, so the interactions always come off so awkward.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/30/19

What Worked:

-The non-wrestling stuff in this show worked for me. I thought the Tony Schiavone limo ride with Cody was great old school stuff. The Dusty and Willie Nelson story was great and the whole presentation made the contract signing seem like a big deal. Jericho is pretty great as a bloated creep leading a pack of wolves, heel Rock of Love era Brett Michaels is a great fucking gimmick, I can just see him faking an OD mid ring only to roll up his opponent when he tries CPR. Dustin's broken arm is a great way to heat up the PPV main event, although that might mean we don't see in ring Dustin for a while, and this show could desperately use him.

-Similarly Santana and Ortiz beating down the Rock and Roll Express was simple pro-wrestling storytelling. Ricky Morton is an all timer at taking a beating and Santana and Ortiz are really great as out of control thugs, you can tell they are from that JAPW family tree (speaking of which, sign Homicide and Eddie Kingston already AEW, what are you waiting for). I liked them jumping the Bucks too, nice use of the Rick and Morty gimmick which actually gave that goofy thing some purpose.

- Moxley's promo was fine, and he is undoubtedly over. I miss the old Moxley promos where he was talking about his mom turning tricks where he came off like a real unhinged psycho, but he is clearly in a different place in his career. Don't love Tony Khan showing up as an on air character. AEW should stay far away from Authority Figure angles, it has been a stain on wrestling for two decades now, and no one is ever going to approach Vince as a performer. If you need a Jack Tunney for an angle, give it to Arn or Bob Armstrong or something and just have them make pronouncements and don't have them do anything else.

-The six man tag was the best of the car crash matches on this show. It isn't really my thing, but the Bucks have clearly mastered that formula, and Jack Evans is still breathtaking to watch. If they did one of these matches a show it would work great, unfortunately that isn't what is going on.

What Didn't Work:

-God, is the ringwork on this show one note. Every match is worked at the same pace, with the same headdrops, 2.9 counts, dives and near falls. They need some fat guys, some mat workers, a couple of guys with good punches, anything to break this up.

-Why is Adam Page doing flips and dives? Isn't he your tough Cowboy character? A lariat does not need a fucking front flip. I liked Sammy faking a dive and instead slapping Page, but outside of that this was just white noise

-Why does your undercard women's match go 15 minutes with the same dramatic near falls as every other match. Is Shanna even part of the roster? If you have plans for Shida, why is her debut undercard squash worked like a main event title match. Outside of a couple of nice knees by Shida (and there were a bunch that looked bad too) the work didn't particularly move me, and there needs to be an agent telling people that they can't use up all of the tricks in every match.

-Why in god's name does your comedy squash have an insane headdrop finish? If your comedy guys are doing moves that look like they should lead to a stretcher job and six month hiatus what does that mean for your main eventers? Just insane escalation which is going to lead to someone breaking their neck trying to outdo the undercard. On the plus side, I think they may have tweaked the Orange Cassidy character enough to make it work for me, having those kicks be a taunt as opposed to something their opponent has to play along with, makes a big difference. The hands in the pocket tope stands out in a show with dozens of crazy dives. Shoot the Best Friends into the sun though.

- Fenix is really special to watch, on a show where everyone is working as some variation of his style, he still outshines them. I almost feel sorry for Kazarian and Scorpio, those guys are old, and they are still trying to work a gogo highspot style. Cut off the ring or something. No wonder Kazarian almost broke his neck on that rana to the floor, Vince Carter isn't still trying to thunder dunk every time he gets the ball. You guys are almost 40, work on a midrange jumper.

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